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Sheehan sounds off in Iredell
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Published: October 25, 2009
Cindy Sheehan made her way to the national stage mostly by bad-mouthing former President George W. Bush and enumerating the many mistakes she believed he was making in Iraq and Afghanistan.
She was also happy to comment on the flawed thinking she felt was responsible for launching the wars in the first place.
But to a small group gathered at the Statesville Civic Center on Saturday afternoon, Sheehan said she is no real fan of Bush's successor, President Barack Obama.
Sheehan said the United States has fallen back into a Cervantes-like paradigm of haves and have-nots, whom she referred to as the "robber class" and the "robbed class."
And when you are in the robbed class, she said, "It's not just about hating George W. Bush. Barack Obama is not George Bush. He may be better than George Bush, but there are 300 million people in this country who are better than George Bush."
Sheehan said that although Obama promised peace when he was campaigning for the presidency, he has maintained many of the same policies Bush instituted.
"It's not a Democrat/Republican problem. It is a class problem," she said.
Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed in combat in Iraq in 2004, said the whole idea of war is a sham.
"The few profit and the many suffer," she said. "We continue to allow ourselves to be scared into this false fervor of patriotism.
"We are told and we believe that we have to get them over there before they can come over here and get us. That is the 'the-only-good-indian-is-a-dead-indian' paradigm.' "
Sheehan, who became well known when she camped out in Crawford, Texas, very close to Bush's ranch, said Saturday that she had been arrested on several occasions related to her anti-war protests.
"And every time I did anything I was peaceful and every time they have gone after me, it had been with excessive force," she said. "Whether it was handcuffs or rubber bullets or gas, each time it was more than was required. But that is how they do things."
Sheehan asked the crowd of about a dozen people to adopt a minimalist lifestyle to wean themselves from the robber class.
"Do we need one TV or do we need a TV in every room in our house?" she said. "Can we ride a bus or do we need to drive a car everywhere? Can we live in a house that is just large enough for us or do we need rooms or extra space?"
She also advised pulling money out of mega-banks like Bank of America and patronizing small, locally-run credit unions.
Sheehan was in town on a speaking tour and to promote her new book titled "Myth America II."
She will appear in Charlotte today.
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