Thanks to Board of Equalization Member Bill Leonard for bringing a July 22nd SF Chronicle story to my attention this afternoon. Peace activist Cindy Sheehan has threatened to oppose House Leader, Congresswoman, Nancy Pelosi if she fails to bring forth an action to impeach president George W. Bush. Strange. Why have the Orange County blogs overlooked this story?
To read Cindy’s editorial simply go to this link.
In her article Cindy made the following statements for which I would love to hear your reaction.
“The feedback I have been receiving since I announced that I would challenge U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, for her House seat — unless she gives impeachment the go-ahead — has been running about 3-to-1 positive.
I was a lifelong Democrat only because the choices were limited. The Democrats are the party of slavery and were the party that started every war in the 20th century, except the other Bush debacle. The Federal Reserve, permanent federal income taxes, not one but two World Wars, Japanese concentration camps, and not one but two atom bombs dropped on the innocent citizens of Japan — all brought to us via the Democrats.
Don’t tell me the Democrats are our “saviors” because I am not buying it — especially after they bought more caskets and more devastating pain when they financed and co-facilitated more of President Bush’s abysmal occupation. The Democrats also are allowing a meltdown of our republic by allowing the evils of the executive branch to continue unrestrained by their silent complicity.
She concludes by saying “If Pelosi does her constitutional and moral duty by Monday, then I believe some balance will be restored to the universe, and my organization, People for Humanity, can carry on with its humanitarian projects. If she doesn’t, we will carry on anyway, with a political campaign to boot.”
OK! Let’s recap Cindy’s accusations against the Democratic party:
“The Democratic party is the party of slavery”
“The Democratic party started every war in the 20th century, except the other Bush debacle”
“Permanent Federal income taxes”
“Not one but two World Wars”
“Japanese concentration camps”
“Two atom bombs dropped on the innocent citizens of Japan”
“ALL BROUGHT TO US VIA THE DEMOCRATS” Her words, not mine.
What have you to say in responding to this high profile potential Democratic candidate??
Larry she is a nut who has disgraced her sons memory…..anything she says is is not important nor relevant.
Flowerszzz,
As usual, you missed the point. Sheehan has just ripped the Democrats to shreds, and every single thing she said is TRUE.
And you wonder why so many voters are going DTS?
While I wouldn’t exactly go with Flowerszzz’ assessment of Cindy Sheehan as a “nut who disgraced her son’s legacy”, I do wonder sometimes what happened to her. Now yes, I understand why Cindy is disillusioned by the entire political process. However by lashing out all her frustration at fellow progressives and the Democratic Party, she’s enabling precisely what Larry is doing here, and what other Republicans are now doing…
Which is trying to PIT PROGRESSIVE AGAINST PROGRESSIVE IN A “DIVIDE AND CONQUER” STRATEGY to keep the Republicans in power.
“Democrats are the party of slavery”? Maybe 150 years ago, but after DEMOCRAT LYNDON JOHNSON signed the Civil Rights Act into law in 1964, all the racist Dixiecrats moved to the REPUBLICAN PARTY. Japanese Internment Camps? Yes, that was one of FDR’s biggest mistakes. However, I don’t remember any REPUBLICANS protesting this in the 1940s. And the income tax? As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said so well, “Taxes are the price we pay for society.” Who appreciates police and fire services, and public schools, and parks, and the military? No tax, no nothing.
I don’t know exactly who’s been taking Cindy Sheehan down this road to absurdity, but it’s VERY SADDENING to see. I still respect her as someone who’s unafraid to speak out, but I now wonder who’s giving her these words to say. It’s not Democrats that are prolonging this war. It’s Bush and his obstructionist Reep friends in Congress. If Cindy wants to see an end to this war, she should be supporting more progressive Democrats running for Congress. Perhaps she herself could have run against one of the crooked Reeps in NorCal that’s prolonging this war.
But no, she’s saying stuff that the Reeps are just using against the very people who support her and her cause of peace.
Funny, I thought Kaiser Wilhelm and Adolf Hitler were responsible for the World Wars.
Funny, I thought Kaiser Wilhem and Adolf Hitler were responsible for World Wars I and II.
Email response:
“They gave her the wrong speech and she read it.”
LOL Art I get the point I just dont give a rats arse what she says ever….whether she is bashing dems or reps…..she is a freak. BTW, my husband has been dts for MANY years….so it is not some new revolution YOU started.
;-P
flowerszzz.
Considering her being irrelevant as you state than perhaps you can explain why the San Francisco Chronicle published her editorial.
Are they a partner of FOX News?
Sheehan’s stance merely highlights the fact that the two major political parties are FAR too similar.
But c’mon guys, taking her on is like kicking sand on the scrawny kid at the beach…she’s SUCH an easy target.
