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Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
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MOVING MOUNTAINS - Cindy Sheehan
Tuesday 29 May @ 13:54:51 |
 by LYDIA HOWELL
Cindy Sheehan Refuses To Be Held Hostage
Cindy Sheehan, a Gold Star mother–that is, a mother who's lost a child in military combat—and the most known face of the peace movement, has posted her letter of resignation on the blog, Daily Kos.
(www.dailykos.org .)
It's not the right wing who questioned Sheehan's patriotism and relentlessly made cruel slurs that she dishonored her son by opposing George Bush's war for oil and empire, that drove Sheehan to this decision. It's a divided peace movement that did that.
When Cindy Sheehan attacked Middle East policies of Bush and the Republican Party, she was lauded by those who think all that's currently wrong with the U.S. is the fault of one party alone. Some liberals, tied to the Democratic Party, grew uncomfortable when Sheehan looked more deeply, beyond “Bush's war on Iraq” to a history of American imperialism that's defined U.S. policy for a very long time. (Some say since WWII, others say since the 1840s Mexican-American war that took one third of northern Mexico—aka the southwestern states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California—and some would point to the colonization and founding of the nation.) Sheehan “went above her pay grade” for some peace activist Democrats by going to Venezuela and Cuba. Unlike those who oppose the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq as some isolated “mistake,” divorced from any historical context, Sheehan has continued a quest for political consciousness. Sheehan faced the hard truths that America's economic system itself feeds the drive for war and that, perhaps, those Latin American countries might have something to teach us about alternatives.
But, Cindy Sheehan's ultimate “crime,” for some liberal Democrats, was when she challenged the Democratic Party to do what voters elected them to do: end the occupation of Iraq and bring the troops home. It was one thing to use the failure of Iraq against Republicans but quite another to hold Democrats to the same standard of accountability. It's one thing to call George W. Bush a warmonger and quite another to expose Hillary Rodham Clinton as one.
Who knows if Al Gore as president would have invaded Iraq in 2003? However, it's a matter of record that during the Clinton Administration, the U.S. continued to enforce the (illegal under international law) “no fly zones” in Iraq by bombing Iraqis two or three times a week and starving them with the longest sanctions in world history. Democratic complicity with both Bush I and Bush II in Iraq has gone on for some time.
Too many liberals in the antiwar movement continue to hold the illusion that “if we only elect Democrats, change will happen.” How many more betrayals by the corporate-sponsored Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) majority of the Democratic members of Congress will it take for them to see reality? While there are certainly a minority of Democrats—Representatives Dennis Kucinich, Maxine Waters, Barbara Lee come to mind--who do reflect progressive positions, they are out of step with the party as a whole. The DLC majority of the Democratic Party is willing to continue “Bush's war” in hopes of riding public disillusionment against the carnage to the White House in November 2008.
Like Ralph Nader before her, those activists held hostage to the Democratic Party attacked Cindy Sheehan when she told truths they refuse to recognize. What they fail to recognize is that social change has never happened because of ANY politician of any political party. Rather, all progressive victories have come due to social movements exerting pressure on politicians they could not afford to ignore. This is Activism 101, proven by many lessons of history.
To make the antiwar movement simply an arm of the Democratic Party is to undermine the political power of grassroots activism. The 2004 presidential election campaign should have taught peace activists that lesson. By summer of that year, antiwar activity began to wane in favor of people putting their time, energy and money into working to get John Kerry elected. This was the John Kerry who “reported for duty” at the Democratic National Convention with a military salute and never promised to end the U.S. war on Iraq, but only “more effective management” of it. It took more than a year after the November 2004 election to rebuild the momentum of the peace movement.
With polls showing that well over 70 percent of Americans want to bring the troops home from Iraq, shouldn't we be demanding that Democrats follow the will of the people? Excuses that Democrats don't have a “veto-proof majority” were given for last week's vote for $100 billion more for war, But, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) pointed out the obvious: Democrats don't have to pass a veto-proof bill de-funding the war. All that must be done is to NOT offer any new “defense”-funding bill at all.
Cindy Sheehan was not willing to have her son's death be for Halliburton's and Bush/Cheny oil buddies' wealth-enrichment program. Having her son's death be exploited for Democratic presidential political advantage is no better—and it shouldn't be so for any peace activist worthy of the name.
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