Trashing Cindy Sheehan

Her questions for Bush are really simple - "What exactly is the 'Noble Cause' our sons and daughters are dying for?" A mother's pain and grief for having lost her son for what has been PROVEN to be nothing but LIES and PROPAGANDA to get us into Iraq is putting Bush and his entire administration onto the hot-seat and the fear they are showing is quite evident.

Anyone with merely an ounce of perception can clearly see that all the attacks on Cindy and her supporters by association with her continue to be smeared and denigrated by those who wish to continue these horrible actions and maintain control of the US masses. It is also evident that many people are now waking up to these facts. If I can see this, so too can the Bush Gang and their supporters and behind-the-scenes bosses.

What is really very worrisome about all this is that if they seem to be losing their grip on the populace they may resort to even more violent acts and 'terrorism' of the public to attempt to frighten the populace into continuing to believe they need to be 'protected' from these events by the very same 'leaders' who are propagating these things.

Here is an article from Signs of the Times which is an example of the outright opinion-creation which is being used against Cindy any anyone else who stands up for truth and attempts in any way to expose the lies and propaganda of this administration:

Hitchens Slimes Cindy Sheehan

Sheehan is Not the One Uttering Piffley Bunk
By ELISA SALASIN
Counterpunch
08/16/05

I learned a new word today! Piffle!

I suppose it is not completely new, as I've probably come across it at various points in my life. However, today I read it in Christopher Hitchens' rather nonsensical gabbling as he added to the right-wing attempt to slander Cindy Sheehan (he referred to her work as "sinister piffle"), and was actually driven to seek a definition. Here's what I found:

Noun 1. piffle - trivial nonsense, balderdash, fiddle-faddle, hokum, meaninglessness, nonsense, nonsensicality, bunk - a message that seems to convey no meaning

Verb 1. piffle - speak (about unimportant matters) rapidly and incessantly blabber, palaver, prate, prattle, tattle, tittle-tattle, twaddle, gabble, gibber, blab, clack, maunder, chatter, mouth, speak, talk, verbalise, verbalize, utter - express in speech; "She talks a lot of nonsense"; "This depressed patient does not verbalize," blather, blether, blither, smatter, babble - to talk foolishly; "The two women babbled and crooned at the baby"

My first reaction was that I don't think that I have ever before come across such truly excellent synonyms for a word.

So, Hitchens is saying that Cindy Sheehan's effort and message is balderdash and hokem. That holding Bush, our government, and ourselves accountable for the deaths of nearly 2000 Americans, and tens of thousands of Iraqis is prattle, blither, smatter and babble.

This, I would say, is the fiddle-faddle of those among us who have somehow been brainwashed by the blathering and blethering of our so-called mission to spread freedom and democracy throughout the world. Too bad that Hitchens is not able to recognize that piffle becomes sinister when people die horrible and needless deaths as a result of our imperialistic endeavors, not when Cindy Sheehan acts from a place of moral clarity. Anything outside of that place, be it twaddling or action, is just bunk. Extremely sinister bunk.

Elisa Salasin lives in Berkeley, California, and can be contacted at elisasalasin@gmail.com.

Many of her writings can be found on her blog, Two Feet In.

Comment: Hitchens does indeed completely miss the point of Cindy Sheehan's protest. It is not a question of who has "moral authority". If anyone is severely lacking in moral authority while at the same time stating - and probably believing - that god is directing his actions, it is George W. Bush. Apparently, there are those who would rather belittle what Sheehan is doing in speaking out against the lies of the Bush administration by attempting to steer the debate away from the facts and into the realm of "morality". Americans and Iraqis are dying. Iraq is less secure today and no more closer to "freedom and democracy" than before the US invasion. And Saddam's WMD's? Well, they never existed in the first place. The facts speak for themselves.