posted on August 14, 2005 01:40:52 PM new
LindaTwelveK says, (LOL)""rusty - There you go again....making up things rather than sticking to what you actually have knowledge of.""
LindaTwelveK ! That's your perpetual modus operandi!
You think you know exactly what went on between Cindy and her son and what he thought and felt.
‘‘I think the people want the president to be in a position to make good, crisp decisions and to stay healthy,'' he said when asked about bike riding while a grieving mom wanted to speak with him. ‘‘And part of my being is to be outside exercising.''
‘‘So I'm mindful of what goes on around me,'' Bush added. ‘‘On the other hand, I'm also mindful that I've got a life to live and will do so.''
posted on August 14, 2005 02:48:23 PM newI think the people want the president to be in a position to make good, crisp decisions and to stay healthy
That also makes sense as to why he kept reading "My Pet Goat" to the classroom of children as our nation was being attacked.
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
posted on August 14, 2005 02:50:13 PM new
Maybe Cindy should post a "Mission Accomplished" sign in the protest area. I think she accomplished what she has set out to do even if Bush does not speak to her.
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
posted on August 14, 2005 06:36:48 PM newAngered farmer fires shots near Iraq war protest at Bush ranch
CRAWFORD, United States (AFP) - A frustrated local farmer fired shots into the air near hundreds of protestors who began their second week of demonstrations against the Iraq war outside President George W. Bush's ranch.
Larry Mattlage, who lives next to the Bush ranch where the president is spending a five week vacation, complained about the 200 protestors, media and government security officials occupying the road outside his own residence after firing a rifle into the air several times.
"Five weeks of this is too much. We live here, this is our community," Mattlage said in footage show by CNN television, while insisting the gunshots were just him "getting ready for dove season."
"I shot at a bird, and missed it a while ago," he said.
Asked if the gunshots had another message, Mattlage told reporters: "Figure it out for yourself."
An anti-war protest outside Bush's Prairie Chapel ranch, launched a week ago by Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq, has garnered heavy media attention as public opinion polls show a sharp decline in support for the Iraq war.
The demonstrators have planted some 500 white wooden crosses on the road to the Bush ranch, each with the name of a US soldier killed in Iraq, including Sheehan's son Casey.
They called the installation "Arlington in Crawford," a reference to the Arlington National Cemetary for soldiers in Washington.
posted on August 14, 2005 06:40:40 PM new
Has to be a neocon...somebody disagrees...start shooting...they love death and bloodshed!
Maybe he should complain to the guy who started it all....his neighbor
posted on August 14, 2005 07:35:33 PM new
"Not much difference, linda. A bush is a bush is a bush...."
well.....classic agrees with that
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Golfer:Stop checking your watch all the time,its too much of a distraction.
Caddy:Its not a watch, its a compass
posted on August 14, 2005 07:36:00 PM new
Cindy's victory
William Pitt
“This thing, the wheels are coming off it.”
- Gen. Barry McCaffrey, after returning from an inspection of Iraq, 08/12/2005
They are sunburned and storm-lashed. They sleep in tents that sit along the muddy earth of drainage ditches by the side of the road. They have been heckled by ‘counter-demonstrators’ who chanted “We don’t care!” during a rendition of ‘God Bless America.’ They have been attacked by fire ants and hassled by local health inspectors. On Thursday morning, at about 5:30am, they were blasted awake by a fourteen-car convoy of Secret Service SUVs which roared through the camp at high speed while leaning on their horns the whole time.
They have been jolted with fear when a local resident fired his weapon into the air several times to make them go away. When the shooter, a Larry Mattlage, was asked why he was firing his gun, he said, “We're going to start doing our war and it's going to be underneath the law. Whatever it takes.” It is safe to say, therefore, that their lives have been threatened.
The thing is, they’ve already won.
Cindy Sheehan and her ever-growing band of supporters intend to stay in those ditches outside Bush’s Crawford “ranch” until he comes out to talk or until August 31st, whichever comes first. They have been there for more than a week now, garnering more and more attention from the national and international press. Yes, they are tired. Yes, they are uncomfortable. Yes, they have already won.
