Link to audio of George Galloway's talk in Chicago--and presentations by Bill Davis and Ahmed Shawki
www.traprockpeace.org/galloway_chi_091905.html

September 20, 2005
Mid-West Welcomes Galloway
Todd Chretien

Over 1,000 people filled the Wisconsin Union Theatre on Sunday night and more 600 came to Northwestern Law School’s Thorne Auditorium to hear George Galloway on Monday night, making it one of the largest left-wing political meetings in years in Chicago.

We were greeted in Madison by a motley crew of 25 College Republicans, which Mr. Galloway referred to as a “mass demonstration of neo-cons.” At least they were good for a laugh.
“We’re out here with the College Republicans, making sure that people know this campus supports the troops,” UW- Madison senior Robert Thelen to Elizabeth Wachowski from the Wisconsin State Journal. “We will support the troops whether they come home tomorrow, in a year or in 10 years.”

I’m sure the troops will be happy to hear that their non-enlisted friends will “support” them in Iraq for the next decade. As Mr. Galloway said of Hitchens, “people like that are willing to fight to the last drop of other people’s blood.”

In Chicago, the expert technicians at Thorne hooked Mr. Galloway up to a wireless microphone, giving him the freedom to roam around the stage, inspiring a stand-up comic streak. The audience was in stitches half the time as Mr. Galloway put his collection of one-liners and witty stories, honed through thirty years of parliamentary duels, to good use.
Here’s my favorite,

“I don’t believe that Mr. Bush is a Christian. Christians believe in the prophets, peace be upon them. Bush believes in profits and how to get a piece of them.”
That brought the house down.

But as funny as it was, the comedy was only a means to an end for Mr. Galloway. Both the Madison and Chicago speeches aimed at the serious business of convincing his American audience that our government’s policies have caused unimaginable pain in the real lives of tens of millions of Muslims and Arabs all around the world.

Even most anti-war activists underestimate this. Mr. Galloway illustrated this by pointing out that Prime Minister of Israel, Ariel Sharon, had recently been welcomed to New York City, only days after the anniversary of the massacre of Palestinian refugees at the Sabra and Shatila camps in Southern Lebanon more than two decades earlier. He asked the audience in both Madison and Chicago how many of them marked the massacre’s anniversary, and while many people were very much aware of it once it was mentioned, only a very few had recalled it before hand. Mr. Galloway acknowledged this and then explained that, in the Arab and Muslim world, most people remember the day every year and remain in a permanent state of shock that Bush could call Sharon, the Israeli general who oversaw the massacre, a “man of peace.” Sharon himself, Galloway noted, does not consider himself a man of peace.

This gap between the fuzzy consciousness on the part of the American anti-war movement of the crimes inflicted on the Arab and Muslim world by the US and the UK and the acute knowledge on the part of the victims of those crimes must be overcome.

Of course, Bill O’Reilly doesn’t see it that way. But he was gracious enough to invite Mr. Galloway on his show. O’Reilly, the loudest barking dog at Fox News, played possum, eschewing his normal “shut up” routine, perhaps because he was afraid he’d more than meet his match in a real mano-a-mano. Instead, he said, “I have seven questions for you.” Of course the first one was, “why are you such an ardent supporter of Saddam Hussein?” Not exactly original, but at least it shows that someone is reading Greg Palast’s blog. Mr. Galloway had no difficulty at all in knocking O’Reilly shabby pitching performance out of the park. So, despite everything he’s done to the contrary, we should all thank O’Reilly for giving several million people the chance to hear a few actually “fair and balanced” ideas, at least for seven minutes.

Now, we’re on to walk the streets where the “Battle of Seattle” took place six years ago (I can still recall the distinctive odor of the tear gas mixing with the fresh Seattle air). Although the global justice movement is much stronger around the world today than in the city that popularized it, the fight continues. Thousands of Boeing workers have been on strike for weeks, desperately trying to defend thousands of jobs from the corporate axes. Mr. Galloway will be joined on the podium by one of them. You should join him in the audience. Come on down to the University of Washington-Seattle’s Kane Auditorium tonight at 7pm. Tickets will be available at the door, but they’re going fast.

Complete details available at www.MrGallowayGoesToWashington.com

Todd Chretien is the Galloway National Tour Coordinator and a frequent contributor to the International Socialist Review.