February 23, 2010

Dear President Obama,

A contingent of Peace Groups and Activists will be setting up a Peace Camp across the street from your house on the lawn of the Washington Monument called, Camp OUT NOW.

After over one year of your presidency, it’s become crystal clear to even many of those who supported you, that your foreign policy is as much of a disaster as was George Bush’s.

On Sunday, 33 civilians were killed in a bombing raid on a caravan in Afghanistan, and no matter how many times you or your generals say, “Sorry,” innocent civilians will always be killed in these insane wars of profit and occupation. Since, by your regime’s own admission, civilian slaughter “can’t be avoided,” these wars must come to an immediate end.

It’s also quite tragic that your war in Afghanistan has victimized more of our troops than when Bush was president, and more of our returning vets are committing suicide with most of their needs still going unmet.

For all intents and purposes, Mr. Obama, you have had a blank-check from the U.S. anti-war movement since you were elected. Certainly being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize gave these wars some international legitimacy, but those days of your free pass to carry out and magnify the Bush regime’s crimes against humanity are over.

Even though there have been those of us in the anti-war movement who never dropped the ball, or passed it to the Democratic Party, many of the ones who supported you are also starting to awaken to the harsh reality that you are only keeping your campaign promises and they don’t like that.

Mr. Obama, your anti-war base is an awakening giant that you will have to deal with in this election year. People are fleeing your party with the same regularity that they fled the other party when Bush was president. This waking giant is also realizing that with a Democratic majority everywhere, your failure in proceeding with a progressive agenda is abysmal.

Every time you are “contemplating” sending more troops to Afghanistan, you have countless meetings with what you have called your “War Council.” The very name implies a foregone conclusion that you will send more troops and that other, more rational, more humane, and more peaceful solutions are never even considered.

In 2005, I asked for a meeting with President Bush that was never granted, and as you know, Camp Casey in Crawford became the spark that lit a prairie fire of anti-war sentiment that swept you and your cohorts in the Democratic Party back into power and now we are coming to collect the spoils of that victory–which is not more war–but more Peace. You Democrats owe much to your anti-war base–and we will not be quiet nor be ignored as we were in the previous administration. It’s time for you to pay the Peace-piper, Mr. Obama.

Our demands are profound, yet simple for you to perform: troops out of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan (where three soldiers were just killed); no more drone bombings anywhere; close the permanent bases and torture prisons; and bring the mercenary soldiers home, too. We will not be closing up Camp, or the movement, until positive progress in the direction of Peace is noted.

The first week of Camp (March 13-20), we are asking for a meeting with you to discuss setting up a Peace Council that you will regularly meet with that will have a seat at the table when decisions that will kill, maim, displace, or harm our troops or civilians in any way are being discussed. We also demand that this Peace Council be comprised of grassroots members of the Peace Movement and not rubber-stamp status quo worshippers, or other “Peace” Prize laureates like Henry Kissinger, who already, reportedly, has your ear.

If you do not meet with representatives from Camp OUT NOW, we will be a thorn in the side of the War Machine, and we will not go away without a struggle. If you do meet with us and agree to a Peace Council, we will pack up our tents, but we will still be a thorn in the side of the War Machine until Peace is finally achieved–the only difference is that we won’t be camped across the street from your home.

During your campaign, you often quoted Roosevelt as saying that if the voters wanted him to do the right thing, they would have to “make him.” Well, Mr. Obama, we are the bosses of you–not your corporate masters–and we will be in DC to “make you” do the right thing.

I can be reached at anytime through my email:

Cindy@PeaceoftheAction.org

In struggle until there is finally Peace,

Cindy Sheehan
Mother of Spc. Casey Sheehan who was murdered on 04 April, 2004, by the U.S. War Machine.

And the Peace of the Action Coalition
www.PeaceoftheAction.org

Source: truthout.org

Cindy Sheehan
Saturday 20 February 2010

In the movie, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” at the end of a filibuster, idealistic freshman US Sen. Jeff Smith (played by Jimmy Stewart) reminds us that the struggle is what counts.

