Santa Cruz's Sea of Pink! Women's March January 21, 2017

Santa Cruz Womyn's March January 21, 2017

Subtitle: Sea of PINK

Behind in my homework, so these are right from my camera.  

Santa Cruz count: 10,000 in our tiny town (population 62,864).

Oakland: 100,000

San Jose: 25,000

Plus marches in San Francisco, Walnut Creek, Napa, Berkeley, Sonoma, etc.



CLICK ANY IMAGE TO ENLARGE and read the fine print.

Also have 360-VRs.   Can text one to you if you have a VR head set.

"Our rights aren't up for grabs and neither are we."

"Queen, queer, under the control of no man"

"Make American Kind Again"

"Viva la Vulva!"

I also posted a few video clips from Santa Cruz (unedited).  

But first, some commentary on the huge success of the national, turned international, marches: 

There were so many levels of semiotics going on there, right down to the pink hats all being kitted/crafted.  And what I loved best was that for AT LEAST ONE DAY, one day in at least a year+, all the headlines were dominated by LOVE instead of hatred, bigotry, violence, carnage.  --all the headlines of every major network across the globe, except one -- and that one seems to find the very word destabilizing to its entire modus operandi. 

The other thing I loved is, it wasn't just a message to mysogynist creeps everywhere, including the ones in the WH, I think it also sent a pretty strong message to PUTIN.  This is exactly the OPPOSITE of what he wanted to see happen. He wanted to see us as a nation, Left, Right, and Center,  tear ourselves apart from within. He wanted to see us trembling and retreating.  Instead, we were hugging, dancing, blowing bubbles, and celebrating La Feminine.   I love this SNL take: http://cnnmon.ie/2jEY3Zd

It sent a message counter to the bs, troglodyte, machismo tone of power-over and destruction that is being employed by men like T and Putin, but also women like LePen and KellyAnne.  It sent a message that the machismo bs destroys itself like a burning building, whereas love attracts like moths to a candle.  And it feels a lot better inside. 

When the Right goes into fear, they grab for their guns, buy tanks as cars, barricade themselves in with their teee-veeees, and dig themselves into a self-perpetuating feedback loop of internal terror.  When the Left goes into fear, we reach for EACH OTHER.  

And it aways makes me scratch my head, because meanie demons like Ann Coulter always blather on about the "godless Liberals," and though many of us may choose to put our faith in science, secular humanism, and/or any number of pantheons that differ from hers (using the whole globe and all of history as a menu)...

...isn't reaching out to lift each other what anyone with Judeo-Christian roots (no matter how they affiliate or don't now) learned in SUNDAY SCHOOL?  "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you," and among you.  And I am sure other spiritual paths have similar sayings.


 Heaven is dancing and blowing bubbles and feeling a sense of interconnectedness with one another. Hell is news commentators screaming over each other their faces turn red, and tanks in the streets, like T wanted to do at the inauguration, but the army said no.   

(And I thought the only thing I got out of Sunday school was a collection of stories that helped me tutor Medieval Art History classes. Little did they know I was learning some pretty good activist strategies, heh heh heh heh.  ;) 

Maybe the reason the Right fills those big box McChurches is they are just slow learners on a lesson that is easy to hear, but admittedly hard to perfect, so they have to have it drilled in every week.  And it still doesn't stick. 

On coming together to lift each other: You know it's a state of emergency when Catholic nuns, Planned Parenthood, sex workers, women in hijabs, and Latina little girls all stand on stage together for common purpose.

"Best signs" from San Francisco, as rated by SF Gate:

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/best-signs-Womens-March-protest-San-Francisco-10874428.php