Vigil: Standing with Cindy Sheehan
Aug. 18th, 2005 06:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fivecats
For those of you who lack the contact with All Things American, Cindy Sheehan is a woman who has become something of a galvanizing point for the anti-war effort here in the US. Sheehan's son, Casey, was killed in Iraq in April 2004 at the age of 24. After several months of living in shock, Cindy decided to start doing something about her son's death and the lies the American public has been told by the current administration concerning the reasons for going to war in Iraq.
She's been asking for a meeting with him to ask him the hard questions any mother in her situation would want to ask. When our current pResident decided to take his 5-week summer vacation at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, Cindy Sheehan decided to follow him. She set up camp about 2 miles down the road from his ranch and has been joined by over a hundred other people, all taking up her cause with her.
Texas is a hot, desert area of a state. Camping out by the side of the road in the best of weather isn't fun. In the heat of August, it's got to be brutal. Still, they're undettered. (This week they moved to a local ranch, about a mile from Dubbya's ranch, thanks to a Vet who disapproved of the war)
She is, in many ways, the nightmare the Right had hoped would never come. She's a sympathetic figure, a heart-broken mother with questions. She's not spitting anger and revenge, she's not out of control and crazy. She's just deeply hurt and wants to confront the pRresident about all of this.
As well, she's a soldier's mom. There's no way the Right can pin the "You're protesting the war, you must hate the troops!" tag on her.
Cindy Sheehan is a force that's growing.
Monday the email started coming in that there were going to be nationwide vigils in support of Cindy Sheehan and her work. Bonn, who has been saying for weeks that if she had the money she'd be down in Texas with Sheehan's group, was certain to go to one of the vigils in our area. So was I.
There were larger ones around, but we chose one closer to home. It was a smaller one and we figured they could use the support. This was a short bridge, spanning the railroad tracks that connect some of the commercial train lines with local businesses. Forty-some people signed up online; 105 was the count one woman gave us after walking the length of us.
It was a nice, quiet and respectful way of making a point to the country, to the pResident and to the world.
I asked this woman if I could take a picture of her dog and she agreed, thinking it was kind of amusing. As I sat down to do so, Joe $3000 Canon Digital Camera swooped down and stuck his big-@$$ camera lens in the dog's face, getting all of his attention. When Joe $3000 Canon Digital Camera swooped away, the dog wasn't sure at all what to make of any of it and was far less calm than he was when I sat down. Still, he only moved his head a bit while I was taking this picture.
I was happy to see that we were getting at least some news coverage. The vigil in Durham (about 40 minutes away) was much bigger and had some TV coverage. Our one, lone reporter talked to two or three people and then left.
I wanted to give the impression that the vigil was a part of the city. Bringing in some of the buildings in the background was a part of that.
I played with the colors here, trying to make it look darker than it was so the candles would show up better. Instead, I ended up making Bonn's feet look too red.
Another shot made to appear somewhat darker than it was. We ended up having to leave earlier than we'd wanted to to get an errand taken care of before we went home.
The poster in the center was intentionally highlighted. Its from the NYC Protests in 2004 recommending that we give Bush the Pink Slip. It is, of course, held by my favorite protester.
[added late: a flickr slideshow of images from vigils around the country can be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/moveon/sets/774501/show/ The last one in my series is included.]
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