Mamamontezz's Mental Rumpus Room

Pathos and Anger on Sheehanville.

Let me preface this with a warning that this piece will be rambling and difficult to follow, as I have watched this nonsense without comment since my original post on Cindy Sheehan. I wanted to keep away from this, to not give her and her little group and their tactics any space here. I cannot, however, sit back any longer and hold my tongue on a few of the aspects of their protest that I have found to be the most offensive and reprehensible.

Unless you've been under a stone or in an altered state of consciousness for the past several days, you are very aware of the pathetic and self-serving vigil being held in Crawford, Texas. Designer sackcloth and organic, biodegradable ashes are being displayed conspicuously by a woman and her ever increasing and politically powerful entourage under the guise of wanting a meeting with the President. All she wants is to ask why he personally orchestrated the deaths of all of the innocent children duped into military service by evil, lying recruiters to be fodder in an unjust war for the benefit of Big Oil.

Day by day, these enlightened, sensitive, and morally superior individuals trample the weeds in a ditch outside the gates of the ranch and make a very public display of prayer and grief. Part of this display is a small "pseudo-Arlington" of white crosses. On each of these crosses is the name of a man or woman child, military fatalities all, the sons and daughters of grieving mothers and fathers.

Their Children™. These parents and their handlers, prostrate in the Texas dust, keening and vocalizing their grief and indignation, wailing and gnashing their teeth over the selfless sacrifices needless deaths of their brave soldiers, airmen, sailors, coasties, and marines innocent children for as long as the microwave dishes stand and the television trucks remain parked nearby.

The crosses in their little piece of performance art are intended to be a display of angry protest and shame against the war in Iraq by parents who have lost their Children™ to this country's fight to bring democracy to an enslaved nation, and to secure a beach head against known terrorist groups in an area known by the world to be a breeding ground for such groups and the individuals which populate them.

These fallen ones were not children, and to be personified as such by these and others of their ilk is a grievous insult to them and to their families. It discounts their service to this country and to the world, and it trivializes their deaths. They were adults who made an adult decision to join the armed service of this country, regardless of the underlying reason, knowing fully that any who enlist can at any time be sent into a war zone or placed in harm's way in any of a thousand different ways.

These brave young men and women gave all, often to save their comrades in arms from the same fate, and did so because that is what soldiers do. They are gone forever from friend and family, their sacrifices barely makeing the faintest of blips on the Mass Media Radar unless they can be used to serve their anti-war agenda.

And now their names are being used, perhaps in a manner that they would find as disgusting and repugnant as I do. Many are the names on the little white crosses alongside that back road. Many are the parents all over this country who currently may not even be aware that their own son's or daughter's name has been usurped by the protesting anti-war crowd, which has gone from a few supporters of a single obsessive mother to a well organized media machine. One has to wonder how many of these parents would be enraged to find that the sacrifice made by their son or daughter or husband or wife was being used in such a manner.

I know that at least one father has gone to Sheehanville to remove his son's cross from this display, only to see it replaced against his wishes. A mother has also demanded the name of her son be removed from the protest. How many other parents would do the same if they knew their grief and sacrifice were being hijacked for bad theater? I have wondered several times if they have even posted a list of the names being used, the memories being violated on these crosses, to give the mothers and the fathers, the husbands and the wives, the sons and the daughters an opportunity to stand up and tell them "No, I will not be a part of this."

Posted by Mamamontezz at August 22, 2005 09:59 PM | TrackBack