Disappeared News

Most reports on Cindy Sheehan's post yesterday to the Daily Kos have described her action as a decision to quit. Perhaps so. She certainly has done her share a thousand-fold (at least) and deserves to step back if that's what she's doing.

Perhaps, though, she is taking a giant step forward. Many of us found our hopes for peace and a return to America's traditional values dashed when GW Bush won a second term in office in 2004. Our state of deep depression was not relieved until the 2006 elections which saw the Democrats reclaiming both houses of Congress, although by the narrowest of margins. The mandate to end the war in Iraq was clear, and so the Democrat's recent capitulation on war funding and withdrawal of troops from Iraq was a slap in the face to the electorate.

Cindy may be saving us from a return to the 2004 state of despair and, through her action, galvanizing the public to push and shove our Congressional leaders until they move in the direction we set for them.

Had she continued marching in the same parade, it's hard to see what might make an impression on the public and on Congress to get with the program. Instead, she left the line and went home. Had anyone else in the country at this time done the same, it wouldn't have had much impact (ok, if Stephen Colbert quit in disgust, people would notice for awhile). Cindy Sheehan did the unexpected, and she made sure to leave a powerful message behind. We all need to read it. More than read it, we need to get ever more active, and she is pretty clear why.

To read further, I suggest this Wikinews article, U.S. anti-war mom calls it quits. A snippet:

In the text of Sheehan's diary she is unable to reconcile herself with the Democratic Party that on Thursday, May 24, succumbed to the Bush administration on language for a troop funding bill that at one time tied funding to a time limit for U.S. involvement in Iraq. The presidential veto of that legislation to set a deadline for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq resulted in the U.S. Congress caving to executive branch over the issue of war funding, and may have been the final straw for Sheehan.

Of course, you can Google for both mainstream and alternative media articles. Cindy Sheehan's Wikipedia entry is here.

A good backgrounder was broadcast today by New York's WBAI-FM as part of their regular evening news. Since the audio may not be kept on their website long, I snipped out just the eight minutes on Cindy. Please listen to and support WBAI, which is part of the Pacifica Network that also brings us Democracy Now. To listen to the excerpt, click here