[Peace-discuss] CAN to Sheehan: we need you

[martin smith]

PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY! 
 
Open Letter to Cindy Sheehan: We need you now more than ever 
 
We remember first hearing about you standing up to Bush in Crawford, 
Texas with admiration and hope. Just months before he had been 
re-elected, not because the majority of people supported the war, but 
because John Kerry offered us nothing for which to vote. He provided 
no alternative to the neocon strategy of more war and barbarism. 
 
Instead, you did. 
 
Since then, larger and larger numbers of people have turned against 
Bush and the war, in constant search for more ways to resist. Bush now 
has an approval rating lower than Nixon during the Watergate scandal. 
 
It was disheartening to read your decision to leave the antiwar 
movement because of how you were treated and slandered by Republicans, 
and now liberals. They may see you as a pawn on a chessboard but we 
see you as a courageous woman who took a stand when it was the 
hardest. You have sacrificed so much, particularly your health and 
precious time with your children, in the struggle for a better world 
and on behalf of the student antiwar movement: thank you. The revival 
of the antiwar movement today is in debt to you. 
 
You remind us of Rosa Parks. When you camped out at Camp Casey, you 
also embodied the history of ordinary people in this country sitting 
in and standing up until their voices were heard. You decided to keep 
fighting because those who are most affected by Bush's war for oil and 
empire often have no other choice: family members who have lost 
children, Iraq veterans and active duty soldiers who now oppose the 
mission for which they were sent, and the people throughout the Middle 
East who have witnessed decades of economic sanction and military 
occupation. Iraq is now experiencing the largest refugee crisis in the 
world. Close to a million Iraqis are now dead. Thousands of US 
soldiers have died, many of whom turned against the war. The vast 
majority of Iraqis, Americans and US soldiers oppose the continuation 
of war in Iraq. 
 
Who will put an end to it? 
 
Your anger at the failure of the Democratic Party to end the war is 
justified. The November election was a referendum on the war in Iraq 
and since then, not only has the Democratic Party refused to call for 
an immediate withdrawal of US troops, but they have decided to remove 
mention of a timetable from the most recent legislation. 
 
The Democratic Party has no intention of ending the war, only 
continuing it by other means, most recently to the tune of $120 
billion dollars. This is why the Campus Antiwar Network and Iraq 
Veterans Against the War in Madison, Wisconsin decided to stage a 
sit-in at Senator Kohl's office. This is why the Campus Antiwar 
Network 
in San Francisco sent a delegation to Nancy Pelosi's office to demand 
an end to the Democrat's funding of the war. 
 
Antiwar politicians do not continue to fund wars. 
 
The fact that the Democratic Party, like the Republican Party, 
continues to use us as cannon fodder for their war means we need to 
build an antiwar movement independent of both. Our demands must no 
longer be shaped by what they deem "reasonable" or what will make them 
"electable". We must not only put forward our own demands but build 
the type of grassroots organization that can see them through. 
 
The Campus Antiwar Network in New York City recently participated in 
Iraq Veterans Against the War's "Operation First Casualty", a moving 
street theatre that conducted raids and set up check points throughout 
the city in order to bring the war home. This was inspired by similar 
actions that were taken during the Vietnam War. Similar to today, the 
White House and Pentagon dragged out an increasingly savage and 
hopeless slaughter as long as possible, and refused to acknowledge 
even being affected by the antiwar movement. This was disorienting to 
activists who had faith in American democracy. Many dejectedly 
concluded that protests are ineffective. Yet they were part of a 
movement that proved just the opposite! Congress, dominated by the 
Democrats, complained more loudly each year about the war, but it 
never stopped funding it. The war might still be going on today if it 
were left up to them. Fortunately, it wasn't. 
 
Martin Luther King Jr. in 1963 was jailed in Birmingham, Alabama for 
protesting what he termed the "broken promises" of liberal 
politicians. The civil rights movement made a decision to abandon the 
idea of negotiation and instead demand power through direct action. 
King stated in a letter from Birmingham jail that 
"moderates...paternalistically believes he can set a timetable for 
another man's freedom...We know through painful experience that 
freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be 
demanded by the oppressed...Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed 
forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself." 
 
We have a lot of work ahead of us. We live in the belly of the beast - 
a beast founded on slavery and imperial ambition, with no human price 
too high. But we also have the majority of people on our side, in this 
country and around the world, who want to see things change. And 
because of this, the beast is wounded. 
 
What we need now is a new strategy. One based on self-activity, not 
reliance on the Democrats, similar to your stand in Crawford nearly 
two years ago. Similar to the sit-ins that are taking place in 
Democratic offices, similar to the decision of hundreds of students, 
faculty and staff at UMass-Amherst to disrupt their commencement 
ceremony to demand Andrew Card not be given an honorary degree, and 
similar to the recent refusal of Oakland longshoremen to cross an 
anti-war picket line demanding an end of arm shipments. The yearning 
for freedom and justice are manifesting itself before our eyes 
everyday. 
 
It is still time for the "antiwar chorus to start singing" and now is 
not the time to give up, but instead raise the cost of war at home. 
We hope you can come back soon, because the movement needs you now 
more than ever. 
 
Best, 
 
Leia Petty, Brooklyn College; Katrina Yeaw, San Francisco State 
University; Chris Dols, University of Wisconsin - Madison; Fred 
Magdoff, Professor, University of Vermont; Mark S. Clinton, Professor, 
Holyoke Community College; Chris Mobley; Nancy Farrel; Michelle 
Suchenski; Sam Bernstein, Yale University 2005; Donna Mummery; 
Christopher Dugan; Steve Leigh; Marianna Zotos; Ernie Seewer; Cindy 
Klumb, CAN Pratt Brooklyn; Paul Lynch II, Rhode Island College, 
Providence; Tom Dowling; Michael G. Smith, University of California, 
Berkeley; Gary Lapon, Williams College 2005; Rebecca Anshell, San 
Diego, CA; William Kelly; Moncrieff Cochran; Luise Light, M.S., Ed.D.; 
Jeff Martin, UC Berkeley, California; Kenneth Love, Rochester 
Institute of Technology; Justino Rodriguez, The City College of New 
York; Rayyan Ghuma, University of Maryland- College Park; Snehal 
Shingavi, UC Berkeley; Yuval Sivan, University of Massachusetts 
 
CAMPUS ANTIWAR NETWORK- www.campusantiwar.net 
 
[To add your name as a signatory to this letter, please email 
charlest.peterson at gmail.com] 
 


       
---------------------------------
Yahoo! oneSearch: Finally,  mobile search that gives answers, not web links. 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/private/peace-discuss/attachments/20070602/0e66ccf0/attachment.html