WHAT REALLY HAPPENED TO CINDY SHEEHAN

[Zlatko Waterman]

Published on Wednesday, February 1, 2006 by CommonDreams.org



What Really Happened
by Cindy Sheehan

Dear Friends,

As most of you have probably heard, I was arrested before the State of the Union Address tonight.

I am speechless with fury at what happened and with grief over what we have lost in our country.


Anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan is escorted out of the House chamber by security personnel, January 31, 2006. (Jason Reed/Reuters)

There have been lies from the police and distortions by the press. (Shocker) So this is what really happened:

This afternoon at the People's State of the Union Address in DC where I was joined by Congresspersons Lynn Woolsey and John Conyers, Ann Wright, Malik Rahim and John Cavanagh, Lynn brought me a ticket to the State of the Union Address. At that time, I was wearing the shirt that said: 2245 Dead. How many more?

After the PSOTU press conference, I was having second thoughts about going to the SOTU at the Capitol. I didn't feel comfortable going. I knew George Bush would say things that would hurt me and anger me and I knew that I couldn't disrupt the address because Lynn had given me the ticket and I didn't want to be disruptive out of respect for her. I, in fact, had given the ticket to John Bruhns who is in Iraq Veterans Against the War. However, Lynn's office had already called the media and everyone knew I was going to be there so I sucked it up and went.

I got the ticket back from John, and I met one of Congresswoman Barbara Lee's staffers in the Longworth Congressional Office building and we went to the Capitol via the undergroud tunnel. I went through security once, then had to use the rest room and went through security again.

My ticket was in the 5th gallery, front row, fourth seat in. The person who in a few minutes was to arrest me, helped me to my seat.

I had just sat down and I was warm from climbing 3 flights of stairs back up from the bathroom so I unzipped my jacket. I turned to the right to take my left arm out, when the same officer saw my shirt and yelled; "Protester." He then ran over to me, hauled me out of my seat and roughly (with my hands behind my back) shoved me up the stairs. I said something like "I'm going, do you have to be so rough?" By the way, his name is Mike Weight.

The officer ran with me to the elevators yelling at everyone to move out of the way. When we got to the elevators, he cuffed me and took me outside to await a squad car. On the way out, someone behind me said, "That's Cindy Sheehan." At which point the officer who arrested me said: "Take these steps slowly." I said, "You didn't care about being careful when you were dragging me up the other steps." He said, "That's because you were protesting." Wow, I get hauled out of the People's House because I was, "Protesting."

I was never told that I couldn't wear that shirt into the Congress. I was never asked to take it off or zip my jacket back up. If I had been asked to do any of those things...I would have, and written about the suppression of my freedom of speech later. I was immediately, and roughly (I have the bruises and muscle spasms to prove it) hauled off and arrested for "unlawful conduct."

After I had my personal items inventoried and my fingers printed, a nice Sgt. came in and looked at my shirt and said, "2245, huh? I just got back from there."

I told him that my son died there. That's when the enormity of my loss hit me. I have lost my son. I have lost my First Amendment rights. I have lost the country that I love. Where did America go? I started crying in pain.

What did Casey die for? What did the 2244 other brave young Americans die for? What are tens of thousands of them over there in harm's way for still? For this? I can't even wear a shrit that has the number of troops on it that George Bush and his arrogant and ignorant policies are responsible for killing.

I wore the shirt to make a statement. The press knew I was going to be there and I thought every once in awhile they would show me and I would have the shirt on. I did not wear it to be disruptive, or I would have unzipped my jacket during George's speech. If I had any idea what happens to people who wear shirts that make the neocons uncomfortable that I would be arrested...maybe I would have, but I didn't.

There have already been many wild stories out there.

I have some lawyers looking into filing a First Amendment lawsuit against the government for what happened tonight. I will file it. It is time to take our freedoms and our country back.

I don't want to live in a country that prohibits any person, whether he/she has paid the ulitmate price for that country, from wearing, saying, writing, or telephoning any negative statements about the government. That's why I am going to take my freedoms and liberties back. That's why I am not going to let Bushco take anything else away from me...or you.

I am so appreciative of the couple of hundred of protesters who came to the jail while I was locked up to show their support....we have so much potential for good...there is so much good in so many people.

Four hours and 2 jails after I was arrested, I was let out. Again, I am so upset and sore it is hard to think straight.

Keep up the struggle...I promise you I will too.

Love and peace soon,
Cindy

###

[abcrystcats]

This is outrageous.

If she had unzipped her jacket and stood up during the President's speech, SCREAMING the words, "STOP THE WAR IN IRAQ" she should NOT have been arrested.

I don't give a damn that she was released without charges today.

I don't even care if someone read to her what she could and could NOT do during the President's speech. This is STILL bullshit.

No American should be ARRESTED for expressing their personal opinion at any time. This is BULLSHIT.

It just goes to show that we are now more of a dictatorship than the USSR EVER was.

I am disgusted.

Maybe I should not call myself an American anymore. I am ashamed of the name.

Ugh.

[hester_prynne]

Yep, I agree, it's pretty fucking disgusting. Not to mention a cryin shame....
I have a feeling though, that we ain't seen nuthin yet. Before long, they'll be telling us what we can and can't wear.....in order to, you know, fight terror of course!

it just makes me cry.
so sad...
and Alito confirmed....
shit.
makes me sob and howl.

And Coretta passes on the same day the bushco bastard is confirmed!
Our freedom and our rights.......
were swell while they lasted. ....

H

[Zlatko Waterman]

Dear Friends:

I think these are words Coretta King would have agreed with:

(paste)

I don't want to live in a country that prohibits any person, whether he/she has paid the ultimate price for that country, from wearing, saying, writing, or telephoning any negative statements about the government. That's why I am going to take my freedoms and liberties back. That's why I am not going to let Bushco take anything else away from me...or you.


( end paste of Cindy Sheehan's article)

Elsewhere, check the other parts of the Constitution currently being ignored by the DUBYAKO THOUGHT POLICE:

( "He's Not Your Commander-in-Chief" on CULTURE-- I posted the article yesterday)

http://www.studioeight.tv/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=6200

The complacency of the electorate is the real tragedy. And the complicity of the mass media and the Democratic Party. I just heard an NPR article ( on Warren Olney's "To the Point" show) on how the Democrats "don't want to seem too far out on the left when it comes to "this National Security Thing."

What would Franklin, Jefferson or Madison say?



--Z

[Zlatko Waterman]

Sorry to rage on, but on the same Warren Olney program I heard Republican lawyers for Tom Delay and Jack Abramoff ( both dedicated "Christians") argue that the millions of dollars funneled through Abramoff's money-grinder and made clean enough to buy votes from Congress were "protected speech" under the First Amendment, and that politicians had a "Constitutional right" to raise these monies and spend them in the pursuit of that "speech"-- such as buying time on the Clear Channel Network to enunciate their hate-filled "Christian" goals for this country.

Pat Robertson and his advocacy of murdering Hugo Chavez is protected ( and broadcast to millions of tv drones) but Cindy Sheehan's sweatshirt lands her in jail.

( unplug the Rantation Machine, Z , , ,)


--Z

[Zlatko Waterman]

Martin Niemoller's famous quotation:


(paste)


First they came for the Jews. I was silent. I was not a Jew. Then they came for the Communists. I was silent. I was not a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists. I was silent. I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for me. There was no one left to speak for me.


( end paste)


For a discussion of what Niemoller actually wrote, and variations on his words, in German and English, as well as a summary of his life and works, look here:


http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/niem.htm




--Z

( pulls the Rantation Machine plug . . .)

[stilltrucking]

There is a more than pedantic point to insisting that the Niemoeller quotation be truthfully used, if at all. Through the texts corrupted to promote special interests, literally millions of school children and also adults are being taught lies about the Holocaust. The damage is not as serious, perhaps, as the steady infiltration of "Holocaust revision" (i.e., denial). But it does help to create an atmosphere of playing fast and loose with the facts through intellectually dishonest and self-serving manipulation of the text.

