Reality check

[lawren2 Malibu Beach Barbie & A Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close lawren2]

this outs all my petty grieviances to the side and should all of yours as well.

My adjacent neighbors kids are having a party tonight and the major conversations? Iraq, the war, enlistment in various armed forces. The presidential race and the oil company profits.


Just babies. Barely out of high school. This is their world.

I'm going to try to sleep now. Put my perspective back in line for sure.

YouTube - Nineteen - Paul Hardcastle

[chemteach Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close chemteach]

this outs all my petty grieviances to the side and should all of yours as well.

My adjacent neighbors kids are having a party tonight and the major conversations? Iraq, the war, enlistment in various armed forces. The presidential race and the oil company profits.


Just babies. Barely out of high school. This is their world.

I'm going to try to sleep now. Put my perspective back in line for sure.

Wow. I'm really impressed that they are talking about these things. A lot of high school students live in their own little worlds, unaware of what goes on outside their realm of the world.

[janapur Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close janapur]

At my niece's birthday party last weekend she told me that she's supporting McCain for president (at her ripe old age of 8!) Would you believe I actually opened my mouth planning to engage in a healthy debate, before stopping myself in time?? Instead I told her how bright she is and how wonderful it is that she is interested in our future, as it will be her generation running this country one day.

Jana

[taffy19 Gold Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close taffy19]

Wow. I'm really impressed that they are talking about these things. A lot of high school students live in their own little worlds, unaware of what goes on outside their realm of the world.

They almost have to in order to stay sane. I feel for them because we are leaving them one big mess all around.

[T. R. Oglodyte Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close T. R. Oglodyte]

They almost have to in order to stay sane. I feel for them because we are leaving them one big mess all around.

Sounds almost like a repeat of how my generation thought about the world in 1969. Course my father in 1933 thought his parents had left the world in a big mess for his generation. But then his father in 1900 thought his parents in Sweden had messed things up so much there wasn't any point in staying in Karlskrona. Any my other grandfather, living in Russia, figured he needed to get out of there before a revolution broke out.

Dude, I guess we just need an ethos.

[lawren2 Malibu Beach Barbie & A Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close lawren2]

I was lucky I guess, although my first school girl crush was killed in Nam and several of my later and older friends served? with the Big Red One. Friendly Fire killed more of them than the N Vietnamese..

But my age generally fell between "conflicts". It hurts my heart to hear these kids talking about going to war. and to know that my little one is not so far behind and knowing full well that there are mothers thoughout the states that are already there.

[taffy19 Gold Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close taffy19]

Yes Lawren, it is very frightening. Nobody wants to send their children to war and no children want to experience it either. I did from 3 to 8 years old under Hitler. I remember it all too well the fear we went through day in and day out of bombs to hit us or explode or many grenades all at once hitting you in the street. They went by us when we were sitting in our living room and spared my sister and me and the bullet holes are still there today as they ended up in the shed in our backyard. I went to see them the last time I was home just to make sure I wasn't having a bad dream but it was reality.

I wished mankind had learned from our mistakes of wars in the past but we haven't.

[bigfrank Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close bigfrank]

I have 1 son, I am not looking in this thread again.

[taffy19 Gold Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close taffy19]

Frank, don't be mad at me but be mad at the politicians who send us to war. Do they go themselves or send their children? They get out of it somehow but let somebody else do the dirty work. This is the same all over the world. JMHO. Now you know why we have no children. They wouldn't do it to ours and I do not regret my decision. I feel for the children today as they are completely innocent and the mothers who bear them too.

[janapur Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close janapur]

Yes Lawren, it is very frightening. Nobody wants to send their children to war and no children want to experience it either. I did from 3 to 8 years old under Hitler. I remember it all too well the fear we went through day in and day out of bombs to hit us or explode or many grenades all at once hitting you in the street. They went by us when we were sitting in our living room and spared my sister and me and the bullet holes are still there today as they ended up in the shed in our backyard. I went to see them the last time I was home just to make sure I wasn't having a bad dream but it was reality.

I wished mankind had learned from our mistakes of wars in the past but we haven't.

I am reminded of a book from the early 90s Tell Them We Remember about children who survived the Holocaust. My oldest son was a little squirt when read this together. I was stunned beyond words. Putting names and faces on the history, which I learned so little about in school, was incredibly powerful. I gave that book to the only Jewish person I knew at the time.

Your post made me google that title. $2.50 used on Amazon, it's time to read it again.

