Posted on 08/13/2005 10:42:48 AM PDT by coffee260
The original article is at: http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=17039&only=yes
Title: Daily Kos Parasites Author: Charles Date: 8/13/2005 at 8:50:52 am
159 people have commented on this article.
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Just when you think the Koz Kidz can't get any more disgusting: Framing Cindy Sheehan - we are making errors [1]. (Hat tip: KrustyKoot.)
This is really going to turn your stomach.
------------ START QUOTE ------------ We are making errors with references to Cindy Sheehan.
What are we trying to accomplish with promoting her?
Emphasizing her sacrifice.
Emphasizing her stating truth to power.
Emphasizing her plain speaking, clear statements.
Relate her vigil over her dead son to universal archtypes of all vigils over dead children killed by dictatorial rulers throughout all history.
My suggestions below:
1. We should call her "*Mother Sheehan*". We should never call her Cindy; I don't know her. "Mother Sheehan" is her title, and expresses her ceremonial status as a bereaved mother, calling forth over the dead body of her son. She is not a person now, she is a mother, which is not an expression of her individuality, but rather the expression of her eternal character: the mother, the bringer of life who has been wronged by state power.
2. We should use the word "sacrifice". She has sacrificed the most precious thing a mother has, the life and promise of her child.
3. We should use the word "useless" frequently. The death of her son is a useless sacrifise, done for the vanity of the ruler.
4. We should not use the name of her son. Her son is a symbol of all sons who have been sacrificed for this useless and criminal war.
5. The term "vigil" should be used to describe the persons and their patient petition to the dictatorial ruler. It is a vigil over the body of the dead son, killed by the ruler for his own purposes.
6. The right will try to INDIVIDUALIZE and SPECIALIZE her complaint. We must try to make her cry the UNIVERSAL and ETERNAL cry of all mothers whose children have died at the whim of the tyrannical and dictatorial ruler, who has made the decision to push children to the front of the army for his own, useless purposes. We must seek to make this like funeral vigils over all time. This is not Mother Sheehan's vigil, this is a vigil over the dead son, killed by the ruler for his own selfish reasons.
7. If there are any persons who are theatre professionals at the Sheenan vigil, they should arrange things much more theatrically.
8. If I was there, I would not let Mother Sheehan talk to the press, but I would have her talk only through a spokesperson. In particular, I would not allow her to argue with critics, and would allow no critics to approach her. Her dignity must be preserved. If lesser emissaries from the ruler arrive (C Rice, etc), these should not be allowed to speak to Mother Sheehan. ------------- END QUOTE -------------
[1] http://dailykos.com/story/2005/8/13/9565/81042
Hmmmmm. Now what could Mommie Dearest mean by that! 0-:
The left believes politics works like casting a spell. Just speak the right words and blammo! the mass consciousness will shift and history will turn on a dime. It's like a kind of language-mysticism, where the real power exists in *words*.
Somehow this relates back to the left's ideas about the collective mind and the unknowableness of reality. When the universe is made only of manufactured tropes and illusory perceptions, and where reality is just a socially-conditioned construct, what does that leave you? With spells and word games, that's what.
That Lackoff guy that Rush mentions comes to mind.
Bah, she's so nutty I bet she wears it in the shower.
Mother Sheehan? This is so offensive I don't know what to say, except that if I met the writer of this advice I would be tempted to punch him in the nose.
The guy has tin ear.
I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic [your sons] died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours, to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of Freedom.Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,
Abraham Lincoln (Nov. 21, 1864)
Pay-no-attention-to-the-moonbat-behind-the-curtain ping.
It's funny. These loonies are delusional...
Al Franken and Janeane Garofalo come to mind.
The guy has tin ear.
Not at all. Remember Mother Jones.
Now, Mother Sheehan's problem is that she's still around to embarrass herself.
She might be the only protester down there that does shower.;)
How bout Momma T? Remember Ms. Kerry? These people are all nuts!
I found this reference (at http://members.aol.com/basfawlty/shake_bc.htm )and am looking for more details:
However, there is also the case of Patricia Mendoza to consider. Mrs. Mendoza and her husband were attending a festival in Chicago on July 2, 1996, when President Clinton, making an impromptu campaign stop, approached her to shake hands with her.{8} Mrs. Mendoza reportedly told Clinton, "You suck, and those boys died"--a reference to the deaths of 19 servicemen in a bombing in Saudi Arabia the previous month.{9} Following this, according to a videotape of the incident, Clinton pointed Mrs. Mendoza out to White House Deputy Counsel Bruce Lindsey, and a black Secret Service agent pulled aside another agent and gestured in the woman's direction. After Clinton's departure, two Secret Service agents questioned her, and the Chicago police arrested her and her husband, alleging disorderly conduct.{
larval form
Rare view of ceremonial headdress
Gotta look good for the cameras, yanno.
