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Cindy Sheehan

3.2K views 112 replies 42 participants last post by  the sunshine  
#1 ·
Suprised no one has posted about this:

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0808-01.htm

She's been warned that she will be arrested by tomorrow if she does not leave, charged as a "threat to national security." I'm really proud of this momma. She's intelligent, well spoken and well informed. She's made national headlines daily and its increasing by the day.

Here's a message from her posted on Michael Moore's website:

http://www.michaelmoore.com/mustread/index.php

And more info:

http://www.meetwithcindy.org/

I wish I could be there with her.
 
#4 ·
I realize and grieve that fact too, I am against the war myself, I do think it matters though, how he felt, if he was supportive of the war, I can't see how her anger can only be with Bush. My brother is a supporter of the war, and in the military and if he died in the war, I would have some anger towards him, as well as the anger I already have toward Bush.
 
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#5 ·
Ah, but which set of info would that support have been based on? The pack of lies that has been systematically shoved down the throats of his nation? A lot of people that used to support the war have radically changed their tune in the last six months. Casey died over a year ago.
 
#8 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by nntalamu
"We will not let him have a 5 week nice vacation when there are millions of people in harm's way in Iraq due to his careless policies. The people of Iraq and our soldiers are suffering. Why should George have a nice vacation?"
C'mon....Ms Sheehan is being a bit unfair. Going to Illinois to sign pork ladled legislation is hard work:
Bush Signs $286.4 Billion Highway Bill
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...w085413D31.DTL
 
#9 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by RowansDad
C'mon....Ms Sheehan is being a bit unfair. Going to Illinois to sign pork ladled legislation is hard work:
Bush Signs $286.4 Billion Highway Bill
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...w085413D31.DTL
Not sure where you live, but I commute to downtown Chicago every day. We could sure use the $$$ to improve roads around here. If you are in CA, you are perhaps unaware of the beating northern Illinois roads take every winter. Snow plows, salt, heavy traffic sucks.

So if that's pork and I, as a citizen of Illinois should somehow feel guilty about it, perhaps I should move to CA, where the I hear the weather is really beautiful? :LOL Earthquate/brushfire/mudslide/flood lately? :LOL
 
#10 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by Grace Prevailed
Not sure where you live, but I commute to downtown Chicago every day.
I thought the City of Big Shoulders area has public transportation?

Anyhoo, you and Congressman Don Young appear to be bedfellows:

"That's why Alaska Congressman Don Young was able to set aside $230 million in this same transportation bill for what has been called the "bridge to nowhere" -- a span longer than the Golden Gate Bridge that would connect Ketchikan (population 8,000) to Gravina Island (pop. about 50). Young's bridge has become the prime example of excess in the $285 billion spending package that Bush will approve, but there are a record 6,371 such projects in the bill, each of which make perfect sense to somebody.

"I doubt that many people in Oak Park would find the Alaska bridge to be a reasonable expenditure of federal taxpayer dollars."

From:
http://www.suntimes.com/output/brown...-brownx10.html
 
#11 ·
On topic...

Worth noting that there has been a pretty lame smear campaign against Ms. Sheehan, initiated by the always dependable Drudge fellow:

Drudge Quotes Cindy Sheehan Out of Context
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2005/8/8/125041/8506

The newspaper who's piece was taken out of context has a follow-up article here:

"Sheehan also said the trip to Seattle helped connect her family to others that had lost a son or daughter in Iraq. Sheehan said sharing their story with those families was rewarding, as was the time she got to spend with her own family.

"That was the gift the president gave us, the gift of happiness, of being together," she said in the story.

"Drudge included that quote in his Monday morning report, but didn't explain that it referred to sharing time with her family, not the president."

More here:
http://www.thereporter.com/news/ci_2925925
 
#12 ·
Quote:
The White House has released few details of such sessions, which Mr. Bush holds regularly as he travels the country, but generally portrays them as emotional and an opportunity for the president to share the grief of the families. In Ms. Sheehan's telling, though, Mr. Bush did not know her son's name when she and her family met with him in June 2004 at Fort Lewis. Mr. Bush, she said, acted as if he were at a party and behaved disrespectfully toward her by referring to her as "Mom" throughout the meeting.

