Hi there, I commented this morning in another diary on the subject of opion diversity and now in my first diary here I am going to challenge opinion diversity. It's my opinion that for the democrats to truly be capable of that diversity, they should be willing to discuss the following without a lynch mob mentality.
The Left side of the Democratic party has their heroes, who champion the causes dear to their hearts, but should those heroes be above and beyond criticism. A prime example would be one Cindy Sheehan who is seen as a champion of the left for her anti-war efforts.
However, given the fact that her son in all likelihood would not have agreed with her stance there is a certain level of "prostitution" of his memory that she has taken in becrying his death, in my opinion. I jsut see it as disrespectful to what he believed in and therefore his memory that she is using him as a symbol in her protest. Thats the first part of this.
If she limited the situation to that, I could deal with that. But then I see the picture of her posing with Hugo Chavez, and I can't help but get flashbacks to the Nam era Hanoi Jane fiasco that jane Fonda created so long ago. By going to extremes such as that, Cindy isn't in it just to raise awareness about the war, she's eithering willingly or unwittingly party of a bigger agenda of the left and using her son's memory is an insult to what HE would have wanted.
Where some see a hero of the left, I see a prostitute and attack me if you like, but I am against the war, nota Bush fan by any stretch. But what she has done is not in the spirit of respecting her son's death or an honest expression of grief. It's about politics and nothing more.