'It's up to you now'

[The Author]

'It's up to you now': Sheehan quits

By ANGELA K. BROWN, Associated Press Writer1 hour, 28 minutes ago

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 camped outside Bush's Crawford ranch for 26 days, demanding to talk with the president about her son's death. Army Spc. Casey Sheehan was 24 when he was killed in an ambush in Baghdad in 2004.

Cindy Sheehan's protest started small but swelled to thousands and quickly drew national attention. Over the next two years, she drew huge crowds as she spoke at protest events. But she also drew criticism for some actions, such as meeting with Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's leftist president.

"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.

Kristinn Taylor, spokesman for FreeRepublic.com, which has held pro-troop rallies and counter-protests of anti-war demonstrations, said dwindling crowds at Sheehan's Crawford protests since her initial vigil may have led to her decision. But he also said he hopes she will now be able to heal.

"Her politics have hurt a lot of people, including the troops and their families, but most of us who support the war on terror understand she is hurt very deeply," Taylor said Tuesday. "Those she got involved with in the anti-war movement realize it was to their benefit to keep her in that stage of anger."

When Sheehan first took on Bush, she 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 in the diary.

She said she 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."

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."

Sheehan told the AP that she had considered leaving the peace movement since last summer while recovering from surgery.

She decided on Memorial Day to step down and spend more time with her three other children. She said she was returning to California on Tuesday because it was Casey's birthday. He would have been 28.

"We've accomplished as much here as we're going to," Sheehan said, saying she was leaving to change course. "When we come back, it definitely won't be with the peace movement with marches, with rallies and with protests. It will be more humanitarian efforts."

Last year, with $52,500 in insurance money she received after her son's death, Sheehan bought 5 acres near downtown Crawford as a permanent site for protests.

"Camp Casey has served its purpose," she wrote in the diary. "It's for sale. Anyone want to buy five beautiful acres in Crawford, Texas?"

[Severian]

Her full statement on this: (http://www.dailykos.com/story/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.

I think it's interesting how large a place the critique of the Democratic Party has in this. That she feels this is an obstacle to continued high-profile activity - says something about how pro-Democratic the so-called antiwar movement is.

Beyond that? A high level of political activity certainly can be exhausting. I hope she just needs a vacation from it.

[Red October]

Yes, I'm glad she took so much time to call out the Democrats as contributors to the war and weak little *****es. I also like that she referenced corporate control of the society. I hope this marks a shift in the anti-war movement away from the Democrats.

[R_P_A_S]

im kinda disappointed that she actually believed that the other party was any different LOL

[Ander]

Who the fuck names their son Kristinn?

[anomee]

Yes, I'm glad she took so much time to call out the Democrats as contributors to the war and weak little *****es. I also like that she referenced corporate control of the society. I hope this marks a shift in the anti-war movement away from the Democrats.

To what? To whom?

I'm curious...

Away from the Democrats to what or whom?

Indys? Greens? Libertarians?

They're not even big enough to get themselves elected, and surely not big enough to support the antiwar movement.

Also, I'd be fascinated to hear how and in what way the Democrats are contributors to the war?

Personally I think Edwards looked very strong when he said the Democrats should keep handing Bush the same bill to get us out of the war with a time line and exit date and letting Bush keep deciding to veto it or pass it, either way putting the responsibility of this war on his shoulders where it belongs!

[bcbm]

Also, I'd be fascinated to hear how and in what way the Democrats are contributors to the war?

Maybe it was when they voted in favor of it.



Personally I think Edwards looked very strong when he said the Democrats should keep handing Bush the same bill to get us out of the war with a time line and exit date and letting Bush keep deciding to veto it or pass it, either way putting the responsibility of this war on his shoulders where it belongs!

Or we could blame, uh, capitalism? :rolleyes:

[Cheung Mo]

Originally posted by [email protected] 30, 2007 02:34 am
Who the fuck names their son Kristinn?
A Freeptard.

