"We Will Retool...and Come at it from a Different Direction" - Cindy Sheehan

[IChing]

Democracy Now ....

CINDY SHEEHAN: Well, you know, I have -- in those hundreds of emails I’ve gotten in the past couple days, there’s been many from soldiers in Iraq, there’s been many from family members who have loved ones in Iraq and from people all over the Muslim world, telling me, please, please don’t give up, don’t abandon us. And I just want them to know I’m not. I’m just -- I’m pulling back. I’m, you know, getting some rest. I’m trying to restore my health. I want to come back stronger, but I’m not coming back the way I was before.

We’re going to seriously reevaluate our place -- and when I say “our,” I’m talking about Gold Star Families for Peace, I’m talking about the Camp Casey Peace Institute, my skeletal staff. We’re going to -- and my sister Dee Dee, of course. We’re going to just hunker down and find a way that we can be more productive, that we can be more useful to humanity. Like I said, I’ve come to a dead end in what I’m doing now. We’ve found a chink in the armor. We exploited that chink. Now, most of the country is on our side. I don’t think we can work with the politicians. When we come back, we won’t work with or against politicians, but we’ll work with humanity.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/30/1343232

[magellan]

1. It was an excellent interview

Made me feel ten times better about where Cindy's at and what's next for her.

Two things we can't do without: people like Cindy, and independent media like Democracy Now!

[bryant69]

2. We'll have to see what she comes up with

I don't know how you get us out of Iraq without bring politicians in it somehow, though.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[iconoclastic cat]

5. Two words: general strike.

It's not just for Boliva anymore.

[bryant69]

6. I love to see that

I don't think it's possible, but it would be great.

Bryant

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. If anyone here can get hold of Cindy

and think she would be open to alternative healing, pm me.

[sam sarrha]

4. we need memorial vigils every sunday at 2pm in a park close to town for the Fallen Soldiers..

this will not result in a back lash and the Righties can participate and mingle with the rational

we need to have a 'ONGOING' process of informing the uninformed about soldiers dying every day, people can post photos of their soldiers and have a prayer every sunday.. 2 is good cause it is after Church and after lunch..

i have fallen into a place where every soldier and every iraqi is my own son, daughter, mother, father.. aunt uncle.. i am tortured every day and every night that another will suffer.. i can not watch the news, i can not hate the Psychopaths in the white house anymore.. i do hope a big smelly chunk of "Blue Ice" might fall out of the sky and remove them from the gene pool, but i doubt that will happen..

[Maat]

25. We are holding weekly peace vigils out here in SoCal ..

and I'm in one of the conservative parts of SoCal (Temecula Valley).

[truedelphi]

7. This is such good news

It is my belief that what is happening across the country is this:

The visionaries are trumping the power control freaks.

A visionary is diametrically opposed to the organization freak.

And part of their message is that we the people have the power - that the people "in power" are supposed to be our public servants.

Thatthe public servants are to get behind us - rather than our getting behind them.

Cindy definitely has not figured out how to be as effective as she could be. At least in terms of organization.

But she has accomplished what anyone who has ever studied the lives of Ghandi and Martin L King Jr would want to accomplish. She has met with people from her own background - just average working class middle Americans and turned them from the path that they were on to the better path.

Far from preaching to the choir, she has stood up to some mean tough pro-war hombres and made them come to terms with what needs to be done. I wish that in my life I could say that I have turned someone around 180 degrees just by meeting with them.

[AZBlue]

8. So now she's not retiring?? Which is it? It's only been a day and now she's changing her mind?

[bryant69]

9. People do change their minds on occasion

Anyway i'm not sure this contradicts what she actually said.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[ComerPerro]

10. almost as if this whole "giving up" thing was just a gimmick to get attention, LMAO

[Karenina]

27. See lwfern's thread.

You're channeling "Exhibit B."

[WilliamPitt]

11. One-dimensional thinking is tough to watch unfold.

[AZBlue]

12. I realize she's a friend of yours, but that's absolutely no reason to be rude, Mr. Pitt.

It's actually no reason for anyone here to be rude. Because you're all reading the negativity into my post - I didn't put it there, you did. I'm just trying to figure out what's going on, giving conflicting reports both here and in the media.

Excuse me for asking a question - is that now forbidden here? Perhaps you should post your new rules for DU so we can all be on the same page. To reply with the same childishness I see in these posts, "who died and made you President (of DU)?"

[proud2BlibKansan]

16. Click on the link and read the whole interview

You will understand. This is not a contradiction.

