(too long to post, just some of what he wrote)
OF THE SACRED, AND THE PROFANE: LEAVE CINDY SHEEHAN ALONE
I haven’t specifically addressed the frenzied and mounting attacks on Cindy Sheehan up to this point, primarily for one reason: those attacks are as sickening as they were predictable. Let me note at the outset that, in one very limited sense, Cindy Sheehan certainly was on notice that this would be her fate if she chose to become a visible symbol of opposition to the disastrous invasion and occupation of Iraq. However, this acknowledgement should not be taken to mean that any of the current attacks on her are deserved or just. They are neither. Moreover, they are deeply uncivilized—and for the most part, not remotely decent.
Think about how infinitely and how incomprehensibly worse it is for a parent to lose a child. I will tell you one further thing, based on my own experience: certainly my sister, her husband and their other son have gone on with their lives, have had many achievements and much success, and have enjoyed a great deal of happiness. Thank God for that. But their lives were forever altered, and they have never been the same. In countless ways—which I will not recount here, since it is their private business—they have all been changed, in ways large and small. Their lives have taken turns they would not have otherwise—and the scars still remain, even all these years later. And some of the wounds will never heal, no matter how long they live. Cindy Sheehan’s son did not die at home, after a terrible illness which even modern medicine could not cure. Such illnesses strike all families eventually. They are indeed terrible, but they too are in the natural, inevitable order of things. Cindy Sheehan’s son died in a war which even its most ardent supporters now admit was “optional.” Let me translate that: Casey Sheehan died for no good reason at all. His death had nothing to do with the defense of our country, and it did not happen because Iraq had anything to do with 9/11, which it did not.
In that sense, Casey Sheehan’s was entirely unnatural—and it was the direct result of the disastrous and self-destructive course chosen by our president.
Think about the limitless, unending pain that comes from knowing that your son died for no good reason at all—that he is dead only because your president and his advisors would have their war, regardless of the facts, and that they would make other people, but never themselves or those they love so desperately, bear all its unbearable costs. Cindy Sheehan has voluntarily placed herself directly in the center of the major political and cultural battle of our time. She knew the nature of the opposition and the attacks she would face. But that does make those attacks legitimate—or decent.
I will not here dissect the attacks on Mrs. Sheehan, because I consider all of that beside the point. You are free to state that you disagree with Mrs. Sheehan’s opposition to the war, and that you think she is completely wrong. That is indisputably your right. Because the issues are so important, I would expect no less—and I do not think Mrs. Sheehan expected less. But if Bush’s supporters were decent at all, that is where they would stop. State your disagreement, and the reasons why her position is not yours. But beyond that: leave it alone. Leave Cindy Sheehan alone. You do not understand her grief or what it might impel her to do. God grant that you never have cause to understand it.
http://coldfury.com/reason/?p=850
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
