Cindy Sheehan: The Grieving Activist

Cindy Sheehan’s son fought under our Commander-in-Chief. Cindy Sheehan fights against him. Cindy Sheehan’s son was killed on the front lines. Cindy Sheehan is pushed to the front because she tows the liberal line. We aren’t supposed to fight against Cindy Sheehan because she’s a wounded soul.

As you may know, Cindy Sheehan is the woman who has vowed to camp out near President Bush’s Texas ranch until the President capitulates to her demand for a second meeting [Bush met with her shortly after her son was killed in Iraq]. It seems that her thinking – or, more accurately, feelings – have evolved since their first encounter, and she now fancies that the President is in dire need of her counsel vis- B -vis Iraq policy.

Being the kind of prop leftist media and activist groups prize – a sympathetic and malleable character whose victim credentials are beyond reproach – such entities have seized upon her story and made her the poster-girl for hate-anything-remotely-conservative-no-matter-what activism. Thus, she has become the latest of a new breed of political animal: the Grieving Activist.

I know, alas, I must be a real ogre to not feel compelled to cast my lot with the compassion-über-alles crowd, fall all over myself issuing the expected disclaimers concerning the treatment of the grief-stricken, and imply that such status renders one immune from the criticism that usually attends being a left-wing, activist wacko. But let’s get something straight: if you want to grieve, grieve. If you want to play politics, play politics.

But my sympathy for the grieving ends where their use of their grief as a political battering ram begins.

I say this unabashedly, without apology or concession. In fact, those who use the Cindy Sheehans of the world for political advantage owe the rest of us an apology. And “use” is the operative word, because this is the most shameful sort of exploitation.

Do you really believe that Michael Moore or the New York Slimes cares about the plight of Mrs. Sheehan? Be not deceived: they use grieving activists because they know that such pawns are both handy conduits – through which they can damage political opponents and promote their agendas – and get-out-of-criticism-free cards. They’re doing nothing less than taking a leaf out of Saddam Hussein’s book, as they use these hapless saps as “human shields.”

The ascendancy of the Grieving Activist hurts our nation, too. While there are some who do God’s work, such as Mike Walsh of America’s Most Wanted, more often than not they are reduced to tools of leftist demagogues. As such, they exercise a negative influence over man and his government.

Really, it’s just the same as with all activism. Generally speaking, it’s the leftists who are so driven by dark emotions that they take to the streets and protest with twisted faces and snarling voices. Regular folks tend to behave, well . . . like regular folks. They exert their political influence in private. They help their families in private. They also grieve in private.

But the damage done is most profound when we place grieving activists not just on a pedestal, but a throne. I don’t know if you remember the names Carolyn McCarthy and Jean Carnahan, but they were grieving activists who rode a wave of sympathy to political victory.

Carnahan is the wife of late Missouri Governor Mel Carnahan, who died along with their son in a plane crash while running for the Senate in the 2000 election. Under normal circumstances, sanity would have prevailed and the people would have elected Mel Carnahan’s opponent, who possessed the definite political advantage of still being alive. But then acting Governor Roger Wilson entered the fray, stating that should the voters elect Mel Carnahan, he would appoint his widow to his seat. Thus was spawned both a Grieving Activist and a sympathy vote.

McCarthy’s story is similar. After her husband was killed and son partially paralyzed by Colin Ferguson in the Long Island Railroad massacre, she ran for Congress on a gun-control platform and won the seat. Her ideological persuasion didn’t seem to be a consideration, nor her qualifications or soundness of mind after such a traumatic experience. It was enough that she was a Grieving Activist.

Do I need to visit the Wizard of Oz and get a heart? Well, call me crazy, but it seems to me that being a leader in our country – someone who’s going to shape policy that can affect us and our progeny and impacts on issues of life and death – is a pretty important job. Consequently, I’d like to see the candidates for leadership chosen based on whether or not they would be good for our nation, not on some misguided notion that they deserve a seat of power as a consolation for loss.

Now, if you’re an Oprah Winfrey acolyte who would dispute me, fine, but I demand some consistency. Please apply the blind-compassion principle to all areas of you life. If you’re scheduled to have brain surgery and the surgeon dies, request that his wife operate in his stead. Or, if your car is in the shop and the mechanic passes on, ask that his wife don the grease-monkey suit.

