What Are We Teaching Our Children?

Well, after my blog last week I was aware that I have a bit more of a rant inside of me regarding the subject of Bin Laden than I realized. Last week I was trying to be sensitive toward people who personally lost someone on 9/11 and the fact that their feelings and grief are complicated. I understand that some are rejoicing in the death but I also felt obligated to raise some of the concern about such rejoicing.
This week I need to rant just a little. As a parent I have tried to teach my kids that making mistakes are a part of life and when we make them it’s important to own them and then make amends. Part of what troubles me about the rhetoric regarding Bin Laden is that there are very few people willing to look at the role the US played in creating a terrorist like him. As a country we are TERRIBLE at owning our mistakes and making amends. We just keep on bulldozing through the world as though our mistakes are all justified in some way or because we are the biggest we don’t have to be accountable for our mistakes.
Is that the kind of country in which you want to live and belong? When did we become so high and mighty and above accountability? We wonder why we have corrupt CEO’s and politicians and business people. Isn’t the answer fairly obvious? The bully is rewarded because we are the bully and it’s worked for us as a country.
Come on, people, have we really lost all hope of being able to transform our government and our foreign policy and our military policy? When are we going to flow out into the streets and demand that we live up to our democracy? When are we going to say enough is enough? How is that we can assassinate a human being publicly across the world and no one says a word?
Sometimes I wonder if we are all asleep…