Amen

You get America out of Iraq, you get Israel out of Palestine

(massive round of applause)

http://www.studioeight.tv/phpbb/viewtop ... +palestine

For some reason that line gives me the squirms. That seems to be a problem for Israel and Palestine to reconcile. What does she want the United States to do about it? What makes her think we can dictate to Israel. Remember the USS Liberty

Of all the people who I met when The New Mobe was organizing the anti war protests the veterans were the ones I trusted, the ones whose motives were pure. Most of the people I met from the new left seemed to be power freaks. I wonder how many of them went on to become republicans?
I wonder about some of the other people who have gathered around her. I think I would have worn my Mickey Mouse sweat shirt. What did she expect? Sure she had the right to wear that shirt. It got her a ten second sound byte on the local happy news hour.
More power to you Cindy, but I think a Mickey Mouse sweat shirt might have worked better.
Or Daffy Duck. I would have loved to have seen a TV shot of you sitting there in the peanut gallery wearing that shirt. A theatre of the absurd.

thanks Z
I wonder if he is any kin to the Author of One Dimensional Man.

[Zlatko Waterman]

The left can be every bit as tiresome as the right, ST, and sometimes barely distinguishable from it, unfortunately.

The most unfortunate thing is that all this political sidewinding has to be mediated through television, the most manipulable medium in human history.

--Z

[whimsicaldeb]

I was having second thoughts about going to the SOTU at the Capitol. I didn't feel comfortable going. I knew George Bush would say things that would hurt me and anger me and I knew that I couldn't disrupt the address because Lynn had given me the ticket and I didn't want to be disruptive out of respect for her. I, in fact, had given the ticket to John Bruhns who is in Iraq Veterans Against the War. However, Lynn's office had already called the media and everyone knew I was going to be there so I sucked it up and went.

my first thought was ...

Jesus Christ Superstar, Do you think you're what they say you are?

and then ... well, there is a silver lining: she didn't have to listen to his speech!

This does show how staged things are, as well as demonstrates how our liberties are being taken away.

But regarding that staging; how much of Cindy getting that ticket was a staged event (purpose) as well? I hope none. I don't need Cindy to be my savior in this issue.

And I sure as heck don't want to see her become the next “sacrificial christ” ... the one offered up for the cause; for the good of us all. That’s not healthy, for her or us.

And that was why my mind went to the “Superstar” memory ...

I hope not, but ...

[stilltrucking]

I wonder what would have happpened if a few congressman or senators had worn a tee shirt with her son's picture on it? Maybe Barney Franks is the only one with enough balls to pull a stunt like that. Tiresome? Its like we are irrelevant. I am sorrry about my comments about the mickey mouse shirt. So much grief. Everytime I hear some grieving parents or a wife say it was worth their sacrifice for this noble cause....
what can anyone say?

And we lost Davey in the Korean war
And I still don't know what for

The most unfortunate thing is that all this political sidewinding has to be mediated through television, the most manipulable medium in human history.

How do you even begin to fight such sleek polished propaganda as this government of we the people puts out?

Got dam Nietzsche, Got dam freud, for thier insight into our herd mind. got dam his nephew god dam Goebbels, "much knowledge increases sorrow" Proverbs?
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... Id=4612464

He took Freud's complex ideas on people's unconscious, psychological motivations and applied them to the new field of public relations.

Paste
Karl Rove & the Spectre of Freud's Nephew
February 4th 2005
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country… We are governed, our minds molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized…”

So opens Propaganda (1928), one of several strikingly frank analyses of western social psychology written by Edward Bernays. This nephew of Sigmund Freud founded the public relations industry in the United States.
From Here
http://www.americanidealism.com/article ... ephew.html

…" In Bernays’s 1965 memoir Biography of an Idea, he acknowledged that Crystallizing Public Opinion significantly influenced Josef Goebbels.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/bender2.html



Have you ever read Life Against Death? Just a rhetorical question. I been reading that book off and of for thirty four years. Not sure if I have read it cover to cover yet. Hard for me to get through the chapters on Swift and his excremental vision.

[abcrystcats]

Stiltrucking -- sorry this is rough and inaccurate, but someone DID. A senator's or representative's wife wore a t-shirt to the address that read: "Support our Troops." She was asked to LEAVE but not ARRESTED.

WTF????

I heard it on the early morning radio news today.

Unequal opportunities for freedom of speech ...

This is IT. We are NOT in a democracy anymore. We are in a dictatorship.

this is BAD.

[stilltrucking]

Rough and inaccurate is my specialty.

I think it is bad too. I think it maybe even worse than a dictatorship. I think we have become a theocracy.

