Cindy Sheehan said she will run as an independent against the San Francisco Democrat in 2008 if Pelosi does not file articles of impeachment against Bush by July 23. "I think all politicians should be held accountable. Democrats and Americans feel betrayed by the Democratic leadership. We hired them to bring an end to the war," reports Angela K. Brown of the Associated Press.
This is how it's s'pozed to work, innit? You think your representative ain't representing you, so you run against 'em.
Pelosi is WAAAAAAY too close to the Oiligarchs and Pollutocrats; taking the I-word off the table is/was unconscionable.
Run, Cindy, Run. I'll send ya a coupla sheckels, and so will thousands of others...
7 comments:
Funny how everyone supports Cindy until she stops talking and takes real action.
Moi, aussi, Woodrow. Let's see how Pelosi operates with a challenge, see what's she's made of, bring it out into the open.
Too many cautious types making the same ol' "Nader the traitor" arguments -- "It'll split the vote. Repubs will win, oh noooooooo."
Well, I voted for Nader in 2000. The slow slide into fascism been's going on most of my voting life. I hope the country wakes up because I do believe with an enlightened citizenry it's never to late. But if the big sleep continues, I'm going down fighting for democracy with a little "d".
Too many cautious types making the same ol' "Nader the traitor" arguments -- "It'll split the vote. Repubs will win, oh noooooooo."
Which is, as you point out, a ridiculous argument. She'll be one person in a congressional body of over 400. I'm convinced some of these "cautious types" are more concerned with the good of the democrats rather than the good of the country.
I say that as someone who despises Nader.
I always rooted for Cindy, and I became even more impressed when I read her not infrequent commentaries published @ Common Dreams. She's a gifted, eloquent writer.
I root for her as the antithesis of an entrenched view of politics (well-represented on progressive blogs) I've really come to distrust and frankly despise: the soulless, process-oriented, strategy-and-tactics obsessed, professionalized-to-extinction definition of politics.
Perhaps this perspective could be called the Self-Righteous Apparatchik, kin to the universally-recognized Concern Troll. I'm referring to blog commenters who identify themselves as Democrats and/or progressives, and show up to self-righteously scold and lecture the Big Babies or Feel-Good Sunshine Democrats-- I paraphrase, of course-- about how little they grasp the reality of politics.
These are angry "pragmatists", heavy on humorless superego, who wholly buy into the belief that politics is all about the numbers, the votes, the "possibilities" for doing business. They commonly exude contempt and rancorous incredulity toward those who believe that heart and spirit actually count for something, even in the demi-monde of corrupt and devolved political machination.
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Or, as I wrote in response to a less-than-impressed Good Democrat bidding Cindy good riddance when she announced her "retirement" recently, and sneering that perhaps Cindy-lovers ought to send her name to the Pope for canonization:
Cindy Sheehan had celebrity thrust upon her, and she has more character and virtue in her fingernail parings than all of the warmongers and hapless-warmonger-enablers compacted together. (Metaphorically, of course-- mustn't have any misunderstandings on that score.)
To the extent that she was not, and did not aspire to become, an "inside politics" or "inside media" or "inside social activism", she was fucked from the get-go. I have no doubt that she's been sniped at and scorned and hassled as much by ostensible anti-war or anti-Bush as by wingnut Yahoos.
I recall Scott Ritter casually ripping Sheehan in a scathing survey of the chaotic, fragmented "anti-war movement". Military man that he is, the ultimate "inside" career man, he scorned Cindy for walking point by meandering around without an agenda or goals. This reversion to jarhead battlefield exasperation, a testosterone-saturated growl of displeasure at some ditsy dame getting in the way, was more of a comment on his narrow focus than a telling criticism of Sheehan.
And I recall Sheehan pointing out that Code Pink would hold weekly informational meetings or similar public events on Capitol Hill and invite congresspersons to show up. And they were roundly shunned by both parties; I think Kucinich showed up, and maybe Feingold or Lynn Woolsey.
It's always been obvious to me that Cindy's public career was indeed improvisational and haphazard and unscripted, i.e. human. We're not allowed to have amateurs in our culture any more; everybody must keep up by being professional or aspiring to be professional-- or at least acknowledging that important matters of any kind are best trusted to professionals. We're living the Evil Alternate Universe's version of, "When the going gets tough, the weird turn pro."
