Censorship American Style - Cindy Sheehan Quits

One thing we Americans know how to do, when it comes to politics, is to eat our own, and we do it daily in newspapers, blogs, and on talk shows. They say, the pen is mightier than the sword, and we saw that last week when Congress "signed-on" to re-finance the war, even though the majority of Americans want out. We drown out voices that threaten us; we even tried to deport John Lennon because of his anti-war position. We allow the K.K.K. to march yearly in downtown Cincinnati, but we mock a woman preaching peace. Why did we mock Cindy Sheehan? Many of us thought she was a tool of the Left. Then when she decided to be non-partisan, when she refused to bow to the Left, we threw her under the bus. Cindy Sheehan just wanted to get a message out; a message for peace, but she has had enough, and has decided to quit the peace movement. We do our job well. We've censored another voice we don't like to hear - we ran her off real good now, didn't we!


In a diary on the dailykos, Mon May 28, 2007, titled "Good Riddance Attention Whore", she posts a resignation letter. Here are a few more memorable quotes. The whole letter can be read at the link provided.

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 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.


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.... 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.


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.


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.


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.