[gag]
More on this subject from a WorldNetDaily story:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=16541
Friday, November 21, 1997
Does IRS have political hit list?
Pattern of individuals targeted raises questions
By Sarah Foster
© 1997 WorldNetDaily.com
Last August, Californian Margie Gray sent an e-mail to President Clinton. It wasn't "threatening," she explained to WorldNetDaily, "I just told him how sad it was that parents today are not able to say to their children, 'Maybe someday you can be president.'" Why not? "Because he was immoral, unethical and dishonest." He had dishonored the office, she believed. Less than a month later, Mrs. Gray received a letter from the Internal Revenue Service claiming she owed $3,500 in interest since 1991 due to a "mistake" she had made on her personal income tax return for that year. There was just one problem -- the Grays do not file separate returns. She and her husband conferred with a certified public accountant and spoke with an IRS employee on the phone. "Neither of them could understand why the IRS would be writing to me since we only file jointly," she said. "There were no mistakes in our return." The Grays wrote to the IRS in response to the notice, but have not received a reply. Mrs. Gray suspects she knows why the IRS contacted her. She believes she was selectively targeted not only for her critical note to Clinton but for other political correspondence as well. Since her retirement, the former San Francisco Bay Area businesswoman has become an Internet activist who spends "hours and hours" on the web every day, contacting public officials and urging their opposition to administration policies. For example, to stop the giveaway of the Long Beach Naval Shipyard to China's COSCO shipping company, "I wrote e-mails to dozens of congressmen about it," she recalled. It might be implausible -- even unthinkable -- that the administration would target a retired lady in California for IRS action if so many other individuals weren't experiencing similar phenomena. An exclusive WorldNetDaily survey in July named some 20 non-profit organizations and think-tanks "unfriendly" to the Clinton administration that have faced IRS audits since 1993. These include the National Rifle Association, the National Center for Public Policy, Citizens Against Government Waste, the National Review, American Spectator magazine and the Western Journalism Center, WorldNetDaily's parent company. The latter was specifically targeted for "action" in a December 1994 memoradum prepared in the White House counsel's office and later released to congressional investigators. Later, its 1994 and 1995 tax returns were audited in what field agent Thomas Cederquist, who threatened the group's tax-exempt status, described as a "political case." Though the case is now closed and the center's tax-exempt status secure, the IRS refuses to release to the group its own case file. The center is considering legal action. Strangely, there have been no reports of groups sympathetic to Clinton's policies, such as Planned Parenthood or the Brookings Institute, being chosen for audit or threatened with revocation of their 501(c)3 status. In fact, a survey by the Washington Times late last year could not identify a single liberal public policy organization that had been audited during the entire Clinton administration. According to attorney William Wewer, a specialist in non-profit law, all of the groups singled out have one thing in common -- they have challenged the Clinton administration in a "high-profile fashion." "Every one of our clients who is under audit has taken on the Clinton administration vigorously, usually through a direct-mail campaign," says Wewer, who represents about a thousand charities. His observation applies to the other identified groups as well. But now some are raising the specter of the IRS being used as a political weapon against not just groups, but individuals, as well -- people like Margie Gray, outspoken citizens who challenge administration policies or criticize the president himself. Grass-roots critics, an author, a film editor, former White House personnel, board members of groups targeted, even a well-known talk show host -- the IRS takes aim at a wide range of targets. Mrs. Gray's experience is not unlike that of Patricia Mendoza, who "insulted" Clinton during a campaign stop in Chicago in July of last year. Mrs. Mendoza and her husband, Glenn, were attending a food festival when the president arrived. "You suck, and those boys died," Mrs. Mendoza shouted, referring to the June truck-bombing at a U.S. barracks in Saudi Arabia that killed19 American servicemen. They were escorted away by Secret Service agents. Charges filed against the couple for unruly behavior were later dismissed by a Cook County judge. However, a month following Mrs. Mendoza's protest shout, Glenn Mendoza received a letter from the regional IRS office in Kansas City saying he owed $200 in back income taxes. The agency demanded immediate payment or his property would be seized. "We never had any problems with the IRS," Mr. Mendoza told the press. "We're not big executive types. I'm not a millionaire. We don't make enough money to attract the IRS." After Mendoza's attorney telephoned the IRS, the agency said there had been