POster No. 1 really said it correctly. She is a lady who appears to be missing a few bulbs in the chandelier. As to why the media covers her, the media often empowers a vocal critic or advocate and does not seem to know when they have been duped by someone who is basically mentally troubled. I think the media is now realizing that now and not giving her as much coverage as they once did, but it is still too much for my taste.
Poster 4 and 5,
President Wilson bungled the World War I treaty, allowing old wounds to fester into World War II.
It is also widely thought that FDR ignored warnings and allowed the Japanese to attack us at Pearl Harbor, drawing us into WWII.
And then of course FDR put the American Japanese in camps while not doing that to the American Germans – even though many of the latter were in fact Nazi spies.
While I hate to admit this, because I truly believe that Ms Sheehan has psychological issues, her statements are correct about the Dems. I’m sure there are many who will attempt to obfuscate and rewrite history, it is what it is. I certainly think that both World Wars were thrust upon the nation, no blame of who was in the White House.
It was the Southern Democrats who seceded, and they were the predominant party of the Klan in the south. They controlled most of the Reconstruction money locally that was stolen out of the South. Not at all unlike what happened in Katrina with the local breakdown, fraud and totally incompetent oversight from the Feds. FEMA, that goes back to the Dems too. Executive Order 12148 enacted by President Jimmy Carter on July 20, 1979 established FEMA. Wilson gave us WW1, the League of Nations and the post war depression. Lots of other things too, like the Federal Reserve Bank, and troops in Haiti and Nicaragua. Then there was the Sedition Act of 1918,The Palmer Raids to deport foreign-born “social agitators” and prison for domestic ones. Lots of goodies!
FDR/Truman for WW2 an all with internment camps for not only Japanese, but for German American and Latin Americans too. The Little Boy for Hiroshima and Fat Man for Nagasaki and the end to the war. With decades of reconstruction of both Europe and Japan. Truman then brought us the cold war with the USSR and took us into Korea. Kennedy into Bay of Pigs, the Missile crisis and Vietnam.
Income taxes, Medicare, and the ponzy game of Social Security. Yup, that too. Of course they had some help from other R’s as well in all this process.
Her assertion that Bush is impeachable on the other hand is complete lunacy. You may want to, but it isn’t going to happen. Congress has lower approval ratings than even the Pres. This certainly wouldn’t help. When the R’s attempted to go after Pres. Clinton they saw their own parties approval ratings and support drop, it split many away from the party who thought it was counterproductive and simply repulsive to watch. It may be one of the reasons Ms Pelosi isn’t ready to grab that wire, and attempt to impeach Pres. Bush. Besides the evidence I don’t think is there for such charges, a small minor detail.
Just goes to show even the insane can sometimes be correct in their observations…sometimes…
Just for the record I think both the Pres. and Congress are to blame for the mess we are in. It’s high time they all pull together as Americans and get the jobs done. Neither of them are blameless, they both play partisan politics, they both act obstructively to any real progress and we get screwed in the process.
Yes, one of the many reasons I am an independent.
Larry – probably the same reason you post her statements here….to get a reaction. She is controversial and unfortunately in todays world people like to read about controversy.
Ohh and Davey….what I mean by my statement that she disgraced her son is this…..He volunteered to go to Iraq…he wanted to go and she made him and herself martyrs(sp?) and the dem party also made them so….IMO, taking advantage of a mothers grief and feeding her with BS so that she would feel she was fighting a cause, when in reality he wanted to be there and knew what the risks were. She was let down and misled by the Dem’s, I believe her and her husband divorced, and lost her son.
Cindy Sheehan is a South Orange County Hippie Moonbat.
Damn South County Hippies!
Larry–Why do you think Bill Leonard brought this up? The GOP will love it ever time a Ralph Nader imitation candidate pops up and takes votes and attention away from the Democrats.
I am truly sorry for Sheehan’s loss of her son but that doesn’t give her a hall pass to think shes a political Queen of the May. Her revisionist history might draw ohhs and ahhs from people who want to storm the Winter Palace but I trust the voters of the 8th Congressional District will see through the propoganda, send her packing and re-elect Speaker Pelosi.
10:21, just remember — all hippies may be moonbats, but some moonbats are not hippies.
Sometimes I think Sheehan is the political version of Paris Hilton. Whatever she does, the reporters are there to make a story out of it.
The Sheehan saga isn’t generally on my radar screen, but I’ll say this: she breathed life into the antiwar movement and for that nearly everyone owes her their thanks. HOWEVER, I’ve thought for a while that she’s kinda been losing it. She has no chance to beat Pelosi.
