Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

From: "Michael T. McPhearson" <VFPED@sbcglobal.net>
Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2005 15:33:55 -0500
Subject: [vfp-all] VFP Convention and Supporting Cindy Sheehan (A
message from the Executive Director)


Dear Members

The Veterans For Peace 2005 Convention, 20 Years of Waging Peace was a
great success. It is hard for me to tell as I worked behind the scenes
how everything went, but the feedback from veterans, associate members,
friends, family and guest is overwhelmingly positive. We had over 250
attendees, wonderful speakers and workshops. People are inspired and
batteries recharged to resist war and specifically the current conflict in
Iraq. (More on the convention to later)

Most of you know that Cindy Sheehan along with many other incredible
people, (Mike Hoffman, Camilio Mejia, Coleen Rowley, Dahr Jamail) spoke
to the convention Friday night. I’m not sure when Cindy decided to go to
Crawford, but Saturday morning a contingent of veterans, military
families and other convention attendees stood ready to accompany her. We had
a small battalion at the convention, we sent a company to support
Cindy. In the photographs and television news coverage, you see Iraq
Veterans Against the War and our members and banners.

The recent deaths of so many troops, the momentum of the convention and
the Crawford action has taken us into a new phase of resistance. Weeks
before the convention, I wrote the essay Why Dallas.

“It is time for us to make our presence felt again. The conservative
heartland must see and hear the faces and voice of dissent. It is
important to the success of our cause to gather in the unusual places where
progressives are seldom found. We must take our message to the
unconverted and be fearless in the face of those who try to intimidate us.”

Cindy is leading the charge and we must back her up.

What can you do?

1. Go To Crawford
Many of us are heading to Crawford. David Cline, the National President
plans to arrive there by the end of the week. Elements of Arlington
West are on the road right now. At this time, VFP National is not calling
for a mass convergence on Crawford. We do need members to go and act as
an advance party to support Cindy and prepare for a mass turnout. But
right now we think the best tactical approach is to allow the
confrontation between the President and Gold Star Parents For Peace like Cindy,
Sue Neiderer, and military families with love ones in Iraq to develop.
Too many other people in the mix can distort the story and the
opportunity. We are there to lend support. Soon it will be time to bring in the
re-enforcements. So in other words if you can’t make it right now,
don’t worry, we will need you later. Those who can make it, get there as
fast as you can.

Please let us know if you plan to go just to keep us informed of who we
have on the ground. You should also visit this link from the Crawford
Peace House for more information (lodging etc.).
http://www.crawfordpeacehouse.org/protest.html


2. Tell our story (Cindy left from our convention escorted by
veterans to talk to George) Write your newspaper, call into talk shows and
tell your friends and family. If you did not attend the convention,
Mike Ferner has written a great piece, Cindy Sheehan in Dallas: What One
Mom has to Say to Bush http://counterpunch.com/ferner08092005.html
If you were there you have firsthand knowledge. Tell the story.
Remember to keep it focused on Cindy, a grieving mother who simply wants
answers, and the President who has refused to provide them.

3. Send donations to support Cindy and our efforts.
David Cline, the National President of Veterans For Peace, is preparing
to go to Crawford to take up the vigil. Veterans are encouraged to join
him in support of Cindy Sheehan. Supporters are urged to offer
donations to cover the cost of travel and related expenses so that the group
will be able to sustain their effort.

Please send tax deductible donations to:
Veterans For Peace
216 S. Meramec Av.
St. Louis, MO 63105
Enter Crawford vigil on the explanation line of your check

4. From Dallas to Crawford and on to Washington
Come to Washington on September 24th. Bush works and lives in the
Whitehouse. No matter what happens in Crawford we need to confront him in
Washington. His poll numbers are the lowest of his presidency. We need to
pressure congress to stand up to the administration. If you can’t make
it to Texas come to DC. Hopefully you can make it to both.



The struggle continues and Veterans For Peace is out in force.

Michael T. McPhearson
Veterans For Peace
Executive Director
314 725-6005
peace: One step at a time.

Links to stories

http://www.iconoclast-texas.com/News/20 ... news01.htm

http://peacejournalism.com/ReadArticle. ... cleID=4557

Jimbo,
I hope they have great success with the protest. It will take those of unusual fortitude to enjoy Crawford, Texas. I understand that there is nothing there but three churches and a filling station. That means that the protestors will have to settle for the scintillating nightlife in Waco. Oh well, I suppose we must sacrifice for the cause.

three churches white ?churches how about the black churches. Thinking how the black churches supported civil rights in the fifties. Are the black preachers so busy getting rich with jesus that they don't see the civil rights issues?

