Code Pinko-- the Cindy Sheehan affair ( click the picture )
There is plenty of background info about "Mutha" Sheehan and her odious supporters, enablers, and funders.
Posted on 09/27/2005 1:37:49 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
It's not easy being a professional peace mom—especially when everyone wants a piece of you. "I've been staying in a different place every night," says Cindy Sheehan, the 48-year-old California housewife who galvanized the anti-war movement and starred in the march against the Iraq war on Saturday in Washington, D.C. Since she left her now famous Camp Casey—named for the 24-year-old son she lost in Iraq—outside President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, four weeks ago, Sheehan has been barnstorming the country, touring in a caravan of rented RVs and cars with some three dozen other military families and Vietnam and Iraq war vets. She and her fellow activists have been prowling the halls of Congress, insisting on face time with legislators. On Monday, Sheehan and several other parents of fallen soldiers were among some 300 activists arrested in a mass civil disobedience on the sidewalk outside the White House.
While right-wing critics like Rush Limbaugh like to suggest she's being bankrolled by Move On, Michael Moore, and other elements of the "limousine left," Sheehan's crusade is still very much a grassroots affair. When she and the rest of the Bring Them Home Now tour hit Washington this week to challenge Bush to meet with them and put the heat on Congress for funding the war, they crashed on couches and slept on bunkbeds at an international youth hostel.
That kind of dogged authenticity is the root of Sheehan's power. At Saturday's massive anti-war demonstration, she electrified the crowds with her plea not to let any more moms suffer the agony of losing a child in a war she says is unwinnable and "founded on lies." "We are here today because we don't want to see any more kids come home in coffins," she told the tens of thousands massed before her at the Ellipse. "How many more of other people's children are you willing to sacrifice for the lies?" she demanded, turning her anger toward Congress. "Shame on you for giving [Bush] the authority to invade Iraq."
It's a potent message, and one even hawkish supporters of the war like Senator Hillary Clinton are being forced to acknowledge. Not wanting to fall into the trap of looking callous for refusing a grieving mom, Clinton, Senate Minority leader Harry Reid, and even the chief of staff of Senate Majority leader Bill Frist agreed to sit down with the military families and Iraq war veterans who trooped through the Capitol all week. On Monday, Sheehan met with Indiana Democrat Dick Lugar, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee—part of a grassroots lobbying push that drew 700 antiwar campaigners to the Hill. Republican senator John McCain is scheduled for a meeting on Tuesday.
For extra motivation, the pols can turn to the polls. A record two thirds of the American public now disapproves of Bush's handling of the war in Iraq, and 52 percent think we should get out "as soon as possible." That's in contrast to an ABC News/Washington Post poll taken two months ago, when 58 percent of those asked said they supported keeping troops in Iraq "until civil order is restored, even if that means continued U.S. military casualties."
Saturday's march, estimated by police at something more than 100,000 people and by organizers at around 300,000, marked a revival of protest on a scale not seen since the start of the U.S. invasion in 2003. More significant than the size of the march was its tone. In contrast to the almost giddy Bush-bashing of previous demos, there was a sense of somber urgency brought by the presence of hundreds of military families and alienated Iraq war vets. Their voices have given the movement a new center of gravity.
"Just like Rosa Parks, Cindy Sheehan has triggered a public policy debate that's bigger than her as a personality," Reverend Jesse Jackson said backstage. "She's unleashed a dynamic that is calling into question the basis of this war.
"You can be against the war and win re-election now. You can be against the war and get elected," Jackson continued. "We have Republicans who are starting to turn on Bush. That was not true a year ago, before Cindy Sheehan and before Katrina."
And that's also why the right is doing its best to derail the Cindy bandwagon, casting her as an anti-American, "professional griever." Beyond dredging for dirt in her personal life, Republican operatives are now trotting out their own pro-military moms in an effort to blunt Sheehan's message. They launched a "You Don't Speak for Me, Cindy" cross-country bus tour, which arrived in Washington on Sunday.
Their rally drew only several hundred supporters to the Washington Mall, where they held up signs like "Freedom Isn't Free" and "Saddam Is a WMD" as they listened to speakers like Watergate thief-turned-radio-pundit G. Gordon Liddy, who accused Sheehan of "whoring the good name of her son" and carrying out a "left-wing socialist agenda."
Also speaking out was Temple, Texas, native Gary Qualls, whose 20-year-old son, Lance Cpl. Louis Qualls, was killed in Falluja last year. Qualls brandished a small white cross, pulled from a memorial Sheehan's group had set up in Crawford, with his kid's name painted on it. "This is the very first cross repossessed from Cindy Sheehan's unholy camp!" he declared, his face red with anger. "We need nothing but pure honor and respect for our service members and for our leader George Bush."
