By Cindy Sheehan
I awakened last Sunday morning with an enormous pain in my heart. Every morning I wake up, as soon as I come to consciousness and figure out where I am, my first thought is of Casey and April 04, 2004, the day he was killed in BushCo's war for corporate profit. Some days, like Mother's Day, are worse than others.
That Sunday morning, I was in Washington, DC—a city that I love as an exciting, energetic and supportive one—on the other hand, the corruption seeps into my soul and I can't spend too many consecutive days there. I am also comforted by the constant police presence as I am followed like a hawk by a paranoid force that is afraid I am up to something--which is usually true, but that's beside the point, everything I do is legal--and paranoid that I may expose another t-shirt with the truth written on it.
After breakfast with my sister, a Camp Casey friend from Texas, Randi Rhodes, Susan Hathaway from NYC, and Annie Nelson (Willie's wife), we headed down to Lafayette Park where Code Pink was sponsoring a "Mothers Say No to War" vigil where hundreds of male and female matriots gathered together to loudly, stridently, courageously, reverently, and oftentimes joyfully proclaim to the world and the illicit administration that we have had enough of the world's children being killed for no reason other than to garner obscene profits for the war machine.
We had a wonderful day opening with a prayer/memorial service for all of the people, including innocent Iraqis, that have been lost to Bush's gigantic ego and bottomless greed. At one point, I laid my head in my friend Hillary's lap and sobbed for the chasm of emptiness that is present in my life on a daily basis. Not only do I miss Casey, but I miss my other children. I miss the life we led before Casey was killed: A life that was dominated by the children and their activities. Now I am separated by a dimension from Casey and by distance from my others. I do this so they and the worlds' children won't have to go to war and die for a racket that is as old as time. It is a hard lifethat I have chosen but sometimes I feel that it has chosen me.
One of my new friends whom I made this weekend is Dr. Patch Adams who is a remarkably cheerful and loving person who has devoted his life to the pursuit of love and laughter. Until I met him, I was wondering who in the heck the gigantic man was in a pink wig and pink flowered dress! When I introduced myself, he put me in a bear hug that fed my heart and soul. We had long conversations about using humor and love to change the world and talked about a "Cindy and Patch Peace Tour."
After Casey's movie mom, Susan Sarandon arrived; we were treated to a surprise guest: Dick Gregory. Dick had been on his way to Cleveland to an engagement when he saw the Code Pink protest on the news and he changed direction and he came to DC to join us. He decided to go on a fast on the way to the event. He asked me what my heart's dream was. I replied: "Troops home, now," without a second thought or a second's hesitation. He said: "So be it, I am fasting until the troops come home!"
After a particularly emotional time, Randi came up to me, crying, and asked: "How do you do this, Cindy?"
Great question. I looked all around me. At my dear friends, Medea Benjamin, Jodie Evans and Gael Murphy who founded Code Pink Alert: Women for Peace and who have been my constant cheerleaders and co-conspirators for peace longer than most people. I saw Hillary and Desiree, two Code Pinkers from Dallas who spent the night with me that first harrowing night in the ditch. I glimpsed Diane Wilson who just got out of a Texas jail after spending six months there for chaining herself to a Dow Chemicals tank. My nearly constant companion on my journeys around the country, Col. Ann Wright, was not too far from me. She resigned her job at the State Department after George Bush invaded Iraq and she runs Camp Casey each time with a competent and loving hand. Tiffany, one of my Camp Casey assistants was running around the park organizing things and wearing a picture of her "brother" Casey around her neck. I saw hundreds of Americans who came from all over our country to show George Bush that we repudiate him and his crimes against humanity.
I looked at Randi with tears streaming down my face. In answer to her question, I replied: "Casey brought all of us together. I am not doing this alone. Casey gave all of you to me to help me through this."
Casey would not allow me do this alone. He has given us the gift of lasting friendships that are not only enriching us but changing the world. He has brought the peace movement together by his unnecessary sacrifice.
