Posted on 05/11/2007 11:37:25 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Antiwar activists from around the country will celebrate Mothers Day by converging on Washington, DC, where they will demand Congress end the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
Five days of activism, sponsored by the women-for-peace group CODEPINK and "peace mom" Cindy Sheehan's Gold Star Families for Peace, will culminate in what organizers call a "Mother of a March" on May 14.
"We want to get people out and get them active," said Tina Richards of Salem, Missouri. "We're getting in the way [and saying] no more business as usual until you pass legislation that brings our troops home and takes care of them when they get back."
Richards brings her own war story to the week of action. Her son Cloy is a Marine who served two tours of duty in Iraq. The military lists him as 80-percent combat disabled.
"He's got knee injuries, arm injuries, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder," Richards said. "He's also got another claim pending for a traumatic brain injury, which will put him at 100-percent disabled."
Richards said her son sustained most of his injuries after his first tour in Iraq, adding the family protested his second deployment but to no avail. After four years on active duty, Cloy Richards is now in the individual ready reserve and faces the possibility of a third deployment to Iraq.
Tina Richards said she can't believe the military would even consider that.
"It's something that affects us every single day," she said, "when he's 23 years old and he can't even climb the stairs. He has bad nightmares where he thinks he's back in Iraq. Last week, he punched out all his windows and cut major arteries. He had to go to the hospital because he almost bled to death."
Personal trauma has turned Richards into an activist. She traveled to Washington for large antiwar demonstrations in January and has rarely left since.
On April 16 she was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct in connection with a boisterous demonstration inside the offices of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record) on Capitol Hill.
The Mothers Day protests also promise to feature civil disobedience. Richards told OneWorld the organizers have only applied for one permit for their five days of protest -- for the march on Congress May 14. A handful of House members are scheduled to speak.
According to the CODEPINK Web site, women and families are also expected to rally in over 50 U.S. cities this weekend to oppose the war in Iraq.
In addition to military mothers like Tina Richards and Cindy Sheehan, the Washington demonstrations will feature musician Willie Nelson's wife Annie, actor Ed Asner's wife Cindy, and actress and film director Kamala Lopez.
Richards said she draws inspiration partly from the actions of a few liberals in Congress, among them Representative John Lewis (news, bio, voting record) of Georgia.
Lewis, who was one of only a few Democrats to vote against Pelosi's $100 billion plan to continue funding the Iraq war with conditions, worked with civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
In explaining his vote on the House floor, Lewis said of King: "If he could speak today, he would say this nation needs a revolution of values that exposes the truth that war does not work. If he could speak today, he would say that war is obsolete as a tool of our foreign policy."
"Tonight I must make it plain and clear that as a human being, as a citizen of the world, as a citizen of America, as a member of Congress, as an individual committed to a world at peace with itself, I will not and I cannot in good conscience vote for another dollar or another dime to support this war," Lewis said.
Lewis' words inspired Richards' civic activism.
"John Lewis told me that the only way they were able to win on civil rights issues was because they were in DC throwing sand into the gears of government," Richards said. "They just kept getting in the way and getting in the way until they finally got done what had to be done and so that's what we're doing."
On Tuesday, the Pentagon announced it had alerted more than 35,000 Army soldiers that they could be sent to Iraq this fall.
Some 3,378 U.S. service members have been killed since the Bush administration launched the invasion of Iraq four years ago. Over 600,000 Iraqi civilians have died as a result of the war in their country, according to the only scientifically rigorous study conducted to determine Iraqi casualties.
More than 100,000 U.S. service members are currently receiving disability payments from the Federal government.
Ed Asner’s wife? Is that a hot ticket?
There won't be more than 30 of them.
It will flop just like Camp Democracy where they had to apologize to the 911 Truth Kookers to entice them to come so there would be warm bodies.
John Conyers PERSONALLY threw Code Pink out of his hearing yesterday.
IN FACT, OneWorld is an advocacy group partnered with Global Exchange, the parent of Code Pink.
This is a propoganda piece.
“Any DC FReepers available to counter-protest?”
Mothers day is a day when everyone takes there mother out or have them over for dinner. Every notice that mothers day is one of the few Sundays Realtors never show homes, Ya know why because mothers do not want to look at house nor do they want to protest. Leave that sack of Crap stand out there alone. She will be lucky if she draws any other then those that are marching with her.
PING!!
Wonder if she’ll exhume Specialist/4 Casey Sheehan’s coffin so she can dance on it?
You’re right. My husband has voiced his concerns that I haven’t got anything big planned for Mother’s Day. Whenever I speak to him, he asks me what I’m doing. That he cares about me enough to worry about it while he is the one in a War Zone is, weirdly, the most touching Mother’s Day gift I could get. I’m truly blessed. Being the mother of his children is the best gift I have. So Cindy She-hag can shove it!!!!!!
PING
What can ya say?
Most folks celebrate Mother’s Day; a few celebrate mutha’s day.
“Some 3,378 U.S. service members have been killed since the Bush administration launched the invasion of Iraq four years ago.”
Ugh, I wish they’d stop with the “this many troops have died in this many years”. They act like this is the first war where soldiers have died.
Get it through your thick heads, you liberal retards! These men VOLUNTEER!!!!!!!!! They aren’t drafted, they aren’t coerced, and they aren’t forced to join the army. They joined up with the full knowledge that they could go to Iraq.
These are the Code Pinkos plans from their site-
FOR NEW YORK CITY: Join fellow PATRIOTS at 11 AM (follow the Pinko directions) but come in BLUE: CODE BLUE and bring signs to counter these nutroots!
MAY 13, 11AM: MOTHER’S DAY PEACE PARADE WITH CODEPINK & GRANNY PEACE BRIGADE
This Mother’s Day, take a lively stroll with CODEPINK WOMEN FOR PEACE and the GRANNY PEACE BRIGADE lead by a marching band. Bring your mothers, lovers, partners, friends, children, and grandparents. Share the original meaning of Mother’s Day by handing out leaflets bearing Julia Ward Howe’s Mother’s Day Proclamation to the mothers and others that we pass along the way.
We will make several stops to read the proclamation. We may even break into song.
Meet: at Columbus Circle (59th St. & Broadway) by the statue
step off 11:15, ending at 1:30. Stroll for as long as you can.
Route: up Broadway to 66th Street, right to Columbus Avenue, up Columbus, through the flea/farmer’s market at 77th Street, to the Columbus Ave. Mother’s Day Art Fair around the American Museum of Natural History. We’ll read the proclamation on the steps of the museum, and then go into the park and head for the boathouse. Energy, time and weather permitting, we’ll finish at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Bring: banners, signs of peace.
Attire: pink and/or festive
We supply: leaflets and a small strolling band.
I said it earlier I will say it again. No one but nut jobs are going to show up for a stupid peace rally, Mothers are more important to them at least where I come from they are.
Don’t forget unwashed, perpetually jobless, 8th year college senior sociology majors who sleep on the floors of their friends living rooms...In other words...Stinky Hippies.
Cloy Richards is now in the individual ready reserve and faces the possibility of a third deployment to Iraq.
I wonder what Cloy thinks of his mother.
I’m on Fort Eustis several times a month. I see a lot of permanent handicap license tags - when inquiring I find they are active duty soldiers with artificial limbs - and so far every one has expressed a desire to redeploy, but are stuck in Stateside slots.
Thanks for your service to our country. Keep those home fires burning.
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