[Peace-discuss] Cindy Sheehan Takes on the Democrats

[C. G. Estabrook]

   Cindy Sheehan Takes on the Democrats, Hillary Clinton
   The anti-war activist has plenty to say -—
   and it’s not all about Bush
   by Kristen Lombardi
   September 20th, 2005 2:27 PM

http://villagevoice.com/news/0538,lombardiweb,68015,2.html

Cindy Sheehan, the rising star of the anti-war movement,
remembers when
people used to think of her as one of those crazy activists,
speaking out
for a cause, inconveniencing all who stumbled onto her path.
She remembers,
from her days camped outside President Bush’s ranch in Texas,
how some
drivers would shout out at her, "Get a job!"

Her response was always the same. "I’d say to them, ‘I have a
job,’ "
Sheehan explained Monday night at the last of her New York
events, at the
Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine. "I’d say, ‘It’s a
full-time job,
and it’s to hold George Bush accountable.’ " With that, the
1200-strong
crowd of peace activists, war veterans, ministers, and
high-school students
went wild.

Sheehan, the mother of an American soldier killed in Iraq, has
become the
persistent thorn in George Bush’s side and, in the process, an
icon for
Americans angry with the way the president and his
administration is
handling the war. Monday night, she drew out the anti-war
sentiment in New
York, making her last stop in well-publicized three-bus Bring
Them Home Now
Tour launched from Crawford, Texas, on August 31. The tour has
traveled to
51 cities in 28 states.

Audience members packed into the cavernous hall wearing
T-shirts with block
letters, that read: I SUPPORT CINDY SHEEHAN. BRING OUR TROOPS
HOME. Others
donned baseball hats, VETERANS FOR PEACE, or carried makeshift
signs, CINDY,
YES. BUSH, NO. They waited to hear the celebrity guest for an
hour,
listening to emotional stories of other military families. The
message? Don’
t keep our troops fighting a war based on lies. Instead, get
on the bus and
protest in Washington, D.C., the site of a three-day anti-war
rally this
weekend.

When Sheehan assumed center stage, she kept her focus on Bush,
calling him
"a liar" whose "reckless, callous, and moronic policies have
made our
country vulnerable." Bush, she said, had proven himself a
coward who cares
little about the troops in Iraq.

"I hate to be harsh," she said, "but we’re not accepting any
excuses for not
bringing our troops home."

But Sheehan isn’t stopping her critique with Bush. On the
contrary, she has
begun to set her sights on Congress and the Democratic Party
as well. When
she spoke in Brooklyn on the night before, she took note of
the fact that
Senator Hillary Clinton voted to authorize Bush to use force
in Iraq and–
like most Senate Democrats–has done little to bring the troops
home.
Clinton, in fact, has filed legislation calling for more troops.

In an interview after her speech, Sheehan told the Voice she
was "so
frustrated" by leading Democrats like Clinton "who should be
leaders on this
issue, but are not." Already, she has set up a future meeting
with New York’
s junior senator this weekend. And she plans to sit down with
the state’s
senior senator, Chuck Schumer, too. "It’s time for them to
step up and be
the opposition party," she said. "This war is not going to end
unless the
Democrats are on board with us."

Local anti-war activists agree, and are busy strategizing on
how to kick up
the pressure. "There is a real push to put members of Congress
on the hot
seat," says Bill Dobbs, of the New York City chapter of United
for Peace and
Justice. "It’s one thing to put the blame on Bush for this
whole mess, but
it’s Congress who has the power to stop it. We’ve got to make
them pay a
price for keeping this war going."

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