They Are Teaching Their Children

You who are on the road
Must have a code that you can live by
And so become yourself
Because the past is just a good-bye.

Teach your children well,
Their father's hell did slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams
The one they pick’s, the one you'll know by.
Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you, you will cry,
So just look at them and sigh
And know they love you.

And you, of tender years,
Can't know the fears that your elders grew by,
And so please help them with your youth,
They seek the truth before they can die.

Teach your parents well,
Their children's hell will slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams
The one they pick’s, the one you'll know by.

Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you, you will cry,
So just look at them and sigh and know they love you.*

I can think of no surer way to raise up a new generation of insurrectionists than by stealing them from their parents and ignoring their innocent and terrified cries. The vineyard of unintended consequences, planted in the acidic soil of the president's hubris and total disdain for humanity, will not fully bear grapes for decades; but when those bitter berries ripen, woe to the nation that sought profits from that vineyard and woe to the vintners who nourished the vines with the tears of babies and desperate parents. There is no more poisonous vintage on earth than that which is pressed from the grapes of terror.

There is also no question that the world at large—particularly those parts of the world led by despots, dictators, and “leaders for life”—is watching America slouch toward irrelevancy with great interest. Our dwindling list of friends and allies may be recoiling in shock (or, maybe, by this point, turning away with a sad shrug) at this administration’s coldly-calculated treatment of refugee families at our Southern border. But the faces of those players who seek to do us harm are not turning away; far from it. They are fascinated and excited by the possibilities of mischief and outright destruction they can wreak on increasingly vulnerable sectors of our country.

In Donald Trump, our friends and enemies see a man who is willing to promote turmoil and leverage grief in order to have his way with Congress which is on the verge of giving the president his wall in order to restore some semblance of humanity along the border. Such a deception is no cure for what truly ails us, and if it teaches our children anything, it is that spinelessness, sycophancy, and silence in the face of bullying are the safest social, moral, and political stances.

What is most troubling to me—beyond the sights and sounds of the refugee families—is the energizing effects these scenes of political and social disarray are having in the planning rooms of every bad actor in the world. We are not only teaching our children to dismiss as fake news the cries of refugee families; we are teaching the children of every nation and organization opposed to America just how fractured, fragmented, and adrift we are within our own borders. These are children of home-grown or foreign terrorists, violent jihadists, gun-for-hire dissidents, Russian computer hackers, social disruptors, and more.

These other children are watching us. The angry parents in these countries and organizations believe America created the hells they lived through, and they are teaching their children well, feeding them on their bitter dreams of revenge, violence and disruption. That is their truth. And their children are learning a dark code to live by. Nothing we are doing on the world stage today refutes their impression of our leaders' fecklessness, disingenuity, and callousness. 

These children will step into their parents’ shoes one day, armed not only with knives, guns, bombs, and trucks, but with cyber tools, political insight, and social media savvy. They will look for the children who Trump locked in cages, and they will recruit as many as they can to their disruptive and deadly causes. Then they will teach them to teach their children. And our hell will not slowly go by…it will stay with us. Because we did not teach our children well enough. That is our truth, and we will cry.

*© Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Spirit Music Group, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.