Cindy Sheehan Lies About Mother’s Day

Sweetness & Light ^ | May 13, 2006 | N/A

[Sam Hill]

Is nothing sacred to her? (Of course, I kid.)

Behold the momentous tidings from the latest Code Pink press release:

Susan Sarandon, Cindy Sheehan, Randi Rhodes, Dolores Huerta, and Patch Adams Will Lead 24-Hour Mother’s Day Peace Vigil at White House

Mothers nationwide call for peace in Iraq and Iran

SAN FRANCISCO / WASHINGTON - May 11 - This weekend, on May 13-14, 2006, celebrities, peace activists, mothers and families will gather in front of the White House from 3pm on Saturday until 3pm on Sunday to call for an end to the war in Iraq and stand against a military attack on Iran. Actress Susan Sarandon, Gold Star mother Cindy Sheehan, Reverend Yearwood of the Hip Hop Caucus, journalist Randi Rhodes, singer/songwriter Jill Sobule, labor leader Dolores Huerta, and doctor/clown Patch Adams are among the hundreds who will participate.

Citing the original Mother’s Day Proclamation by Julia Ward Howe, the organizers say that the holiday historically calls for women to act against war. Written in 1870, Howe’s statement urges women to rise up with a call to “Disarm! Disarm!” and find “the means whereby the great human family can live in peace.”

“I don’t want any more moms to grieve for a child lost in this unjust, unnecessary war in Iraq,” says Gold Star mother Cindy Sheehan. “This Mothers Day we’ll be outside the White House all day and all night demanding that our children come home from Iraq and not be sent to another reckless war in Iran.”

The weekend plans include an evening concert, film screenings, workshops on legislative strategies, writing letters to Laura Bush, a pink pajama party, an interfaith service on Sunday morning, and a visit to Walter Reed Hospital to deliver roses to mothers/wives of injured soldiers.

“The original intent of Mother’s Day was not to give your mom chocolates or breakfast in bed, but for mothers to join together to stop war,” says Medea Benjamin of CODEPINK: Women for Peace, the group organizing the event. “With the war raging in Iraq and another war looming in Iran, we invite mothers all over this country to join us in demanding a peaceful world for ourselves and our children.”

The vigil is emblematic of shifting sentiments against the war. Six in ten Americans now consider the war in Iraq a mistake. Furthermore, 72% of deployed troops and 62% of American women favor a full withdrawal of troops before the end of 2006, according to a Zogby poll of February 2006 and a Gallup poll of December 2005, respectively.

Susan Sarandon will be present from 1-4pm on Sunday, when organizers plan a dramatic action.

It is historical revisionism of the typical leftist kind to say that Mother's Day "historically calls for women to act against war."

Yes, Julia Ward Howe issued a Mother's Day proclamation in Boston in 1870. And she called for such a day to be observed each year nationally in 1872. But her efforts to frame Mother's Day as a call for pacifism and disarmament by women were a total bust. The real Mother's Day in the US is the brainchild of Anna Jarvis. And it was brought to fruition by her daughter, Anna Jarvis Reeves. It was made a national holiday by the warmonger, President Woodrow Wilson, just a couple of months before the start of the Great War.

From the site of the first unofficial Mother's Day celebration, a church in Grafton WV, which is now the International Mother's Day Shrine:

 

The founder of Mother's Day, Anna Jarvis and her daughter, Anna Marie Reeves Jarvis.

The Founding of Mother's Day

On May 1, 1864, in the little village of Webster, four miles south of Grafton, West Virginia, Granville and Ann Jarvis welcomed their daughter, Anna Jarvis, into the world. The Grafton area was an important railroad center during the Civil War and Mrs. Jarvis' birthplace had served as a temporary headquarters for Gen. McClellan in 1861.

During the war years, Ann Jarvis worked very hard to provide nursing care and promote better sanitation, which helped save thousands of lives on both sides of the conflict. After the war, she continued her work to help heal the wounds of the war years and bring families and communities together again. Young Anna received her basic education in the public schools of Grafton and attended Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Virginia.

In 1902, after the death of Granville Jarvis, the family moved to Philadelphia. It was there that Ann Jarvis passed away on May 9, 1905. Two years later, in 1907, on the second Sunday in May, Anna invited several friends to her home in Philadelphia, in commemoration of her mother's life. On this occasion, she announced her idea - a day of national celebration in honor of mothers - a Mother's Day.

The following spring, Anna wrote to the Superintendent of Andrews Methodist Church Sunday School in Grafton, suggesting that the church in which her mother had taught classes for twenty years, celebrate a Mother's Day in her honor. The idea appealed to Mr. Loar and on May 10, 1908, the first official Mother's Day service was held in the church. Anna established the white carnation as the symbol of the celebration and developed other text and visual tools in honor of the event. It was Anna who coined the term, "Mother's Day Association", used during the period she was developing her concept of what Mother's Day should be.

