Today the National Organization for Women marched with more than 500,000 people in Washington, D.C., calling for an end to the war in Iraq. NOW President Kim Gandy addressed the crowd on the National Mall:
You look beautiful! I wish you could see the view from here – as far back as I can see, you’re still pouring onto the Mall.
The National Organization for Women is proud to march with you today – for peace, justice, equality and democracy.
Today women are marching because our daughters and sons, sisters and brothers, friends and partners are dying in Iraq, for a war based on lies and greed. Women are marching because the cost of this war is bankrupting our treasury and devastating human needs programs that we fought decades to build.
Women are marching because there is rape and assault of female soldiers and female Iraqis with little consequence, and our soldiers come home physically and psychologically damaged to a completely inadequate healthcare system.
Women are marching because we voted in November, in huge numbers, for candidates who said they opposed the war, and we’re here to hold them accountable. Women are marching because we have reached a boiling point, and…
We want Congress to STOP GEORGE BUSH’S WAR.
Say it so they can hear you at the Capitol. Crowd: STOP GEORGE BUSH’S WAR.
Say it so they can hear you 13 blocks away at the White House! Crowd: STOP GEORGE BUSH’S WAR.
Here, and in Iraq, peace and justice are in short supply, and democracy may be a hollow promise. Now is the time to take back our country and to heal the damage this administration has done.
Now is the time to take to the streets – to march, to lobby, and demonstrate to those on high who obviously do not know: That this is what democracy looks like.
Show me what democracy looks like! Crowd: THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE. (repeats)
We must continue to raise our voices until, in the words of Betty Williams accepting her Nobel Peace Prize, “Someday they’ll call a war, and nobody will come.”
###