San Francisco, CA – Over the Valentine’s Day weekend, thousands of lesbians and gays, along with their children, friends and families, lined up in front of City Hall in San Francisco to marry. Outside, married couples and well-wishers celebrated, while inside hundreds of volunteers helped with paperwork. By the end of the weekend, nearly two thousand same sex couples had been married.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators will flood into Miami, Florida during the week of Nov. 18 to protest the Free Trade of the Americas Agreement (FTAA). Workers, students, environmentalists and young militants – the folks who brought the world the Battle of Seattle – are reviving the anti-imperialist globalization movement. While the Western Hemisphere’s trade ministers (excluding Cuba) meet in corporate bunkers, youth and workers will be outside marching and protesting. While the rich financiers plot the ruin of Latin America, young protesters will be breaking through police lines.

In industry after industry, manufacturing or service sector, greedy employers have a common agenda for unionized workers. They are going after our wages and working conditions; they want to gut our health care plans and pensions; they want more from workers while giving us less – in a word, they want concessions.

You wouldn’t know it from reading your daily paper or watching FOX news, but on May 1, something really extraordinary will take place. Hundreds of millions of working people across the globe will take to the streets to celebrate a day that is ours and ours alone – International Workers’ Day.

As the Jan. 27 deadline approaches for a report from weapons inspectors in Iraq, people of conscience must recognize that inspections are worse than a sham, and more than a pretext for war. The inspections are a violation of Iraqi sovereignty. In building a strong anti-war movement, activists must stand up for Iraqi self-determination, and say no to these inspections.

George Bush is throwing sand in our eyes. Folks in other countries have created organizations and political parties to fight for a decent way of life. Bush has put those groups on the State Department's 'terrorist list.' He is calling that the good 'the evil.' He is trying to exploit Americans' fears about attacks on civilians to justify sending guns and money to some of the world's most repressive regimes.

Bush's speech at the UN, resolutions put before Congress to authorize an illegal first-strike attack, and a slow but steady military buildup in the Gulf region all make it clear that the Bush administration is moving toward war. Already in the region, there are 30,000 U.S. troops, 400 warplanes, and equipment to outfit an invasion force of 15,000. Bombings in the no-fly zones have stepped up – one operation in September included 100 planes attacking southern Iraq. The path to war seems certain.

By every indication, the anti-war demonstrations scheduled for April 20 in Washington D.C. and San Francisco promise to be a great success. In communities and campuses across the country, buses are being rented, tickets are being purchased, and the message of “no to war and racism,” is reaching millions of people.

On May 1, working people in the hundreds of millions will celebrate a holiday that is truly our own – International Workers Day. On every continent, workers will fill the streets of cities and villages. In the jungles of the Philippines and Colombia, poor peasants will gather. In the countries where the rule of the rich has come to an end, such as Cuba and Democratic Korea, May Day is recognized as a national holiday. From Moscow to Manila to Minneapolis, working women and men will gather and say, “Enough is enough; we don't have to live this way. We do not have to put up with exploitation, discrimination, and national oppression.”

Make no mistake about it: the Bush administration is waging a war at home and abroad. While bombs rain down on Afghanistan, destroying homes, hospitals and mosques, the White House is presiding over an assault on the rights and on the standard of living of working and oppressed peoples at home.