Sheehan Arrested

[Starship Coyote]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/01/31/sheehan.arrest/index.html

Peace activist Cindy Sheehan was arrested Tuesday in the House chamber after she unfurled an anti-war banner before President Bush's State of the Union address. Capitol police arrested Sheehan and questioned her for about an hour in a separate area of the House, a senior House official said.
Sheehan, who became a vocal war opponent after her son was killed in Iraq, was an invited guest of Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-California, who has called for a withdrawal of troops in Iraq and supports legislation for the creation of a Department of Peace.
Sheehan has pestered the Bush administration since August, when she and hundreds of fellow protesters began demanding an audience with the president and camping outside his ranch in Crawford, Texas.

Someone get this woman the medicine she so desperately needs.

 

[Number_6]

Getting arrested is the medicine she needs. She breaks the law on purpose, because she wants to get arrested. She seems to think it makes her a martyr, when really all it does is provide further proof what a moonbat she is.

Can't wait for her to run against Feinstein. Let's see what mainstream Democrats have to say about that.

 

[Starship Coyote]

I guess that would be her son back.

You know what, I sympathize with her on that count, but she's not the only parent to ever lose a son in a war. Or this war, for that matter. She's made this her personal agenda. I think she's in a bad state of mind (which is understandable) but there are some people who are playing her for all she's worth.

 

[BlazerBoy]

Let's see what mainstream Democrats have to say about that.

We'd say, "This woman doesn't represent us." then either vote for someone else, or not at all.

Democrat does not automatically equal "incredibly stupid".

 

[Eggs Mayonnaise]

CNN actually used the word "pester" to describe her actions? That's rather opinionated for a straight news story.

(The point is the editorializing, not whether you agree or disagree with the statement)

 

[Sarek]

They knew she was attending the speech as a guest of another representative. They planned from the start to just remove her and hold her until the speech was over on the chance that she might create a disruption.

Can't take the chance someone might boo the president on national television.

 

[Number_6]

They knew she was attending the speech as a guest of another representative. They planned from the start to just remove her and hold her until the speech was over on the chance that she might create a disruption.

Can't take the chance someone might boo the president on national television.

No, Sheehan deliberately committed a misdemeanor by unfurling that banner. It is a misdemeanor to stage a demonstration inside the House chamber. And she knew that.

I feel sorry for this woman for losing her son. But I really can't believe she's doing any of this for her son, and neither does her family, judging from their actions.

She's doing this for the greater glory of Cindy Sheehan. Somebody needs to tell her that her fifteen minutes are up, and to shut the fuck up and go home.

 

[BlazerBoy]

Cindy Sheehan never had even fifteen minutes, I think. A lot of people have lost children in wars that they thought we shouldn't have been fighting. Its funny that the majority of them found more appropriate ways of dealing with their grief than acting on a personal venndetta against the President of teh United States.

 

[Peter Octavian]

Not that I agree or disagree with her particular actions. But if I lost my son---I'd make it a personal agenda, too.

You would because then your personal agenda would go hand in hand with your political agenda.

While many military parents and families mourn, not all of them act like petulant children and mount a blatantly partisan war on an administration.

Having had relatives who have been given marching orders (which took them onto foreign soil) by this president, and by his immediate predecessor, I can tell you that not every (or even most) parent(s) blame(s) the commanding officer or the commander-in-chief for deaths which occur in service to one's country.

It's simply a result of this "look at me" era in which we, Americans in particular, find ourselves, in which it's fashionable to act like a spoiled brats when things don't go our way. Make no mistake, this campaign is about Cindy Sheehan, and her Warholian 15 minutes. The fact that in the majority of news and commentary pieces in which the name Sheehan figures, the person who fell in this war is referred to as "Cindy's" or "her" son.

The kid's name was Casey.

If it were really about him, the name Casey Sheehan would be the name which everyone knows. If Cindy Sheehan's crusade were really about fallen servicemen, dying violently because "diplomacy by other means" is the fallback position for most of the world now, or at one time or another in recent memory, then it's Casey's name which would be tripping off the tongues of people at cocktail parties and watercoolers.

But it's not.