Those people are nuts.

At least the people at DU mean well.

[anomee]

Also, I'd be fascinated to hear how and in what way the Democrats are contributors to the war?



Maybe it was when they voted in favor of it.





Personally I think Edwards looked very strong when he said the Democrats should keep handing Bush the same bill to get us out of the war with a time line and exit date and letting Bush keep deciding to veto it or pass it, either way putting the responsibility of this war on his shoulders where it belongs!



Or we could blame, uh, capitalism?

----------------------

Well, there is the fact that the Dems were not privy to all the intel Prez Bush had -- especially in his PDB -- and the intel that was given to them was cherry picked and not given to the Dems in a timely fashion for them to read it, analyze it and vote

Und jah, suuuure, ho-kay, fine, ve blame capitalism... of vhich Bush ist da King... at zis point... *L*

Now where do we go from here? :blink:

[Entrails Konfetti]

I didn't think I'd ever say this. I'm sad to see her go, I hope she comes back.
At first I thought she was a tool of the democrats, but she got smart, and she became a critic of the democrats instead of going passively with them when they gained majority in legislature. We need left critics of the Democrats like her.

[bcbm]

Well, there is the fact that the Dems were not privy to all the intel Prez Bush had -- especially in his PDB -- and the intel that was given to them was cherry picked and not given to the Dems in a timely fashion for them to read it, analyze it and vote

And while everything has been clear for some time, they still sit around with their thumbs up their asses. And even if they tried to stop the war (which they won't), who cares? They're riding the tide of public opinion, like all good politicians. They're a business party just like any other, and are scum who don't deserve our support.


Und jah, suuuure, ho-kay, fine, ve blame capitalism... of vhich Bush ist da King... at zis point... *L*

Uh.. what? Bush and the rest of the administration are certainly shitbags, but they're only symptomatic of the larger social order and focusing on them and not the actual problem is silly and leads to things like voting for the Democrats.


Now where do we go from here?

Up the ante and fight back against the imperialists in any way we can. The anti-war movement, with or without Sheehan, is an ineffective piece of shit at this point. We should be trying to push it further, not crying when figureheads quit.

[cubist]

im kinda disappointed that she actually believed that the other party was any different LOL

very much agree

over here a major protester is Mark Thomas and he holds no greater faith in the left or the right

In fact i think the words are all politicians are lieing scheming bastards,

Tony Benn and Tommy Sheridan defy this rule in Britain but thats about it.

War is a vital necessity in the media hatred campaign of capitalist governments even the democrats would have to back such actions.

Kerry or Bush is still enron haliburton pepsi and coca cola running the shop

[Red October]

Originally posted by [email protected] 30, 2007 09:09 pm



Also, I'd be fascinated to hear how and in what way the Democrats are contributors to the war?



Maybe it was when they voted in favor of it.





Personally I think Edwards looked very strong when he said the Democrats should keep handing Bush the same bill to get us out of the war with a time line and exit date and letting Bush keep deciding to veto it or pass it, either way putting the responsibility of this war on his shoulders where it belongs!



Or we could blame, uh, capitalism?

----------------------

Well, there is the fact that the Dems were not privy to all the intel Prez Bush had -- especially in his PDB -- and the intel that was given to them was cherry picked and not given to the Dems in a timely fashion for them to read it, analyze it and vote

Und jah, suuuure, ho-kay, fine, ve blame capitalism... of vhich Bush ist da King... at zis point... *L*

Now where do we go from here? :blink:
Are you completely ignorant of how imperialism works? The Democrats may not have started the war officially, but they're still a bunch of weak corporate servants who won't do shit to actually stop the war. They are the "loyal opposition". This is Revolutionary Left, not the DNC forums.

[Ander]

I smell a...LIBERAL!