OTOH, I agree with her that it’s essential to at least bring charges against Bush. I believe we are in a Constitutional crisis whose only remedy is impeachment. The fact that there are not enough votes in the Senate to convict is irrelevant.
Sheehan is an anti-war activist. She did what no one else was doing: She went to confront George Bush about the war, directly, and at his home in the summer of 2005.
She’s been very unhappy about how the war has been handled. She’s unhappy about the unresponsiveness of our government, in general.
Pelosi said that impeachment was off the table as soon as the democrats swept into office and took the majority position, with Pelosi being the majority leader.
Sheehan officially broke off her ties to the democrats when they passed a bill authorizing funding for the war to continue in May of this year.
She has “left” her activism a couple of times, only to return to protest various events. She remains committed to the anti-war effort and was indeed an unwavering leader of that activism in the early spotlight.
She is NOT a spokesperson for all causes. She’s an irritant and she does not go away. She’s persistent and makes a lot of people uncomfortable.
The media portrays her as a pest and wack job. The same media that sold us on the acceptablity of going to war, endless imprisonment for detainees, black hole torture facilities, backing the abandonment of finding BinLaden in pursuit of invading a country that had NOTHING TO DO with the 9/11 criminals. The list is long of how the media has sold us out, so it really is no suprise that those same players would focus on Sheehan’s efforts as a citizen to protest. Demeaning a citizen activist “should” be seen as suspect, but the brainwashed assume it is our patriotic duty to attack and demean the likes of Sheehan.
She has a place in our society. How many of us hold our values so strongly that we are willing to go before intimidating scrutiny and yet remain unwavering?
Face it. Most of us are much more lazy and cowardly than Sheehan. She makes us uncomfortable. She was right from the start and the results of the war are proving her correct on a daily basis.
When our government begins to fear the people, and not the other way around, we will be on our way to a true democracy FOR the people and by the people. Right now, our collective interests take a distant back seat to large political interests hell bent on shutting us up.
Here is a Wiki entry about her. You might be suprised at some of the things there:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cindy_Sheehan
RE: 10:21
Gila,
I get your points and I aggree. But I still think Cindy Sheehan is a South County Hippy Moonbat.
Now you are my favorite Hippy. But you are not a Moonbat.
Damn Hippies!
:o) Cheers….
I think Cindy and Art are sister & brother. How else can you account for the uncanny resemblence in the way they shoot their mouths off?
LOL!
#12
What are your medical credentials to substantiate your claims that Ms. Sheehan has psychological issues?
Your hubris prattling can be reckless at times.
Flowerzzzzz…
You disgrace your children by posting rants that are not important or relevant.
Actually it’s pretty sad how some throw Cindy aside after she elevated the debate on the war and carried all the firewood against the president to the Texas bonfire.
Now you throw here aside like a used washrag, calling her a wacko. Nice, very thoughtful.
And no, there is no way that she can beat Nancy Pelosi. However, her editorial brings attention to the war and acknowledges that the current majority in power are Democrats, not Republicans.
That fact cannot be refuted by any of you.
Ten years ago a member of our legislature shared his words of wisdom regarding activism.
“AGITATE, AGITATE, AGITATE!”
If nothing else Cindy Sheehan has kept the story on the front pages.
LOL #22 – not a rant at all….just my observation. Which part is not true???
Cindy does not look like Ralph
Nader..but they will look wonderful
running on the same ticket!
As President Reagan once said:
“We can’t always make them see the
light…but we can make them feel
the heat!”
The majority of the US is against the Iraq war.
Why does anyone expect Cindy Sheehan to go away at this point?
The work of bringing our troops home has not yet been done.
She seems like one of the few citizens who does not have adhd by chasing the latest Lindsay Lohan story, rather than keep focused on the death toll of our precious troops.
Wack Job, indeed.
Flowerszzzz:
Larry she is a nut who has disgraced her sons memory…..anything she says is is not important nor relevant.
Really? What ARE the issues, Flowerszzzz? Please consider this tidbit about family members with troops in that ill-fated, poorly planned and probably illegal war in Iraq:
”I swear to God, they leave, and the whole world starts to fall apart,” said Galvin, whose husband, Dan, an Army staff sergeant, has been away more than he’s been home in 10 years of marriage. During his deployments, she’s had to deal with a leaky roof, a flooded kitchen, the hospitalization of a child, a broken-down car and strained finances.
So Galvin wasn’t surprised to learn that a team of North Carolina researchers has found that children of soldiers may face significantly higher rates of neglect and maltreatment when a parent is sent to Iraq or Afghanistan. The parent left behind – usually a civilian mom – is most likely to mistreat or neglect the child.
