Did Barak Obama Speak at [C]ANSWER Rally?

MEET THE PRESS

[auzerais]

This morning on MEET THE PRESS, Tim Russert was interviewing DNCC keynote speaker and IL Senate candidate Barak Obama. Tim put up on the screen some quotes by Obama given at an unspecified "anti-war" rally.

Perhaps the nation should know exactly what was this so-called 'anti-war' rally on Oct 2, 2002, [presumably in Chicago]?

Was this yet another one of those anti-American, pro-marxist, pro-Terrorist, pro-Jihadist C*ANSWER rallies?

If Freepers or ProtestWarrior, etc, could get tape of his speech (and esp of those other rabid anti-American speakers) and air them on Hannity, etc, perhaps such scandal could put enough pressure on the DNCC to be forced to WITHDRAW Obama from being their Keynote speaker.

Hopefully someone with the where-with-all could get such tape to FNC etc and put a lot of pressure on Kerry and the DNCC.

[auzerais]

I have emailed this question to Sean Hannity, Michelle Malkin, Laura Ingraham, and some local hosts at KSFO radio. I believe that we could make this a real Cause and put the DNCC off its rails if this could be done with enough publicity.

[OXENinFLA]

perhaps such scandal could put enough pressure on the DNCC to be forced to WITHDRAW Obama from being their Keynote speaker.

KEYNOTE speaker????? Hell, I don't want him in the Senate. Let's try for that!!

[dts32041]

Doesn't matter in Illinois, they love their coke snorting politicians.

Dickie durbin, is so far into the anti war crowd, he has never met a solider he liked.

So if you expect the daley pubbies butt boys, to fight back, for get it.

The pubbies have been taken over by the ryan's and can't shake the image that the former governor was loved by all pubbie politician's after all his brother had a chance to put his cousin in jail, he didn't.

Illinois politicians with the name ryan are such losers.

[leadpenny]

Wouldn't speaking at an ANSWER Rally qualify him even more for keynote speaker and the US Senate as a democrat?

[finnman69]

iT WAS IN CHICAGO

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:gETL6CFrDEcJ:www.newyorker.com/fact/content/%3F040531fa_fact1+Barak+Obama++ANTIWAR+SPEECH+2002&hl=en

Obama’s core support in the primary came from African-Americans, most of them in Chicago, and from “lakefront liberals”—residents of the city’s swankier boroughs, most of them white professionals. Among the latter, many had been drawn initially by Obama’s early opposition to the invasion of Iraq. Apparently, few who heard a speech that he gave at an antiwar rally in downtown Chicago in the fall of 2002—months before he announced for the Senate—forgot it. “It was the best antiwar speech I have ever heard, bar none,” a lifelong Democratic activist, now in her late sixties, told me.

[Chieftain]

Wouldn't speaking at an ANSWER Rally qualify him even more for keynote speaker and the US Senate as a democrat?

Yes, that is WHY he is the Keynote Speaker! The democRAT party is openly annoucing that it has become the communist party?

[finnman69]

Looks like a Not In Our Name rally....

NION: Chicago Anti-War Rally Attracts Diverse Paraders

STAFF | Independent Media Center | October 6, 2002

"A rally of people against war filled Chicago’s biggest downtown streetside venue for public events today and overflowed into a parade that shut down six blocks of Michigan Avenue’s "miracle mile." The Sunday rally was the second big protest recently against the Bush Administration’s foreign policy."

Chicago, Oct. 6—A rally of people against war filled Chicago’s biggest downtown streetside venue for public events today and overflowed into a parade that shut down six blocks of Michigan Avenue’s "miracle mile." The Sunday rally was the second big protest recently against the Bush Administration’s foreign policy; it was held at the Tribune Plaza on the bank of the Chicago River.

Unlike the demonstrations against the World Bank and International Monetary Fund that have taken place in Seattle, Washington, and abroad in the last two years, the Chicago parade did not involve any conflicts between police and demonstrators. There was no violence by demonstrators and no tear gas or pepper spray from the police.

While several groups have been planning the rally for weeks, by far the majority of the 1,500 to 2,000 people in the rally were not part of the sponsoring organizations, but were spontaneously drawn in from the many shoppers who regularly visit the area on Sundays, and from leafletting earlier in the week that announced the event.

