Future Generations and George Bush

It is said that children have an innate sense of the truth of things, that they are not swayed by posture and bluster. Veneer and polish affects not their ability to see the kernel of an otherwise obscured matter.

With this in mind, I'd like to present the following example from a collection of letters that are being sent to President Bush by a class of fifth grade students (I am being purposefully sparse on the details, but this is genuine).

Guess what, George? Your specious reasoning and dissembling about the NSA suveillance program is not persuading those who might be least affected by your obfuscation and the media spin machine that you have so effectively employed on a large population of adults.

Yes, even the fifth graders are pissed:

I am XXXXXX XXXX. I am writing this letter because you are listening to people’s private phone calls and invading their privacy. I think everyone has a right to not want to be spied on. Basically all the system is doing is invading privacy. I can see how it can be used to catch terrorists, but you could just listen to the people who have a record for that.

I think it is a major problem that you are reading e-mails and invading privacy. I understand this is to keep an eye on terrorists, but it is still listening in on private things. I don’t like that they are watching everybody and they don’t even have a warrant to do that. My point is that you should definitely reconsider doing this.

There are a few ways you could do this. You could listen in only on people who seem likely do this, or you could just stop doing it. You could also get a warrant for doing this, which would at least make it a little acceptable. I just don’t think it’s right to just tap in on people’s lives like that.

To help improve the lives of children you could do a lot of things. You could help by donating money or books to libraries. You could also help out schools and do things like that. Really all you need to do is make sure that schools aren’t the worst places and that kids actually like going to school (I know I do).

Again, I wrote this letter so you would see why what your doing isn’t very good. I think that everyone has a right to his or her privacy. And if they don’t want to be spied on, then they shouldn’t be. Thank you for taking that time to read this letter.

Sincerely,

XXXXXX XXXX.

Now we all know that George Bush is extremely concerned about his historical legacy, a legacy that will likely not be what Bush thinks it will be. This disconnect between his actual behaviour and the spin that he himself so obviously believes is perhaps the biggest reason his policies never change, mistakes never admitted, except when they are disingenuously blamed on someone else.

But Bush should know that it will this generation of children, like the letter writer, who will be the ones writing George Bush's history. And they will not be kind.