cd12-31

THE VigilanceVoicev  

Dec. 31—Monday—Ground Zero Plus 111

SUNRISE ON TERRORISM
by
Cliff McKenzie
Editor, New York City Combat Correspondent News
 

            There are dark spots on the sun.  Some claim they are related to our weather changes, war and epidemics. Sunspots erupt viciously, causing solar storms and disturbances in our atmosphere.  They throw chunks of molten lava into space, and like great storms at sea keep the solar system in constant imbalance.

In 1843, Heinrich Schwabe, noted regular variations in the sun’s activity.   Rudolph Wolf followed his work, noting an 11-year sunspot cycle while Edward Sabine in England in 1852 found a similar periodicity in magnetic storms.   Even the brave Galileo risked sun blindness by looking at the sun through a telescope to answer the questions of man’s purpose on earth.
            I thought about the correlation to Terrorism and sunspots as I took pictures of the sunrise this morning.
            Terrorism erupted in the dawn of the new millennium—a sunspot of horror in an age when human beings’ thirst for civilized union has never been greater.   It seemed anachronistic to me that such a primitive calendar of events would be dictated by an object 93-million miles away.   Superstition, I thought.   Astrological bunk.  
            But at the same time, I was reminded what Mao Tse Tung once said—“The iron guns of the future are written in the pages of history.”
            History shows a cycle of violent eruptions within modern civilization that matches the 11-year sunspot cycle.   Whether the two are linked in fact, is not for me to venture to guess.   But I am well aware that history repeats itself—that tyrants come and go—that the “evil ones” are not people per se, but figureheads of man’s and woman’s worst qualities personified in acts of horror and destruction.  
            To pretend that the “evil ones” will be wiped from the face of the earth once we rid ourselves of bin Laden, is like pretending the sun spots will not erupt again, or that great storms won’t ravish the earth, or that plagues and pestilence won’t attack.   Or that wars will stop once the last ounce of bin Laden’s blood is drained from his body.
            That message was brought home when I went to see the movie with my wife yesterday called Black Hawk Down.   I was excited to see a war movie allegedly promoting the heroism and comradeship of warriors bound to sacrifice themselves for others.
            But I had to leave the theater.   I felt sick to my stomach watching the film.
            It was so full of propaganda, and demeaned the military so badly, I was ashamed.   The director and writers made the warriors seem incompetent, a disheveled band of men who had little respect for their chain of command, who seemed lost and confused as to their roles as warriors.    It attacked America’s fighting strength, showing the audience one debacle after another in both command decisions and deployment of ground tactics.
            It was as though bin Laden himself had made the movie as a propaganda film to make Americans feel queasy and disloyal to its military.   On top of it all, the wife of one of the alleged heroes of the movie, is promoting her husband is a scumbag child molester.   He has, in fact, been convicted and is serving a 20-year sentence for  all his horrible acts.
            I was terrorized by the movie.   What made me sick was the idea that Hollywood would think the audience would buy into the massive assault on American military might.  The supposed “special forces” on the ground were so inept they didn’t return fire, or keep a wall of fire blazing.   They were cast as children, untrained, undisciplined hooligans who growled like animals and acted like scared rabbits under fire.
            Sunspots.  
            I thought about the need in this country to reestablish faith in our ability to protect ourselves and others from Terrorism’s clutches.  Black Hawk Down erased any faith one might have in the armed forces to act as a unified body.   Instead, it politicized the fact that over 300,000 Somalians died at the hands of ruthless in-country dictatorship;  and, showed how the Untied States walked away from that morass of political and social carnage, and turned its back on helping the helpless.
            The movie soiled the flags that fly in remembrance of the heroism of Nine Eleven, or our attempt to quash Terrorism by throwing America’s military power at the heart of Terrorism.
            As we sit on the cusp of a new year, Americans need to reflect on their attitudes and policies to fight Terrorism both abroad and within the borders of this country.
            The question is:  Does the sun shine on our flag, or are the sunspots burning holes in it?   Are we on the right track with a full military effort to hunt down, find, and prosecute Terrorism, or, are we engaged in a Black Hawk Down debacle?
            Arguments can rage from both camps with equal passion.    Some may feel that our thrust to find and kill bin Laden is like trying to smother a sun spot in hopes another might not flare—and pound their fists that bin Laden is only one of many more to come, rendering our efforts useless as they proved to be in Somalia   
            Others taking the opposite side of the coin may shout that unless we prove to the world we will not allow our nation or its citizens to be attacked without retribution,  this only opens the door to more Terrorism, and signals to those who might seek to intimidate us that we do not have the resolve or fortitude to fight back when attacked.