James A. Finley | Associated Press

Protesters carry a mock-up of rocket bearing an Iraqi citizen Saturday, Sept. 28, 2002, during an anti-war demonstration at the Old Courthouse in St. Louis. [enlarge]

The Chicago chapter of the national organization, Not In Our Name, set up a small factory for people to produce their own parade signs, giving them cardboard, sticks for handles, felt-tipped pens, and tape for assembling the placards. Among the Chicago signs were No More War; The Bush Girls Won’t Go; No Blood for Oil; Send Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bush First; Invest in Education Not War; War Is Not The Answer; It’s The Economy Stupid; Our Grief is Not A Cry For War; Refuse and Resist A Police State; War Is No Excuse to Sacrifice Civil Rights; Release Prisoners Held Without Charges; Where’s the Evidence? and Stop Police Brutality.

A few pro-war demonstrators were barred by police from direct confrontation with the peace advocates.

The local Public Broadcasting System television station broadcast no news of the parade on its evening news program. A commercial television station devoted about 15 seconds to a scene from the rear of the parade that showed few, if any, of the placards displayed by paraders. Last Tuesday’s rally was front-paged by the Chicago Tribune with a five column photograph of No More War signs. The large photo clearly showed that Tuesday’s paraders were not the familiar combination of students and blue collar workers, but probably employees of the many nearby law officer, securities firms, banks, and the stock and commodities exchanges.

Sunday’s crowd included, many elderly, white haired men and women, students, trade unionists, Jobs With Justice members, blacks, whites, some women in Muslim headdresses, Jews with yarmulkes, many mothers pushing strollers with babies,

Indymedia

A Not in Our Name–sponsored rally drew 600 people together in Corvallis, Ore. on Oct. 6.

Chicago’s most famous author, 90-year-old, Studs Terkel, sent an impassioned speech that was read over a public address system.

One after another, a solemn procession of speakers briefly gave ad lib statements against war, ending with shouts of "Not In My Name," then articulated their own names defiantly as if they were petitioning the Bush Administration.

When the paraders dispersed, many returned to the tables that held Refuse and Resist anti-war leaflets, badges, and t-shirts. One mother bought a badge from her demonstrating daughter. A student commented that her English teacher had told her to attend. Dozens of photographers recorded the event.

One speaker spoke about several thousand US troops tracking down a "about 80" alleged al Qaeda adherents in the Philippines, in contrast with a recent Philippine government-ousting of a decades-old US military base near Manila.

Many platform speakers deplored the state of the economy, complained that investing billions in war was a lower priority than taking care of the unemployed and underpaid workers in the US. Several platform speakers said war preparations are costing billions of dollars that should go into health care and prescription drugs. One orator said he didn’t hate Bush and quoted Martin Luther King Jr. as saying, "The worst thing I can do to an opponent is to make him my friend." Added the orator, "I don’t want to make Bush my enemy, I just want him to join us in this opposition to war."chicago.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=14179&group=webcast

[cyborg]

ping... he really is sickening the way he plays both sides of the fence... kneeling between his father and grandfather's graves GIVE ME A BREAK!!!!!!!!!!!

[arasina]

Hillary had better watch out for this guy. He is being hailed as the up-and-coming potential "First African-American President." He's nice looking and possibly slicker than Slick Willie.

[finnman69]

hard to pin it down..need an exact date

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:uPCSDfO3H04J:www.socialistworker.org/2002-2/425/425_02_NoToWar.shtml+CHICAGO+ANTIWAR+RALLY+OCTOBER+2002&hl=en

In Chicago, 2,000 people turned out for the Not In Our Name protest, chanting: "Hell no, we won’t go, we won’t kill for Amoco!" Marge Schilf was one of the many people who found out about the protest on the Internet or by word of mouth. "Iraq needs to be bombed with supplies, health care and food," she said.

The march came after a week of antiwar actions in Chicago. On October 1, several hundred people gathered for an emergency protest called by the Chicago Coalition Against War and Racism. The next day, a rally organized by Chicagoans Against War on Iraq, featuring Rev. Jesse Jackson, brought out 700 people.

