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Tonight I saw Fareinheit 911 | Poem

Tonight I saw Fareinheit 911

 I'll leave it to others to stir over facts. In all great movies we come away stunned and stay that way for a time. I will be stunned for some time to come, maybe forever. I've been reading about and arguing over all the main points of this movie so I have to
ask myself what I DIDN'T KNOW.

I didn't know the real effect of bombs actually going off. Somewhere along the line that escaped me all my life. They are so sudden, so violent! It's like I never really knew.

I didn't know the effect that all those black congressmen and women speaking to the senate after the election would have on me. No senator would even sign to allow a debate and the speakers kept coming and coming. I missed that in the news I guess. It gave me the feeling of losing something.

I didn't know I would not cry when the Iraqi woman was screaming  "What did he do?" when her son was killed and then I cried when the American lady was saying the
samething. I didn't know I would notice this about myself later. Now one mother makes me remember the other.

I didn't know about soldiers who lost limbs and about their lives afterward. I knew this but I didn't. These people become veterans after all the flag waving is over. The next time we think war is so necessary we should all know what we are signing up for. I knew but I didn't know this.

I didn't know that this president had ever seen a protester. It came as he was driving to the innauguration. It shocked me because it seems that dissent was allocated to free speech zones soon after. It's the dissent itself that shocked me. Have I forgotten?

I didn't know that one mother's story could move me so much. I didn't know that the simple statement "My son is dead" so totally squelched any political argument
another person had to offer! I didn't know that political arguments pale beside this one lady on a sidewalk in Washington who lost her son and made me cry.

I didn't know I'd be this upset.

- Dave Jackson

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