“Since the Dems took control of the House in 2007, the antiwar movement has been pitiful.”
AG: Cindy Sheehan, I understand that you’ve started organizing a Women’s March on the Pentagon. Why?
CS: Yes, Ann, thank you. I’m beginning to organize a Women’s March on the Pentagon because since 2007, when Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats regained a majority in the House of Representatives, there has been an incomprehensible absence of protesting the USA’s wars and empire. After Obama took over as president, the antiwar movement all but died. Now we have these huge Women’s Marches, climate marches, and so forth, but many of us think that one cannot separate the global emancipation of women, or the destruction of our planet from the issue of war. I feel that instead of beating our heads against a wall to call on these liberal marches to address the issue, we should do what we can to do so ourselves.
AG: Have you set a date yet?
CS: We haven’t set a date yet, but there are some significant dates coming up. October 7 will be the anniversary of the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and the Afghanistan War is now the longest running war in U.S. history.
Also, October 21 will be the 51st anniversary of the March on the Pentagon to Confront the War Makers organized by the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam .
AG: And what will you do if Rachel Maddow and the rest of the corporate media start shrieking that only Kremlin tools would organize a March on the Pentagon?
“The Women’s March on the Pentagon will not be a Get-Out-the-Vote Rally for the Democrat half of the war party.”
CS: Well, considering that Rachel Maddow and the rest of the corporate media are tools of the Pentagon, I wouldn’t be surprised if they did start shrieking about “Kremlin tools” organizing a march on the Pentagon. Of course these days everything’s Russia’s fault, and I’m sure that the midterm elections in November of this year will create a lot of liberal push back against this march on the Pentagon. Unlike the previous Climate Marches and Women’s Marches, the Women’s March on the Pentagon will not be a Get-Out-the-Vote Rally for the Democrat half of the war party. But we really need to highlight that war and peace is not a liberal or conservative issue; it’s a survival issue. And of course we have to be ready for the slings and arrows of people like Rachel Maddow and the corporate media because that’s the way it always is, but the more attention we get for our cause the better.
AG: In the current environment, with Twitter, Facebook, and the Youtube all submitting to governmental pressure to curtail dissent and promote Russophobia, do you have a backup social media plan?
CS: Since we are just starting to organize it, I think people should keep on checking Facebook for the Women’s March on the Pentagon. Of course Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox will have information. We’ll probably put a website together. But to circumvent this Twitter, Facebook, Youtube collaboration with the federal government, we have to go back to organizing the old-fashioned way, including e-mail. And when I call e-mail old-fashioned, that shows how far we’ve come, but over 100,000 people got to the March on the Pentagon to Confront the War Makers in 1967, and more than 500,000 people got to the Vietnam Moratorium March on Washington in 1969 without social media. The organizers used face-to-face contact. They handed out flyers, went to events and called friends and family to promote it.
And we will use social media. There are some new ones coming out that are thus far more free of government censorship.
“To circumvent the Twitter, Facebook, Youtube collaboration with the federal government, we have to go back to organizing the old-fashioned way, including e-mail.”
AG: Will you be suggesting that marchers wear their pink pussy hats or do you have another insignia in mind?
CS: Ha! I think people should wear whatever color, or kind of hat they like. I prefer my hats to be more the style of Commandante Fidel or Ché, myself. Seriously though, I was told by one of the people close to the Women’s March that the issue of war would NEVER be addressed as long as women aren’t free. She was of course talking about only white American women, apparently, because the war at home and the wars abroad kill or oppress thousands of women and their families every year. No woman can be “free” if any woman is oppressed by the US Empire, anywhere in the world. True solidarity means solidarity with ALL women.
The pink pussy hat is also a symbol of anti-Trump sentiment. I think most of us agree that it’s proper to be anti-Trump, but the Women’s March on the Pentagon will recognize that the issue of war and peace is, unfortunately, non-partisan.
