The Common Ills: Cindy Sheehan protests (and scares the cowardly)

KERA noted yesterday, "Antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan used a stop in Dallas today to prepare for a protest in a neighborhood where former President George W. Bush lives. Sheehan had a son killed in the war in Iraq. She also protested near Bush's Central Texas ranch when he was still in office." Frank Heinz and Ellen Goldberg (NBC 5 out of Fort Worth) add:

"We are here because we believe he is guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors and crimes against humanity, and just because he is not president anymore, those crimes did not stop," Sheehan said.

Anna M. Tinsley (Fort Worth Star-Telegram via Miami Herald) reports:

Front and center in the sweltering 90-degree heat was Cindy Sheehan, the California mother who drew national attention in recent years with her protests near Bush's Crawford ranch as she demanded to speak to him about her son's death in Baghdad.
"George Bush and his administration are mass murderers," she told the crowd, using a loudspeaker. "People say, 'Cindy, get over it.' Well, there are still two wars raging. I don't have an option of getting over it. . . . We have to keep it up so things like this don't happen again."
Anti-war protesters say they want Bush and his administration investigated and prosecuted for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Sheehan has also demonstrated against President Barack Obama because the Democrat has continued the wars.

We're ignoring the Dallas Morning News in all of it's anti-trust busting forms. That means channel 52 and channel 8 on broadcast TV and that means it's cable channels in that area (sorry, I'm blanking on them -- Dallas community members feel free to e-mail me to remind me). In Dallas, there is only one daily newspaper, the Dallas Morning News. And Belo owns it and they own TV channels and they own this and they own that and the FCC has repeatedly given them a waiver year after year and the really ugly story behind the take down of Dick Armey's family? The Dallas Morning News went after his son Scott when Scott ran for office. Why? Because of remarks by Scott and Dick Armey about it being time for the FCC to reconsider that waiver.

All of that is to say the Dallas Morning News is a blight on that region and on that country. This is the paper, historical reminder, which ran the attack on JFK the day he was assassinated. This is the paper, historical reminder, that published online their lie that Hillary Clinton was about to be indicted. (She was never indicted. The point of spreading the lie was for the DMN to do their part to advance the attacks of Ken Starr.) It's a paper that specializes in lies and attacks. A roundtable by music critics in 2003 was done on the orders of management. Orders? " Trash Sheryl Crow" and others who were speaking out against the illegal war. And the critics do what they're told. They dance for their master. Which is how they made real idiots out of themselves and had the entire music industry (at least in this country) laughing at them as they insisted Christina Aguilera should have been nominated instead and she was more talented than Sheryl and blah blah blah.

Why did everyone laugh? Because there's a cut off date. There's a cut off date for the nominations and Aguilera didn't qualify. (She'd earn nominations the following year.) And one of the participants in that roundtable explained in an e-mail to a Sony exec (which was distributed throughout the music industry) that the whole point of the article was to trash Sheryl and not at all uncommon -- from the idiotic column Steve Chapman (local columnist) wrote spitting on peace protesters and the non-stop attacks on Steve Nash -- who was then with the Dallas Mavericks. Speak out against the illegal war and the orders came from the top for the person to be ripped apart. And the paper was happy to do that.

Last week, the paper started their attack on Cindy Sheehan and they continued it yesterday. They filed an online story early on which other right-wing outlets (Waco Tribune, for example) picked up on as DMN knew would happen -- the whole point of the earliest story was to get the number participating wrong and make Cindy look bad. Others rush to assist them. Josh Micah's Marshy and Hairy Butt Crack coughs up "Dear Cindy: Please go home" and The Daily Toilet Scrubber wants you to know Cindy "secretly embraced" what? What!!! Forget it, it's nothing but an attack on the Peace Mom. I would love to know when Cindy's ever done anything secretly? Isn't the charge from these same attackers that she's overexposed and attention seeking and whatever else? And now they want to contradict themselves by accusing her of "secretly" doing things?

They really should be ashamed. But looking back, it was always clear that Cindy would be lied about. When she was staging her first protest in Crawford, the 'left' was already lining up to use her. You had the John Edwards Groupie online, for example, posting lies about Cindy that served to weaken Cindy's stance. That idiot couldn't speak out against the Iraq War so she wanted to insist that Cindy wasn't speaking out against the Iraq War. And a number of liars tried to push that myth. Centrist Democrats (often in love with Can't Keep It In His Pants Johnny Edwards) loved to lie about Cindy.

That was your first indication that she was being used. Other groups and factions used her as well. I don't mean, "She was duped!" Cindy's goals have always been clearly and publicly stated and she was willing to do anything (and lose anything -- and she lost a great deal) if it meant getting a spotlight on the illegal war.

So today's attacks from the Centrist Dems and the Republicans Who Are Dems At Least This Year aren't anymore surprising than the attacks from the Dallas Morning News. And it goes to how pathetic they are. The only thing it has to do with Cindy is that they fear her power. They fear her power so they want to rip her apart. The same way orders went down that Sheryl Crow must be ripped apart in a roundtable to give her a black eye that will make others think twice before speaking out against the Iraq War. (Want to know what movie was torn apart on the order of publishers? Which critics participated in tearing it apart, in dancing for their masters, because it starred a performer speaking out against the Iraq War? We'll cover that in the gina & krista round-robin Friday. Among the papers participating? The Los Angeles Times.) (Want another trivia bit? Name the sports columnist who danced so well for his corporate masters -- he slammed every one who spoke out male and female and insisted they could only speak out if they were drafted -- there's no draft and the US has thus far never drafted women -- that he won a big award for his bad writing. It's very rarely about an actual accomplishment. It's usually about who was the biggest toady of the year.)

They fear Cindy. Good. Her power base is that she can't be bought up or controlled. Their actions only attest to her continued strength and power. A thing to consider as you read coverage throughout the day: If you're reading something stating she had a small turnout, notice how they fail to say how large the pro-Bush turnout was. 50 people in mid-day on a work day in ninety degree heat is a nice turnout.

And I'm on the phone with a friend at AP who's asking for their story to be linked to and stating that they did mention the turnout of Bush supporters as well.

The following community sites updated last night: