We have to reject this thinking that someone else will come along and solve our problems for us - or that there even exists such a person out there, somewhere, that cares more about our children, our families, and our communities than we do.

I am a baby-boomer, born in the USA during the rise of the working-class. However, our lives during these so-called golden times were tainted with the terror of the Cold War, where I grew up diving under my desk every Friday afternoon at the appointed time, apparently to give us the illusion that our magical desks would be able to save us from a nuclear holocaust.

The 1960s were a decade that was clouded with one international emergency and scare after the other.

As one who was barely four-years old during the Cuban Missile Crisis, I remember the feeling of tenseness and worry among the adults in my sphere of influence.

So, during the 60s, as an impressionable, sensitive child, I was assaulted by what we now consider, US History 101: The Cuban Missile Crisis, The Kennedy Assassinations - first one, then another. (When I met Senator Ted Kennedy a few years ago, we talked about how I could identify and empathize with his mother, Rose who buried not one, but four of her children). Then, the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. entered my world - little did I know that exactly 38 years later, on April 04, 2004 - the same forces that killed Dr. King would kill my future first born child.

The Vietnam War, the Watts uprisings that occurred just a few miles from my mostly-white hometown in California, the Vietnam War protests - on and on. I clearly grew up in a very unstable world - but was my history unique to that of womankind in general?

Was I literally being groomed to sacrifice my own son on the altar of sexist-racist-violent nationalism, as have so many of my sisters before me on this male-dominated road to OUR mutually assured ruin?

Along with all of the conditioning to accept violence as the norm, I was also conditioned in a very infantile and inherently chauvinistic patriotism, where we were taught to salute and recite a prayer to a piece of colored cloth that hung over the postings of our perfect spelling tests in our classrooms. This was an era where one teacher sent me to the corner in 2nd grade for admitting that if a “Red Commie” stuck a gun to my head and told me not to recite the pledge of allegiance - that, I wouldn’t dare. I may have been a very shy child, but I wasn’t a stupid one. That was child-abuse, right?

What happened in history during the years between the end of the Vietnam War and the War that stole my eldest son from me?

The troops limped home from Vietnam, defeated and demoralized and an urban legend grew that they were spat upon by people JUST LIKE me (hippies without jobs) and called “baby-killers.” Side note: a lot of babies were included in the millions of Vietnamese that were slaughtered during that insane US misadventure.

We saw a president resign and the rise of one US president after another who continued a series of clandestine wars in Latin America and overt “humanitarian interventions” all over the planet that began to be kept farther and farther from the psyche of an American public that was definitely tired of carnage. This new militarism in an age of the “Peace Dividend” was: out of sight and out of mind.

Not only were these presidents consolidating military power abroad, they also began a concentrated and choreographed war on working-class prosperity at home. Since the beginning with Reagan’s attacks on unions and Clinton’s attacks on “Welfare Queens,” the US has currently become the unenviable number one in income disparity of all the world’s so-called civilized countries.

As philosopher, Jacques Ellul said: “The goal of modern propaganda is no longer to transform opinion but to arouse an active and mythical belief.” So, I was raised in this Mythocracy of an America that proclaimed itself, contrary to its reality, a shining example of freedom and democracy and opportunity. In the US, we often blame ourselves for our woes, when it’s the system that works us over like sitting ducks begging for more. I know I felt that any problems were isolated incidences and I must be the only mom struggling with the fact that I am not perfect and I couldn’t juggle a job, motherhood and citizenship without constantly dropping many balls before my son was killed and I was put in the awkward position of being profoundly hurt by a system that I had tried, although unsuccessfully, to be a part of (not apart from - like now) for over four decades.

One of the most damaging and insidious myths that we are beaten within America, besides the one where we’re the greatest nation in the entire universe, is the one that says that one person cannot make a difference. We are overtly and subversively told that our only part in what has become our national shame is “voting.” Voting is so compromised and crooked, yet we feel if we go to the polls on the required day, within the proscribed times and get our red-white-and blue sticker, proudly emblazoned with “I VOTED” then we can go back into our Dancing With the American Idol - McDonald’s Mega-meal induced coma - feeling that we have fulfilled some kind of “right and obligation” as good USAians - It usually never once crosses our minds that the scoundrels inhabiting the halls of power want, no need, our brain dead compliance with their crimes.