Sheehan offers no way out of this political conflict or this war, and it's hard to say what will become of her iconic status now that she's spun into the orbit of the anti-war left, with both national campaigns like Win Without War and every wing-nut wannabe seeking to glom on to her cause. Monday's civil disobedience ran the gamut of Code Pinkers and Naderites, anarch-kids and feminist boob-flashers, along with some guys roaming around in prison garb, with Abu Ghraib hoods over their heads.
"The whole world is watching," chanted the crowd of supporters as Sheehan took the first bust, blowing a kiss to her followers when the cops loaded her into a van before a scrum of media surging to capture the shot. "The whole thing is scripted," the anarch-kids chanted back.
For now, Sheehan pledges to keep talking, believing more and more people are listening. "It's hard to tell these stories," she says of the sons and husbands that she and other military families have lost. "But we do it to heal ourselves and to heal this country. We do it because we have been broken, and we don't want anyone else to be broken. We're doing it for the innocent Iraqis in harm's way, and we're doing it for the other families, so they don't have to hear that knock on the door."
Great letter!
Bump!
Code Pinko-- the Cindy Sheehan affair ( click the picture )
There is plenty of background info about "Mutha" Sheehan and her odious supporters, enablers, and funders.
A real phony-baloney.
The crowd outside the White House included Buddhist monks in saffron-colored robes, who beat drums in support of the protesters, and young, black-clad anarchists who danced on an American flag and kissed one another in a symbolic "love-in" demonstration.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/09/27/MNGSEEUEQO1.DTL
How sweet.
It's not about Casey. It's about Cindy. She is the most self-absorbed person in America.
We need pictures of Cindy & other speakers from the A.N.S.W.E.R. rally on Saturday with the A.N.S.W.E.R. banner behind them!
They kept taking the A.N.S.W.E.R. banner down....or blocking it.
I believe such a picture would be priceless....and would soon be as powerful as the NO bus picture!
Here is an opinion by an ex army professional soldier. Cindy Sheehan's son chose a profession that requires a tough decision, "Will I lay my life on the line for freedom and democracy?" He chose this profession. It is no different than any other profession with similar duties; firefighting, police, etc. I am sure that he did his duty with honor and he is a hero. A hero for democracy and a hero for his beliefs. Cindy Sheehan is dishonoring his memory with her grandstanding and martyrdom campaign... And that is what it is in a NUT-shell (no pun intended...) 15 minutes of fame for her over a lifetime of honor and dedication for her son. ------ Here is another important fact that is never mentioned and very important. Young Mr. Sheehan was not drafted, he enlisted. He was given ALL of the special perks and benefits that the military offers enlistees; tuition reimbursement, signing bonuses that were at the highest levels ever, etc. He was paid to perform his duty as are firefighters who lose their life in a blaze and police officers who are killed in the line of duty. It is a risk we take with honor. We are proud. We care. He knew the risks and he accepted them. George W. Bush is the Commander-in-Chief of our Armed Forces and if my President asked me tomorrow to fight for democracy I would... If the odds were 100-1 against my returning alive, I would. I would because I love my country and I want oppressed people throughout this world to breathe the air of freedom at least once. To live without fear, without torture. Cindy Sheehan spits on what America stands for under the blanket of protection that only America affords its citizens. She should take a trip to North Korea and criticize Kim Jong Il outside his palace... Her head will be in one hole and her body in another... However, her son died in vain! She should spend this energy in tribute to our fallen soldiers, our patriots and protectors... and thank them every day for giving her the freedom and life that she and her "backers" criticize so harshly. Cindy's is a paying job too, so take your lumps, Cindy... Climb down off of your cross and salute our flag. You have an option Cindy, you can settle in a country that shares your views and beliefs... only problem is, they wouldn't have you... That is what makes America great and I will love my country until my death.
Saddam, is that you?
"Cindy Sheehan ("Rosa Parks")Arrested on Sidewalk Outside White House"
That Beeotch is so homely they should call her "Rosa Barks".
(Sorry, lame joke, but I couldn't resist.)
"Cindy Sheehan ("Rosa Parks")Arrested on Sidewalk Outside White House"
That Beeotch is so homely they should call her "Rosa Barks".
(Sorry, lame joke, but I couldn't resist.)
Cindy the Moon Bat is one U. G. L.Y. woman. Dumber than a box of rocks and as full of hate as the Democrat sewer.
Wow, welcome aboard! That is a very insightful look at how a military person sees this mess.
I agree with everything you said.....I do wish she would go home and get the help she needs. She has not only turned her back on her son's honorable service, but now that she is alligned with A.N.S.W.E.R., she is in with the anti-America anarchists.
Keep posting, you are a good addition to FR!
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