[Peace-discuss] Barack Obama to Cindy Sheehan: Get Lost

[E. Wayne Johnson]

/"Is there no shame to this poltician, Obama, who rose to high office on 
the yearning of so many for peace?
How long will we allow the soothing words of this latter day Elmer 
Gantry to cover up his deeds?...
That soft hand of Obama's is soaked in considerable blood now, some of 
it Nicholas X's,
no less than the rough hands of Bush and Cheney. Obama's message is clear.
Sacrifice your child and endure without complaint the "numb and raw" 
emotions that come of your grief...
... and the "leaders" of the antiwar movement are nowhere to be seen or 
heard."/

Barack Obama to Cindy Sheehan: Get Lost
At Obama's Summer Place with Cindy: "Leadership" of Peace Movement, MIA
by John Walsh / September 5th, 2009
http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/09/barack-obama-to-cindy-sheehan-get-lost/

I spent but a short time with Cindy Sheehan as she carried her antiwar 
protest from an earlier time at Crawford, TX, to Martha's Vineyard, 
vacation spot for Obama and many other Democrat Party elite. As Cindy 
remarked, the real story was not that she was protesting Obama's wars 
but that the "leadership" of the peace movement did not support her 
protest. When the target was Bush in Crawford, she was all the rage with 
antiwar celebrities, but not so now that the target is Barack Obama. 
While there is considerable enthusiasm for her anti-Obama protest on the 
part of the rank and file in the anti-war movement, a refusal of its 
"leaders" to notify their members far and wide, high and low, crippled 
the action.

As a result of this betrayal, the numbers at Martha's Vineyard were not 
large. But Cindy and her fellow anti-warriors were undeterred. While I 
was there, she mounted a spirited march down the road to Obama's place, 
no more than a quarter mile away from where she stayed. The purpose was 
to present the President with a poster of Cindy bearing a signed plea to 
end the wars. The considerable armed force at the gate and the Secret 
Service officers would not even bring out the lowliest of staffers to 
receive the poster. Clearly the message from Obama was "Get lost, 
Cindy." And we were quickly told to move a considerable distance down 
the road. At least in Crawford it had been possible to demonstrate at 
the checkpoint to the site -- not so at Obama's place. Thus, did Obama 
greet a mother whose son was lost in the wars, which he continues and 
enlarges by the day.

The site chosen by Obama for his vacation appeared restful, even 
idyllic, that afternoon though the house itself was a considerable 
distance away from the road, hidden from view. But the image of the 
"antiwar" candidate lounging comfortably by the ocean, his family 
nearby, while ordering the deaths, by drones and assorted other killing 
instruments, of people half a world away, complete innocents, unknown to 
this man or his advisers, was disturbing indeed. What sort of man could 
do this? Does Obama bring his much ballyhooed "coolness" down a degree 
or two for cold blooded murder? Are these wars a matter of conscience or 
patriotism for Obama? If that were so, does one suppose in a future 
imperial war that Obama will urge his daughters to volunteer to die in 
some Muslim land any more than did Bush offer his daughters? Is there no 
shame to this poltician, Obama, who rose to high office on the yearning 
of so many for peace? How long will we allow the soothing words of this 
latter day Elmer Gantry to cover up his deeds?

Despite the silence of the antiwar misleaders, news of Cindy Sheehan's 
presence did make the rounds of Cape Cod and the Islands. And who knows 
but that it might have gone further. Was Obama going to be caught 
unprepared? A cynic or a realist, or merely someone familiar with the 
Obama PR machine, might be pardoned for thinking that a plan was in 
place --- and executed in the form of an anti-Cindy mom. And so it came 
to pass that, while there was no time for Cindy, the Obamas did make it 
a point to pay a highly publicized visit to another mom, Lisa X, who had 
lost her son in Obama's AfPak war. This young man Obama had happened to 
encounter earlier this year at Camp Lejeune. The Cape Cod Times reported 
the meeting thus:

So, yesterday afternoon, the family drove from Yarmouthport to Coast 
Guard Air Station Cape Cod. They waited about two hours at the base. ... 
The Obamas entered. .... President Obama called them all by their first 
names, Lisa said. "It was like seeing a friend you hadn't seen in a 
couple months," Lisa said of the nearly 10-minute meeting.

President Obama offered his condolences. "He told us whatever decisions 
he makes, he has Nick (and others serving) in mind," Lisa said. Earlier 
this year, Nicholas X met President Obama and shook his hand. The 
president gave a speech at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. Shortly 
after, Nicholas decided he wanted to be part of the new offensive in 
Afghanistan, his father told the /Times/ in July.

Lisa said her son called her right after the meeting. "He shook his 
(President Obama's) hand and called me moments later and said, 'Mom, the 
President was amazing, his hand was the softest thing I've ever touched, 
like a baby's bottom,'" Lisa recalled.

She made sure to tell President Obama that yesterday, drawing a laugh 
from him. Lisa X said her family is "still pretty numb and raw" over 
losing Nicholas. But she thought of his likely reaction to the family 
meeting the Obamas. "He is probably laughing hysterically ... and proud."

Such an account should break your heart and stir your anger at this 
hypocritical politician. The more so if, as one might suspect, this 
encounter made cynical use of this grieving woman's trust. That soft 
hand of Obama's is soaked in considerable blood now, some of it Nicholas 
X's, no less than the rough hands of Bush and Cheney. Obama's message is 
clear. Sacrifice your child and endure without complaint the "numb and 
raw" emotions that come of your grief. And then Barack Obama will glad 
hand you for "nearly ten minutes" and get some good press --- after you 
cool your heels for two hours awaiting the cool, great man. But protest 
the senseless death of your son, and you get the bum's rush at Obama's 
gate. Thus, does the erstwhile "antiwar candidate" (How silly that 
phrase sounds now!) treat Cindy Sheehan whose like he once called on to 
join him in making peace. And the "leaders" of the antiwar movement are 
nowhere to be seen or heard.


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