Cindy Sheehan's decision to take a hiatus and her subsequent letter explaining her decision to resign as the "face of the peace movement" have brought attention to the question of the need for a new political direction within the United States. Sheehan, the symbol of grieving motherhood who transcended ideological and party lines to advocate for what is right versus what is Republican or Democrat, or what is Right or Left, has become the newest victim of a movement that has not fully grasped the meaning of activism. Justice and right to life are not values that we can ignore for politically strategic posturing and campaigning. Sheehan's famous statment: "I guess no one paid attention to me when I said that the issue of peace and people dying for no reason is not a matter of 'left or right,' but 'right and wrong" continues to be misunderstood and ignored.
Partisanship is a very destructive form of activism because it can place party and ideology, no matter how contradictory or illogical, above human dignity, freedom, and the right to life. The Democrats' inability to take a firm stand on the war and their quick willingness to abuse the woman who carried the peace movement on her grieving shoulders despite ailing health and destroyed marriage, point to the complicity of such a movement in the continuation of this war and the killing. Be it in their support of an ongoing occupation, or their inability to form cohesive policies that encourage human dignity in a corporate/military controlled world, they have shown that they cannot handle criticism nor do they have the ability to reflect upon where the movement has come and ways to strengthen it.
Sheehan represented to many the symbol of conciliation and was a major driving force within different groups in the "peace movement." She was able to do it because she succeeded in transcending the partisan hatred and speaking to the mother within all of us.
Partisanship is a very destructive form of activism because it can place party and ideology, no matter how contradictory or illogical, above human dignity, freedom, and the right to life. The Democrats' inability to take a firm stand on the war and their quick willingness to abuse the woman who carried the peace movement on her grieving shoulders despite ailing health and destroyed marriage, point to the complicity of such a movement in the continuation of this war and the killing. Be it in their support of an ongoing occupation, or their inability to form cohesive policies that encourage human dignity in a corporate/military controlled world, they have shown that they cannot handle criticism nor do they have the ability to reflect upon where the movement has come and ways to strengthen it.
Sheehan represented to many the symbol of conciliation and was a major driving force within different groups in the "peace movement." She was able to do it because she succeeded in transcending the partisan hatred and speaking to the mother within all of us.
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