JUNE 2007
"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.
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.
http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/5/28/12530/1525[newprofile message1171] Cindy Sheehan resigns from Peace Movement
| ZNet Commentary A LETTER TO CINDY SHEEHAN: DARKNESS COMES JUST BEFORE DAWN May 30, 2007 By Danny Schechter It was sad to read Cindy Sheehan's letter of "resignation" from the peace movement because she offered so much of herself-despite all the personal pain she suffered from the loss of her son, the breakup of her family, and all the vicious and insensitive attacks on her politics and personhood. I could feel her frustration and exasperation with Democrats who patronized her only to end up supporting the war in the end. I share her anger at elements of the "peace movement" which is really a movement in pieces, often marching in lockstep with Congressional Democrats and only paying lip service to the grassroots constituencies and the many who have given and suffered so much to oppose this bloodbath in Iraq and Afghanistan. Cindy inspired the following she did because she was a genuine convert to activism, an articulate mainstream person who put her body on the line and spoke truth to power with an unmistakable sincerity. Her honestly and energy contrasted sharply with the agenda-driven caution of those on the Hill and the many organizations that think politics is about raising money on lime to fund political commercials in the mainstream media or occasionally taking symbolic stands. It was not surprising that she would burn up in anger and burn out in energy, In some ways, she reminded me of another "indigenous" leader in another movement years back who I was blessed to know-Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer of Ruleville, Mississippi, a share cropper turned civil rights activists who gave the movement its soul and who ended up, years later, alone unknown and unappreciated. Like Cindy, Fanny Lou gave her movement its authenticity and its voice. She is remembered, in part, for saying, "I am sick and tired of being sick and tired. " Cindy got sick and tired too of all the cowardly deal-making and betrayals, She wrote bitterly to Congress and then about herself: "How can you even go to sleep at night or look at yourselves in a mirror? How do you put behind you the screaming mothers on both sides of the conflict? How does the agony you have created escape you? It will never escape me ... I can't run far enough or hide well enough to get away from it. By the end of September, we will be about 80 troops short of another bloody milestone: 4000, and MoveOn.org will hold nationwide candlelight vigils and you all will be busy passing legislation that will snuff the lights out of thousands more human beings." Personally, I know how she feels. When I made the film, WMD (Weapons of Mass Deception) challenging the media role in the war, many anti-war groups paid lip service to its message and then did little or nothing to promote it. Perhaps that's why some activists call MoveOn.org "Walkon.org" when it comes to the issues of media deception or for that matter any issues that also holds Democrats and corporate media institutions accountable. It is so much easier and emotionally self-righteous to attack easier targets like the Republicans and Bush White House. Lets face it, the media has not really changed and nor have many Democrats. They believe in convenient truths and don't recognize the importance of demanding media integrity. Don't forget that most of the media coverage was hostile to Democrats setting a timeline and many pundits pressured them to relent in the name of "pragmatism," patriotism, or getting the pork they wanted for their own districts. I don't think Cindy has really resigned from politics. But she is upset and has a right to be. She has lost so much and is also apparently in debt---something this director of the film In Debt We Trust can relate to Sometimes I wish I could resign from the media reform movement that I helped organize because it has been so hard for us to get support for Mediachannel.org, our fabulous media and democracy online network now in its 7th year. We will have to close our doors in a month unless we can find the funding to keep our modest operation alive. Unfortunately, our movement, like many others, has a hard time working together and prefers pricey conferences, "events" and behind the scenes lobbying to mass outreach, education and organizing. Again, it's predictable to bash Fox News rather than focus on all the biased coverage across the spectrum. We need help to keep going even as some of our original backers suffer "funder fatigue," turning away from supporting long term movement-building work, and independent journalism, in favor of celebrity-oriented events that get their names in the paper. Cindy, please don't leave us-understand that frustration, factionalism, fatalism and infighting is part of the process of dissent and often it makes working for peace or media change an ordeal. You need a long-term perspective and a willingness to fight like a warrior. Your son Casey perished in one war. Please don't allow yourself to perish in this one. Understand that it is a war, and in wars, you don't win every battle. The goal has to be-and I say this with love and respect--- to live to fight another day. It's always dark just before the dawn. News Dissector Danny Schechter blogs for Mediachannel.org which has sent out an emergency SOS for help to assure survival. To comment and for more information, write: Dissector@mediachannel.org |