I suppose it’s just me. I’m overly sensitive….I know….what to do about it,,,,what to do about it? Maybe a nice calming antidepressant, Xanax seems to work for Jeb’s daughter maybe it could for me too. I could always start smoking again too since it seems to help the Bush twins and Junior Mommy Bush (along with a good novel to submerse ones self into). Man I have just had it though.
This did all start while I was in Crawford. Friday the 12th, Cindy was quickly going over the newspaper that morning from Waco and I was looking over her shoulder (bad habit of mine). There was a photo of her and it was titled Protester Cindy Sheehan. It was taken at Camp Casey but what was so puzzling to me was that there were like 50 other people out there with her but the photo appeared to be cropped so only she was in the frame looking kind of like a lonely extremist without everybody else there who was standing with her. It was weird! I pointed it out and she just shrugged and nodded yes that that was how this is all being done.
Then there were the counter protesters. The bus that stayed for thirty minutes on Friday night, and the counter protesters that stayed for two hours on Saturday afternoon. What remained were like these five lonely stragglers that Supersoling posted a photo of. There were five other lonely stragglers at the Crawford trinket shop when I pulled out of town also and a camera crew across the street attempting to shoot them in such a fashion as to make them seem larger than life.
Now we have the “You Don’t Speak For Me Cindy” tour. I have been hearing about this COUNTER PROTEST CARAVAN since August 17, 2005. I have been hearing about them and hearing about them and hearing about them. CNN always has a moment to mention that the counter protest caravan is on its way. Good Lord it has been on its way so long now…….when is it ever going to get there? Cindy Sheehan has been camped out and a whole bunch of people have been totally camped out with her for how long? And how much press time have they gotten? Does it tally up in relation to dedication compared to the press that the Counter Protesters seem to get and their dedication to the protest?
When they get there will they also establish a camp of at least 100 to 200 semipermanent residents and will they be joined on the weekends by loads and loads of supporters off of work? Or will they only show up for the photo op and depart shortly thereafter with all of their dedication and leave a hazy foggy skewed notion hanging out there in the mind of America that Cindy Sheehan is actively being counter protested….because really she isn’t and really hasn’t been to any REAL DAY BY DAY DEFINEABLE degree that I have known of?
People show up for the photo op but nobody seems to really mean it! Nobody has camped out declaring that they aren’t leaving until the Unpatriotic Troop Murdering Sheehan leaves Crawford! Nobody has declared their REAL TROOP SUPPORT in such a fashion in counter of Mrs. Sheehan and her supporter’s horrifying traitorous behavior.
I have had to listen to nine days of hogwash about a CARAVAN that is on its way. WHAT THE FUCK EVERYBODY? My husband says that it is CNN’s attempt to seem balanced and covering both sides. What if there really isn’t much of an opposing side to cover though? Should they be literally making one up just because people say they are the counter protest? Doesn’t one really need to be protesting in order to be called a protester? This charade frustrates me so much I’m about to throw the television set in the damn lake where it belongs.
You must know that in the world of journalism these days, there always must be equal weight given to both sides of a story…even if there is only one side.
It’s like during the election season when you would have Bush lying about our reasons for invading Iraq and costing thousands of people their lives…and to balance it out they’d have a story saying that John Kerry said he met with a certain person on June 1st, when in fact, it was June 2nd! Clearly, the two things are equally weighted.
the media is the other side. They were hungry for this war, remember the embedded reports as the troops crossed the desert? They wanted it, badly. Cindy’s vigil in Crawford represents a repudiation of their culpability in this war, only some of them are eating crow. The vast majority are not–to riff off of Dorie from Finding Nemo: they “Just keep spinning, just keep spinning, hmm hmm hmmmmm hmm.”
Like to say something thoughtful here but you’re right it’s all crap..Having a caravan on it’s way must be because some stupid ‘news’ people are calling the people at Camp Crawford ‘anti-war extremists’..such as Norah O’Donnel on Msnbc..you you crazed extremist Tracy.
I’m so dam sick of the media that I think it’s not the white house we should be marching on but all the news media headquarters..and no I’m not really kidding. Jesus, I’m so dam disgusted I didn’t even fucken cuss.
what, then, is an “anti-war mainstream activist” and how can she distinguish one of those from her “anti-war extremist” that she seems readily able to identify?
on that caravan, and the conclusion by the reporter was that it was just a bunk of right-wing talk show hosts looking to drum up some publicity for their shows. Given the state of our media, I was quite surprised to hear the reporter actually say that on TV.
Interesting too, that they have to go around a pick up their protesters via bus. It’s like they couldn’t count on them to show up under their own initiative or they were worried about getting enough of them. This is a typical right wing ploy, inflate the numbers by busing people around.
