checkpoint

Walking to school, we passed a political poster. "This is a checkpoint for weapons of mass destruction," Olle read.

A couple of weeks ago, I explained what sarcasm was to him. Now it was time to explain satire. This is, briefly, how it went: when George Bush and John Howard wanted to invade Iraq [this gives Howard too big a role, I realise], they told everyone they had to invade because Iraq had wmd. But Iraq didn't have wmd. Bush and Howard were lying. They invaded Iraq and a great many people have died and are suffering, all because they lied. No wmd were in Iraq. There are no wmd - you see, it's a joke. This isn't a checkpoint, the wmd are invisible. Well, it may as well be a checkpoint, for all the wmd there were in Iraq. Satire is a political joke, like the political cartoons you see in the paper. That poster is making a political joke about Howard and Bush and the missing wmd.

"America and Australia have all the weapons of mass destruction!"

Well, no, Australia doesn't have any, but America does have a lot. Which makes them hypocrites. Do you know what hypocrites are?

"No."

Well, say someone tells everyone else that they'll go to jail if they punch someone, but then they turn around and punch someone very hard. Saying one thing and doing another - that's a hypocrite. Bush is a hypocrite, as America has a lot of weapons of mass destruction but they started a war to stop Iraq from having wmd - and Iraq didn't have any anyway.

Give me a kiss and have a lovely day.

Comments

[Jody]

"Bush is a hypocrite, as America has a lot of weapons of mass destruction but they started a war to stop Iraq from having wmd" -- I'm not sure this is hypocricy so much as power-hogging. But I take your point.

My kids still don't know anything about global affairs. They know vaguely that soldiers are fighting and dying in a wary (one of their preschool teachers has a son in the marines, doing his second duty in Iraq; ditto the son of one of my mother's first cousins, who attends church with us) but the bigger issues continue to be outside their field of vision.

Unless they heard something in school yesterday (which I doubt), they still don't know about 9/11.

I don't know if this is a good thing, or hypocricy on my part. How nice, that my children don't have to know the actions of their country.

[mikhela]

thanks Suze - that's made it all very clear.
Could you get Olle to ask about decision making within the parliamentary system now? I'd like to know about factions and preselection and who gets what Ministries.

[susoz]

Mikhela, that gave me a big laugh! (I'm not sure I'm the best person to explain all that, though I could give it a go.)
Jody, I have misgivings about telling Olle these kinds of things. For a start, I'm not sure he's capable of really understanding it, so why bother him with these awful realities. On the other hand, he's known about the war in Iraq since he went on many protest marches against it as a four year old in 2003. We do have television news on at night which he sees (though I try not to let him see the worst war footage.) And they are realities which will shape the world he grows into. So I do discuss them with him, though not every day of the week. And he doesn't know about 9/11 either - partly because we're not in the US, so it's not so close to us, but also because it's not something I want him to have in his head.