Keeping a Lonely Vigil at Camp Casey

The Washington Post ^ | August 20, 2007 | Michael A. Fletcher

[2ndDivisionVet]

CRAWFORD, Tex. It was just two years ago that Cindy Sheehan pierced the national consciousness with her roadside vigil near President Bush's Texas ranch in protest of the Iraq war.

Several thousand demonstrators came to Crawford to join Sheehan in 2005, capturing the international media spotlight and seemingly crystallizing the antiwar movement. Before long, Sheehan was transformed from a grieving mother moved to protest by the loss of her son in Iraq into a globe-trotting antiwar hero. Eventually banned from the roadside, she bought five acres of land to serve as a base for future protests, dubbing it Camp Casey after her son.

Since then, Camp Casey has become a lonely place. Bush has been back at his ranch on vacation for the past week, but few protesters have followed. On Friday, reporters spotted only two or three demonstrators as Bush traveled to a nearby ranch to thank GOP donors for past contributions.

Perhaps that was to be expected. Sheehan has turned her attention from protesting in Texas to seeking the impeachment of Bush and Vice President Cheney. She is also vowing to challenge House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for her Bay Area congressional seat.

Earlier this summer, Sheehan sold Camp Casey to Los Angeles radio host and actress Bree Walker, who wants to continue using it as a base for protests against Bush administration policies. Last week, the only full-time residents to be found there were Canadian-born Carl Rising-Moore, 61, an easygoing Vietnam veteran turned antiwar protester, and his dog, Sunny.

Rising-Moore says that many people drop by the camp to visit, including veterans haunted by the horrors of war. Rising-Moore, who has studied the nonviolent protest tactics of Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., says he tries to preach the power of nonviolence.

[2ndDivisionVet]

These idiots will be protesting down there three years after President Bush leaves office.

[ConservativeofColor]

These idiots will be protesting down there three years after President Bush leaves office.

They'd probably comtinue protesting after he sold and vacated the Crawford Ranch.

[Doctor Raoul]

Rising-Moore says that many people drop by the camp to visit, including veterans haunted by the horrors of war.

Of course thet're haunted. That's right out of the 60s playbook used to trash the Vietnam veterans. And the bastards are gleefully doing it again. They already have their Winte Soldier equivalent in the works called "Collateral Damage".

Scott Thomas Beauchamp was just a trial balloon.

[Psycho_Bunny]

It was just two years ago that Cindy Sheehan pierced the national consciousness with her roadside vigil near President Bush's Texas ranch in protest of the Iraq war.

Huh?  lol!

[weegee]

Why doesn’t the protestor ask the terrorists to lay down their weapons, stop training thier children for suicide missions, teaching them to hate and recite racist “facts” such as Jews being the offspring of pigs and monkeys?

The message of peace needs to go to far more than just Washington. The war was brought to our shores. It is an international “struggle” or jihad if you will. It preaches a supremacist ideology. For all of the talk of “American Imperialism” it just feeds the terrorist base by claiming they’ve been “invaded” (by kufir, non-muslism). The funny joke in all of this is that Islam is the real empire. Islamic imperialism knows no borders but it does recognize a concept of “muslim lands”.

We are told that “Democracy” isn’t right for everyone. How about freedom of religion? How about human rights?

[Brad from Tennessee]

This Rising-Moore freak is apparently a chronic stalker of the president:

http://www.insd.uscourts.gov/opinions/AMI130O1.pdf

[Grizzled Bear]

Last week, the only full-time residents to be found there were Canadian-born Carl Rising-Moore, 61, an easygoing Vietnam veteran turned antiwar protester, and his dog, Sunny.

---

In a sad foot note; Sunny died after eating a strange, meaty object he had dug up. Witnesses described it as looking vaguely like a human uterus.

/SARC - Included for those who need it

[dighton]

... pierced the national consciousness ...

[et cetera, et cetera, et cetera]

Not advocating violence, mind you, but Mr. Fletcher needs a keyboard broken over his head, again and again, until he swears off typing.

[Col Freeper]

Ah yes, another Washington Post "reporter" outclassed by a Conservative "sitting in his basement in his pajamas".

Let's see, which is it:

1. Michael A. Fletcher is incapable of doing the information search you performed or;

2. Michael A. Fletcher did the search/knew about the information you provided, but decided it was not "pertinent" to his article.

