If you take nothing else from this piece by Cindy Sheehan, take what she says about "American Idol" and ponder that for a few moments.

Goodbye, America
Cindy Sheehan

Thursday, May 31, 2007

I have endured a lot of smears and hatred since my son Casey was killed in Iraq and especially since I became the so-called "face" of the American anti-war movement. And, especially since I renounced any ties 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 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 W. 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 of "right and wrong."

I am deemed a radical because I believe partisan politics should be left by the wayside when thousands of people are dying in a war based on lies that is supported by Democrats and Republicans 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 loyalty to party 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, then our representative republic will die and be replaced with what we are rapidly descending into, with nary a check or a 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 do 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 it 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. 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 that 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. 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, 10 or 15 years, our troops will come limping home in another abject defeat and 10 or 20 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. Bush will never be impeached because if the Democrats dig too deeply, they may unearth a few skeletons of their own and the system will perpetuate itself.

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 to 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 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 U.S. 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. 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.

Cindy Sheehan is the mother of Spc. Casey Austin Sheehan, who was killed in action in Iraq on April 4, 2004. She is a co-founder and president of Gold Star Families for Peace and the author of two books: "Not One More Mother's Child" (Koa Books, 2005) and "Dear President Bush" (Open Media, 2005).