Your question about September

irishkg — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 18:24:15 +0000

Your question about September 11's visual impact on the political views of children is interesting.

What a contrast with my initiation, the Kennedy assassination weekend. In a Demoncratic household the sorrow, the pagentry and sense of leaders as very special people gave me a positive sense of what politics and government can do. As world leaders walked down Pennsylvania Ave together in the funeral procession they conveyed security to me, guys on the same team as an American President. I carry that sense of what politics and government can be to this day. Underneath my cycnicism and skepticism at times there is still a bedrock of faith.

If instead I was born in 1992 this 9 year old would have learned that foreigners were not part of the same team as Americans, but instead killed lots of Americans. In those first few days of despair, I would have seen good only in the actions of individual Americans, firefighter or passengers on a plane. The lesson for a 9 year old would be to have hope that some individual Americans reaches out to help you. The government was missing as a postive force in the early days so a nine year old would have no sense that government was something to trust and have faith in.

We adults are more than our childhoods but your question makes me think of how different I am because of what I saw as a 9 year old in 1963 than someone born in 1992.

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Your question about September