a "computer error" and dropped the case. Does "computer error" also explain why homemaker Paula Corbin Jones, who is suing President Clinton for sexual harassment, has been targeted for an income tax audit along with her husband, Stephen? The notice from the IRS arrived just five days after the former Arkansas state employee rejected a settlement offer from the White House. The idea that the audit came in retaliation was dismissed by presidential press secretary Mike McCurry as "inconceivable." "We do dumb things from time to time," said McCurry, "But we are not certifiably insane." McCurry denied the White House has any control over who gets audited. But Betsy Smith, a spokesperson for the National Audit Defense Network, says it's "extremely rare" that a family like the Joneses "appears on the IRS radar screen." Stephen Jones earns less than $40,000 a year; Paula -- a full-time mother -- is not employed. The network is a group of 1,000 ex-IRS agents who fight against their former employer on behalf of taxpayers undergoing intrusive audits. Paula Jones is their most famous client. "The Joneses don't file a complicated return," Smith said. "They don't claim a lot of deductions -- like car expenses, a home office, or even rent. Yet they were asked for rent receipts. I wouldn't go so far as to say absolutely that here's a case of retaliation, let's just say it's awfully coincidental." Others who have felt the wrath of the IRS include Travelgate figure Billy Dale and attorney Kent Masterson Brown. Dale was audited after he was fired from his job as head of the White House Travel Office so a friend of Bill and Hillary Clinton could be moved into that position. Kent Masterson Brown, was the lawyer who successfully represented the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons that in 1994 sued to open up Hillary Clinton's secret health care task force. Within a month he received an audit notice. Brown also charges the White House pressured the National Park Service into not reappointing him to a second term on the Gettysburg National Military Park Advisory Commission, an honorary post. Brown, a Civil War buff, was the commission's first chairman. Shelly Davis, author of "Unbridled Power" -- a hard-hitting expose of IRS policies and actions based on her seven years as historian for the agency -- may also be facing an audit. In October, her live-in boyfriend received an IRS letter saying he owes $4,912 in back taxes plus interest on the home they jointly own in Manassas, Virginia. The couple sent a response as requested. Davis feels a great deal will depend on how the agency handles the potentially high-profile case. "If they're rational, they'll send back a nice letter thanking us for our response," says Davis. "But they could get ugly. I honestly think it's not targeted, but there's no way to be sure," she explains, since the computer probably just "spit out" the notice. "However, since they'll have to pull my return to match it to (her boyfriend's) this could be a surreptitious way to get at my return, then back at me," she says. Interestingly, the IRS threat to Davis, a self-described lifelong linberal Democrat, followed her decision to serve as a member of the Western Journalism Center's informal board of advisers. Also "uncertain" is Walter Gazecki, who edited and helped write the script for the highly acclaimed film documentary, "Waco: The Rules of Engagement," critical of the administration's handling of the Branch Davidian debacle. "It's possible it (the audit) is just routine," he says. "My CPA tells me there are standardized reasons for doing an audit, and that I fit a certain profile." Nonetheless, it has occurred to Gazecki that the IRS is on a "fishing expedition," though not for itself. "I've wondered if the IRS is acting as an arm of the FBI to get information about the people who made the film. It wouldn't surprise me if it were," he says. Of all the cases against individuals that WorldNetDaily has examined, one of the most suspicious is that of Jeff Evans, a popular conservative TV talk show host on the U.S. territory of Guam. That's the island where the Democratic governor, Carl Gutierrez, raised nearly a million dollars for the Democratic National Committee. Evans was incarcerated in a federal prison for the month of October 1996 -- which he sees as an obvious railroading to keep him off the air during the final weeks before the election. The charge? Failure to file an income tax return for three years beginning in 1990. A Republican, Evans had been an outspoken critic not only of the Gutierrez administration, but of the Clinton White House. Though he was never audited, charges of failure-to-file were filed in federal court in December 1995. The tax bill was supposedly $3,700 for the three years. There was no question Evans had paid taxes -- $37,000 had been taken from his paycheck during the years in question. At issue was whether he had filed his returns to avoid paying a few thousand dollars more than was withheld. He claims he did file but lost the actual forms during a move. "The burden of proof was on me," he says. The case "dragged on" until May 1996, when Evans was persuaded to plead guilty and agree to a plea bargain since fighting the charges "hardly seemed worth the effort." Sentencing was set