Just checking in, have a three day marathon coming up starting wake up at 5 AM.

Hopefully so, there will be a throng over there. ST you could meet up with my friend Bob McLane, ex-Marine, anti-war from Lord knows Shreveport. There is hope afterall. More updates as they trickle in.

Clay, are you going to DC in September? Jello Biafra will be the MC, so I heard, Sept 24th.

Regarding Crawford, I think they plan on spending a lot of time in the road at the old ranch. So the entertainment will be home grown. Hopefully reinforcements arrive soon.

I am sure that if there are any progressive preachers, there will black ministers among them. BOWS.

I am there in spirit completely and if anyone from here decides to go, i'm goin with. I'll just pack up and go, it's that important.

The real soldiers are in in Crawford right now.
God, I wish I could be there too.....

H

yeah me too september
got to find a ride
jimbo ain't been much help
or maybe he ain't noticed me posting all over the place to him, I must have got stoned and missed it. I know he must know someone around sanato or austin who is going, gave me a number of guy coming from shreveport, I am only four hundred miles out of his way. maybe I will see you there.

nothing much I can do but i would like to stand in line and shake her hand,

Jimbo you know anyone going from the austin/san antonio area?

you know how people go to college and the sterotype is they get into activism and all that stuff...i'm having a hard time keeping optomistic and hopefull, i mean i got to vote for my first presidential election, and i helped with trying to get Bush out of office and we lost. other things too, just give me the feeling like i'm a minority and that there's no hope, and then i think whats the point? i really swing back and forth from being really active to being really pessimistic towards the whole thing, i couldn't be the strong activist leader all the time. its weird my friends comment to me about how i go back and forth and i can't make up my mind. since i went to college last year, seems like theres no point. the media doesn't pay any attention, things don't seem to work like they use to. people aren't paying attention to protests, i think something has to be done to do that and untill then i don't know what to do...i want to do something but i can't help but feel like my efforts are pointless, plus the whole thing makes me depressed. its so depressing, loosing over and over again.

K&D

I wish I could go back and forth. Terrible to have a locked mind. I wish I knew more Zen or more phenomenology, so I could stay in my center and watch the pendulum of my thoughts swing. I get so sure Bush is wrong I don't like the fealing. So I hope that I am wrong and he is right. But I am going to try and vote him out. I just want to take one step towards that end. TO stand in line in Crawford Texas, bring the people there a woodstock for the meek, a million people standing in line to shake Cyndi Sheehan hand. A bus loads of people coming into Crawford. Jimbo talks about making "gestures" Optimism? Yeah it is hard to be optimistic,

i couldn't be the strong activist leader all the time

Yes I watched the activist leaders that day in college that day and maybe Nietzsche was right, the one basic human urge is the will to power.

sorry K&D but I got to go, I try to listen to young people, there is a saying about have children and let them raise you. From what I can see it looks like you got the dyslex under control.

its so depressing, loosing over and over again

I wish i could remember the song "sometimes I think its a shame when i feel like I am winning when I am losing again" gordon lightfoot?

What was the story about the Scotish king with the spider.

You know I hard knew it was u. It looks like the dyslexia is gone.

I wish I could go back and forth. Terrible to have a locked mind. I wish I knew more Zen or more phenomenology, so I could stay in my center and watch the pendulum of my thoughts swing. I get so sure Bush is wrong I don't like the fealing. So I hope that I am wrong and he is right. But I am going to try and vote him out. I just want to take one step towards that end. TO stand in line in Crawford Texas, bring the people there a woodstock for the meek, a million people standing in line to shake Cyndi Sheehan hand. A bus loads of people coming into Crawford. Jimbo talks about making "gestures" Optimism? Yeah it is hard to be optimistic,

i couldn't be the strong activist leader all the time

Yes I watched the activist leaders that day in college that day and maybe Nietzsche was right, the one basic human urge is the will to power.

sorry K&D but I got to go, I try to listen to young people, there is a saying about have children and let them raise you. From what I can see it looks like you got the dyslex under control.

its so depressing, loosing over and over again

I wish i could remember the song "sometimes I think its a shame when i feel like I am winning when I am losing again" gordon lightfoot?

