THINKING FOR OURSELVES

We Cannot Be Silent

By Shea Howell

Michigan Citizen, Nov. 25-Dec. 1, 2007

Cindy Sheehan spoke last Sunday at the Cranbrook Peace Foundation’s 20th annual lecture. Her speech, “We Cannot be Silent” described her journey from a busy working mother of four to a forceful leader for peace.

Sheehan said she had always been opposed to the war but had never spoken out against it.

“I was busy,” she said. “I was so busy protecting the borders of my family that I wasn’t concerned about other people’s children. Now I can’t help thinking that if I had paid more attention to all the children of the world, my son, Casey, might be alive today.”

After her son was killed in Iraq, she said , she was only sitting on the couch in shock and pain and all the emotions you go through. One day her daughter, Carly, asked if she wanted to hear a poem she had written. Sheehan, who has probably read this poem aloud to hundreds of audiences over these past few years, still spoke with raw emotion as she read the lines, “Have you ever heard the sound of a mother screaming for her son? The torrential rains of a mother’s weeping will never be done.” The poem ends with its title, calling us “a nation rocked to sleep” where our “leaders want to keep you numb.”

Sheehan said it was Carly’s poem “that saved my life and gave me something to live for.”

Sheehan said “I’ve paid dearly for my silence, but my son Casey paid more. And we cannot be silent, because when America is sick, the rest of the world suffers.”

That is why Cindy Sheehan called for the impeachment of George Bush. She did this acknowledging her friendship with Congressman John Conyers, who had introduced her. She did this, quoting from Conyer’s own book, “Constitution in Crisis,” and she did it in love, urging Representative Conyers to move forward on impeachment. Her call was greeted with applause, sighs and cheers from the audience.

The next day Sheehan wrote about the interchange and said, “I must give the Congressman a lot of credit for always showing up at events where he knows he is going to be harassed about impeachment. He gave me a nice introduction, reading part of my testimony in Congress regarding the Downing Street Minutes … calling me the ‘mother of the modern peace movement.’ His commitment to our country is decades long: from being a veteran of the military and civil rights campaigns to serving in Congress for over 40 years. … He has been correct on so many issues that progressives hold dear, and that’s why it is so puzzling to me and so many others in the progressive community why he will not institute impeachment proceedings for the criminals who are only getting worse, not better, since Conyers wrote the book on impeachment.”

Sheehan said “We are collecting handwritten letters to Speaker Pelosi to deliver to her office demanding that the Resolution (H Res 799) introduced by Rep. Dennis Kucinich to impeach the cruel and callous…Dick Cheney, be given the attention and resources that are needed to go forward with an indictment.”

Sheehan concluded, “We need to leave the young people of the world with hope that rule of law will be restored in the U.S. and that future presidents will know that their hands are at least restrained by two co-equal branches when it comes to invading countries contrary to international law, U.S. law, and basic human dignity.”

Letters can be mailed to Sheehan at Gold Star Families for Peace, PO Box 1672, Bellflower Ca. 90707.

We should all speak out now.

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