war correspondents and my proposed constitutional amendment...

two cbs war correspondents were killed in iraq. i have the deepest sympathy for their families, as it is just a few more families left empty for nonsense...but prepare yourself for the inevitable week of tributes as the news media tells you everything about these unlucky souls and marks them as heroes. i have no problem with the media paying tribute to one of their own...ok, that is a lie, i do have a problem with it...but only because of the way it is done. a few thousands american boys and girls haven't come home from the middle east...a few hundred thousands middle eastern boys and girls met their maker at the hands of our bombing raids (carried out by clinton need i remind you...the administration that really took the "war against terrorism" to heart...but democrats conveniently forget this these days), shock and awe campaigns (named that because the incredible amount of death and carnage is meant to dishearten the opposition to the point that they see resistance is futile...only problem is, they figured out that resistance is not actually futile), and "precision" bombs...and the media gives them a short listing at the end of a newscast during some silence. where are their life stories? where are their weeklong tributes?

i propose a constitutional amendment...and no, not to ban peoples with the same genitalia from marrying or keep anybody with a bit of an accent and brown skin from coming into the united states, or even to lock "under god" into the pledge (and seriously...why the fuck are we arguing over that? no wonder why this country is going to hell)...i propose swapping the driving age with the voting age, and then taking the inverse so that only those under 16 are allowed to vote. see...we adults have so fucked up this country and forgotten what it is that america supposedly stands for that i think we could learn a lot from our children (provided they haven't been brainwashed yet), and they could probably pick better leaders than we can (hell, you could throw darts at a phone book listing and get better leaders then the schmucks we've been sending to washington). in support, i submit this letter from an 8th grade class here in albuquerque sent to the alibi regarding the debate over immigration...

"We are the eighth grade advisory class at Harrison Middle School assigned to Mr. Chavez. These last few weeks have been hard for us. We are worried about what is going to happen with the immigration bill before Congress. Harrison Middle School had the highest absentee rate in the district on the day of the immigration rights protest. This is because we understand how much the immigration bill will change our community. We have been discussing what we think in our classes; we don't always agree. We didn't agree with our teacher, and he didn't agree with us. But we took the time to listen to each other; sometimes it wasn't easy. We found out that mostly we are all worried and afraid of what will happen to our family, friends and neighborhood if everyone that was here illegally were forced to go home.

We think America is a nation of immigrants. New Mexico was once part of Mexico. We could all have been from Mexico if the imaginary line in the sand had not been redrawn. We think all human beings should be treated the same and have an equal chance to hold jobs, feed their families, give them good homes and have them get a good education. We told our assistant principal we did not want to be judged by where we came from, but by our personalities. She responded that Martin Luther King, Jr. "dreamed of a world where we would not be judged by the color of our skin but by the content of our character." It seems those words are still important.

The government needs to hear our collective responses, because our voices want justice for all humanity. Mostly, we worry for our friends. They cry because they were born here but their parents weren't. What will they do? They are 13 and 14 years old and they are worried for their parents, for their future. They are good people, good students, good friends and good to their parents and good for our country's future."

how is it that a group of kids can have intelligent, civil political discussions but we adults cannot even look at each other without pulling out obsenities and threatening military action? they figured it out...they listened to each other even though they didn't agree with each other...and they realized that these are good people that have a lot to offer. these kids want all humanity to have some basic rights to work, education, family, homes, and equal treatment...what the hell happens to us after we hit 16 that makes us forget this? that makes us begin to judge people by their country of origin, their religion, their color, their accent, their inability to realize american moral superiority and chosen status? (that last one was sarcastic...sad how that actually needs to be pointed out these days)...

we're on a road to nowhere...