Ron Jacobs on Sheehan's Resignation



Ron Jacobs: The Exit of Cindy Sheehan

I like Ron, hell, we went to the same high school though at slightly different times, but I've got a few inaccuracies to counter.

... This move is similar to the retreat from politics and the streets that much of an entire generation underwent in the years following the government murders at Kent State and Jackson State in 1970 during antiwar protests. 
... Ms. Sheehan makes it clear that she still opposes these wars and the power mongers who insist on continuing it. Indeed, she saves her harshest words of her farewell message for these men and women who "move them (US soldiers) around like pawns on a chessboard of destruction" and are " worried more about elections than people." Naturally, this includes the Democrats as well as the Republicans. And that, is the crux of Sheehan's despair. She honestly thought that the Democrats were different.

Actually Ron, Sheehan was a unyielding critic of the Democrats and any other War Party creeps long ago, long before Daily Kos, Democratic Underground etc.

... In another section of her letter, Sheehan directs her anger and frustration at the so-called leadership of the antiwar movement. Pointing a well-deserved finger at the movement and its divisions, she writes: " 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.... It is hard to work for peace when the very movement that is named after it has so many divisions." What else can one say except, once again Ms. Sheehan has drawn an incorrect conclusion. As many others have written when addressing this issue, who cares about the pettiness of egos and power players in the movement? If one opposes the war, one gets in the streets and opposes it. 

WTF? Who got out in the street? Who got run into a ditch? Sheehan said from DAY ONE, "Anyone who is antiwar can join us" I even have it on video. Guess who showed up, mostly, not all, "Liberals" and "Socialists"and anyone else with an agenda, should she have ejected them?.... Wouldn't that have put "personal egos above peace and human life." ?

...Her discovery that "(her son) 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" is a difficult thing to take. Yet, this is not a reason to quit. It is, instead, a motivation to change things at an even more fundamental level.

What is more "fundamental" than raising your kids? Politics alone will never ever solve mass psyco/spiritual problems. I doubt Sheehan will ever regret, abandon or freeze her principals.

... I wish Cindy Sheehan a peaceful and restorative time away from the frontlines of the antiwar movement. Her presence, commitment and personality have made a good deal of difference in the growth of the movement against Washington's wars. Indeed, it can be reasonably argued that it was Cindy Sheehan that made it okay for Middle America to protest, and for that she must be thanked. Now that she is taking a breather from the madness it is up to us to continue expanding those protests. It is certainly not time to give up.

Ditto

Posted: Tue - May 29, 2007 at 02:22 PM            

©