["Today, says Zinn, we have a president, who more than any before him, claims a special relationship with God. Zinn worries about an administration that deploys Christian zealotry to justify a war against terrorism, a war that in reality seems more about establishing a new beachhead in the oil-rich Middle East. He also sees great danger in Bush’s doctrines of unilateralism and pre-emptive war, which mark a great leap away from international standards of morality."
http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/258/




I am still hoping that there is one politician somewhere, some dark horse some inspired human being who is smart enough to figure out how to turn their lies against them

Maybe Clinton’s better half will be a better man then he was. Molly Ivins is a hero of mine. I wonder about this piece here.

Published on Friday, January 20, 2006 by the Columbus Free Press (Ohio)
I Will Not Support Hillary Clinton for President
by Molly Ivins

I'd like to make it clear to the people who run the Democratic Party that I will not support Hillary Clinton for president. Enough. Enough triangulation, calculation and equivocation. Enough clever straddling, enough not offending anyone This is not a Dick Morris election. Sen. Clinton is apparently incapable of taking a clear stand on the war in Iraq, and that alone is enough to disqualify her. Her failure to speak out on Terri Schiavo, not to mention that gross pandering on flag-burning, are just contemptible little dodges. The recent death of Gene McCarthy reminded me of a lesson I spent a long, long time unlearning, so now I have to re-learn it. It's about political courage and heroes, and when a country is desperate for leadership. There are times when regular politics will not do, and this is one of those times. There are times a country is so tired of bull that only the truth can provide relief. If no one in conventional-wisdom politics has the courage to speak up and say what needs to be said, then you go out and find some obscure junior senator from Minnesota with the guts to do it. In 1968, Gene McCarthy was the little boy who said out loud, "Look, the emperor isn't wearing any clothes." Bobby Kennedy -- rough, tough Bobby Kennedy -- didn't do it. Just this quiet man trained by Benedictines who liked to quote poetry. What kind of courage does it take, for mercy's sake? The majority of the American people (55 percent) think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get out. The majority (65 percent) of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more taxes to get it. The majority (86 percent) of the American people favor raising the minimum wage. The majority of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing Bush's tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich. The majority (66 percent) wants to reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes. The majority (77 percent) thinks we should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment. The majority (87 percent) thinks big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax. That is the center, you fools. WHO ARE YOU AFRAID OF? I listen to people like Rahm Emanuel superciliously explaining elementary politics to us clueless naifs outside the Beltway ("First, you have to win elections"). Can't you even read the damn polls? Here's a prize example by someone named Barry Casselman, who writes, "There is an invisible civil war in the Democratic Party, and it is between those who are attempting to satisfy the defeatist and pacifist left base of the party and those who are attempting to prepare the party for successful elections in 2006 and 2008." This supposedly pits Howard Dean, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, emboldened by "a string of bad news from the Middle East ... into calling for premature retreat from Iraq," versus those pragmatic folk like Steny Hoyer, Rahm Emmanuel, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Joe Lieberman. Oh come on, people -- get a grip on the concept of leadership. Look at this war -- from the lies that led us into it, to the lies they continue to dump on us daily. You sit there in Washington so frightened of the big, bad Republican machine you have no idea what people are thinking. I'm telling you right now, Tom DeLay is going to lose in his district. If Democrats in Washington haven't got enough sense to OWN the issue of political reform, I give up on them entirely. Do it all, go long, go for public campaign financing for Congress. I'm serious as a stroke about this -- that is the only reform that will work, and you know it, as well as everyone else who's ever studied this. Do all the goo-goo stuff everybody has made fun of all these years: embrace redistricting reform, electoral reform, House rules changes, the whole package. Put up, or shut up. Own this issue, or let Jack Abramoff politics continue to run your town. Bush, Cheney and Co. will continue to play the patriotic bully card just as long as you let them. I've said it before: War brings out the patriotic bullies. In World War I, they went around kicking dachshunds on the grounds that dachshunds were "German dogs." They did not, however, go around kicking German shepherds. The MINUTE someone impugns your patriotism for opposing this war, turn on them like a snarling dog and explain what loving your country really means. That, or you could just piss on them elegantly, as Rep. John Murtha did. Or eviscerate them with wit (look up Mark Twain on the war in the Philippines). Or point out the latest in the endless "string of bad news." Do not sit there cowering and pretending the only way to win is as Republican-lite. If the Washington-based party can't get up and fight, we'll find someone who can. Molly Ivins is the former editor of the liberal monthly The Texas Observer. She is the bestselling author of several books including Who Let the Dogs In? © 2006 Columbus Free Press

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

I am one generation removed from those huddled masses. America has been kind to the Jews. Maybe because we have the blacks to take the heat for us. I suppose

[Zlatko Waterman]

My only candidate, ST, would be Barry Commoner, who ran for President in 1980.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Commoner


His intelligence is, compared to George W. Bush's, like Mount Everest is to the tiny wart on my left little finger.