What was the story about the Scotish king with the spider.

people tell me i'm a really strong willed individual, but other times i think i am very easily influenced. i know Bush is wrong, i'm just not so sure that i can make a difference in these sad circumstance, being the minority as far as our opinions go. i do get confused with wanting the government to do what i think is right and libertarianism.

in Santa Fe they have a protest against the war every sunday. every sunday they do the same damn thing, they walk around with sighns. it doesn't do any good. the thing is the people in Santa Fe are liberal they agree...its the rest of New Mexico who don't. i did go to a sit in, because i knew it would get press attention. i use to think i should do everything, go to every protest and now i think the majority of them don't even make a dent.

so why not have a rally elsewhere outside Santa Fe?

there must be somthing to do.

see those are the kind of recomendations i make...i make suggestions about going to Los Alamos and places like that, i suggest street theater and things like that but a lot of times they don't think were ready to do things like that...i don't know, i feel like i have no power in those orginazations because they don't listen to me and because of that i don't go to the meetings anymore...kind of a catch 22...the best stuff is organized by the profs to tell you the truth...like the sit-in, that was all the teachers idea. but you start wondering if a small minority can make a difference, i mean isn't the whole idea of democracy that majority wins? right now isn[t the time for protest, its the time for wining people over, creating new language and stuff...like its the time for the beats not the time for the counter culture...because theres just not enough of us...what did we call it in social movements class...theres a group who comes up with the ideas and then a movement that picks it up...but the circumstance just isn't there for a movement to be picked up...new ideas need to be created and spread through culture.

(paste)


CINDY SHEEHAN'S STATEMENT


08.11.2005 Cindy Sheehan

This is George Bush’s Accountability Moment



This is George Bush’s accountability moment. That’s why I’m here. The mainstream media aren’t holding him accountable. Neither is Congress. So I’m not leaving Crawford until he’s held accountable. It’s ironic, given the attacks leveled at me recently, how some in the media are so quick to scrutinize -- and distort -- the words and actions of a grieving mother but not the words and actions of the president of the United States.

But now it’s time for him to level with me and with the American people. I think that’s why there’s been such an outpouring of support. This is giving the 61 percent of Americans who feel that the war is wrong something to do -- something that allows their voices to be heard. It’s a way for them to stand up and show that they DO want our troops home, and that they know this war IS a mistake… a mistake they want to see corrected. It’s too late to bring back the people who are already dead, but there are tens of thousands of people still in harm’s way.

There is too much at stake to worry about our own egos. When my son was killed, I had to face the fact that I was somehow also responsible for what happened. Every American that allows this to continue has, to some extent, blood on their hands. Some of us have a little bit, and some of us are soaked in it.

People have asked what it is I want to say to President Bush. Well, my message is a simple one. He’s said that my son -- and the other children we’ve lost -- died for a noble cause. I want to find out what that noble cause is. And I want to ask him: “If it’s such a noble cause, have you asked your daughters to enlist? Have you encouraged them to go take the place of soldiers who are on their third tour of duty?” I also want him to stop using my son’s name to justify the war. The idea that we have to “complete the mission” in Iraq to honor Casey’s sacrifice is, to me, a sacrilege to my son’s name. Besides, does the president any longer even know what “the mission” really is over there?

Casey knew that the war was wrong from the beginning. But he felt it was his duty to go, that his buddies were going, and that he had no choice. The people who send our young, honorable, brave soldiers to die in this war, have no skin in the game. They don’t have any loved ones in harm’s way. As for people like O’Reilly and Hannity and Michelle Malkin and Rush Limbaugh and all the others who are attacking me and parroting the administration line that we must complete the mission there -- they don’t have one thing at stake. They don’t suffer through sleepless nights worrying about their loved ones

Before this all started, I used to think that one person couldn’t make a difference... but now I see that one person who has the backing and support of millions of people can make a huge difference.

That’s why I’m going to be out here until one of three things happens: It’s August 31st and the president’s vacation ends and he leaves Crawford. They take me away in a squad car. Or he finally agrees to speak with me.

If he does, he’d better be prepared for me to hold his feet to the fire. If he starts talking about freedom and democracy -- or about how the war in Iraq is protecting America -- I’m not going to let him get away with it.

Like I said, this is George Bush’s accountability moment.

Until the whole of the US public adopts more of this type of an attitude, where independent analysis of the agenda-driven, buzz-word speeches hurled at them by politicians is more often applied, and accountability for politicians' actions (over their words) is more often and more honestly considered, then many more various breeds of Buzz-Word Leaders will continue to foist bloodthirsty, costly policy on all of us, wrapped up in security, freedom, and apple pie. And many of the old-time hawks, from the "Greatest Generation", or closely identified with it, aren't exactly helping us to recognize bullshit when we see it. Not every war is the Allies' great WW2 triumph over global fascism. Not every war is a "noble cause" and "unavoidable" because the President says so.