[steplock]

Ahhh yes - we have another dnc communist in and the so-called republican party wringing their uselss hands in dismay that they are putrid cowards who can't even have a candidate.

Or did I miss the rnc "rising from their ashes" ?

[pete anderson]

Doesn't matter in Illinois, they love their coke snorting politicians.

Wow! If you have credible information that Barak Obama is a cokehead that would be great information to get to Rush and other conservative voices in the media. Just think of how the world would come crashing down on the Democrats heads if you were to get this information out in the media.

[finnman69]

Obama's quote:

At an antiwar meeting last October Obama was certainly pitching to that Democratic base in the progressive and African American community:

"I don't oppose all wars ... What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other arm-chair, weekend warriors in this Administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.
"What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Roves to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income ... to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone thru the worst month since the Great Depression.

"That's what I'm opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics .... "

[finnman69]

this is interesting...Obama pulled his own antiwar speeh from his own website

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:B3CX4lFA14EJ:www.blackcommentator.com/45/45_dixon.html+barack+obama+antiwar&hl=en

Somebody else's brand of politics appears to have intruded on Obama's campaign. For a while the whole speech could be found on Obama's campaign web site, a key statement of principle for a serious US Senate candidate in an election season when the President's party threatens the world with permanent war and pre-emptive invasion, and cows US citizens with fear mongering, color coded alerts, secret detentions and the abrogation of constitutional liberties. Although Obama may have appeared at meetings of other citizens opposed to the war or let them use his name, no further public statements from the candidate on these important issues have appeared.


Then, a few weeks ago, Barack Obama's heartfelt statement of principled opposition to lawless militarism and the rule of fear was stricken without explanation from his campaign web site, and replaced with mild expressions of "anxiety":


But I think [people are] all astonished, I think, in many quarters, about, for example, the recent Bush budget and the prospect that, for example, veterans benefits might be cut. And so there's discussion about that, I think, among both supporters and those who are opposed to the war. What kind of world are we building?

And I think that's - the anxiety is about the international prospects and how we potentially reconstruct Iraq. And the costs there, then, tie in very directly with concerns about how we're handling our problems at home.

His passion evaporated, a leading black candidate for the US Senate mouths bland generalities on war, peace and the US role in the world. Barack Obama, professor of constitutional law, is mum on the Patriot Act, silent about increased surveillance of US citizens, secret searches, and detentions without trial. His campaign literature and speeches ignore Patriot Act 2, which would detain US citizens without trial,

[finnman69]

Here is Obama's actual speech:

http://www.obamaforillinois.com/index.asp?Type=B_PR&SEC={3003DBAB-64B6-4DCE-901A-6E42E444239D}&DE={6967EF99-2416-45E8-B306-EDB3EACD34A5}

Obama: I'm not against wars but...
Wednesday, October 30, 2002


COLUMN FOR THE HYDE PARK HERALD FOR WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2002

by Senator Barack Obama

The following is a speech that I gave at a recent rally regarding the situation in Iraq. The rally was downtown at Federal Plaza and several Hyde Parkers attended:

Good afternoon. Let begin by saying that although this has been billed as an anti-war rally, I stand before you as someone who is not opposed to war in all circumstances.

The Civil War was one of the bloodiest in history, and yet it was only through the crucible of the sword, the sacrifice of multitudes, that we could begin to perfect this union, and drive the scourge of slavery from our soil.

I don’t oppose all wars.

My grandfather signed up for a war the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, fought in Patton’s army. He saw the dead and dying across the fields of Europe; he heard the stories of fellow troops who first entered Auschwitz and Treblinka. He fought in the name of a larger freedom, part of that arsenal of democracy that triumphed over evil, and he did not fight in vain.

I don’t oppose all wars.

After September 11th, after witnessing the carnage and destruction, the dust and the tears, I supported this Administration’s pledge to hunt down and root out those who would slaughter innocents in the name of intolerance, and I would willingly take up arms myself to prevent such tragedy from happening again.

I don’t oppose all wars. And I know that in this crowd today, there is no shortage of patriots, or of patriotism.

What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perles and Paul Wolfowitz and other arm-chair, weekend warriors in this Administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.

What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Roves to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income – to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone thru the worst month since the Great Depression.

That’s what I’m opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.

Now let me be clear – I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity.