Hello! If we, as mothers, thought too hard about it, we would never allow our children to be sucked into the meat grinder of the US military - war or no war - these institutions that brainwash our wonderful children into unthinking automatons that put the “sacred mission” before family and common-sense and their very own lives. One consolation that I have is that from eyewitness reports on the scene when my son was killed, Casey refused to go on the mission that subsequently killed him, but was dragged to the truck by his sergeant. Casey was a conscientious objector at the end of his life, and I am very proud of him for that.

Instead of being in competition with each other for rearing the next “super-star quarterback,” or Miss America, we should band together in defense of our families and our basic human rights to healthcare; good, free, and easily accessible education from pre-school to university; housing - in the US, one and a half million children fall asleep without a roof over their heads every night, that is a monstrous statistic in the world’s wealthiest (for 2% of us) of nations; another human right is healthy and GMO-free food - the same amount of children fall asleep with hunger pangs in the US every night; and two of the most important things we should be organizing and aggressively working together for are: complete and unconditional peace and a healthy and sustainable environment.

Peace and environmental health go hand and hand and cannot be separated. War and militaries are the number one cause of environmental pollution, resource depletion and the current wars the US are waging are for resources, where indigenous populations are decimated to gain dominance over fossil fuels, water and other minerals. If Libya’s major export were broccoli, the US wouldn’t give a flying-flip about Qaddafi and his so-called human-right’s violations. Many world leaders practice what Qaddafi is accused of, including and especially, my own.

My life was shattered, changed, and yet transformed on April 04, 2004 when my son Casey was killed in Iraq. I am sure many of you tragically know the shock of burying a child that should still be alive, except for lies and institutional violence.

I worked really hard Casey’s entire life to make sure he was protected and safe. But that was part of the problem, while I was being a typical US Mini-Van Mom, ferrying my children from point A to points X, Y and Z every day, taking them to catechism, sports, and scouts, etc - I was neglecting my part in the sisterhood of all mothers.

I outlined my twin-history with my country and I pointed out how the wealthiest country in the world abysmally treats our poorest and most vulnerable, but even the worst off of most of us here in the US and Canada are better off than billions of people on this planet.

My tragedy forced me to be an advocate for mothers and children everywhere, recognizing that a healthy US, free from war and other economic and environmental exploitation, can also be healthy for everyone on this planet.

So, this article is not only my story, but also a call to action.

Even though Bush is thankfully gone, and nobody misses him, Obama is continuing as Bush’s 3rd term and the geopolitical paradigm is being reinforced everyday with propagandized and mythologized Americans, falling for every obvious lie that spews forth from Obama and his co-conspirators in our Lamestream Media.

Men (and their lady’s auxiliary of War-Women) have been mucking up this planet for far too long.

Our version of motherhood in the US is skewed to being a good imperial mother who gladly, if not joyfully, sacrifices her dear flesh and blood for the Emperor, and if we don’t agree, we should either shut-up or kill ourselves. Sending our children to kill and/or be killed should NEVER be an option.

Like Julia Ward Howe wrote 150 years ago - we need a Mother’s Congress to set international and personal agendas for peace.

Women are engaged in struggles for peace all over the world and we need to join our efforts in a global-Matriotism that puts love of all people over love of artificial boundary lines, mostly drawn on maps by dead white dudes.

In “Rock Me on the Water,” Jackson Browne also sings: “Oh people, look among you, it’s there your hope must lie” My hope lies within myself and with you all, not with the sick-institutions that are existentially harmful to life on this planet.

We have the power! Shine on, sisters!

BlackCommentator.com Columnist Cindy Sheehan is the mother of US Army Specialist, Casey Sheehan, who was KIA in Iraq on April 04, 2004. Since then, Cindy has traveled the world demanding that violence be ended as foreign policy tool for the global elite. She has written five books, been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, hosts a weekly radio talk show called Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox and loves playing with her three small grandchildren in her spare time. Click here to contact Ms. Sheehan.