The shameless opportunist exploiting Casey is his own mother, Cindy Sheehan.
One of the oddest accusations to come out of the Sheehan phenomenon is that this mother is “exploiting” her son’s death and her own grief. I’ve thought about this for a couple of days, and the illogic of this argument is not settling down. In fact, it’s becoming more crazy-making the more I think about it.
The logic (if you can call it that) in this “exploitation” argument is thus: If a tragedy befalls an individual and the individual decides to devote every action of her being to ensuring no other human being suffers this same tragedy, she’s … exploiting? Huh?
By this analysis, Christopher Reeves was “exploiting” his injury by advocating for cures for spinal injuries. MADD members are “exploiting” the deaths of their children by pushing for stronger punishments and deterrents of drunk drivers. The Susan G. Komen Foundation is “exploiting” a sister’s death by raising money for breast cancer research through its highly successful Race for the Cure series. And so on. You get the drift.
Conversely, it’s always represented to me the height of maturity and courage to be able to take a private grief and turn it into something public, something bigger, something more heroic and true than a personal, massive sorrow. I know that I simply will not be able to survive the death of one of my children in any sort of shape that will allow me to become a spokesperson for a cause, no matter how righteous that cause is. As it is, I have trouble sustaining discipline and energy for something as straightforward as blogging a couple of times a week. If one of my kids goes, I assure you that I will crawl into a corner of the universe and emotionally die. You will not hear from me again; I know this well because for 16 years I’ve had a child living on the edge of this life-death deal with a congenital heart defect and numerous (mostly unsuccessful) surgical interventions. Sorry, I’ve looked into my soul and I cower in the dark of night. You won’t find me as a poster woman for the American Heart Association any time soon. Just breathing will be considered a victory.
How many of us, if faced with the death of a child, would be able to muster the courage, grace and energy to make public appearances on behalf of other people’s children? And how many of us could do so while being demonized relentlessly and our private lives examined in detail? Sheehan’s words and acts are never going to bring her son back. She knows that. This is by no means a silly woman.
But my God, she’s a heroic one. As surely every thinking parent on this planet knows, deep in their hearts.
Your Reeve and Madd and breast cancer analogies are perfect. Exactly right.
I have many amazing friends who lost children to gun deaths, and then dedicated their lives to preventing such senseless loss in other families.
All of them are exposed to criticism similiar to that lodged against Cindy Sheehan. It’s truly obscene.
Susan G, so good to see ya here on booman and I applaud your statement 150% and more. Hugs for your own struggle.
when I cross post, so I rarely do it.
But this issue of exploitation just really hit home with me and I wanted to blab far and wide about it.
Hugs back at ya. We all need to be here for each other, eh?
is to only post here and at EuroTrib 🙂
Ha! Anyway, thanks for posting here. Do you have your EPluribus url finalized yet? If so, I’ll add it to the blogroll.
It even feels like cheating to me to post the same thing here and at Eurotrib (I’m such a Girl Scout, I swear).
Here’s the URL for the epluribus community site (scoop, diaries, the whole usual liberal shebang):
http://scoop.epluribusmedia.org/
Our presentation page, which is where we’ll ultimately put the final stories with nifty graphics and photos and stuff like that, isn’t ready yet — should be within the next few weeks.
Thanks so much for your support. Come visit when you get a spare minute. (Ha!)
I agree, Booman. Come on over and say hey. Love to have your stuff show up over there as well.
You and SusanHu have done some serious word-knocking. Well done.
I hope you won’t feel that way anymore, Susan.
And if it’s any help, here’s my shameless cross-post of the comment I made in your dKos diary –
I see a simple explanation for Cindy’s actions (4.00 / 2)
And it’s based on the life and work of Viktor Frankl.
Viktor died in 1997. He was a psychiatrist and neurologist who founded logotherapy and existential analysis, which has come to be known as the “third Viennese school of psychotherapy” (after Freud’s psychoanalysis and Adler’s individual psychology).
That pretty much says it for me. You can find out more about Frankl here.
As for the motivations of those who would judge or smear Cindy Sheehan, I think they fall under the general category of negative coping, which describes phenomema like denial and cognitive dissonance.