“Lost causes are the only causes worth fighting for,” he says. Just before collapsing on the Senate Floor, he croaks out, “you fight for the lost causes even harder than the others – you even die for them.”

“Love thy neighbor” is the reason that Senator Smith gives for fighting for “lost causes.” Whether one believes in this Christian command or not, this idea is the best reason to fight.

Here in the US, we rarely even know our next-door neighbor, let alone our planetary neighbors who live across the globe. And we rarely care what happens to our neighbors. Fight for them? Sacrifice anything for them? Die for the lost cause of peace and social justice? These ideas seem unfamiliar and unrealistic in these times.

We have no leaders in this country who … well, we just don’t have any leaders in this country. No one in the establishment is telling us that this nation kills more people and uses more resources than any other. No one with any visibility speaks out about the need to to be responsible humans; to sacrifice some of our luxury in order to make the world a safer, more just place. The corporate mindset and megaphone silence anyone who stands up to it.

Any idea that any of us may have had about “sacrifice” flew out the window after 9/11 when we were told to “go shopping and travel.” Instead of pulling together with a common goal, we were told to look away, to go about our lives and tune out while the military-corporate empire machine continues to churn out blood and money.

Consumerism is our holy state religion and the mall is our Mecca. Everything will be OK as long as we are surrounded by material comforts, even if those comforts are purchased with debt and are making the banksters richer.

Even as we were waking up during the nightmare years of the Bush administration, many of us were lulled back into false-worship of the Empire because the new Emperor in Chief is seemingly more articulate and intelligent. “Hope and Change” were sold to us like “Minty Fresh,” or “New and Improved,” even though the product is the exact same thing in a redesigned package.

So, after a year of the new regime, nothing, I repeat, nothing, has changed for the better in this nation. Even as the economy collapses, the wars continue and people are being killed the same as before. The death toll in Afghanistan was greater in 2009 than any other year when Bush was president. The only difference is that when Bush was president, we had an antiwar movement.

We need an infusion of real hope that can bring relevant, substantial change. We must quit looking to politicians for hope. Hope can only come from our communities and ourselves.

We sparked hope in the summer of 2005, when the antiwar movement was reignited during our protests at Camp Casey in Crawford, Texas. I am once again uprooting my own life to move to the heart of this Empire to start a Peace Camp on the lawn of the Washington Monument.

This camp will be called Camp OUT NOW and it will be the home base from which Peace of the Action will launch daily acts of civil resistance in different areas of DC. We will not stop until our demands are acknowledged and we see positive movement in a Peace direction.

Our demands are simple:

1) Troops out of the Middle East, which includes drones, permanent bases, contractors and torture/detention facilities.

2) Reparations for the peoples of these war-torn regions and a fully funded VA system to reintegrate our soldiers healthfully into our society.

One of the failures of the antiwar movement, besides misplacing energy to elect Democrats, is that our actions have been mostly symbolic. Symbolic actions are almost useless in the face of real and immensely destructive problems.

Is building a peace community in the heart of the Empire a “lost cause”? Is putting our bodies in harm’s way for the sake of global peace and justice a “lost cause”? If so, then it is worth fighting for with all of our hearts.

I am so optimistic for our chances for victory, and I hope each and every one of you will join us.

MONDAY, MARCH 15: KEVIN ZEESE (NATIONAL DIRECTOR OF VOTERS FOR PEACE) AND DR. MARGARET FLOWERS (SINGLE-PAYER ACTIVIST) SPEAK ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF ALWAYS LINKING THE U.S. WAR ECONOMY TO THE COLLAPSE OF THE REST OF THE ECONOMY AND HOW WE NEED TO END THE WARS TO HAVE POSITIVE SOCIAL PROGRAMS HERE AT HOME.

