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FIGHTING THE HORRORS OF TORTURE ON THE STREETS OF NEW YORK CITY

GROUND ZERO PLUS 1117 DAYS,--New York, NY, Sunday, October 3, 2004--A woman crouched in a cage, hands bloody, face bruised from beatings, head hung low, not from shame, but from the yoke of endless torture.

Another woman sat limp in a chair, a tube draining Draino drop by drop into the corner of her mouth. Her head lolled back. Blood dripped from her beaten eyes. Her jaw was slack, darkened by shadows suggesting repeated beatings.

Falun Gong members are tortured from forcefeeding...
Falun Gong members are tortured from forcefeeding...
...to a Chinese military officer brutalizing a prisoner with a "beating stick"
...to a Chinese military officer brutalizing a prisoner with a "beating stick"

A few feet away stood a Chinese military officer taunting the prisoners. He held a "beating stick" in his left hand, his uniform sharply pressed, face expressionless as any executioner who, after hundreds of deaths at his hand, no longer recognizes humanity in the human he is painfully beating to slow, agonizing death.

All of this was happening on 7th and 5th Avenue, as part of a major promotional thrust to spotlight the plight of hundreds of Chinese being treated in parallel ways as the Romans did the Christians a couple of thousand years ago for practicing a religion the Romans considered threatening to the state.

Instead of Christianity, the religion being quashed in 21st Century China is called Falun Gong and Falun DaFa. Again, similar to Christianity and the Romans, it is only a seven-year-old movement.

One of Falun Gong's tenants that sparks the brutality of Chinese authorities is the main mission of believers since 1999 to combat China's governmental repression of religious beliefs not sanctioned by the state.

Anyone familiar with Roman history understands the agony Christians were subjected to for expressing their faith. It included crucifixion and being slaughtered in the arena by gladiators. History reports thousands were mauled to death by lions and other beasts as entertainment for the crowds of complacent Romans who watched their fellow human beings die mercilessly.

The streets of New York City are replaying these old scenes of human horror with a 21st Century twist. It is the theater of reality, a silent scream broadcasting across a Sea of Complacency for help to reform China's draconian treatment of human rights to express religious freedom, especially Falun Gong/Falun DaFa.

China continues to rule with an iron fist
China continues to rule with an iron fist

Falun Gong isn't by its nature revolutionary. However, the belief in human rights divinely granted by a Higher Power has created turmoil within China. Its okay to believe, but not protest that belief. Protesting the rights of citizens against authority is not taken lightly by a ruling government that still believes in the iron fist in an iron glove.

Mr. Li Hongzhi (Master Li), founder of the meditation practice Falun Gong
Mr. Li Hongzhi (Master Li), founder of the meditation practice Falun Gong

Falun Gong employs a mixture of traditional Chinese spirituality and the teachings of a man followers call Master Li. It is, as most all new religious or spiritual movements, a potpourri of ancient and modern.

The symbol for Falun Gong is a backwards swastika, used throughout the centuries by different cultures, including the American Indians. When the swastika turns clockwise, followers believe energy is created to help expand the goodness of the individual; when the swastika spins counterclockwise, energy is transmitted outward to help others.

Membership among China's 1.3 billion population--four times that of the United States--is alleged to be 70 million. Another 30 million followers are estimated worldwide.

Since the Republican Convention here in New York City, daily Falun Gong peaceful protests of human cruelty have punctuated every busy corner of the city. Opposite the Chinese Consulate on 42nd St, New Yorkers have silently protested suppression of their meditation group weekly for five years. Dressed in yellow, members pray in front of signs and posters exampling the horror prisoners undergo, and pass out literature with graphic scenes and stories pleading for intervention by the West.

Falun Gong logo
Falun Gong logo

The dominance of the protestors force you to look into their faces, solemn faces of a people reaching out with thin straws in hopes America will do for them what it has done for Iraq and Afghanistan--stand up to the Beast of Terror.

I was asked by one of them yesterday to be a Terror Hunter in their behalf--to ring the Bell of Vigilance for Falun Gong, to help remove the dictatorship that imposes brutal violence on those who practice its beliefs.

I was at a local street fair in the East Village and a conversation ensued with one of the Chinese ladies in front of a display showing the torture so common to the movement.

The Swedish woman and Chinese woman filled me in on the religious intolerance in China
The Swedish woman and Chinese woman filled me in on the religious intolerance in China

When the well-spoken woman and an ally from Sweden here for an international conference begging recognition for the plight of Chinese victims began to tell me about the problem with the dictator, I injected that the real problem wasn't with the dictatorial leadership in China, but rather with the Complacency among the 500 million parents who allowed their government to Terrorize them.

I argued that the logic of deposing leadership without reestablishing a base of Parental Vigilance in China was like cutting off one of the heads of the Hydra.

That led us to a healthy conversation about who was the Beast of Terror, the people who allow the Beast to roam wild, or the Beast itself. I was pressing her to focus on rallying the millions of Chinese citizens to become Parents of Vigilance and revolt against not just the harsh treatment of Falun Gong, but to revolt against the idea that leadership of human rights was held in the hands of government--good or bad--and that only when the people stood up for their children's rights would the problem be checked.

She reminded me it was easy to speak about Vigilance in America where living under a dictatorship wasn't the common way of life for millions. She also reminded me that Chinese people have, for countless generations, lived under rules of obedience to rulership and while my rhetoric sounded good, it wasn't practical.

I concurred, but didn't agree that by removing one dictator that another wouldn't pop up, and another after that, because the Beast of Terror, like a chameleon, always seem to grow another tail, head, finger, eye, nose just as soon as you cut one off.

