by Starman » Tue Aug 16, 2005 8:03 pm
Chiggerbit --<br><br>For the life of me, I just can't get what you are going on about. You keep shouting for people to 'listen!', but IMO you haven't been hearing what people have been saying -- they HAVE been talking and listening -- but there's no dialogue if there's no forum. Well, they are MAKING a forum thru this act of Public Gathering to Petition their Government in the person of the so-called President for Redress of Grievances -- a very fundamental, crucial First Amendment Civil Right: <br><br>Freedom of Speech - First Amendment: an overview of your rights...assembly and to petition the government for a redress of grievances, ... The right to assemble allows people to gather for peaceful and lawful purposes. ...<br>www.berwyn-il.com/firstamendmentoverview.htm <br><br>Many tens of thousands of People like Larry would have continued blocking their ears and their minds, if not for a concerted movement galvinized behind Cindy Sheehan's principled mission to talk with the president -- and after all, the Prez. has said numerous times that he's going to use his vacation time to 'listen to the voices of the ordinary people' -- Well, he's simply showing consistency in being a self-absorbed hypocritical who lacks the courage of his convictions, because he is incapable of compassion and decency -- he's showing his true colors by refusing to listen to a parent who has been made to bear the horrible cost of a child killed killed in a stinking, rotton, illegal and immoral war fought for all the worst reasons -- national arrogance, ideological conceit, the rascist belligerance of bullying contempt for those considered inferiors who are being made scapegoats for past decades of one's own ruinous Foreign Policy, and as cover for one's own nations intimate ties and direction and support for the most atrocious forms of terrorism and violence.<br><br>And WHY do you insist that people opposing the War should act with single-strategy, one-mind uniformity of purpose and in lock-step conformity with an idealized behavior, bending over backwards to avoid potentially offending even the most thinskinned, self-absorbed bigot? Your expectation is worse than absurd -- its intrinsically defeatist and a cop-out besides being impractical and denying the reality that those people reflecting very personalized, unique, progressive, social-activist, anti-war, truth-seeking, reformist and etc. positions and beliefs, are the STRONGEST when they are true to their OWN beleifs and positions -- they share some perspectives and values, but there's NOTHING like the straight-laced, regimented, homogenized 'position' that the rightwing moral-majority Republicans spend so much time and energy creating and maintaining, telling their supporters what narrow ideas to embrace -- to the extent that they vet each-and-every rally and speech attendee for evidence of 'unapproved' opinions and views, from the kinds of bumperstickers on their cars and the printed t-shirts under their clothes to their history or attending 'unapproved' demonstrations and talks. Your sense of where the alternative-progressive-activist community gets their integrity and strength from is like 180 degrees from mine -- I see individuality and personal integrity and self-expression as enormous strengths, even with the quirks and human foibles and flaws that ALL people contain, but which you see as tremendous liabilities because the 'message' isn't so-easily kept on-track and focused. I think we have radically different notions of what works and where strength lies, even what 'unity' is about. You expect the anti-war demonstrators and protestors to act with one mind -- where EVER do you get such a crazy notion of where deeply-held convictions come from, that people would abandon their self-autonomy and stop acting in accord with their principles, to 'follow' a script?<br><br>re: Your assumption that no-one bothered to talk with Larry after his foolish shotgun demonstration of contempt for his temporary neighbors, which he insisted as viewing as unwanted, unappreciated guests he had no intention of being civil to.<br><br>Immediately after his shooting-demonstration, Cindy Shehan went over and tried to talk with him -- HE refused to listen or talk to her. I read this right-after your comment yesterday, and am surprised no-one brought it to your attention. Also, I read another Camp Sheehan accompanied a reporter who talked with larry later, and at least answered a few questions -- in which he showed that he might have been out in the sun a few years too long without a hat.<br><br>Re:<br>Mother’s Iraq-war Protest near Bush Ranch Picks Up Steam<br>August 16th, 2005 <br>Published on Monday, August 15, 2005 by Orlando Sentinel (Florida)<br><br>--excerpt--<br><br>Anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan speaks to the media after land owner fired off his shotgun in the air during an interfaith prayer service at Sheehan’s camp near Crawford, Texas, Sunday, Aug. 14, 2005. Sheehan came over to try and talk to the land owner who did not accept her offer. (AP Photo/LM Otero)<br><br>--unquote--<br><br>Regrdz;<br>Starman <p></p><i></i>