Presidential Directive

As Luci gets older I begin to think a lot about her education; what kind of values I want to teach her, how I will explain or talk to her about difficult issues like violence on TV and in life, or sex. More than anything I think about teaching her respect, toward people, toward other's possessions, toward the environment.

But I am running into a conundrum. I am not sure I know how to talk to her about politics.

Actually, I take that back. I have very strong opinions right now and I know exactly how I want to talk to her about politics. I'm just not sure I should let all those views fly at my little girl quite so early.

I am scared/curious/angry about the National Security Presidential Directive that just came out of the White House in early May, and was recently signed into law. I think more people need to know about this, since a google search revealed NOTHING except links to several blogs and the actual directive itself. NO news coverage!?! This baffles me considering that it states that in the case of "any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions" the president would assume control of all three branches of government in order to coordinate relief and better respond to the incident. It also states that this incident could be the result of disrupted technology, a natural disaster, attack on the nation.

I think a lot of people rely on the news in order to educate themselves about what is going on in our country and our world. And why not? Isn't that what the news is for? But when something like this gets missed I begin to wonder if I, if anyone, is doing enough to educate themselves so that we can be responsible and active citizens who question our government and make good decisions when we go to the polls to let our voices be heard.

We can't change the world if we don't know what's going on, can we?