Rhetoric 101 - Down & Out in Texas (Sheehan) Part 2

Politics International Politics
1

This just in:

breitbart.com/news/2005/08/18/D8C2G5EG0.html

[quote]‘Peace Mom’ Leaves Camp, Her Mother Ill
Aug 18 5:50 PM US/Eastern

By ANGELA K. BROWN
Associated Press Writer

CRAWFORD, Texas
The grieving woman who started an anti-war demonstration near President Bush’s ranch nearly two weeks ago said Thursday she was leaving because her mother had a stroke.

Cindy Sheehan told reporters she had just received the phone call and was leaving immediately to be with her 74-year-old mother at a Los Angeles hospital.

“I’ll be back as soon as possible if it’s possible,” she said. After hugging some of her supporters, Sheehan and her sister, Deedee Miller, got in a van and left for the Waco airport about 20 miles away. [/quote]

OK, now I guess the test is, can Camp Casey survive without her?

I also found a couple of articles that relate to this story. Not surprisingly, not all parents of KIAs agreewith Sheehan:

cnn.com/2005/US/08/17/marine … cnn_latest

[quote]WEST CHESTER, Ohio (AP) – The mother of a Marine killed in Iraq urged mourners Wednesday not to let their anger and sadness turn them against the U.S. fight in Iraq.

“Honor me in this way,” Kathy Dyer said during a memorial service for Lance Cpl. Christopher J. Dyer, 19, of the Cincinnati suburb of Evendale.

At the funeral at Tri-County Baptist Church, Kathy Dyer delivered what she believed would have been her son’s own message: “It has been with the greatest pride I have served … fighting to preserve freedom.”[/quote]

and this:

opinionjournal.com/editorial … =110007122

[quote]She Does Not Speak for Me
My son died in Iraq–and it was not in vain.

BY RONALD R. GRIFFIN
Thursday, August 18, 2005 12:01 a.m. EDT

I lost a son in Iraq and Cindy Sheehan does not speak for me.

I grieve with Mrs. Sheehan, for all too well I know the full measure of the agony she is forever going to endure. I honor her son for his service and sacrifice. However, I abhor all that she represents and those who would cast her as the symbol for parents of our fallen soldiers.

The fallen heroes, until now, have enjoyed virtually no individuality. They have been treated as a monolith, a mere number. Now Mrs. Sheehan, with adept public relations tactics, has succeeded in elevating herself above the rest of us. Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida declared that Mrs. Sheehan is now the symbol for all parents who have lost children in Iraq. Sorry, senator. Not for me.[/quote]

2

Sorry if this has been answered, but I gave up following this thread carefully pages ago.

I understand that this woman has been “endowed” with “absolute moral authority” by all sorts of people… but has she ever claimed, in anything other than a lazy, sort of rhetorical way, to speak on behalf of all the grieving parents, rather than for grieving parents? A rather fine distinction, I know. If she’s claiming to speak on their behalf, as a somehow legitimately chosen political representative, then the “She don’t speak for me,” quotations make sense. But if she’s simply speak for grieving parents, and from her own pain–which is a moral claim–then what does it whether or others say she doesn’t represent them. Her pain and loss are hers, and reason enough to make a fuss.

Just curious. Again, I haven’t been following closely for at least 8 or 9 pages… which works out to what, 5, 6 hours of posting on this one? :wink:

3

[quote=“Jaboney”]Sorry if this has been answered, but I gave up following this thread carefully pages ago.

I understand that this woman has been “endowed” with “absolute moral authority” by all sorts of people… but has she ever claimed, in anything other than a lazy, sort of rhetorical way, to speak on behalf of all the grieving parents, rather than for grieving parents? A rather fine distinction, I know. If she’s claiming to speak on their behalf, as a somehow legitimately chosen political representative, then the “She don’t speak for me,” quotations make sense. But if she’s simply speak for grieving parents, and from her own pain–which is a moral claim–then what does it whether or others say she doesn’t represent them. Her pain and loss are hers, and reason enough to make a fuss. [/quote]
Well, she and her buddies put up five hundred, or maybe it was eight hundred (I’ve seen both numbers mentioned, not sure which is correct), white crosses. I’ve seen photos of one of them being marked with her son’s name. Did she mark the others with the names of other fallen soldiers? Did she get their parents’ permission to co-opt their names into her protest? If unmarked, are we to assume that 500 or 800 out of the ~1860 KIA are supporting her protest?

And if HER son “died for oil” and “died to spread the cancer of Pax Americana”, doesn’t that mean that the rest of them did too? Or is her son somehow special in that regard? It seems that she is tarring the entire war effort and peace effort with one giant brush.