The three of us conversed about the need of the Parents of Vigilance in the world rallying for the Children's Children's Children
The three of us conversed about the need of the Parents of Vigilance in the world rallying for the Children's Children's Children

Even though I agreed with the immediate problem, the long-range issue was of my greatest concern--How do you keep the next dictator from coming about? How do you not surrender your Parental and Grandparental and Generational obligations of protecting the future generations to some person or body and expect them to be as concerned about your loved ones as you are? I posed a number of questions.

"What if instead of blaming the problems of freedom on dictators, the Chinese pointed the finger at themselves...as Parents of Complacency? What if...what if...every dictator comes to power because the people let that happen...if the Parents of Vigilance just surrender their parental role to someone they call a leader? What if instead of saying we need to change the government, we said we need to awaken the duty of every Parent of Vigilance?"

It was an engaging conversation. China faces tough times on the issue of accelerating its freedoms and civil liberties. Not many nations want to tackle the Big Dragon as America took on Iraq. The Chinese are evolving, however slowly, toward an integrated trade community. With the interdependence of its people and power with the world, it will be forced to open its doors to more rights for the people, but that is then, and torture is happening now.

Then I posed the big question to the Chinese lady and her friend from Sweden. "Would you agree then that America did the right thing in Iraq?"

The Chinese lady didn't blink. "Yes. Now it's time to do the same in China."

I could tell she meant what she said. People who live under oppression and see others become free from it by outside forces, want the same themselves.

She added a comment to balance her statement. "In America, if you do things wrong or bad, you have the ability to expose those mistakes and rectify them. In China, if the government does something bad, they cover it up. Right now, we want your help to uncover the bad in China and fix it."

We ended up agreeing that if all the Parents of Vigilance in all the nations were to throw their support in behalf of the prosecutions of people in China for their religious convictions, that China's leaders would be forced to change its policies.

The question was, did people look at China as they would a relative, a cousin, nephew, niece, brother, sister, grandchild?

Vigilance is about the individual putting aside his or her individuality in favor of being a Parent, Grandparent and Great Grandparent of Vigilance. Seeing the world through the lenses of the Children's, Children's, Children--out some 100 plus years--forces any citizen of any land to think about who their children or grandchildren might be married to, have children with at some point beyond reasonable fathom.

Who could justly say his or her great, great, great grandchildren might not be married to a Chinese, an Iraqi, a Sudanese, a Russian, or any host of ethnic or religious permutations.

I was told the Chinese resigned themselves to a life of slavery
I was told the Chinese resigned themselves to a life of slavery

My point--as a Sentinel of Vigilance by my definition--was that the Parents of the World must rally--the ones in China and others in different lands. Removing one political head for another, hoping the new one might be more merciful, didn't guarantee anything except a confirmation that the people had no power over their destiny.

Complacency, she told me, was so common in China that most people resigned themselves to a life of slavery under draconian rule. I proposed that China needed to change its view--at least the Parents of Vigilance had to.

To fight Fear, Intimidation and Complacency--the Triads of Terrorism--means more than putting up with torture for what you believe. It means in believing that everyone is responsible to stand up to Terrorism, not just a few, to make the Parents of Vigilance awaken and to remove the Parents of Complacency who allow, by default, the Terrorism to continue.

The rhetoric sounded good on the streets of New York.

I didn't relate to the women I had been involved in incidents of torture while in Vietnam
I didn't relate to the women I had been involved in incidents of torture while in Vietnam

I didn't tell the woman I had been involved in horrible torturing and killing of human beings similar to and perhaps worse than any of the pictures on display when I was in Vietnam.

That didn't seem relevant.

Neither did I ask her if she had ever been tortured. I did ask if she had children, and she said no. She replied she assumed the motherhood of all the children in China.

I didn't ask her either why she wasn't protesting the killing of little girls by their parents--pressured to do so by government--but still conducted at the hands of the parents. China imposed a rule two decades ago to limit its explosive population: one child for urban couples and no more than two for rural.

Heavy fines are levied for any violation. The only exception is twins. Many poor Chinese cannot afford to pay the fines for having more than their allocation, and kill their children.

The other issue is girl babies. Female children are looked down upon compared with boys, for boys can get jobs easier than females that pay better. Thousands of baby girls are killed or abandoned by parents seeking to have their allocation of children in male numbers, enhancing the potential for revenue to the family.

Rural couples were generally allowed to have two children to help with the farm work

The state of China discourages female babies, considering them a source of the population explosion--the womb of the problem.

I wondered why she could focus in on religious prosecution when children were being murdered by their parents as grandparents stood by and watched, and the nation didn't scream about that.

I wondered if the torture of the people of China might have some relationship to the bad karma of a nation sanctioning the death of the unborn in vast numbers, based on sex, and the consideration that children were still chattel in some parts of the land.

I also was quick to remind her that here in America we had horrible torture like that in China, where parents beat their children, sexually and mentally abused them, and were as evil or more evil than anything the Chinese were promoting.

And that we all must stand up to fight Terrorism in relation to the future of the Children, and not try to fix others until we ourselves had fixed our own viewpoints--that is, until we became personal Parents of Vigilance.

It ended warmly.

I know Vigilance starts at home
I know Vigilance starts at home...and am passing on that knowledge...

She took my card and asked me to be a TerrorHunter for her. I agreed. But not until I asked her to become a Parent of Vigilance, and to consider the duty to promote that we--Parents and Grandparents and Loved Ones of Vigilance--must be the ones who change, not just the dictators.

In the end, I felt good.

I felt I understood Vigilance a little better, and I knew it all started at home.

 

Go To Yesterday's Story: "The Japanese And Muslim Ethnic Terror Vice -- A Reminder The World No Longer Has Borders In Politics Or Sports"

 

 

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