CINDY SHEEHAN ROCKS
I’ve been using that for my signature on e-mails over the last week or so. It’s a small enough thing to do to support the woman who is single-handedly calling the president to account for the tragic waste of the Iraq war. The 54% of the American public who think that war has been a mistake have been unable to accomplish anything like that.
Which doesn’t mean, of course, that Bush has actually met with Ms. Sheehan and her supporters, much less admitted his mistakes. But at least somebody is publicly saying the emperor has no clothes, and getting serious attention from the mainstream media for doing it.
The president, of course, says we cannot leave Iraq now, before the job is done. That, he claims, would mean that Casey Sheehan and the other 1700 men and women who died there, would have died “for nothing.”
And therein lies a long long story.
Most people die for nothing. They die because a drunk driver crosses the median and crashes into their car. They die in convenience store robberies. They get shaken to death in infancy because they wouldn’t stop crying. They get beaten to death by husbands or boyfriends. Mostly they die of cancer, or heart attacks, or Alzheimer’s, or just plain old age.
To die for something is a rare privilege, usually purchased by pain and courage and, often, a lifelong struggle to live for something.
And dying for something doesn’t necessarily mean dying to purchase victory. Did the Spartans at Thermopylae die for nothing, getting wiped out by the Persians? Did the British at Dunkirk die for nothing, getting swept off the beaches of France by the Nazis? Did the heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto die for nothing? Did Jan Palach, who died in the Soviet onslaught in Prague in 1968, die for nothing? Or the students in Tienanmen Square?
I hope not, because if only victory gives meaning to death, then by rights we should still be fighting the Trojan War, so that Hector and Patroclos will not have died for nothing.
But dying in service of one’s country, or one’s people, or anything larger than oneself, whether in victory or defeat, is still a death with meaning. And Casey Sheehan’s death has been given a remarkable meaning, not only by his own courage and devotion, but by his mother’s bravery in speaking truth to power. He needs no “victory” in Iraq to make his death mean something. All he needs is for the American people to be emboldened to refuse further participation in that war.
Which doesn’t mean, of course, that Bush has actually met with Ms. Sheehan and her supporters, much less admitted his mistakes. But at least somebody is publicly saying the emperor has no clothes, and getting serious attention from the mainstream media for doing it.
The president, of course, says we cannot leave Iraq now, before the job is done. That, he claims, would mean that Casey Sheehan and the other 1700 men and women who died there, would have died “for nothing.”
And therein lies a long long story.
Most people die for nothing. They die because a drunk driver crosses the median and crashes into their car. They die in convenience store robberies. They get shaken to death in infancy because they wouldn’t stop crying. They get beaten to death by husbands or boyfriends. Mostly they die of cancer, or heart attacks, or Alzheimer’s, or just plain old age.
To die for something is a rare privilege, usually purchased by pain and courage and, often, a lifelong struggle to live for something.
And dying for something doesn’t necessarily mean dying to purchase victory. Did the Spartans at Thermopylae die for nothing, getting wiped out by the Persians? Did the British at Dunkirk die for nothing, getting swept off the beaches of France by the Nazis? Did the heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto die for nothing? Did Jan Palach, who died in the Soviet onslaught in Prague in 1968, die for nothing? Or the students in Tienanmen Square?
I hope not, because if only victory gives meaning to death, then by rights we should still be fighting the Trojan War, so that Hector and Patroclos will not have died for nothing.
But dying in service of one’s country, or one’s people, or anything larger than oneself, whether in victory or defeat, is still a death with meaning. And Casey Sheehan’s death has been given a remarkable meaning, not only by his own courage and devotion, but by his mother’s bravery in speaking truth to power. He needs no “victory” in Iraq to make his death mean something. All he needs is for the American people to be emboldened to refuse further participation in that war.
posted by WiredSisters at 9:08 AM
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