Women's March Los Angeles 01.21.17
I'm just arriving home from what was easily the most profoundly moving public moment I have had the privilege to witness. Both Eileen and I launched at the chance to participate in what will go down historically as an ultimate thumb of the nose to the incoming administration. West coast, in all its colorful glory is in attendance with intellect, heart, and empathy as shield and weapons.
Arriving near City Hall, mere minutes into the beginning of the march, coming our way from Pershing Square, we kind of had to pull a loop as our bus couldn't take us all the way to the start. Upon reaching the other side of Grand Park, it was very easy to see why. An ocean of humans awaited us coming from more than several streets leading our way. Having options, we took advantage, and took to Grand in order to catch the immense flow of people that were pouring out into what seemed to be every corner of the street. Deep drums, chants of freedom, and liberation painted the air with colors I'd only heard in old recordings, or stadium concerts.
Simply unbelievable, not to mention moving.
Willing to consider L.A., as an important piece of the cultural puzzle of where America, and likely the world truly is despite evidence of authoritarian pushback by several cultures unwilling to concede to numerous changes largely due to the presence of an ever blossoming mobile internet. Taking away the devices, and seeing this much love and support in one place isn't something anyone can claim is otherwise. Because it simply wouldn't be grounded in reality that the world is reacting with such openness, while a few cannot believe their eyes and ears, screaming into pure nothingness over something that just has to be fabricated. With this, I can honestly say that I was there, it was very real. And that many of us are indeed fired up and ready to go.
"Do you want to have freedom to speak and write whatever seems right to you? Do you want to have the liberty to meet and organize? It is not from a parliament that we seekers of freedom should ask permission, nor must we beg a law from the Senate. We must become an organized force, capable of showing our teeth every time anyone sets about restraining our rights of speech and meeting; we must be strong, and then we may be sure that nobody will dare dispute our right to speak, to write, to print what we write, and meet together. The day we have been able to establish enough agreement among the exploited for them to come out in their millions in the streets and take up the defense of our rights, nobody will dare to dispute those rights, nor any others that we choose to demand. Then, and only then, shall we have truly gained such rights, for which we might plead to parliament for decades in vain. Then those rights will be guaranteed to us in a far more certain way than if they were merely written down on a bit of paper.
"Freedoms are not given, they are taken."
- Peter Kropotkin, "Words of a Rebel" (1879-1882)