Reply #66: K&R Superbly said!

[puebloknot]

If anyone has earned the right to speak here, it is Cindy Sheehan.

The rules of the forum again: "Democratic Underground is an online community for Democrats and other progressives. Members are expected to be generally supportive of progressive ideals, and to support Democratic candidates for political office. Democratic Underground is not affiliated with the Democratic Party, and comments posted here are not representative of the Democratic Party or its candidates."

I believe that Cindy Sheehan is very much in agreement with progressive ideals. And she has certainly shown that she *generally* supports Democratic candidates, as long as those candidates support Democratic ideals. Because she has seen, as many of us here have, that the Democrats we elected in November 2006 are failing to support their oaths of office to support and defend the Constitution, she has bravely announced her departure from the Democratic Party. If she did that in a moment of deep frustration and heartfelt emotion, I think she has already earned the "political capital" to merit the understanding of this whole community. Not only that, she deserves the support of this forum as she publicly airs for herself (and for a lot of us), what she sees as a "cancer growing on the Democratic Party." Those are my words, but I think she would agree with them.

We have a country to save, and we'd better get at it. We don't have time to watch our neighbors with suspicion, and rat on someone who doesn't measure up to some arbitrary standard of party loyalty. Party loyalty is for small minds. There is so much bickering going on in this forum, with so little attention to the real details of what is happening to our beloved country.

I often think about the number of people that I understand lurk at DU, and the number who post here regularly, and think that if we could just harness that energy to *demand* that we get back to democracy, instead of the rapidly-growing fascism that is overtaking us, we could move mountains.

If our leaders won't lead, then we need to abandon those "leaders" and take the power that we already have, as We the People, and refuse to support, through contributions of time, or our dollars, anyone who will not take a stand against tyranny -- whether they be Democrats or Republicans or Independents.

For whatever she may lack in finesse, Cindy Sheehan has the heart of a patriot. She is behaving in the grand tradition of our forefathers who finally had enough, and put their own necks on the line for the country. To the extent that we tolerate the hand-waving that has passed of late for oversight, we are complicit in the death of this country.

At the same time that Nancy Pelosi said that George Bush was "not worth impeaching," she also made reference to the *marvelous* (paraphrasing, but a word in that vein) election we are all going to have in 2008. Give me a fucking break. A world of damage can be done in 18 months, thousands more lives can be lost. I want to see Nancy Pelosi's Joan of Arc act, if she's got one. I'm tired of her Helpless Wimp Enabler/Speaker act.

But to turn from my ongoing anger at Nancy Pelosi, I am forced to ask myself: What is wrong with us that we mind-fuck with each other here at DU, and let our highest Democratic principles swirl down the drain. I ask myself how I am going to look my grandchildren in the face, 'ere long, and explain how we, a nation with *everything* at our fingertips, simply stayed at home while the nation died.

All of my life, as a WWII soldier's daughter, I've heard about the deficiencies in character of the Germans, the Japanese, the Italians, who *just let it happen.* And now the whole world is watching as we Americans show our own lack of good character by our failure to rein in our own rogue regime.

Maybe we should (myself at the top of the list), spend a little less time posting here, and a little more time dialing the phones to *demand* (Al Gore used that marvelous word this weekend at Live Earth) that the Congress do its job, or expect a pink slip from the American people. I am not a political strategist, and I'm open to new ideas. I just know that we are not helpless!

Maybe Cindy Sheehan is floundering a little, in terms of what to do with her grief, her frustration, her determination to make a difference. I light ten thousand candles to her bothering to stumble around and shout and try to achieve some change. She isn't perfect, but damn it all, she's engaged.'

I'm in screaming mode tonight. My daughter's 25-year-old friend is going *back* to Iraq on Wednesday. She's just a young woman who joined the Guard as a third job, in the hope of getting a college degree. Her name is Legion!!!!!!!!!! And I am so ashamed of this country, and so ashamed of my own inability to snatch Sarah, and all the others, from the Jaws of Danger.