http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/9122An open letter to Elizabeth Hasselback and all others like her from a 9/11 mom
by Donna Marsh O'Connor | Aug 3 2007
snip//
In the seven years that George W. Bush and Richard Cheney have held office they have changed the entire world. There has always been hate and greed and excess. Always. Just a few things, though, that I would expect even you to have a problem with:
They have, at least, granted all powers to Exxon Mobil post hurricane Katrina, have granted no-bid contracts in Iraq to corporations that have, again at least, failed our servicepersons, have lied profusely about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, have been singularly responsible for the deaths and devastation to many peoples on this globe. I say at least, Elizabeth, because I believe there is a reason that Osama bin Laden rests without interference from our government comfortably in Pakistan. He rests until Bush and Cheney need him again to play their villain. I won't go into this now. I won't ask you to understand what a mother feels when her daughter (a woman perhaps your own age) is hideously taken from this earth. Your understanding of parenting seems to be directed toward the child, the feeding, the baby-talking, the pretense at values that have only to do with abstaining from sex and drugs and anything deemed by a circumspect intellect to contain a threat to that circular world view.
You are young. You are unkind. Worst of all, you don't know this and you don't know this is a problem. And this is the point of my letter-- you are not innocuous. And you are not alone. I note with great regret and some degree of fear that you have survived the battle with Rosie O'Donnell. You will, I am sure, survive the coming battles with Whoopi Goldberg. You are, you remember, a survivor. And there are a lot of people just like you, less famous perhaps, but just as privileged. They, too, believe that the surface conventions of politess are all that is required. This never was the case. It is dramatically not so now. And this means, Elizabeth, you have great power. Power to speak to a great many people on a daily basis.
And, thus, I am writing to say this: Being a good parent means more than creating extraordinarily entitled me-machines and calling them Americans. It means more than it did pre 9/11 and it means more with each passing day. The responsibilities to fix this world are fast encroaching on every citizen.
What will it take for you, Elizabeth, to stop being that child you believe you are raising? What will you accept from the Bush administration before you finally get something? Some idea, some inkling that the world you believe you live in has been gone for some time?
I used to have recurring nightmares about walls of water. In each of these I would note the darkening sky and begin to run, but before waking to the lingering sense of dread these nightmares left, I realized that the water was already above. Leaving no escape.
What will you do when Bush and Cheney refuse to leave the White House? What will you do when they enable the next attack? Will you only use your power when he takes out your own children? That is not kindness, Elizabeth.
It is something else.
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