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Last updated on July 23rd, 2017 at 01:54 pm
Locals ain’t happy with Mother Sheehan’s Crawford invasion:
Melissa Harrison thought she was just being neighborly when she let a group of antiwar activists hold a news conference on her property. Then her father, who lives just down the road, began calling her Hanoi Jane.
Even in Crawford, which prides itself on its laid-back lifestyle and friendly people, the good-neighbor thing has its limits …
Sheehan and her supporters tried to play down the friction.
“We are trying to be really good neighbors,” Sheehan said. “We have cooperated with everybody. The neighbors here don’t have any issues with our right to be here. They just have an issue with our physical presence.”
A presence Sheehan would prefer not to be interrupted by a Presidential meeting she doesn’t want. Meanwhile, the hideous sounds of peace activism dominate:
“Property rights is what I’m having a big problem with,” Vernon Harrison said. “I’ve got these guys up here beating and banging on drums and guitars and making noise all hours of the night. There’s nothing I can do.”
But there’s something the activists can do, as Paco points out:
The Madonna of the Ditch and her acolytes might want to consider setting up permanent headquarters at the old Branch Davidian site in Waco. Janet Reno’s not around anymore, so they ought to be safe there from Secret Service agents and anxious dove hunters.
They’re not safe from Andrea Harris, who argues that Mother Sheehan’s posturing has set back the feminist cause “to maybe the Middle Ages.” Not safe either from Michael Graham:
She’s suffered what, for me, would be an unimaginable, unbearable loss. The real news in the Cindy Sheehan story is that there aren’t 1800 more of her standing outside the gates in Crawford.
What I find incomprehensible is that 1800 other mothers and fathers somehow found the strength to bear their loss with dignity and respect for the legacy of their sons. That is a story worth commenting on.
Not Cindy Sheehan. She’s just crazy.
After seeing one of the McClennan County county commissioners tell CNN at the end of an interview they would have to move their truck (for safety reasons: narrow country lane, etc.)or it would be towed some things came to mind. I’d like to see the county commissioners schedule some mowing crews that would constantly mow around the activist camp. Maybe some road repairs crews that need to lay some new asphalt. About every 6 hours or so. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
I am a mother, and I would be in hell if I lost one of my kids. But Cindy Sheehan’s Martyr Show is putting other mothers’ sons at risk. Does she think the nasties over in Iraq aren’t paying attention to her and her Roadkill Revival there in Crawford? Does she think they aren’t going to be encouraged to kill even more American soldiers in the hopes that the American public will abandon Iraq? This is what I hold against her.
And, yes. She does sound like she’s not all there. By all accounts, she’s always been that way, it’s not just a consequence of grieving for her lost son.
Debbie, Mother of a Marine from Indianapolis, called Limbaugh today to set things straight, which she did pretty well http://rhhardin.home.mindspring.com/rushcut.mom.ram
Her son is not dead, but we honor soldiers for going, not for dying. She is however mourning in the present, for a present son, showing what “in memory of’’ is before death. Most people don’t notice it.
Andrea, the pattern is that women send men off on quests, and men are happy to be sent on quests, and then the woman shows that she’s satisfied with the man.
This has various ways to break down.
Received feminism is the whole cycle made formal, with no particular man in view. Ie. men have to change.
A nagger has a particular man in view but fears being pleased with the man.
Sheehan has Bush in mind for the impossible task of pleasing her.
But there’s more than one feminism. Women sending themselves on the man’s quests is not the only vision. Vicki Hearne shows another http://home.att.net/~rhhardine/vickihearne.feminism.txt
There are heroic possibilities for the female in Western society that have been overlooked.
You will notice some of the other 1,800 mothers probably in that
#4 ‘Roadkill Revival’ LOL Rebecca. If you don’t trademark that for something, I will. Here in Melbourne, and possibly in response to Circus Sheehan, ABC radio had Brian Deegan. Deegan lost his son Josh in the Bali bombings, and with all respect to his grief, he nevertheless turned into a rent-a-quote Howard hater – the go-to guy for all your anti-Howard soundbite needs. Deegan is a strange case: he has every reason to hate Islamist terrorists, and he does, but he also wants to bag any government that looks like doing something about them. Where does that leave you?
Totally OT, but I can’t believe how well the Gaza pullout is going. Occasionally I hear soundbites of hysterical grief, but I actually think those are the voices of ABC journalists, grieving that this isn’t turning into the ‘hardline Zionist’ inferno they were hoping for. They were even reduced to reporting that one female Israeli soldier had been ‘stabbed in the hand with a needle’.
- We are up against people who have crushed dissent viciously – for example see link re Syrian city Hama, literally crushed by Assad in 82. It was not just Saddam who was a maddas. Iran’s leaders too are capable of anything.
