The Heart of Rock'n Roll is in Crawford

PREQUEL: I'm adding these remarks today, Sunday Aug. 14 - As I worry that readers may not know how wonderful this post is, and forgo the Continue link, I'm putting the "CindyWatch" link right here first thing. You can follow what's happening in the Crawford camp hour by hour, with great photos. Also, to counteract the nonsense being spouted by the right-wing blogs and "news" commentators, please do read here. Now, the original post:

Everybody's down with Cindy Sheehan's vigil at the President's Texas "ranch," right? Y'all know about this, there's no way you couldn't, short of a vegetative coma. And, by the way, great cartoon on today's Blue's News sidebar, last entry in the list - be sure to check it out.

Ms. Sheehan's testimony at Rep. John Conyers' hearings on the Downing St. Memo last spring was strong, credible and very very moving. I've heard her speak in person several times since then, it is always a memorable and moving experience. She has had a place in my personal Pantheon of heroes since last spring, and her place moves ever higher. This is just an ordinary woman, a regular American Woman in the Supermarket - until she discovered how unecessary, how ignoble and in vain her son's death was. This was a family that believed in America, in fighting for just causes, in doing what is right. But when this ordinary woman discovered that she and her family had been lied to, that the war that took her boy's life was founded on lies and political chicanery, she became transformed. She found a voice she didn't know she had, and now we're all hearing it.

I am a native Texan, and my Texas is a different one from that that most people on the left think of when they hear the word "Texas." Mine is the Texas of Molly Ivins and Jim Hightower, of peace activists and environmentalists, anti-nuclear protesters, priests and nuns who work in the ghettos for social justice, gay and lesbian activists in Dallas and Austin. Something that may not be universally known is that a member of the Dallas peace community bought a little house in Crawford in March 2003, and with the help of peace activists from around the state, turned it into the Crawford Peace House. It's still very much in use, and is right now kind of a base of operations for Cindy Sheehan and those who are journeying to the Hill Country to stand with her in her vigil.

The Peace House folks are accepting donations to keep the folks coming to Crawford supplied with food and other necessities (except, I reckon, for those who have started a hunger vigil). The address to send any help you can give is on the Peace House site, but I'm also putting it right here:

Crawford Peace House
P.O. Box 710218
Dallas, Tx. 75371-0218

In case you miss this while you're checking out the CPH site, I'm also giving you the Lone Star Iconoclast's "Cindy Watch" link. Here you can check in every day and see what's happening in real time - the Prez' motorcade speeding by, the Secret Service and troopers at the gate, the helicopters. Counter-protesters are coming in tonight, arriving around 6 pm Texas time, which is just what is not needed. On Cindy's own blog I am reading of protests by the local yokels, added crazies could be bad news.

Whether Cindy Sheehan gets to parlay with the Prez face to face, who knows. Probably it won't happen. But she has done an amazing thing. She's given the movement to bring the troops home a face. And it's the face of Just Plain Folks. Not stuck-up intolerant liberal know-it-alls, not academics, not Boston Brahmins. An American woman from the unglamorous town of Vacaville, CA, with bad hair and incredible gutsiness. The place I'd most like to be right now is not, strangely enough, a Wellfleet beach, it's right there in the heat, dirt, thunderstorms and gunshots, at Camp Casey in Crawford, TX.

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