On Wednesday, in my hometown of Austin, Texas, I took part in a march of – my best guess – a thousand or so people, from the Texas state capital building to city hall, where we met up with the buses from Cindy Sheehan’s Bring Them Home Now Bus Tour. It was a quite impressive turnout, even for an Austin protest, and there wasn’t much publicity beforehand.
There are 3 separate bus tours: one southern, one central, and one northern. All are headed to Washington DC for the antiwar rally the weekend of the 26th of September. (All the info you need is at bringthemhomenowtour.org)
Many protesters and speakers pointed out, as Paul Craig Roberts has detailed, the disaster in Louisiana would be much less had George Bush not sent the national guard units to Iraq to die. Their job is moving sandbags, rescuing people and suppressing looting in just such situations.
Now he will claim credit for helping.
Local populist rabble rouser Jim Hightower gave an entertaining speech. Though he seems to support every type of welfare/regulatory scheme the politicians can imagine, I give the man credit, he is consistently antiwar.
Turning tables on Bush’s childlike rhetoric, Sheehan said that he could “run but not hide” from her. Now, if I were some lowlife, scumbag, Republican, bootlicking, Smithers type, I would advise my masters to take her seriously. She made it very plain that having lost a son, she no longer has any other passion than the end of this war, and is beyond having any fear of what might happen to her.
In her speech, Cindy attacked the hollow slogans Bush relies on to fool fools into believing in his war:
Complete the mission, honor the sacrifice of those who have lost. Translation: Because we got a bunch of people killed, we have to keep getting them killed.
Fight for freedom and Democracy. The Democracy elected the Ayatollah’s men. No freedom there.
Apparently, not even Bush is stupid enough at this point to cite anything but abstractions. The last time he tried to stick to excuses that exist, he told Israeli TV (remember the “All options are on the table” for dealing with Iran story from a few weeks back?) that Saddam “refused to disarm” and harbored Abu Nidal who was not Al Qaeda, and died in 2002. Someone must’ve pulled Bush’s choke chain, because it’s been pure “finish the mission,” “fight for freedom” crap since then.
Cindy Sheehan has a question for congress now too:
“How many more of our innocent lives and innocent Iraqi lives are you going to be willing to sacrifice for lies?”
Next stop, Tom Delay’s office in Houston. Though he is far too cowardly to go toe to toe with this 100 pound woman, it’ll be worth the trip because they’re taking all the extra food and provisions from Camp Casey, and donating it to Katrina evacuees stranded at the Astrodome.
This stupid war and other factors have conspired to raise gas prices to extraordinary levels. The Cindy Sheehan, “What noble cause?” movement at this point seems to really be gaining steam it would be a shame for them to run out of gas. Go here to donate. Support Cindy Sheehan! She is the lightning rod for the antiwar movement, and needs your help.
Side note – Lawrence of Arabia is playing at the Paramount.