The Real Cindy Sheehan
Date:
May 28, 2007 9:59 AM
Subject
"Good Riddance Attention Whore" by Cindy Sheehan
Body:
I have endured a lot of smear and hatred since Casey was killed and
especially since I became the so-called ³Face² 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 ³liberal blogs² as the
Democratic Underground. Being called an ³attention whore² and being told
³good riddance² 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 ³tool² 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 ³two-party²
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 ³left² 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 ³right or left², but ³right
and wrong.²
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 don¹t find alternatives to this corrupt ³two² 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 don¹t see party affiliation or
nationality when I look at a person, I see that person¹s 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 ³attention whore² 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 ³grateful² 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 Casey¹s 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 won¹t work with that group; he
won¹t 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
children¹s 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. It¹s 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, tooSwhich makes the property
even more valuable.
This is my resignation letter as the ³face² of the American anti-war
movement. This is not my ³Checkers² 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 Syou are not the country that I love and I finally
realized no matter how much I sacrifice, I can¹t make you be that country
unless you want it.
It¹s up to you now.
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