BTW anyone heard anything about the results of that right wing talk show tour of Iraq that was supposed to happen a month ago or so? I’ve not heard a single thing from any of them.
Where do live? Canada?
No, San Francisco, but before you say, oh yah well that explains it, the media around here has been as complicit and conservative as many across the country. So that story did stand out.
check out this link… I think you will get a laugh!
CAMP QUALLS
chuckle chuckle
That’s basically the Bush support that I witnessed too. I wonder what D.C. is going to be like when we are all there? What sort of counter protest is going to show up because I know that the antiwar protest gets bigger and bigger by the minute right now! It is going to be awesome! Will CNN have a camera there at all to frame all of us in with so that America can truly witness that we mean it damn it!
My recent exposure to local broadcast news in metro Atlanta, GA, confirms that this is not just a Left Coast thing. I was amazed at the Cindy coverage and how sympathetic it was.
Sometimes, I wonder if I’m living in a blogobubble and if we are all disconnected from what non-internet people are feeling. In cable-internet-land, I just don’t watch what the local Ken and Barbie’s are saying. I was so surprised to see them talking like commentors here. Of course, Atlanta is an island of blue in a sea of red. But still, I think there’s been a marked change in public opinion and the local providers of news have responded faster to the wind shift than the national media have.
I do NOT think it is an attempt to appear balanced. . .they obviously don’t give a flyin frog if their reports are balanced and haven’t for at least 5 years now. I think they have their marching orders from the Republican talking points folks (Rove, et al)that are sent down through the owners to the editors and then to the reporters, diguised or not in whatever way. They are the Rove counter punches along with all the lies being told about Cindy and those there supporting her.
Nope, I am one who is not buying the “innocent” just trying to balance things out bull crap. I don’t buy it one bit.
Hang in there Tracy. We are with you and with Cindy and all the good folks that are able to get themselves down to Texas in the body. Your outrage is very justified.
The media is crap here in the Bay Area (Calif) You have to call and call these bastards for them to report anything other than Runaway Brides, Scott Peterson, Michael Jackson, Brad Pitt and whatever the fuck her name is, and Tom Cruise stories.
Also….
Since when is asking for the truth such a fucking EXTREME thing?
When was truth radical?
This country had better wake the fuck up. Soon.
problem at bare minimum.
There were two major thrusts I’ve seen to the Republican media revolution.
The first was the “balance/anti-balance” paradox.
They got the Fairness Doctrine thrown out, claiming that there were so many channels that no one channel needed to be balanced because there were so many others where other views could be heard. This was very important in the rise of pure-right talk radio.
At the same time they demanded (and as they purchased media, began to require) that news reporters must be “balanced” by airing “both sides” of controversial topics. The whole point of course was that the Republican side in all areas they pushed was supported by almost nobody, or was factually fraudulent, as you say about their “side” of Cindy’s story.
We had all of this in spades during the Reagan Administration, and it’s been going on ever since.
Cindy’s story is being handled perfectly normally by American standards of the past generation.
They made the news here today too in San Diego. There was a little back and forth between them and the anti-war protesters. They are driving a Budget rental truck with homemade signs all over it. The reporter said they are going to Crawford and they should be there by Saturday. Don’t worry Tracy…Leezy will be there to put that Stepford Wive manequin in her place.
And that truck is so small, it makes it pretty clear how many Bush supporters they’re expecting.
They have to hire a PR company to promote this counter protest. Really coming from the heart aren’t they? <snark>
Don’t count on that…
You know that they could bus in a bunch of young republicans that are too busy fighting the war in America to enlist to go to Iraq, and maybe a bunch of swifties to add a mix to their typical propoganda displays.
It didn’t take long for them to get a real rowdy crowd together in Florida 2000, did it?
Expect the worst…
But hope for the best!
Never underestimate the American soldiers’ greatest enemy…
A bush supporter with no dignity, of course!
Be sure to read this front-page story from Susan about the craven caravan.
I was so chapped about the bullshit on CNN that I didn’t read Susan’s story. Sometimes I’m just a hair slow. That explains everything EXCEPT the stupid fucking report that was just on CNN this morning again about the COUNTER PROTEST CARAVAN of angry super toughies that are steamrolling to Crawford and should arrive on Saturday! CNN IS SUCH A FUCKING JOKE THESE DAYS! I wish I was there to see all the folks that are going to pour in from Austin and all over Texas on Saturday to be there to great them! It ought to be 15 to 1,000 but will any of the camera angles make that clear to America? Aloha, I’m so glad that you will be there to witness this charade and at least speak the truth to us!