You wouldn’t do that? Oh, why not? Because such folly could result in eyes that no longer follow motion or a car incapable of locomotion? Because your brain and car are pretty important to you and it could mess them up? Well, my country is pretty important to me, and electing leaders on the blind-compassion basis could mess it up.

If you want to elect a leader, elect a leader. If you want to express sympathy, express sympathy. But if the latter, that’s what personal visits and a shoulder to cry on are for; merely pulling a lever for the person is a lazy and sad substitute.

Then, I have to shudder when I think of what our weakness for grieving activists could reap. What next? If one of Bill Clinton’s scorned damsels of decadent dalliances visits an untimely demise upon him, I can quite imagine the ensuing compassion-fest sweeping Hillary Rodham into the White House in a mudslide.

So, call me what you will, but my compassion is reserved mainly for the 300 million Americans who are affected when we anoint a media darling of a Grieving Activist an opinion or policy-maker.

There’s something else that strikes me. We’re supposed to be oh-so taken with the self-sacrifice and single-minded dedication of the Grieving Activist. Ah, the nobility of it all. Why, this person isn’t just retreating into a shell, he’s baring his soul in public to ensure that the world will become a better place and that his pain and loss won’t have been for nought.

After all, when do grieving activists ever involve themselves in the furtherance of a cause that doesn’t have to do with something that affected them personally? After James Brady was shot during the attempt on President Reagan’s life, his wife, Sarah Brady, was transformed into a staunch gun-control advocate. Why didn’t she make eliminating abortion or Third-world hunger her passion? Because gun-control is an over-riding issue? Okay, then why did she wait until it affected her life before becoming a crusader for it?

Now, don’t misunderstand me: a lot of good rises from personal tragedies that rouse one to action. But a lot of bad can rise from them too.

But we’re not supposed to say these things. You don’t challenge a Grieving Activist. You don’t question his motives or integrity. You just lie back and take it. That’s part of the game.

“Look, you’re fighting Southpaw tonight, the guy who just had a death in the family. So, I don’t want you to be mean. You can bob and weave, duck and cover and cower, but nothing more than pulled punches for you. You don’t want the spectators to think you cruel now, do you?”

So, we’re supposed to discard the boxing gloves and don kid gloves. But despair not. If we exercise deft skill and fancy footwork we just may avoid a knockout.

Well, I’m sorry. Grief? Listen, I grieve for my country every time I see a Grieving Activist deliver a series of unanswered, devastating lefts, and I’m sick and tired of taking it on the chin. If you can’t weather the blows, stay out of the ring. ‘Cause, Southpaw, this pugilistic pen hits back.

The below text was copied from an earlier letter written by an anonymous source and posted throughout the web. We made a few modifications and sent this letter to our children and grandchildren. Our youngest son has just deployed to Afghanistan.

A Letter to Our Children and Grandchildren

"I blame us for blithely assuming we can maintain all of our Political Correctness and all of our civil rights during this conflict and have a clean, lawful, honorable war. None of those words apply to battle. Get them out of your head. Some have gone so far in their criticism of the war and/or the Administration that it almost seems they would literally like to see us lose. I hasten to add that this isn't because they are disloyal. It is because they just don't recognize what losing means. Nevertheless, that conduct gives the impression to the enemy that we are divided and ;weakening, it concerns our friends, and it does great damage to our cause."

This is quite long, but give yourself 5 minutes to read and digest what we are talking about. After all the political rhetoric and all the religious wailing, this is what we as Americans are faced with.

Dear Children and Grandchildren,

As your father, mother, grandfather and grandmother, we believe we owe it to you to share some thoughts on the present world situation. We have over the years discussed a lot of important things, like going to college, jobs and so forth. But this really takes precedence over any of those discussions. We hope this might give you a longer term perspective that fewer and fewer of my generation are left to speak to.

To be sure you understand that this is not politically flavored, we will tell you that since Franklin D. Roosevelt, up to and including our present President, we have, without exception, supported our presidents on all matters of international conflict.

That's eight presidents (5 Republican & 4 Democrat) during the cold war (1945 - 1991); President Clinton's strikes on Bosnia (1995) and on Iraq (1998). So be sure you read this as completely non-political or otherwise you will miss the point.

Our country is now facing the most serious threat to its existence, as we know it. The deadly seriousness is greatly compounded by the fact that there are very few of us who think we can possibly lose this war and even fewer who realize what losing really means.

First, let's examine a few basics:

When did the threat to us start?

