[syndicate] Tell Cindy Sheehan "Thank You" (fwd)

[Alan Sondheim]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 30 May 2007 01:38:43 -0400
From: moderator at PORTSIDE.ORG
To: PORTSIDE at LISTS.PORTSIDE.ORG
Subject: Tell Cindy Sheehan "Thank You"

Tell Cindy Sheehan "Thank You"

* "Good Riddance Attention Whore" by Cindy Sheehan
* True Majority Response to Cindy Sheehan announcement
* Democrats.com says "Let's Keep Fighting for Cindy
Sheehan"

==========

"Good Riddance Attention Whore"

by Cindy Sheehan

Mon May 28, 2007 at 09:57:01 AM PDT

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/5/28/12530/1525

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.

==========

From: Matt Holland, TrueMajority <alerts at truemajority.org>
Subject: Thank you, Cindy Sheehan

Tell Cindy Sheehan "Thank You"

Dear paul,

We heard this morning that Cindy Sheehan "resigned" as
a leader of the movement for peace in Iraq. I remember
when I first saw Cindy, before she was an international
household name, speaking to an audience at Riverside
Church. She spoke about her son, Casey, and how she
felt that she was in part personally responsible for
his death because she hadn't spoken out against the
war. I saved this video of it
<http://www.truemajority.org/TM_Cindy.mov>,
and everyone I've shown it to has been strongly moved.

TrueMajority members were there at the beginning of
Cindy's public journey, donating money and hiring
organizers to support her 2004 vigil outside the
President's ranch in Crawford, and the national bus
tour that followed. Now that the journey seems to have
reached an end, we thought it would be nice to send her
a simple "Thank you" for all the work and sacrifice
Cindy Sheehan has offered to this movement.

http://act.truemajority.org/o/1/t/3/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=7

Like other activist leaders who become well-known,
Cindy was critiqued and criticized from one side and
the other for some of the things she said and some of
the ways she chose to protest. It was easy to forget
that while she became a symbol to many on both sides of
the Iraq War debate, she was really always that same
grieving mother.

In Peace,

Matt Holland
TrueMajority Online Director

=====
Here's the 'Thank You' note we'll send to Cindy
Sheehan:

Dear Cindy,

We are deeply saddened by your announcement to retire
from the peace movement, but understand and respect
your decision. You have been an inspiration to hundreds
of thousands of people and have our deepest and most
sincere gratitude.

We, as TrueMajority members, have supported you and
your hard work from the very beginning -- attending
marches and rallies, donating time and money and
calling on our government time and time again to end
this deadly war and bring our troops home.

We promise to work even harder to end this war and
bring our men and women home safely. We thank you for
your years of hard work and sacrifice and wish you and
your family the very best.

In Peace,

TrueMajority

==========

Today Cindy Sheehan "retired" from the anti-war
movement after leading the fight for two years with
every piece of her heart and soul.

Cindy wrote: "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."

Sadly, America needs Cindy more than ever. Eight more
Casey Sheehans died today in Iraq, leaving eight more
grieving Cindy Sheehans back home. Sgt. David Safstrom
of the 82nd Airborne told the NY Times, "What are we
doing here? Why are we still here? We're helping guys
that are trying to kill us. We help them in the day.
They turn around at night and try to kill us."

Cindy lost heart after a few dozen "Bush Democrats"
voted with virtually every Republican to keep Bush's
criminal occupation going forever.

And it's easy to lose heart when we put our time and
money into electing anti-war Democratic majorities,
only to have those majorities betrayed by a few dozen
"Bush Democrats" who are bribed by powerful defense
contractors or intimidated by Karl Rove's political
henchmen.

But we cannot afford to lose heart because May's total
deaths of U.S. troops hit 114, the highest since Cindy
began her anti-war campaign and the third highest of
the war. And at the current monthly rate, 2007 will be
the deadliest year for U.S. troops in the four years of
Bush's criminal occupation.

So all of us must pick up the torch that Cindy laid
down and find a way to end this war. But how?

In May, 169 House Democrats voted for the McGovern
Amendment to end the occupation in March 2008, while
only 59 "Bush Democrats" voted against it. If we can
switch 43 of those 59 "Bush Democrats," the McGovern
Amendment will pass. So let's recruit anti-war
Democrats to run against those 59 "Bush Democrats" in
the 2008 primaries.

This strategy produced dramatic results in 2006. Both
Jane Harman (CA-36) and Al Wynn (MD-4) voted for the
war in 2002, but voted against the occupation in 2007
as a direct result of primary challenges by outstanding
anti-war candidates Marcy Winograd and Donna Edwards.
(Edwards lost by only 3% and will run again in 2008.)

So let's find challengers for all 59 "Bush Democrats"!
We created a map of all 59 "Bush Democrat" districts
here:
http://tinyurl.com/2hl9vz

Click the pins to see the incumbent's name and a link
to a page for that incumbent. If you know an anti-war
candidate who could run a good race, click that link
and nominate that candidate in a comment. Also share
your thoughts on other nominees you find there.

We also created an online pledge form to start building
support for our anti-war challengers:

"I pledge to vote against every Senator and
Representative who approves funding to continue the
disastrous Iraq War. We have already given far too much
of our blood and treasure - and killed far too many
Iraqis - for a war based on lies. We are now occupying
a hostile nation divided by civil war for the benefit
of military contractors and Big Oil.

The only way to support our troops is to bring them
home NOW, and no funds should be used for any other
purpose. If Congress fails to bring our troops home, I
will do everything I can - and urge everyone I know -
to defeat pro-war Senators and Representatives, both in
my party's primary elections and in the November
general election."

Over 18,000 have already signed our pledge. Sign it now
and tell your friends:
http://www.democrats.com/iraq-vote-pledge

Let's do it for Cindy Sheehan - and for her beloved son
Casey.

==========

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