Posted on 08/29/2005 7:46:19 AM PDT by conservativecorner
Have you heard of Lisa Fithian? A veteran of the Seattle WTO riots and scores of other protests, she’s been with Sheehan from the start.
A notice on Cindy Sheehan's website, meetwithcindy.org, asks for donors who might be able to offer a camper, or an RV, or just money, for Sheehan's upcoming cross-country tour, scheduled to begin Wednesday in Crawford, Texas, and end in Washington at the big antiwar demonstration scheduled for September 24. At the end of the note, readers with something to offer are asked to "please call organizer Lisa Fithian."
To anyone familiar with the world of professional protesting — protests against globalism, capitalism, war, police tactics, and dozens of other causes — the presence of Fithian is a sign of how far Cindy Sheehan has strayed from the roots of her "one mom" crusade against George W. Bush. Or, perhaps more accurately, it is a sign that the "one mom" crusade was never just one mom. Fithian is a legendary organizer who operates in the world of anti-globalism anarchists, antiwar protesters, and union activists; an advocate of aggressive "direct action" demonstrations, she protested the first Gulf war, played an important role in the violent shutdown of Seattle during the 1999 World Trade Organization meeting, was a key planner in protests at the Republican and Democratic national conventions in 2000 and 2004, and organized demonstrations at trade meetings in Washington, D.C., Prague, and Genoa.
Although she has received virtually no attention from reporters covering Sheehan, Fithian has been part of the Crawford protest from the very beginning. In a telephone interview with National Review Online on Sunday, she explained that she was with Sheehan in Dallas at a meeting of the antiwar group Veterans for Peace during the first days of August when the decision was made for Sheehan to go to the president's ranch. On August 6, when Sheehan went to Crawford — in a bus with the words "Impeachment Tour" emblazoned on the side — Fithian went along. "I came the first day and helped her [Sheehan] set up the initial encampment," Fithian said. With the exception of one brief absence, she has been there ever since.
Switching back and forth between talking to NRO and giving out orders — "When's your meeting? 5:15? Can you get your people together for that?" — Fithian was modest about her role in the Sheehan protest. "I vary from janitor to facilitator to action organizer," she said. "There's not any one person in charge." In general, she explained, her work involves "a lot of coordination." But Fithian's history suggests it is unlikely she is playing a subordinate role.
In November 2003, Fithian was profiled by The New York Times Magazine as she prepared to take part in protests at the Free Trade Area of the Americas meeting in Miami. As she did with NRO, Fithian demurred when asked if she was a leader of the demonstrations — she claimed that the movement was "nonauthoritarian" and "nonhierarchical" and had no leaders at all — but the Times was not convinced. "To say that Fithian is not a leader is an admirable political idea, but it's not entirely honest," the paper reported.
And she was a tough-minded leader, not at all a peace-and-love type. Her specialty was action; she wanted to break in, cut through fences, and shut things down. "You don't go to Fithian when you want to carry a placard," the Times profile said. "You go to her when you want to make sure there are enough bolt cutters to go around." Asked for a fuller explanation of her role in the protests, Fithian said, "When people ask me, 'What do you do?' I say I create crisis, because crisis is that edge where change is possible."
That sometimes involves breaking things. In an July 2001 interview with The International Socialist Review, Fithian — who told NRO she's been arrested "probably at least 30 times" — spoke of moving beyond the tradition of civil disobedience as practiced by Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr.; her inspiration, she explained, was not so much those leaders as the anarchist movement in Spain in the late 19th and early 20th century. And that meant different ways of doing things. "Nonviolence is a strategy. Civil disobedience is a tactic," Fithian said. "Direct action is a strategy. Throwing rocks is a tactic."
"I guess my biggest thing is that as people who are trying to create a new world, I do believe we have to dismantle or transform the old order to do that," Fithian continued. "I just fundamentally don't believe it will ever serve our interests as it's currently constructed."
These days, Fithian's tactic for dismantling the old order — at least her tactic for the moment — is Cindy Sheehan. On Wednesday, Sheehan will begin her cross-country tour, winding her way toward Washington. And Lisa Fithian will be with her.
— Byron York, NR's White House correspondent, is the author of the book The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy: The Untold Story of How Democratic Operatives, Eccentric Billionaires, Liberal Activists, and Assorted Celebrities Tried to Bring Down a President — and Why They'll Try Even Harder Next Time.
