Cindy Sheehan, used and abused

In case you didn't know, Cindy Sheehan recently called it quits. This is her 'farewell letter'. It is sad, as she describes her cynical discovery that the 2-party system is in place so people think they have a choice, and that there is a "right" and a "wrong" (relative to what side you think you are on). But in reality, it just keeps the wheels turning for the rich and powerful.

I have a brighter hope, but it must be difficult when you fight as hard as she has...but in the end, you throw you hands up, return to 'normalcy', pray for those that lost their lives, and forgiveness for those responsible.

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"Good Riddance Attention Whore" by Cindy Sheehan

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.

This is what a junkie looks like...

I recently got a speeding ticket from an asshole bike cop. I took the on-line traffic school and thought this was funny. In the section about drugs, they have this picture of someone on drugs.

Is that a bucket on his head? Or a Civil War military cap? Maybe they found clipart for a nervous spy, and thought it looked like a junkie? He has some serious secrets in the briefcase.

Memorial Day = Remember to follow the herd!

When people have Monday off, why do they insist on flocking to the beach on Saturday? Is one day so special that you have to leave town and go someplace?

This travelling because one has a day off is ridiculous. This being the first weekend of the summer for a lot of school kids has a hand in it. But Mommy and Daddy only have Monday off work, and I am sure most aren't beginning their summer vacations. Where are all these cool places!? I am sure I wouldn't be interested, especially since most of it involves the emptying of wallets for cheap thrills.

Gas is over $3.00, and people whine, bitch, and moan...then they go drive all over the place for the weekend. If you don't like the price of gas, stop using so much of it! Big oil is laughing all the way to the bank, smoking their cigars made out of Ben Franklins, and wondering if they should ever take the ball-gag out of your mouth. Welllll, we aren't finished with your ass just yet...

Oh, and I can't wait to hear the jackasses setting off their fireworks in the middle of a drought. When did this fireworks-at-every-holiday thing start? These days I hear fireworks in all directions on Christmas. Yes, even baby Jesus is highly annoyed.

Gators and Sharks, oh my...

Lately I have seen quite a few local news stories on sharks and alligators. Specifically, how dangerous it is becoming as they come into contact with humans. How dare these alligators leave their designated areas and enter into our subdivisions.

The dry weather is causing alligators to leave their usual lakes and ponds to look for deeper water. These dragons of satan are on the prowl and want to eat your puppies and babies.

Look what is in the shallow water of Florida's beaches where YOUR children swim! Sharks! Many of them. HUGE ones. With big teeth! And these hell fish want to eat your puppies and babies AND rape your white women. They must be stopped and killed, before you are next.

BREAKING NEWS: It has been reported that alligators are now smoking reefer cigarettes. Eyewitnesses say that these crazed alligators have joined the sharks in the raping of white women. Your wife could be next!


I hate this mentality that we run the earth and everywhere we settle is strictly for us, and everything else must get out of our way (i.e. - nature!). "This area needs a new strip mall. Choke on some stucco and die, stupid raccoon! My construction crew will pee on your babies!"..."We need to fly airplanes here. Get the heck out, bald eagles! Thanks for the symbol of freedom!"

If an alligator ate your baby, it is because the alligator was hungry and needed some meat. It also means there was a 80% chance you were a bad parent and weren't careful with your child in the nature wild. The other 20% accounts for...well, sometimes babies are going to get eaten by alligators. The only reason we are at the top of the food chain is because we made guns and knives. Could you kill a cow and make a steak with your bare hands? Would you tear the meat with your molars?

Don't get me started on the sharks. There is a reason we don't have flippers and gills. If you go in the water, that's not where you are supposed to be. You could get swallowed.

This is all common sense, and I shouldn't feel like some radical minority when I express that we need to live with the land.
Not on it.