"Band of Sisters" kick-off rally with Gen Clark TODAY

[Jai4WKC08]

The kick-off event with the General is TODAY, at 2:30 (local time?) at the Campus Center of St Norbert College, De Pere WI.

From the homepage at http://www.winbackrespect.org/

Gen. Wesley Clark Launches "Band of Sisters" Tour

Today in Wisconsin, Gen. Wes Clark will launch Win
Back Respect’s “Band of Sisters” tour. The Band of
Sisters is a courageous group of women from around
the country who have come together to speak out
about the Bush foreign policy and its impact on
their lives. Come and hear their message.

The launch event—a town hall meeting with Gen. Clark—
will be held at 2:30 Campus Center, St. Norbert College,
De Pere, Wisconsin. All are welcome.

And from http://www.winbackrespect.org/bandofsisters/index.html

Win Back Respect’s Band of Sisters is a courageous
group of military wives and mothers from around the
country who have come together to speak out about
the Bush foreign policy and its impact on their
lives. The Band of Sisters don’t just want their
husbands and sons home—they want America to get
Iraq right, and they’ve lost faith in George Bush
to do that. Gen. Wes Clark launched the Band of
Sisters tour on September 14 in Green Bay, Wisconsin
and over the next six weeks the Sisters will take
their message to other battleground states including
Iowa, New Hampshire and New Mexico. Contribute now
to get their ads on the air in the states they visit!

There are also links to their ads and statements from individual members. Well worth checking out and donating to if you can.

[hippiechick]

1. A Dem speaking at St Norbert's ??

WOW, things are changing up there !!! :wow:

[Jai4WKC08]

8. Well, they need to change

And they won't unless people like Clark are willing to go in and talk to 'em. He's made a point of addressing conservative audiences, for all that he's been heckled and dissed a time or three. He won't change the majority, but there are many who can be reached. This year, victory will lie in dragging over those in the center, and Wes Clark is one of those who can reach 'em.

Assuming St Norberts is a Catholic college, that may give Clark an "in" as well. He spoke at Ripon College (which I'm thinking is also Catholic?) earlier this morning. Yeah, I know Kerry is Catholic too, but not as many people are aware that Clark is more extremely pro-choice than Kerry so he's not as likely to get snubbed.

[hippiechick]

10. It's just odd

... visiting pols usually speak at the UWGB campus, which leans much more liberal than private, Catholic SNC - or out at Bay Beach Park (FDR gave some important speech there) ...

Anyway, Good for the General ! Hope he had time to stop at The Abbey across the street for some Combat Juice (hiccup!) before he left town !!!

:)

[dammit905]

2. Oh my. I love Clark!

That guy kicks so much ass.

[11cents]

3. Seymour Hersh likes him too!

He told Amy Goodman this morning that Clark encouraged him early on to pursue the detainee abuse story, and later (during the primary campaign) scolded him because he hadn't run the story yet.

[Jai4WKC08]

4. Clark is behind so much good we seldom hear about

And purely because, as he told Dan Rather, "When you can do good, you should."

According to an article in the July Vanity Fair, Richard Clarke had lunch with Wes Clark back in the summer of 2003. Clarke said it was Clark who convinced him that he had a duty to go public with his story. And as we all know, Clark was one of Clarke's most vocal defenders when the book was finally published.

Thank goodness they spell their names differently or that would have been an impossible paragraph to write. ;)

[11cents]

6. Whoops

I see that I got the context of Hersh's remarks wrong. The story Clark urged Hersh to report concerned a disastrously botched Marine operation in Afghanistan, not prisoner abuse. Still. Hersh respects our guy.

[11cents]

5. Whoops

I see that I got the context of Hersh's remarks wrong. The story Clark urged Hersh to report concerned a disastrously botched operation in Afghanistan, not prisoner abuse. Still. Hersh likes our guy.

[Jai4WKC08]

7. That's ok... Clark is still doing good

By inserting himself into the right circles and encouraging the people with the right stories to tell.

I wonder... did Amy Goodman make a face when Hersch spoke well of Clark? I seem to recall her calling him a war criminal at one point.

[Jai4WKC08]

9. Hey, I found the transcript

A "great streak of integrity..."

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan?

SEYMOUR HERSH:....I got there after action started, which was just devastating, I mean, brutal. There's always internesting warfare, but this was extraordinary. They just said, this was the worst they have ever seen. One air force colonel, who is a wonderful, bright young air force colonel said to me, "Well, the army demonstrated that they were able to send a bunch of boys up a mountain to their death." That's what they showed in this mission. Complete disaster. They tried to tell the press as many as 700 al Qaeda were killed. Newsweek reported ten bodies were found. Shades of Vietnam again. But I didn't write it. What makes it interesting, while doing reporting on it, I called Wesley Clark, the former NATO commander, who is sort of an interesting guy in this stuff, because early in the war, early in my reporting on the war, I had written critically about a Delta Force operation. Delta is the secret unit of the army. The commander unit. They had been ambushed. The Delta guys were enraged. I'm talking about the first month of the war because they had been sent on this stupid operation and they had gotten hurt very badly. And they don't like it. Delta guys, they like to crawl in little holes for a week and get to their target. They were ordered to do it in a different way. Everybody denied the story like crazy. And Wes Clark, to his credit, told a bunch of newspapers, "Look, I know this is right." I had said 13 people were hurt and he said 12 was the number that he had. I saw in him somebody with a great streak of integrity, difficult he may be. In any case, I called him about this story while I was doing it. He encouraged me to write it. I didn't write it. About a year-and-a-half later, he's running for president. I mention this in the book, and I bump into him, and he jumped all over me. He said, "Why didn't you do that story?" I said, "Well, I just thought, it just would have been -- I just didn't do it." He said, "You should have done it. That was your job." Pretty scary. You know, he was right.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/09/14/1351212

[Lefta Dissenter]

11. BRIEF second hand report

OK, I haven't talked with my friend yet, but here's a brief email through another friend:

September 14, 2004

FYI

Jane said that she introduced Wes and Gert at St. Norbert College in DePere. She said that the talk went well, but the first question from the audience was (again) on why he was "kicked out" of the army. After that the Q & A was very productive. She said that about 300 people attended. There were many students but no "anti" signs.

She also reported that NE Wisconsin (Appleton, Fox River, up to Green Bay) has lots of large Bush-Cheney signs but almost no Kerry signs.