Cindy’s roadshow is convincing the ratbags that the west is soft, rather than that we are serious and committed in what we do. Vietnam was a lesson in why not to give up, rather than why to give up!
http://www.2la.org/lebanon/ee/terrorsy.htm
James Taranto puts an interesting spin on this. Unfortunately, I can’t link to it because Taranto’s column is by paid subscription only (to the WSJ, and a hefty amount it is, too).
Now, we have no truck with mischievous criminals, but at the same time it’s important to understand what motivates people to do things like this. After all, one man’s vandal is another’s freedom-fighter. The Sheehanoids should be asking: Why do they hate us?
Think about it: If outside settlers were occupying your land, demonizing your leaders and slandering your country, wouldn’t you have feelings of rage and hopelessness? Again, we’re not condoning what Larry Northern allegedly did. Our point is that only by understanding what drove him to this desperate act can we put an end to the cycle of recrimination. [emphasis added]
David Horowitz’ FrontPageMagazine has a couple of days ago linked to a May, 2005 FPM segment on the number of radical lefties invited to speak at San Francisco State University, a haven for the type, one of which was . . . Cindy Sheehan. (http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=17915) IOW, Cindy’s been doing her activist thing for some time now before her son was killed, which means she would be doing it now whether her son was killed or not. Which means, in turn, that her claim to Bush’s and the world’s attention on behalf of her son as a victim of American/capitalist/younameit is wholly opportunistic and therefore fraudulent. In short, she’s just another Bush-basher. Next.
Posted by Michael McCanles on 08/17 at 10:41 PM • permalink
Now Ms. Sheehan says that George Bush is the biggest terrorist in the world. Sounds like any other looney leftie.
And ofcourse “the universe put her here to light the way” or some such shit. I think they call that delusions of grandeur.
This is getting stupid. Here we are the most powerful nation in the world and we have Gloria Swanson stalking the president and making the whole damn country look like a freaking soap opera.
WIll George speak to Cindy today? Will they makeup? Or will Cindy’s heart be broken again when her husband dumps her?
tune into any media outlet for another presentation of America Sucks starring Cindy Sheehan and her supporting casts of terrorists enablers and traitors.
bizarre. but the press got down Bush’s poll numbers and that is all that counts.
Not Cindy Sheehan. She’s just crazy.
I’ll second that. I was giving her a pass for her grief. No more.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 08/18 at 12:58 AM • permalink
As he does so well, Scrappleface captures the absurd mission in four sentences and a headline: Grieving Bush Protester Has No Exit Strategy
Along with JeffS, I have given this screeching harridan a pass on account of being grief stricken and all, just the same as I did Brian “whosesonjoshwaskilledinbali” Deegan.
I should bloody well know better.
These people have no shame, they are no better than grave robbers.
Posted by Pedro the Ignorant on 08/18 at 06:57 AM • permalink
I’m stunned by the depth of commitment you show to free speech. Harrassment, abuse, criminal behaviour.
It makes me feel good that Mother Sheehan is gaining all this attention. 1500 rallies in support. Say goodbye to US influence in the middle east (about time too)
Posted by The Real Jaffa on 08/18 at 10:22 AM • permalink
Right Jaffa. Criticism and ridicule = “abuse,” and “criminal behavior.” Except when someone you agree with does it. Then, it’s called ‘dissent,’ and any criticism of it is decried as ‘stifling,’ thereof.
The Left would love to use this sort of rhetorical funhouse hall of mirrors to criminalize its opponents, but this isn’t the Soviet Union.
As for your comment about US influence in the middle east, one of the dangers of ‘progressive’ rhetoric, dissembling and language subversion is that one can easily begin to confuse wishful thinking with analysis. So it goes with your connection between a dog-days-of-summer media circus and geopolitics.
Cosmo, driving a pick-up through the crosses is criminal, seeking ways to harras people with different ideas behaving peacefully is juvenile, discharging shotguns on a “dove hunt” is reckless.
Everyone has a right to free speech and free assembly in a democracy. Do you live in a democracy?
Posted by The Real Jaffa on 08/18 at 10:50 AM • permalink
Your first point is correct, although I was referring to the comments on this blog, as I thought you were, as well.
Now, can we expect the same vigorous denunciation of vandalism and criminality posing as ‘protest’ at the next anti-globo circus, or will that be excused as free speech exuberance?
As for where I live—having actually lived and done business in a real police state, I find complaints about the state of free speech in America (aired on nationally-televised news programs and splashed on the op-ed pages of our largest newspapers) a bit hard to take seriously.
Take care. Nice vollying with you.
And let’s see if that pickup truck driver get an ounce of the sympathetic media attention and activist legal assistance routinely given to the tinker-toy anarchists and revolutionary-manques who think televised arrests with plastic handcuffs is a form of daring.
That’s why you never see that sort of thing, say, at an APEC summit in Shanghai. Black Bloc ‘tough guys’ wouldn’t want to confront the apparatus of a real police state, manned by people who can’t be sued for ‘police brutality.’
