Says It All. . .
by Cindy Sheehan, Memorial Day Morning 2007
[Full statement Below the Fold.]“Good-bye America…you are not the country that I love and I finally realized no matter how much I sacrifice, I can't make you be that country unless you want it.”
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by Cindy Sheehan, Memorial Day Morning 2007I have endured a lot of smear and hatred since Casey was killed and especially since I became the so-called "Face" of the American anti-war movement. Especially since I renounced any tie I have remaining with the Democratic Party, I have been further trashed on such "liberal blogs" as the Democratic Underground. Being called an "attention whore" and being told "good riddance" are some of the more milder rebukes.
I have come to some heartbreaking conclusions this Memorial Day Morning. These are not spur of the moment reflections, but things I have been meditating on for about a year now. The conclusions that I have slowly and very reluctantly come to are very heartbreaking to me.
The first conclusion is that I was the darling of the so-called left as long as I limited my protests to George Bush and the Republican Party. Of course, I was slandered and libeled by the right as a "tool" of the Democratic Party. This label was to marginalize me and my message. How could a woman have an original thought, or be working outside of our "two-party" system?
However, when I started to hold the Democratic Party to the same standards that I held the Republican Party, support for my cause started to erode and the "left" started labeling me with the same slurs that the right used. I guess no one paid attention to me when I said that the issue of peace and people dying for no reason is not a matter of "right or left", but "right and wrong."
I am deemed a radical because I believe that partisan politics should be left to the wayside when hundreds of thousands of people are dying for a war based on lies that is supported by Democrats and Republican alike. It amazes me that people who are sharp on the issues and can zero in like a laser beam on lies, misrepresentations, and political expediency when it comes to one party refuse to recognize it in their own party. Blind party loyalty is dangerous whatever side it occurs on. People of the world look on us Americans as jokes because we allow our political leaders so much murderous latitude and if we don't find alternatives to this corrupt "two" party system our Representative Republic will die and be replaced with what we are rapidly descending into with nary a check or balance: a fascist corporate wasteland. I am demonized because I don't see party affiliation or nationality when I look at a person, I see that person's heart. If someone looks, dresses, acts, talks and votes like a Republican, then why do they deserve support just because he/she calls him/herself a Democrat?
I have also reached the conclusion that if I am doing what I am doing because I am an "attention whore" then I really need to be committed. I have invested everything I have into trying to bring peace with justice to a country that wants neither. If an individual wants both, then normally he/she is not willing to do more than walk in a protest march or sit behind his/her computer criticizing others. I have spent every available cent I got from the money a "grateful" country gave me when they killed my son and every penny that I have received in speaking or book fees since then. I have sacrificed a 29 year marriage and have traveled for extended periods of time away from Casey's brother and sisters and my health has suffered and my hospital bills from last summer (when I almost died) are in collection because I have used all my energy trying to stop this country from slaughtering innocent human beings. I have been called every despicable name that small minds can think of and have had my life threatened many times.
The most devastating conclusion that I reached this morning, however, was that Casey did indeed die for nothing. His precious lifeblood drained out in a country far away from his family who loves him, killed by his own country which is beholden to and run by a war machine that even controls what we think. I have tried ever since he died to make his sacrifice meaningful. Casey died for a country which cares more about who will be the next American Idol than how many people will be killed in the next few months while Democrats and Republicans play politics with human lives. It is so painful to me to know that I bought into this system for so many years and Casey paid the price for that allegiance. I failed my boy and that hurts the most.
I have also tried to work within a peace movement that often puts personal egos above peace and human life. This group won't work with that group; he won't attend an event if she is going to be there; and why does Cindy Sheehan get all the attention anyway? It is hard to work for peace when the very movement that is named after it has so many divisions.
Our brave young men and women in Iraq have been abandoned there indefinitely by their cowardly leaders who move them around like pawns on a chessboard of destruction and the people of Iraq have been doomed to death and fates worse than death by people worried more about elections than people. However, in five, ten, or fifteen years, our troops will come limping home in another abject defeat and ten or twenty years from then, our children's children will be seeing their loved ones die for no reason, because their grandparents also bought into this corrupt system. George Bush will never be impeached because if the Democrats dig too deeply, they may unearth a few skeletons in their own graves and the system will perpetuate itself in perpetuity.
I am going to take whatever I have left and go home. I am going to go home and be a mother to my surviving children and try to regain some of what I have lost. I will try to maintain and nurture some very positive relationships that I have found in the journey that I was forced into when Casey died and try to repair some of the ones that have fallen apart since I began this single-minded crusade to try and change a paradigm that is now, I am afraid, carved in immovable, unbendable and rigidly mendacious marble.
Camp Casey has served its purpose. It's for sale. Anyone want to buy five beautiful acres in Crawford, Texas? I will consider any reasonable offer. I hear George Bush will be moving out soon, too…which makes the property even more valuable.
This is my resignation letter as the "face" of the American anti-war movement. This is not my "Checkers" moment, because I will never give up trying to help people in the world who are harmed by the empire of the good old US of A, but I am finished working in, or outside of this system. This system forcefully resists being helped and eats up the people who try to help it. I am getting out before it totally consumes me or anymore people that I love and the rest of my resources.
It's up to you now.
She is, once again, correct.