Many will say September 11th, 2001. The answer as far as the United States is concerned is since 1979, 22 years prior to September 2001 ;with the following attacks on us:

Iran Embassy Hostages, 1979

Beirut, Lebanon Embassy 1983

Beirut, Lebanon Marine Barracks 1983

Lockerbie, Scotland Pan-Am flight to New York 1988

First New York World Trade Center attack 1993

Dhahran, Saudi Arabia Khobar Towers Military complex 1996

Nairobi, Kenya US Embassy 1998

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania US Embassy 1998

Aden, Yemen USS Cole 2000

New York World Trade Center 2001

Pentagon 2001

(Note that during the period from 1981 to 2001 there were 7,581 terrorist attacks worldwide.)

Why were we attacked?

Envy of our position, our success, and our freedoms. The attacks happened during the administrations of Presidents Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush 2. We cannot fault either the Republicans or Democrats as there were no provocations by any of the presidents or their immediate predecessors, Presidents Ford or Carter.

Who were the attackers?

In each case, the attacks on the US were carried out by Muslims.

What is the Muslim population of the World? 25%.

Isn't the Muslim Religion peaceful?

Hopefully, but that is really not the point. Most of the Germans were Christian, a peaceful religion and Hitler was Christian, but that didn't stop the war that killed 6 million Jews. (See http://www.nazis.testimony.co.uk/7-a.htm).

He killed almost as many Christians that got in his way of exterminating the Jews or of taking over the world.

Same with the Muslim terrorists. They focus the world on the US, but kill all in the way - their own people or the Spanish, French or anyone else. The point here is that the peaceful Muslims are no protection for us from the Muslim leaders that are fanatically bent on doing - by their own pronouncements - killing all of us infidels.

We don't blame the peaceful Muslims. What would you do if the choice was shut up or die?

So who are we at war with?

There is no way we can honestly respond that it is anyone other than the Muslim terrorists. Trying to be politically correct and avoid verbalizing this conclusion can well be fatal. There is no way to win if you don't clearly recognize and articulate who you are fighting.

So with that background, now to the two major questions:

1. Can we lose this war?

2. What does losing really mean?

If we are to win, we must clearly answer these two pivotal questions.

We can definitely lose this war, and as anomalous as it may sound, the major reason we can lose is that so many of us simply do not fathom the answer to the second question - What does losing mean? It would appear that a great many of us think that losing the war means hanging our heads, bringing the troops home and going on about our business, like post Vietnam. This is as far from the truth as one can get.

What losing really means is:

We would no longer be the premier country in the world. The attacks will not subside, but rather will steadily increase. Remember, they want us dead, not just quiet. If they had just wanted us quiet, they would not have produced an increasing series of attacks against us over the past 18 years. The plan was clearly to terrorist attack us until we were neutered and submissive to them.

We would, of course, have no future support from other nations for fear of reprisals and for the reason that they would see we are impotent and cannot help them.

They will pick off the other non-Muslim nations, one at a time. It will be increasingly easier for them. They already hold Spain hostage. It doesn't matter whether it was right or wrong for Spain to withdraw its troops from Iraq. Spain did it because the Muslim terrorists bombed their train and told them to withdraw the troops. Anything else they want Spain to do will be done. Spain is finished.

The next will probably be France. Our one hope on France is that they might see the light and realize that if we don't win, they are finished too, in that they can't resist the Muslim terrorists without us. However, it may already be too late for France. France is already 20% Muslim and fading fast.

If we lose the war, our production, income, exports and way of life will all vanish as we know it. After losing, who would trade or deal with us if they were threatened by the Muslims. If we can't stop the Muslims, how could anyone else? The Muslims fully know what is riding on this war and therefore are completely committed to winning at any cost. We better know it too and be likewise committed to winning at any cost.

Why do we go on at such lengths about the results of losing? Simple. Until we recognize the costs of losing, we cannot unite and really put 100% of our thoughts and efforts into winning. And it is going to take that 100% effort to win.

So, how can we lose the war? Again, the answer is simple. We can lose the war by imploding. That is, defeating ourselves by refusing to recognize the enemy and their purpose and really digging in and lending full support to the war effort. If we are united, there is no way that we can lose. If we continue to be divided, there is no way that we can win.

Let us give you a few examples of how we simply don't comprehend the life and death seriousness of this situation.

President Bush selects Norman Mineta as Secretary of Transportation.
Although all of the terrorist attacks were committed by Muslim men between 17 and 40 years of age, Secretary Mineta refuses to allow profiling. Does that sound like we are taking this thing seriously? This is war.