Well, I think it's safe to surmise that Cindy didn't cipher and calculate her plans and intentions as finely as the Scott Ritters et al of the world would wish, and frankly had more pressing concerns that to give a fuck about how they judged her.
Yeah, she can't market her agenda for shit, and she didn't just turn into the equivalent of one of those ginormous puppets to be held up at approved demonstrations by handlers. So she gave it her best shot, and having failed to rally enough bloody ignorant apes to the cause, is checking out. Good for her.
Oh, and I wouldn't dream of submitting her to the Pope as a candidate for canonization. The Pope has no use for uppity women who are out there farting around trying to turn her personal grief into a fulcrum to lift the low estate of public sensibility up a micron.
Sorry, babe, the saint thing is a racket, a gimmick, a popularity contest. First of all, Cindy would have to be dead. And then a lot of hysterics would have to come out of the woodwork making preposterous claims about Cindy's miracles. And some official charlatans would solemnly investigate these hallucinations, and upper-echelon mountebanks would ratify the findings of the charlatans. Then the Pope gives the thumbs-up, and the crowd goes wild.
Who needs it?
Little Brøther | 05.29.07 - 6:41 pm
To supplement my previous comment, here's that moderate to a fault bint Joan Walsh in Salon, deploring
Cindy Sheehan's wrong turn. And in case it's not worth slogging through to the accompanying comments, here are a couple of ripe chunks of supercilious Lesser Evilists. Bite me, assholes...
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Circular firing squad
That pretty much describes what will happen if Sheehan follows through on her threat. If she were running against Doolittle, or any other republican criminal, then she'd be completely in the right. Does she really think that Pelosi is worse than the republicans? That's what's so foolish about her intentions. She's weakening the opposition to the real problem, the REPUBLICANS. She's ignoring where the blockade to investigating and removing Bush/Cheney, the REPUBLICANS.
I'm very sorry for what happened to her son. I was against this war long before it got started, and I believe her son did not die for any noble cause. He died for Bush hubris and Cheney incompetence, nothing more. It was all stoked by Republicans who pushed through these things. Does she REALLY think that democrats would have initiated this crap, or the war? I don't think so, so why go after the people who didn't/wouldn't initiate this useless death? It's not reasonable, and is just to sickeningly reminiscent of the Nader run for president that brought on this national nightmare.
--Ron -- lemecdutex
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Odd Walsh
Walsh's opinion is odd considering many Salon articles pander to the same sort of dangerously self destructive tenancies and the worst form of unintelligent populism. I'm not the slightest bit surprised by Sheehan's latest act of foolishness. It's magazines like Salon that encourage such foolishness on a daily basis.
Salon panders to that audience and encourages passion from ignorance like Sheehan, and then to act out politically in often self destructive and idiotic ways. Salon has featured Sheehan positively many times.
Sheehan has always been rather sloppy with facts and kinda crazy making borderline delusional comments to the media, easy to criticize, and prone to hurting more than helping an important cause. She's never been a good symbol for the anti-war movement to embrace.
Daily Kos readers tend to love Sheehan, and refuse to fact check her or otherwise question whether she's a good icon for the left. Mainly such people seem to love that she's brash, full of angst, and totally "fighting the man."
Salon features many writers operating on that level, with a few notable exceptions. Greenwald always supplies copious data for his opinions and makes corrections where necessary, but such contributors are rare at Salon. [...]
hermanito...
good of you to expostulate at such length. you have the gift...
i'm better at aphorism. if i'd have gone up for tenure in the age of Ovid, I mighta made it.
Cindy Sheehan reminds me of no one so much as shirley chisolm, who should have been both our first black president and our first woman president.
I say go Cindy Go!
We have sone the same strategic move against entrenched state legis - real threats of primaries against anyone who refuses to buck the DEM party stranglehold on open government. If the DEM reps do not vote to open the legis to FOIA etc (several bills pending) then they will get a fight on the homefront.
SHeehan is doing what has to be done to get that message to DEM leadership. Even if they do not have all of the votes they need now, we need to see them take a stand, present themselves as a body that is not caving, not backing down.
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