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

This is a pretty good analysis of the situation:

Iraq war opponent Cindy Sheehan resigns from the Democratic Party
By David Walsh
30 May 2007
wsws.com

American antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan addressed an open letter to Congress May 26 announcing that she was leaving the Democratic Party, which now controls both houses of the legislature. Sheehan, whose 24-year-old son Casey died while serving in the US armed forces in Iraq in April 2004, came to prominence when she set up camp near George W. Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas in August 2005 as a protest against the war.

Her open letter came in immediate response to the final capitulation of the Democrats in Congress last week over an additional $100 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. She writes the Democrats, “You think giving him [Bush] more money is politically expedient, but it is a moral abomination and every second the occupation of Iraq endures, you all have more blood on your hands.”

In her letter of resignation from the Democrats, Sheehan takes the politicians of both parties to task for their callous indifference to human life. She refers to the comment of Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who said, after Bush had signed the authorization bill, “Now, I think the president’s policy will begin to unravel.”

“Begin to unravel?” Sheehan writes. “How many more of our children will have to be killed and how much more of Iraq will have to be demolished before you all think enough unraveling has occurred? ... With almost 700,000 Iraqis dead and four million refugees (which the US refuses to admit), how could it get worse? Well, it is getting worse and it can get much worse thanks to your complicity.”

Sheehan notes that the Democrats’ promise to take up the issue of war funding once again in September, remarking, “Let’s face it, on October 1st you will give him [Bush] more money after some more theatrics, which you think are fooling the anti-war faction of your party.” With the current daily death toll of 3.72 American troops per day, she goes on, the Democrats in Congress will “have condemned 473 more to these early graves. 473 more lives wasted for your political greed: Thousands of broken hearts because of your cowardice and avarice. How can you even go to sleep at night or look at yourselves in a mirror? How do you put behind you the screaming mothers on both sides of the conflict? How does the agony you have created escape you? It will never escape me ... I can’t run far enough or hide well enough to get away from it.”

Sheehan adds, “By the end of September, we will be about 80 troops short of another bloody milestone: 4000, and MoveOn.org will hold nationwide candlelight vigils and you all will be busy passing legislation that will snuff the lights out of thousands more human beings. Congratulations Congress, you have bought yourself a few more months of an illegal and immoral bloodbath. ... 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.”

Sheehan’s attack on the Democratic Party, including her pejorative reference to MoveOn.org, a liberal Democratic pressure group, has brought abuse down on her head from organizations with which she has been associated. In a bitter entry in her diary on the Daily Kos weblog written two days after her open letter to Congress, Sheehan notes that she has come in for harsh attacks from the liberal-left milieu for her rupture with the Democrats.

She explains that “I was the darling of the so-called left as long as I limited my protests to George Bush and the Republican Party. ... 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 continues: “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 mild rebukes.”

Sheehan upbraids those who propagate illusions in the present political set-up in the US. “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.”

She adds later: “This is my resignation letter as the ‘face’ of the American anti-war movement. ... 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 any more people that I love and the rest of my resources.”

She states that she is returning to California to tend to “my surviving children.”

Sheehan personally is at something of an impasse. In portions of her second statement, her disgust with the Democrats and their left hangers-on spills over into a more generalized criticism of the American population and into political pessimism.

Her current political uncertainty and disappointment notwithstanding, Sheehan is an authentic and outspoken opponent of imperialist war. In the most painful portion of her statements, she writes, “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.”

Clearly, the tension between Sheehan and the so-called “left” has been growing for some time. For her, the vote by the Democrats to provide Bush with funding for the murderous war, a war that has already taken her son’s life and the lives of hundreds of thousands of others, was the straw that broke the camel’s back. For the liberal left, it’s business as usual—primarily the business of providing excuses for the actions of the Democrats in Washington.

Sheehan’s public repudiation of the Democratic Party, only months after the Democrats gained control of Congress, is indicative of profound shifts in political consciousness among substantial sections of the American people. It presages a growing search for genuine alternatives to the two parties of American imperialism.