The nearly 2,000 crosses, crescents and Stars of David that make up the Arlington West cemetery, erected by the demonstrators a few days ago to represent all the fallen American soldiers in Iraq, stretch almost a mile down the country road. Bush had to drive past that on Friday when he went to his fundraising shindig at the Broken Spoke Ranch. It takes a while to drive past them all. This man, who cannot abide hearing or seeing anything in the way of dissent or disagreement, saw those crosses whistle past his window. That is a victory.
On Friday, as the camp prepared for the arrival of the counter-demonstrators, a huge diesel pickup truck rumbled into camp with its nose menacingly pointed towards the tents. It sat for a while, and everyone waited to see what would happen. Ann Wright, the main organizer of camp activities, finally approached the truck and met the driver. He was a father, Wright discovered, and his son had been killed in Iraq.
He did not agree with this protest, he said, but wanted to know if his son’s name was on one of the crosses in the Arlington West cemetery. Ann Wright invited the man to walk the rows of crosses and find his son’s name. They found it. Ann and the man in the truck sat down in front of the cross, wrapped their arms around each other, and wept. Later, the man shared a beer with Cindy Sheehan and told her he loved her. That is a victory, one that surpasses any sort of mean politics.
For three years now, both before the invasion of Iraq began and then after it was unleashed, millions of people have marched and screamed and stomped in order to try to put a stop to this disaster. The Bush administration was not pushed off its tracks even an inch in all this time. Discussions and debates on why we are there and whether or not we should leave have been bunted aside.
Half a dozen reasons for the invasion and occupation have been put forth – weapons of mass destruction, ties to al Qaeda terrorism, the building of a democracy, Hussein was a bad man – but in the end, the debate is halted by the kind of brainless thinking that left us in Vietnam for far too long: “We are there, so we have to stay.” This was the accepted wisdom.
Not anymore.
All the protests, all the articles, all the books, all the whistleblowers, all the criticism combined has not packed the kind of punch that one mother in a ditch has delivered to this administration’s carefully crafted fantasy vision of what is happening in Iraq. Suddenly, Bush has been forced to go before cameras and try to explain why staying in Iraq is the only option available. Suddenly, the accepted wisdom isn’t so accepted anymore. A majority of Americans, according to every available poll, agree with the lady in the ditch and not with the president.
Bush isn’t doing a very good job of explaining his side of things, and his people seem unable to keep their stories straight. After the fourteen Marines from Ohio were killed in Iraq, Bush got up and stated that it would be unreasonable for him to lay down a timetable for withdrawal. Yet at the same time, his generals were bent over maps and logistics notebooks, trying to do exactly that.
The Los Angeles Times on Saturday took a look at the mixed messages coming from the war party. “Are the president and the Pentagon on the same page over the war in Iraq?” asked the Times. “That question is percolating in Washington after President Bush twice in the last 10 days tried to clarify a message sent by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and military leaders. After Rumsfeld and other Pentagon officials indicated their desire to shift away from discussing the struggle against terrorism as a ‘war’ - saying it placed too much emphasis on military solutions to terrorism - Bush repeatedly used the word ‘war’ in an Aug. 3 speech to conservative state legislators.”
“Then, continued the Times article, “on Thursday, Bush dismissed as ‘rumors’ and ‘speculation’ reports that U.S. commanders were contemplating significant withdrawals of American troops from Iraq next year. His comments came after Army Gen. George W. Casey, the top U.S. military official in Iraq, and Army Lt. Gen. John R. Vines, the top ground commander, had publicly raised exactly that possibility.”
Hm.
On Sunday, out of nowhere, the Washington Post published a page-one story titled “US Lowers Sights on What Can Be Achieved in Iraq.” The story stated, “The Bush administration is significantly lowering expectations of what can be achieved in Iraq, recognizing that the United States will have to settle for far less progress than originally envisioned during the transition due to end in four months. The United States no longer expects to see a model new democracy, a self-supporting oil industry or a society in which the majority of people are free from serious security or economic challenges.”
