Email I received

[Rachelsmom]

A LESSON TO MY SON by A PROUD AMERICAN
Irma S. Chambers

The other day, my nine year old son wanted to know why we
were at war.
My husband looked at our son and then looked at me. My
husband and I
were in the Army during the Gulf War and we would be
honored to serve
and defend our country again today. I knew that my husband
would give
him a good explanation.


My husband thought for a few minutes and then told my son
to go stand
in our front living room window. He told him: "Son, stand
there and
tell me what you see?"


"I see trees and cars and our neighbors houses." he
replied.

"OK, now I want you to pretend that our house and our yard
is the United
States of America and you are President Bush."


Our son giggled and said "OK."

"Now son, I want you to look out the window and pretend
that every
house and yard on this block is a different country." my
husband said.

"OK Dad, I'm pretending."


"Now I want you to stand there and look out the window and
see that man
come out of his house with his wife and he has her by the
hair and
is hitting her. You see her bleeding and crying. He hits
her in the
face, he throws her on the ground, then he starts to kick
her to death.
Their children run out and are afraid to stop him, they are
crying, they
are watching this but do nothing because they are kids and
afraid of
their father. You see all of this son....what do you do?"


"Dad?"

"What do you do son?!"

"I call the police, Dad."


"OK. Pretend that the police are the United Nations and
they take your
call, listen to what you know and saw but they refuse to
help. What do
you do then son?!"


"Dad, but the police are supposed to help!" My son starts
to whine.


"They don't want to son, because they say that it is not
their place or
your place to get involved and that you should stay out of
it," my
husband says.


"But Dad...he killed her!!" my son exclaims.


"I know he did...but the police tell you to stay out of it.
Now I want
you to look out that window and pretend you see our
neighbor who you're
pretending is Saddam turn around and do the same thing to
his children."


"Daddy...he kills them?"


"Yes son, he does. What do you do?"

"Well, if the police don't want to help, I will go and ask
my next door
neighbor to help me stop him." our son says.


"Son, our next door neighbor sees what is happening and
refuses to get
involved as well. He refuses to open the door and help you
stop him,"
my husband says. "But Dad, I NEED help!!! I can't stop him
by myself!!"

"WHAT DO YOU DO SON?"


Our son starts to cry.

"OK, no one wants to help you, the man across the street
saw you ask
for help and saw that no one would help you stop him. He
stands taller
and puffs out his chest. Guess what he does next son?"


"What Daddy?"


"He walks across the street to the old ladies house and
breaks down her
door and drags her out, steals all her stuff and sets her
house on fire
and then...he kills her. He turns around and sees you
standing in he
window and laughs at you. WHAT DO YOU DO?!!!"

"Daddy..."


"WHAT DO YOU DO?!!!"

Our son is crying and he looks down and he whispers, "I
close
the blinds, Daddy."


My husband looks at our son with tears in his eyes and asks
him...


"Why?"


"Because Daddy.....the police are supposed to help...people
who needs
it....and they won't help....You always say that neighbors
are supposed
to HELP neighbors, but they won't help either...they won't
help me stop
him...I'm afraid....I can't do it by myself...Daddy.....I
can't look out
my window and just watch him do all these terrible things
and...and.....do nothing...so....I'm just going to close
the
blinds....so I can't see what he's doing........and I'm
going to pretend
that it is not happening."


I start to cry.

My husband looks at our nine year old son standing in the
window,
looking pitiful and ashamed at his answers to my husbands
questions and
he tells him...."Son"


"Yes, Daddy."


"Open the blinds because that man....he's at your front
door..."WHAT DO
YOU DO?!!!!"

My son looks at his father, anger and defiance in his eyes.
He balls up
this tiny fists and looks his father square in the eyes,
without
hesitation he says: "I DEFEND MY FAMILY DAD!! I'M NOT GONNA
LET HIM HURT
MOMMY OR MY SISTER, DAD!!! I'M GONNA FIGHT HIM, DAD, I'M
GONNA FIGHT
HIM!!!!!"

I see a tear roll down my husband's cheek and he grabs my
son to his
chest and hugs him tight, and cries..."It's too late to
fight him, he's
too strong and he's already at YOUR front door son.....you
should have
stopped him BEFORE he killed his wife. You have to do
what's right, even
if you have to do it alone, before......it's too late." my
husband
whispers.

THAT scenario I just gave you is WHY we are at war with
Iraq. When
good men stand by and let evil happen is the greatest EVIL
of all.

Our President is doing what is right. We, as a free nation,
must
understand that this war is a war of humanity. WE must
remove this evil
man from power so that we can continue to live in a free
world where we
are not afraid to look out our window and see crimes on
humanity. So
that my nine year old son won't grow up in a world where he
feels that
if he just "closes" that blinds the atrocities in the world
won't affect
him.

Today the second day of "WAR on IRAQ" I felt compelled to
write this and
pass it along. Hopefully, you will understand the lesson my
husband
tried to teach our son.


"YOU MUST NEVER BE AFRAID TO DO WHAT IS RIGHT! EVEN IF YOU
HAVE TO DO IT
ALONE!" BE PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN! BE PROUD OF OUR
PRESIDENT! BE PROUD
OF OUR TROOPS!! SUPPORT THEM!!! SUPPORT AMERICA!! SO THAT
IN THE FUTURE
OUR CHILDREN WILL NEVER HAVE TO CLOSE THEIR BLINDS...."

