'It's up to you now': Sheehan quits
I was at first going to highlight specific segments of this article in bold letters but have decided instead to endorse the whole thing. It certainly serves as a wake-up call to all activists -- both of anti-war AND 9/11 truth.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070529/ap_on_re_us/cindy_sheehan
'It's up to you now': Sheehan quits
By ANGELA K. BROWN, Associated Press Writer
Cindy Sheehan, the soldier's mother who galvanized an anti-war movement with her monthlong protest outside President Bush's ranch, said Tuesday she's done being the public face of the movement.
"I've been wondering why I'm killing myself and wondering why the Democrats caved in to George Bush," Sheehan told The Associated Press while driving from her property in Crawford to the airport, where she planned to return to her native California.
"I'm going home for awhile to try and be normal," she said.
In what she described as a "resignation letter," Sheehan wrote in her online diary on the "Daily Kos" blog: "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."
Sheehan began a grass roots peace movement in August 2005 when she set up camp outside the Bush ranch for 26 days, asking to talk with the President about the death of her son, Army Spc. Casey Sheehan. Casey Sheehan was 24 when he was killed in an ambush in Baghdad.
Cindy Sheehan started her protest small, but it quickly drew national attention. Over the following two years, she drew huge crowds as she spoke at protest events, but she also drew a great deal of criticism.
"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," Sheehan wrote in the diary.
On Memorial Day, she came to some "heartbreaking conclusions," she wrote.
When she had first taken on Bush, Sheehan was a darling of the liberal left. "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," she wrote.
"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 diary says.
Sheehan criticized "blind party loyalty" as a danger, no matter which side it involved, and said the current two-party system is "corrupt" and "rapidly descending into with nary a check or balance: a fascist corporate wasteland."
Sheehan said she had sacrificed a 29-year marriage and endured threats to put all her energy into stopping the war. What she found, she wrote, was a movement "that often puts personal egos above peace and human life."
But she said the most devastating conclusion she had reached "was that Casey did indeed die for nothing ... killed by his own country which is beholden to and run by a war machine that even controls what we think".
"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," she wrote. 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 am going to take whatever I have left and go home," Sheehan wrote.
"Camp Casey has served its purpose. It's for sale. Anyone want to buy five beautiful acres in Crawford, Texas?"
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Pretty crazy huh?
I can't say I'm too surprised though, she looked extremely tired when we met her at Kent State earlier this month. She just seemed completely worn down.. I suppose years of fighting the war machine will do that. It's scary though, makes me wonder how strong we'll all be in a couple years.
I'm curious to hear more of your thoughts regarding this comment..?
Also in case anyone is interested, this is her original post/letter:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/5/28/12530/1525
Your answer
"I'm curious to hear more of your thoughts regarding this comment?"
That when it comes to the anti-war and 9/11 truth movements, the left is as much a problem as the right.
quitters never win, and winners never quit
SO the saga of Cindy Sheehan ends, appropriately enough, right where she started--firmly behind a left gate. Cindy Sheehan has shown us exactly how to fail--by stubbornly closing one's mind and calling it focus. By devoting every ounce of energy and attention to arguing with a puppet instead of trying to understand the reality beyond the theatre. By choosing her friends and allies poorly and then blaming the blind for not seeing. Ms. Sheehan, it has ALWAYS been up to us. That is why we always found you such a disappointment. You never seemed to realize that while we have been trying to do what is up to us you decided to go on your personal crusade, hogging the spotlight as the mainstream media's useful idiot. Thank you Ms. Sheehan--we have learned much from your mistakes, and rest assured we will now succeed where you failed--in achieving justice, not just for your son but for all of the victims of the horrific crimes you still, it seems, insist on denying.
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♠
Real Truther a.k.a. Verdadero Verdadero
WTCdemolition.com - Harvard Task Force
Interesting
I'll admit that point of view never occurred to me before, but I find myself agreeing with a lot of it. So thank you. I will always have compassion for her as I try to have with everyone else, but I definitely agree with the "arguing with a puppet instead of trying to understand the reality beyond the theatre."
"Those who have the privilege to know, have the duty to act."
- Albert Einstein
www.Columbus911Truth.org
i have all sympathy
for the woman assuming she is legit and sincere, but she was totally used by the mainstream media--played like a fiddle. I think it's great that she's stepping down--now if Noam Chomsky and Amy Goodman would retire! People need to realize that what passed for the antiwar movement was totally controlled and designed to fail. We won't make the same mistake for 9/11 truth--as the media realize they can't continue to ignore it, they will try to define and control it with the help of infiltraitors. They will fail!