Is she claiming that her son was responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib as well? After all, if he died to spread the cancer of Pax Americana, is he not one of the fine upstanding young torturers who wired Iraqi prisoners to electrical generators? Didn’t Casey in fact deserve to be punished for this groupthink collective crime?

She can’t have it selectively. if what she is protesting is how she really feels, then she should be happy that her son got blown into small bloody shreds to atone for his crimes against humanity. He volunteered, after all. :fume:

4

I don’t know. Like I said, I’ve given up following this closely.

[quote=“MoPoSquid”]She can’t have it selectively. if what she is protesting is how she really feels, then [color=blue]she should be happy that her son got blown into small bloody shreds to atone for his crimes against humanity[/color]. He volunteered, after all. :fume:[/quote] Uhm, that’s really a bit much, don’t you think?

5

I want to put up Sheehan’s blog, and note that it is on the dailykos, a well known liberal blog. I mention this as the coverage Sheehan is getting is largly coming from dailykos IMO. The cause and effect is this. What Kos writes is attacked by right wing blogs, and vice versa.

I have said before Sheehan IMO is getting swept up in the moment and making herself to be more important in her mind than she really is. A quote in support of this from her blog:

dailykos.com/user/CindySheehan

[quote]by CindySheehan
Sat Aug 13th, 2005 at 21:43:45 PDT
It is not often that Cindy Sheehan is at a loss for words. I will try and describe today, though. It was the most incredible, fantastic, fabulous, amazing, powerful, miraculous event I have ever been apart of. I was so humbled and honored at the outpouring of love and support that arrived in Camp Casey today.

It was a busy morning of interviews and problem solving.

I had interviews with some network shows and a photo shoot for the Vanity Fair article.

Almost all of the reporters ask me if I have accomplished anything at Camp Casey and I think we really have. We have brought the war onto the front pages of the newspapers and the top stories of the mainstream media.

It is really incredible that we are doing so well in the media because I keep telling all of the reporters that I am doing their jobs. I am asking the tough questions of the President that they don’t ask.[/quote]

Hubris? Paging Mrs. Hubris? Ther MSM hasn’t been covering the war? Exsqueeze me?? She’s asking the tough questions? :unamused:

6

[quote=“Jaboney”]I don’t know. Like I said, I’ve given up following this closely.

Not at all. If the “antiwar” crowd can hold protest marches waving banners reading “we support our troops when they frag their officers”, then surely she can find it in her heart to feel joy that her son died for his crimes against humanity.

The rest of us can mourn the passing of an honorable young man who died trying to rescue fellow soldiers, in a war that toppled a brutal dictator.

7

Hitchens on Sheehan:

slate.com/id/2124500/fr/nl/

What dreary sentimental nonsense this all is, and how much space has been wasted on it. Most irritating is the snide idea that the president is “on vacation” and thus idly ignoring his suffering subjects, when the truth is that the members of the media

8

[quote=“MaPoSquid”]If the “antiwar” crowd can hold protest marches waving banners reading “we support our troops when they frag their officers”[/quote] WHAT?!?! I missed that one. That’s insane. Where’d you see that?

[quote=“MaPoSquid”]The rest of us can mourn the passing of an honorable young man who died trying to rescue fellow soldiers.[/quote] That seems only right, whatever the war. You’ve read “All Quiet on the Western Front,” right? Didn’t feel any less sorry for those poor saps because they were on the wrong side, did you?

9

Don’t hold your breath.

10

American jihadis seem to be looking in the mirror these days whenever they judge others as if they’re engaged in some sort of subconscious, Freudian soul searching.

“Dreary sentimental nonsense?” ‘Speaking for the fallen?’

What better descriptions could there be of their self-righteous nonsense that they started all this in order to free the Iraqi people and deliver them to the promised land of democracy or that they’ve somehow assumed the mantle of righteous avengers for every murdered Iraqi man, woman and child from the past as if they all died by someone else’s hand.

Cindy Sheehan may or may not have allowed her personal pain to degenerate into a political sideshow but she’s by no means the biggest clown in town.

11

Don’t forget the frequent claims to speak for all the member of the armed forces in Iraq.

12

In past wars has it ever been necessary to get the permission of the relatives in order to mourn the loss of lives? My undergrad university had a list of all its students who went on to die in the World Wars and various other conflicts. Do you feel that they should have relented at the Vietnam War memorial and not put up names if next-of-kin said: “Nawww, leave him off. He was an asshole anyways!”? Just trying to figure out what new standards you’re trying to ask for here. We can already see that the Bush administration is very sensitive to allowing any photos or other coverage of the coffins being brought back, we can see that they don’t like the idea of reading the names of the dead in public … now you want us to have to ask the permission of family members before we can mourn our nation’s war dead??

It would seem she has chosen to love the soldiers and hate what the commander has done with them. It would be probably fair to say she hates the war but realizes that the soldiers have no control over where they are sent or ordered to do.

