The big picture in the guise of Cindy

by coigue at DailyKos
Mon Aug 15th, 2005 at 20:41:53 PDT

Of course Cindy is not a saint, that is kind of a ridiculous to say. But we can be immensely grateful to her all the same. Why? Take a look at our culture. This is the culture that CAN NOT ---I MEAN IS SIMPLY NOT ABLE-- to look at the big picture. The biggest news stories that gain the most attention in the past few years (and beyond) have always been about one person. The runaway bride, the missing Aruba girl, Michael Jackson, Terry Shiavo. Do we really care about all of these people more than the thousands of kidnapped, abused kids, the deaths in the Sudan, the fate of all the terminally ill people? No, but when there is a single face to place with the larger issue people are more able to see themselves or their families in the same situation. They are more able to wrap their brains around an issue.

That is why Cindy is so important. We can protest until we are blue in the face, but the dead soldiers and dead Iraqis still remain faceless and President Bush's distance from us seems like an abstraction.

This time, THANK YOU VERY MUCH, the media focus is about a grieving mother who personifies the loss that comes with war more than anything. There are much bigger issues here. Cindy helps people to feel empathy--something, I think, that has been missing from the debate. She seems to be a bridge between the sides, even while she doesn't pull any punches. And she is undeniably pro-troops and anti-war.

She hasn't done this herself, however. President Bush has acted with extreme callousness and has provided the story with a rather excellent bad guy (he is being himself, after all he IS on vacation. Hollywood itself could not have done better. (God, how did we get a President that is so completely devoid of interpersonal skills. I am still scratching my head over that one.)

So Cindy IS brave, Cindy is great! But she also has an excellent sense that the time has come to mobilize what has become an ever-growing and discontented opposition. She is proving to be a catalyst for many of us.

I can't wait to see what comes next.
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