Washblog

Making History in 2005; Cindy Sheehan Resigns as 'face' of anti-war movement in 2007

Update [2007-5-29 10:22:41 by Arthur Ruger]:
Photo added this morning by me. - Arthur


Lietta, Cindy & Juan Torres who lost a son in Afghanistan

I sent her an email this morning after reading her 'open' letter of resignation. I received a 'heads up' from among my activist networking of Cindy's letter this morning.   I do consider her a hero, even though I did not indulge in hero worship of her.  What Cindy Sheehan did in that early week of August in 2005 galvanized this nation; and that will not become revisionist history while I'm alive.  I was there that first week of Crawford.  I know what I witnessed, experienced, saw and felt.  I went down to Crawford, Texas to stand with her - military family supporting another military family; supporting a grieving mother, a courageous woman. There was no way to know how many would turn out in support of Cindy.  I only knew I was resolved that this woman, this mother, this military family would not stand alone.  

Cindy had the courage to do what few to none others would do - she more than stood up to President Bush, she sought him out, chased him down and forced him, if even for a moment, to deal with reality of loss of life - the human cost if you will - of his Iraq invasion and occupation.  

Posting a tribute to Cindy Sheehan here today.  My respect, my hat remains off to you Cindy and I'm proud to have been with you at that historic moment in time.  

Many may disagree with the directions that Cindy went after that time of August 2005, and I am among those who could not always be comfortable with some of her choices.  But my respect for her was never diminished.  Her letter (copy and paste below) is not her most elegant writing, and it surely does reflect her weariness and deep disappointment that despite her ongoing, intense, and best efforts Memorial Day next year will continue to have more fallen to honor.

I guess, in a round about way, I could say that Cindy with her own actions has galvanized me one more time. I'm weary too, and I've given it my all for three to four years. A lot of people I know are weary and I have thought to take some down time - my own sabbatical. Perhaps, because I so respect that what Cindy is doing is needful, I can recognize it as needful for myself as well. Perhaps I can find some other venues to give voice to the concerns of military families and the troops that are their loved ones whose lives are on the line daily. As are the lives of families who have the misfortune to be living, no make that residing in Iraq, for certainly this can't be called 'living' for them; more like surviving or survival.


As Cindy once said and it applies, she has skin in the game. It's hard to listen now to people who don't have skin in the game weigh in on what should be done in Iraq. It's hard to watch Congress move with such cumbersome heaviness so lacking in inspirational leadership.


Cindy says she's not giving up, she's resigning from being the whipping woman for the anti-war movement. I'm not giving up either, but I've stood by two amazingly courageous people now in Cindy Sheehan and Lt. Ehren Watada. Still the war goes on without abate. The casualties come from so many levels than the concreteness of lives taken in combat. The war weighs so heavily in the laps of military families whether they are speaking out or not.

 What our two U.S. Senators, Cantwell and Murray did in their voting for an appropriation bill to continue to fund a killing war in Iraq is a devastation to me personally.  What others of our WA Representatives have done in voting yes consigns one of the returning Iraq veterans in our family (if not both) to a sentence of another 15 month extended stop-lossed deployment to Iraq.  

I have returned from spending a few days  with my military daughter's family at the base where he is stationed.  We shared some precious and valued family time sprinkled with occasional references and conversation about Iraq, about his second deployment.  He showed me his new plated armour.  I was among families on a military base and felt acutely their 'norm' of daily life as they face deployment after deployment.  I met several of my daughter's friends, young military wives with children, and it broke my heart to hear that all of them have husbands in Iraq now, one on a third deployment.  

My son-in-law would also have been on a third deployment if he had remained with his original unit.  He was able to navigate something of 'breathing room' when he was in the 'stop loss' forced choice of re-enlist while he was in Iraq the first time.

Readers here well know that I have written repeatedly that this is personal for my family and not an abstraction of political jujitsu.  I've followed the stories, diaries, blogs here at Washblog and in the NW Portal of Progressive blogs.  I've read the disappointment many of the progressives are feeling about the recent vote which is difficult to interpret any other way than the Democrats did not stand with the kind of integrity we expect from our young military troops.   My God, the President vetoed - that could well have been the end of the funding right there, or what am I missing that doesn't make that an obvious fact?

I've seen the convoluted explanations about why the Dems felt they had to take it along this course, the lack of votes to overturn a veto, some garblygook about positioning and need for repetitious attempts to obtain that positioning with more Dems and Repubs votes in their favor.  It makes no sense and it has no feel of honor.

Well, I doubt that will be the last heard from Cindy Sheehan, but I sent her my wishes for a restorative, restful, retrospective and rejuvenating sabbatical.  She gave so much, right, wrong or all the places in between - she gave all she had to give in an earnest hope that she could make a difference and end a war. So did so many others, and I know her efforts weren't singular but it was her amazing stand at Crawford that overturned something cementing dangerously in the national conscience and dialogue in 2005.  There is no question that she did make a difference and opened a national dialogue, moved a nation to get on their feet, use their voice, use their citizen rights and responsibilities and practice democracy.  

Where does it go from here?  

Cindy's open resignation letter today, May 28,2007

"Good Riddance Attention Whore"
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 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.

Link, if you're interested in reading the comments posted to her letter at Daily Kos.

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when reading her today on kos.

I certainly don't have skin in the game - no friends or family in Iraq or going to Iraq, but

I've been AMAZED at how freaking lazy people are since I was ... 14 in '74? or 16? definitely 18.

I remember these anti tax initiatives in the late 70's - Prop 13 outta california which spawned prop 2 1/2 in MA, and

aside from this, that or the other thing about those (dumb) initiatives, one thing that REALLY galled me about them was just how tuned out people were, and are, to making things work better.

She's done plenty for all of us, especially the lame-asses who don't do anything, and, I hope she takes care of herself first.

rmm.

http://www.liemail.com/BambooGrassroots.html

by rmdSeaBos on Mon May 28, 2007 at 07:50:01 PM PST

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Hi Lietta. Thanks for posting. I read Cindy's post on dailyKos and really don't know what to say.

I'm not part of the anti-war effort. So I really don't know what's going on. I'm glad that I don't know any of the criticisms from the anti-war people towards Cindy. I consider her a hero and I really don't have any patience for anyone who'd criticize her.

I just love how one's supposed allies do the most damage. Getting pasted by Bill O'Reilly is nothing. He's a clown. But to have your own tear you down is something else entirely.

Though I've got pretty thick skin, I'm not getting anything like the heat that Cindy gets. It's not even comparable. So I don't know how I'd handle that level of animosity. But when people get up in my face, I'm thinking "Yea, if it's just so easy, why aren't you up here in my place showing me how it's supposed to be done?"

by zappini on Mon May 28, 2007 at 10:53:33 PM PST

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Of everything Cindy Sheehan says here, what gets to me -- and what also resonates -- is her portrayal of how people in the anti-war and progressive movement treated her.

Over the past two years, I've learned