Cindy Sheehan gives up her protest

[Insurgent]

This is a sad story, but one I expected to eventually see. She sums it up very well in the last paragraph...She put hope in the phony left-vs-right paradigm and became disillusioned.


http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/05/28/sheehan/index.html
(CNN) -- Cindy Sheehan, the California mother who became an anti-war leader after her son was killed in Iraq, declared Monday she was walking away from the peace movement.

She said her son died "for nothing."

Sheehan achieved national attention when she camped outside President Bush's home in Crawford, Texas, throughout August 2005 to demand a meeting with the president over her son's death.

While Bush ignored her, the vigil made her one of the most prominent figures among opponents of the war.

But in a Web diary posted to the liberal online community Daily Kos on Monday, Sheehan said she was exhausted by the personal, financial and emotional toll of the past two years.

She wrote that she is disillusioned by the failure of Democratic politicians to bring the unpopular war to an end and tired of a peace movement she said "often puts personal egos above peace and human life."

Casey Sheehan, a 24-year-old Army specialist, was killed in an April 2004 battle in Baghdad. His death prompted his mother to found Gold Star Families for Peace.

But in Monday's 1,200-word letter, titled, "Good Riddance Attention Whore," Sheehan announced that her son "did indeed die for nothing."

"I have tried ever since he died to make his sacrifice meaningful," she wrote. "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."

Cindy Sheehan's sister, DeDe Miller, told CNN that the group would continue working for humanitarian causes, but drop its involvement in the anti-war movement. As for her sister's letter, Miller said, "She cried for quite a bit after writing it."

Sheehan warned that the United States was becoming "a fascist corporate wasteland," and that onetime allies among Bush's Democratic opposition turned on her when she began trying to hold them accountable for bringing the 4-year-old war to a close.

In the meantime, she said her antiwar activism had cost her her marriage, that she had put the survivor's benefits paid for her son's death and all her speaking and book fees into the cause and that she now owed extensive medical bills.

"I am going to take whatever I have left and go home," she wrote. "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."

[Dreepa]

I agree with part of what she wrote but I find this pretty telling:

often puts personal egos above peace and human life.

including her own. (ego)

[eques]

I would find it very sad if she became disillusioned with the "system" but still thought there was a way that it could possibly work if only the "right people" were in charge.

Oh wait, shit, that's the whole premise of the FSP.

[Dreepa]

Oh wait, shit, that's the whole premise of the FSP.

I don't think that is the whole premise of the FSP at all.

[mappchik]

That letter is the most sensible thing to have come from Cindy Sheehan. I do not agree with some points, but cannot see any reason to mock her for the content. Had she put forth this sort of protest info, as opposed to the bizarro atmosphere her events seemed to generate, I don't think she'd have become the joke. Even the "great americans" would have retained a certain level of respect for her, if she hadn't often been nonsensical.

Unfortunately, she only helped the likes of Hannity in rallying people to the "my country, right or wrong" banner. It also made it very easy to lump the sensible protesters (like Ron Paul) onto the side with the kooks. Once all anti-war voices are labeled nutters, it's harder to get the average person to think clearly about it - after all, who wants to be a kook?

[jaqeboy]

Oh wait, shit, that's the whole premise of the FSP.

I don't think that is the whole premise of the FSP at all.

Yeah, as I understood it, after a lot of wrangling over what they should do after they got a lot of people here, the FSP resolved to remain merely "the bus" to get people here. Their activism once here, is not under FSP purview. IE, after succeeding in getting people (20K) here, the FSP should really disband as an organization.

Cindy, in her writing below, makes the common error of confusing America (the country), with the United States (the state). If that fallacy exists in her head, then that explains why she's gotten burned out - that she felt that she could work within the phony paradigm to change the United States. At that she failed, but not surprisingly, because that's impossible for her to do. But, at changing America, she succeeded wildly! - she was a huge catalyzing force for Americans. She almost singlehandedly woke the peace movement back up and brought it back to the streets. The people of America now oppose the war being pursued by the United States - we're talking about 2 completely different things here!