For the duration, we are going to have to give up some of the civil rights we have become accustomed to. We had better be prepared to lose some of our civil rights temporarily or we will most certainly lose all of them permanently. And don't worry that it is a slippery slope. We gave up plenty of civil rights during WWII and immediately restored them after the victory and, in fact, added many more since then.

Do we blame President Bush or President Clinton before him? No, we blame ourselves for blithely assuming we can maintain all of our Political Correctness and all of our civil rights during this conflict and have a clean, lawful, honorable war. None of those words apply to war. Get them out of your head.

Some have gone so far in their criticism of the war and/or the Administration that it almost seems they would literally like to see us lose. We hasten to add that this isn't because they are disloyal. It is because they just don't recognize what losing means. Nevertheless, that conduct gives the impression to the enemy that we are divided and; weakening, it concerns our friends, and it does great damage to our cause.

Of more recent vintage, the uproar fueled by the politicians and media regarding the treatment of some prisoners of war perhaps exemplifies best what I am saying. We have recently had an issue involving the treatment of a few Muslim prisoners of war by a small group of our military police.

These are the type prisoners who just a few months ago were throwing their own people off buildings, cutting off their hands, cutting out their tongues and otherwise murdering their own people just for disagreeing with Saddam Hussein. And just a few years ago these same type prisoners chemically killed 400,000 of their own people for the same reason. They are also the same type enemy fighters who recently were burning Americans and dragging their charred corpses through the street s of Iraq. And still more recently the same type enemy that was and is providing videos to all news sources internationally, of the beheading of an American prisoner they held.

Compare this with some of our press and politicians who, for several days, have thought and talked about nothing else but the "humiliating" of some Muslim prisoners - not burning them, not dragging their charred corpses through the streets, not beheading them, but "humiliating" them. Can this be for real? The politicians and pundits have even talked of impeachment of the Secretary of Defense. If this doesn't show the complete lack of comprehension and understanding of the seriousness of the enemy we are fighting, the life and death struggle we are in, and the disastrous results of losing this war, nothing can.

To bring our country to a virtual political standstill over this prisoner issue makes us look totally oblivious to what is going on in the real world. Neither we, nor any other country, can survive this internal strife. Again we say, this does not mean that some of our politicians or media people are disloyal. It simply means that they are absolutely oblivious to the magnitude of the situation we are in and into which the Muslim terrorists have been pushing us for many years.

Remember, the Muslim terrorists stated goal is to kill ALL infidels. That translates into all non-Muslims - not just in the United States, but throughout the world. We are the last bastion of defense.

We have been criticized for many years as being 'arrogant'. That charge is valid in at least one respect. We are arrogant in that we believe that we are so good, powerful and smart, that we can win the hearts and minds of all those who attack us, and that with both hands tied behind our back, we can defeat anything bad in the world. We can't.

If we don't recognize this, our nation as we know it will not survive, and no other free country in the World will survive if we are defeated. And finally, name any Muslim countries throughout the world that allow freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of religion, freedom of the Press, equal rights for anyone - let alone everyone, equal status or any status for women, or that have been productive in one single way that contributes to the good of the World.

This has been a long way of saying that we must be united on this war or we will be equated in the history books to the self-inflicted fall of the Roman Empire. If, that is, the Muslim leaders will allow history books to be written or read.

If we don't win this war right now, keep a close eye on how the Muslims take over France in the next 5 years or less. They will continue to increase the Muslim population of France and continue to encroach little by little on the established French traditions. The French will be fighting among themselves over what should or should not be done, which will continue to weaken them and keep them from any united resolve. Doesn't that sound eerily familiar?

Democracies don't have their freedoms taken away from them by some external military force. Instead, they give their freedoms away, politically correct piece by politically correct piece. And they are giving those freedoms away to those who have shown, worldwide, that they abhor freedom and will not apply it to you or even to themselves, once they are in power. They have universally shown that when they have taken over, they then start brutally killing each other over who will be the few who control the masses. Will we ever stop hearing from the politically correct, about the "peaceful Muslims"?

We close on a hopeful note, by repeating what we said above. If we are united, there is no way that we can lose. We believe the factions in our country will begin to focus on the critical situation we are in and will unite to save our country.

It is your future we are talking about.

Do whatever you can to preserve it!

Love,

Dad, Mom, Grandpa and Grandma

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