George Bush could never meet with me and tell me what noble cause he killed Casey and so many others for: First of all, because war for empire and profit is not noble, secondly because the man is a coward.
The noble cause is peace.
Thank you, Casey, my son and my hero.
Make Me an Instrument of Peace
Cindy Sheehan's Address to the Spiritual Activism Conference, Washington, DC
Not too long ago I was listening to Air America when a caller to the religious right of war supporter/evangelist Pat Robertson said it didn't bother him that George Bush doesn't follow the law of our land because when we have a man who is a "Christian" in office, we don't need the rule of law! The caller and, I am afraid too many more people in America, are saved from the responsibility of democracy because they believe that George follows a higher law than our constitution. The person who called in really meant that. I found that call disturbing for several reasons, but to think that a man who kills his pretend enemies and is a warmaker with wanton disregard to the teachings of Jesus Christ, is a Christian flies in the face of everything that I was taught about Jesus of Nazareth and about the Christian faith.
Thinking about how unloving, punitive and unjust the brand of Christianity that George Bush practices is reminded me of an experience that I had in Assisi the first time I visited Italy in January of this year. The Franciscan model of Christianity is totally opposite of Bushianity.
On that sunny, but cold, January day, when I awakened in the back seat of the silver BMW that picked me up from the airport in Rome, I was in a charming plaza in front of the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi. The Basilica was heavily damaged in an earthquake in 1997 but is now almost entirely restored.
My hotel room overlooked the same magnificent view of Italy's "Green Heart" in Umbria as the plaza of the Basilica. In the distance I could see all the way to the hills is Perugia, where I would visit next. Breathtaking is merely a word that cannot adequately describe the views!
After cleaning up from a 15 hour trip, my traveling companion and fellow Gold Star Families for Peace member, Beatriz Saldivar (nephew, Daniel Torres, KIA in Iraq in 2005) and I were taken to lunch by the peace coalition which invited us to Italy. After lunch we toured the Basilica.
Walking through the Basilica and looking at the amazing architecture and medieval icons and appreciating the historocity of the building, reminded me that in my pre-April 2004 life, I used to be a faithful, practicing Roman Catholicwho went to mass every Sunday and worked for the church as a Catholic Youth Minister.
The entire time I was in Assisi, I was also reminded that before Casey went into the Army and was killed in George's immoral war, he had traveled to Assisi as part of the World Youth Day, 2000, celebrations. Every step I took, I wondered if Casey's feet had walked those steps. I know that Casey would have been filled with reverence and love when he was there and, in fact, he spoke very respectfully and reverently about his trip to Italy, but especially Assisi.
Many people who knew Casey well always said that he reminded them of a young St. Francis who said: "Preach the Gospel always, and if necessary, use words." That was how sweet Casey lived his life and that is why it is so ironic that George in his exploitation of the Gospels and of the religious right claims that God tells him to invade innocent countries while he is using wedge issues like abortion rights and gay marriage to energize the base when anyone who really cares about a right to life knows he is an amazing hypocrite who could care less about preserving life or insuring a basic standard of living for the born.
George W. the self-proclaimed born again Christian has said in reaction to being accused of breaking the FISA law: "That's an old law, it was made back in 1978, and the world is a different place now." Well, similarly, I guess he believes that the 5 th Commandment of "Thou shalt not kill," is also a quaint law that was made a long time ago when the world was a far different place. One that he can disregard while claiming to be "pro-life." The Bush regime tramples and makes a mockery of the commandments, but what is more important as a secular leader of a country founded on religious freedom, he shreds the constitution to tiny pieces and calls it "an old piece of paper" He is not a pope, bishop, priest, prelate, minister, deacon, or even an acolyte. He is a president who is bound by our country's rule of law and is not above the law.
