And I will never forgive myself for not supporting her more. She is truly an American hero. The story on CNN and her letter is below:
Monday, May 28th, 2007
"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 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 ever 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.
1 comment:
Cindy, Hi. I just read your goodbye letter. It touches me like you cant imagine. I am a mother of a 27 y/o man; who lost her first child at birth, which was devastating. That hurt SO bad I could NOT imagine worse - and during my son's life I have feared worse and see that you are one of many who has realized worse. My heart goes out to you. I do want to say that you HAVE NOT failed your "boy". This country has...and not just the politicians. They are only so powerful because WE THE PEOPLE allow them to be. Somehow, this country has forgotten that THEY are supposed to WORK FOR US, not run us. I dont think it is a failure of the two party system. IF we had a six party system, as long as the people are so apathetic, it will be the same miserable failure it has become today, under Mr. George's little dictatorship. He was insideous was he not? He started out so maleable, so nice, so this and that. Now he doesnt listen to ANYONE. He does what he wants no matter how he is advised. The demos supposedly tried to get the troops home and he was so single minded they failed and gave in. SAD, SAD, SAD. No backbone anymore. The illegal alien problem is a huge symptom of this also. There are many problems in our government period. But...there are still people in this country, who may not be so verbal, that DO appreciate your son and what he tried to do. Unfortunately we have some pretty ignorant people in the middle east who only school their boys to hate. They are ALSO bad and a threat to us. There and/or here. So its a mixed bag-the need for defense, the crazy mixed up political machine we have now for a government, (its been heading there for ages though), and an apathetic public. Im so sorry for your losses...firstly your son, then the time you have spent trying -the loss of your marriage, the lost time with the rest of your family. unfortunately they (politicians/media)are very good at succeeding in making one look "crazy"- it amazes me how all sympathy can be lost, or caused to be lost by the political/media machines, for a woman hurting over the death of her son for what she sees as a lost cause. Im sorry. But please dont think YOU failed your son. THe public did. The government has failed them all. But if the millions of people that legally live in this country would stand up against this and say NO MORE, get them home NOW...loud enough, I would like to think it would happen. BUsh is getting away with what he does, yes, because the demos appear to be letting him, NOW; but SO ARE THE PEOPLE. We have forgotten we are supposed to be in charge. We dont know what to do or how to do it, I guess, so life goes on next to all the loss and horror. I personally believe it is sometimes necessary to defend in foreign lands, I think though, that this ship has sailed and they NEED TO BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOW before any more troops die. I make a plea to all government-wise Americans left out there to guide the rest of us in how we can legally take back the reigns and get this DONE. Im not an expert on the Constitution. Im not an activist, Im a disabled American, MOTHER, who sees this war as a real total loss at this point and we need to cut our losses and GO before anymore add up. I just know "for the people, by the people"...and would love to see that as originally intended...and I believe it was beyond just ONE VOTE. We have gone into BIG time overtime in Iraq and Bush is the perfect example of what is an idiot. You've heard that one, right? Someone who keeps doing the SAAAAME thing expecting different results? WHEN is someone going to DO something? Someone with the clout to do it? It took four friggin years but people complained enough, made it a big enough issue in the press, to at least get Bush to feign a move on the border. Of course it was a ridiculous move, not enough, it was a move in an attempt to keep us quiet Im sure; and now he has gone completely MAD with his idea to GIVE our rights to these illegals. We need to get the troops home and CINDY, whether you feel like it now or not, you did NOT fail your "boy", and even though they worked hard to make you look bad, people forget quickly...many will see this letter and be touched and reminded the way I have. You are admired by many, other parents who lost their child/ren, wives, sisters..brothers. Those who are apathetic may, one by one, wake up eventually and something you said or did may come back to them and make them think. You have left a mark - for Casey. It is indelable. It may be one you wont always feel when it affects someone, but you left it nonetheless. Go home at peace. Enjoy the rest of your family and KNOW you SERVED your SON well. I will remember him, and you, and all the others like him. Im grateful for what they ALL are doing/have done...in an attempt to defend US. You may be right, I dont know, that the reasons for this war are wrong. I was of the mind they were right, in the beginning. I think Sadaam DID have weapons of mass destruction, or at least the beginnings of how to make them. The problem is, this crazy country and its "Politically Correct" obsession, gave him MONTHS to MOVE THEM to Timbuctoo (or however that is spelled). I kept hearing "give diplomacy a chaaaance", where were those people all twelves years of diplomatic attempts after the first war during Bush one's reign? HE LET Sadaam go after promising to get him on war crimes THAT time. THEN came the 12 years of weapons inspections that in the end, Sadaam went back on his agreement and wouldnt let them in...THEN 9/11, Bush waited months to really react. (NOT defending him just stating fact) So WE DID give diplomacy a chance, so much so Sadaam had plenty of time to get those weapons or beginnings OF the weapons to a buddy-country and hide them. IRAN maybe?? Not that they were big buddies, really, but Iran would see that as a WIN to get anything to further THEIR nuclear program. I HATE that thing was EVER dreamed of by Mr. O. I think THE PEOPLE of Iraq were happy to be rid of Sadaam's tierany. I believe our troops are there because THEY believe they are defending their country and freeing a country from a horrific ruler that gassed them, killed them (even his own family members at times). That is how *I* see it no matter how screwy Bush is or what he does that is wrong. So he did NOT die for nothing. DONT SAY that. THere are STILL OTHER SONS and daughters over there..As long as they are there, they have my support and my belief they are defending me, my loved ones and our freedom/Country. Im just also a believer that we are headed toward an end we cannot stop...an end of the "world AS WE KNOW IT"...its time to bring them all home, NOW..hear that WASHINGTON? ANYBODY IN WASHINGTON READING? I doubt it. But Ill say it anyway. Bring them HOME NOW. We need to strengthen our defense system from within now. Its time to leave those countries to fend for themselves. IF they arent as able bodied as we are, thats their own fault for not working to build up their country like we have. We started with dirt and tents too. Although those people did have beautiful architecture no one destroyed BUT THEM and their relatives. Those people have been two millenia just fighting with each other! Tearing down their countries. Let them eat cake. We are now beating our heads against the proverbial wall. We need to clean up the illegals (ALL nationalities) and strengten from within and just be ready to defend this country. Thanks Cindy for all you tried to do. It was NOT for zip. You did it for Casey and ALL the Caseys. Rest up and be well.
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