Cindy Sheehan throws in the towel

[Smallpotatoes]

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/05/28/sheehan/index.html


This is probably another thread that won't end well.

 

[Chi City 81]

The most telling/poignant passage:

But in Monday's 1,200-word letter, titled, "Good Riddance Attention *****," Sheehan announced that her son "did indeed die for nothing."

"I have tried every since he died to make his sacrifice meaningful," she wrote. "Casey died for a country which 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."

 

[steveu]

I keep thinking about the Bugs Bunny cartoon that ends "Meeehhh, could it be that I carried this thing too far?"

I do agree with Smallpotatoes, though... duck, because this likely has a bloody ending.

 

[spnited]

You know what's really scary, this statement is 100% true:

"Casey died for a country which 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."

 

[PCLoadLetter]

I feel horrible for her loss.

Sad to say, this is a decision that is long overdue. I always got the impression I was watching someone have a nervous breakdown over the course of two years. She did her cause no favors. I hope she can finally get the help she needs.

 

[Flying Headbutt]

PC and Spnited pretty much said everything I could.

 

[spnited]

I agree with PC as well ...
I admire her intentions and her sincerity but the way she went about it ...

 

[ifilus]

I admire her intentions and her sincerity but the way she went about it ...

What about "the way she went about it" do you object?
What are your suggestions at to how should she have proceeded differently?

 

[spnited]

I think her camp out at the ranch in Crawford was a great thing... I think as time went on, she seemed to be becoming to shrill and no longer making her points as well as she had earlier.
As PC said, it became like watching someone have a nervous brakdown over the course of the two years.

 

[PCLoadLetter]

I believe she channeled her grief into an obsessive need to get out her message whenever and however possible. And I totally understand how that could easily happen.

The down side to that is, she came across as a media ***** who enjoyed the attention way too much. Frankly, she just looked crazy after a while. If there is an afterlife and her son was able to watch the last couple of years, I have to think he never stopped wincing.

For a while she was the face of the anti-war movement, and that face easily became a punch line.

Again, I found and continue to find the whole thing incredibly sad. It cost her her marriage and virtually any other shred of her former life. The ultimate result of her work was, in my view, to de-legitimize the anti-war effort in the eyes of many. She was anti-war before it was mainstream to express it, but I think her approach delayed the process far more than it helped it to grow.

 

[zeke12]

I agree with most of that, PC.

I wonder who would come of looking good, though...

I hope she fins some measure of peace.

 

[HejiraHenry]

She did her cause no favors.

Concur.

 

[ifilus]

On August 24, 1970 Karleton Armstrong, Dwight Armstrong, Leo Burt and David Fine bombed Sterling Hall on the University of Wisconsin–Madison campus as a protest against the Vietnam War. The bombing, set off at 3:42AM, was intended to destroy the Army Math Research Center housed on the 2nd-4th floors of the building. It caused massive destruction to other parts of the building as well -- and resulted in the death of the researcher Robert Fassnacht. It also injured four others and caused significant destruction to the physics department and its experiments. Neither Fassnacht nor the physics department were involved with or employed by the Army Math Research Center.

Those guys took their anti-war protest too far. Nothing Cindy Sheehan did even came close.

I fail to understand the criticism of her non-violent efforts.

 

[Smallpotatoes]

I believe she channeled her grief into an obsessive need to get out her message whenever and however possible. And I totally understand how that could easily happen.

The down side to that is, she came across as a media ***** who enjoyed the attention way too much. Frankly, she just looked crazy after a while. If there is an afterlife and her son was able to watch the last couple of years, I have to think he never stopped wincing.

For a while she was the face of the anti-war movement, and that face easily became a punch line.

Again, I found and continue to find the whole thing incredibly sad. It cost her her marriage and virtually any other shred of her former life. The ultimate result of her work was, in my view, to de-legitimize the anti-war effort in the eyes of many. She was anti-war before it was mainstream to express it, but I think her approach delayed the process far more than it helped it to grow.

How much of the popular impression of her was molded by Karl Rove, right wing talk radio or somebody like that?

 

[zeke12]

I believe she channeled her grief into an obsessive need to get out her message whenever and however possible. And I totally understand how that could easily happen.

The down side to that is, she came across as a media ***** who enjoyed the attention way too much. Frankly, she just looked crazy after a while. If there is an afterlife and her son was able to watch the last couple of years, I have to think he never stopped wincing.

For a while she was the face of the anti-war movement, and that face easily became a punch line.

Again, I found and continue to find the whole thing incredibly sad. It cost her her marriage and virtually any other shred of her former life. The ultimate result of her work was, in my view, to de-legitimize the anti-war effort in the eyes of many. She was anti-war before it was mainstream to express it, but I think her approach delayed the process far more than it helped it to grow.

How much of the popular impression of her was molded by Karl Rove, right wing talk radio or somebody like that?

That's the question, sp.

 

[PCLoadLetter]

I believe she channeled her grief into an obsessive need to get out her message whenever and however possible. And I totally understand how that could easily happen.

The down side to that is, she came across as a media ***** who enjoyed the attention way too much. Frankly, she just looked crazy after a while. If there is an afterlife and her son was able to watch the last couple of years, I have to think he never stopped wincing.

For a while she was the face of the anti-war movement, and that face easily became a punch line.

Again, I found and continue to find the whole thing incredibly sad. It cost her her marriage and virtually any other shred of her former life. The ultimate result of her work was, in my view, to de-legitimize the anti-war effort in the eyes of many. She was anti-war before it was mainstream to express it, but I think her approach delayed the process far more than it helped it to grow.

How much of the popular impression of her was molded by Karl Rove, right wing talk radio or somebody like that?

Honestly? Not much, I think, not that he would have minded doing that. But it allowed the Rush Limbaughs of the world to make her the face of the anti-war movement, and I think that hurt the credibility of those who agreed with her basic views.

 

[Smallpotatoes]

I admire her courage. Life would have been a lot easier for her if she were on the other side of this issue, not that life is ever easy for anyone in her situation. She would have been ridiculed a lot less if she just supported the war.

 

[Shaggy]

I feel terrible about her loss. Not only of her son's life, but her own.

 

[Simon_Cowbell]

I feel horrible for her loss.

Sad to say, this is a decision that is long overdue. I always got the impression I was watching someone have a nervous breakdown over the course of two years. She did her cause no favors. I hope she can finally get the help she needs.

I simply don't think any of us assholes can pass judgement on her until we have suffered the most incongruent of losses, a parent's loss of a child.

That a brainless, homicidal miscreant sent him to his death must gall her as much as his death decimated her.

I have never felt anything other than sympathy for her. She never hurt anyone.

But she is yet another person in this country who has gone after Bush who has had the Rove machine make HER look crazy.

That there isn't a million-man march on 1600 Pennsylvania, complete with pitchforks and stakes and bails of hay, aimed at extirpating that prick, is incredible to me.

The utter embarrassment that I feel knowing that 3 people out of 10 still approve of this idiot, is deep and dark.

 

[Fenian_Bastard]

I think she did as much as anyone to help turn the country around on this seemingly endless stupidity.
I don't think you do that politely -- not with this crew.