I left the Roman Catholic Church permanently after the 2004 elections when many Roman Catholic Bishops and priests encouraged their flocks to vote for George W. Bush because he is "pro-life." I am disappointed with many Christian traditions and other institutional religions that don't loudly and with great moral authority based on the teachings of Jesus Christ and the saints about peace, love, and forgiveness, denounce George W. and his immoral war against humanity. People don't see the hypocrisy of George killing tens of thousands of innocent people in the Middle East and executing a record number of people in Texas (including minors and mentally challenged people) and then voting for him because he is "pro-life!" What about Casey's life? What about Daniel's life? What about the lives of the babies and innocent citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan? George is definitely not "pro-life," he is "pro-birth." Anyway, I digress.
I was starting to recall my Roman Catholic roots more and more while in the Basilica, when those same roots were brought back sharply into focus when I came to the "Tomba di San Francesco" the Tomb of St. Francis. I walked into the chapel and stood in front of the Saint's remains and was struck by the fact that I was in a holy place. A sacred spot that has been sanctified not by the sprinkling of holy water or the sometimes empty chanting of the faithful, but by the life of one person who preached a message of simplicity, peace, love, hope, joy, faith, forgiveness and the light of goodness. Good people have followed in the tradition of St. Francis and one does not have to be a practicing Catholic, or a practicing anything, to appreciate the words of St. Francis. I think the Peace Community who takes Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi, and Henry David Thoreau rightly as its icons can also look to St. Francis for guidance and inspiration.
One of St. Francis's most simple, yet important and meaningful works is the "Peace Prayer of St. Francis"…which I assume wasn't his title for it, because he wasn't yet a Saint when he wrote it. The first stanza reads:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love,
Where there is injury, pardon,
Where there is doubt, faith,
Where there is despair, hope,
Where there is darkness, light,
Where there is sadness, joy!
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Being an instrument of peace is immensely more important than working for peace. Our entire lives must radiate this peace. We must be peace to have peace. I am coming into an understanding of this as I strive for true and lasting peace. Being anti-war is not enough. If we are solely anti-war, when the war is over the movement will be over. While we are congratulating ourselves on our victories for bringing the troops home, our government incahoots with the war machine (I am also beginning to understand that the war machine and the government are two different sides of the same worthless coin) is already planning the next war and the next way to kill our children and spread death and destruction for profit!
Non-violence should always be the means we use to solve problems, from our nuclear family life all the way up to the office of the most powerful person in the world. Peace is not an absence of conflict, but resolving conflict non-violently.
Where there is hatred let me show love.
Hatred and frustration are the fuels of violence and terrorism. Our mis-leaders exploited the tragedy and devastation of 9/11 to attack two innocent countries that didn't attack the US. After 9/11, if our so-called President had taken a course of action that reflected what he claims to believe in, he would have evaluated our policies towards the people of the Middle East and seen how he could have solved them intelligently and non-violently. Of course, we needed to bring the perpetrators of the 9/11 crimes against humanity to justice, but not commit crimes against humanity of our own. Jesus said: "It is written, an eye for an eye, but I say, turn the other cheek." I have never believed that Jesus meant for us to let ourselves be slapped silly for peace, but I believe that he meant for us to put on an attitude of understanding and compassion for the slapper that transcends our humanness and forces us to look inwards and pull out of us all of our humanity and love that solves problems non-violently and with courage and integrity.
I also am convinced that religious fundamentalism is the root and cause of much of the violence throughout history and even up until today. The leaders of our world know and exploit the fact that humans will blindly and brainlessly follow a religious symbol into war more quickly and readily than we will follow a flag or standard. If we espouse or claim a doctrine, then we must also deeply know in our minds and hearts the teachings of the prophets of that religion: Whether the prophet was Jesus, Mohammed or Moses. We should never allow ourselves to follow false prophets to doom: Especially false prophets who claim that the Universal Creator has told him to ravage a country and kill its people.
Where there is injury, pardon.