With regards to Abu Ghraib, I find it interesting that you would offer this as an example. Are you arguing that these sorts of abuses were likely commanded from above? Mrs. Sheehan apparently has a broader view that we shouldn’t have been in Iraq in the first place and is putting her blame squarely on Bush and his team. Gen. Sanchez has already been caught out in a direct lie in front of Congress about the guidelines in place for interrogating detainees. It does seem mighty strange that the same sorts of abuses would show up in so many places, and I’m afraid that Mr. Gonzalez’s opinion that the POTUS is above the law seems to have opened up some strange cans of worms.

Getting back to Mrs. Sheehan, no it does not appear at all that she has taken an anti-soldier standpoint on this in any regards. But if I do read that she has a specific opinion on Abu Ghraib I’ll be sure to get it to you.

Interesting that you would suggest that someone should ever be happy about the death of a U.S. soldier. I take a very different view. However, I think you miss the point that Mrs. Sheehan is angry that anybody’s kid (and particularly her own) would have to die for the schemes of a guy who is basically misusing government resources for his own obsession.

The Downing Street memos and other evidence shows that Bush was obsessed with invading Iraq before 9-11 and without regard to any of the actual evidence about Iraq. Are we supposed to all keep our mouths shut should Bush suddenly decide to take the 7th Fleet on a worldwide cruise to hunt for a giant white whale?

13

[quote=“Tetsuo”][quote=“Jaboney”][quote=“MaPoSquid”]If the “antiwar” crowd can hold protest marches waving banners reading “we support our troops when they frag their officers”[/quote] WHAT?!?! I missed that one. That’s insane. Where’d you see that?[/quote]Don’t hold your breath.[/quote]Time to exhale…


Npt photoshopped.
frontpagemag.com/Articles/Re … sp?ID=8744
frontpagemag.com/Articles/Pr … sp?ID=8744

Another source…
littlegreenfootballs.com/web … the_Troops

At #6…
mrc.org/cyberalerts/2003/cyb20030401.asp

A funny thread…
talkback.lancasteronline.com/lof … 17766.html

"Columbia Professor of Anthropology Nicholas DeGenova said, “The only true heroes are those who find ways that help defeat the U.S. military.” He added that he’d like to see “a million Mogadishus.” Joel Engel of The Weekly Standard reports seeing a banner held aloft at an antiwar rally: “We support our troops when they shoot their officers.”
townhall.com/columnists/mona … 0411.shtml

I think you get the idea…Its a fact.
Search on google

14

Ann coulter comes up in the top three on a random Yahoo search?! No wonder CNN got labelled the Communist News Network in the States :loco: And a news generating machine? She is (or rather was) standing on a roadside in rural texas (at a pretty famous address I give you…)- the media came to her. Obviously her and her supporters are doing an impressive job of keeping up a high level of publicity, and therefore pressure on Bush. That’s simply using the press to the best of your advantage.

God damn Freedom of the Press. :wink:

[quote="jd smith "]Quote:
My personal favorite line was “America has been under relentless attack from Islamic terrorists for 20 years”

I believe she starts with the hostages in Iran.

BTW, you’re a pot smoking peacenik [/quote]

I may be stoned out of brains right now, but I can still count higher than the number of fingers and toes I have. The hostage crises started in 79 and ended at the start of 81. It’s not much hard to type 25 than 20. Secondly, it was IN Iran. It’s difficult to be “under relentless attack” in someone else’s country. Let’s not forget the CIA’s role in toppling the democrtically elected government of Iran in the 1950’s. Maybe I’m just too high right now, but I can’t seem to recall the last Islamic state that attempted a coup d’etat of a Western government, let alone the US.

Some people disagree with a mother calling your president a murderer and a liar? Well I’ll be a talking head of FOX News…

You know there are also soldiers who are against the war!! I found some links to a guy named Carl Webb who has gone AWOL, refusing to report for training. He claims 6000 others have officially done the same, but many more have not been listed as AWOL because the army doesn’t want the bad publicity of rounding up dissenters, nor does it have the resources at the moment to do so. The army has apparently contacted him and offered to let him off with a honorable discharge. I guess they would like his story to go away quietly.

Here’s that link
carlwebb.net

[quote="MaPoSquid
"]And if HER son “died for oil” and “died to spread the cancer of Pax Americana”, doesn’t that mean that the rest of them did too? Or is her son somehow special in that regard? It seems that she is tarring the entire war effort and peace effort with one giant brush. [/quote]

Yep, they all died for oil. As have tens of thousands of Iraqis. Or they’ve all died for whatever else this war is about. And it sure as hell isn’t about WMDs. Or 9/11. Or bringing democarcy to the middle east. Bush’s boys are real politick thugs, not ideologes who wish to spread democracy around the world.

