Cindy Sheehan has declared an end to her personal efforts to help stop the Iraq War. Tired and frustrated by terminal cynicism and political gamesmanship from all around, and despairing in particular of being a target for hostile criticism by those who shared her primary goal, she decided to terminate her activism. The most devastating conclusion that I reached this morning, however, was that Casey did indeed die for nothing. His precious lifeblood drained out in a country far away from his family who loves him, killed by his own country which is beholden to and run by a war machine that even controls what we think. I have tried every since he died to make his sacrifice meaningful. 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. Human nature has always had a dark side. And Sheehan got to experience the nastiness up close and personal. Thomas Hobbes observed in The Leviathan, back in 1651, that the life of mankind in its natural state is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." Sheehan suffered a horrible tragedy twice over, first with the loss of her son, and again with the loss of her idealism. She didn't enter the arena of activism with much forethought; hers was an emotional reaction to a horrible wrong. And though she might have expected her labors to draw the wrath of those she opposed, she was perhaps a bit naive in being surprised by displays of petty jealousies and criticism of her mistakes, particularly because she was so successful. Perhaps with time she will come to understand the significant beneficial value of her contribution.
via Crooks and Liars
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