I always wondered how I would handle a situation regarding pardon and forgiveness if one of my children was murdered. I can never sit in judgment of anyone until I have walked in their shoes, but I sure hoped that if one of my children was murdered that I would not call for the death of his/her murderer to attain some measure of "closure" or vengeance. I didn't know how I would handle that, though, until I was forced to walk in those shoes by the murderous policies of the neo-cons. Am I angry that the neo-cons lied us into this war and that Casey and countless others are dead for their lies? Yes! Do I want to see the people responsible for his murder held accountable for that murder? Yes! Do I want the killers executed for it? No! I believe that capital punishment is as barbaric as war. Have I forgiven his killers for murdering Casey and so many more of our brothers and sisters in the world? I can't say I am fully there yet, but I know I will be there eventually because I don't hate his killers. Hate is a wasted emotion that just hurts the hater, not the hatee. For the person that actually pulled the trigger that killed Casey, I have nothing but compassion and I would like to tell the people of Iraq that I am sorry that my country is destroying their country and murdering so many innocents.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light.
Where there is sadness, joy.
Hope and faith are the truths that get me out of bed in the morning. People always ask me, "Cindy will your campaign for peace be successful?" My answer is: "Of course!" If I didn't truly believe that the efforts of the progressive peace movement would not prevail over the darkness of the blatant disregard for truth, justice, and all human life that George and his fellow criminals spread, I would lie in bed all day staring at the walls in grief and depression!
Yes I am sad. I am always sad and I will always be sad. I thought one of the lights of my life was extinguished on 04/04/04. We also know from the teachings of Jesus Christ that darkness can never overcome the light. But with the sadness of eternal loss and pain comes the joy of knowing that Casey's sacrifice for his buddies blossomed into a movement of light against the darkness that is and will save many more of his buddies and innocent Iraqis. I am filled with joy that my son's death will not be wasted and used to justify more violence and death.
The second stanza is self-explanatory:
Oh master grant that I may never seek
So much to be consoled as to console
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love with all my soul.
Casey's light will shine always as long as there are people working for peace.
The League of Women Voters has been signing up voters ever since women won the right to vote in 1920. But now, for the first time in the League's storied history, a branch of the organization has shut down its operations to protest a new Florida law that the League claims will have a chilling effect on voter registration — in a state that already has one of the nation's most notoriously dysfunctional election systems.
In a federal lawsuit filed in Miami on Thursday against the Florida Secretary of State and Division of Elections, the League's Florida branch acknowledged that it had recently ceased efforts to register voters because of what it calls the law's draconian fines against organizations (other than political parties) for submitting forms late. The League of Women Voters of Florida joined several other pubic interest and labor groups, including the Florida AFL-CIO, in challenging the constitutionality of the law, which went into effect Jan. 1. They are asking the U.S. District Court to immediately suspend the fines — which the groups say could bankrupt their voter registration budgets.
As the lawsuit puts it, "the challenged law imposes civil fines of $250 for each voter registration application submitted more than 10 days after it is collected, $500 for each application submitted after any voter registration deadline, and $5,000 for each application [that for whatever reason doesn't end up being] submitted. Plaintiffs are strictly liable for these fines, even if their inability to meet the statutory deadlines results from events beyond their control, such as the destruction of applications in a hurricane."
On March 19 the board of directors for LWV of Florida voted unanimously to suspend voter registration rather than put its volunteers and $80,000 annual budget at risk, says its president, Dianne Wheatley-Giliotti. "I'm angry, okay?" Wheatley-Giliotti says. "This hits at the core of our mission. We were founded to educate voters and get them involved in the political process. I can't do my job, really."
Florida is the only state that levies fines for submitting registration applications late or not at all, says Wendy Weiser of the Brennan Center for Justice at the NYU School of Law, who also represents the plaintiffs. And the LWV of Florida claims the impact of the fines could be devastating. "The League of Women Voters' entire annual budget of $80,000 would be decimated if only sixteen voter registration applications collected by its volunteers were lost in a flood, or if its volunteers took 11 days to submit the few hundred applications they often collect during one day's work," according to the lawsuit.
