[Dryerase] Alarm!--SF Anti-War Protest

[The Alarm!Newswire]

Anti-War Protesters Rally in San Francisco

by Richard Lange and Graham Parsons
The Alarm! Newspaper Contributors

An estimated 80,000 people gathered Saturday, October 26 at San 
Fransisco’s Justin Herman Plaza to express their opposition to 
President Bush’s proposed plan to invade Iraq. The rally, which is 
being called the largest the city has witnessed since the Vietnam War, 
took place in solidarity with a gathering of as many as 200,000 people 
in Washington, D.C. Similar demonstrations also took place in Berlin, 
Copenhagen, Stockholm, Rome, London, Mexico City and Tokyo.

The event in San Francisco began at 11:00 a.m. with a series of 
speeches by a variety of activists from an assortment of political 
groups. Helen Caldicott, president of the Nuclear Policy Institute and 
author of The New Nuclear Danger: George Bush’s Military Industrial 
Complex, called the 1991 Gulf War a war crime. She listed the health 
costs of that war, costs measured in cancer rates and birth defects 
that have dramatically increased as a result of the large quantities of 
depleted uranium left by exploded American warheads. She also discussed 
the danger of a nuclear attack on Iraq during any future conflict. 
According to Caldicott, Bush has expressed a willingness to use nuclear 
weapons against Iraq. She said such an attack has the potential to 
trigger Russia’s early warning system, which could accidentally launch 
a retaliatory strike toward the US. Other speakers included Trent 
Willis of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union who called 
for an end to the Bush administration’s attacks on organized labor. The 
crowd was also treated to a performance by the group Spoken Word and a 
rendition of “Dump the Bosses off Your Back” by folksinger and longtime 
peace activist Utah Phillips, who also reminded people to curb their 
consumption of oil, either by riding bicycles or using public 
transportation. Phillips believes that oil plays a crucial role in the 
current push to topple Saddam Hussein. The crowd, including a group 
sporting smiling Bush masks and waving dollar bills, responded with 
raucous applause and chants of “No Blood for Oil.”

At 12:00 p.m. the gathering began its march down Market Street toward 
the Civic Center Plaza. The sea of protesters filled the wide street 
from curb to curb as spectators climbed newspaper machines, lampposts 
and trees in vain attempts to measure the immensity of the crowd. Many 
marchers had come from southern California to participate, and a few 
had come from as far as Arizona, Oregon and Washington. A group of 
marchers representing Santa Cruz County numbered in the hundreds.

Topping the crowd was a forest of signs and banners that showed that 
people from all walks of life oppose the war. The messages “Drop Bush 
Not Bombs” and “Regime Change Begins at Home” were particularly 
popular. The atmosphere in the thick of the march was festive, as 
people danced to several percussion groups and sang their way down the 
route. At various times, the crowd expressed itself in waves of yells 
and ululations, but the mood remained peaceful. When a fire truck, 
sirens blaring, approached the march perpendicularly from the south, 
the participants respectfully opened a lane and the truck passed 
through quickly.

Peter Camejo, the Green Party’s candidate for California Governor, 
participated in the march, standing in the bed of a pickup truck, 
handing out Green Party pennants and posters and greeting supporters. 
Many marchers carried Palestinian flags, expressing their support for 
the Palestinian people in their decades-old struggle with Israel, an 
American ally. The group International ANSWER, one of the rally’s main 
organizers, stationed members at various spots along the route to 
collect donations and call on marchers to continue the fight for peace.

Upon reaching the Civic Center, the crowd packed the plaza and spilled 
onto the adjoining streets as a second wave of speakers addressed the 
crowd from a stage constructed in front of City Hall. Among them were 
Peter Camejo, US Representative Barbara Lee and actor Amy Brenneman. 
They called on President Bush to drop his proposed invasion and allow 
the United Nations to try to settle through diplomatic means the 
questions surrounding Hussein’s alleged weapons of mass destruction.

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