Cindy, Charlotte, and Our Constitution

By David Swanson

As you watch the presidential debates, here's a game to play that won't even get you drunk (unless you want to add tequila shots to it): every time you hear John McCain tell a lie write down $10 under the name Charlotte, and every time you hear Barack Obama agree with John McCain write down $10 under the name Cindy. You can also play this if you're broke by writing down 10 hours.

When you're done you can still plan to vote for Obama, with rapture or a clothespin or anything in between. You can still plan to do everything you can to deny Republicans as many seats as possible in both houses of Congress. But you can do something more as well. One thing you can do is send a powerful message to the woman who has managed the war funding, the wall street funding, the Bill of Rights shredding, and the elimination of the power of impeachment from our Constitution over the past two years.

CINDY:

I came to know Cindy Sheehan in May 2005, and -- like most people who know her -- I immediately loved her. She is a very friendly and loving person, and you cannot work on a project with her without being constantly reminded of what it is all about, how important it is, how right it is. Cindy does not talk about peace movement strategy as if she were working on any old project. She talks about the urgent need to end the vile crimes of the greedy bastards who sent her son to die so that they could grow rich on his flesh and blood. This is Cindy's language that I am repeating.

Cindy's directness is -- for many people -- not off-putting when she speaks it, because it is so recognizably honest. She presents her personal story and her analysis of the war with absolutely no fear. She gives us, in fact, the truth without varnish. And in August 2005 she proved that even the corporate media can be attracted to such confrontational truth in a way that it never is attracted to the sort of moderate muddle more often counseled by PR pros and political advisors.

Early on during her protest in Texas, Cindy had a reporter tell her that her story was only taking off because it was a slow news week. She asked whether they thought two dozen American kids dying in Iraq was slow news. "Well, you know what I mean," came the response. "No, I don't," said Cindy. And she didn't, and she didn't want to learn to.

Cindy's son, Casey, was killed on April 4, the same date on which the person Cindy quotes more than any other was assassinated: Martin Luther King, Jr. Like King, Cindy asks us to refuse to be comfortable with accepted and respectable crimes against humanity. Cindy does not ask politely why the war isn't run better. She asks why Bush does not encourage his daughters to go.

The first place I heard Cindy give a speech was at the University of DC on June 3rd, 2005. She said then, that while 5 Republicans had voted for Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey's amendment calling for an exit strategy, 40 percent of the Democrats in the House had not. Woolsey asked one why they didn't vote with her, Cindy said, and they told her that they voted 'No' out of respect for those (Americans) who had died.

"That's the talk of the bastards who got us into this war," Cindy said. Cindy spoke calmly and deliberately, but always referred to the president as "the lying bastard."

"The evidence is overwhelming," she said, "that the lying bastard lied about the justification for invading Iraq. Now that the smoking gun is burning in our hands, we need a vote for articles of impeachment."

We still don't have that, thanks to Nancy Pelosi, but on June 16th, 2005, Congressman John Conyers held hearings, and we activists held a rally at the White House to call attention to the Downing Street Memo, to which Cindy was referring. One of the four witnesses to testify at that hearing was Cindy Sheehan. She spoke powerfully of how it felt to see clear evidence that Bush had lied about the reasons he sent her son to die.

That moment in mid-June 2005 was a high-point in media coverage of questioning of Bush's war lies, but it didn't come anywhere near what we dreamed of. It didn't approach the sort of saturation coverage that is generally reserved for a Michael Jackson trial or a missing teenage white girl. Action progressed in Congress, but the media turned away. The Washington Post published an article mocking Congressman Conyers' hearings and editorialized that the Downing Street Memo showed nothing new. Thousands of people Emailed and phoned to complain, and some held a protest at the Post's offices. The Post reversed course and printed a front page article. The leader of the protest down on 15th Street was Cindy Sheehan.

Two months later, what we'd all dreamed of happened: an unprecedented progressive breakthrough into the mainstream echo chamber. This came when Cindy decided to walk up to Bush's ranch and try to get herself arrested. This was Cindy's idea. Various organizations that were later accused of manipulating her would have certainly advised against this. She dragged a number of them into clearer opposition to the war, and then produced for them the largest events they'd ever been part of. She drove the agenda, not the other way around. And she and those inspired by her created in Camp Casey in Crawford, Texas, a community of activists who returned to their communities around the country ready to work as passionately as Cindy to end this war.