Contacted shortly after the filing in Miami, Susan Smith, spokeswoman for the Florida Department of State in Tallahassee said the agency had not yet seen the lawsuit and therefore could not comment. Other voter registration advocates say they also fear that one of the underlying political intents of the law — which was passed by the Republican-majority Florida Legislature — is to dilute and discourage Democratic voter registration, since groups like the AFL-CIO are thought to register more working-class and minority voters.
Sen. Bill Posey, a Rockledge Republican, argues that hurricanes or other disasters are not the issue; by imposing the fine for failing to submit a voter's application, he maintains, the law discourages people or groups from destroying the registration forms of people with differing political views. (Weiser points out that Florida already had a law on the books to address that problem.) And if a hurricane hits, any fine due to delay or destruction can be appealed, he says. "If a hurricane blew a building away, I can't imagine they're going to get somebody for that," Posey says. "I think common sense would prevail. If there is a nuclear holocaust I think the last thing people are going to be worried about is getting their registrations in on time."
State Rep. Ron Reagan (no relation to the former President), a Sarasota Republican who sponsored the law, says political parties are exempt from the law "because we rarely have a problem with political parties. It didn't matter what side you were on. We were not going to penalize them." But Weiser of the Brennan Center calls that position "discriminatory. The League of Women Voters and AFL-CIO have been forced to shut down their operations. It's not only burdensome but discriminatory. That's problematic — and unconstitutional."
Oh No, Canada!
By Cindy Sheehan
I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it. Dwight D. Eisenhower
The day that the apparently reformed war-monger, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, envisioned decades ago has finally come. It is time for governments to get out of our way.
I have had a chance since Camp Casey in August to travel the world. I have had the honor of meeting hundreds of fellow souls who are just plain sick and tired of the way BushCo is cavorting around the world and comporting themselves as fledgling 3 rd Reich tyrants (Hitler didn't need warrants either) who are threatening the way of life of every person who inhabits our world. I was only just in Canada and got to meet many of our brothers and sisters north of the border.
From Italy to Canada to Great Britain and everywhere in between, our brothers and sisters who live in these nations are extremely tired of their governments who support BushCo in their war crimes and crimes against humanity. PM Berlusconi of Italy recently paid the price for his support of BushCo's policies by being uninvited back to his position. I knew he was going to be defeated by just traveling around Italy and hearing and feeling the frustration and fear for their democracy that Berlusconi's neo-Fascist rule was destroying.
By many accounts, Stephen Harper was put in place as leader of Canada by the collapse of weak coalitions and scandals that led to this man now leading a minority government there. He is wildly unpopular from coast to coast up north and there is a growing sense of unease about his emulation of a very unpopular person in the USA but even more in Canada: George Bush.
Canadians have to be the healthiest looking and most polite citizenry that I have encountered in my travels. The British people that I have met are very polite but nowhere near the graciousness of Canadians. Canadians are truly civil, and they mean it. Canadians have been proud of their country's role of world peacekeeper and as the beacon of peace and hope and refuge for us Americans who feel that our country's aggressive militarism endangers us and harms our reputations and souls. Now Canadians need to wake up to the fact that their new minority, disliked government is leading them down this same slippery slope to the fascistic militarism of their immediate neighbors to the south.
The first day that I was in Canada, their defense minister, Gordon O'Connor, signed the extension of the NORAD Treaty with the Bush Regime without any debate or votes in Parliament. The citizenry was outraged in their courteous way. Not so coincidentally, Gordy just so happens to be a former defense industry lobbyist who has been using his position to promote the " Canada First " position which ultimately removes Canada, once and for all, from their world peace keeping role. With Canada's support of the Haitian Government's overthrow and support of BushCo's travesty in Afghanistan, Canada was already heading down this path of destruction.
