"In the Peat Sadeh settlement, Yaakov Mazaltareen set fire to his two warehouses
that contained irrigation equipment and two vehicles. He used his forklift to
knock down what was left of the structures. Settlers stopped to watch. One
crying woman rushed her children away."
What would you do?
Cindy Sheenan: Without Internet, U.S. Would Be a “Fascist State”
The Crawford protester talks with her blog supporters.
Cindy Sheehan, the woman whose soldier son was killed in Iraq and who is now camping by a road in Crawford, Texas demanding a meeting with President Bush, on Wednesday thanked a group of antiwar bloggers for supporting her, saying that without the Internet, America would be a "fascist state." "This is something that can't
be ignored," Sheehan said during a conference call with bloggers representing sites like democrats.com, codepink4peace.org, and crooksandliars.com. "They can't ignore us, and they can't put us down. 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," Sheehan continued, "and the mainstream media is a propaganda tool for the government." Sheehan also called the 2004 presidential election "the election, quote-unquote, that happened in November."
The conference call was moderated by Democratic strategist
Joe Trippi, who managed former Vermont governor Howard Dean's presidential campaign in 2003 and 2004. It was also organized by another Democratic strategist, Bob Fertik of democrats.com. (During the conference, Fertik said that for the purposes of the call, he was representing yet another website, the antiwar site afterdowningstreet.com.) Finally, Jodie Evans of the anti-war group
Code Pink also took part in running the sometimes-chaotic call. Trippi has posted a recording of the call on his own website,
joetrippi.com
Also taking part in the call was Illinois Democratic
Rep. Jan Schakowsky, a frequent participant in progressive political conferences and anti-war events. Schakowsky took part in an unofficial Democratic hearing on the Downing Street Memo conducted last June in Washington. Sheehan testified at that hearing, giving a painful and moving account of seeing her son in his coffin.
On the call, Sheehan complained that she was suffering from a sore
throat and a fever after being doused by thunderstorms. But she vowed to stay in Texas. There are only three things that would prompt her to leave, she said: "a good meeting with the president, the end of August, or I get arrested."
Mr. Bush as a person, as an individual, is as attractive to Republicans as
he is unattractive to Democrats. Republicans like him because he seems like a
normal guy--business, family, sports, Top 40 on the iPod. Democrats hate him for
this--how common, how plebian; he'd have more elevated tastes if he were a more
elevated man. Republicans like him for the one way in which he is obviously
extraordinary: When he says it he means it, and if he promises it he'll do it.
Democrats see this as evidence of derangement: He doesn't change his mind
because he thinks he's God's other son, and in any case he can't think clearly
enough to change his mind. Republicans see it more this way: As a West Point
official said to me in passing, "He's got two of 'em."
Democrats try to tag Mr. Bush as lazy, but that will never work. He seems like an activist who's actively engaged. Every time cable news does a "Bush Is on Vacation in Crawford" headline they're forced to follow it with a clip of the speech Mr. Bush just made. In any case liberals are always trying to call Republican presidents lazy.
They did it with Eisenhower and Reagan too. It never helps the liberal cause.
They don't know half the country would be relieved to have a lazy president as
he'd do less and make us less nervous.- Peggy Noonan, as always, looking and sounding good with grace
