the mothers of the "disappeared" in Argentina ended up toppling the government. Cindy could be the first mother in the US to start toppling this corrupt gov

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Between 1976 and 1983, the Argentine military waged a Dirty War against its own people.

The beginning of the end of the period that saw the disappearance of thousands of Argentine citizens started with one unequivocal universal truth: the love that a mother feels for her child.

Cindy Sheehan, the mother of slain Iraq war soldier, Casey Sheehan, has tapped into that truth in Crawford, Texas.

During the seven-year campaign of government-sponsored terror in Argentina, the country was ruled by a three-member military junta. Their purported goal was to restore order following prolonged civil strife, riots and violence.

Their actual goal was to rid Argentina of what it considered to be a subversive leftwing element – by any means necessary.

To say their measures were extreme would be an understatement – just as it would be redundant to state that the brutal torture and murder of innocents were carried out in secret.

While the exact numbers may never be known, most agree that some 30,000 Argentines disappeared. There were no records of arrest. No hearings. No trials. What took place was, in effect, a systematic and covert series of political abductions that were followed by the torture and death of thousands of Argentine citizens.

The vast majority of the desaparecidos – the disappeared ones – were young people, young men and young women, who were suspected of participating in anti-government activities or – in many cases – of just being sympathizers.

When anyone – usually a mother – presented to the authorities to report a missing son or daughter, reports were rarely taken. Police, instead, told the concerned friend or relative to go home. “Your son probably ran away” or “He’s drunk somewhere” or “She ran off with some boy” was the typical reply.

Today we know just how horrific the efforts to restore civil order were. People were tortured. Young women’s babies were cut from their bodies. People were buried in mass graves. Bodies were tossed from airplanes over the ocean.

During those seven brutal years, those who complained about the disappearances were ignored or intimidated. Middle- and upper-class Argentines cared little because public order had been restored.

While authorities hid their campaign of terror and well-to-do Argentines turned a blind eye, a group of mothers and grandmothers began to march. Because no one in the government would listen to them, the madres took their protest to a city square – the Plaza de Mayo – hoping that someone would take notice.

They carried placards around their necks with photos of their missing children and grandchildren. At first a handful marched on a Saturday. The next week on a Friday. Thereafter every Thursday.

Remember, these were the days before the Internet. The only people who knew about them were those who passed them in the Plaza de Mayo in the heart of Argentina’s capital, Buenos Aires.

It is impossible to know when or why people began to pay attention. Perhaps a universal force – a cosmic deus ex machina – witness the injustice and stepped in.

As the number of mothers grew, so did their sympathizers, and so did the press coverage.

At first, the Junta bet that no one would care. In 1977, however, when the crowds began to grow, and murmurs began to get louder, the Junta acted: Three mothers were abducted and became victims of the same clandestine kidnappings and murder that had taken their children.

As is usually the case, it wasn’t until the economy began to collapse, and inflation reached 900%, that those who were seemingly unaffected by the rape of their fellow Argentines’ civil liberties began to wake up.

The madres de la Plaza de Mayo – the mothers of the Plaza de Mayo – through their persistence, their maternal instinct – their unequivocal universal truth – exposed the murderous campaign that the Argentine government had waged against its own people – and they toppled the government.

What Cindy Sheehan is doing in Crawford, Texas is no less significant. Mrs. Sheehan is only the first. Others must follow if we hope to make sense of what a majority of Americans now consider to be senseless killings in Iraq.

The president may continue to ignore Cindy Sheehan. He may even have her arrested – as has been rumored – as a threat to national security. But there will be more Cindy Sheehans. And – just as in Argentina – truth will prevail.

George Henson unpoetaloco@yahoo.com Dallas, Texas

Submitter: Rob Kall

Submitters Bio:

Rob Kall is an award winning journalist, inventor, software architect,
connector and visionary. His work and his writing have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC, the HuffingtonPost, Success, Discover and other media.

Check out his platform at RobKall.com

He is the author of The Bottom-up Revolution; Mastering the Emerging World of Connectivity

He's given talks and workshops to Fortune
500 execs and national medical and psychological organizations, and pioneered
first-of-their-kind conferences in Positive Psychology, Brain Science and
Story. He hosts some of the world's smartest, most interesting and powerful
people on his Bottom Up Radio Show,
and founded and publishes one of the top Google- ranked progressive news and
opinion sites, OpEdNews.com

more detailed bio:

Rob Kall has spent his adult life as an awakener and empowerer-- first in the field of biofeedback, inventing products, developing software and a music recording label, MuPsych, within the company he founded in 1978-- Futurehealth, and founding, organizing and running 3 conferences: Winter Brain, on Neurofeedback and consciousness, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology (a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology, first presenting workshops on it in 1985) and Storycon Summit Meeting on the Art Science and Application of Story-- each the first of their kind. Then, when he found the process of raising people's consciousness and empowering them to take more control of their lives one person at a time was too slow, he founded Opednews.com-- which has been the top search result on Google for the terms liberal news and progressive opinion for several years. Rob began his Bottom-up Radio show, broadcast on WNJC 1360 AM to Metro Philly, also available on iTunes, covering the transition of our culture, business and world from predominantly Top-down (hierarchical, centralized, authoritarian, patriarchal, big) to bottom-up (egalitarian, local, interdependent, grassroots, archetypal feminine and small.) Recent long-term projects include a book, Bottom-up-- The Connection Revolution, debillionairizing the planet and the Psychopathy Defense and Optimization Project.

Rob Kall Wikipedia Page

Rob Kall's Bottom Up Radio Show: Over 400 podcasts are archived for downloading here, or can be accessed from iTunes. Or check out my Youtube Channel

Rob Kall/OpEdNews Bottom Up YouTube video channel

Rob was published regularly on the Huffingtonpost.com for several years.

Rob is, with Opednews.com the first media winner of the Pillar Award for supporting Whistleblowers and the first amendment.

To learn more about Rob and OpEdNews.com, check out A Voice For Truth - ROB KALL | OM Times Magazine and this article.

For Rob's work in non-political realms mostly before 2000, see his C.V.. and here's an article on the Storycon Summit Meeting he founded and organized for eight years.

Press coverage in the Wall Street Journal: Party's Left Pushes for a Seat at the Table

Talk Nation Radio interview by David Swanson: Rob Kall on Bottom-Up Governance June, 2017

Here is a one hour radio interview where Rob was a guest- on Envision This, and here is the transcript..

To watch Rob having a lively conversation with John Conyers, then Chair of the House Judiciary committee, click here. Watch Rob speaking on Bottom up economics at the Occupy G8 Economic Summit, here.

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