by Cindy Sheehan
“The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal and hasten the resurrection of the dead.”
— William Lloyd Garrison
The apathy
of most of America is stunning and appalling to me. When I found this
quote I was filled with wide-eyed wonder that there is one statue left
in America complete with statue, or one grave or tomb still occupied.
On October 26th,
as MoveOn.org was holding its candlelight vigils across the country to
mourn the death of the 2000 th American soldier in Iraq, I, and two
dozen others, were being arrested in front of the White House
protesting the carnage done in our name by the illegitimate residents
therein.
Now,
counting the 11 American soldiers who were pointlessly killed in
George’s unconscionable and brainless war of terror in the Middle East,
the American “official” death toll is up to 2193: 200 more families
ruined in less than three months!
My
son, Casey, was in the first 1000 to be killed in Iraq. We reached that
dismal mark by September 2004. MoveOn.org conducted candlelight vigils
for that occasion. Then a little over a year later, MoveOn.org
conducted candlelight vigils to commemorate the 2000th soldier. If we
don’t get off of our collective apathetic and complacent backsides to
stop the barbaric killing in Iraq, when will the next candlelight vigil
be? George Bush and the evil neocons are killing our precious soldiers
at the rate of 2.78 per day. By my calculations, we should be lighting
our candles again and singing “Kum bah ya” by October.
This
article is not intended to be an indictment of MoveOn.org which does
some amazing work and were big supporters of Camp Casey. But my point
is this, America: the longer we let the illegitimate pretender to the
White House and his conniving and callous gang of co-conspirators to
continue, the more our collective humanity is damaged. Apparently,
candlelight vigils do very little to stop, or even slow down a little,
the carnage committed by the war criminals in DC.
Then
we have the unfortunate innocents of Iraq. I have heard reports of up
to as many as 200 of them killed yesterday. So if 200 were reported,
one has to really wonder what the true count was. Bill O’Reilly and
George Bush define a terrorist as someone who “kills innocent men,
women and children.” Am I the only one who sees the irony and stunning
hypocrisy in this statement?” Who do Bill and George think are being
killed in Iraq? Well-trained and an organized Army? Terrorists? We all
know that is false. This is who is being killed in Iraq: living
breathing human beings, identical to Americans, or any other human
beings on earth, who are just trying to go about their lives trying to
survive in a war torn country that was no threat to America or our way
of life.
“I
would say 30,000 more or less have died as a result of the initial
incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis,” said George on
December 12, 2005. Even if one accepts this very low guess-ti-mate by
George, his policies have been responsible for ten times the 3000
deaths on September 11, 2001. By his own admission, he is ten times the
terrorist that Osama ever was. If George says 30,000) who knows what the
truthful total is. It fills me with sorrow and hurts my heart to even
contemplate the number.
America: this is what you are allowing your government to do in your name:
Detain
and torture prisoners without due process. Use chemical weapons on
other members of humanity. Spy on Americans without a court order (I
hope my conversations put them in a coma of boredom). Carpet bomb
cities filled with human beings like yourselves. Destroy the
infrastructure of other countries. Destroy the infrastructure of
American cities. Cut taxes on the rich while pouring money and blood
into the thirsty sands of the Middle East. Decimate our treasury. Rape
the environment. Et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseum.
Hillary
Clinton told me that the “wheels of government grind slowly.” This is a
tired cliché and it is unacceptable blather while the war machine is
grinding the bones of our children. It is time for us wide awake
Americans to make our elected officials speed up the timetable for
withdrawal from Iraq.
If I
hear one more rendition of “We Shall Overcome” and then watch the
vigilers or marchers go home and turn on their TV’s and crack open a
brewsky content in the fact that they have done something for peace
that day, I am going to scream! We can’t overcome unless we take the
proverbial bull by the horns and overcome!
Hold
your vigils and marches in relevant places: such as warmongering local
Congressional offices. So many Senators and Congresspeople come to
mind. Or in front of a recruiting station. Or Federal Buildings. Or
military bases. Then instead of going home and cracking open a beer, or
uncorking a bottle of wine, sit down and say “we aren’t leaving until
you call for an immediate end to the occupation of Iraq.” Put your butt
on the line for humanity.
Change will not happen until we make it happen. We can’t make change happen by wishing or praying that it will happen.
We actually have to do something.
Cindy Sheehan is a co-founder of Gold Star Families for Peace and the author of Not One More Mothers Child.