Subsequently, West Virginia Gov. William E. Glasscock issued the first Mother's Day proclamation on April 26, 1910. In 1912, at the General Methodist Conference in Minneapolis, MN, Anna was recognized as the founder of Mother's Day. A joint resolution in the United States Congress designated the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day. The official resolution was approved by President Woodrow Wilson in 1914.

Since 1908, a celebration for mothers has taken place at the Andrews Methodist Church, now known as the International Mother's Day Shrine, in the town of Grafton, West Virginia. This historic building has been designated a national historic Landmark and is the focal point in the town's preparation for a centennial celebration of the first Mother's Day in May, 2008.

Oddly enough, and much like Mother Sheehan, Anna Jarvis Reeves became a middle aged crank. She incorporated herself as the Mother’s Day International Association, claimed copyright on the second Sunday of May.

She and her sister Ellsinore (cf. Dede Miller) spent their family inheritance campaigning against the holiday. Anna was even once arrested for her anti-Mother's Day protests. Both sisters died in poverty. Reeves' turning on her life's mission is also not unlike what happened with Julia Ward Howe. Howe, after her abolitionist dreams were realized, began to denounce the merits of war-making.

But of course Ms. Howe didn't always feel that way. When she still believed in freedom she poured her warlike sentiments into this catchy little number:

The Battle Hymn Of The Republic

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
His day is marching on.

I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
As ye deal with my condemners, so with you my grace shall deal;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with His heel,
Since God is marching on.

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat:
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.

He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave,
He is wisdom to the mighty, He is succour to the brave,
So the world shall be His footstool, and the soul of Time His slave,
Our God is marching on.

Maybe the promised "dramatic action" will be Susan Sarandon giving a dramatic reading of Howe's soul-stirring anthem.

(Of course, I kid again.)

[Miss Marple]

Boy, I would like that, too! It's a shame I'm not a wealthy woman; I have so many good ideas for things to do with money, and gettting Ms. Sheehan off the national stage is one of my earnest desires.

[Beckwith]

Regarding picture with story:

Which one is the bigger actress?

[KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle]

Tim Robins just gets uglier and uglier by the damned day, doesn't he...?

[Becki]

God, she's such a frump.

Becki

[ZinGirl]

WOW...a picture really is worth a thousand words. I hope you don't mind my repeating it

[digger48]

if only more knew the truth surrounding the Sheeslut

[digger48]

I want my chocolates and breakfast in bed!!!!!!!!!

oh, what some of us perverts could do with that little gem

[kcvl]

Reverend Yearwood is also a senior consultant for the Russell Simmons' Hip Hop Summit Action Network (HSAN), P. Diddy's Citizen Change (Vote OrDie), and Jay Z/S. Carter (Voice Your Choice), providing a national template for engaging the Hip-Hop generation in community-building dialogues. He is also the founder of Hip Hop Voices, a subsidiary of Voices for Working Families (AFL-CIO).

He is a member of the Board of Directors for the Progressive Democrats of America.

Reverend Yearwood was a former White House Intern under President William Jefferson Clinton.

[ItsForTheChildren]

Geez. Why didn't we think of this sooner?

Dear President Ahmawhackjob,

We're writing you today to demand "a peaceful world for ourselves and our children. Thank you.”

Sincerely,
Medea Benjamin
Code Pinko

Ok! All our problems are solved now. We've demanded a peaceful world. Thanks, Medea! Now we can talk about fun stuff like American Idol!

[kcvl]

Dolores Huerta is the most prominent Chicana (Mexican American woman) labor leader in the United States.

In 1962 along with Ceasar Chavez, Dolores Huerta co-founded what would become the United Farm Workers Union (UFW).

In the 1980s she helped found KUFW--Radio Campesina, the union's radio station in California.


She has been arrested more than 20 times. In 1988, during a demonstration in San Francisco against the policies of presidential candidate George Bush, Huerta was severely injured by baton-swinging police officers. She suffered two broken ribs and a ruptured spleen. In order to save her life, she had to undergo emergency surgery. This incident outraged the public and caused the San Francisco police department to change its rules regarding crowd control and discipline.

[kcvl]

Do they just make this shiite up?

Yes, every last word of it. I wouldn't believe anything that comes out of their mouths.

[Sam Hill]

Dolores Huerta, left, received the CPUSA’s “Red Flame Award” for outstanding progressive leadership. The award’s name is based on the nickname of Anne Burlak Timpson, an outstanding labor organizer and leader of the CPUSA. (From the Peoples Weekly World.)

[kcvl]

before she adopted the name "Medea" as a Tufts University freshman, she was Susie Benjamin, self-described "nice Jewish girl from Long Island."

She went to Cuba with her first husband, who was coach of the national basketball team. Cuba's comparative social equality "made it seem like I died and went to heaven." She was working at a Communist-run newspaper in Cuba.

Her father, Al, is a well-to-do developer, who says he has "donated hundreds of thousands" of dollars to Global Exchange over its 14-year-history.

San Francisco nonprofit Global Exchange, which Benjamin co-founded in 1988 with her husband Kevin Danaher, a tough-talking activist.

