posted on May 29, 2007 01:18:41 PM new
Cindy Sheehan, the so-called "Peace Mom" who gained national attention protesting President Bush's Iraq war policy by remaining camped in a ditch near his Crawford, Texas, ranch, has issued a resignation letter as the face of the American anti-war movement.
"Good-bye America," Sheehan writes in her online diary, "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."
Sheehan says she came to her "heartbreaking conclusions" this Memorial Day morning, saying, "These are not spur of the moment reflections, but things I have been meditating on for about a year now."
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.
Sheehan's son, Casey, was among the American casualties in Iraq, and Mrs. Sheehan, as WND exclusively reported, referred to the terrorists fighting U.S. troops as "freedom fighters."
In today's resignation, Sheehan lamented little has been accomplished by her efforts:
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.
It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.George S. Patton
posted on May 29, 2007 02:59:30 PM newROFLMHO......so she's another one on the anti-war, angry liberal side that the dem party let down by NOT doing what they promised they'd do. LOL
Even more funny is now I know where kiara got that saying from. Should have known she'd have taken it from something someone else said. And she always does, can't come up with her cute little name calling phrases all on her own.
At some point sheehan is going to have to accept that her son CHOSE to serve and CHOSE re-enlist....against cindy's desires and against her wishes.
It was HIS choice...one she hasn't been able to accept. I hope she gets some help now. She's totally divided/destroyed her own family.
=================================
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
posted on May 29, 2007 04:51:53 PM new
The term 'attention whore' has been around for over a decade. I'm not certain of its origin but anyone around teens daily may have heard it used years ago as I did, long before Cindy Sheehan was known.
Here is an example of its use back in January of 1999 concerning politics.
classsic, you 'fold' way too easy and way too quickly.
=========================================
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
posted on May 29, 2007 11:28:07 PM new
This war has taken Cindy Sheehan's son, what has it taken from those that call her Whore.
Would you get out there & fight for what you think is right or would you prefer the easy way, just sit comfortably at your computer & "LOL" at someone who did.
Is even one life worth this war, how about your son or daughter or mine, not in a million years, not this so called war.
Can you even imagine how this woman has suffered with her loss. She wanted to stop the war & save lives. What in the hell is wrong with that. She went out did something about it she didn't sit at her computer & post. Who is anyone to tell her not to do what she did, she had the right she gave the ultimate, her son.
You want to support the war & if you think it's so right then put your money where your mouth is, do something...SIGN UP
Don't criticize someone who has the courage to stand up & do what she thinks is right.
Cindy Sheehan doesn't need help, she's a strong woman, a survivor. Someone on this message board does though. She dares to put down a woman who is a million times the woman she will ever be, one who yacks, yacks & yacks with nothing better to do with her time.
posted on May 30, 2007 12:26:06 AM new
Mcjane, I feel sorry for Cindy Sheehan and can't begin to imagine what she has been through. Whether others agree over the way she went about her cause, she's had to endure a lot of cruelty and even death threats because she chose to speak out. It's sad. As you said, it took courage to do what she did.
Cindy Sheehan made a difference in the expose of this vile administration. By representing mothers whose sons and daughters have been killed and maimed for life in this illegal, ill-conceived and mismanaged war she served a significant part in the movement to end it.
Her courage to endure for so long the smear campaign launched in retaliation by the Bush administration is commendable.
posted on May 30, 2007 07:29:07 AM new
I see the Repugs don't like using the word whore when it comes to Cindy Sheehan, but when the Repugs are called "Bush Whores" they get all upset. More double standards.
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
posted on May 30, 2007 07:41:46 AM new
mcjane - You've obviously MISSED sheehan's OWN statement against the left.
You know, the party who USED her position for their own political gain.
She has just realized that THEY used her and she's angry about it....thus removing herself from this public debate.
And on your other garbage.....I support HER SON....the one who decided to serve OUR nation. In my mind he was a hero....and his mother's actions SHAMED his service.
HE put his life on the line for what HE believed in....NOT at all what his mother supported.
=================
for mcjane....
taken from the dailykos.....one of helen's favorite blogs. lol lol
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.
=====
It's funny how SOME people see themselves and their actions SO very differently than most others do. Not as honorable as they see themselves.
==================================
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
Ann Coulter
[ edited by Linda_K on May 30, 2007 07:53 AM ]
posted on May 30, 2007 08:24:39 AM new
More from sheehan's own words:
taken from newbusters.com:
Critical Update: As of 10:07AM EST 5/27/07, according to Google News and LexisNexis searches, not one media outlet has covered this. More at end of post.
As she wrote at Daily Kos Saturday (emphasis added throughout):
Dear Democratic Congress,
Hello, my name is Cindy Sheehan and my son Casey Sheehan was killed on April 04, 2004 in Sadr City , Baghdad , Iraq . He was killed when the Republicans still were in control of Congress. Naively, I set off on my tireless campaign calling on Congress to rescind George’s authority to wage his war of terror while asking him "for what noble cause" did Casey and thousands of other have to die. Now, with Democrats in control of Congress, I have lost my optimistic naiveté and have become cynically pessimistic as I see you all caving into as one Daily Kos poster called: "Mr. 28%"
[…]
I knew having a Democratic Congress would make no difference in grassroots action. That’s why we went to DC when you all were sworn in to tell you that we wanted the troops back from Iraq and BushCo held accountable while you pushed for ethics reform which is quite a hoot...don’t’ you think? We all know that it is affordable for you all to play this game of political mayhem because you have no children in harm’s way...let me tell you what it is like:
[…]
It used to be George Bush’s war. You could have ended it honorably. Now it is yours and you all will descend into calumnious history with BushCo.
