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GROUND ZERO PLUS 1062 DAYS, New York, NY, August 7, 2004--There're people lined on both sides of the Iraqi War fence, about half saying it was a good idea and the other half denying America the right to invade other nations based on false, misleading information.

There are those also who carp that America's image worldwide has been soiled by its virtual unilateral actions (don't forget Britian was in there swinging too, and a few others) to depose despots.

Saddam Hussein is no fool. He recently requested a non-Jewish American attorney and stated that the U.S. had the best lawyers.

It makes you wonder why the guy that caused the war in the first place would reach out the nation that deposed him to fight for his life. Maybe America isn't so bad afterall! But don't tell that to Bush Bashers.

They'll tell you how horrible and despicable President Bush is for "lying" to the American public and keeping that rascal Dick Cheney as his vice president so Halliburton can drain all the oil out of the Middle East sand swamp.

It makes you want to gag after a while--these attacks on the idea that America has no right or duty to stand up as a World Sentinel of Vigilant when the majority of other major nations refused to act to remove Saddam after being asked, being bribed and even being begged.

Don't forget the billions of dollars in aid America gave Turkey during the bargaining to use Turkey's airfields just prior to the war's launch, only to have Turkey say "NO!" at the final moment, forcing a major revision of strategic planning.

The world isn't as divided about America as we would think. We are much more divided. A house divided.

Look at the current election process. You have the "bad guy Bush" against the "good guy Anti-War War Hero who tossed his Bronze Star away in disgust a number of years ago. Then there is the Anti-War War Hero's wife, who once said she wouldn't walk across the street with a Democrat, and now is hailing herself as the future first lady of the party she spat upon.

The world looking at America sees America dividing itself--attacking itself--beating itself with the cat-of-nine-tails whip, national self-flagellation to say the least.

And in this cauldron of political madness we mix up corporate hysteria. The world not only sees the politics of America staggering about like drunken sailors trying to get their sea legs, but then we see the great, strong, invincible corporations raping, pillaging and plundering the public as though they were locust feeding in the Seventh Year.

Wisdom tells us to step back from the present and look at the real lessons in gestation.

America is going through a birthing process, and may not even know she is pregnant.

The Declaration of Independence is coming true 228 years later, for America has become, as of September 11, 2001, a member of the world community. She is vulnerable as any other nation to the angry Beast of Terror that caused so many millions to flee their nations and seek the warm, secure refuge of the Statue of Liberty where opportunity and safety from political and economic terrorism seemed not to exist.

That, of course, was a bit of myth if you were black or Chinese or Hispanic, or an American Indian, or, at the turn of the century, an Irish immigrant, or a Jew who couldn't get into a country club.

To visit the "old America" before its recent birth into a multi-cultural nation of vast differences and equal rights, flip the channel to Turner Classic Movies and notice the all-white, pure illusion of the rich versus the poor, of movies that showed no hint of integration and rallied around the flag of white, rich supremecy.

Now, every movie has a black co-star, or a black star with a white co-star, or, all black stars and co-stars.

Then there are the gays getting married and adopting children and promoting economic and family equality in the workplace as never before in America's history.

America has lost her innocence in many ways as a result of Nine Eleven.

Not that she hadn't already lost it--but only that Nine Eleven brought that loss of innocence into perspective as never before seen by the world or the citizens of America.

Suddenly, America was "raped" by forces outside her control. Her "corporate shield" was penetrated, and the rapist left her scarred, battered, terrorized.

But Nine Eleven was not the cause of America's falling from the Humpty Dumpty Wall and getting giant cracks throughout her shell.

Nine Eleven was the peak of the iceberg suddenly seen by the captain of the Titanic but too late to change course.

America had matured as a nation.

In that maturity came vulnerability to reality, the reality of a world at war with itself.