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I read this description by someone of Cindy Sheehan somewhere — can’t remember, having been reading so much about the Camp Casey Movement lately — that she is acting as a “ventriloquist for the dead.“
To the effect that her son made his choice to join the Army as an adult, therefore died as an adult — get the fallacy? Like dying was his choice! And those two events somehow constitute Sean Casey’s “own free speech” about himself. Anything his mom might say about his life and death is condemned as “puppet mastery.”
Kinda makes the human son of Cindy one-dimensional. Guess the person making those characterizations is a Flatlander.
Is it possible that people like that could all die of a single-celled brain aneurysm? Make it so.
Weird.
When we said Bush was exploiting the dead of 9/11 he failed to protect, they called us unpatriotic.
So its explotation if you’re related, but not exploitation if you’re unrelated and/or fail to act, then capitalize on it politically… huh?
Or is it that only mothers of persistent vegetative daughters (Schiavo) are loving mothers, but mothers of dead soldiers…
Hey Hey, that guy in the WH exploits RELIGION.
😉
We need to continually remind ourselves and others of the real human toll this war has brought. And we all know that loosing a child would be the most unbearable loss of all. I actually think this is why the wingers are so scared of Cindy and are working so hard to try and discredit her. They know that she is bringing the reality of this pain to everyone who hears her. And when we all hear it – we will say “NO MORE!”
And I agree that Cindy and all of the other family members of those who died in Iraq (our own Democratic State Senator Becky Lowry, who lost her son over there, has joined Cindy) are absolutely heroic for being able to speak and carry the burden of helping us all face the reality,
All I can say to this above what you all have said is dignity where has it gone??!!! well maybe accountibility, too…well, liars…well, warmongers..Oh hell, I can go on and on..Cindy needs our support and we will give it freely no matter what the right wing says….They do not tell me what to do and where to go and what to do…plain and simple!!!!!!
I wish I could hug you for your diary. Your analogy was spot on!!!!!
I have taken some crises in my life and publicly used them to make changes. Mostly regarding special education matters as well as dental care for the disabled. never felt like I was exploiting either.
Someone in a circle of friends really pissed me off and I felt she and her “supporters” needed to hear part of your analogy. I credited “Susan G”.
You see. Of course we all know that Bush and his supporters never represented LOGIC. And we all know of the “mothers” who griped, moaned, whined that their spouses had to pay child support for a child, celebrated the day that child turned 18, denied them help to enter college… but now are exploiting the fact “their” child is in the military fighting for a higher cause. And now they complain about Mothers who want peace. She now signs her chat name as “a proud USMC Mother”. For years she bitches about the “bastard son” and how “daret he think they’ll help him with college”… She’s one of those devout religious folks who would get offended if I brought up John Lennon’s name because he was hippie and druggie…
Did I mention she used so many presription drugs??? She’d run to the doctor for razor burn. I kid you not. Someone wrote a diary about the Church Ladies and it, nailed her and some others who chatted – an old hockey room I used to go to till after this “selection”.
Or the “mothers” who feel their own child is too young to be touched by this Oil War. Their child might never set foot in the Middle East, true. But the cost and the loss of the USA’s dignity, integrity touches us all. Especially our children who will have to pay and clean up this mess. Their apapthy exploits those that are there.
Till Cindy Sheehan quits marching and waiting – it’s Mothers Day.
I think one of the reasons I empathize with Cindy Sheehan so much is we seem to have some similar life circumstances. We’re almost the same age, we both have (had in her case) four children, etc. I also have a son — my oldest — who joined the Navy and was in the gulf in the period between the two gulf wars, and I woke up worried every day that hostilities would break out over there.
I think she’s touched a lot of people with her dignity, her bravery and her simplicity.
When my son was first diagnosed, I was dove into advocacy for special education and that winded up me having news vans out front before I woke up. We stumbled into a beeshive, long story short.
It almost ruined my marriage. We’re still healing from that time that took so much. Plus I felt that so many expected me to fix all their problems. I almost fell apart. The time, the energy, and your soul…
But I continued on and there were massive changes made. I’d never take that back… except I would insist my spouse would seek some help and maybe assist me during it. I took it all on myself.
I wasn’t exploiting my son’s problems in school.. I was pointing out the wrongs in a few schools and agencies and how families were being hurt by them.
This is why I love love love Mike Thompson and his staff. They were able to have a state senate investigation… Of course I had to get caller ID and such due to the threatening calls and assholes writing about me in the local rag.