[lawren2 Malibu Beach Barbie & A Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close lawren2]

Yes Lawren, it is very frightening. Nobody wants to send their children to war and no children want to experience it either. I did from 3 to 8 years old under Hitler. I remember it all too well the fear we went through day in and day out of bombs to hit us or explode or many grenades all at once hitting you in the street. They went by us when we were sitting in our living room and spared my sister and me and the bullet holes are still there today as they ended up in the shed in our backyard. I went to see them the last time I was home just to make sure I wasn't having a bad dream but it was reality.

I wished mankind had learned from our mistakes of wars in the past but we haven't.

and how you came thru that to be the loving and wonderful person I know that you are. I will never understand.

I grew up in a very selfish generation again between "conflicts" as we were taught Korea and Viet Nam were NOT wars? But young men died all the same.

[PigsDad Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close PigsDad]

I remember being a teenager in the early 80's and being concerned about going to war -- it really hit home when Reagan instituted the registration for the draft, and I had to go down to the post office to sign up. The Soviet Union was a real (or at least perceived to be real) threat.

This thread reminds me of Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire". Every generation has their own perspective on world events.

Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnny Ray
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio

Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, Television
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe

Rosenbergs, H Bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom
Brando, The King And I, and The Catcher In The Rye

Eisenhower, Vaccine, England's got a new queen
Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
Well, we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc

Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, Dancron
Dien Bien Phu Falls, Rock Around the Clock

Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland

Bob Dole, Budapest, Alabama, Khrushchev
Princess Grace, Peyton Place, Trouble in the Suez

Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, Bridge On The River Kwai

Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball
Starkwether, Homicide, Children of Thalidomide

Buddy Holly, Ben Hur, Space Monkey, Mafia
Hula Hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go

U2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy
Chubby Checker, Psycho, Belgians in the Congo

Hemingway, Eichman, Stranger in a Strange Land
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion

Lawrence of Arabia, British Beatle mania
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson

Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British Politician sex
J.F.K. blown away, what else do I have to say

Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock

Begin, Reagan, Palestine, Terror on the airline
Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan

Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride, heavy metal, suicide
Foreign debts, homeless Vets, AIDS, Crack, Bernie Goetz

Hypodermics on the shores, China's under martial law
Rock and Roller cola wars, I can't take it anymore

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the fire
But when we are gone
It will still burn on, and on, and on, and on...

Kurt

[bezerk Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close bezerk]

I have 1 son, I am not looking in this thread again.

I have 2 sons and I think I am not looking at this either too scary!!

Frank, don't be mad at me but be mad at the politicians who send us to war. Do they go themselves or send their children? They get out of it somehow but let somebody else do the dirty work. This is the same all over the world. JMHO. Now you know why we have no children. They wouldn't do it to ours and I do not regret my decision. I feel for the children today as they are completely innocent and the mothers who bear them too.

Well when they send their kids then they can take mine otherwise they are not going...sorry! I feel so bad for all the kids and the world they are faced with....

[katiemack Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close katiemack]

This thread reminds me of how many wars, how many lies....


Jackson Browne's one of my favorites who often captures what is poignantly wrong in our time...in 1989, he wrote and sang two songs which continue to hit home for me, one of them is "How Long..." and the other is below, "The Word Justice".

From his album, World in Motion, "The Word Justice":

A man stands up before God and country
Raises his right hand and takes an oath
Swears he has acted in the line of duty
And he more than anyone wants to tell the truth

But there is a need to keep some things a secret
Some weapons shipments--some private wars
In the future democracy will be defended
Behind closed doors

Now the men of congress who convene to determine
If covert war is a business or a crime
Are the same men who routinely give their permission
For the shedding of blood in security's name

And there is a need to keep some things a secret
The names of some countries--the terms of some deals
And above all the sound of the screams of the innocent
Beneath our wheels

Does the word justice mean anything to you?
Are the features of a lie beginning to come through?

In the streets of America the children are buried
Caught in an avalanche of weapons and drugs
They live and they die in the bowels of a business
That's disguised as a war between the crips and the bloods

And there is a need to keep some things a secret
The c.i.a. deals protecting the source
And the government policies directly connecting the drugs and our wars
Does the word justice mean anything to you?

As the battlefield comes home and democracy falls through
I am waiting for the time to come
When the word will be real for everyone
And not just a word but a thing that can be done
But justice must be won

[ArtsieAng Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close ArtsieAng]

I have 1 son, I am not looking in this thread again.