From Dana at Delaware Watch:
MIKE CASTLE, "TAKE A STAND!" DAY!
Iraq Summer Campaign - Rally to End the War
Please join us for a rally to bring our troops home from Iraq and demand that our Congressman, Mike Castle, take a stand to end a war he helped start.
Where: Rodney Square, 920 King Street, Wilmington, Delaware
When: The main event (with the speakers) will take place between 5 and 7 pm, but between 12 pm and 5 pm, there will be music, food and booths manned by local Delaware community organizations providing information on ways you can take action and get involved.
The "Take a Stand Campaign" is a nation-wide organizing drive organized by the good people over at the Iraq Summer Campaign to demand that members of Congress and the Senate take a stand on the Iraq War. It is time our politicians not only stop supporting this war through their votes that fund it, but it is time for our politicians to represent the people who elected them. The vast majority of Americans want a safe and responsible redeployment and withdrawal of our sons and daughters, wives and husbands from Iraq. It is time wavering Republicans put action to their words.
It is time for them to take a stand.
Check on the link above if you want to attend a "Take A Stand" event in your area, or you can join me in Wilmington.
The Iraq Summer Campaign in Delaware has been quite active in keeping the pressure on Mike Castle, our sole representative in Congress who claims to be an independent "moderate" Republican.
More from Dana on their busy summer:
The summer began in early June with the kick-off event outside Mike Castle’s office in Wilmington. More than thirty Delawareans gathered for the launch of the Iraq Summer campaign, and addressed speeches to Mike Castle reminding him to stand with the people of Delaware, not the failed policy of President Bush. After covering the demonstration outside his office, the reporters went to get Castle’s response. Even though Iraq Summer calls for a responsible redeployment of troops out of Iraq based on a reasonable timetable, and despite the fact that Iraq Summer activists had met with Castle and explained their position, Mike Castle chose to resort to the rhetoric of fear and misrepresentation, telling WHYY and the News Journal that the demonstrators "don’t care about the Iraqi people" because they were demanding immediate withdrawal. False, just like the reasons given for invading Iraq.
After Castle voted against a timetable to bring the troops home from Iraq, Delawareans marched to Castle’s house in Wilmington on July 19th, 2007. The leader of the march was Thomas Little, a retired Marine whose son is also a marine. Little started things off saying "I was quiet about the war at first. I was serving overseas in Africa and figured others with sons and daughters were better spokesmen. But, I came home two years ago and saw that this war was totally out of hand. It is clearly not winnable and the troops are daily targets in a civil war. Keep them safe. Bring them home. Then we can better sort out Iraq." The demonstrators marched and chanted, carrying a banner that read, "Rep. Castle - You Got Us Into Iraq, Now Get Us Out!" Despite the nearly fifty fed-up Delawareans who marched and spoke out to express their disapproval of Castle’s obstinate refusal to stand with his constituents, no major media covered the event, revealing the entrenched power and deference Mike Castle has gathered after decades in office.
Following on the march, the Iraq Summer Campaign organized a Report Card delivery at Castle’s Dover office. The Report Card showed that, despite Castle’s claims to disagree with the President’s strategy on the Iraq, in ten of eleven votes Castle towed the party line and voted to support President Bush’s disastrous Iraq policy. The only time he voted to end the war was in the purely symbolic resolution against the President Bush’s surge on February 16th, 2007. Whatever credit he deserved for this move was swamped by the fact that 91% of the time Castle voted with President Bush instead of against ending the war. The bottom line: Castle gets a failing grade.