Plus… I now know that stock footage is just that – stock footage LOL. I saw myself on tv being “Interviewed” by people I had never met. It’s all media magic folks. And it’s easier to be misquoted… Oh gawd is it.
I have the gift of being able to… “channel” something that touches some when I’m being interviwed. Most mothers were severely misquoted. I allowed my son to be videotaped, going to the little bus, coming home from school.. not to exploit, but to wake others up.
It cost me much… but it was worth it.
I think this is ONE reason I love Cindy and I was touched by what you wrote.
Thank you!
Burned the candle at both ends, but still trying to shine brightly.
something like the Whispering Campaign. 🙂
Why do people go on TV “talk” shows where they know they are going to be humiliated? This society lives on television attention—and unfortunately that’s a fact. People who get known by being on TV often reap financial rewards, and people who don’t, don’t.
Some of us don’t want to face this, but people out there know this. So getting on TV, getting known is the goal of just about everyone, especially those who aren’t particularly fulfilled by what they’re doing or what they’re getting in their lives.
So why do people make this charge against Cindy Sheehan? ENVY. There are several layers of complication around that, including being motivated by political position, the idea that grieving spouses and parents should grieve in dignified silence and solitude, projection, etc. But I see that as the bottom line: ENVY. If these folks could get on TV they would. And apparently some of them are—by criticizing somebody else for getting on TV.
Last week, on my first post here, I stirred up a hornet’s nest with my take on the exploitation issue. Because no one knew me, there was a misunderstanding about my ironic remarks. But now, as we all have been bathed in the hopeful light of the candles carried last night that were ignited by the spark of a mother in Texas, I am emboldened to once again address the hypocrisy of those who viciously attack Cindy Sheehan.
I hold grudges. It’s not a particularly attractive trait, I admit it. Grudges build when grievance after grievance pile up. Well, the neocons have been giving us slap after slap after grievance after grievance. As the blood drips from their hands and their mouths, they burp and then kick Cindy Sheehan in her broken heart. To them, the punks that got us into this calamitous debacle, I ask,
What of the exploitation of poor dead football playin’, looks good in a uniform, Pat Tillman???
What of the mythologizing of poor little Jessica Lynch’s service?
I have posted this message on other sites. I want everyone to have a ready answer when some chucklehead starts in with Cindy vilification.
How did you, Bill O’Reilly, cover these stories? (Lord, I want to start swearing, keep it together, stinkeye) And you, Rush Limbaugh, how worshipful were you? Ann Coulter, surely you must have thanked God that these innocents were served up to you so you could spit them back at your fans? Michelle Malkin, how many trees died to print your hackneyed diatribes on how glorious sacrifice and wonderfully necessary death is? I’m pretty sure that Sean Hannity got tumescent night after sordid night while feasting on the red white and blue grief of others.
You get my point. I hold grudges.
`
Very true, Stinkeye! I remember how he was exploited by the media and the Bush Supporters…
Up untill he was killed by his own and his parents were lied to and they demanded (gasp) the truth. Now his parents are just as vilified by the cowardly nation known as Bush Country.
They exploit and are hypocrites.
re: Hornet’s Nest.
We all kissed and made up and there were intimations that we would all live happily ever after.
`
If Cindy wanted to exploit the death of her son, it would be much more profitable for her to support Bush and his policies.
She would have a Linda Tripp/Paula Jones makeover by now and be all over TV. She might soon have the commentator job on Fox News that Jeanine Pirro has probably flubbed. She could expect to have a book coming out soon, written by an expensive ghostwriter. A well publicized lecture tour would be in the works. She would soon be so rich she could afford to lose millions in casinos.
There would still be charges of exploitation, but these charges would be bike horn squeeks compared to the foghorns blasts we’re hearing now.
I was afraid when Cindy started this that she would be exploited politically ensuring her even more undeserved pain…and now, her Mother. It seems every day I shed tears for Cindy. She unlocks my own pain at losing a son. I can tell everyone that if I had been given a choice, I would have given him any body part he needed to stay alive..heart, lungs, brain, kidneys…whatever..take it! I even struggled with that feeling/thought for the 4 years it took me before I started to feel like a real person again. Would that have been selfish…I have other children too; was I trying to avoid the pain of his loss or do I really value life over whatever is next? We get few answers to questions like that in life. But there is no question that Cindy is a hero and an extremely strong woman. I think she’s right about the war, right about Bush, right about the way she is handling it, and she has my total support.