The article goes on to describe how any “democracy” will have to bend itself around the laws of Islam, a fact that chucks the secular-government talking points into the round file. Iraqi women, according to the story, should not get their hopes up about being granted significant rights of any kind. The kicker came in the third paragraph, which quotes an unnamed US official saying, “What we expected to achieve was never realistic given the timetable or what unfolded on the ground. We are in a process of absorbing the factors of the situation we're in and shedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning.”
In other words, the whole thing was a Charlie Foxtrot from soup to nuts. There are no weapons of mass destruction, the terrorists connected to 9/11 were not there (though there are plenty there now learning how best to kill Americans with bombs), and democracy is not to be found anywhere on the menu. The hearts and flowers we were promised have not come, and are not coming. Sure, Hussein is still a bad man, but that rationale for this war is an outright laugher when compared to the cost of getting rid of him. Though Bush clings desperately to his canned lines to defend his actions, the facts speak for themselves. This whole bloody enterprise has been a colossal, expensive, murderous failure.
The funny part is that Bush could probably have kept the public fantasy intact with one simple act. He could have jumped into his pickup truck last Saturday, when Cindy Sheehan was alone except for her sister in that ditch, and driven down to see her. He could have invited her into the shotgun seat and driven her around the neighborhood for a few minutes. He could have then gone back up to the “ranch” and told the press corps that he met with her, and that they had looked into each other’s hearts. That would have been the end of it.
He did not do that. Now, his generals are at loggerheads with the public line coming from the White House about getting out of Iraq. Unnamed officials are going on the record to state that the whole plan was hare-brained from the word “go,” and that the entire deal sits now in the ashes of its own utterly ruined failure. Bush has to keep explaining why we have to stay, why rearranging the deck chairs on this Titanic is a noble and worthwhile process. Meanwhile, the whole world mocks him for hiding from one woman and her broken heart.
Cindy Sheehan has done this with one act of conscience. She has managed to do what no other protest or action or statement has been able to do. She has knocked the wheels right off this absurd applecart. She has already won.
posted on August 14, 2005 07:48:43 PM new
helen's BLOGGER, William Pitt from Truth Out.org is a liberal activist. Who said:
Her son would be very, very proud.
OR maybe very, very embarassed that his mother did not support HIS decision to serve our country. His decision to defy her wishes and not head off to Canada. HIS wishes....not hers.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Whenever the nation is under attack, from within or without, liberals side with the enemy. This is their essence." --Ann Coulter
And why the American Voters chose to RE-elect President Bush to four more years. YES!!
[ edited by Linda_K on Aug 14, 2005 08:02 PM ]
posted on August 14, 2005 08:12:29 PM new
Ya know, LindaTwelveK, you could call Cindy and ask her about her son. You could even visit her in person and ask her any question you wanted.
Why don't you go and have a face to face discussion with her, you may learn something.....but probably not with your closed mind.
You might not realize that Cindy MAY have known a little more about her son than you did.....I know that's hard for you to believe but it's probably true.
Talk to her directly ...not through the opinions of the O'Rileys and Hannitys...but stand in front of her and let her answer your questions.
Then I'm sure you can gloat because your (alleged) son wasn't killed.
posted on August 14, 2005 08:24:31 PM new
Linda I already knew what a coward you are. YOU could never stand face to face with a woman like that..she is your superior in every way.
And as usual , you don't want the truth...because it NEVER coincides with what you think
posted on August 14, 2005 08:26:27 PM new
Linda, as I have said before, she has disgraced his death and I am sure he would not go along with this, he reenlisted after all and he knew what was going on.
To dismiss that part of the story is to totally disrespect his wishes.
William Rivers Pitt writes for TruthOut. Linda, most writing throughout the internet would be leftist from your narrowminded and regressive viewpoint. It must be frustrating to have to limit your appreciation of news and literature to rag papers and bloggs of the radical right. That article was posted at Democratic Underground. and is one of the best that I have read about Cindy's efforts.
posted on August 14, 2005 08:47:38 PM new
Wonder how long before one of those "Dove hunters" shoots the trespassers.