[AZBlue]

18. I've read all variations on this, including interview with Cindy herself.

I don't even know that this is the latest from her. Maybe it's not. Maybe it is. Guess I'll just keep my mouth shut and wait it out - seems asking questions is not allowed on DU anymore. That's a shame.

[Karenina]

28. You're NOT "asking questions."

You ARE casting aspersions, belittling, demeaning and having a good-ol-white-boy, wink-nod chuckle. Enjoy.

[WilliamPitt]

20. My rudeness was in response

to what I saw as a deliberate obfuscation on your part. She has been quoted a number of times as saying she is going to re-tool her approach and leave aside the kind of activism she'd been leading these past years. The thread's headline couldn't be more clear on this point.

Her comments are pretty straightforward on this point, and your "Is she now not quitting" comment smacks of deliberate obtuseness.

My apologies if I'm reading your intent wrong.

[AZBlue]

23. Yes, you did read my intent wrong. Completely.

Next time please don't jump to pompous assumptions. I'm be completley honest with you - I've enjoyed some of your previous writings here on DU but that post really made me think that someone had indeed believed a little too much of their own complimentary "press" - and by no means am I referring to Cindy. I don't spend every day all day following Cindy's comments and posts. Not even every other day. I did read direct quotes from her yesterday saying that she was done, out, game over. So, if she's not, that's news to me.

Thank you, much appreciated.

[proud2BlibKansan]

13. LOL

[AZBlue]

14. Read post #12. LOL indeed.

[proud2BlibKansan]

17. And read my reply

[ProfessorGAC]

24. Off Topic Critique

As a writer, you should choose your words better. That's not one-dimensional thinking. Any question, by definition, is two dimensional. But, since your nose is out of joint, i'll attribute it to you not thinking clearly. Again.
The Professor

[bluedog]

21. from the interview

I’m not going to join any party. If I do vote again and if I do become, you know, politically active, it will be independent. I’m not going to, of course, run for anything, be in the system. I have been asked by the Green Party to run for president, but, you know, that’s not anything that I want.

And I know John Stauber. He has been struggling against MoveOn. I was really upset with MoveOn, and plus with the corporate media, who were characterizing MoveOn as the antiwar left in America, which was just really, for people who are on the inside know how hilarious that is. So I think that MoveOn has a lot of resources, and they should be trying to represent -- truly represent the opposition to, instead of being, you know, so tied in with the Democratic Party, to really represent the views of the left.


judge for yourself........shes going to become an independent.

[proud2BlibKansan]

22. I completely agree with her about moveon

As usual, Cindy is right.

[H2O Man]

15. Good.

We must change to master change, as the old saying goes.

[IChing]

19. The Gandhian strategy to socializing dissent and conflict resolution

Sorry didn't have a lot of time to elaborate but we might want to look at these two articles.


"There is no place for a Thoreau, no matter how important the need
to have atomic convictions about injustice and individual acts of disobedience.

Socialized dissent, as the American people have learned in the Negro Revolt,
and the United Kingdom in the demonstrations of nuclear pacifism, is considerably
more dramatic than isolated convictions and acts of disobedience in the name of justice.

But is it effective in reaching goals? Dissent of this kind may be counterproductive.
It has become so in the civil rights activities of the United States.
Actually there has been doubt for some time about the extent of Gandhian
belief oustide of elite pacifists like Martin Luther King, Jr. and N. Bayard Rustin.
Effective or not, socialized protest of the Gandhian type is potentially an
international device to pressure governments for interstate reasons as
well as for what may seem to be domestic issues. "

http://www.mkgandhi.org/g_relevance/chap24.htm


"Combining classes of strategies in the service of bringing intractable conflicts
to just and constructive conclusions is a challenge. Those who have expertise
in conflict resolution are not likely to have expertise in nonviolent action or
legislative and judicial processes. People who have devoted their whole
lives to one set of mechanisms may have difficulty seeing its limits.
Some may be reluctant to combine methods.

Nonetheless, each method of peaceful change has its strengths and its limits.
A movement to resolve intractable conflict will be empowered by bringing
different types of actors into the planning and strategy sessions and by
casting the widest net possible for participation. In all probability,
conflict-resolution processes will also be helpful in the planning
processes rather than simply with opponents."

http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/Peaceful_Chg_Strats/

The strategy of social dissent and conflict resolution have to be
looked at in a multi-diminsional way.

[MzNov]

26. One step back, 50 steps forward.

And she will be a super catalyst in another form. She's more brave than everyone in congress put together, and she is a helper/healer. So in no way did I think she would not be a valuable part of the peace movement in this country. She is now more popular than ever.

YOU GO GIRL.

:bounce: