Cindy Sheehan has been grieving a long time, and this Memorial Day after the capitulation of the Democratic Party legislators in Congress was particularly rough. But it is more than that. The pain is made even worse by how inactive so many rank and file Democratic Party voters are in opposing this war.
At street vigils we see this, too. So many liberal minded folk wave and honk their horns in support of our vigil, but then it seems that they never get out of their cars to be the protesters, and not just the driver by-ers. After a while, this becomes disheartening.
We hope that Cindy gets her spirits back up and rejoins the activist antiwar movement after some family time off. She deserves the best, and she has given America her best. Here is her last commentary about how despairing she now feels. Many feel the same alongside her.
We are sad to see it be so, but when push comes to shove, the Democratic Party is not to be relied on. Cindy Sheehan tried to push the Democratic Party into action, but the corporate controllers resisted. She is not the first, and will not be the last to fail in such a project.
Good Riddance Attention Whore
by Cindy Sheehan
I 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 read it earlier today on another site. Viva Cindy!
She never chose for her son to be killed, just to give herself the “glory and attention” of being constantly arrested, constantly attacked, constantly criticized for daring to say the TRUTH… her son was MURDERED by the War Machine. The Machine that told Casey all the days of his life how glorious a duty it is to go and kill and die for the Red White and Blue. The machine that is taking countless lives in the same way.
I say “countless” because there isn’t even agreement between the governments in the Coalition of the Killing about how many, exactly, Non-Coalition people are killed over there.
Those is the private pleasure dungeons for His Highness the Chimp, also, literally, countless.
We are supposed to “mind our own business and let Big Brother take care of things…” and aren’t even allowed to know how many there are, killed, imprisoned, tortured, so he and his cronies can make a profit.
We’re not allowed to know how much of our money is being spent, nor the money of our children and grandchildren, on long credit, to finance this killing spree.
Now they’re not even allowing the GIs to send videos to YouTube or MySpace, but of course, it doesn’t have anything to do with a few high profile on camera confessions to committing War Crimes.
Think Deryck Schlesinger…. yep, Dr. Laura’s own son she and the rest of the Wrong Wing have been so proud to offer up as a Perfect Example of a Perfect American, Perfectly Raised by The Expert in Child Raising, Dr Laura.
Think 10 percent of Marines confessing that they cursed and physically abused civilians in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
And nearly 50% of them saying they wouldn’t turn in one of their comrades nor try to stop him should he commit a War Crime.
Cindy was absolutely right to protest such pure and utter bullshit, taking her son and the sons and daughters and mothers and fathers and grandparents and great grandparents of so many people around the world, and Mr Bush telling it was and is necessary, and even good.