[quote=“MaPoSquid”]Is she claiming that her son was responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib as well? After all, if he died to spread the cancer of Pax Americana, is he not one of the fine upstanding young torturers who wired Iraqi prisoners to electrical generators? Didn’t Casey in fact deserve to be punished for this groupthink collective crime?

She can’t have it selectively. if what she is protesting is how she really feels, then she should be happy that her son got blown into small bloody shreds to atone for his crimes against humanity. He volunteered, after all.
:slight_smile: [/quote]

That’s an absurd thing to say. Under this logic all US soliders were resposible for the Mai Lai (sp?) massacre, all german soldiers, even those drafted at age 14 towards the end of the war, were resposible for the holocaust. The army runs in a chain of command. Some of those commands come from the Commander in Chief, some from the Secretary of Defence. Casey was no more resposible for what happened at Abu Ghraib than you. I would say me too, but I’m not a US citizen so I didn’t vote for the commander in chief. :slight_smile:

15

To attack Sheehan, it seems that people are resorting to saying she’s a loony old bat who’s insulting the troops. Problem is that Sheehan’s grasp of the essential problem with the war is pretty good – and it is clear, crystal clear, that she blames the commander not the troops.

People want to say she’s “bad” because she’s getting divorced; they try to say the divorce is based on Sheehan’s views on the war.

Frankly, looks like a lot of people in this forum thread have nothing to do but lie about this woman. And having MaPoSquid say “she should be happy that her son got blown into small bloody shreds,” is frankly beyond the pale.

16

IP Co-Mod Angrily Stamping Foot Note:

On MaPoSquid’s comment, we agree; he goes too far.

To suggest that the people involved in the thread who are critical of Sheehan are lying, also goes too far.
Assume the best, or back it up.
Big, angry frown. grrrl snarl

Seriously, so far there has been a reasonable discussion on this. Keep it reasonable.[/color]

17

Jaboney – Anyone who assumes Sheehan’s husband is ditching her based on her protest based on a complete absence of actual information is not assuming the best nor backing it up. When they present this as “fact” it seems to fall far short of being truthful. However, I promise to be nice!

Might MaPoSquid like to reciprocate? He doesn’t need to apologize to us, but perhaps he could offer something up to the U.S. troops. Doesn’t have to be his enlistment paperwork, but perhaps that excellent website link he once put up would be a good way to send something that the troops need. It was a very nice website! :slight_smile: Maybe he could send a nice encouraging card to Mrs. Sheehan – editted due to being nasty and somewhat inflamatory–jds.

18

[color=green]Thank you, mofangongren. Your gesture, and promise, are much appreciated. [/color]

Nobody posting here is on the ground where the action is, none of us has full information, so there’s inevitably going to be a lot of speculation. That’s cool. If getting it wrong, being corrected, and growing smarter as a result is part of it, it’s more than cool. It’s healthy, and to that extent we all owe one another a debt of thanks. Hopefully, our more…sensational…speculations will be supported by credible sources.

I believe that we can agree that there is a difference between “falling short of truthfulness” and deliberately lying. Sometimes, we do simply get it wrong, or misspeak. There’s also a difference between leveling accusations at public figures and doing the same to our fellow Forumosans. To paraphrase TainanCowboy, “Taiwan’s an island, and Forumosa is an even smaller island. It’s not a good idea to make trouble on an island.”

I’d absolutely glow with pleasure if MaPoSquid were to reciprocate in some way… or even just withdraw that comment. I might even lead a course of “Kumbaya”, if my voice weren’t guaranteed to provoke an immediate, fully justified revolt. I have no idea what MaPoSquid’s excellent website link is, but would love to see it. That said, I’m sure that Mrs. Sheehan has more than enough on her plate at the moment, so the suggestion that he contact her might be reasonably set aside.

19

I frankly think that it is not bad to acknowledge that people go through very non-partisan stuff in their lives all the time. I once got a very nice note from Bob Dole after I stopped by his office on his last day in the Senate to wish him well. Does it take anything away from anybody to acknowledge Sheehan’s mom means something for her?

20

Interesting commentary linking the treatment of Cindy Sheehan to that of other Bush critics.

[quote=“Frank Rich, The Swift Boating of Cindy Sheehan, NYT”]When these setbacks happen in Iraq itself, the administration punts. But when they happen at home, there’s a game plan. Once Ms. Sheehan could no longer be ignored, the Swift Boating began. Character assassination is the Karl Rove tactic of choice, eagerly mimicked by his media surrogates, whenever the White House is confronted by a critic who challenges it on matters of war. The Swift Boating is especially vicious if the critic has more battle scars than a president who connived to serve stateside and a vice president who had “other priorities” during Vietnam.

The most prominent smear victims have been Bush political opponents with heroic Vietnam r