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On January 18, 2003, the antiwar movement marched in the largest demonstration San Francisco had ever seen. ANSWER, which had put out the call for the demonstration, arranged for speakers from every segment of the movement to address the crowd. Below is the speech by Carole Seligman representing the coalition, Bay Area United Against War.

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We’re here to demand that the U.S. government bring the troops home from the Persian Gulf now! Stop making war on Iraq! No blood for oil. To win these demands we must grow. We must keep marching in the streets. We must build an unstoppable antiwar tide.

The American people never voted to make war on Iraq! A majority never even voted for Bush, or any of his billionaire friends who profit from war, or the war makers in Congress.

But today, we are voting against war. We exercise our rights to peaceful assembly and freedom of speech. The government will try to ignore us. The corporate media may lie about our numbers. But we have heard enough from the warmongers and the corporate media.

This march is a gigantic act of democracy. We will not be ignored. We will not go away.

Both Democratic and Republican members of Congress have continued to vote for massive war spending. We have heard enough from them. We will build this movement into a powerful tide of humanity to stop them.

Millions of people around the world will march in the next demonstrations on February 15th and 16th to stop the U.S. war. And because the American people have far more in common with the global peace movement, and with the Iraqi, Palestinian, and Afghan people, than we have with the U.S. government, we will join these actions.

We must understand that we can stop this war if we continue to grow and unite in the streets. Next Saturday come to a mass planning meeting at 2:00 at Sanchez and Clipper. The next march will start right here at 11 a.m. on Feb. 15th.

Bring the troops home now!

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—Carole Seligman is co-editor of Socialist Viewpoint