May 9th. "Irish Independent" ........As work/life balances go, he (Martin Sheen) seems to be onto something, looking at least a decade younger than his 68 years. The most recent arrest was less than two years ago, and related to trespassing on a nuclear test facility in Nevada. He has, he says, no plans to add to his impressive tally as he tours around Ireland this weekend with his grandson.
But he knows where to find the action if he needs to. "You have an extraordinary group here called the Catholic Workers and Ciaron O'Reilly of the [related] Pitstop Ploughshares which put Ireland on record against the Bush war in Iraq," he said.
The Pitshop Ploughshares, for those with poorer memories than Mr Sheen, were a group of five who damaged a US military plane that had stopped over at Shannon in 2003. They were later cleared of criminal damage.
"He embarrassed the Irish Government for turning a blind eye to that, because it's clearly illegal as you're a neutral country," Mr Sheen. "They took a lot of criticism and spent a lot of time in jail waiting for the trial. It's a credit to you."
Full article
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/activist-actor-...tical
Comments (2 of 2)
Jump To Comment: 1 2What exactly is the current status of the war on terror? (1) Obama has so demonized the Bush administration (despite 8 years of successful homeland security and freedom from 9/11-like attack), and so rejected its very protocols, that he even has changed the very nomenclature of the fight: terrorism is now “man-caused disasters,” enemy combatants at Guantanamo are “detainees,” “Overseas Contingency Operations” mean the “war on terror”; OR (2) Nothing has changed: renditions, wiretaps, email intercepts, Predator attacks, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq continue and Guantanamo is still open; he’s simply Bush III, pacifying his leftwing base with apologies abroad and euphemism at home; OR (3) He has no idea of what he’s doing, and sort of makes it up as he goes, screaming “Bush did it” now, and then ordering “Follow what Bush did”. He simply assumes that whatever he does and whoever dies in the ongoing conflict, the media most certainly is not going to scream, as it did the last eight years, “murder” and “shredding the Constitution.” The days of movies, plays, and novels slurring the President are over.
Did anyone else notice how uncomfortable Pat the Plank became when Martin Sheen began discussing his activism and the case of the Pitstop Ploughshares in Shannon?. Typical behaviour from the Poster boy for the corporate Irish establishment.
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