by Cindy Sheehan

An anti-war activist at a town hall meeting in Iowa recently asked Mitt Romney why not ONE of his five sons served the USA in the military. The woman’s brother had been in Iraq and she understandably would have liked to know if the Romney family was so supportive of Bush Co’s war of terror why didn’t they support it with their own flesh and blood.

Mitt Romney said that his five privileged elite stockbroker/real estate boys are supporting our nation by helping get their father “elected.”

We could dispute the allegation of how getting a pandering, war-mongering, born-again abortion foe elected is good for our country, but that’s not the point. The point is the ruling class elite who don’t have to worry about health-care, jobs or how they are going to pay for their children’s college tuition send our children to fight and die in their wars that only make them richer while sending working-class families into life times of despair.
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Editor’s Note: Locust Fork Journal editor and publisher Glynn Wilson is on vacation. Cindy Sheehan’s columns are reprinted with permission.

by Cindy Sheehan

Day 11 of our Journey for Humanity and Accountability found our caravan group at the Charlottesville, Virginia, home of David Swanson, director of AfterDowningStreet.Org.

I got to know David after my group Gold Star Families for Peace became one of thefirst organizations to sign on to ADS when the memoswere exposed on May 1, 2005. That collaboration led towhat I thought was going to be the downfall of BushCo: the fact that on July 23, 2001, there was a secret meeting at 10 Downing Street that pretty much said that the invasion of Iraq was a foregone conclusion and the intelligence was going to have to be “fixed” around the policy of pre-emptive invasion.
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by Cindy Sheehan

Being in the deep south has been a very interesting experience. As George’s approval numbers hover down some where in Congress’s range and approval for their war is shrinking, we have encountered very little opposition to our message, but the opposition we have encountered has been vile, abusive and potentially
dangerous.

In Houston, one of the more active kingdoms of war profiteering, we encountered no protest. As a matter of fact, while we were stationed on a bridge over I-10 holding our “Impeach Bush and Cheney” and “Troops home now” signs, we had almost 100% approval. People were actually stopping their cars to applaud us and in some cases, join us.

Our next stop was New Orleans where the policies of BushCo are still harming our brothers and sisters. The various governments are gobbling up land in poor, but hard-working class areas to be used for upscale housing and/or casinos. We meet with several grass-roots organizations who are feeding people, helping them find homes and jobs. There was also not one peep of opposition to our message because the people of New Orleans intimately understand the reasons that BushCo should be impeached.

The fun started, however when we got to Montgomery, Alabama, where right off the bat, the Secretary of the Montgomery Repugs confronted me and displayed his ignorance by stating that he loves George Bush and that George had “nothing” to do with the war in Iraq.

When some Veterans for Peace confronted him and asked him why he didn’t enlist to go to Iraq if he was such a strong supporter of the mayhem, he let us know that he was “courageously” supporting the war effort by staying in America, working and “paying his taxes.” Now that the encounter with this brave patriot has been shown all over cable news, every pipsqueak repug with a bad toupe will be confronting me to get his 15 minutes of fame.

In Montgomery, our Caravan met with many nice folks who were on the side of impeachment and ending the war with us, but we also ran into a couple of people who were upset with BushCo for different reasons. On a beautiful, magnolia tree lined street where our group was hosted for a pot-luck, a home had the sign: “Give War a Chance.” The homeowner and father of five told us that George Bush “is a “pussy” and that if he were President, he would “wipe out” the entire Middle East with nukes.

He has a service age daughter whom he said he would be proud for her to go to Iraq and he would be thrilled if she got some “confirmed kills.” Another gentleman driving down the street didn’t know why we were so upset because America had a “civil war” so why can’t Iraq “have one?” We all needed to be decontaminated on that visit!
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America… just a nation of two hundred million (now 300 million) used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable.
-Hunter S. Thompson

Cindy Sheehan, the soldier’s mother who galvanized an anti-war movement with her monthlong protest outside President Bush’s ranch, said Tuesday she’s done being the public face of the movement.

AP: Sheehan ‘Resigns’ As Protest Leader

Cindy Sheehan and Buddy Spell

Buddy Spell, a New Orleans lawyer, got to know Ms. Sheehan in 2004. We got to know him through the Internet at the same time. He has this story to tell about her departure from the protest stage.

At the time, in 2004, several Louisiana activists had established a resistance beach head in the Greater New Orleans Area to confront the war advocates regardless of whoever won the sham election in the coming November. Cindy contacted me seeking our endorsement of a new group she had organized called Gold Star Families for Peace.

I instantly sensed her strength, sincerity and passion. We became immediate friends.

About a year later, in June ‘05, Cindy came to Covington to visit following the Summer SOULstice action in New Orleans. At the time, we were organizing a Peace Train to DC for the mass protest set for September. Cindy was assisting us and would join the Louisiana Activist Network’s journey to the White House. Of course, two events, back to back, would change everything. At least for me….

