May 29, 2007

• Two exceptionally inspiring women who are truth-bearers

  I had a guest for two hours on my world music radio show last Thursday.  She composes her own highly unique music - a blend of reggae, Native American, jazz, and more recently Brazilian influences - and plays keyboards and sings.  She lives in California, but was visiting her mother in Illinois.  We had an absolutely delightful time, and bonded, I think, on a deep spiritual level.  Her chosen name, Tchiya Amet, is Hebrew for "Rise Again Truth", the name of her first CD.  Her second CD is called "Black Turtle Island".  The third CD, recorded mostly in Brazil and due out soon, will be called "Celestial Folk Music".  If you can get ahold of any of her music, I strongly recommend it.  Her music is "transcendant"...that's my word for it.  It transcends boundaries and neat categorical labels, and it is spiritually transcendant as well.  It will bless you.  SHE will bless you.

  She doesn't list her music with Amazon.com any more because Amazon basically rips artists off.  So I couldn't do the usual Xanga "Currently Listening" thing.  But here is her photo:

  

  And you can find her music online at CDbaby.com, among other places.

  **********

  Now....

  If you faithfully read "The Daily Kos" or Theologian Dan's blog then you've probably already seen the article below.  But I thought it was worth sharing on Memorial Day (or the day after, actually).  Though I haven't paid even remotely the price that Cindy Sheehan has paid, I've walked a portion of the way down her path, and her  thoughts basically mirror my own.

  "Good Riddance Attention Whore"

  by CindySheehan

  Mon May 28, 2007 at 09:57:01 AM PDT

  I
  have endured a lot of smear and hatred since Casey was killed and
  especially since I became the so-called "Face" of the American anti-war
  movement. Especially since I renounced any tie I have remaining with
  the Democratic Party, I have been further trashed on such "liberal
  blogs" as the Democratic Underground. Being called an "attention whore"
  and being told "good riddance" are some of the more milder rebukes.

  I
  have come to some heartbreaking conclusions this Memorial Day Morning.
  These are not spur of the moment reflections, but things I have been
  meditating on for about a year now. The conclusions that I have slowly
  and very reluctantly come to are very heartbreaking to me.

  The first conclusion is that I was the darling of the so-called left
  as long as I limited my protests to George Bush and the Republican
  Party. Of course, I was slandered and libeled by the right as a "tool"
  of the Democratic Party.  This label was to marginalize me and my
  message. How could a woman have an original thought, or be working
  outside of our "two-party" system?

  However, when I started to hold the Democratic Party to the same
  standards that I held the Republican Party, support for my cause
  started to erode and the "left" started labeling me with the same slurs
  that the right used. I guess no one paid attention to me when I said
  that the issue of peace and people dying for no reason is not a matter
  of "right or left", but "right and wrong."

  I am deemed a radical because I believe that partisan politics
  should be left to the wayside when hundreds of thousands of people are
  dying for a war based on lies that is supported by Democrats and
  Republican alike. It amazes me that people who are sharp on the issues
  and can zero in like a laser beam on lies, misrepresentations, and
  political expediency when it comes to one party refuse to recognize it
  in their own party. Blind party loyalty is dangerous whatever side it
  occurs on. People of the world look on us Americans as jokes because we
  allow our political leaders so much murderous latitude and if we don’t
  find alternatives to this corrupt "two" party system our Representative
  Republic will die and be replaced with what we are rapidly descending
  into with nary a check or balance: a fascist corporate wasteland. I am
  demonized because I don’t see party affiliation or nationality when I
  look at a person, I see that person’s heart. If someone looks, dresses,
  acts, talks and votes like a Republican, then why do they deserve
  support just because he/she calls him/herself a Democrat?

  I have also reached the conclusion that if I am doing what I am
  doing because I am an "attention whore" then I really need to be
  committed. I have invested everything I have into trying to bring peace
  with justice to a country that wants neither. If an individual wants
  both, then normally he/she is not willing to do more than walk in a
  protest march or sit behind his/her computer criticizing others. I have
  spent every available cent I got from the money a "grateful" country
  gave me when they killed my son and every penny that I have received in
  speaking or book fees since then. I have sacrificed a 29 year marriage
  and have traveled for extended periods of time away from Casey’s
  brother and sisters and my health has suffered and my hospital bills
  from last summer (when I almost died) are in collection because I have
  used all my energy trying to stop this country from slaughtering
  innocent human beings. I have been called every despicable name that
  small minds can think of and have had my life threatened many times.

  The most devastating conclusion that I reached this morning,
  however, was that Casey did indeed die for nothing. His precious
  lifeblood drained out in a country far away from his family who loves
  him, killed by his own country which is beholden to and run by a war
  machine that even controls what we think. I have tried every since he
  died to make his sacrifice meaningful. Casey died for a country which
  cares more about who will be the next American Idol than how many
  people will be killed in the next few months while Democrats and
  Republicans play politics with human lives. It is so painful to me to
  know that I bought into this system for so many years and Casey paid
  the price for that allegiance. I failed my boy and that hurts the most.

  I have also tried to work within a peace movement that often puts
  personal egos above peace and human life. This group won’t work with
  that group; he won’t attend an event if she is going to be there; and
  why does Cindy Sheehan get all the attention anyway? It is hard to work
  for peace when the very movement that is named after it has so many
  divisions.

  Our brave young men and women in Iraq have been abandoned there
  indefinitely by their cowardly leaders who move them around like pawns
  on a chessboard of destruction and the people of Iraq have been doomed
  to death and fates worse than death by people worried more about
  elections than people. However, in five, ten, or fifteen years, our
  troops will come limping home in another abject defeat and ten or
  twenty years from then, our children’s children will be seeing their
  loved ones die for no reason, because their grandparents also bought
  into this corrupt system. George Bush will never be impeached because
  if the Democrats dig too deeply, they may unearth a few skeletons in
  their own graves and the system will perpetuate itself in perpetuity.

  I am going to take whatever I have left and go home. I am going to
  go home and be a mother to my surviving children and try to regain some
  of what I have lost. I will try to maintain and nurture some very
  positive relationships that I have found in the journey that I was
  forced into when Casey died and try to repair some of the ones that
  have fallen apart since I began this single-minded crusade to try and
  change a paradigm that is now, I am afraid, carved in immovable,
  unbendable and rigidly mendacious marble.

  Camp Casey has served its purpose. It’s for sale. Anyone want to buy
  five beautiful acres in Crawford , Texas ? I will consider any
  reasonable offer. I hear George Bush will be moving out soon,
  too...which makes the property even more valuable.

  This is my resignation letter as the "face" of the American anti-war
  movement. This is not my "Checkers" moment, because I will never give
  up trying to help people in the world who are harmed by the empire of
  the good old US of A, but I am finished working in, or outside of this
  system. This system forcefully resists being helped and eats up the
  people who try to help it. I am getting out before it totally consumes
  me or anymore people that I love and the rest of my resources.

  Good-bye America ...you are not the country that I love and I
  finally realized no matter how much I sacrifice, I can’t make you be
  that country unless you want it.

  It’s up to you now.

  • 6:22 am
  • 22 Comments