            I do not wish to take a position at either of the extremes of this argument.   My position is that the solution to Terrorism lies within the family—the parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, nephews and nieces.    It is on the home front that Terrorism must be fought.
            It is the solar storms of “fear,” “intimidation,” and “complacency,” that Americans must focus their attention upon if we are to defeat Terrorism.
            To achieve this goal, it requires that each parent, each citizen in this nation, become a Sentinel of Vigilance.   It means we must all learn to engage the “third eye,” the one some claim is the pituitary gland—a vestige of an “eye behind our head” once used to see what is coming from our backs.
            Vigilance is about the words Semper Vigilantes—Always Vigilant.   That means we “expect the unexpected.”   We keep an eye to what is in front of us, and our “third eye” to that which is behind us.  
            It means we recognize that our children must be protected from the “fear” of Terrorism—not just the physical fear of being attacked by a bomb or some chemical, but also the “fear of fear itself.”
            Human strength comes in three forms—courage, conviction and action.
            If we, as Citizens of Vigilance, believe our true mission on earth is to teach our children and loved ones the courage, conviction and actions necessary to stand up for what is right in the face of wrong, then Terrorism will be defeated.   If Terrorism can not drive us to our knees with fear, or make us cower with intimidation, or force us into a corner of complacency where we throw up our hands and stop trying to battle it, or support its defeat, then our children lose their rights to be free from Terrorism’s sunspot cycles.
            If there is a correlation between the solar eruptions and human madness of the bin Laden type, we can expect our children to face what we faced on September 11.   America was driven to the wall with fear, and recoiled with strength.
            We learned a huge lesson.  We learned to “expect the unexpected.”   We learned that we “are not safe.”   We learned that we must prepare ourselves and our society for more assaults.  We learned we must fight back, not just with flags and prayers, but with daily vigilance.
            That’s why each American who cares about the future of his or her children, and their safety, should take the Pledge of Vigilance.   It is nothing more than a vow, a commitment, an endorsement that one recognizes sun spots.   It broadcasts that we are “armed” and “ready” and “willing” to fight back.
            The great mistake Terrorists make in attacking a democracy is thinking that it is ruled by government.    If, by weakening the government, the Terrorists can weaken the structure of the society, Terrorism wins.
            But America is not about a central government.   It is a composition of 300 million democracies.   Each individual is the government.  Each individual is responsible for the “defense of freedom.”   Whether we agree or not, each person is a franchisee of the Untied States of America.    Each of us owns a share in the stock of our country.   And each of us is, by the duty of our Constitution, is bound to the principle of “revolt” against government if government does not act in our best interests.
            Our forefathers and foremothers built America on the “right to revolt.”   We do this in a civilized manner through the election process, but, we have an inherent duty to take up arms and remove any government which becomes oppressive, or tyrannical in its use of the power we grant it.
            This is the key point Terrorism has overlooked in its attack on America.   We, as citizens of the greatest nation in the world, are “freedom fighters.”   We have the Constitutional authority to speak our minds, to vote out bad leadership and vote in better leadership.  We have the right to bear arms.  To cross borders.   To live in autonomy and privilege of our rights.   We are all subject to due process.   We have a presumption of innocence until proven guilty.    And, most importantly, the obligation to preserve these rights for our children, and their children.
            Sunspots should not affect America.   
            The solar disruptions of Terrorism should be met with Shields of Vigilance by each citizen.   That’s why the stronger we become as one Voice, as one committed family, the more we neutralize the effects of Terrorism upon our society.


           
           The pictures I took yesterday shows  the sun rising against the flag of the United States.   We must fly that flag as a reminder not that we support government per se, but rather that we support the Constitutional Privileges of voting in or out of office those representatives who either support or ignore our needs.  And, by flying the flag, we recognize our “right to revolt’ to take up arms and fight back against any oppressor who endangers those rights.
           Yes, the sun shines on America as we enter a new year.
            Let it shine brightly on you and your family, and the vigilance you take in 2002 to protect your rights, and your children’s rights, to be free from Terrorism.
           

Go To Daily Diary Dec. 30--The Loneliest Flag--Least We Never Forget

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