Sparking a Prairie Fire: Cindy Sheehan at City Hall (Austin)

[struggle4progress]

The scene Wednesday evening outside the gates of the Capitol seemed almost like the preview to an outdoor concert, as the sweltering crowd awaited the arrival of the star performer. At about 5:30, two buses pulled up a converted navy-blue school bus, and a Ford E-450 Super Duty truck hauling a Winnebago christened The D.C. Express. Working her way down off the bus and through the crowd to a microphone was none other than Cindy Sheehan, the Gold Star mother who has spent the last month waiting outside President Bushs ranch at Crawford, waiting for an answer to one question: Why did her son Casey have to die in Iraq?

"God bless you for your strength, God bless you for what you do," said Austin Sen. Gonzalo Barrientos in welcome, adding, "Godspeed!" Austin is the first stop in Sheehan's cross-country "Bring Them Home Now!" tour that will culminate Sept. 24 in Washington, D.C., in what could become the largest anti-war protest the country has seen at least since the Vietnam War.

Sheehan took her place at the front of the crowd and led a massive protest south down Congress Avenue. Surrounded by a small battalion of Austin police, the ranks of several hundred protesters stretched more than three city blocks as they wound their way, in the 100-degree heat, to City Hall: hippies, anarchos, and punks; the elderly, young, and children; straights, gays, and lesbians; workers and students – a cross-section of the people of Austin. <snip>

Members of Gold Star Families for Peace, Military Families Speak Out, Iraq Veterans Against the War, and Veterans for Peace spoke before Sheehan took the mic; country supergroup the Flatlanders (Joe Ely, Butch Hancock, and Jimmie Dale Gilmore) proclaimed Hancock's anti-war anthem, "The Damage Done" – i.e., abroad and at home – a cappella. Populist author and agitator Jim Hightower congratulated the crowd for "daring to challenge King George the W" and his "messianic, testosterone-driven crusade to make the world safe for Halliburton." Alluding to the nation's snowballing disapproval of Bush and his war, Hightower intoned, "It only takes a spark to ignite a prairie fire. We've got our spark in the form of Cindy Sheehan." <snip>

http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/2005-09-02/pols_feature11.html

[Mythsaje]

1. Nice to see what Cindy's doing...

I assume the Chronicle is an "underground" newspaper?