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Title: Cindy Sheehan : "Good Riddance Attention Whore"
Source:
Daily Kos
URL Source: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/5/28/12530/1525
Published: May 28, 2007
Author: Cindy Sheehan
Post Date: 2007-05-28 19:32:12 by Eoghan
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Keywords: None
Views: 582
Comments: 35
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. * CindySheehan's diary :: :: * 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.
Poster Comment: Her star dropped like a rock (and the Daily Kos knows this) with the MSM with the mention of Israeli wars and American deaths...the Demos tried to 'set her straight'...but the decision was made, she's of no use to Us. Maybe, Cindy will now be freer to speak her mind?
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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 25.
#12. To: Eoghan (#0)
this brought tears to my eyes..the whole thing does, really.
In late March, Cindy's
long belt of road-bound activism brought her to Boston, where she spoke at a
rally commemorating the four-year anniversary of the war. My bar is a favorite
spot of hers, and I brought her and some of her friends out that night to have a
beer and relax for a bit. I'd brought her to my place twice before, and both
times I saw the same woman of passionate energy and committment who sat in a
Texas ditch until the country could no longer ignore her, or the war. The light
was in her eyes, the hope things could be changed was in every word she spoke,
and as ever, the sorrow from her loss was there like a shroud. She was
motivated, optimistic, cynical, tired, inspired and resolute at the same time.
This last March, however, I saw a different Cindy. I would not say she
was broken or in despair, but she was not the same. Health problems had robbed
her of the energy that once crackled around her, one arm was in a sling because
of tendon damage, and she was tired. Bone-tired. Tired in soul and spirit. I
began that evening looking forward to the kind of rollicking talks we'd always
enjoyed together, but wound up spending most of the night pleading with her to
take some time off and rest. Cindy hadn't really stopped, you see. Never
left the road, never surrendered to exhaustion or sadness, never allowed the
barbs from enemies and so-called "allies" to deter her or discourage her. But
sitting there, I could see how much of a toll her efforts and sacrifices were
taking. The treads on her tires were worn down to the radials, so to speak.
Seeing the announcement of her withdrawal from activism today, therefore, came
as no real surprise. Everyone has limits, and Cindy's inspired and determined
sacrifices took her farther past any limits most could imagine. The last time I
saw her, she was so tired, so worn, so discouraged, so sad, and worst, so
convinced of the futility of the cause, that she was a shadow of the hard-case
I'd come to know and love. Anyone who calls her an attention-whore is a
total fool, absolutely ignorant of what real sacrifice looks like and feels like
and requires and costs. Anyone glad for her departure from activism is
celebrating a disaster, is celebrating the loss of a face and heart and soul
that brought this war into the living rooms of this TV-dulled nation in a way
that no other effort or march or activism had before. But anyone surprised
that she's going home should have been with me in march, and seen her condition
of body and spirit. Cindy, you have done enough. You have done more than
anyone else. You have honored your son, you have changed the way this nation
looks at this war, you have inspired...and you have done enough. Be well,
hero. Rest. We'll take it from here as best we can. This is an interesting perspective by someone who had been
with her recently posted at DU.
now i have tears in my eyes.
2. To: seven high straight (#0) The living and breathing excrement, Cindy Sheehan, got all the press coverage imaginable for years. All her bogus rallies, Camp Casey and all the squawk box nonsense of hers. She exits the scene, criticizes democraps and the leftist movement, and she gets NO MSM coverage of any kind. She was always just a tool of the MSM as long as she towed the hate Bush line and didn't go after all the liberal hypocrites. She was always a nut, the MSM knew it, and now she is thrown away trash. Goodbye Cindy, I won't miss you one bit, you stupid little twerp. putupjob posted on 2007-05-28 19:20:22 ET Reply Trace
what a heartless, mindless man. a truly ugly american.
yea, there's a lot of them over there.
Hillary's bunker buster will hit first. ;P
There are no replies to Comment # 25. End Trace Mode for Comment # 25.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/LatestThe 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.
#13. To: christine (#12)
The last time I saw Cindy Sheehan.
#18. To: Ferret Mike, wbales, Eoghan, Cynicom, robin, Red Jones (#13)
Seeing the announcement of her withdrawal from activism today, therefore, came as no real surprise. Everyone has limits, and Cindy's inspired and determined sacrifices took her farther past any limits most could imagine. The last time I saw her, she was so tired, so worn, so discouraged, so sad, and worst, so convinced of the futility of the cause, that she was a shadow of the hard-case I'd come to know and love.
#19. To: christine (#18)
#21. To: Itisa1mosttoolate (#19)
putupjob
#23. To: christine (#21)
#24. To: Itisa1mosttoolate (#23)
#25. To: robin (#24)
Replies to Comment # 25.