Cindy Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed in Iraq, and who’s been intermittently camped outside President Bush’s ranch in Texas demanding to meet with him for a second time, has been hailed as the public face of the antiwar movement. Maureen Dowd of the New York Times has declared that Sheehan’s moral authority is “absolute.” So in the interest of more fully tapping that moral authority, here’s a collection of Sheehan quotes:
“Thank God for the Internet, or we wouldn’t know anything, and we would already be a fascist state.”
“Our government is run by one party, every level, and the mainstream media is a propaganda tool for the government.”
“Then we have this lying bastard, George Bush, taking a five week vacation in a time of war. You know what? I’m never going to get to enjoy another vacation because of him. My vacation probably — this is really sad because I have a really cute dress I was going to wear to the banquet tomorrow night — but I’m either going to be in jail or in a tent in Crawford, waiting until that jerk comes out and tells me why my son died.”
“You tell me the truth. You tell me that my son died for oil. You tell me that my son died to make your friends rich. You tell me my son died to spread the cancer of Pax Americana, imperialism in the Middle East.”
“And if you think I won’t say bulls**t to the President, I say move on, cause I’ll say what’s on my mind.”
“You get that evil maniac out here, ’cause a Gold Star Mother, somebody whose blood is on his hands, has some questions for him.”
“The biggest terrorist is George W. Bush.”
“If he thinks that it’s so important for Iraq to have a U.S.-imposed sense of freedom and democracy, then he needs to sign up his two little party-animal girls. They need to go to this war.”
“What can we do to get him out of power? And I’m gonna say the ‘I’ word: Impeach. And we have to have everybody impeached that lied to the American public, and that’s the executive branch, and any people in congress, and we got to go all the way down… to the person who picks up the dogs**t in Washington because we can’t let somebody rise to the top who will pardon these war criminals. Because they need to go to prison for what they’ve done in this world. We can’t have a pardon. They need to pay for what they’ve done.”
“It’s up to us, the people, to break immoral laws and resist. As soon as the leaders of a country lie to you, they have no authority over you. These maniacs have no authority over us. And they might be able to put our bodies in prison, but they can’t put our spirits in prison.”
“Is there anyone in America who cannot yet see that Donald Rumsfeld is a liar, that he — as with Hitler and Stalin — will say anything so long as he thinks it will help shape the world to his own liking? Is there even one sane adult among us who cannot see that Donald Rumsfeld is a threat to our nation’s security and to peace on our beloved earth?”
“Am I emotional? Yes, my first born was murdered. Am I angry? Yes, he was killed for lies and for a PNAC [Project for the New American Century] Neo-Con agenda to benefit Israel. My son joined the Army to protect America, not Israel. Am I stupid? No, I know full well that my son, my family, this nation, and this world were betrayed by George [W.] Bush who was influenced by the neo-con PNAC agenda after 9/11.”
“We are waging a nuclear war in Iraq right now. That country is contaminated. It will be contaminated for practically eternity now.”
“I was raised in a country by a public school system that taught us that America was good, that America was just. America has been killing people… since we first stepped on this continent; we have been responsible for death and destruction. I passed on that bulls**t to my son, and my son enlisted. I’m going all over the country telling moms this country is not worth dying for.”
“Our country has been overtaken by murderous thugs… gangsters who lust after fortunes and power, never caring that their addictions are at the expense of our loved ones, and the blood of innocent people near and far. We’ve watched these thugs parade themselves before the whole world as if they are courageous advocates for Christian moral values… and for the spread of democracy. Yet we all know that they are now putting in place, all across this country, a system of voting that provides no way to validate the accuracy of the counting of the votes… and that, by its very design, prohibits recounting the votes. Our loved ones have been buried in early graves even as these arrogant thugs parade themselves before the entire world, insisting that democracy is worth dying for, killing for, and destroying entire cities for… In their secret hiding places, while celebrating newly won fortunes with their fellow brass, these men must surely congratulate themselves with orgies of carnal pleasure as they mock the dwindling multitudes who are yet so blind as to mistake them for God’s devoted servants.”
Come to think of it, Cindy Sheehan is a perfect mouthpiece for the anti-war movement. Why not go the whole hog and give her a bi-weekly column at the Times?