She and her husband spend only two days a month together.

Kevin Danaher, Veteran Human Rights Activist and co-founder of Global Exchange. Kevin is an executive producer of the Green Festivals, two-day events bringing together hundred of green economy companies, social justice and environmental organizations, speakers, live music, organic food and drink, and tens of thousands of attendees hungry for a transition to the green economy.

******

A former economist and nutritionist with the United Nations and World Health Organization, Benjamin is the author/editor of eight books, and lives in San Francisco with her husband Kevin Danaher, who also works at Global Exchange, & is Executive Producer of Green Festivals. and her two daughters Arlen, age 20, and Maya, age 11.

Medea Benjamin's support for oppression precedes Global Exchange - she got her start in the mid-80s, providing aid to the Communist Sandinista government of Nicaragua as a coordinator for the Institute for Food and Development Policy.

As head of Global Exchange and the women's anti-war group Code Pink, she has stood on stage with all three Communist-dominated anti-war coalitions - the Workers' World Party-controlled International ANSWER, the Revolutionary Communist Party-dominated Not In Our Name coalition, and the creation of former Communist Party U.S.A. activist Leslie Cagan, the Coalition United for Peace and Justice.

[kcvl]

Medea Benjamin's husband, described by The New York Times as the "Paul Revere of globalization's woes," Dr. Kevin Danaher.

Justice, Not War: "A momentous decision confronts us as a nation: Do we define the violence of Sept. 11 as an act of war or as a crime against humanity?," Dr. Danaher asks his audiences. "If we define it as war, it couches the issues in nationalist sentiment and separates us from the people of other nations. If we define it as a crime against humanity, it holds the potential for uniting humankind against the scourge of terrorism." Dr. Danaher will discuss how the US must, among other things, work for the establishment of an international criminal court and dedicate itself to ending global poverty if we are to succeed in abolishing international terrorism. Reducing global inequality has always been a moral imperative, Dr. Danaher says, and now it is also a strategic imperative.

[kcvl]

Kevin Danaher, co-founder (with wife Medea Benjamin aka Susie) of the San Francisco nonprofit group Global Exchange, thinks political progressives can teach global capitalists a thing or two about trade and commerce.

Danaher has helped Global Exchange popularize the notion of fair trade. In short, he wants consumers to pay a bit more for coffee, chocolates and crafts as long as this extra markup flows to farmers or artisans in the developing world.

[kcvl]

the Denver-born songwriter/guitarist/singer has tackled such topics as the death penalty, anorexia, shoplifting, reproduction, the French resistance movement, adolescence, and the Christian right.

From the Huffington Post...

I have issues. While driving, I like to listen to Christian right-wing radio. Today on 740 AM in Los Angeles, the immigration protest were being compared to the war on Christianity (aren't most of the protesters Christian?), one world government, and ultimately a sign of the end times.

Of course in a matter of an hour they always come back to...The Gay Agenda.

[kcvl]

Biography by Jason Ankeny

Singer/songwriter Jill Sobule rose to fame on the strength of her 1995 hit single "I Kissed a Girl," a tongue-in-cheek nod to the media's fascination with "lesbian chic." Born in Denver, Colorado in 1961, Sobule grew enamored of rock music at a young age, but did not seriously consider a career as a performer until she spent her junior year of college abroad in Spain. Upon her return to the U.S., she dropped out of school to devote her full energies to music, but her work found little success, and she battled with depression and anorexia. In 1990, Sobule finally made her debut with Things Here Are Different, recorded with producer Todd Rundgren. The album vanished from sight upon its release, however, and she was dropped by her label, MCA; disheartened and destitute, Sobule moved to Los Angeles and took a job as an assistant to a wedding photographer.

Sobule's fortunes turned when her lawyer played her demo tape for an Atlantic Records executive, who was so impressed by the contrast her winsome, folk-flavored pop offered in comparison to the then-current chart dominance of grunge that he quickly signed her to a contract. After the 1995 release of Jill Sobule and "I Kissed a Girl," she scored another hit with the satirical "Supermodel," featured prominently in Amy Heckerling's comedy smash Clueless. The LP Happy Town followed in 1997, impressing critics with a new level of depth and maturity; unfortunately, it didn't match Sobule's level of commercial success, and Atlantic dropped her from its roster. She took some time off from her solo recording career to regroup, and joined Lloyd Cole's new backing band the Negatives as a guitarist in 1999. After landing a new recording contract with Beyond, in 2000 Sobule returned with a new album, Pink Pearl. In the years that followed, Sobule dabbled in off-Broadway musicals, made an appearance on NBC's West Wing, composed songs for a Nickelodeon series called Unfabulous and played a busking musician in the indie film Mind the Gap, a movie that featured songs included on 2004's Underdog Victorious.

[nopardons]

bttt

[derllak]

Rofl! That wasn't meant to be dirty, Digger........but now that I think about it, not a bad idea! :P

[Sam Hill]

"She and her husband spend only two days a month together."

How can he stand her even that long?