A Fulmination of Defiance
To be delivered at a local Women’s March on Jan. 21st
Women of eastern Oregon! And the men who came to stand in solidarity! Thank you all for marching today!
We standing here in Max Square may be few, but we have many sisters in spirit! Right now, as I speak, hundreds of thousands of defiant women are marching not only in Washington DC, but in cities across the world to protest the inauguration of a presidential administration that cares NOTHING for us!
I know that many of you would rather be marching with one of our larger sisterhoods in the bigger cities today, if circumstances had allowed. But I think it’s even more important for women to be seen on the streets of smaller towns like this one, defending our rights and our values.
Because the values we defend are not urban values. They are not liberal values. They are American values!
Our nation’s Declaration of Independence spoke of “certain unalienable rights, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
But how can women have life without affordable healthcare?
How can women have liberty without control over their own bodies?
How can women pursue happiness when they live in fear of rape and domestic violence?
I may be a man, but I know all too well that any government which takes away the freedoms of our women will be coming for mine next. And that’s why I’m speaking up now, right here alongside you.
Back in Nazi Germany, Pastor Martin Niemoeller lamented:
They first came for the Communists and I didn’t speak up — because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews and I didn’t speak up — because I wasn’t a Jew…
Then they came for me — and by that time no one was left to speak up.
Now, almost eighty years later in America, the villain Donald Trump has promised to come for the Latina immigrants and the Muslims. Mike Pence wants to come for the LGBTQ. The new regime’s KKK supporters want to go after the blacks and the Jews again. And they all want to put you women back where they think your place should be!
So today, we stand together and chant with one unified voice:
NOT THIS TIME!
A year may come when American courage fails, when we forsake our most vulnerable friends in the face of authoritarian power. But it is not THIS year.
A time when paramilitary bikers plant boots on faces, stamping out freedom forever — but it is not THIS year!
This year we resist! This year we hold the bastards accountable!
By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you keep standing together, Women of the West!
My apologies go to the estate of JRR Tolkien for that last bit.