The hot topic right now is a headline grabbing attention whore who's playing Howdy Doody for political special interests.

I wouldn't think to diminish her loss, or her sorrow: Her motives, however, remain questionable and ambiguous.

 

[Eggs Mayonnaise]

She's doing this for the greater glory of Cindy Sheehan.

Prove that assertion. She's not the ideal spokesperson for the anti-war movement, but she has valid reasons for her activites, and she represents a view of the war that has been growing since it began.

It truly bothers me that this nation has become so complacent and rigid that the mere thought of civil disobedience is practically considered "distasteful".

Calling her a kook doesn't shoot down the arguments she represents.

 

[Eggs Mayonnaise]

It's simply a result of this "look at me" era in which we, Americans in particular, find ourselves, in which it's fashionable to act like a spoiled brats when things don't go our way. Make no mistake, this campaign is about Cindy Sheehan, and her Warholian 15 minutes. The fact that in the majority of news and commentary pieces in which the name Sheehan figures, the person who fell in this war is referred to as "Cindy's" or "her" son.

The kid's name was Casey.

Funny, the CNN story above has no porblem remembering Casey's name. But it does note this about the President:

During that meeting with Bush, the president refused to look at pictures of Sheehan's son, didn't want to hear about him and "didn't even know Casey's name," she said.

Maybe some go out of their way in public because they feel their points are being ignored by those for which they are intended. Which is what this country is supposed to be fertile ground for.

 

[BlazerBoy]

Eggs is right. What she stands for shouldn't be dismissed simply because of her methods. Her actions are more detrimental to any valid points she could possibly bring about. I'm sure I could go out and round up a bunch of fellow college student, and we could go down to the Horseshoe and burn an American flag to show our disapproval for our american troops being in Iraq, killing Iraqi's in the name of liberating them. But, once we were done, and in the back of squad cars bound for jail, what would we have accomplished, aside from being immediately dismissed as rebellious youth, out looking for the first cause to latch onto to express our violent tendencies? Greenpeace vandalized SUV's in California and oil rigs off its coast. Yet, in the same way that the NAACP does not represent all blacks, Sheehan does not represent the entire anti-war movement.

 

[Peter Octavian]

Maybe some go out of their way in public because they feel their points are being ignored by those for which they are intended. Which is what this country is supposed to be fertile ground for.

Despite CNN getting Casey's name right, he's still "Cindy Sheehan's son" so far as this campaign goes. It's her name which eclipses Casey's.

But let's not be naive, shall we. Cindy's on her own little "diplomacy by other means" mission. Cleary, this is all about drawing lines and picking sides, and not at all about "getting the message out".

You have suggested that her point is "being ignored by those for" whom it is intended. Well, I have to assume, if you buy the Cindy Sheehan party line, that the message is for all of us. If she is at the point in her mission that she still feels that she needs to "go out of her way", then perhaps her tactics are ineffective.

So far, the people that are on her bandwagon were already sitting on her side of the aisle when she started shooting off her mouth.

So, either her methods are effective at stirring up a partisan fuss while being ineffective at promoting the message of "all we are saying is give peace a chance", or anyone who disagrees with her is wrong to suspect her motives while simultaneously being too stupid to understand the obvious superior moral position which she's championing.

 

[Colonel Kira's Left Tit]

<magaret> And you're still talking about her! I wonder why that is?

</magaret>

Note: It's because people like to point and laugh at train wrecks.

 

[Number_6]

Prove that assertion. She's not the ideal spokesperson for the anti-war movement, but she has valid reasons for her activites, and she represents a view of the war that has been growing since it began.

It truly bothers me that this nation has become so complacent and rigid that the mere thought of civil disobedience is practically considered "distasteful".

Calling her a kook doesn't shoot down the arguments she represents.

What's her valid reason for sucking up to Hugo Chavez?

 

[Sarek]

No, Sheehan deliberately committed a misdemeanor by unfurling that banner. It is a misdemeanor to stage a demonstration inside the House chamber. And she knew that.

I feel sorry for this woman for losing her son. But I really can't believe she's doing any of this for her son, and neither does her family, judging from their actions.