for Sept. 13. "Three years probation, a few hundred hours of community service, a fine, no prison time -- it didn't seem all that big a deal," he recalls. "I wouldn't be sent to jail for $3,700 in taxes that I didn't even owe." As Evans tells it, "When the judge read 'confined for 30 days,' I just sort of got numb -- this wasn't going the way it was supposed to. My attorney's chin dropped down to his chest. There were open mouths all over the courtroom. Nobody could believe what they had just seen and heard." On Oct. 3 -- shackled at the ankles and wrists -- Evans was transported by air from Guam International Airport to Honolulu, then to the North Las Vegas Detention Center where he spent almost his entire sentence. This was no "Club Fed," with tennis courts and TV, Evans explained. This was "a real-life, shove- the-food-under-the-door kind of prison." Evans found himself sharing a "a two-man cell with a guy that looked like Charles Manson." The last nine days of his sentence were spent at the more upscale Nella Penitentiary "where there were doctors, lawyers, politicians -- and two other guys doing time for failure to file." Asked why he thinks he was targeted, Evans doesn't mince words. "The main reason was to get me off the air before the election," he said. "It didn't work, because I came back a martyr and the Republicans gained a majority in the Legislature for the first time in 14 years. And my ratings went through the ceiling, because everyone on Guam knew what had happened." He does wonder, however, about the extent of White House involvement in all this. "The governor," he observes, "has no influence over a federal district judge, so why did the judge get involved? At the time, Governor Gutierrez had just made that $900,000 contribution to the Clinton-Gore campaign. That bought him the 40-minute limo ride with President Clinton, and he was the only governor on the dais with Clinton when he gave his acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention. So, I guess it bought him some access. Was it through that that pressure was put on the judge? I don't know. But I know that Gutierrez reached out and touched someone in Washington." Western Journalism Center board member James Smith, former president of the Washington Star, former publisher of the Sacramento Union and a semi-retired co-founder of the organization, was also audited following the December 1994 White House task memo, though Smith is not convinced he was targeted for political reasons. Recently, another board member resigned saying he feared an audit. At least two major donors to the organization have also found themselves on the receiving end of audits. In addition, consultants used in investigative reporting projects have also been audited. "The day after his re-election to a second term as president, Clinton told a group of supporters in Arkansas that those who dared question his ethics or criticise his policies were 'a cancer' that should be 'cut out of American politics,'" reminds Joseph Farah, executive director of the Western Journalism Center. "He vowed he'd spend a lot of time in his second term going after his detractors." Farah suggests that may be one promise Clinton has kept.
Sarah Foster is a staff reporter for WorldNetDaily.
Good thing she isn't a Focker...there, I said it!!!
Dear Cindy,
I'm writing this letter slow because I know you can't read fast.
I don't live where we did when you left home for Crawford. I read in the newspaper that most accidents happen within 20 miles from your home, so I moved. I won't be able to send you the address because the last family that lived here took the house numbers when they moved so that they wouldn't have to change their address.
This place is really nice. It even has a washing machine. I'm not sure it works so well though, last week I put a load in and pulled the chain and haven't seen them since. The weather isn't bad here. It only rained twice last week, the first time for three days and the second time for four days.
About that coat you wanted me to send you, your good friend, Michael Moore said it would be too heavy to send in the mail with the buttons on, so we cut them off and put them in the pockets. Your other friend, Barbara Streisand, locked her keys in the car yesterday. We were really worried because it took her two hours to get me and your father out. Your sister had a baby this morning, but I haven't found out if you are an aunt or uncle. The baby looks just like Martin Sheen. Your adopted Uncle Ted Kennedy, fell in a whiskey vat last week. Some men tried to pull him out, but he fought them off valiantly and drowned. We had him cremated and he burned for three days. Three of your friends went off a bridge in a pick-up truck. Uncle Jesse Jackson was driving. He rolled down the window and swam to safety. Your other two friends were in back. They drowned because they couldn't get the tailgate down.
There isn't much more news at this time. Nothing much has happened. Hope you get a trailer in Crawford soon.
Sincerely,
Your ex-husband Bob
P.S. I was going to send you some money down to your new camp in Crawford but the envelope was already sealed.
If she wants to take on all our guilt, she's welcome to it.
Ping for later reading.
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