TUESDAY, MARCH 16: EX-CIA AGENT, RAY MCGOVERN, TALKS ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF KEEPING RACHEL CORRIE’S DREAM ALIVE ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF HER MURDER WHILE TRYING TO PROTECT PALESTINIAN’S HOMES FROM DESTRUCTION.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 17: DAVID SWANSON (AFTER DOWNING STREET) AND DEBRA SWEET (NATIONAL DIRECTOR OF WORLD CAN’T WAIT) SPEAK ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF HOLDING U.S. WAR CRIMINALS ACCOUNTABLE–FROM THE TOP DOWN. ENTERTAINMENT BY BANJER DAN.

THURSDAY, MARCH 18: CINDY SHEEHAN SPEAKS ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF RAMPING UP THE ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT TO PERFORM COURAGEOUS AND COMMITTED ACTS OF CIVIL RESISTANCE.

FRIDAY, MARCH 19: SOME OF US WILL BE LEAVING CAMP TO GO DOWN TO CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA TO PROTEST WAR CRIMINAL, JOHN YOO, WHO IS SPEAKING AT UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA (FROM: 1PM TO 6PM) AND WE WILL BE MAKING SIGNS AND GETTING READY FOR THE MARCH ON DC SPONSORED BY ANSWER.

SATURDAY, MARCH 20: MARCH ON DC—MEET AT CAMP AT 10AM AND WE WILL BE GOING TOGETHER TO THE WHITE HOUSE FOR THE MARCH—AFTER THE MARCH, OUR FRIEND, CYNTHIA MCKINNEY, WILL BE VISITING US AT CAMP.

SUNDAY, MARCH 21: POTA DAY OFF: ON OUR “DAY OFF” WE WILL BE PROTESTING AT THE AIPAC (AMERICAN-ISRAEL PUBLIC AFFAIRS COMMITTEE) CONVENTION AT THE DC CONVENTION CENTER FROM 8AM TO ABOUT 8PM. WAR CRIMINALS, TONY BLAIR AND BENJAMIN NETANYAHU WILL BE SPEAKING AT THE CONFERENCE.

MONDAY, MARCH 22, OUR ACTIONS BEGIN (STEALTH–INFO WILL BE GIVEN AT CAMP).

FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE EMAIL:

JOSH@PEACEOFTHEACTION.ORG
ROBBY@PEACEOFTHEACTION.ORG
OR
CINDY@PEACEOFTHEACTION.ORG

If I forget everything else in my life, I will never forget the night I walked in my front door with my dogs, Buster and Chewy, and saw the three military officers standing in my living room.

I knew the moment I saw them that Casey was dead. It doesn’t take a genius to put that equation together. On one side of the equal sign is your recently deployed soldier-son, and on the other side are three Army officers standing in your house looking like they would rather be just about anywhere else.

I didn’t go to sleep that night, or indeed for a few nights. I didn’t want to go to sleep and have to wake up after brief oblivion to the realization that my oldest son was dead: Killed in a war that, like most wars, never should have been fought in the first place. Casey’s number came up and he became just one more in a long-line of humans killed for profit. Casey certainly wasn’t the first, and he certainly won’t be the last, but my first-born preceded his parents and three of his grandparents in death.

It seemed like within minutes of the notification at 9pm on 04 April, 2004, our house was filled with friends and the tears, screams, questions and memories flowed freely. Around 6am, I went outside to sit on the porch on my porch swing. Through my tears, shock and grief, I could see my neighborhood begin to awaken. People coming outside to pick up their papers, or head for work. I wanted to scream at them: “Don’t you know my son is dead? How can you pretend like the world is normal?” The world has never been “normal,” but I have lived in an even more surreal version since Casey was killed.

Today, I found out that the “operation” that killed my son is over. “Operation Iraqi Freedom” got its name after the “great” Powers That Be figured out that “Operation Iraqi Liberation” stood for “OIL.” Now, Obama’s SecDef, Robert Gates, has changed that benign name to an even more New-Agey, Sweeter-than-Honey name: “Operation New Dawn.” Doesn’t that sound nice? Who doesn’t like New Dawns? Except perhaps the people of Falluja who were brutalized in a Marine siege back in 2004 that was inappropriately entitled, Operation New Dawn.

