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Obama: I don't carry a Council
on Foreign Relations card or know any 'special handshake'
David Edwards and Eric Mayes
Raw
Story
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Worries about One World Order and a North American
Union have been "ginned up by the blogs and the Internet,"
Sen. Barack Obama told a Lancaster, Pennsylvania audience in a
stump speech as he continued his tour through the battleground
state.
The Illinois senator also defended the recently re-authorized
Patriot Act.
Responding to a question from the audience, asking whether he
was a member for the Council on Foreign Relations, a group many
allege is leading a move toward one world government, Obama said:
"I don’t know if I’m an official member. I’ve
spoken there before. It basically is a forum where people talk
about foreign policy. There is no official membership. I don’t
have a card, or you know a special handshake or anything like
that."
(Article continues below)
Sen. Hillary Clinton has spoken several times to the club. Comments
she made today against NAFTA, were posted on the group's website.
Often, because the council has served as lightning rod for conspiracy
theorists, candidates shy away from listing their affiliation
with the group.
Vice President Dick Cheney is a former director but has taken
pains not to publicize the fact.
"I’ve been a member for long and was actually a director
for some period of time," he told members in a speech broadcast
on C-Span and now on YouTube, adding, "I never mentioned
that when I was running for re-election back home in Wyoming."
The council has been at the center of several One World Order
conspiracies with theorists contending that the group is conspiring
to bring about one world government and a North American Union
similar to the European Union.
Obama dismissed those notions.
"I see no evidence of this actually taking place,"
he said. "I think this is something that has been ginned
up on certain blogs and the Internet. It was based mostly on the
fact that there is this highway being built in Texas that will
facilitate transportation more transportation between Mexico and
the intercontinental United States and Canada...NAFTA helped to
break down barriers, but I don’t think there is some conspiracy
to create this one continental government."
This video is from CNN.com, broadcast March 31, 2008:
Defends portions of Patriot Act
Obama said he opposed NAFTA because it didn’t offer enough
protections to American workers but he defended portions of the
Patriot Act which he said he worked on to cut out some of the
most objectionable portions.
Free trade has been an issue across the nation in this campaign
particularly as many once prosperous industrial states struggle
with ways to cope with the changing global economy. It was a critical
issue for voters in Ohio where Clinton managed to beat Obama.
Pennsylvania voters have expressed similar concerns.
Obama said he did not support NAFTA.
"I was opposed to NAFTA because I thought that it didn’t
have the labor and environmental standards and the safety standards
that would look out for US workers," replied Obama.
Clinton’s husband oversaw passage of NAFTA but today she
called for parts of it to be renegotiated.
"I spoke out against it starting in 1992 -- the president
made a different decision," Clinton said. "I think now
with 14 years of experience under our belt, we can see that in
some parts of our country there have been, perhaps, some economic
advantages, but in other parts of our country, like where we are
right here in northwest Indiana, it hasn't worked as it was promised,
and therefore I think we need to renegotiate it," she told
an Indiana audience today.
Obama also spoke about the Patriot Act, which he voted to re-authorize.
The Patriot Act is not the problem, he said. A series of executive
orders is what has really eroded civil liberties.
"Most of the problem that we have had in civil liberties
were not done in the Patriot Act they were done in executive order
by George W. Bush...I will reverse them with the stroke of a pen,"
he said, listing the establishment of Guantanamo Bay, warrantless
wiretaps and the suspension of Habeas Corpus.
Other parts of the law were valid, he said.
"There were some provisions in the Patriot Act that did
address changes that needed to take place," said Obama, citing
as an example a clause that now allows the government to tap cellular
phones.
His work he said, kept many of the worst portions of the law
from being re-enacted.
"We instituted a series of amendments that changed some
of the worst excesses of the previous law," he said.
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