10,000 Mother of a March
By Cindy Sheehan
“We must keep raising our voices in peace---and the harder
that becomes, the more necessary it is.” Kim Gandy,
President, NOW
“There can be no compromise with war; it cannot be reformed
or controlled; cannot be disciplined into decency or codified
into common sense; for war is the slaughter of human beings,
temporarily regarded as enemies, on as large a scale as
possible.” Jeannette Rankin, First female Congressperson
04/04/07 "ICH
" -- - -I know Kim, and as a matter of fact, I
just ran into her the other day. I believe she truly believes
the above statement that she made. In her, I see a very
compassionate person who supports the work of peace and justice.
However, Kim’s statement and my impression of her make me even
more perplexed with who NOW chose to endorse for President,
2008: Hillary Clinton. In their campaign: I’m Ready for a Woman
President, NOW’s website states that Ms. Clinton was “misled by
the new president” in her 2002 vote to give this “new” president
authorization to go to war. I am sorry, but the “new” president
didn’t fool me. The “new” president didn’t fool every Senator,
or House Representative, either. 146 officials (23 Senators and
123 House Reps) were not “misled” by the “new” president. Why
was such a so-called brilliant woman as Hillary Clinton fooled
by one of the biggest fools in American history? It certainly
does not give me confidence in her judgment or leadership
skills.
I am disappointed with NOW’s endorsement of Hillary, not just
because of her vote and cheerleading “If Saddam won’t disarm, he
must be disarmed” for the immoral invasion of Iraq, she is one
of the many who think that no option, not even a nuclear option,
must be taken off the “table” when we are dealing with the
possibility that Iran may obtain one nuclear weapon, which is a
drop in the WMD bucket when we know that Israel has hundreds and
we have thousands. Even threatening to use such a formidable WMD
as we used on the innocent civilians of Japan is inexcusable and
a crime against humanity no matter which menacing person says
it: Crooked Condi, Doomsday Dick, or Hillary the Hawk. For the
safety and security of humanity, true women are calling for all
nuclear warheads to be dismantled.
Indisputably, in war, the people who suffer the most are women,
children and families. In America, tens of thousands of families
have been hurt and literally torn apart by the war that Hillary
supported and still supports with her vote to give King George
more of the Royal Treasury to wage. Since the sanctions and
secret bombings supported by her husband in the ‘90’s, millions
of Iraqis have been killed or injured. Another "woman," Madeline
Albright (female US Ambassador to the UN under the Clinton
Regime) said that the killing of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi
babies was “worth it;” Just as Crooked Condi said on the 4th
Anniversary of this war for oil that the loss of human life has
been “worth it.” Two females who never had to feel the personal,
heart-wrenching pain of the loss their policies and
testosteronic–tendencies have burdened millions of mothers all
over the world with.
I submit that “women” like Hillary, Condi and Madeline are
“female” and not “women” Just because one has a female
reproductive system and outward female sexual characteristics
does not make one a “woman.” A true woman is someone like our
very first female Representative in Congress, from the state of
Montana: Jeannette Rankin. She was elected to national office
even before suffrage was granted to women in the rest of the
country. She was an early feminist beginning the debate to
ratify the 19th Amendment to the Constitution righting an
injustice whose timing was far overdue.
Four days after she arrived in Washington, DC, in 1917, she was
one of 50 Congressional Reps who voted “No” to the USA entering
WWI. She was vilified by even Woman Suffragettes but she
explained: “This is no time to be polite.” She was the ONLY
person in Congress to vote “No” on entering WWII and in casting
her vote she said: “As a woman, I can’t go to war and I refuse
to send anybody else. I vote NO.” In an even more heightened
period of insane nationalism and fear of the bogey-man du jour,
this was an extra-ordinarily courageous and responsible thing to
do.
Jeannette Rankin continued to work for peace until her death in
1973 at the age of 92. The Jeannette Rankin Brigade of 5,000
women descended on Congress during the Vietnam War and she said:
“If we had 10,000 mothers willing to go to prison, we could end
the war.”
The time for being polite to our war-mongering politicians and
organizations which support them is over. The time has been up
for years now: over four to be exact. Women in Iraq are afraid
to go to the market or send their children to school. Our
occupation has killed many babies and destroyed many
Anglo-Christian families and brown Muslim families and, really,
families of all color schemes and religious/non-religious
persuasions.
We mothers have to stand up and put our bodies on the line for
peace and humanity. We must look into the best parts of
ourselves that make us mothers willing to care for and protect
all children of the world, not just our own. We need to access
our hearts and souls to lead from a place of compassion and love
not from war/fear mongering hatred and disgraceful threats and
use of bullying force.
I am calling on a new Jeannette Rankin Brigade to rise up and
have join us on our “10,000 Mother of a March” on Congress on
Monday, May 14th, 2007, which is the day after Mother’s Day.
Marches on the weekends are not effective. We need to shut the
city of DC down and we need to show people like Hillary Clinton
and NOW that there are true women/mothers who want the needless
and indiscriminate killing of our world’s children to end. We
need to surround Congress, demand an end to this evil occupation
and refuse to leave until the Congressional leadership agrees
with us, or throws us in jail!
I am calling on Mothers of the world to join us in DC, if they
are able…or descend on US embassies all over the world that day.
I would love to see at least 10,000 Iraqi women marching on the
Green Zone that day: marching in solidarity with us to end the
slaughter of their children. I believe millions of mothers
around the world are tired of their children being used as
cannon fodder and political tools in the games of war and killer
sanctions.
Mothers united will never be defeated! It's time.
Please go The Camp Casey Peace Institute for more info.
Cindy Sheehan is the mother of Spc. Casey Sheehan who was
killed in Bush's war of terror on 04/04/04. She is the
co-founder and president of Gold Star Families for Peace and The
Camp Casey Peace Institute.Click here
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