What will we tell the children?

[democrank]

Don`t laugh. I`m serious. What will we tell the children? How will we explain those black hoods en route to Torture Central or those bloated bodies floating in the Ninth Ward? How will we justify the jokes about melting ice caps or the indifference toward the machette hackings in Sudan? What explanation will we have for the chuckling over Kucinich`s Peace Department or the detachment over the destruction of Iraq? What will we say about our national debt or the phone company`s collusion with the government? The loss of Habeas Corpus or children living under bridges? New theme parks vs. poverty-infested projects?

Can we soften the blow with new gadgets or Disneyland promises? By drawing attention to our flag pins or church calendars? Maybe we could just start a national Don`t-Ask-So-Adults-Don`t-Have-To-Tell campaign so we can eliminate the problem of explaining our neglect of what we once stood for.

Here we are in breathless discussions of Marie Osmond`s fall during a dance routine, but hardly a mention of Iraqi orphans heart-deep in grief and loss. Four year olds, nine year olds....robbed of childhood and scarred for life. What will we tell the children? How will we dare speak of our collective green light, our A-OK? How will we explain the yawns and shopping sprees as caskets rolled off tarmacs and nineteen year olds lay paralyzed with war? How feeble will our excuses seem? "Well, they didn`t have the votes." or "They were afraid of the Republican smear machine."

We`ll have to tell the children something, you know. They`re going to ask some day. They`ll ask us what we were doing during the war.

[Taverner]

1. Watch - it's only going to get worse

I wonder if our kids are going to make the 60's look like a cakewalk...