Cindy Sheehan: Farewell Brave Amateur

The film “300″ has won praise from reactionary critics for its “defense” of Western civilization and culture, and some scorn from liberal and progressive critics who consider it a politically neanderthal screed of anti-Middle Eastern propaganda, an opinion seconded by the decision of Iran to ban the film.

What the progressive and liberal sides have failed to see, both in the West and in Iran, is that it is a film that in fact is of great use and contains powerful lessons for those that seek reform, peace and change in today’s world. I shall illustrate my case with one of the most devastating hits that the American Peace Movement has taken of late.

“Brave Amateurs…they make a wondrous mess of things.”—Dilios, “300″

So it has come to this, Cindy Sheehan has left as the figurehead of the current peace movement against the War in Iraq.

Her farewell letter has been sobering:

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.

Indeed, the lesson that she has learnt has been hard. But in doing so, it is time again that we come to consider what it is that has rendered the antiwar movement this time around so horribly ineffectual, Sheehan agrees herself:

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.

Indeed, she has now discovered what Scott Ritter has already said a long time ago.

It has nevertheless struck me all the same that perhaps this time around, the one thing that can make a difference would be a complete change in the way that the Peace Movement is viewed. We can no longer consider it a Peace Movement. We must come to consider it a war movement: A War Against War Movement. If anything else, thousands of years of warfare have in fact, prepared us for the means to spare the greatest depredation that has ever faced man: War itself.

“A beast is approaching.”—Dilios, “300″

In the film, that beast is one of men: archers, cavalry, infantry, by the thousands. Today, that beast we face is more complex, more terrifying and more insidious: it is a network of financial, military and political interests that serve to do naught but perpetuate a state of war on this Earth for oil, money and power. This is therefore a beast that we have to deal with the same way the Spartans dealt with that beast that approached their shores all those millennia ago. And in that sense the movie is instructive.

Here are three great lessons that the movie can hold for those working for Peace.

1. FORM YOUR PHALANX!

For all the peace groups that would not have worked with each other, you need to know the Spartan secret to strength more than ever. In the film, Leonidas rejects Ephialtes though he may be strong, for his hunchbackedness prevents him from forming an effective phalanx with the rest of the men. And that is key: THE MIGHTIEST WARRIORS IN ALL OF HISTORY NEVER OVERLOOKED THE VALUE OF SELFLESSNESS. In battle, those who stand beside you matter as much or even more than you. For your victory is won together, not individually. The Peace Movement can no longer stand to be nothing but a disparate group of pet projects and interests, but must themselves form a mighty phalanx, each one willing to support the other working as one. Let’s not be the Brave Amateurs of the other Greek cities, stabbing and shouting wildly, more brawlers than warriors.

2. BELIEF IS A WEAPON ON ITS OWN!

“Long I pondered my king’s cryptic talk of victory. But time has proven him wise, for from free Greek to free Greek, the word was spread that bold Leonidas and his 300, so far from home, laid down their lives… not just for Sparta, but for all Greece and the promise this country holds.”—Dilios, “300″

For the Democratic Congress not standing up for the withdrawal timetable that they originally proposed, this is a lesson that you must learn! The Peace Movement too! Sometimes, it is just ENOUGH to be convinced of the rightness of your own cause and be certain of the injustice that has been perpetrated on you. If the war on Iraq has been unjust, then one must be steadfast that no amount of “fighting it right” can ever straighten it. You can never fight justly a war that was unjust to begin with. To be convinced of such injustice is the first, and yet most vital step, to ever winning the peace.

3. ABANDON HOPE, YE WHO FIGHT!

Lastly, never but never have any HOPE of winning. For HOPE is the killer of right action. Our political discourse today frequently talks of Hope, as even how in Barack Obama’s biography he titles it “The Audacity of Hope”. Yet, is HOPELESSNESS even more audacious, yes, it is, and 300 proves it. There was but scant hope that Leonidas and his 300 would ever win, in fact, they knew they never would and never even hoped that they would. Yet, without hope, they managed to go down fighting to the last man and convincing all of Greece to their cause. Which brings me to my final lesson: HOPE NOT! The Peace Movement today cannot HOPE to win, let it waste no effort on thinking about how to win, for it is stacked against odds that are formidable to begin with. It is the Democrats, in their HOPE to win the next election, that they have forsaken their principles to begin with and in fact, LOST. That lesson we can learn from it. Had the Democrats decided to stick to their guns for troop withdrawal, they would in fact have lost in the short run, but like the gallant Spartans, won in the long. It is their HOPE that killed them. So my words to the Peace Movement are such: HOPE NOT, and you will MOVE INTO RIGHT ACTION. Hopelessness if properly midwifed, can be the birth of ultimate courage.

Give thanks therefore, all, to brave Leonidas and his noble 300, for in their supreme conduct as warriors they have indeed much to share with us about fighting the war against the ultimate predator: War itself. A danger more insatiable than any empire, a foe whose tenacity exceeds that of any beast. For such sacrifice, let us hold a moment of silence and give our thanks.

And a last word to Cindy Sheehan: your days may be numbered as an amateur, but I believe that as a warrior they are truly beginning. Go well, and may you be reborn to lead.