Enough is enough, President Bush is not going to talk directly to this....um woman. and that should be the end of it, bet he is flippng her the bird behind those dark tinted windows as he drives by LOL
posted on August 14, 2005 08:51:01 PM new
""Enough is enough, President Bush is not going to talk directly to this....um woman. and that should be the end of it, bet he is flippng her the bird behind those dark tinted windows as he drives by LOL ""
He probably is...that's how much he respects the sacrifice Americans have made because of his agenda.
posted on August 14, 2005 08:53:11 PM new
What a callous and creepy remark, WashingtonBayer. You not only degrade yourself but also the president in one fell swoop.
posted on August 14, 2005 09:26:23 PM new
I agree, Ron, she is imo also. But as you see here all the time, the wacko anti-war people don't hear/read what they don't want to. To them what HE wanted to do doesn't fit in well with their anti-war agenda....so to hel! with HIM....let's make his mother into something she's not.
----------------------
helen....what I stated above is true. Wm. Pitt is a blogger on Truthout.org....funny title for an extremist site....they wouldn't know nor understand truth if they were taking their last breath. And HIS political position is NOT how I see it....he's a SELF-admitted liberal activist.
democrats underground???? Just as I thought of you helen.....doing things 'underground' that aren't in our Nation's best interests. NOR are they a 'moderate liberal' group....they're out and out WACKO extremists......just like you are helen.
NOT the democratic base at all.
"Whenever the nation is under attack, from within or without, liberals side with the enemy. This is their essence." --Ann Coulter
And why the American Voters chose to RE-elect President Bush to four more years. YES!!!
posted on August 14, 2005 09:33:15 PM new
helen says: The Democratic Underground forum is a good one!
Posters here used to tell liberals, like helen, to 'go back under the rock you crawled out of. Here, all this time, I thought they were kidding....but now I see they weren't.
Being 'underground' does imply you too hide under rocks and slither out to post your venom helen. And now we know where your 'buddies' are hiding out too.
how funny....underground....yep....I can just picture you there. No wonder you always 'think' the black helicopters are circling helen.
"Whenever the nation is under attack, from within or without, liberals side with the enemy. This is their essence." --Ann Coulter
And why the American Voters chose to RE-elect President Bush to four more years. YES!!!
posted on August 15, 2005 06:13:03 AM new "helen....what I stated above is true. Wm. Pitt is a blogger on Truthout.org democrats underground???? Just as I thought of you helen.....doing things 'underground' that aren't in our Nation's best interests. NOR are they a 'moderate liberal' group....they're out and out WACKO extremists......just like you are helen.
Truthout is not primarily a blog, linda. It's a news source and yes, it's significantly left of your right-wing "Townhall". Truthout features Environmental, Labor and Health issues along with current major political concerns. You might be interested also in their popular Multimedia page with videos of news events,
Democrats Underground is the name of a major Democratic Political chatboard and they do have our Nation's best interest in mind unlike radical nuts like you. I suppose I should let them know that Linda, who still has one foot in the McCarthy era is very suspicious about the name of the board. She believes, based on that name that the board is some kind of undercover, cloak and dagger outfit probably harboring Commies and Socialists. LOL.
Linda, you should review your posts before you post them and remove all doubt of your profound ignorance. I can understand how someone with your limited knowledge, together with your narrow minded focus might misconstrue information so badly. Your position on this board is laughable and has weakened over the last year along with the failing administration that you support with such blind, religious fervor.
posted on August 15, 2005 06:23:11 AM new
Helen, the reason you and Linda get along so famously is because you're direct opposites on the politcal scale.
As far right as you accuse her of being, you are as far left.
posted on August 15, 2005 06:35:46 AM new
Yep opposites attract, you two would make a good replacement for Hannity and Combes, Combes is not as far left as you Helen.
Out.org is a liberal activist. 
But as you see here all the time, the wacko anti-war people don't hear/read what they don't want to. To them what HE wanted to do doesn't fit in well with their anti-war agenda....so to hel! with HIM....let's make his mother into something she's not.