AG: I’ve heard rumblings about a Men’s Counter March with big dick hats to support the Pentagon. Will you be conducting nonviolent resistance training to prepare for that?
CS: Yes. Ever since my son Casey was killed in Iraq on April 04, 2004, there have been counter protests at our antiwar events, and even though no one wore a “big dick hat,” they may as well have. Isn’t war the ultimate expression of “my dick is bigger than yours?”
“The war at home and the wars abroad kill or oppress thousands of women and their families every year.”
AG: Today there are reports that a total of 4.2 million people may have attended the Women’s Marches in 60 different cities last Saturday. Most of their focus has been on electoral politics, pro Democrat and anti-Trump. Big donors have given hundreds of millions of dollars to support the march and the staffing and operations of various participating organizations since Trump was elected. A march that challenges the war machine couldn’t hope to raise a fraction of that much funding, so what would you consider a success?
CS: Like I said above, since the Dems took control of the House in 2007, the antiwar movement has been pitiful. The numbers have dwindled from millions on the eve of the destruction of Iraq in 2003, to dozens, or hundreds now (if we are lucky). I have stopped measuring success by numbers. So, the Women’s March turned out 4.5 million people? What systemic change will occur? We know that NO systemic change will occur as a consequence of re-electing Democratic Party majorities.
I would love to see 5000 people at a Women’s March on the Pentagon, but who knows? Success for me would also be a cross-section of demographics in attendance. The one thing we can never forget is, “Trump’s finger is on the nuclear trigger.”
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Terrific and desperately needed. More power to Sheehan and her group. I will be marching.
Electing Democrats as a solution to a system of which they are prime pillars is the act of imbeciles. But this culture produces tons of them, every day, and most remain stupid for life.
Bravo for Sheehan and her courage ! No more ‘radical’ bullies and no more lateral hostility amongst comrades !
TERFS are radical bullies. I won’t march with bigots.
What are “TERFS”?
D.G.
Again, spurious hostility…
Emma Goldman:
Someone has said that it requires less mental effort to condemn than to think. The widespread mental indolence, so prevalent in society, proves this to be only too true. Rather than to go to the bottom of any given idea, to examine its origin and meaning, most people will either condemn it altogether, or rely on some superficial or prejudicial definition of its non-essentials
But indeed there is one thing I totally agree with Gee on and that is her refusal to share any experience with TERFS.
What are TERFS and should I care? #powertothepeople
Terfs are trans-exclusionary radical feminists who want to exclude trans-women from any/all female places, groups and gatherings. Trans-women are no more threat to my gender than gays are to my marriage. Its bigotry, pure and simple.
The damage done by Rachel Maddow to the authentic cause of prohressive politics in America, and much f the anglophone world, is substantial, especially since she commands te automatic allegiance of many LGBT people who, in their good faith, assume she is honest and a true representative of worthy causes an positions and not a shill for the filthiest and most criminal —and hypocritcal—empire the world has seen. If a nuclear war ever develops between the US-bloc, the “anglozionists”, and rival nuclear powers like Russia or China or both, the blood of billions will be on the ledger of presstitutes… Read more »
Personally, I would not march with any trans-exclusionary radical feminists (TERF*) who want to exclude trans-women from any women’s march, meeting or gathering. Chelsea Manning is one of my heroines. Cindy, who signed on to, and gave air time & press to the TERFS who slammed VFP for having a no-bigotry position is not.
From an interview October 5, 2015 with Cindy Sheehan, I have been told many times that I am “on the wrong side” of this issue, that I am “transphobic,” that I am a “TERF,” that my support for my three friends means that I have made the entire “antiwar movement” irrelevant and anything I did for Private Manning is also irrelevant because I deny Private Manning her “womanhood.” I have also been told that Caitlyn Jenner is more of a woman than I am. The trans-bullies (as I call them) obviously only support the “ideal” of a woman in this… Read more »