And when the fame came, the only thing Cindy lost was the cursing. She took advice, but she stuck to her guns. And she gracefully handled a flood of unsolicited recommendations and proposals, bitter petty rivalries, right wing smear campaigns, family emergencies, and grueling hours. Through all of this she became the leader of a movement, and did so in a way that few others could have handled. Cindy demanded in a voice loud enough for the nation to hear that the war end immediately. And Cindy is able to do this without seeming irrationally impatient: she makes clear that she does not want a single additional mother to go through what she has.

While working the corporate media, Cindy has never stopped criticizing it, and has never dropped her focus on the value of independent and progressive media on the radio and internet. Cindy's combative approach has forced the anti-war movement onto the radar of major media conglomerates that profit from war. There is no clearer way that we can all send a message for peace, justice, and accountability, than to give every dime we can spare to replace Nancy Pelosi with Cindy Sheehan: http://cindyforcongress.org

CHARLOTTE:

Vincent Bugliosi prosecuted Charles Manson. He is the author of bestsellers including "Helter Skelter" and his latest: "The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder." In his new book, Bugliosi makes a devastating, well documented case that President George W. Bush is guilty of the murder of U.S. soldiers as a result of the lies he told to justify the invasion of Iraq, and can be prosecuted by any state attorney general or county prosecutor.

As a Los Angeles prosecutor, Bugliosi represented the state in 106 major cases and won 105, including each of his 21 murder cases. Since his first book, "Helter Skelter," he's been one of the top true crime writers with three number one best sellers and numerous awards. In his best known case, Bugliosi convicted Charles Manson of murder even though Manson was not present at two of the crime scenes when the victims were murdered.

Bugliosi's argument is simple. Bush wanted a war with Iraq. He had to show that a preemptive invasion of Iraq was justified. To do this Iraq had to be an imminent threat to the United States. There were two major problems. Bush couldn't prove any connection between Saddam Hussein and 9/11. More importantly, Bush's own 2002 classified intelligence estimate found that Saddam was not an imminent threat to the United States. Bush simply reversed the findings of the National Intelligence Estimate of 2002, and sent men and women off to fight a fraudulent and unnecessary war, knowing full well that some of them would come home in boxes.

But here's the weak link in Bugliosi's plan: there are 50 state attorneys general and some 2,700 district prosecutors who take up this fight as their moral duty, but they are almost all afraid to do so.

Enter Charlotte Dennett. She's a serious candidate for Attorney General of Vermont who has a shot at winning, and who would have a better shot if we all chipped in. She has committed to prosecuting Bush and to appointing Bugliosi as a special prosecutor to lead the way.

"Vermonters deserve an Attorney General who will prosecute those who break the law," says Dennett. "Vermonters pay a huge amount of money and a disproportionate share of soldiers' lives in this illegal war. If our elected representatives will not act to hold President Bush accountable, it is up to us to use this final remaining tool."

So give as many of those $10 and 10 hours of help to Charlotte as you can:
http://dennettforag.com/donate.htm

TALK WITH BUGLIOSI YOURSELF WEDNESDAY NIGHT

I'll be interviewing Bugliosi with your help this Wednesday evening, October 8, 2008, 8:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. Eastern. Go to http://www.thepeoplespeakradio.net/listen-live to listen live. You'll find instructions there to enter a paltalk chat room where you can post questions.

You can also phone in and ask your questions on the air. Call in tollfree from anywhere in the United States or Canada at 888-228-4494 or anywhere else in the world at 877-489-6350.

Following the show, the audio file will be posted at http://www.thepeoplespeakradio.net/audio/2008 and you can find there now the recordings of numerous shows with amazing guests, including Cindy Sheehan, Lincoln Chafee, Brad Friedman, Shirin Ebadi, Phil Donahue, Mark Crispin Miller, William Odom, Byron DeLear, John Dean, Elizabeth Kucinich, etc.

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