Today on Kathleen Dunn's Wisconsin Public Radio show, peace mom Cindy Sheehan took a call from "Mike" from Oshkosh. She said (skip ahead to the the 22:15 mark in the interview), "I just wish I would be invited to Oshkosh. I hear it's an amazing community. You know I've never been to Wisconsin to speak, and I hear you guys are leaders in the progressive movement."Some are already working to bring Cindy to Oshkosh . . . developing.
10 comments:
Let me get this straight, Jane Fonda goes to North Korea and sits on an anti-aircraft gun pointed at our troops and we call her Hanoi Jane. The Dixie Chicks go to England and bash Bush and we smash their CD's and threaten their lives. Sheehan goes to South America and holds hands with a Dictator and bashes the entire country and we celebrate her as a hero?
I hate war. I don't want our troops to be anywhere but within our own borders. But WE do not know what is going on over there. WE do not know what good is being done because the media plays on the negative. We don't even know what the troops really think over there because we only get snippets from family here. I don't want women and children denied human rights, dignity, and education. I don't want any more of our troops killed. But I will never celebrate a woman whose son VOLUNTARILY joined the military to serve his country knowing he could go to war and die, only to have his mother defile that dedication to his country by insulting it while holding hands with a drug czar. Say what you want about the people making the decisions, but I am part of this country and I do not want this war and I do not think Sheehan is honoring her son's memory by defiling that which he willingly gave his life for.
We need to get out of there and let the Iraqi's sort out their own government. Sheehan has asked what other countries think of us for what we are doing over there. What about what our troops think of us for what we are doing here?
I sympathize with Sheehan, but I think the media, including Hollywood, is using her grief for their own agenda. This isn't about the truth, it is about who makes a good postermom for anti-Bush.
This poor misguided woman is being exploited by the far left. I hope she never makes it to Wisconsin. California would be a good place for her to call home. I do not like this war, but I like her even less.
So hate the messenger (Cindy Sheehan) but love the message (End the War)???
Or is it the message (End the War) that is so bothersome?
I'd like to get Cindy Sheehan and Rae Vogeler together in Oshkosh - both are speaking out strongly against the war, and their *message* is resonating with a lot more people than it bothers.
Most of the Gold Star Families are objecting to the squandering of their son's lives.
Yes, the sons volunteered for military service, realizing they may be killed. But the families thought they would be killed for a WORTHY cause, and in this case they have had to endure the loss of their children in a war that has been based on lies.
For example Celeste(mother) and Dante(brother) Zappala join Sheehan at many events. Their son/brother was killed early in the Iraq war, specifically on a search for WMDs that the government KNEW did not exist. And yet they sent men on a bogus mission and the men died.
WE DO KNOW THAT.
People join the military willing to sacrifice their lives in an heroic effort, for a worthy cause. Not as value-less bits of flesh to be used by a government as if they are just part of a fun video game.
Is THAT supporting your troops? No, that is a disrespect to the men, to their sacrifice and their honor. The men's lives should be taken seriously. They said Cheney brought "gravitas" - yet he brought none. Where is gravitas more desperately needed than when considering the expenditure of human life - "even just" soldiers willing to die. That willingness does not cheapen the life.
I can understand the media circus married to the Sheehan greiving process as seeming obscene to people. I beleive it is seen by her as a necessary evil with the goal being that the same loss not be visited on other families. I don't think "liking" Sheehan is the point.
Picture that for a minute, your son is dead, you know he was blown up. You can't get the inages of your son's flesh flying in all directions, wondering how much he felt.
Then you find out the stuff he was looking for was never there, and the commander in chief knew that it was never there well before the bits of your child (because they never stop being your child) went flying through the air. If that was my kid I'd be going ballistic. Count on it.
Tony -
About your "cost of Democracy" headline. I understand the spirit of the headline and what you intended, so do not bother clarifying, etc. BUT, really it's alot less about democracy than lawyer's fees isn't it?
If you've got an ambulance-chaser on retainer you'd think they'd cut some slack and not charge top dollar to do a public service type thing like assist in an election re-count.
Elections that are that close are often re-counted and probably should be, for everyone's peace of mind - "yes, Bob really won that", now we can move on.
But $14,000 for some guy in a shiny suit to sit there for 2 days? We're not talking high-level courtroom strategy here, that must have been a pretty easy 2 days. Yep, there's yer trouble.
Anon. 10:33
Who told you the far left wing is exploiting Cindy Sheehan?
I have heard that time and time again as if it were gospel from some talking points memo yet I see no evidence. Now I see it echoed in your post. Who told you?