A couple of good articles for Cindy to read:

Getting the State Out of Our Heads - http://www.strike-the-root.com/71/horn/horn1.html, and

The Enemy Is the State - http://www.strike-the-root.com/4/weebies/weebies3.html

[Kat Kanning]

If standing up for what's right means being labeled as a kook, then I guess I want to be labeled such.

[jaqeboy]

...Cindy Sheehan...the bizarro atmosphere her events seemed to generate

Free Americans expressing themselves - freedom looks bizarro to some!

...I don't think she'd have become the joke.

Thank you Fox News for that portrayal of free Americans...

Even the "great americans" would have retained a certain level of respect for her, if she hadn't often been nonsensical.

If she ever had been nonsensical, which I never saw, I don't think it should matter what "great americans" (I assume you mean people within the system with political power) think of free Americans

Unfortunately, she only helped the likes of Hannity in rallying people to the "my country, right or wrong" banner. It also made it very easy to lump the sensible protesters (like Ron Paul) onto the side with the kooks. Once all anti-war voices are labeled nutters, it's harder to get the average person to think clearly about it - after all, who wants to be a kook?

Again, thank you Fox News (and other MSM) for that. I think most people who aren't kool-aid drinking droids see through Hannity as a blow hard apologist for the fascist agenda, though. And, yes, those are the "bad guys" propaganda techniques alright. I started writing a "bad guys manual" once, to detail the under-handed techniques they will use of free Americans expressing themselves! (not complete)

[mappchik]

If standing up for what's right means being labeled as a kook, then I guess I want to be labeled such.

Same here. But anybody who believes in liberty & freedom over "security" is already thought of as an oddity.

BTW, I can't wait to get up to NH and become an official kook. I'm excited now that I'm no longer marking off years on the calendar, and have started marking off the months. (The move, as opposed to PorcFest. I'm approaching the time for serious organizing on the NH trip this summer - ACK!)

[KBCraig]

In here farewell blog at Daily Kos, she lamented that she was a celebrity of the left so long as she only attacked Bush:

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."

The problem is that she herself did the same thing: embraced anyone who was anti-Bush, no matter how bad they were in other areas.

Literally embraced:

In related news, Venezuelans are protesting Hugo Chavez's shut-down of an independent television station critical of his policies. In return, they're being met with rubber bullets, tear gas, and water cannons.

Edit: link to picture removed, since it had changed to one that wasn't related. It was of a man kneeling in a street, being blasted by a policia water cannon.

Even Sheehan's most anti-war, anti-Bush supporters had to start scratching their heads and asking how she could call Bush and America fascist and dictatorial while having a love fest with Hugo Chavez.

I'm not surprised she burned out. Maybe she'll get the rest she needs, and regain some focus to be an effective voice.

[lildog]

I feel bad for her.  It's not easy to wake up suddenly and realize you were nothing more then a tool to the Democrats used to help them win elections in '06.  Look at Carol Shea Porter.  She was all about stopping the war yet she's voted 2 times now to fund it with the 2nd vote being without any time lines for withdraw.

Cindy was a tool used by political whores.

[David]

I feel bad for her.  It's not easy to wake up suddenly and realize you were nothing more then a tool to the Democrats used to help them win elections in '06.  Look at Carol Shea Porter.  She was all about stopping the war yet she's voted 2 times now to fund it with the 2nd vote being without any time lines for withdraw.

Cindy was a tool used by political whores.

Agree.  I will not justify her mistakes, but I respect and support her for her stance on the war, the same as I will on lower (or no taxes) on the right. 

[Caleb]

It's sad to see her give up ... but something tells me we haven't heard the last of Cindy Sheehan.  If anything, this is a positive development because it shows that she is starting to leave the left/right paradigm.

"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end." With her energy and strong morality, I suspect we might have just gained a wonderful new ally...

[CNHT]

Cindy was a tool used by political whores.

I love it when you talk like that 

[CNHT]

BTW, I can't wait to get up to NH and become an official kook.

Hey I actually suggested that Ron's official song should be Lunatic Fringe.. I love it and it refers to our enemies of course!