[joesmom]

[Amazlilith]

Awful!

That is the most horrific propaganda that I have heard to date! I can't believe that anyone would propagate such lies and in such a disturbing way.

[AdinaL]

sick sick sick...i can't honestly imgine doing that to my child.....what a horrible thing to make them go through. And repeatedly yelling "WHAT DO YOU DO?" it is a kid not a man in boot camp...good grief.

Yuck.

[sohj]

:Puke

[TiredX2]

OMG, what kind of sick person would do that to their own child and be *proud* of it.

[El Casey S]

That was disgusting . . . if this is the mentality of the average American . . . well, then all I can say is, . . . no wonder . . .

[MelMel]

that was the hokeyest cheesey crap i ever read...and that what i replyed with when someone actually forwarded me that as well....

:sinister :sinister :sinister :sinister

(forget saddam and them guys, find out where my sinister smilies went)

[kama'aina mama]

It's like somewhere there is a team of bad writers who take time out from churning out crappy Harlequin romances to churn out crappy, over the top 'patriotic' stories to SPAM the world with. Ugh! If "Irma S Chambers" actually exists (which I doubt like mad!) I would love to see her and her hubby brought up on charges. Nice idea to phsychologically torture a kid and then tell him that vigilante attacks on neighbors for thought crimes is appropriate.

[CollegeMama]

Poor kid! What a terrible thing to do to your child! It makes me want to go home and hug my son very tight.

Marcy

[mamaley]

:Puke

[dlb]

How about a story where almost the whole neighborhood is beating up old ladies, but we ignore them, or support them in it, because there is some benefit to us to do so? And we support one neighbor in particular, until we decide he has something we want, so we take over his house on the pretext that he is hurting the lady?

Sorry, just my take.


dlb

[frogertgrl]

Please don't apologize, dlb. You have it exactly right.

Hideous piece that propaganda. Of course, the child is the sacrifice for the ideology.

[amy mama]

or how about we do what we did, which is to first starve the beaten woman and her children, while the abuser continues to live like a king, and then when that fails-we bomb the crap out of that woman and her kids, killing several of them, grievously wounding others, while the "evil" man escapes? Sounds like my kind of neighborhood...

[DeChRi]

Okay, while on the subject of pukey emails, I have this friend that sends me tons of forwards that make my stomach turn. Here is one of them:

http://www.afapetitions.com/SignPetition.asp?id=1030


and here is what the most recent said:

"Wish You Were Here"

For all the free people that still protest - You're welcome. We protect you and you are protected by the best. Your voice is strong and loud, but who will fight for you? No one standing in your crowd. We are your fathers, brothers, and sons wearing the boots and carrying guns. We are the ones that leave all we own, to make sure your future is carved in stone. We are the ones who fight and die, We might not be able to save the world, But, at least we try. We walked the paths to where we are at and we want no choice other than that. so when you rally your group to complain, take a look in the back of your brain. In order for that flag you love to fly wars must be fought and young men must die. We came here to fight for the ones we hold dear. If that's not respected, we would rather stay here. So please stop yelling, put down your signs, and pray for those behind enemy lines.
When the conflict is over and all is well, be thankful that we chose to go through hell.

Corporal Joshua Miles and all the boys from
3rd Batallion 2nd Marines, Kuwait


Nice, huh?
:

[Delilah]

This doesn't surprise me...

for a country with the intellect or education of Leno's inhabitants of Jaywalk, people who believe the news and political reasoning can be dissseminated in soundbites, watching Faux News Network and calling it "fair and balanced" and anything with the truth "anti-US".

[amy mama]

wow, JoJo-the "petition" really is one of the most barfiest (is that a word?) things I've seen in awhile.

[Irishmommy]

While I don't think it's a real incident, it's the biggest load of crap I've read in a while.

I'm surprised my friend in CA hasn't sent it to me.

[daylily]

"But Dad, that family has a grandma who has to stay in bed all the time because she's sick. If we fight them, we might kill her."

"Son, that's not really killing. It's just collateral damage."

"But Dad, isn't there a way we can protect that family from the mean man without attacking them? If we fight them, we'll burn down their house and then what will happen to that family?"

"Son, it's not our fault if they don't have homeowner's insurance."

"But Dad, that family is hungry. No one will sell them food because their Dad is so mean. Their grandma is sick and no one will sell them medicine because their dad is so mean. I know Dad! Maybe we could make friends with that family. Maybe we could help the mom and kids to go to a women's shelter. Maybe we could find a way to escape their mean dad without fighting."

"That won't work, son. That family is different from us, and we can't trust them to become the kind of family we want on our block. We need to attack them and make them set up a proper household."

[hydrangea]

:Puke

I think it's more like this:

I'm losing patience with my neighbours, Mr Bush
by Terry Jones, of Monty Python fame

I can't give you the whole thing here, but here's a snippet to get you started:

For some time now I've been really pissed off with Mr Johnson, who lives a couple of doors down the street. Well, him and Mr Patel, who runs the health food shop. They both give me queer looks, and I'm sure Mr Johnson is planning something nasty for me, but so far I haven't been able to discover what. I've been round to his place a few times to see what he's up to, but he's got everything well hidden. That's how devious he is.