In either case, he has been outclassed.

Thanks for your effort to provide important, and relevant, information about this peacenik.

[ishabibble]

Spot on, absolutely.

[FlingWingFlyer]

Not once have I heard this useful idiot “protest” against the Islamofascists. If protesting against America and the U.S. military makes her a “hero,” then I’m living in the wrong damn country. Sheehan is an obnoxious gasbag being exploited by the America-hating left. Nothing more.

[Pyncho]

I’ve been to Crawford, and it is difficult to imagine protests there having much of an impact on anyone or anything - except the national media. And here’s why. It is literally a one-traffic light town. At the traffic light is the ONLY “restaurant” in town, and it is part of the gas station - also selling on one side cold bottles and cans of soda, pretzels, etc. to travelers.

What I love about it is that all of the “big” media mucky mucks have only this one restaurant, and otherwise they have to drive 20-25 miles to Waco for anything else to eat, drink or do. And Waco is hardly a rolicking town.

Confined in this way, the media had little choice, really, other than to give Sheehan all the play she wished. There was nothing else to do there - except cover the President’s doings. Now the game is over, and the media, I’m sure, are bored as hell. White House correspondents compelled to cover the President in Crawford are likely the laughing stock of their newsrooms and bureaus.

On the other hand, Crawford locals are good, decent, typical Texans. They could care less about any of the outsiders. Ted Nugent, I think, has a house or ranch in the area.

[YHAOS]

"These idiots will be protesting down there three years after President Bush leaves office."

They will be protesting down there as long as they can garner some small amount of attention. That is their objective. I notice such groups always protest the targets of agression; never the agressors. But then, I'm sure everyone has noticed that.

[goldstategop]

If that's all they have, its nothin.' The moonbats have moved on.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[Brad from Tennessee]

It’s too bad while the reporter was in Crawford he didn’t do a story on the President’s “eco-friendly” ranch. It was designed to conserve energy and even reuses wastewater:

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=/Culture/archive/200703/CUL20070301c.html

[kcvl]

Carl Rising-Moore displays his 'peace dove' American flag while trying to drum up support in Canada for Americans who refuse to serve in the Iraq war.

Carl Rising-Moore's pitch for what he calls the "Freedom Underground."

Rising-Moore believes the numbers of suicides will rise as U.S. soldiers returning to the States choose to take their own lives rather than face another tour of duty in Iraq (doctors are 50 per cent more likely to commit suicide than the rest of the population).

The American activist's appearance in Vancouver is part of a cross-country effort to petition Canada for safe refuge for U.S. military deserters across the border. The "Freedom Underground" he's pitching would be an underground railroad, similar to the extensive formal and informal network that helped draft dodgers and deserters in B.C. in the '60s.

[kcvl]

I guess he doesn’t mind if his fellow protester doesn’t agree with his ‘peaceful protests’.

******

The three demonstrators included “Reno,” a self-described US navy veteran who would not give his last name but explained that he had grown conflicted about the use of violence during his service in the Kosovo conflict.

Reno, sitting at a picnic table not far from the dormant firepit used to roast hot dogs, said he had joined the navy in 1995 because “I wanted to go around kicking people’s asses like they do on TV.”

“I’m still for killing, to be perfectly honest,” he said, drawing a nervous chuckle from his audience.

http://tinyurl.com/2hjr7e

[kcvl]

Rising-Moore: "This is what really upsets people: I'm from Ingersoll, Ontario."

Rising-Moore: "We're tired of these wars."

Rising-Moore said he eats a lot of donated MREs.

Reno: "I'm still for killing, to be honest."

When we were there earlier this week, Rising-Moore was talking to/counseling a man who gave his name only as Reno, and said he was 30 years old from Alice, Tx. Reno said he spent seven years in the Navy as a gunner's mate, and served in Kosovo.

"You know how the Hispanic culture is -- you've got to be tough, got to have machismo," he said. "This is Texas, I've been shooting guns since I was six years old."

[Brad from Tennessee]

Thanks.

I read this guy was a founder of Vietnam Veterans of America. I get junk mail from VVA which I routinely throw away. I do support VFW and American Legion.

[Doctor Raoul]

Reno or Rising-Moore?

Where did this Reno come from? Did Janet abandon him on a Waco Church's doorstep?

He looks like Janet Reno and David Koresh's love child...