The Camp Casey Peace Institute is calling all citizens who are as disgusted as we are with you all to join us in Philadelphia on July 4th to try and figure a way out of this "two" party system that is bought and paid for by the war machine which has a stranglehold on every aspect of our lives. As for myself, I am leaving the Democratic Party. You have completely failed those who put you in power to change the direction our country is heading. We did not elect you to help sink our ship of state but to guide it to safe harbor.
====
Amazing stuff, wouldn’t you agree? Think this will be headline news in tomorrow's papers, or covered in any way by our liberal press?
Don't hold your breath.
===================
Hopefully more of the whacko left will feel the same way about the false promises from the dem party....and won't vote for them in '08.
===========================================
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
posted on May 30, 2007 09:10:10 AM new
Well said, McJane. This woman lost her child, as did over 3,000 other families. No one can know how that feels unless they experience it first hand. One of the things she said was "I failed my boy and that hurts the most." What a sad statement. Parents want to protect their children from harm--it is instinctual. When a parent is unable to do that, it is unbearable. How anyone with any heart could criticize Cindy Sheehan for her need to fight against the thing that took away her power to protect her son, is beyond me. It is inexcusable and shows that people who have such hatred for Sheehan just don't like to personalize this war. They prefer to keep these soldiers' deaths anonymous--just a statistic.
posted on May 30, 2007 09:25:37 AM new
linduh,""Amazing stuff, wouldn’t you agree? Think this will be headline news in tomorrow's papers, or covered in any way by our liberal press?
Don't hold your breath."""
Still chanting "liberal press"... Too Yellow to read my thread on how "liberal" the press is
AND, Cindy Shehan was interviewed live on Big Ed Schultz's "liberal" progressive talk show.
Free to say anything she wanted to!
It's been covered by ALL the media ....ya blind old bat!
posted on May 30, 2007 10:04:14 AM new
CC - What part of her son, NOT a CHILD - rather an ADULT with a mind of his own - CHOOSING to join up and re-join don't you get?
cindy hangs with communist leaders - with the likes of reverand extortion. Also everything she has spewed during these times are anti/un-American.
No surprise her own son saw our nation much differently than she did. And thank God for that.
=================================
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
posted on May 30, 2007 10:13:46 AM new
What probably happened:
The whack packers that carted Sheehan around the country and paid for the bullhorns and Kentucky Fried realized her 15 minutes of fame were over. After that it was hours on the bus listening to the same broken record. Even the most committed lefty would go nuts.
I often wonder just how many of that 'pack' even know cindy's history - especially that of being a mother who GAVE her own son up. Yep, at the age of 7 Casey no longer lived with her.
Now, I've read she gave up another son, after Casey.....so much for 'motherhood by cindy'.
And since most rabid liberals fight against the Boy Scouts because xxx......and Casey WAS a Boy Scout....that must have aggravated his mother too.
Anyway, he will always be an American hero to most and his loss is our loss.
Sad though how liberals won't even honor these men they say they support. They CLAIM to support them. Just as in this case with Casey....they're taking sides against HIS decisions...and siding AGAINST HIM and his mother.
posted on May 30, 2007 10:44:03 AM new
""War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.""
John F. Kennedy
posted on May 30, 2007 10:50:03 AM new
In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility - I welcome it.
John F. Kennedy
Boy....what a 'warmonger'. NOT. But neither has this President shrunk from his.
========================
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
John F. Kennedy
================================
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
Ann Coulter
[ edited by Linda_K on May 30, 2007 10:52 AM ]
posted on May 30, 2007 10:51:24 AM new
facts are wrong, Linda.
She never gave up her son, she raised him. Cindy and her husband were high school sweethearts who married in their early twenties (no ex-husband, no step-mom, sorry).
Like many others, you have the story confused ~ what you state is urban legend, not fact.
posted on May 30, 2007 10:54:43 AM new
sorry but I disagree.
She gave up two sons.
======================================
The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are. The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission.
John F. Kennedy
There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction.
John F. Kennedy
[ edited by Linda_K on May 30, 2007 10:56 AM ]
posted on May 30, 2007 10:55:03 AM new
linduh just loves to say what John Kennedy thought, loves to quote him ...funny , imagine what he would think of HER LOL!!!
She uses him for her personal political agenda ...wonder if she realizes he was an extremely wealthy Democrat who fooled around!!!
Of course, he fooled around in a time when, rightly so, it was NOBODY ELSE'S BUSINESS.
NONE of your "Kennedy" quotes support the fiasco of bush's Iraq war...NONE!
posted on May 30, 2007 10:59:03 AM new
A nation which has forgotten the quality of courage which in the past has been brought to public life is not as likely to insist upon or regard that quality in its chosen leaders today - and in fact we have forgotten.
John F. Kennedy
And Casey Sheehan WAS a hero who had the courage to fight for our nation.....