Canadians are distressed that defense spending rose by 5.3 billions of dollars (roughly what the US spends for 2 weeks in Iraq) while the preschool budget is being cut and college tuition is rising. This increase in military spending coincidentally correlates with a push to recruit thousands of more soldiers who are still be told by the Canadian recruiters that their country only does peace keeping missions. This manipulation of facts and the exploitation of fear and false patriotism is being fueled by the Canadian media who seem to be turning, for the most part, into propaganda tools of their government a la our rightwing 4th estate.
However, with Canadian soldiers dying in combat, the citizens of the country are starting to question their Bush clone of a PM and his Bush-style cabinet. Recently, the PM said that if he sends troops into combat, he expects the people of the country to support them; which really only means that he expects the people to support him and his loose interpretation of the facts. Also, Bush One and Two style (with a brief Clinton break), the Canadian media is now banned from showing images of the flag draped coffins: Allegedly to not cause the families any more pain. But, as the mother of a soldier who came home that way, trust me, it causes far more pain to have your child KIA in a pointless war then it does to see the military honor guard treating our children with the care and respect not afforded to them by their own misleaders.
The recent polls in Canada show that the people there are starting to wakeup by the truckloads with support for their administration's support of BushCo's war slipping 14 percentage points in two months! Canadians are seeing that the war in Afghanistan is not righteous and that when Canada sends troops there, it frees American troops to be illegally and immorally deployed to Iraq. Canada needs a Cindy Sheehan to go to the PM's residence and demand to know what noble cause her child died for, or is still fighting for.
Even more of a struggle right now to Canadian peace coalitions, besides Canada's seeming slumber, is that the government won't support war resisters who flee the American military because they don't want to go over to Iraq and kill innocent people or die for the war profiteers. So far, two soldiers have been denied asylum. I was told by members of a few of their political parties that the asylum is being denied for two reasons: first of all, because our soldiers are "volunteers" now and, secondly, because if our kids refuse to go to Iraq and go to prison instead: our prisons aren't that bad.
Well, like I have said and written about before, if our kids volunteered, then they should be free to "un-volunteer" if the mission of the organization changes. I have belonged to several volunteer organizations and when I disagree, or when I just feel like it, I leave: and I am not threatened with prison, or execution, which is an option for our children in times of war.
Most of our kids did not volunteer to go to Iraq to guard special contractors or kill innocent people to cushion the retirement of the CEO of Exxon. And, newsflash, our recruiters are still lying to our young people telling them that if they enlist they won't have to go to Iraq and other despicable lies. When the recruit signs on the dotted line, the contract becomes binding only on him/her: those kinds of unilateral contracts are not even legal.
Our young soldiers, if they are refugees fleeing an organization that does not reflect their values, should not have to go to prison, no matter what the conditions are. With Amnesty International saying that violations are rampant in "enemy" combatant detention centers, then why should Canada think that our soldiers are any better off in a place that they should not be in the first place.
Please, dear Canada, wake up before it is too late and you wake up in a country that you don't even know anymore. We here in America fell into an exhausted sleep of denial after Vietnam andwe are reaping what was silently and deviously sown by the neocons who have been working for an overthrow of our government for over 30 years. If we didn't learn the lessons of Vietnam, we will never surely forget the lessons we learned at the feet of BushCo that have cost so many so much.
It's okay to copy our baseball and the huge hearts of the American people who never wanted to picture the country that we have become. But don't copy, or let your government be willing partners in crime with our public enemy number one: BushCo.
A Canadian minister was being grilled by their press after a press conference that I conducted with the Canadian War Resister's League and finally in frustration he blurted out: "We're not going to allow an American woman (me) to dictate our policies." And you know what, he's right, but with support rapidly dwindling for both wars (with Iraq never being popular with the people of Canada) and with support for Canada allowing asylum to our young men and women of conscience, it's time for their government to listen to its people. It's also time for our government to listen to us.
George and Steve and Tony and the rest of you war mongers: Get out of our way, we the people, want peace. We will have it.
