From the Million Mom March to this -- a Feminist perspective
Stinky and I showed up for the Million Mom March on Mother's Day, 2000, in DC (our first protest together).
The Million Mom March took its name from the Million Man march a few years earlier, but it was all about women taking on gun violence and advocating for gun control. We brought "Sparkly Jr." with us.
Then-Senate-candidate Hillary Clinton was there, and we got to shake her hand. Sparky Jr. shares her first name (different spelling), and I'd shown her pictures in the newspaper of the new First Lady, with a name like hers, reading to children back in 1993...
Discussion forums in 2000, as I recall, were a CNN message board (one board scrolling with every message -- so fast it was mind-boggling) and AOL boards. I got into heated exchanges about gun control, and learned a lot in having to debunk the absurd logic of gun nuts.
In 2004, I joined DU (via other message boards - MWO, BartCop, a Democrats' forum I've forgotten) after lurking a long while as a "Clarkie" -- some will remember the controversy!
The gun control debate was hot here. (Is there still a "Gungeon?" I don't even know!!) Voices for gun control legislation were in a slim minority. Unrestricted gun 'rights' were advocated as the true 'liberal' stance (because hey, "liberty" is two letters away from "liberal," or something). Reminders that this view of "liberty" was actually in line with far-right Republican policies, while the Democratic party's platform had long embraced gun control, were met with hostility. I had one comrade against arms. He was tireless, and he was banned.
The results of gun "liberty" have been tragic since the Million Mom March. As we were marching that day 18 years ago, some of the children who marched today were being born, or conceived, or considered.
I've often thought it would take another military draft to energize a new youth movement of the kind we saw during the Vietnam war, but here we are. These kids, too, have skin in the game. It's just a different game.
One difference is that the girls are equally loud and equally heard, if only because they are equally victimized. (Not to say that women were ever safe from men's violence, but that's another story.)
It's been a relatively short time since the Million Mom March, where we met HRC; it's been a short time since the bombastic orange moron maligned and maneuvered his way around her and into the White House; and it's been a short time since the Women's March in DC the day after the creature's inauguration, where women of all ages and colors, along with men supporting us, expressed our abject outrage.
I hate what has happened to spur this, yet I love seeing the power of the response, and especially the voices of women (always the strongest proponents of peace) -- heartfelt and HEARD, at long last.
