'She the people' movement has launched

The column below was published earlier today in the Finger Lakes Times newspaper in Geneva, New York.

A direct link to the column in the newspaper can be accessed by clicking here: Write On column.

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'She the People' movement has launched

By Michael J. Fitzgerald,

Finger Lakes Times columnist 

The word “historic” gets thrown around way too often.

But last Saturday’s Women’s Marches — held in hundreds of U.S. cities, and in cities across Europe, onward to Asia and the South Pacific — earned that appellation.

Decidedly.

If you were one of the millions of women and men marching on the streets in Seneca Falls, Albany, Ithaca, New York City, Washington D.C. or anywhere else, it’s likely you will long remember what you heard, saw — and felt.

It was an emotional day for the hundreds of thousands of people who took to the streets to protest the election of Donald Trump and to show their rejection of his mixed bag of announced regressive policies.

Fitzgerald

Events were punctuated by speeches (ranging from fiery to tearful), inspirational chants, music and amazingly clever signs, banners and costumes.

And every march/demonstration featured an ocean of pink pussy-eared hats, a visible slap aimed at the demonstrated misogyny of the new U.S. president.

While it would be easy to focus on the sheer numbers of people as a measurement — the usual historical yardstick — the history more likely to be remembered in coming decades (and perhaps commemorated one day) will pinpoint Jan. 21, 2017 as the historic day an unlikely coalition of political, social and cultural entities set aside their differences and came together.

It was amazing to witness.

Environmentalists, women’s rights groups, ethnic and immigration organizations, labor unions, the young, the old, the gay, the straight, families — even police and fire fighters in a some places — stood shoulder-to-shoulder in a demonstration of support for progressive ideas. Progressive ideas like support for human rights, environmental rights, immigration rights, workers’ rights ...

Not radical ideas at all.

There also was plenty of disdain for the dark, isolationist vision of the nation Trump sketched in his brief inaugural address the day before.

This coalition is unlike any other witnessed in decades, united in solid rejection of Trump’s oft-stated, short-on-detail campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again.”

Many of the speeches at the marches — and letters to the editor and op-ed articles published in the days since — heartily promote the idea that America is a great nation right now. But that greatness can only be maintained — and made stronger — by encouraging racial harmony, welcoming immigrants, considering progressive ideas and respecting the environment, all concepts generally rejected by Trump.

Since the Women’s Marches, pundits quickly started bleating that it’s a long way from organizing marches and protests — even ones as massive and international in scope as Saturday’s — to effecting true political change.

They have a point.

It will be hard and often heartbreaking work.

But among the shouts, chants, speeches and songs there was plenty of dialogue among participants in the marches about the need to organize, to elect candidates to office at every level and to use every political and social lever available to ensure that America doesn’t slide into a Trump-induced dystopia.

Ironically, the best salesmen for political change will likely be the new president and the Republican majorities in both houses of Congress.

Already there is a fast-rising tide of citizen consternation over the proposed dismantling of the Affordable Care Act — aka Obamacare — as citizens watch as Trump and complicit GOP legislators prepare to strip more than 20 million Americans of health care coverage.

If you add in the specter of GOP schemes to drastically slash Social Security and Medicare benefits you have a trifecta of clumsy, backward thinking that should horrify voters and perhaps promote a political revolution.

Several newspapers' front pages last Sunday featured photos of the march with a huge headline, “She the People.”

Historic. That’s the right word for it. And perhaps the right leadership too.

Fitzgerald worked for six newspapers as a writer and editor as well as a correspondent for several news services. He splits his time between Valois, NY and Pt. Richmond, Calif. You can email him at Michael.Fitzgeraldfltcolumnist@gmail.com and visit his website at michaeljfitzgerald.blogspot.com.

Words to live by from Washington, D.C.

By Abigail Bok

  I spent the past weekend in Washington, D.C., with my sister-in-law. 

   After seeing coverage of Inauguration Day and hearing President Trump’s remarks, we were moved on Sunday to visit several of the city’s temples to the USA’s civic religion: John F. Kennedy’s grave at Arlington Cemetery, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial. 

   Here are some words to live by, drawn from each stop on our pilgrimage:

 John F. Kennedy:

   “We observe today not a victory of party, but a celebration of freedom—symbolizing an end, as well as a beginning—signifying renewal, as well as change. For I have sworn before you and Almighty God the same solemn oath our forebears prescribed nearly a century and three quarters ago.

The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe -

the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.

We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans—born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage—and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this Nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”

Abraham Lincoln, from the Gettysburg Address:

   “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Martin Luther King Jr.:

“We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”

   Let us seize on this moment in our history to crystallize in our minds what our true American values are, and stand tall to fight for them.

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Abigail Bok is a Point Richmond, Calif., writer and author 

of An Obstinate, Headstrong Girl

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