By Ms. Sheehan's account, Mr. Bush said to her that he could not imagine losing a loved one like an aunt or uncle or cousin. Ms. Sheehan said she broke in and told Mr. Bush that Casey was her son, and that she thought he could imagine what it would be like since he has two daughters and that he should think about what it would be like sending them off to war.

"I said, 'Trust me, you don't want to go there'," Ms. Sheehan said, recounting her exchange with the president. "He said, 'You're right, I don't.' I said, 'Well, thanks for putting me there.' "
Either he has no clue how to have empathy for others (which is my guess) or he could just care less. His advisors can't fill him in before these meetings? From what I've read he's supposed to have an amazing ability to remember names and faces -- does he just not want to know?

I don't think it matters if her son supported the war or not. What matters is that her son trusted our government to make the wise and right decisions with his life and all the lives of other military members and their families and they didn't. They didn't listen to their own generals who told them we needed many more troops to begin with and the same generals who predicted the insurgency. Instead they chose to listen to the generals who sugar coated the whole thing, said it would be like France after WWII and they would welcome us with open arms. They forced retirement on the general who really knew what would happen to shut him up.

Now it's time for the President to face up to his own mistakes and show us how he's going to make it right.

Thanks for sharing the link. I can only imagine an inkling of what she has suffered.
 
#13 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by RowansDad
I thought the City of Big Shoulders area has public transportation?

Anyhoo, you and Congressman Don Young appear to be bedfellows:

"That's why Alaska Congressman Don Young was able to set aside $230 million in this same transportation bill for what has been called the "bridge to nowhere" -- a span longer than the Golden Gate Bridge that would connect Ketchikan (population 8,000) to Gravina Island (pop. about 50). Young's bridge has become the prime example of excess in the $285 billion spending package that Bush will approve, but there are a record 6,371 such projects in the bill, each of which make perfect sense to somebody.

"I doubt that many people in Oak Park would find the Alaska bridge to be a reasonable expenditure of federal taxpayer dollars."

From:
http://www.suntimes.com/output/brown...-brownx10.html
Yes, Chicago does have public transportation and I use it: train and bus. What's your point?

No, I do not sleep with congressmen, but thanks anyway for the overgenerlization.

By the way, I am truly impressed by your amazing linkablity! You are Linkalicious. You are Sir Link Alot. Will You Still Link Me Tomorrow? Darnit, now I'm going to have all these songs going through my head on the way home with "link" inserted in the title. See what you made me do? Rowansdad, the Linkmiester. The Missing Link. Oh my, I better stop while I'm ahead.
 
#15 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by Grace Prevailed
By the way, I am truly impressed by your amazing linkablity! You are Linkalicious. You are Sir Link Alot. Will You Still Link Me Tomorrow? Darnit, now I'm going to have all these songs going through my head on the way home with "link" inserted in the title. See what you made me do? Rowansdad, the Linkmiester. The Missing Link. Oh my, I better stop while I'm ahead.
Yeah that certainly is an awful thing, isn't it? Someone who is able to cite sources and, oh my, facts is just a terrible, terrible thing.
 
#16 ·
We live not too far from Crawford. Our local news station interviewed Ms. Sheehan. She said that no, her son did not support the war in Iraq. But it was his duty to go, he had to go, so he went.

I don't understand how this woman is a "threat to national security".
 
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#18 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by Ann-Marita
She said that no, her son did not support the war in Iraq. But it was his duty to go, he had to go, so he went.
See, that makes a big difference to me, I know it doesn't to others here. But- frankly, I don't care much for the idea that all people who support the war are misinformed, uneducated, etc. I strongly disagree with this war, but my brother, for example, is a highly educated man, who supports this war, and if he died in service for it, would want to be hailed as someone who was a "hero" not have my mom camping outside of Bush's ranch. I think the young man's support, or lackthereod, makes a difference here.

Either way, ITA that this woman is no "threat to national security" and I think what she is doing is right, just, and an honor to her son.
 
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#19 ·
Peppermint, your post has me curious.