[Even though I have a son, I can only imagine the horror of her loss.]
posted by The Old Hippie @ 9:22 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Since the first day I ever heard your name and your Son's name, and learned why your names are so remembered, I shed tears. Nothing in my life that I have experienced yet could embolden me enough to face a tragedy such as yours. I have shed tears for you ever since. I have followed your causes ever since. It hurts me to see a person in your pain. Is your pain any different than any other parent who lost a son or daughter in Iraq, Vietnam, Korea, WW2, WW1, the American Civil War, War of 1812, the American Revolution? Was any of it necessary? Was the American Revolution necessary? I'm not here now to turn a knife in a wound, but to ask a question that every parent thought about from the day a document went from being an idea to a declaration of freedom. Without soldiers fighting, and unfortunately many dying, the United States of America would probably have never been. The concepts of what still binds our nation to this day are concepts that were considered by the Greeks and Romans, but they, then knew if they gave people such freedom, in the long run, It would be impossible to stop. Freedom is dangerous. The Greeks and Romans knew this too well. It took millennia for our founding fathers to see if these ancient ideas would actually work. It still holds the test of time (even though it is a short time) 200+ years are nothing compared to the history of the rest of the world.
To make a long story shorter, Mrs. Shehan, It takes strong will, guts , and human blood to make such ideas mean something. Your son Casey is a part of this. Just as you embrace the 1st Amendment to our American Constitution as I do, you deeply need to understand that the only reason we still have these rights are because of soldiers like your son who uphold the American Constitution. Every Federal Employee to America takes this oath. I did, and I fully meant it. I think you lost son did too. He was a patriot for his nation. As much as your lost causes, I hate to say, I think he would be both proud and ashamed of you. Ashamed of hating the nation he fought for and ultimately died for. You paste a shameful shadow on many fallen individuals who did their jobs and believed in their nation. To lose a friend and stand at a funeral and hear your words of hated really hurts and stings. Casey my have had to endure losing someone too. I never knew him. You did. Nothing in me could ever say that his death was just. My heart and tears will always go out to you. I do have to say that the thing that we do everyday and forget about were not free. We have such freedoms because we collectively fought for them, cherished them, and fought for them some more. Many forget that we fought the British TWICE, not just once. The War of 1812 was our second fight to keep our independence. Francis Scott Key came up with a cool song during one battle. Maybe you heard it?
To make a long story short Mrs Shehan, my heart does hurt for you. But at the same time, I'm very proud of the freedoms your son fought to preserve. If you weigh it out, show me another nation on Earth that has so many freedoms (like those you use regularly in your disenchantment with leadership in this country). That is your freedom and right, people in Venezuela might be in serious trouble talking against the leader there. In Chile, a dictator ran that nation until 2006 (thousands died). Now they have a "really nice man" that Sean Penn and Danny Glover love. Enough said. American freedoms are a real bummer to some. I'll do a time warp and cheer it....not. Hmmm.......what is it about freedom you don't like Mrs. Sheehan? Casey is a hero to me.
Since the first day I ever heard your name and your Son's name, and learned why your names are so remembered, I shed tears. Nothing in my life that I have experienced yet could embolden me enough to face a tragedy such as yours. I have shed tears for you ever since. I have followed your causes ever since. It hurts me to see a person in your pain. Is your pain any different than any other parent who lost a son or daughter in Iraq, Vietnam, Korea, WW2, WW1, the American Civil War, War of 1812, the American Revolution? Was any of it necessary? Was the American Revolution necessary? I'm not here now to turn a knife in a wound, but to ask a question that every parent thought about from the day a document went from being an idea to a declaration of freedom. Without soldiers fighting, and unfortunately many dying, the United States of America would probably have never been. The concepts of what still binds our nation to this day are concepts that were considered by the Greeks and Romans, but they, then knew if they gave people such freedom, in the long run, It would be impossible to stop. Freedom is dangerous. The Greeks and Romans knew this too well. It took millennia for our founding fathers to see if these ancient ideas would actually work. It still holds the test of time (even though it is a short time) 200+ years are nothing compared to the history of the rest of the world.
To make a long story shorter, Mrs. Shehan, It takes strong will, guts , and human blood to make such ideas mean something. Your son Casey is a part of this. Just as you embrace the 1st Amendment to our American Constitution as I do, you deeply need to understand that the only reason we still have these rights are because of soldiers like your son who uphold the American Constitution. Every Federal Employee to America takes this oath. I did, and I fully meant it. I think you lost son did too. He was a patriot for his nation. As much as your lost causes, I hate to say, I think he would be both proud and ashamed of you. Ashamed of hating the nation he fought for and ultimately died for. You paste a shameful shadow on many fallen individuals who did their jobs and believed in their nation. To lose a friend and stand at a funeral and hear your words of hated really hurts and stings. Casey my have had to endure losing someone too. I never knew him. You did. Nothing in me could ever say that his death was just. My heart and tears will always go out to you. I do have to say that the thing that we do everyday and forget about were not free. We have such freedoms because we collectively fought for them, cherished them, and fought for them some more. Many forget that we fought the British TWICE, not just once. The War of 1812 was our second fight to keep our independence. Francis Scott Key came up with a cool song during one battle. Maybe you heard it?
To make a long story short Mrs Shehan, my heart does hurt for you. But at the same time, I'm very proud of the freedoms your son fought to preserve. If you weigh it out, show me another nation on Earth that has so many freedoms (like those you use regularly in your disenchantment with leadership in this country). That is your freedom and right, people in Venezuela might be in serious trouble talking against the leader there. In Chile, a dictator ran that nation until 2006 (thousands died). Now they have a "really nice man" that Sean Penn and Danny Glover love. Enough said. American freedoms are a real bummer to some. I'll do a time warp and cheer it....not. Hmmm.......what is it about freedom you don't like Mrs. Sheehan? Casey is a hero to me.
Oh - Thank You “Trent” and “matt,” for one of the best examples of beautifully subtle, excellently crafted, and purposeful attack propaganda I've seen in some time.
For a more detailed response, see my posting “Absolute Proof.” The posting includes a video, that you may find of interest, that shows clearly what your type of propaganda not only can, but already has accomplished.
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