Cindy Sheehan: The White House Years
David Weigel | August 17, 2007, 1:33pm
It's one of the least-intriguing mysteries in politics: Why, since Democrats won't cut off war funding and speed up the exit from Iraq, isn't the left breaking off of the party? (A majority of Democrats now disappove of Congress's work on Iraq, after all.) It's pretty simple. The hard left of the party remembers what happened in 2000 when a couple million of them ditched Al Gore for Ralph Nader. Like the paleocons who stuck with Bush in 2000 and 2004 (especially 2000 when Pat Buchanan offered them an alternative vote), left-wingers are going to suck it up and vote for whichever wretched candidate the anti-Republican party coughs up.
The opinion to the contrary is limited to anti-war groups like Code Pink, which started small and remain small, and
columns like this one by Manuel Garcia Jr. which recommends the election by mass write-in campaign of President Cindy Sheehan.
“But Cindy Sheehan has no experience running a government!” you might fret. Honestly, are you happy with the results garnered by our “government experienced” would-be Pharaohs? Is there anybody who believes that Cindy Sheehan is less trustworthy, less honest, less truthful and less concerned about the USAmerican people than anyone in the dugout of Big Money approved presidential pitchmen? Number One barks out the orders and hires and fires as needed to get them done. Do you really believe Cindy Sheehan is less capable of doing this than the careerist androids of the Big Money Brat Pack. [Insert John Belushi saying “Please”].
The flaw in this suggestion is the same flaw as in John Lennon’s song “Imagine.” Yes, it is true that if most people had the same vision they could overcome war, hunger, nationalism, religion, and all the scourges of humankind. But, humanity has proved unable to share such a compassionate vision, even though humans everywhere say they want “peace” and justice” and other forms of universal good. Note, however, that the flaw is based on probability, not possibility. It is not probable that most people would share a common humanistic vision, but there is no logical impediment to such an outcome, and in fact if most people did choose to share such a vision — through their actions — then the desired humanistic compassionate state (and world) would necessarily have to emerge. It is the same with the elections in the U.S.A., if enough people choose to vote for a given candidate, in this case by write-in balloting, then regardless of the shenanigans by partisan election officials, and the hacking of electronic voting machines, the “will of the people” will become clearly evident. The success of any such act of mass disobedience would be the beginning of the end of the current syndicates running USAmerican politics as a continuing criminal enterprise for the enrichment of corporate sponsors.
An entire page of commentary like this.
THE AVERAGE LEFTY THESE DAYS | August 18, 2007, 12:36pm | #
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Art-P.O.G. | August 18, 2007, 2:21pm | #
Hmm. Seems my long, rambling post didn't take. Doggone dial-up. Anyhow, I don't like Sheehan, because, like many civilians (I don't mean to be condescending, but many civilians seem condescending to us in the military) she doesn't really understand what it means to put on the uniform. As a grieving mother, I sympathize with her, but she seems completely clueless as to what her son's untimely death may mean to his comrades.
Although a mother's grief is most profound, the loss of a fellow servicemember is given a more complete measure of perspective by the views of those who served alongside him or her.
I don't expect that to be a consolation to her, but I can't imagine her describing his death as "meaningless" if she understood what it meant to put her boots on the ground for her country.
Such claims may have seemed meaningless to me before I joined, but when I see all the benefits our taxpayers and gov't give us for our service (G.I. bill, vocational training, etc.), I do feel a measure of gratitude to my country.
The situation in Iraq may be politically unsalvageable, but that certainly does not make the death of a servicemember 'meaningless', at least any moreso than dying in the service of the "War on Drugs".
Those of us in the executive branch must serve with honor, and most of s do. Politicians may put us in awful situations, but at least from my perspective, serving one's country is never a waste, and I will always lend more credence to SPC Sheehan's views on his service (whatever they were) and his own moral authority, than I will his mother's.