When Obama first took over the trappings of Empire, he changed the name of the “Global War on Terror” the GWOT to: OCO, or Overseas Contingency Operation—doesn’t that sound benevolent, too? Like the U.S. Empire is involved in Overseas Aid. You have a need for “Aid?” We have a “contingency” for you!

Illegal invasions and occupations are now called: “Interventions” as if the U.S. and its allies, are sweeping in and saving a country or society from a drug or alcohol problem, when clearly it is The Empire that is suffering from an addiction to mass murder and pillage.

It doesn’t matter what the U.S. decides to call its “Operations:” part of us will reject the propaganda, and part of us will embrace it wanting very desperately to believe that our country is not a rogue state and/or that Obama is not as bad, or worse, than Bush.

Innocent people still die and our soldiers are still victims, whether they come home dead or alive, whatever the war criminals in DC decide to label their crimes as.

It doesn’t matter for me either. One day, whether voluntarily, or by force, these “Operations,” “Contingencies,” “Interventions,” or “Crimes against humanity” will eventually end, but my oldest son will be always be dead. There’s absolutely no way in hell for The Empire to euphemize that reality to make it any less painful or easier for me to bear.

Accountability for Casey’s death won’t make the pain go away, either, but it may prevent other mothers and families from having to suffer from our nation’s continuous wars.

by Cindy Sheehan
2/13/2010

On Super Bowl Sunday, the reason that I wrote my new book: Myth America: 20 Greatest Myths of the Robber Class and the Case for Revolution, literally hit home.

?Since it was the Holy Day of Obligation for our national religion of Football, I headed for my health club because I have always been a heretic. I arrived there a little before kick off, so the club was still occupied, but after kick-off it was deserted.
 
After my water workout and swim in the pool that I had all to myself, I headed to the hot tub which was occupied by another spa patron—an older gentleman named Bill whom seems to come to the club just to sit in the hot tub and chat. I get the feeling he is very lonely, and this following exchange may be why:
 
Bill: I think what you do disgraces your son, his memory and what he died for.
 
Cindy: Oh really? Since he was killed in an illegal and immoral war, I think this nation disgraced him.
 
Bill: But they attacked us on 9-11.
?Cindy: Who attacked us on 9-11???Bill: Iraq and Saddam Hussein.
 
Cindy: Are you serious? If you believe the official story, 16 Saudi Arabians attacked us.
 
Bill: But Saddam killed his own people.
 
Cindy: We have killed over one million of Saddam’s “own people,” (at this point Cindy does “air quotes?).
 
Bill: But we didn’t mean to.
 
Cindy: (deep sigh), So what team are you rooting for this afternoon?
 
At which point, Bill scrambled out of the hot tub and headed for the showers.
 
My “friend” Bill has been thoroughly propagandized from the right—there was no use sitting in the hot tub with the jets blasting and trying to reason with a man who thinks that over one million people can be killed “accidentally.”
 
I didn’t write Myth America for people like Bill who wouldn’t recognize a fact if it flew out of his TV box and hit him on his bulbous nose. I wrote the book for our fellow citizens who have even a tiny inkling that what is our actual shared experience has very little to do with the Mythocracy that we live in.
 
I also wrote Myth America for people who knew that the wars of aggression were wrong when Bush was president, but magically transformed into born-again warniks when Obama took the oath of office—these newby warniks had begun to see through the propaganda over the last eight years, but allowed one of the more insidious myths to take over—the myth that there is a difference between an elected Democrat and an elected Republican. These are the same people who came to my talks after The Obama came to power to proclaim that the U.S. needs to stay in Afghanistan to “protect the women.”
 
During my campaign against House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, in 2008, it became so clear to me that the only relevant division in this nation, indeed world, is a class division. I know I have been late to this game and analysis, but remember less than six years ago my entire world was my family and this suburban intellectually challenged sinkhole.
 