She's doing this for the greater glory of Cindy Sheehan. Somebody needs to tell her that her fifteen minutes are up, and to shut the fuck up and go home.

Wrong. She never got a chance to. She was removed for refusing to remove or cover an anti war shirt that she was wearing.

And the media was discussing her removal before it even happened. The desision had been made before she ever showed up to have her "arrested" and to be held without charges until after the speech had concluded and the President was gone. I'll bet you she gets released with no charges by morning.

Let's face it, a lot of these events are scripted right down to the length and timing of applause. The last thing they want is anyone showing public disapproval of the President or his policies on national television.

And before you tell me I'm wrong, I've attended presidential speeches by all of them from Reagan to Bush Jr. at one time or another be it in Washington, overseas, or the many times a President or VP has came to my home state. The last one being Bush's troop visit to Iraq on Thanksgiving 2003. We were given the "He's the CIC" speech in advance and basically told to be quiet, clap and look happy. Missed the fucking dinner though and that was the only worthwhile part of the whole damn thing.

 

[Starship Coyote]

Prove that assertion. She's not the ideal spokesperson for the anti-war movement, but she has valid reasons for her activites, and she represents a view of the war that has been growing since it began.

I personally don't think she's doing it for her own glory. I think she's slipped into a stage of grief that is being aggravated by people who want to take advantage of her and use her as a spokesperson for their own anti-war agenda. After all, who's going to argue with a mother who lost her son?

I also don't take issue with her viewpoints, I take issue with the way she presents herself and...as noted above...the way she's being used.

It truly bothers me that this nation has become so complacent and rigid that the mere thought of civil disobedience is practically considered "distasteful".

Personally, speaking as an old frat boy whose chapter almost got its charter jerked after we rolled a state police car into the Arkansas River because the cop was being a stereotypical pig, I have zero problem with civil disobedience per se.

Face it: she met with Bush once and expressed her views. He basically told her "I'm sorry your son is dead. We're fighting a war and sometimes people die in wars." What he should have added was that she had no business pissing all over his memory and his adult decision to become a soldier by acting like...as Peter put it...a petulant child simply because Bush didn't immediately withdraw all troops from Iraq merely on her whim.

Where I part with Sheehan, beside the fact she's being played like a bicycle deck of cards by pseudo-intellectual shitbags like Michael Moore and Susan Sarandon, is her inability to grasp to fact that we're in it for the long haul. No matter what you think about this war, and I personally have mixed feelings, Congress has settled down into acceptance of the plan to make some form of democracy out of Iraq and provide security so that the Iraqis have a fucking chance right out of the gate. It may all be for nothing, but we should follow through with it. Her game is up, and she's too scattered to realize it. I'd give her higher marks if there really was an anit-war movement in this nation on par with that of the Vietnam era...something I remember.

Calling her a kook doesn't shoot down the arguments she represents.

No, but the assessment isn't far off the mark. Where there's smoke, there's fire.

 

[Peter Octavian]

Not true at all. Now YOU'RE being partisan.

If I were championing one party over another in this matter, you might be able to say that. But since I'm not, you're the one that's got it all wrong.

What I said was one hundred percent true. Her "Stop the war" tour has been sponsored by MoveOn, Michael Moore, and other left-wing organizations, from grass roots groups, up to high profile lobbies.

If all of your sponsorship comes from one political bent, it's safe to say that your campaign is PARTISAN.

 

[whisky]

Its an akward situation, I am against the war too, and I sympaphise for anyone that looses a loved on over there, but as far as I am aware, all the allied forces that send troops to iraq and afghanistan, use volunteers.

If her son was drafted and killed, then she'd have a much stronger case, but if he willingly joined the army, then he most have known there was a chance he would go to war and be killed.

 

[Big Dick McGee]

^^According to the rest of the Sheehan family, Casey Sheehan was incredibly proud to be serving in the military, and took his job very, very seriously. He truly believed he could make a difference.

I believe Cindy Sheehan is degrading her son's sacrifice by painting him as "naiive" and "scared" and "mislead". She makes him sound like an idiot who thought the Army would be like Stripes.