{"id":68,"date":"2010-07-22T06:30:59","date_gmt":"2010-07-22T10:30:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.libertyunionparty.org\/?p=68"},"modified":"2010-07-22T06:30:59","modified_gmt":"2010-07-22T10:30:59","slug":"requiem-for-the-antiwar-movement-by-cindy-sheehan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/greenmountainpeaceandjusticeparty.org\/?p=68","title":{"rendered":"Requiem for the Antiwar Movement – By Cindy Sheehan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Requiem for the Antiwar Movement
\n<\/strong>
\nBy Cindy Sheehan<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you vote for war, don’t be surprised when you get it.\u201d<\/em> Cindy Sheehan<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cI will send at least two additional combat brigades to Afghanistan.\u201d <\/em>Presidential Candidate Barack Obama<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cThis war (Iraq) prevents us from tackling every serious threat that we face, from a resurgent al-Qaeda in Afghanistan to a hostile Iranian regime intent on possessing nuclear weapons.\u201d<\/em> Candidate Barack Obama<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cAnd if we have actionable intelligence about high-level al-Qaeda targets (in Pakistan), we must act if Pakistan will or cannot.\u201d Candidate Barack Obama<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

July 19, 2010<\/strong> “<\/strong>Information Clearing House<\/strong><\/a>” <\/strong>— <\/strong>\u00a0This<\/strong> article and these observations are going to piss some people off\u2014but oh well. You will be angry with me, even though I am not the one who is ordering more war, paying for more war, torturing people and imprisoning them without due process, destroying the economy and the environment, blah, blah, blah. I have developed an incredibly thick skin and if I rankle, it\u2019s because I think time is running out to halt the disastrous trajectory this planet (via the US Military Corporate Complex) is on. I promise that I am not writing this because I am holding protests and no one is coming\u2014these thoughts have been percolating in me for months now. (Note: Remember that old saying: \u201cWhat if they gave a war and nobody came?\u201d Well, here in DC I am living the opposite: \u201cWhat if they gave an antiwar protest and nobody came?\u201d)<\/span><\/p>\n

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My grandbabies and other people\u2019s grandbabies WILL NOT live in a world where war for profit is so normal that state-sanctioned violence is rarely even questioned\u2014and if it is, then the person questioning is the \u201clooney tunes,\u201d the \u201cmama moonbat,\u201d the \u201cradical.\u201d That is one seriously messed-up world. You know it is and we are the only ones who have the key to unmessing it. <\/span><\/p>\n

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Last week, the Democratically controlled House of Representatives voted to give Barack Obama 33 billion more dollars to prosecute two idiotic and ill-advised wars. Of course they did\u2014it wasn\u2019t the first time since 2007 that a Democratic Congress voted to fund wars, and it won\u2019t be the last\u2014do you all know why? BECAUSE THE DEMOCRATS DON\u2019T WANT PEACE\u2014THEY ARE JUST ONE-HALF OF THE \u201cWAR PARTY.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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Why else did the Democrats vote for more war, more death and more destruction? If you are a Democrat and voted for one of these scum\u2014did you vote for them hoping that you would get more war? Did you vote for Obama hoping that he would dig this country into a deeper hole, and do you still believe that fucking things up even more is the way to solve problems?<\/span><\/p>\n

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Do you all know what else? The wars that were begun in the Bush presidency and fully funded and increased during the Obama regime belong to everyone who voted for Obama, too. If you listened to what Obama said, and not just how he said it, then you would have heard him promise you that he was going to SEND MORE TROOPS TO AFGHANISTAN. You would have heard him say that nothing was \u201coff the table\u201d for dealing with Iran. <\/span><\/p>\n

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During the campaign, many colleagues and friends of mine, assured me that Obama was just saying this hostile crap to \u201cget elected\u201d and once he was elected that he would \u201cdo the right thing.\u201d Well, first of all, why support such a pandering Jackwagon, and secondly, how has that ever worked? Three days after Obama swore to uphold and defend the Constitution, he drone-bombed a \u201ctarget\u201d in Pakistan killing 3 dozen civilians\u2014and since that day he has elevated the art of drone bombings to new heights, while the so-called antiwar movement looks on in silent complacency and while Democratic operatives disguised as antiwar groups are hoping against hope that Obama comes out strong with a new antiwar marketing campaign to assure his \u201cre-election.\u201d Even though not one progressive issue has been propagated during his term, these war supporters are looking forward to another four years of the dance of death. Right foot kill\u2014left foot torture\u2014spin around for environmental devastation\u2014allemande left for health care fascism\u2014and shimmy right for bankster bailouts. Wasn\u2019t eight years of this crap during the Bush stain enough for y\u2019all?<\/span><\/p>\n

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Many antiwar groups and people who claim they are for peace lose their minds during election season thinking that the razor-thin difference between the Democrat and Republican is enough to go ape-shit crazy in working for the Democrat. Just take the last two Democratic candidates, for example. Kerry and Obama both supported more war. An \u201cantiwar\u201d movement de-legitimizes itself when it works hard for a candidate who does not promise total and rapid withdrawal of troops from wherever they happen to be at the time AND does not promise to end war as an imperial tool of corporate conquest. <\/span><\/p>\n