The rate of child maltreatment jumped 42 percent when a parent was deployed in a combat zone, according to the study published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Moderate or severe maltreatment was about 60 percent higher during deployment, and the rate of neglect was almost double.
http://www.newspress.com/Top/Article/article.jsp?Section=NATIONAL&ID=565061587247169570
Very odd what YOU find irrelevant.
#21, (I would address you by name but you’re seemingly hiding from something by using anonymous) Simple observation of her obsession and years of attempting to understand mental irregularities in family members and friends. BTW, I said I believe, not that I had diagnosed her, big difference. Unlike some others here, I attempted to handle it with slightly more decorum.
Please elaborate on what you find reckless or hubristic in, as you describe it, my prattling. I would love to discuss this with you if you would be so kind to further explain yourself.
Red – what war is not ill fated and poorly planned? Please enlighten me to a well planned one?
I am not a fan of war, and am not happy about this one….but her son joined during the war….he wanted to go. And since there is no draft I suspect that all the men and families above knew what they were getting into and what the chances are/were. However, I do believe we should take better care of our soldiers and their families.
Flowerszzzzzz:
Red – what war is not ill fated and poorly planned? Please enlighten me to a well planned one?
I am disappointed at your weak argument. Aside from the fact that anyone who has been paying attention knows that the public was lied to and very few countries could even be coerced into joining our non-coalition, your feigning innocence as to what makes this war any different makes me wince for you.
You obviously have not had to go to bat for any cause longer than a couple of hours. Sheehan is in it for the long run. Why do YOU find it necessary to disparage the woman?
Her son was in the service. He didnt have anything to do with the decision to go invade some country that didnt have anything to do with the 9/11 criminals. He died in a war that was unnecessary and one that was dishonestly “sold” to an unsuspecting public and our representatives. Understandably, Cindy’s got continued resentment over the death and mutilations of our troops.
Thank god, she not only “believes” that we should do better for our troops…. she is willing to commit herself fully to bringing the issue to the forefront often.
Even in the face of “concerned” posters who easily take pot-shots at her efforts.
A Guardian commentary by John Gray, professor of European thought at the London School of Economics:
There is a stupefying cliche which says regime change went wrong because there was not enough thought about what to do after the invasion. The truth is that if there had been sufficient forethought the invasion would not have been launched. [SNIP]
The dissolution of Iraq is an unalterable fact, all too clear to those who have to cope on the ground, that is denied only in the White House and the fantasy world of the Green Zone. American-led regime change has created a failed state that no one has the power to rebuild. Yesterday’s Oxfam report revealed that nearly one in three Iraqis is in need of emergency aid, and yet the anarchy that prevails prevents any such assistance. [SNIP]
The surrounding states are being irresistibly drawn into the country’s conflicts. Both Iran and Turkey have an interest in Iraq’s oil wealth – Iran by virtue of having expanded its power and influence over the Shia majority, Turkey from fear that control of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk will pass into the hands of the Kurds. Such states can hardly avoid intervening and will not be deterred from acting to safeguard what they see as their vital national interests by threats from the Bush administration. Iraq is at risk of becoming the centre of a wider war, which the US can do very little to prevent – which shows up the lack of proportion in comparing the present conflict with Vietnam. [SNIP]
More from:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2138064,00.html
Good morning Red and Flowerszzz.
To conjecture well planned wars would require more time and space to debate than any of us can justify.
With regard to the war in the Middle East let me suggest your watching our http://www.cuttingedge-atalkshow interview of former Sec “Cap” Weinberger that took place at the Nixon Library on Oct 4th 2002.
Simply fast forward to the eight minute mark of our 18 minute interview where I asked “Cap” two back-to-back questions that he answered.
1.”Is Iran a clear and present danger to American security in the middle east?”
2. Is there a democratic regime that might assume power when we get Saddam out?”
In retrospect what I should have added: “do we have an exit strategy?” which is the problem now facing our government and military leaders.
http://www.cuttingedge-atalkshow.com/videoarchives.cfm
Red you are welcome to idolize anyone you want….whether it be Sheehan or not. I also have the right to not! And I also have the right to disagree with her on the issues, much like you do with me. Thank god this is a free country and we are free to express out opinions here or anywhere.
As to you comment that she has done anything for the troops…..what has she done for them exactly? And as to your dissappointment in my “weak” arguement….they are my thoughts not arguements…I could care less about her honestly. And besides anyone can post articles here but I prefer peoples PERSONAL opinions then those of a newspaper writer.
My impression is that Cindi automatically entered politics after her son died. She saw the bad in the Bush administration and went after him. As time went, she was able to see that Bill Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Libermann and others contributed to the problem and that many of the foreign lobbyist place money on both parties.
So as time went she became more aware of the problems with the Democrats. At that point in time, she was less popular in Liberal circles as well.