Cindy Sheehan says good-bye to the 'peace movement'

[RogerChristie]

"Good Riddance Attention Whore"
by CindySheehan

Mon May 28, 2007 at 09:57:01 AM PDT

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.

CindySheehan's diary :: ::
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 every 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.

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.

It’s up to you now.


@@@

[DJ Druid]

xxx

[jessica]

She is right, I sincerly wish she didn't have to lose everything, including her hope, to realize those facts. I learned at a very early age, thanks to my father, I will still try even if it is fruitless, just because it is how I was raised. Unlike brave Cindy, I have never, nor will I sacrifice so much, but that is because I learned early on how futile it is to depend on our American Federal and Military government to do anything honest, that would actually make a change. One fact is true and has proven true our Military and Government is "Reactive not Proactive", I wonder what we can do to make them react. Maybe one day we will take our country's destiny in our hands again, and actually do something. Until then in the greatest propaganda slogan ever created, " Give me Liberty, or give me Death". I keep a copy of our Declaration of Independance, in my daughters room, so that she will know what was intended, not what is. Maybe her generation will save us all. I will pray for Cindy she had more balls than anyone I've ever known, besides my Dad, but he is still serving his 20 year sentance for refusing to "Cooperate" with the Marine Corps. He was offered a free pass if he would just help NCIS find and prosecute any other Marines, so GOd Bless him for not being a Rat and taking responsiblity for something he didn't to, for the sake of others.
_________________
Peace and Blessings to All,

Sister Jessica

[Mystic Power]

[Mystic Power]

[jessica]

Thank you for your words Ben, it is still the same in the Navy today. As a matter of fact it sounds like what is going on now. I was in Radio and known to hang out with the "Rave" kids, they always told me the piss tests were for me, but I denied, denied, and denied. My father was with the EOD crowd and when he went down, it was every man for himself and no one would touch him with a ten foot pole. Thats alright because when he gets out in 2008 after only serving since 1998, yeah he is that much of a good boy, he will have NO Criminal record. See when the Military puts you away it ends when you get out, or discharged. He knew that one and said, "22 years good time, they will have to give me my retirement." I hope he gets it but if not I am sure there is lots for a soon to be 50 year old man to do, hell isn't that when your supposed to start life? I too mourn Cindy, I hope she goes down in history as one of the "Hero's" hell, the womens sufferage movement and Equal rights people were called all sorts of bad names, but history has seemed to vindicate them. I pray that is the case with Cindy. If all else fails we still have our children, and I for one am teaching my daughter correctly, she already thinks Cannabis plants are "pretty flowers". She will be 4 in July, I told her your leaf was named Herbie, and she told me, "NO, its called leaf and he's good." Am I off to a good start?
_________________
Peace and Blessings to All,

Sister Jessica

[Mystic Power]

Yes...an excellent start!

Bliss on,
Ben
_________________
"We are the Ones we have been waiting for."
~Hopi Elder ~

"In Lak'ech"
~ Ancient Mayan: "I am another YOU." ~

[Mystic Power]

Yes...an excellent start!

Bliss on,
Ben
_________________
"We are the Ones we have been waiting for."
~Hopi Elder ~

"In Lak'ech"
~ Ancient Mayan: "I am another YOU." ~