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The majority of the so-called antiwar movement, in fact, voted for a candidate that PROMISED to contract one war only to be able to profoundly EXPAND another. Obama all along said that he is not against all war, just \u201cdumb wars.\u201d If there existed an antiwar movement that had integrity\u2014it would have said that \u201call wars are dumb,\u201d and we withhold our support for just another dyed-in-the-wool warmonger.<\/span><\/p>\n

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What do we do now that we have another two and a half years of a hawk who thinks it is just hunky-dory that his supporters are under the delusion that he is a dove\u2014he was awarded the war-establishment\u2019s highest prize wasn\u2019t he? He is, after all, a Nobel Laureate. <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

First of all, voting just doesn\u2019t cut it. Realistically, our choices are between War Party Candidate A and War Party Candidate B. A true peace candidate is marginalized, metaphorically spat upon, and reviled. This is not a nation that honors peace and non-violence. From the top down, we are a violent nation\u2014so from the bottom up, we have to restructure society. Liberate yourself and remove your Obama bumper sticker that has a peace sign instead of the \u201cO.\u201d If you are antiwar, you know in your heart that he is not a peace monger.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Secondly, our resources and energy are stretched thin. We live in a credit based economy where good jobs are scarce. Many people, who have the same values, in this almost value-free society, constantly tell me that they would be with me if they could afford it. <\/span><\/p>\n

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Since my son was killed, which was as violent of a paradigm shift as anyone should have to endure, I have whittled my life down to a bare minimum. I have no car. I have no pets. I have no plants. I have no credit cards. My income is based on my donations from my itinerant peace travels and book sales. I have moved eight times since Casey died and now I can move with one small u-haul. I have a cell phone and computer, a bed, clothes, a few dishes, a few valued books and peace paraphernalia and pictures of my children and grandbabies. <\/span><\/p>\n

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As HD Thoreau said: \u201cYou don\u2019t own your possessions, they own you.\u201d This consumer orgiastic society makes us literal slaves to a system that is detrimental to our health. Freeing oneself from those chains frees one to be a full-time, or near full-time activist. \u201cSimplify, simplify, simplify.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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Massive antiwar protest in this country is dead. We may as well acknowledge that and just bury the corpse, mourn, and then figure out a better way of doing things. <\/span><\/p>\n

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In the Christian tradition, death was only a prelude to new and better life and farmers well tell you that a seed has to die before a health-nourishing plant can be born and then there\u2019s the ever ubiquitous example of the ugly, hairy, and yucky caterpillar being reborn as a magnificent and beautiful butterfly. Have I hammered you with enough clich\u00e9s yet?<\/span><\/p>\n

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The key to turning this caterpillar of a country into a beautiful butterfly is in Peace and recognizing that no matter if one is Bush, Obama, McCain or Palin\u2014these people don\u2019t want Peace, but we do.<\/span><\/p>\n

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I think we lose the raw humanity of war when we allow ourselves to wallow in War Party politics. When the Democratic Wing of the War Party took over the mis-management of the Empire, the anti-war movement was effectively neutralized even though the wars weren\u2019t.<\/span><\/p>\n

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So after we are done mourning, we get together as one human family to organize something that will bring positive change. We are not enemies with each other\u2014we may be \u201cenemies of the state,\u201d but the state is our enemy.<\/span><\/p>\n

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No more marching in circles, it makes us dizzy.<\/span><\/p>\n

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No more signing petitions, it gives us writer\u2019s cramp.<\/span><\/p>\n

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No more calling Congress-scum, the war machine is its master.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The establishment wants us to think that this busy-work has a chance to be effective\u2014but when is the last time any of these tactics worked on a Federal level? Your president or your congress rep couldn\u2019t care less want you think or want. Your vote doesn\u2019t even count\u2014in case you haven\u2019t heard, they steal votes and falsely manipulate you, anyway.<\/span><\/p>\n

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I am going to close with my organization\u2019s motivational quote. Peace of the ACTION<\/a> takes our inspiration from a Mario Savio quote that he said on the steps of Sproul Hall at UC Berkeley, 46 years ago:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere comes a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart that you can\u2019t take part, you can\u2019t even passively take part. You have to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the levers, upon all the apparatus and you\u2019ve got to make it stop. And you\u2019ve got to indicate to the people who own it, to the people who run it, that unless you\u2019re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Requiem for the Antiwar Movement By Cindy Sheehan \u201cWhen you vote for war, don’t be surprised when you get it.\u201d Cindy Sheehan \u201cI will send at least two additional combat […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-important-reading"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greenmountainpeaceandjusticeparty.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greenmountainpeaceandjusticeparty.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greenmountainpeaceandjusticeparty.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greenmountainpeaceandjusticeparty.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greenmountainpeaceandjusticeparty.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=68"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/greenmountainpeaceandjusticeparty.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greenmountainpeaceandjusticeparty.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=68"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greenmountainpeaceandjusticeparty.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=68"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greenmountainpeaceandjusticeparty.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=68"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}