Let's say her son did support the war. As a citizen and a mother who has lost a son in a war she obviously thinks is unjust she doesn't have the right to protest or at least want to speak with the President again?

I don't see it as dishonoring her son's memory. She can be proud of him but she also has a right to speak her mind and also to voice her grief. If he did support the war then I'm sure part of her anger would be towards him for making the choice but she can't voice that to him but she can voice it to the one who controls all the other military members' lives.

I see her protest as a separate entity from her son's reasons to serve.

If he did support the war and she was protesting you would see it as dishonoring his memory? I guess I'm just not clear on that part.
 
#20 ·
I don't know. I am trying to look at this through my brother's eyes, I think he would be upset if my mom were to protest this way, if what he wanted was the be hailed as a hero. Still, I, as a mother, would want my right to make my voice heard, even if my son was the one killed (and he had supported the war).

I guess I just hear a lot here about how this war and the tragedies happening daily in it are the fault of all of those who voted for/ supported Bush, so I would think, if one's son was very much *for* the war (like my brother) that his blood would be on his own hands in a way, as well as on Bush's.

I don't know why his stance on the war makes a difference to me, but it does. If my brother were fighting in a war he found unjust and was "just doing his job b/c he had to" I would feel more anger toward the administration that put him there, than if he supported it himself.

I know this is making very little sense, but somehow, his stance does make a difference for me. I wish I could articulate why.
 
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#21 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by Cheshire
If he did support the war and she was protesting you would see it as dishonoring his memory?
I guess that would seem to be dishonoring his memory to me, but, since it doesn't seem to be an issue here, I don't suppose it matters much. I have friends in Iraq who are "doing their jobs" and against the war, I feel so deeply for them and the position they are in.
 
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#22 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by Peppermint
I guess that would seem to be dishonoring his memory to me, but, since it doesn't seem to be an issue here, I don't suppose it matters much. I have friends in Iraq who are "doing their jobs" and against the war, I feel so deeply for them and the position they are in.
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#23 ·
Peppermint, you're making sense. I understand where you're going. At first it just sounded like you thought if he supported the war then she has no right to be out there.

And, I agree, how can she be deemed a threat just because she disagrees?
 
#24 ·
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/08/11/mom....ap/index.html :

Quote:
"Cindy Sheehan has become the Rosa Parks of the anti-war movement," said Rev. Lennox Yearwood, leader of the Hip Hop Caucus, an activist group. "She's tired, fed up and she's not going to take it anymore, and so now we stand with her."
Right on, mama! I live in Austin but can't get away from my day job, but I wish I could be there with her. Maybe if she's still there tomorrow afternoon I'll leave work early and drive out?

Also...

Quote:
But no protesters will be arrested unless they trespass on private property or block the road, said Capt. Kenneth Vanek of the McLennan County Sheriff's Office.
That's good, at least.

btw, a few more links on this:
Crawford Peace House -- taking donations for Cindy's stay in Crawford
CodePink -- you can sign up to 1) conduct a solidarity fast, 2) push the press to cover the story, 3) donate funds or air miles, 4) drop off/mail supplies to the roadside vigil, and 5) join them in Crawford.
 
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#25 ·
This woman is really starting to irritate me. I think her 15 minutes are about up. Her own family has now broken their silence and is coming out against her behavior. Check the Drudge Report for more info.

Something makes me wonder whether or not she'd be doing this if her son had lived and someone else's son had died. I think not. The premise of her protest is honorable; she has every right to be pissed at the world because her son died, but I think it is really starting to become more about her politics and her martyrdom. If the prez comes out and talks to her, will she promise to go home?
 
#26 ·
She's irritating you?
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The "family" that has "come out" against her is her son's godmother who only met him two or three times. Cindy has stated that she already knew that those people disagreed with her and that she's not suprised or the least bit dissuaded.

She's not "mad at the world", she's mad at the president and his and his administration's policies that she believes ultimately caused the death of her son. Who knows if she'd do anything remotely similiar if her son hadn't died. That's like criticizing mommas who crusade against products, vaccines, etc. that led to their child's injury or death.

This momma is speaking truth to power and demanding answers that the majority of Americans are looking for right now. How irritating.
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