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AMY GOODMAN: And I want to read a few of the comments of our listeners and viewers and readers around the world that came in at democracynow.org. On electoral politics, Gordon Brown, a teacher in Switzerland, asked, “Who do you believe would make the best next president of the United States?” Leslie Bonnet of California writes, “Will Cindy join the Green Party, which has steadfastly advocated for peace and against the invasion of Iraq? Will Cindy consider running as a presidential or vice presidential nominee with the Green Party?” Barbara and Graham Dean said, “What can all of us in the peace and justice movement do now to give you back your hope that we can indeed change the dangerous course this government has forced upon this country?” And they ask, “Would you consider running for Congress?” Paul said, “Given what you’ve described as the corruption and deception that exist in both the Republican and the Democratic political parties and how the huge appropriations of money for defense contractors have become such a force in the US economy, do you have any hope we will return to being a nation that stands for right instead of being a nation that has to have something to fight?” And another listener/viewer, John Stauber, says, “What is your opinion of MoveOn and the role it played in the recent congressional debate over war funding?” Take your pick.
CINDY SHEEHAN: Well, of course, I’m not going to run for election. I don’t — you know, I’m very disillusioned with our political system. If we don’t wake up in America and realize that we have to vote out of our courage and integrity for candidates who reflect our own beatitudes, and not the beatitudes of the war machine and the corporations, we are — we’re doomed. And if we don’t get a viable third party — or some people say second party; you know, the Democrats and Republicans are so similar, and their pockets are lined by the same people — we are — our representative republic is doomed, where George Bush has assumed all the powers to himself and Congress has given him those powers. And we really need an opposition party in this country. But we vote out of our fear. We go and we vote for the lesser of two evils, and we always end up getting somebody evil. And, you know, I say “evil,” not in the Christian sense of the word. But, you know, I do believe that.
I’m not going to join any party. If I do vote again and if I do become, you know, politically active, it will be independent. I’m not going to, of course, run for anything, be in the system. I have been asked by the Green Party to run for president, but, you know, that’s not anything that I want.
And I know John Stauber. He has been struggling against MoveOn. I was really upset with MoveOn, and plus with the corporate media, who were characterizing MoveOn as the antiwar left in America, which was just really, for people who are on the inside know how hilarious that is. So I think that MoveOn has a lot of resources, and they should be trying to represent — truly represent the opposition to, instead of being, you know, so tied in with the Democratic Party, to really represent the views of the left.
AMY GOODMAN: Cindy Sheehan, we have fifteen seconds. I have the sense, as you talk, that you’re not actually leaving, even as a public face of the movement, but stepping back perhaps for a few months, a few weeks, to regroup. Is that accurate?
CINDY SHEEHAN: Well, what I like to think about is like, we’re closing down the factory, we’re going to retool, and we’re going to open up, and it will be a new and improved version of it. But we are definitely going to come at it from a totally different direction.
Read the entire transcript of the interview.
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