He’s a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.

But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.

I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.

I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the middle east, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of Al Queda.

I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.

So for those of us who seek a more just and secure world for our children, let us send a clear message to the president today.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s finish the fight with Bin Laden and Al Queda, thru effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to make sure that the UN inspectors can do their work, and that we vigorously enforce a non-proliferation treaty, and that former enemies and current allies like Russia safeguard and ultimately eliminate their stores of nuclear material, and that nations like Pakistan and India never use the terrible weapons in already in their possession, and that the arms merchants in our own country stop feeding the countless wars that rage across the globe.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil, through an energy policy that doesn’t simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil.

Those are the battles that we need to fight. Those are the battles that we willingly join. The battles against ignorance and intolerance. Corruption and greed. Poverty and despair.

The consequences of war are dire, the sacrifices immeasurable. We may have occasion in our lifetime to once again rise up in defense of our freedom, and pay the wages of war. But we ought not – we will not – travel down that hellish path blindly. Nor should we allow those who would march off and pay the ultimate sacrifice, who would prove the full measure of devotion with their blood, to make such an awful sacrifice in vain.

[finnman69]

I think this was it, he spoke at the day before send off to bus protesters to the ANSWER rally October 26,2002 in DC.


Day of National Demonstrations Against War in Iraq

New York ~ San Francisco ~ Chicago and Other Nationwide Oct. 26 events
Not in Our Name
October 25th, 2002


New York City
Saturday, October 26
Join Not in Our Name Contingent in Washington D.C. and San Francisco

The looming war on Iraq is the sharpest expression right now of the government's whole trajectory of war and repression, and NION encourages everyone to participate in the October 26 demonstrations called by International ANSWER.

NION has chartered buses from NYC to D.C. Round-trip tickets ($30) must be reserved and paid for in advance. Buses will leave at 5:45 AM from Union Square East between 14th and 15th Streets.

Tickets must be purchased by 5pm, Thursday, October 24 from one of these New York City locations:

Blue Stockings Bookstore, (212)777-6028
172 Allen St. between Stanton & Rivington Sts.


The Sanctuary, (212)780-9786
25 1st Ave. between 1st & 2nd Sts.


Revolution Books, (212)691-3345
9 West 19th St. between 5th & 6th Aves.


Not In Our Name Office, (212)969-8058
339 Lafayette St. between Bleeker & Bond, Buzzer #3
The NION contingents will be carrying big flags with the earth symbol to show solidarity with the people of the world - including the people of Iraq who are now the major targets of the U.S.'s war on the world. We'll be mass distributing the Not in Our Name Pledge of Resistance, and a NION speaker will lead everyone in taking the Pledge.

Watch this site for information about where to hook up with the NION contingents in D.C. and S.F. Or just look for the globe flags on Oct. 26.

For more information and additional bus locations, see http://www.internationalanswer.org/

San Francisco
Saturday, October 26 at 11am
National March to Stop the War Against Iraq
Join the Not in Our Name Contingent. Justin Herman Plaza, San
Francisco. March to Civic Center Plaza for 1pm rally.

For more information: www.nionbayarea.net

Chicago
Friday, October 25 at 5:30pm
Get on the Chicago Not in Our Name bus to the Nat'l March to Stop the War Against Iraq in Washington DC

In the spirit of unity, the Chicago NOT IN OUR NAME Committee is sponsoring a bus going to the A.N.S.W.E.R. National Demonstration in Washington D.C. on October 26th.

GET ON THE BUS TO DC October 25th at 5:30 pm, return early October 27th! Tickets cost $70.00.

4:00pm Federal Plaza Send-off Rally to DC: Join others at the rally and then march together to Columbus/Jackson (behind the School of the Art Institute) where the buses for DC will be leaving. If you cant get on the bus, join the solidarity rally.

We are also encouraging contributions to pay for "scholarships" for those who want to get on the bus, but are unable to pay the $70 ticket cost.

For more info about getting on the NION bus, please call Chicago NION at 773-250-3196 or email us at notinourname_chi@together.net

[finnman69]

This is the flyer for the Chicago send off Octiber 25,2002. Definitely says ANSWER on it.

http://www.chicagoantiwar.org/pdf/iraq1026chicago.pdf