It has been six days since the voices of women, and those who love and respect them, rose as one throughout the world. Email, Facebook postings, Instagram photos, YouTube videos, memes, and tweets have been circulating the globe, resistance is rising, and unity is being forged.
Here in Oaxaca, we have been overwhelmed by the messages of support for our Women’s March Oaxaca, tee shirt sales (175-200), inquiries of “what next?” and we have been blown away by the final police and media count, that puts the total between 2000 and 3000. Amazing!!! We have added press reports about our march to the website, along with photos and video of it.
And, it has been seven days since the toxic, twittering human smokestack of polluted right-wing demagoguery was sworn in as the 45th president of the USA. This single week has been marked by a flurry of executive actions — and lots of bombast and argument with the press and, among other things, the launching of a war against truth, facts, science and transparency, women’s rights, the environment, healthcare, Muslims, not to mention disrespecting Mexico and opening up the possibility of a trade war with the USA’s third-largest goods trading partner.
Mexicans are incensed and hoping their president Peña Nieto’s newly-found backbone continues to hold. And, a grassroots effort among Mexicanos has been launched calling for boycotts of U.S. companies in fury at Donald Trump. I think now is a good time for El Demagogo (The Demagogue) by Lila Downs (lyrics in English below).
The Demagogue
by Lila Downs
At the edge of the world
Where the factories are
There’s a burning of hatred
That’s crossing the lines
There’s a blue eyed devil man
Thinks he’s king of the world
He’s a bully, a salesman
Selling fear and hate
Who do you think you are?
He plays us with his hate
Turns man against man
But it’s really not a game
And I pray to the ancestors’ love
Do not be fooled by this man’s foolish talk
The serpent woke again
In different times and places
There’s a burning cross
Leading the mob
People in chains
He’s a Quak circus act creeping from the past
He’s the symbol of the monster we no longer want to be
(what we used to be…)
The earth trembles with these names
Mussolini, Adolph Hitler, Pinochet
No respect for woman, no respect for race
No respect for anything that lives, the human race
But he cannot buy our soul
(CORO:)
NO A ESE MURO
Voy cortando el odio
Voy sembrando amor
NO A ESE MURO
De la explotación
Pero es mi casa
NO A ESE MURO
La luz de la mañana
El lugar de mis ancestros
Las flores del desierto
NO A ESE MURO
Gonna show that my love
Is much stronger than hate
I’m gonna call to the four winds
I’m gonna change my fate
I’m gonna rise up singing
I’m gonna stand for this place
It’s a long time, Mi Gente
There’s no turning back
There’s no turning back
There’s no turning back