Just damn.
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Posted on 08/19/2005 11:22:55 AM PDT by Millee
I need a spirit-guide. There is an interview I want to conduct, and I just won't be able to get it done without one.
I want to interview Army Spc. Casey Sheehan. It would be interesting, to say the least, to hear his views on his mother, Cindy, on what she has been doing for two weeks down at the president's ranch in Texas and, more importantly, on what he makes of the increasing attacks on her for doing what she is doing.
Ah, if such a thing were possible.
My hunch, given my experience the last two years with soldiers on the ground in the nastiness that is Iraq, is the first thing he would say is that he loves his mother very much. Soldiers often will tell you that before they even give you their first name.
Were he still alive over there, and if his mother was still standing in the Texas heat and dust and calling for George Bush to account for the war, there is little doubt he would be personally embarrassed by the attention his mom's actions would bring to him.
And when reporters like me found him and asked him about it, I have no doubt that Casey Sheehan would have looked around, thought a little, spat and replied:
"What the hell do you think I'm over here fighting for, if not at least for that?"
I believe deeply that this is how it all would have played out. And it would have been the most intelligent words uttered in the entire Cindy Sheehan saga.
That what she is doing has become a saga, that the influential and powerful in this country feel free to attack and belittle a woman who lost a son in the war and now refuses to remain silent in her grief, pretty much tells you everything you need to know of 2005 America.
She was a woman and a story that was supposed to just go away - maybe get a couple of days' headlines. But she hasn't, and the story hasn't.
Tell me again, Mr. President, the reason why my son had to die? This is mostly what she has been asking from the roadside.
It is a question the polls say at least 60 percent of us want answered. Have the reasons once again changed? Many fairly want to know.
In 2005 America, though, to pose such a question, particularly with the cameras and reporters' open notebooks arrayed before you, is clear license for some to attack and vilify.
I am still wondering how I know now that Cindy Sheehan is getting a divorce.
Spc. Sheehan and other now-dead soldiers like him, we've been told over and over, died in our country's noble quest to export freedom and democracy to an oppressed and brutalized Middle Eastern nation.
You cannot export elsewhere what you do not currently possess.
And doesn't whatever form of freedom and democracy that exists in 2005 America still give Cindy Sheehan the right to stand on the Crawford, Texas, roadside to confront our leadership?
Perhaps not, it seems.
I have been unfortunate enough to know women like Cindy Sheehan. I have seen them fall to absolute pieces when an Army general presents to them the American flag that seconds earlier had draped the coffin of their dead sons.
These women, dear reader, somehow keep on living. Many do so in silence. Cindy Sheehan, clearly, is not one of them.
I corresponded the other day with Vicki Bosley, the mother of a Manzanola soldier who'd befriended me in Iraq and was killed two months ago.
I asked her of Cindy Sheehan.
"I don't think what she is doing is very -'smart,' " Bosley said. "This is not the time to be causing friction in this country. We have enough of that already.
"Yes, I was (angry) at Bush after Justin was killed.
"But you know, today I take the attitude of my son: 'He is the boss, and we have to do what the boss tells us to do. That is our job.'"
No, Vicki Bosley said, she would never do what Cindy Sheehan is doing. It will not, she said, bring her son back home to her.
"I just want to concentrate on keeping Justin's memory alive, and that is altogether time-consuming, without even thinking of causing 'a scene.'
"I feel the day my son died was his chosen day, one decreed by God, no matter where he was or what he tried to prevent, that there is nothing we can do about it.
"All we can do is pray to God to give Bush guidance to do the right thing. Maybe he did mess up. Who knows?"
Of Cindy Sheehan, she says:
"If it makes her feel better, then go for it, girl. But I think she is wasting a lot of precious time, time that could be devoted to her family on coping with their loss.
"I just don't think this woman is worth getting all worked up over."
Had thousands of people across the nation on Wednesday taken to the streets to embrace Vicki Bosley's message, as they did to Cindy Sheehan's, would anyone have gone on national television or radio to disparage it?
Of course not.
Cindy Sheehan, like Vicki Bosley, ought to be afforded the same exportable freedom to express her views and beliefs as loudly or, perhaps, whacked-out, as she feels comfortable.
Yet in 2005 America, to our alarming detriment, way too many people disagree.
Just damn.
If you want on the list, FReepmail me. This IS a high-volume PING list...
Maybe John Edwards will channel him.
Yikes what an awful pic!
This from a guy who writes opinions criticizing the government for a living. What a joke.
And doesn't whatever form of freedom and democracy that exists in 2005 America still give Cindy Sheehan the right to stand on the Crawford, Texas, roadside to confront our leadership?
Apparently it doesn't allow us in turn to criticize her. Free speech for thee but not for me.
Yet we're the ones trying to restrict freedom? Seems to me, Mr. Johnson, that you wish to deny your opponents the right to speak their opinions.
Everyday I turn on the TV someone is doing just that. Maybe not directly addressing Vicki, but they are doing it just the same.
No Millie obviously you don't get it. This freedom of speech things only is meant for leftist who, as they say, are patriotic because they are against everything the US stands for. Now Millie you must understand that anyone to the right of Ted Kennedy that choses to "exercise free speech" in reality is practicing Hate Speech.
So this guy thinks Cindy Sheehan is being denied her right to speak out? What planet is he on?
He died so you can be free.... nuff said.
Isn't that a still from one of the "Ernest goes to..." movies?
"I have no doubt that Casey Sheehan would have looked around, thought a little, spat and replied: "What the hell do you think I'm over here fighting for, if not at least for that?"
Really? And then what would he have said?
So we can just make up words for dead people now?
Given the chance, I'd ask Cindy Sheehan this: In what ways are your political views different from those of the men who killed your son?
If, all day, you sound like the enemy, people have a right to wonder if you're the enemy.
I got this far.
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-pity.html
"Tears dry quickly." Aristotle
Poor Mrs. Sheehan. Yawn.
I doubt Edwards would report Casey's true sentiment..
"Damn, mom.. shut the hell up already! You're embarrassing us both."
Ditto.
Oh, no, that was NOT the plan. What was supposed to happen was that her "status" was supposed to innoculate her completely from any scrutiny and any opposing point of view. Yes, things are different in 2005 because the HBM no longer controls the information and the message. Heheheh
Did you do something to that picture, mh, or is that real?
If the author means that we still have the right to speak out against traitors in our midst, than I think we're doing OK.
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