Cosmo, I’m happy to denounce the vandalism and criminality that occurs at the “anti-globo circuses” and I stay well away from for that reason.
When political expression descends to the level of throwing bricks and burning cars, the message is lost, and the capacity for harm magnified.
I also agree that the U.S. is not a police state….yet. But there are those who’d like to make it one. Who said that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
Many of the posts on this blog about Cindy Sheehan have been disrespectful, bordering on abusive. We can all do better than that.
Posted by The Real Jaffa on 08/18 at 11:15 AM • permalink
Have to agree with you on one thing—the media freak show surrounding this thing is uncomfortable to watch. Kinda where the whole Schiavo (sp?) shoving match ended up earlier this summer. And heading into Scott and Lacey territory fast.
Have to disagree with you on another note, though. Again, having spent considerable time in the more Hobbsian neighborhoods of our planet, it’s hard for me to explain to folks back home what a unique miracle it is that a Michael Moore or Mother Sheehan receive media attention, unharrassed by the governments they criticize (often viciously).
Try that in Tianamen Square. When you say we’re not there “yet,” I want to take you with me to places where we’d come face to face with merciless, malevolent, pathologically violent and utterly corrupt state power unaccountable to any authority outside its own. The bumper sticker “I love my country but fear my government” says it all. In places where you had a government to fear, you wouldn’t dare express such a sentiment.
That said, you’re correct. The price is eternal vigilance. But that includes what Kennedy described as the “long twilight struggle.” We’ll never stay free without fighting for it.
Apologies for the essay.
cosmo, #29, we’ve reached agreement Vive la difference.
I don’t know enough about internal US politics to name names, but in Australia, in the last three years we’ve lost some important civil rights (right to be brought before a court as soon as possible and the right to silence).
I wonder how long it will take to get them back?
Posted by The Real Jaffa on 08/18 at 12:17 PM • permalink
I think this is where your (our) vigilence comes in. In the past, we’ve managed to roll back wartime abridgements (whether or not we would agree with the need for them in the first place). This time will be no different, and it may require a struggle, given today’s more pervasive presence of the state in our lives.
I got your back. You got mine.
discharging shotguns on a “dove hunt” is reckless.
No, it wasn’t. He was on his own land, at the legal distance from the road, or else he would have been cited.
Everyone has a right to free speech and free assembly in a democracy.
And the right to shoot on his own land. And the right to assembly doesn’t mean that everyone else has to tippy-toe around you.
Many of the posts on this blog about Cindy Sheehan have been disrespectful, bordering on abusive. We can all do better than that.
Oh, please. Tell that to Mother Sheehan. The vile spewing from her mouth is ten times worse than anything said here about her.
I love how lefties sniff indignantly at “abusive” language when anyone dares to talk about them the way they talk about everyone else. Listen to Air America for about fifteen minutes if you want to hear hair-curling abusiveness, Jaffa. Read the political writings of the honey-voiced, urbane Garrison Keillor, darling of the genteel, Volvo-liberal NPR crowd.
Hypocrites. How dare you act offended.
Dave S. #35 Don’t like being on the losing side heh?
Posted by The Real Jaffa on 08/18 at 11:36 PM • permalink
Bryla, re #36: Projecting again, I see.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 08/19 at 01:47 AM • permalink
38. Well yes Jeff, I did use my projector the other night to show a mini doco on Camilo Mejia, the Marine who left his post in Iraq out of conscience ans applied for conscientious objector status.
It was very well received, and many people here commented on the need to make sure we respected the integrity of US troops.
Posted by The Real Jaffa on 08/19 at 07:45 AM • permalink
No further responses to Bryla—I mean “the Real Jaffa”—are necessary as he’s been banned.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 08/19 at 08:34 AM • permalink
Gotta go with Jeff on this one. Camilo Meija’s have been a feature of every war we’ve ever fought. This is similar to your earlier comment about “say(ing) goodbye to U.S. influence in the middle east” on the basis of this summer’s trash television series. I’m afraid it really is projection, as is your summary declaration of who is on the losing side.
There is a new show on F/X called “Over There.” It’s a Steven Bochco show. I have seen three episodes so far. I have like all three of them. It takes place in the present moment in Iraq. So far I have not detected much liberalism in it. There are varying ideologies among the soldiers in the detachment that we follow in the war. But overall, it seems, so far, to have a better-than-to-be-expected ratio of conservative positions to liberal ones. When someone needs killing, they kill him.
The characters are all interesting and different. There is, for instance, an American of Arab extraction in the group. He is pro-American all the way and has no qualms about blowing Ali Baba to smithereens. Has anyone else seen this show?
ekw
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I’m still waiting for the “fuck ‘im” from Daily Kos about Casey Sheehan. Good thing I haven’t been holding my breath.