Cutting edge publishing house Four Walls Eight Windows' edition of Hoffman's survival guide contains introductions by activists Al Giordano and Lisa Fithian.
This is more than pop culture. This is not a nostalgic walk through time to Lisa Fithian. Fithian, friend of Hoffman, union organizer, and "non-violent activist" who was "arrested, searched, and detained while preparing protests for the G-20 summit in Ottawa", writes a letter to the dead Abbie as the foreword to this edition. She tells him, "Planes turned into bombs. The Twin Towers collapsed. The Pentagon in flames. Two of the most powerful symbols of capitalism and militarism left gaping and destroyed in a matter of moments. The foundations of the old order were cracked open." She continues:
Meanwhile the Government Inc. propaganda machine is in full-tilt boogie and the right-wing is doing everything it can to consolidate its power. Our democratic system is a joke. Would you believe the Supreme Court actually chose the last President? You know when his wife's nickname for him is STUPID, we're in trouble. Yup, baby George W., son of the ex-CIA director drug dealer and oil man, George Bush, is now the Prez. He can barely articulate a coherent sentence. Just makes you sick. Now he gets to wage a war in the name of fighting terrorism.In reality this war is just another front in the capitalists' efforts to expand and control world markets, keep the rich, white boys in charge and squash an intensely amazing, growing resistance movement. A movement that captured the attention of the world on your birthday! November 30, 1999 over fifty thousand people swarmed the streets with song and dance to shut down the Millennial Rounds of the World Trade Organization in Seattle.
This movement arose from the fact that corporations with the support of elected officials are selling our water, endless polluting our air, genetically modifying our food, clear cutting our forests. For them, "developing" means "destroying."
…same shit, different generation…
Al Giordano sees the release of this issue of Steal This Book differently. The biographical blurb about Giordano says he is ". . . a free speech defendant currently being sued by billionaires in the Drug War on Trial case in New York City." A longtime friend of Hoffman, Giodarno describes him as a man who thought ". . . a task was either worth going to jail for, worth dying for, or it was not worth doing." While admitting that, of all Hoffman's seven published works, Steal This Book is the most widely read and notorious, Giordano claims much of the book is obsolete.
My son, Andrew is joining the Army today. His best friend, Govi (who is like a son to me as well) is joining the Marines today as well. I am both very proud and scared a very strange feeling. I asked him why? he said "mom, how can I support the war and not risk my life as well, it is time I put up or shut up.
To quote Gomer Pyle, USMC< "Surprise, surprise!"
Isn't there some kind of "30 imes and you're out" law? Doesn't such a record account for anything, speak of a habituality? How many times will she be allowed to bugger police forces across the country? When will she be called upon to be responsible and do the time for the crime?
Wow! Your son and his friend will be in my prayers as well as both families. Your son is wise beyond his years because he sees what the "me generation" can't or won't see. Your story gives me real hope for our future with this new generation. It also says much about his upbringing.
Ping!
That goes beyond an unlucky draw from nature. She had to work at it.
Was their ever any doubt that Ms Sheehan was not just sitting at home one nite and out of "frustration" decided to go confront Bush? Her leftist politics and her acquaintance with her knew handlers long precedes her Crawford expedition.
Sheehan would have had an active part in the anti-war movement, in some way, even if her son never went into the Army. Her exploitation of his death and her grief over it is no more than a convenient public excuse for her positions.
The rest of the insane clown posse is finally showing up.
Ernestine T. Bass?
Are you sure that's not Lynnette "Squeaky" Fromme, Manson Family member and would-be assassin?
She looks like somebody got two ugly sticks and played the drum solo from "Inna Gada Davida" on her face.
To boil all that "non-violent this/non-violent that" down to one sentence, in other words,
Lisa is an aging, unemployed, leftist trouble-maker.
Lord-a-Mighty! What IS it with these "earthy" looking female lefties?
Sounds like Lisa needs to get a life.
Ewww! Three-bagger alert!
I remember back in college we had two basic types of girls on campus -- the radical leftist hippie girls and the sorority girls. Yes, the hippie girls might have been a little more "accessible," but in addition to being a bit on the plain side (some more than a bit) they were also hygenically challenged. That was probably the main reason I preferred the sorority girls.
Oxymoron alert?
They misspelled "Strategerist"
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