9/11 my daughter was in third grade, she goes to highschool next year

[ariellyn]

Bush has presided over half of a generation. The time seems like nothing to me but when I think of it in terms of those I love, the five years since 9/11 is significant. I have moved, taken on a new job, my beloved dog was a puppy when 9/11 happened.

Amazing. Also disheartening. It's sad that children still in highschool now have known nothing but right wing lies, meanness, nastiness and propoganda that we see on television today or mindless reality shows. It's sad that they hear about war, but don't see the reality of the casualties as the images are banned from TV. It's sad that they don't know about the right to free speech, or the loss of it, or the fight for it--they surely don't see any discussions about the Fairness Doctrine or protests on TV.

The "post 9/11 era" that BushCo likes to speak of so often is, of course, really the post coup era. We all know what really happened that led up to 9/11.

I am saddened that my worst fears are coming true. A whole generation may know nothing but the travesty that we can hardly tolerate as America today.

[bananas]

1. Yes,

And they won't know what they missed.

[Ignacio Upton]

2. I'm worried about how younger kids are going to be politically

I was in 9th grade when the attacks happened (now a college sophomore) and while I think most people in my school were supporting Bush in the aftermath (including myself) even then, there were still some "ten percenters."

Three years later when I was a senior, my school had a mock election, over 60% of my class voted for Kerry (I live in a blue county in a blue state, so the results shouldn't be surprising.) Unfortunately, Bush's percentage rose the younger the grade. Kerry got only 50% from the freshman. Those same kids were only in sixth grade when 9/11 happened, so for their entire time in middle school they grew up with the "post-9/11 world."

I can only imagine what it will be like in couple of more years, because now kids born on 9/11 itself are going into Kindergarten, and kids who were in Kindergarten on 9/11 itself are now 10 year olds a year away from starting middle school. At least people my age are able to remember a time when the Twin Towers still stood. If I was born in 1997 instead of 1987, I would probably think that we've "always" been fighting a war on terrorism and a war in Iraq.

[bananas]

3. I think that's part of the ABC fake-u-drama

they partnered with Scholastic to catapult the propoganda into young minds.

[ariellyn]

4. Hearing it from your perspective only confirms how bad it is.

I hope that something will change so that today's children don't get through the first 12 years of school thinking this is the way America is supposed to be.