I voted for him, amid the incipient horrors of the Reagan administration, and John Negroponte, US gladiatorial manager in Latin America.

What good did my vote do? None, except for my conscience.

John Negroponte


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Negroponte



is now ( as he was called yesterday) the "central co-ordinator " for 17 separate security agencies, including the FBI and CIA, now grouped into a massive Thought Police conglomerate.


--Z

[stilltrucking]

Barry Commoner (born May 28, 1917)
I hope he runs again. I have always said that life begins at 91. I am looking forward to voting for him myself.


I voted for Paul Simon in the democratic primary of 1980
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Simon ... itician%29

What good did my vote do? None, except for my conscience.

I had a hard core feminist girl friend in 1980 she was very involved politically and urged me to vote for him. What good did my vote do? Well it was a very good year for me. The last time I got laid was 1980.

Simon is dead. Maybe I will vote for him again. I think a truly dead person would make a very good president. Much better than the un-dead one we have know.

Cat, I just heard that the capital police have apologized to both women. Apparently the law says nothing about T-shirts. Only vocal protest is prohibited. I heard that the next state of the union address is going to be a real fashion show.

A senator's or representative's wife

Yeah she had diplomatic immunity, a real VIP and Cindy was just a Gold star mother, nobody important. I hope she sues the sons of bitches to hell and back.

[whimsicaldeb]

http://www.uscapitolpolice.gov/pressrel ... 01-06.html

United States Capitol Police
Chief Terrance W. Gainer
Public Information Office
119 D Street, NE
Washington, D.C. 20510
(202) 224-1677

Accountability

February 1, 2006

The United States Capitol Police will request that the U.S. Attorney’s Office not pursue the charge against Cindy Lee Sheehan who was arrested Tuesday Night before the President’s State of the Union address.

Mrs. Sheehan was charged Tuesday night with Unlawful Conduct after she displayed a T-shirt with an anti-war message while in the House Gallery. Subsequently she was arrested and transported to USCP Headquarters for processing.

As the Department reviewed the incident, it was determined that while officers acted in a manner consistent with the rules of decorum enforced by the Department in the House Gallery for years, neither Mrs. Sheehan’s manner of dress or initial conduct warranted law enforcement intervention. The USCP also asked Mrs. Beverly Young, to leave the gallery because of a T-shirt she was wearing. Mrs. Young did not return to the Gallery so there was no need for further police action. Neither guest should have been confronted about the expressive T-shirts.

"The officers made a good faith, but mistaken effort to enforce an old unwritten interpretation of the prohibitions about demonstrating in the Capitol. The policy and procedures were too vague," said Chief Terrance W. Gainer. "The failure to adequately prepare the officers is mine."

Chief Gainer met with Chairman Young and his wife to both apologize and share the Department’s plans for avoiding this in the future. A similar message has been left with Mrs. Sheehan.

The Department will work with the House Sergeant at Arms to clarify the rules of the House, and ensure that officers clearly understand the rules.

If you have any questions or concerns pertaining to this release please contact the United States Capitol Police Public Information Office at 202-224-1677.

* * * * * *
Prepared by:
Sergeant Kimberly Schneider
United States Capitol Police
Public Information Officer

...enforce an old unwritten interpretation of the prohibitions about demonstrating in the Capitol. ...

...The Department will work with the House Sergeant at Arms to clarify the rules of the House, and ensure that officers clearly understand the rules....

uh huh

and now I'm supposed to believe that they didn't know, didn't understand and weren't following orders in the first place.

...rightttttttttttttttttttttttttt

It's actually funny (in that weird way things can be funny and serious at the same time kind of way) because the more they try to 'fix things' they more they end up revealing of themselves, and things, as they really are.

They've put a lot of "faith" into our "stupidity" - or I should say our "continued stupidity" ... personally, I think their 'faith' has been misplaced. Hope so anyway.