Cindy Sheehan has the guts we all should have to stand and reveal the truth to the masses who seem to have no interest in Truth. She is merely exercising the right for which her son died and we have the nerve to lambaste her and accuse her of being a handmaiden of dark forces.
Sometimes I think we should all sit down and rearrange our thoughts a bit. During the last gas and oil crisis I lived in the southwest. Wisconsin and the eastern seaboard states were reeling from the outrageous prices. At that very time the most popular bumper sticker in the oil producing states screamed "NEVER HELP A YANKEE! Let Them Freeze to Death in the Dark"
There was such arrogance in the power those states held. Feeling for their brothers came in a far second to their greed for soaring profits in the oil patch. Now oil men run our government. Their cloying words of comfort and "support" do not impress me.
Cindy Sheehan saw her only son taken for lies and deceptions by our own leaders who "smile and smile and still are our enemies". Cindy Sheehan is NOT the person who is off center. The ones who need to search their hearts are the rest of us who buy the lies and allow our idealistic young children to be herded to slaughter.
There is NOTHING in Iraq that should hold us or cause us to spend even one life, let alone numbers now in the thousands. It is far from behooving for the people occupying the loftiest seats in our government to persist in the excuse that they THOUGHT there were WMDs when I, a little old lady in Oshkosh, was, from reading REASONED documents available on the inner-net, quite sure they DID NOT exist. It did not take a rocket scientist to have doubts. HOWEVER, as a nation, we accepted the word of broken down old warhorses, glib talk show hosts and elected officials, proud of their ability to lie faster than a dog can trot.
THEY SOLD US THE USED CAR! They bandied around talk of mushroom clouds until we could hardly wait for the show to begin.
We are the fools and the foolish, not Cindy Sheehan. She may walk her path lonely and despised but at least she is trying to reach us with another view. We are smug and live in fear of "the far left". Tell me, what could they do to us that has not already been done?
...and the killing fields are eerie, lit by the flash of bombs and day after day other mother's sons and daughters pay the ultimate price for our folly.
You know what is sickening? Globe-trotting anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan has collected her son's $250,000 military life insurance policy, collected endless gifts and perks from her far-left liberal friends and bought herself a brand-new VW Beetle convertabile, yet Sheehan hasn't taken the time to put up the funds needed to get Casey, her son, a head stone for his grave.
For two years that grave has sat without a headstone.
Sheehan got play "grieving mother", and that was the only free pass she needed to say whatever the hell she wanted. The Liberal game is to victimize yourself and act entitled, and this was just yet another spin on the old trick.
Just how reprehensible is using her son's death as a soap box for her America hating venom?
Ms. Sheehan's 15 minutes were over a long time ago.
Let's be clear. Are you saying headstones are the criteria with which we measure devotion?
Horse feathers!
Apart from monument vendors who gains from headstones? Not the dead. Not the living unless they consider a grave marker important.
My son still lives but I can tell you if he were dead the last thing on my mind would be what perched on his grave.
Your values astound me. Apparently you listen to the chattering of the demagogues on the right and, sadly, you seem to have bought into their lies and exaggerations.
Just so you all know, a soldier who dies in combat gets far more than $250,000. At last count, combat death gets twice the SGLI (military life insurance) that regular SGLI gets. In addition spouses and children have a list of additional benefits and in some cases parents of the dead soldier have VA benefits.
All that aside, I find it interesting that a mother so engulfed in her grief cannot mark her son's grave. If he was buried in a national cemetary, Uncle Sam would have given him a marker, and that is distant relation.
As the parent who lost a child, the marker was one of the first things picked out along with the place of burial as it is usually done all together. Since Sheehan apparently missed that step, I wonder if the lack of marker was intentional to get more mileage out of the media. That may seem insensitive, but I still wonder what her motivation was and if no one else in that family could have gotten something on the young man's grave. Maybe it is a family tradition not to mark graves. Maybe it is a religious thing. It certainly shouldn't be labeled as right or left winged. Regardless of her grief and the circumstances surrounding it, the media is using her for their own ratings.
This discussion is very reminiscent of discussions during Viet Nam. Since in both cases, we cried over the deaths of our children, will we also spit on those returning and label them "baby-killers?" Just drawing a parallel.
Maybe she doesn't want creeps trampling her kid's grave and doesn't want to make it easy to find.
The fact that everyone knows what this grave looks like makes me think that has merit.
So - media attention is bad, but y'all know about this kid's grave. You must all be aunts and unvcleds then? Or, are you cherry-picking your morality.
The media intrusions are great when they prove Sheehan is a whore, lefist affrontery when they make Bush look bad.
I think I get it now....
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