I have hesitated to comment on the democrats passing the funding for the ongoing Iraq occupation, without benchmarks, until this morning. On the heels of dem senate leader Harry Reid's tepid, whiny announcement that 'they did their best' and
had to send the chimp-king everything he wanted, what I heard in Reid's statement was an implicit threat: the dems are our only hope and until they are in power fully, with the White House firmly in tow, they can't do anything to stop this president. The topper for me has been the news that Gold Star Mother, Cindy Sheehan has quit the Peace Movement. From Cindy Sheehan's diary at
DKOS:
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
. Read the rest of Cindy's entry. From
CNN:
• Sheehan: My son "did indeed die for nothing"
• She is upset that Democrats and anti-war politicians can't end Iraq war
• She is exhausted by the personal, financial and emotional toll
• "I am going to take whatever I have left and go home," she wrote
Apparently, the will of 70% of the American people is meaningless to the people we have elected to execute our will. What next? Martial law? Revolution? Way to go dems, and you wonder why people call you cowardly...and oh yeah, 8 more soldiers dead as of Memorial Day.
2 comments:
Allow me a personal recollection -
I had been on a week-long motorcycle ride out in Colorado, and, as is my custom, I took my laptop along so I could keep in touch with my wife and the news and send e-mail from the road.
During that week I was reading every day on the Internets about this gal named Cindy Sheehan who had decided, on her own volition, to go camp out in a ditch on the road to Crawford as a way of reminding Bush that not everybody was in favor of his stinking war.
I have always had a soft spot for people who do foolish things for good reasons, and when you’re on a ride of several thousand miles, a few hundred more don’t seem like much, so I decided to detour through Crawford on my way home and tell her I thought she was doing a good thing.
I got to Crawford just after noon and it was still early days for Sheehan. I stopped in “town” where a crowd had gathered to support Bush against the threat posed by this Peace Mom, and parked next to a bunch of redneck Harley riders who were milling around by the roadside. As we stood there, a convoy of Suburbans with blacked-out windows came roaring through and the Harley guys all started waving and giving the thumbs-up sign.
I started waving my hand in the peace sign, decided that might be mistaken for a “V for victory” and switched to a less ambiguous thumbs down. We couldn’t see into the windows so I don’t know if W was inside, but I think he was…he had an astro-turf small business forum in Waco that day.
I got tired of watching all that stupid jingoism and got on my motorcycle and found the Crawford Peace House. It wasn’t hard to find - Crawford’s not much of a town.
There were a lot of cars parked there, and a happy bustle that had the atmosphere of the anti-war movement from the late 60s - a very good and welcoming vibe, for those of you who weren’t there back in the day. Because the road to W’s ranch was only two winding lanes, they were running small vanloads of supporters out to Sheehan’s campsite for brief visits.
I found my way inside the Peace House, helmet in hand, and a woman standing by a big map asked me where I was from and I started to say I had just driven down from Colorado on my way home to Austin, but she cut me off and shouted to everyone, “This guy’s from Colorado” and everybody cheered and she stuck a pin in the map on Colorado.
Another fellow there, also a motorcyclist who was part of the peace group, said, “Hop on your bike and we’ll ride out to see Cindy” and he jumped on his chopper and I on my bug-spattered BMW and out we went.
And there was Cindy, and my guide jumped off his Harley and went over to her and I heard him saying something about “This guy came all the way from Colorado to support you” and before I knew it this sunburned, kind of raw-boned lady was giving me a big hug and a slow, enormous smile and I was mumbling something about how brave I thought she was and how important it was to the country what she was doing.
It wasn’t such a big deal, but getting a simple, unaffected hug from Cindy let me measure all the rest of the hoorah and the hubbub that surrounded her later against the plain truth of one woman who just decided she had to do something, even if she was the only one.
And you know, I still think that from the moment when she sat down in the weeds and sand of that roadside ditch outside Crawford, everything started to go wrong for W because, with her loss and her courage, she had made it okay and honorable to question what that miserable bastard was doing.
I am sorry it cost her so much and I will always respect her for what she did.
Thank you riddenword for your story.
The legacy Cindy Sheehan leaves behind is the stuff Hollywood movies are made of: an ordinary person doing extraordinary things. She started a movement for Peace that 70% of the American people now support.Well done. God bless her, her work, and the recovery to normalcy she must now endure. Godspeed Cindy Sheehan and Thank You for all you have done.
Casey did not die in vain. His death fueled the rage of a nation into an awakening to the horrors of madmen through the prism of one woman's passion.
I think of Cindy much the same way I think of John Walsh. He lost a son and went on bring national attention attention to the crime of child-kidnapping. He started "America's Most Wanted" and involved a nation in the issue of crime. Cindy brought Peace to national attention and transformed the face of Peace into that of a grieving mother that ignited a national movement.
Well Done Cindy Sheehan. You have changed the world with your work. It will just take some more time and the energy of others. So now we all get to work.
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