____
♠
Real Truther a.k.a. Verdadero Verdadero
WTCdemolition.com - Harvard Task Force
Sheehan is just as much a figurehead as Bush.
I seriously doubt this is going to take much steam out of the peace movement. Especially given the fact that the Democrats have now removed their mask. The war continues to escalate contrary to the will of 70% of the American people. The peace movement can only grow. 9/11 Truth is coming close to a boiling point. Something will pop very soon.
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"Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without." - Buddha
"What you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it." - Gandhi
"The Sun never shined on a cause of greater worth." - Thomas Paine
Amen
Brother.
If this is not proof...
...that the whole left-right paradigm is false, then I don't know what is.
We are in a one party system, and we are being led to the slaughter. No "congress" is going to save us, they are the vehicle thats moving us there.
No end to the wars, no new investigations, the game is rigged and our fate is set. No one can save us except for us.
We (the people) are truly on our own.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Physics/Science/Mathematics do not lie, only people do.
9/11 was an INSIDE JOB
Exactly,
but all the cheerleading for Ron Paul is a distraction from that very point. I'm not saying he's not a good and legit man for truth and justice, but he won't have the power to steer or direct our movement through the rigged electoral process because...well for one it's rigged! (VIPs only) and two, because this movement is too heavily driven at the grassroots level. Its very nature is unleadable. We can't be led because we ALL lead. Everytime I see a 9/11 truther say "vote Ron Paul" I roll my eyes, not out of disrespect for the man, but because we've been down that route and it's always led to one of three dead ends: total defeat, betrayal, or assasination.
It's up to you and me, as it's always been. It's not left vs. right but top vs. bottom and I'm getting fuckin sick of being told to throw a lever in a booth every goddamn 4 years only to realize more and more that there IS no voting system. It's all a play. We are actors in the play, and most of us don't even know we're acting. We're living the mirage of electoral democracy.
Vote Ronny!! He'll save us if he doesn't die first!!!!
Someone who knows her, has a real personal connection,
and is from the 9/1 truth movement, needs to reach out to her and quietly let her in on the not-so-secret truth about the false left-right paradigm and the full implications of 9/11 truth.
While she is obviously really burned out right now and needs a break, I think when she realizes that the 9/11 Truth movement is who she should've been working with all along and we welcome her with open arms, she will join us and bring passion and msm attention to 9/11 truth.
Alternatively, perhaps she has finally realized what we've been telling her and she's not interested in helping us take our country back, it may seem like too big a task to her. Her comment about America being a "fascist corporate wasteland" leads me to believe that this is the case.
In any case, her complete disillusionment with the Democratic Party elites should not be a surprise to anyone in the movement and is just one of the steps down the path to really understanding 9/11 truth.
9/11 truth is not a partisan issue, it's really not even an American issue, it is a human issue. More people are waking up to this fact around the world every day.
RT is right, of course, it has always been up to us. The trick is to realize who US really is.
I wish Ms. Sheehan all the best and hope to see her in a 9/11 Truth tee shirt later this summer.
The truth shall set us free. Love is the only way forward.
We no longer need "leaders"
We no longer need "leaders" and "figureheads". Rather we are all leaders and figureheads. "A strong people needs no leader" -- Zapata. The moment we put our faith in a leader is the moment we fail.
I bear no rancor against Sheehan, despite here luke-warm position on 911 truth. She did far more than most relatives of war victims, and the path she took was that which she thought most conducive to aiding the cause of peace. Well, she was naive, and made the mistake of putting her faith in politicians. It's a lesson we seemingly never learn, all of us.
Having (predictably) failed, she is lashing out by retreating, which is sad because she showed glimmers of greatness by drawing attention to Israel's role in neocon ideology and flirting with 911 truth. Ultimately, however, she didn't have the stamina to get over the final hump. Like many democrats she thought public relations and appealing to "swing voters" was more important than the truth. That's ok, we don't need her.
Perhaps one day she'll come out of her self-imposed exile and do so bearing a 911 truth T-shirt.
The Eleventh Day of Every Month
stop the presses!
I'm reposting this commment from another trhead. At least she's dumped the Dems! Baby steps for Cindy!!
An Open Letter to the Democratic Congress
Why I Am Leaving the Democratic Party
By CINDY SHEEHAN May 28, 2007
....
"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."
....
Entire letter here: (scroll down the page) http://www.counterpunch.org/sheehan05282007.html
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♠
Real Truther a.k.a. Verdadero Verdadero
WTCdemolition.com - Harvard Task Force
duplicate! oops