Terribly Troubled and Deeply Saddened

Like most Americans, I've heard of Cindy Sheehan. Her fame, if you will; is the result of her exercising her right to free speech regarding the death of her son. I have been very adamantly opposed to the war in Iraq since before it was engineered in Washington. I, like most Americans had continued my awareness of current events regarding the tragedy of 9/11, but I, unlike most Americans, never saw the connection between Iraq and 9/11. The ongoing blather that alQaida is now there, is absolutely increasingly irrelevant to the pre-emptive decision. When I first saw Cindy Sheehan, I thought, 'devastated bereaved mother.' As I read about her land purchase in Crawford, Texas; I thought 'angry bereaved mother.' I kept a distant interest in what she was attempting to do. As a bereaved mother, myself; my heart went out to her, but my son didn't die in a war, so I wouldn't begin to assert presumption regarding her emotions. I felt a great deal of compassion for her, but I felt that her effort to gain political change was pointless. The politicians, all of them, think they have too much to lose to listen to the American citizens. The politicians have taken it upon themselves to ensure their best interests and their power and it truly is that simple. I found the politicians' and the pundits' responses to her, and comments about her to be cruel and heartless, but that is my presumption. To them, her son was simply one of many soldiers called upon to carry out their orders, with or without purpose or goal. But when I read Tuesday that she was going home and giving up on our country, my heart was terribly troubled and deeply saddened, because it hit a chord in me that cannot be undone. I cannot return to the moment before I read it. In her letter, she stated that she had let her son down, and that hit home with me. It was as if, this war funding issue had just opened her eyes to what this country has truly become. I had a preview, I was blessed, yet I still didn't realize the vastness of the deterioration and the willing eagerness for it, by our predecessors. I have been aware for some time that those with power do not appreciate or intend to entertain the opinions of those without power. My mom used to tell me, in the 60's that things had changed and I just couldn't do all the things she had done when she was a kid. I knew in my heart one of two things, that she didn't want me to have the freedom she had had or the country had already declined then. In retrospect, I would say it was both, and she's a staunch republican. Everytime I hear our President start on his scare tactics, I think of mom. I grew up, started my own life and realized the country had in fact declined, but it wasn't nearly as frightening as I had been led to believe. I, like most boomers, thought we could make a difference or retained my idealistic view that it just couldn't have become so horrible from within. If we worked hard and voted we'd live the American dream. Or if we protested and organized, we could change the course of the nation. Cindy's statement made me realize many more things about the right or left American mantra, I'd been taught to embrace. In regard to the American dream, you have to be asleep to dream. About the protesting and organizing, the illegal immigrants are now filling the shoes of the union workers that were all but eliminated through the Reagan and Bush I years, and the country simply no longer manufactures or produces. Cindy's words made me realize that I raised my daughter on some pretty faulty information. I taught my daughter that to vote is a responsibility not just a right, politically active citizens maintain an accountable government, the love of freedom preserves it, and a country that has a Bill of Rights protects it's citizens, I have let her down, because I taught her that country was America.

and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; Ecclesiastes - Holy Scripture