Suddenly, America realized it was an international nation. It was bursting at the seams with people from all over the world who had for many years blended into the landscape. Now, those people were major suspects. They were put on watch lists, and their accents now suggested they might be part of plots or cells, and wary eyes followed them, wondering, wondering.

America's Constitution was suddenly altered. The Patriot Act immediately cracked the idea of Freedom as Americans knew it, and stole the fundamental rights that generations upon generations had fought hard to protect.

If a person fit a certain profile, their rights were thrown out the window.

The myth of feedom became the reality of terrorism, for true freedom exists only in peace, not in war.

But is this all sour grapes? Is it the end of America as we know it? Or, is it the beginning of a "Real America?"

In the truest sense of democracy, America was formed as a land of retreat from tyranny and oppression. It invited the world to make its home on its rich soil, and opened its arms to all. Poet Emma Lazaus wrote on November 2, 1883, her famous piece called "The New Colossus," and on 1903 a bronze plaque was placed inside the statue depicting the poem. The most famous lines in it read:

Today, America has the world. It is the world. It is a true melting pot of humanity. There is even serious talk about ammending the Constitution so that someone not born in this country can be elected president of the United States if he or she has enjoyed citizenship for at least twenty years.

Nine Eleven brought this all to a head. It symbolized the fact that America is not just a white Christian bastion, but a giant salad of different ingrediants from all four corners of the earth.

So often we forget that a vast majority of the people who died in the World Trade Center were from countries and lands far distant from America--and that, ultimately, the attack on September 11, 2001 was an attack on the world, not just America.

America is undergoing labor pains as she gives birth to the reality of her diversity. The Governor of California, a state bigger the most nations in the world, speaks in an accent that seems absolutely foreign to the imagination of years past, yet he commands respect and admiration by millions. As a young boy in Austria, he dreamed of coming to America and rising up the ranks of politics and power--a strange dream for any child--but one that America has promoted the day it opened its arms to the "huddled masses yearning to breathe free."

And the issue in Iraq?

America has matured the world in ways that cannot yet be comprehended. Despite all the criticism of the Iraqi War, one single point stands above all the flack--America is willing to stand up to the world when it comes to bullies who threaten its security.

I'm not talking about Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Security in the world is the elimination of despotism, tyranny, oppression. It is the banding together of people willing to fight and die for the rights of others to live in a world that does not suffocate them with brutality.

Before the Iraqi War, the world paid lip service to the Middle East. It was a shadowy land of archaic, antidivulean cultures that no one was willing to challenge, not matter how radical the threat it posed was upon other nations seeking peace and the evolution of feedom in their own lands.

Now, the Middle East has been thrust into the center of the 21st Century. The world daily trains its microscopes on the events there, and like a broadway spotlight illuminating a dancer in the far corner of the stage, the Middle East is now a world star, a world player.

Had America not acted against Saddam Hussein, the Middle East may have been swallowed up in even deeper tyranny and oppression. Its people might have surrendered to the belief that the difference between a rut and grave is the depth. But now, a giant bridge has been constructed between the Middle East and the entire world, similar to the one constructed between Japan and world following World War II.

The Middle East is giving birth also to a new truth. That new truth is that old ways do die and new ways are born from them.

And what is the bottom line of all this?

It is that America is learning that Vigilance is the child being born. For a couple hundred years, Vigilance was not the concern of Americans. Living in peace and harmony was.

Now, a citizen of America is forced to assume the duty and responsibility of Vigilance within his or her home because Terrorism has forced the maturity of Americans to protect their rights and their children's rights from being taken.

The same is true in the Middle East. Vigilance is the key to creating and preserving fundamental human rights--rights that for the most part did not exist before March, 2004 when America attacked and dethroned a great despot.

The birth and rebirth of Freedom is not without great pain, suffering and bloodshed. But, in the final analysis, the child it bears will be stronger, more able, and wiser.

The child will be named--Vigilance.

 

 

Go To August 6 "Class-Action TerrorHunters Attack Corporate Terrorists"

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