Town Hall Meeting

25 Mar 2007

58% of all Democrats voted against Iraq Invasion in 2002

Filed under: — Al @ 10:22 pm

Yet people still say things like “Oh everybody thought there were WMD and that we had to invade. We were all duped.” That is flat out not true. Here is my research into how many and who voted against the war at the time.

“Although given little public credit at the time, or since, many of the 126 House Democrats who spoke out and voted against the October 2002 resolution that gave President Bush authority to wage war against Iraq have turned out to be correct in their warnings about the
problems a war would create.”

source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/03/AR
2006120301108_pf.html

“In the early morning hours of Oct. 11, 2002, the Democratic-controlled Senate voted 77-23 giving President Bush the authority to use military force in Iraq. Forty-eight of the Senate’s 49 Republicans voted yes; only Rhode Island’s Lincoln Chafee dissented. Of the 51 Democrats including the independent from Vermont), 29 voted yes and 22 voted no.”

source: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7275360

So in total, 148 out of a possible 257 Democrat congress members voted against the war. That comes out to 58% of all Democrats voted against it!

Actual Senate and House Iraq Vote Breakdowns:
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/
roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=2&vote=00237

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2002/roll455.xml

Barbara Lee story that is sometimes confused with the Iraq War vote:

“On September 15 (2001), the US Congress approved a resolution authorizing President Bush to use “all necessary and appropriate force” against anyone associated with the terrorist attacks of September 11. The measure passed 98-0 in the Senate and 420-1 in the House. The lone dissenting vote was a colonel’s daughter and longtime maverick from California — Democrat Barbara Lee.

“I am convinced that military action will not prevent further acts of international terrorism against the United States,” Lee said on the House floor on Sept. 15. “There must be some of us who say, ‘Let’s step back for a moment and think through the implications of our actions today — let us more fully understand the consequences.'” ”

Source: http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2001/09/lee.html

18 Mar 2007

Amazing Turnout at Anti-War March

Los Angeles Iraq War Protest 4 Year Anniversary March 17 2007

I estimate about 20,000 showed up yesterday in Los Angeles to speak up for an end to the Iraq war and occupation. Check out the pictures here. Unfortunately, the local government no longer makes estimates, so we don’t really know, and the news media won’t pick up the duty. I made sure to get a sampling of the media coverage, so I watched the national NBC news and the local CBS news. Neither one covered the voices of the protesters for more than 10 seconds, and BOTH made sure to mention counter protesters. I was at the LA protest, and we outnumbered the counter protesters approx. 20,000 to 4. It is so sad that we can participate in such a huge showing of solidarity, but our voices are suppressed. When we behave peacefully, they don’t air our voices and they give us a few seconds of coverage. What do we have to do to be heard?!? This reminds me of the quote from John F. Kennedy, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable.”

It is very inspiring to see so many turnout here, and this wasn’t even the main protest, that was at the Pentagon.

15 Mar 2007

Peace Jukebox

Filed under: — Al @ 2:50 pm

We have a whole page dedicated to protest songs here, but the peace jukebox actually got the rights to songs so you can listen to them online. Go to www.peace.fm and check it out. Power to the people, music for the soul!

Peace Jukebox

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March 15, 2024

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