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| <back | home Celebrating Cindy Sheehan while Looking Beyond... by Bob Banner Perhaps it is an American thing to become galvanized by heroic actions; we love our celebrities. We love our Gandhis and Martin Luther Kings and the slain Kennedy brothers as well as the Mother Theresas of the world and the Rosa Parks who ignited an entire movement. Some of our admiration for celebrities is meaningful, but much of it has become co-opted, leaving the message impotent, its power borrowed by a counterfeit, as in advertising a product of some sort or another. And we also forget who the manufacturers of our celebrities are — the media. We must not forget who they don’t celebrate: the Malcolm Xs, Rachel Corries, Judi Baris, Dorothy Days, Grandma Ds, and the daily workers that keep our fragile system afloat. So what is at the core when a huge populace gets excited over people and events like Michael Moore’s latest film, Ralph Nader’s first run for president, Woodstock, Burning Man or City Repair? Is it some profound hope that emerges once again in utter simplicity and touches the delicate and precious chord, “Another world is possible”? Yet it always seems to be temporary. Heroes sell out. We knock them down from the pedestals we so diligently and quickly construct. Will this be the fate of the current spokeswoman Cindy Sheehan? We are now galvanized, almost as a nation, listening to her words, feeling her outrage (1). Hollywood couldn’t have come up with a better plot: mother mourning over her murdered son, camping out along the road to the president’s vacation home to get the attention that is vital. It fits. She fits. It’s more than staged. It’s much more than manipulated drama for the masses. She is going to the core of the issue, asking only to talk with the president, with the politician who has lied throughout his career, who has maintained empire at all costs. She is not only bringing attention to the lies but our complacency as well. She urges us to question our own complicity, our own apathy.(1) She also invigorates our anger at an administration that has run amok in its determination to keep the lie alive. Our attention spans are short. Hope runs thin. But the spark has been rekindled once again, and we will support her. We have lives, very busy lives. Perhaps our culture’s gone crazy, keeping us so blindly busy we can no longer perceive our true purpose, let alone our true natures. But that’s another story.... We may not be able personally to stop everything and perform some meaningful act that can gain the media’s desperate need for “sensational” news. But we can support Cindy, keep her in our thoughts, talk to friends about her and be amazed at people who have not yet heard of her mission, a simple request that could have a profound effect on this nation. Perhaps it is human nature to be galvanized into action by oppressed, mournful, grieving people and their dire situations. Our hearts go out to them. And we rely on the media to give us the truth about what is happening in our world, and when it’s not doing that, we need to resort to other forms of media. (2) We also love solutions, the ones that go deep into the problems so we can actually see a light at the end of the tunnel. Wouldn’t it be great if Cindy single-handedly re-creates the peace movement that could oust the Bush administration, and send them off to the International Criminal Court where justice prevails?(3) The hidden story of the politician’s lies would once again be told, and the people would wake up and be united, not out of fear (as in 9-11) but out of a vision and a yearning for honest politicians who are freely passionate about Service to neighborhood, city, state and nation. But if all that happened, we would still be faced with the myriad problems this Bush debacle has veiled: global warming, genetic modification of our foods, soil depletion, outsourcing of jobs, and dependence on foreign oil, which, of all the worst nightmares, has tied us to war. Not only that, but the fact that we have reached Peak Oil means we need to have a Manhattan-like project focusing on alternative energies. And we need to buy the time necessary for its development by slowing down our consumption of no-longer-cheap oil. Even the chairman of Shell (Lord Ron Oxburgh) has stated boldly, “The boat is sinking, and we have to use every [technology] we possibly can.” According to many analysts of Peak Oil (3), we are in for a huge transformation, and we are not prepared for it. We are not even having conversations about it! Whether we want to or not, we will have to go back to our basic needs of food, water, shelter, transportation and energy. We are not prepared, especially since the combination of cheap oil and the evolution of Globalization have taken us farther and farther away from satisfying our basic needs, especially in a sustainable way. Hopefully the momentum of Cindy Sheehan’s message will ignite a mournful and angry America to truly take back America. If and when that happens (which would be cause for perpetual celebration, partying in the streets for weeks on end...), it will only be a beginning. To go back to basics in a culture now defined by its entertainment industry and the ability to distract ourselves beyond funny, we will have a long road. But with Cindy’s victory in our bodies and minds and spirits, we will be able to take on anything. Go Cindy! Notes 1.”I got an email the other day and it said, ‘Cindy, if you didn’t use so much profanity ... there’s people on the fence that get offended.’ And you know what I said? ‘You know what? You know what, god-damn-it? How, in the world is anybody still sitting on that fence? ‘If you fall on the side that is pro-George, and pro-war, you get your ass over to Iraq, and take the place of somebody who wants to come home. And if you fall on the side that is against this war and against George Bush, stand up and speak out. But whatever side you fall on, quit being on the fence.’” — Cindy Sheehan in her address to the Veterans for Peace Convention 2. “Thank God for the Internet. Without it, we’d already be a fascist state because one party controls everything, and the mainstream media is the propaganda tool of the government.” — Cindy Sheehan, as quoted by MSNBC 3. Unfortunately the US is not a member of this international body. 4. ASPO... www.aspo.org; Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas. Go to www.hopedance.org for a Peak Oil Primer (with resource material of films, books and websites). Bob Banner is publisher of HopeDance. He can be reached at info@hopedance.org. See page 24 of the print issue for a full page about Cindy. <back | top^ |