Around August 3, 2005, she contacted me and told me that she would attempt to confront Bush at his pretend cowboy ranch in Crawford, Texas. She asked me to join her as legal counsel. The days and weeks which followed were some of the most rewarding of a fairly long and very exciting life. At Camp Casey, we stomped on the terra. It was brilliant. No regrets. Pure patriotic rebellion. The best.

Then came Katrina. She made landfall on the very day Camp Casey closed down. I came home immediately to begin to rebuild and the movement moved on…..

As things got stabilized at home and the war drug on, I signed on as legal counsel to Troops Out Now for the week of last spring’s March on the Pentagon. I came home bruised and disappointed…and tired of the uphill battle intrinsic to holding a mirror up to a society blind to its flaws. Without fanfare, I determined to take a sabbatical from the movement.

Glynn Wilson

Peace advocate Cindy Sheehan fires up a group of protesters at the intersection of U.S. Highways 11 and 90 as they are about to march toward New Orleans on March 18, 2006.

Thank God for Cindy Sheehan and the summer of ‘05. From those heady days of rebellion comes the strength to dust off and move onward. Her tour of duty is done … well done. She has suffered for the movement and has earned the right to slip away.

I could have never put up with the abuse she sustained from the pompous, disengenuous apologists and lock-steppers on the Right for as long as she did. They picked at every flaw, real and contrived, and attacked her with an unchristian ferocity which has been staggering. And she continued onward through it all.

Now, as she elegantly exits stage left, the pigs take one last, unnecessary shot. Well, as their Dear Leader has said in the halls of the Senate, they can go fuck themselves. Cindy Sheehan has, with all of her flaws, more humanity in an eyelash than these punks could ever garnish.

More power to her.

More power to us.

Cindy and I disagreed on tactics and political stuff all of the time. Constantly. We only agreed on that which was of primary importance…a yearning for a peaceful and just homeland. She remains my friend and fellow warrior. And, dare I say, a hero.

My rest is about over and preparations for the next “Big One” now begin.

See you at the DNC in Denver next summer. The Democrats have bitten the hand which fed them. Let’s bite back.

Oh, and I’ll bet Cindy will be there too.

No doubt about it….

ONWARD!

Buddy Spell

A group of veterans left Mobile, Alabama, today marching the 140 miles to New Orleans in what they describe as a protest of the corrupt war in Iraq and the Bush administration’s abysmal handling of the response to Hurricane Katrina and the continuing relief effort.

Paul Robinson, president of the Mobile chapter of Veterans for Peace, expects 300 or more people to participate in the “Walkin’ to New Orleans” march, he said in a news conference in Prichard.

The group is demanding an end to the war in Iraq and a large increase in resources to help hurricane victims rebuild their lives.

“As veterans, we were often sent in as destructive forces or as peacekeeping forces, and in this case we are representing the peacekeeping initiative,” Robinson said. “We are setting out on this 140 mile trek to help rebuild and draw attention to the plight along the Gulf Coast.”

Marchers will arrive in New Orleans on Saturday, and will be joined by anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, according to her sister Dede Miller, who plans to march the entire way.

Sheehan’s son was killed in Iraq. She came to national prominence last year after staging a protest outside President George W. Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas.

Miller blamed the war in Iraq, and what she believes is an inadequate response to the needs of the Katrina victims, on Bush’s “incompetent administration.”

“I’m marching because this will bring attention to the war and what’s going on here in the South,” Miller said. “It’s outrageous.”

The group plans to march by day and stay in tents, motor homes and other vehicles at night.

Bill Perry, 58, of Pennsylvania, wore a leather vest displaying patches representing the Army’s infantry division, paratroopers and those who served in his old unit, the 101st Airborne, according to the Press.

Perry said because of his failing health, he will drive to New Orleans in his sport utility vehicle, which flies an American flag and displays a big sign that says in part: “Abandon Iraq, not our Gulf Coast.”

“We are spending $330 billion on the wrong gulf,” he said.

Garett Reppenhagen, 30, of Washington, who was dressed in part of the desert tan Army fatigue uniform he wore while serving in the in Iraq for a year, said he joined the Army when he was 26 and was a cavalry scout and sniper.

“I’m marching because I disagree with the war,” he said. “I think domestic problems that we have at home have to do with the overspending on this war.”

As for the impact of the march, he said, “I think it will raise some awareness that there are anti-war groups out there that are actually doing something. and bring attention to the problem. I’m doing it because during my year in Iraq that I spent there, I saw more harm than good.”

Read the Mobile Press version of the story here.

Editor’s Note: The Locust Fork News and Blog staff will likely catch up with the marchers on the way to New Orleans sometime Friday afternoon and be there to cover the arrival.

Also, we have just learned that artist, photographer, under employed adjunct professor and friend Dave Stueber should have Internet access hooked up this week, finally. So we should be able to blog from Dupre Street. It’s about time…

Meanwhile, the dog and cat food fund is almost fully depleted, so if you want to help out,
here’s how.