Email from Bill Warner Reporting on the
Jan 18, 2003 Rally/March in San Francisco

Dear Friends,

Forgive the length of this message. They are usually a lot shorter, but this was an exceptional weekend in many respects.

A group us spanning a range of 77 years between the youngest and the oldest left for San Francisco in our large rented van and one SUV. (17 in all..which is pretty good for leaving at 5 AM!) Maybe ten more or so drove up on their own from the Porterville/Visalia area.

The fog was really light going and coming back, with temperatures getting up to 70 in SF! Incredible "luck." We arrived at the BART station in Pleasanton at 10 AM. Chaos. They were NOT prepared for , in their own words, "...more than
100,000 people". Long lines at the ticket machines, one of which was broken down and all strange to us out-of-towners. Everyone needed to use a rest room, both of which were "broken" one-holers! Someone got into one, and after about a
20-30 minute wait, all of us with pressing needs were ready to get on the train. The BART people had just herded a lot of us who were unable to get tickets through. These people had to buy tickets at the station where we got off to either get out or come back. This was to hold up some of our group later. Still, being there was the important thing, and everyone expected some inconveniences.

We emerged from the Embarcadero station at about 11:10...the march having just started. We insinuated ourselves with our banners and signs into the march up Market St. on the beginning of our 3 hr. trek to the Civic Center. It was wall-to wall people as far as you could see in any direction! David Chandler, always the math teacher, counted the people across in rank and then back in the file and extrapolated the sampling to cover all 25 blocks of the march, and gave us the number later of about 400,000 people [later reduced to ~200,000 based on new calculation]. CNN reported over 200,000. The SF police reported "50,000 plus" Anyone on the march would have fallen down laughing there and then had they heard that one!

Being pretty much in the front part of the march, when we arrived at the park at the Civic Center about 1 1/2 miles away, it was already wall-to-wall people...easily 50,000 plus! Some of our contingent who had gotten to the Embarcadero departure point about 9AM said that their part of the march took 2 hours after the front of the column left before they started moving! And there were hours of marchers behind us who would never even be able to make it to the rally! I suppose you can gauge the veracity of the media you rely on for information by what they reported. My estimate, based on marches during the Viet-Nam war and the visual image in my head of the L.A. Coliseum filled (90,000 people) would be 150,000 - 200,000. 50,0000....hahahahahahaha! BS! You had to have been there!

There was "entertainment" all along the parade route, ranging from the "Peace Fairy" to drumming groups who kept up the beat for hours. There were church choirs, there were impromptu chant and songleaders, and the spontaneous "wave" of a roar from the crowd traveled back along the line of march...very emotional..echoed on for a mile behind us. There were jugglers, stiltwalkers, theatrical groups doing political satires, there were people in costume, there were musical groups from drummers to saxophone to jazz. There were people on crutches, people in wheelchairs, people carrying small children on their shoulders, senior citizens (one guy was in his WW II uniform with a sign "84 YEARS OLD AND AGAINST THIS WAR") There were grandmothers and there were nuns. There were old Hippies from the 60's and there were kids dancing. There were people of all faiths and even a few atheists. It was a joyous celebration of peace!. It was a dead serious statement of the people's opposition to the coming U.S. aggression. through in the AM had long lines got held up and took a later train. ... My mind boggles at the thought of what it must have been like at 5 or 6. Still...NO ONE COMPLAINED! We all knew it would not be easy when we signed on.

The drive back went quickly, with most people dozing off except for (luckily) the drivers .Jeanie and I were fairly bushed when we got back to Porterville about 10 PM. We were back up for Meeting (Quaker) today, and afterward back out to the weekly (12:30 impromptu peace vigil at Walnut and Mooney in Visalia, and were joined by like-minded souls from as far away as Santa Barbara who read about our regular protest through an Internet link! This is pretty significant. When people come that far to protest and when we constantly find new people with us ( about a dozen new faces today) you know that the word is beginning to get around and that people are feeling more and more the need to protect American Ideals.

A lot of the people there are writing letters to editors, Congresspersons, Senators, the "President", etc. The corporate media are basically in denial... and only citizen action by all of us who care about this country can stop the coming war.

Thanks to all of you who care enough to make some personal sacrifices for the good of Humanity! You are the real heart of America! Spread the word! Make a difference!

Uncle Bill from Porterville

p.s. The attached photo is one of our banners. We used the dayglo flag on the right as our "rallying flag" for people who got separated from our group. Worked pretty well.