More Sheehananigans

This morning AOL News led with "'Peace Mom' Still Campaigning Against War" complete with a poll (recording overwhelming disapproval of Cindy Sheehan) and an article summarizing why some people like her and others don't. The AOL polls, by the way, baffle me. They are admittedly self-selecting and only poll those with AOL accounts, but sometimes they turn up crazy rightward numbers and sometimes crazy leftward numbers.*

Occasionally the moderate mainstream media reports on something Sheehan is doing and they seem baffled. The right periodically trots her out for a ritual round of insults, some tasteful, others quite openly sexist, but all off the mark. The mainstream and conservative press and pundits still don't know how to talk to her, how to talk about her, how to listen to her, how to explain her, or how to silence her. Each and every criticism misses the mark. To really answer her, you'd have to defend not only the Iraq occupation, but also the decisionmaking process that preceded it, and in light of that reasoned defense, make whatever arguments about the "ethics of anti-war protest" you like. Her face and story (which, contrary to convoluted attempts to prove otherwise, has been consistent from the beginning) call into question the sacrifice of those we love for the sake of a cynical political process, and an illegitimate occupation, clumsily disguised as a righteous war. She is not "speaking for" Casey Sheehan. She is speaking her pain and universalizing it to the pain of everyone who loses someone they love in a process they had no voice in creating. So to really answer her, you'd also have to defend such a process.

And here is where the anti-Sheehanites (nice new word) show the only colors they can fly: If the war and its political process were ultimately, or even contingently defensible, far fewer otherwise decent pundits wouldn't feel the need to hurl the insults at her, question her sanity, or make the ethically incoherent claim that she shouldn't be speaking "for" her dead son. They wouldn't feel the need to call anyone's patriotism into question, insist that mothers be War Mothers, throw the "treason" bomb around, any of that. They would just make and defend their case. But making and defending cases through reasoned argument, the essence of even representative democracy, has been declared treasonous and out of fashion by the same people who then get upset when Sheehan then plays "dirty" by using her emotional existence as an argument.

And now, some bonus material:

The top five arguments against Cindy Sheehan:

1. She is unethically speaking in her son's name when he actually supported the war.

(Nope. She is exploiting her pain for a political cause, but not claiming to speak for anyone but herself and, perhaps, other mothers who lose children in war. More importantly, in speaking for herself, she is not attempting to silence anyone else, including the pro-war mothers who disagree with her. Others are free to disagree with her and she doesn't call them treasonous.)

2. She met with Hugo Chavez, who is a crazy leftist (and alleged antisemite)

(Irrelevant, unless you believe that only leftist activists should be condemned for meeting with alleged antisemites; and, the charges against Chavez are being disputed by, among others, the American Jewish Congress, the federation of Jewish groups in Venezuela, and most other Jews on the left.)

3. Everyone else in her family, including her ex-husband, Casey's father, disapprove of her behavior and support the war.

(Irrelevant. They are free to publicize their opinions, or not.)

4. She changed her story.

(Nope. Been there, refuted that, again and again.)

5. She is funded and influenced by leftist special interests.

(She is working with other groups. The influence is mutual. Some of them give her money. This is never a good argument for people on the right to be making.)

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*This raises an important point: I am not arguing that Sheehan's tactics are universally effective, in some functional way that will result in her getting a majority of Americans to look at her in a favorable light. My argument about her message is twofold: First, it just isn't unethical. Second, it's very persuasive to some people, because of the way in which she universalizes the "private" suffering of motherhood. Even in a world of powerful counternarratives about mothers proud of their fighting soldier sons, Sheehan's message is at least equally powerful: These sons of whom we are so proud, what are they fighting for?