Happy birthday to a true American hero

Today is Cindy Sheehan's birthday. I admire the hell out of Cindy and I'll go so far as to say she's a hero of mine.
Cindy stood up to the war machine when almost no one else did. She galvanized many others, including me, into taking to the streets, the airwaves, and the internet to make our opposition to the war known. She's been vilified, first by the conservatives who said she should just shut up and go the hell home even though the war machine murdered her son Casey. Then after the anti war Democrat got elected the left vilified her for daring to oppose him for not keeping his promise to end the war.
But through all the criticism, the death threats, the name calling, after suffering all the barbs, the slings and arrows, Cindy still stands firm and tall against the war. And I stand with her.
I'm proud to have her as a Facebook friend and one day I hope to be able to meet her in person to shake her hand, to give her a hug, and to thank her for fighting the good fight. If you hate her, that's on you and you can keep your hate to yourself and out of the comments section of this blog.

One day I hope the Nobel prize committee realizes what a mistake they made giving Obummer the Peace prize a few years ago and they take it back from him and give it to Cindy. She's done more to advance the cause of peace than Obama ever did.

Happy birthday Cindy. I hope you have many more. And one day I hope we have the peace you've worked so hard for and that your Casey gets the justice he deserves.

Monkey Muck's man of the year is:

The head of Wikileaks, Julian Assange.

The staff here at Monkey Muck salute you sir for your valiant efforts to bring the truth to the peoples of the world. If there's any way we can help you, let us know.

We mean it.

Really.

Keeping us free

It's not the military dead or wounded that keep us free here in the USA. It's not active duty or reservists who help keep us free during the year and on Memorial Day.

No, the people who do the most to keep us free and who safeguard our rights are the ones who push the boundaries of the freedoms granted to us in the Bill of Rights in our Constitution. So given that, it's not the terrorists in the far off lands who we need to be fighting, it's homegrown terrorists like those in Operation Rescue, the right wing militias, activist conservative judges who make up new laws on the fly, and Christians who want us all to follow their interpretation of their fairy tale who we need to be on guard against.

The pissed off guy in Iraq/Afghanistan/Pakistan who's country we're occupying has every right to be pissed off at us. The children who's parent's we slaughtered so we could make sure the oil keeps flowing out of the Middle East have every right to be pissed off at us. The Palestinians who we keep under the oppressive thumb of Israel have every right to be pissed off at us. The men, women, and children who live under the harsh oppressive governments that we prop up so we can treat the world as our object to be plundered so that we can live 'high on the hog' can and should be pissed at us. That's where most of the military they want us to glorify today is stationed.

And they have no right to be there.

And I'm not going to support them while they are being used in this fashion.

And I'm not going to celebrate or remember them on Memorial Day.

Instead I'm going to remember people who tested the limits of our freedoms and who landmark Supreme Court cases made us all a little more freer than we were before.

UPDATE: Great minds think alike.