Is a dream a dream a lie
If it don't come true
Or is it something worse?
-- "The River" words & music by Bruce Springsteen
We had a few e-mails come in Friday with people expressing disappointment that Cindy Sheehan had left Camp Casey in Crawford, Texas. Did it mean the whole thing was over?
For the record, Cindy Sheehan left Camp Casey due to the fact that her seventy-four year-old mother had a stroke. If she's able to return, she plans to.
What she did was get an important issue into the national dialogue. She also stood up to the Bully Boy and his attack goons. The brave stance she held is both an inspiration and an example.
This isn't the end of the dialogue, whether she's able to return to Camp Casey or not.
For the first time, America was forced to look at a face that suffered from the consequences of the Bully Boy's actions. With Donald Rumsfeld and others screaming, "Don't show those pictures! Don't show those pictures!" for some time now, we'd divorced ourselves from the realities of our actions.
And with a non-accountable administration, it was easy to sit back on that sofa and flip to something else, to act as though we weren't fighting in one country, let alone two (officially).
"More death in Iraq . . . Hey, The Simpson's rerun is on the other channel, wanna' watch?"
While some reporters treated the invasion/occupation of Iraq as a video game, we were able to treat it, as a nation, as just another TV show and we could, and did, switch channels whenever anything got to uncomfortable.
Cindy Sheehan reminded the nation that it's not a TV show. She broke through Operation Happy Talk and resonated.
She got people talking and so did you. You passed on word about to her to your family, your friends, your co-workers, strangers even. You wrote letters to the editor, you demanded media coverage. Sheehan has called herself a spark and a fire was lit across the country. People who had never spoken out started talking.
For months, the official "debate" has been one over tactics. Even when polls indicated that America wanted the troops home now, the politicians, pundits and press refused to address the idea (unless it was to slap it down and ridicule it). Thanks to Cindy Sheehan we're now discussing the invasion/occupation. We're weighing in and offering our opinions to the people around us.
That's what democracy is about, participation. Democracy requires more than showing up at the voting booth. It requires stepping up and participating. The Bully Boy is not king. He does not rule by royal decree. He is a servent of the people and somewhere along the way, he wasn't the only one who forgot it, a lot of citizens did as well.
They shut down discussion and debate. Then one woman stood up and said enough. She asked for accountability. Something we should demand from our elected officials.
That's not going away.
She is a spark and there will be more.
While the media finally provided a spotlight to the discussion, it doesn't end with Cindy Sheehan.
She's been compared by some to Rosa Parks. The civil rights battle didn't end with Rosa Parks.
One person stands up and provides an example. It's up to us to follow that example.
So to the ones who worry that the issue will now go away, it won't. And you need to do your part to make sure it doesn't.
The military is drawing up plans for continued occupation through 2009. That can happen, if we let it happen. But we can also start to reclaim our power and demand that our government be accountable and responsible.
Cindy Sheehan stood up when the chattering class wouldn't and she earns our applause. But we're not an audience that came to see a show. We're citizens in what is supposed to be one of the best democracies in the world. Let's start demanding that it is that.
The occupation can go on for many years to come if we sit around and stay silent waiting for someone else to come along and speak out and hoping that -- pretty please, maybe -- some of our elected officials who can make the Chat & Chew circuit will speak out as well.
Or we can realize that this nation is ruled by the people, for the people and by the people. We can reclaim our power and make our voices heard. You have a say in how this country is run. Your voice is no more important than the Bully Boy's and his voice is no more important than your own -- provided you stop waiting for "them" to figure out what we should do. We. Not "them."
Cindy Sheehan inspires us with her bravery, true. But the act itself was about demanding accountability and remembering that each of us is a part of this country. We have power if we use it.