During my campaign, I experienced the myths that “Elections Matter” and that the U.S. has a “Free Press” as I struggled in a fierce campaign to even achieve ballot status as an independent and garner a few crumbs of media attention. Even the so-called “Liberal media” abandoned me and when I did get media attention—even from the papers that endorsed me—the punch line always was, “but she has no chance.”
 
I struggled with the working class to get labor to endorse me, but in each and every case, members of my own class endorsed the Queen of the Robber Class, Nancy Pelosi. Nancy has done nothing for labor, except to operate her vineyards in wine country without unions, support most “free” trade agreements and hire someone to iron her fabulously wealthy husbands’ shirts. So why did labor endorse Pelosi and not a hard working member of their own class with a labor platform that was hailed from all over this planet? Because she’s a Democrat, that’s why. Labor cares more about access to politicians than access to sane policies.
 
It was towards the end of my campaign when the infamous “bankster bailout” happened. After the bill failed in the House, Pelosi came out all haggard to whine about having to bailout the companies, but pushed the stuffing out of her caucus to ram it through the second time.
 
Democratic candidate and Senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, called members of the House to browbeat them to change their votes and my neighboring Congresswoman, Barbara Lee of Oakland, did a rare about-face and betrayed her principles and her poor constituents—that’s when I finally woke up to what Robber Warren Buffet said: “It’s class warfare all right, and its my class, the rich class that’s making war, and we are winning.” Well, in our Mythocracy, Buffet’s class is really the only class that knows we are at war. Most of the rest of us believe that we live in a “Democracy” where even the lowest of us can attain Robber Class status.
 
Well, in this Mythocracy, if there’s a Robber Class, then what’s the other class? The one that over 99 percent of us belong to? The Robbed Class—the class that must remain “Hope”notized by those myths and divided amongst ourselves so we don’t even realize that just about everything we hold dear is being stolen from us, right out from under our own noses with our apathetic acquiescence. It’s the age-old Robber Class strategy of “divide and conquer.”
 
What is the revolution that I write of???First it’s the very revolutionary idea of recognizing that we do live in a Mythocracy and the lower one is on the socio-economic ladder, the farther apart the reality and myth of this country are.
 
Secondly, the myths must be exposed and dispelled—my new PDF book is an addition to this conversation.
 
Thirdly, we must work together across racial, political, religious, gender, and sexual preference lines to build community and strength in our class to resist the larcenies of the Robber Class.
 
Finally, I foresee this top heavy Empire of cards toppling in the foreseeable future. My revolution will create the necessary umbrella to be able to deflect some of the more damaging rubble that will come crashing down.
 
The Robber Class knows two things that we need to learn quickly…
 
That they need us far more than we need them and there are far more of us then there are of them.
 
This is a revolution that we can win.
 
Cindy Sheehan is the mother of Casey Sheehan who was killed in Iraq on 04 April 2004. She is the host of Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox Radio Show and the author of five books, the latest is Myth America: 20 Greatest Myths of the Robber Class and the Case for Revolution. (In PDF format). Cindy’s favorite role is being Gigi to her two grandchildren: Jonah and Jovie.
 
More info and ordering info for Myth America can be found at Cindy’s blog.

Coleen was one of Times’s 2002 Persons Of The Year.

I happened to be sitting in the audience at the 2005 “Vets for Peace” Conference in Dallas when Cindy Sheehan announced that she had decided to go to Bush’s ranch in Crawford to demand to know “what noble cause” her son and other American soldiers had died for in Iraq. Cindy said she was prepared to camp out in the Crawford ditch if she had to.

Camp Casey proved a great inspiration to thousands, galvanizing the country to realize how wrong that war was and to take their own action to end it.

Guess what? It’s five years later and Cindy has decided to camp out again, this time at the Washington Monument, right inside the politicians’ bubble and next to their seats of power. Let’s all set up camp again! Our country clearly needs its citizens’ input to end its insane military quest for empire. We all need to go help Cindy demand a “peace of the action”.

The people demand a peace of the action.

Coleen Rowley