GROUND
ZERO PLUS 1111 DAYS,--New York, NY, Monday,
September 27, 2004--Anyone
who thinks white isn't black, or black isn't white, needs
only to cast an eye upon the Al
Jazeera website.
Today,
for example, the Middle East's "New York Time's Voice"
reports the assassination of a Palestinian resistance member
of Hamas in Syria.
 |
Anyone
who thinks black isn't black or white isn't white should
cast an eye upon the Al
Jazeera website |
Izz al-Din Shaikh
Khalil, 42, who was expelled by Israel from the Gaza Strip
in 1992, died after an explosion blew up his car in the early
hours of Sunday in Damascus, a Hamas spokesman reported to
Aljazeera.net, the English version of news as seen through
the lenses of Middle Easterners.
Israel security forces
have been singled out as the source behind the car bomb explosion
that killed the Khalil and injure three others. Israel has
not denied the assassination was part of a plan to Terrorize
the Terrorists. A firm anti-Terrorism policy in Israel calls
for immediate retaliation and preemptive strikes against known
and suspected "targets" considered a threat to the
safety of the six million Jews who are locked in a political
and religious battle for their country.
The New York Times
is not likely to carry this story of an "assassination"
on its front page. Killing Terrorists by Terrorism isn't big
news in the Middle East. Killing Americans is.
Therein lies the rub.
We eat what we like.
We refuse the rest.
Personally, I'm not
into Indian food even though one street down from my apartment
is perhaps the finest collection of Indian restaurants in
all of New York, and perhaps, the world. They fill an entire
block, one after another.
I also don't read
many of the African newspapers because what is happening in
Sudan seems a long way from the East Village of New York City
and my personal background as a Scots-Irish American.
 |
|
The
news that Hamas leader Izz al-Din al-Sheikh Khalil was
killed by a car bomb exposion in Damascus was not carried
by the major world newspapers |
My point is that Vigilance
has limitations based on knowledge. If I don't read the papers
of the world, I forget that the bombing of a Hamas suspect
by Israeli security forces is considered an "assassination"
by Al Jazeera, and probably by countless millions who view
Israel's control of land in the Middle East a cultural, economic
and political threat--if nothing less than an insult to their
belief that the Jews illegally confiscated land belonging
to Palestine.
I'm not taking any
sides on the issue, because that's not my point.
My point is that we
can whitewash the word Terrorism any way we want. One group
might call the "assassination" a Terrorist attack
by Israel, and another group might call it "justice"
for crimes committed.
There are those who
herald the Terrorists of Nine Eleven as heroes, have their
pictures on shelves as many do their "saints" and
give them honor befitting any great warriors.
Such a thought might
make many in the West, and especially one who was close to
anyone who died on September 11, 2001, wretch. But, it is
the way of the world.
We see through different
glasses.
 |
We
view President Bush... |
Many Americans view
George W. Bush as a White House Squatter who stole the election
of 2000 and has illegally driven America into a hopeless war
and killed more than 1,000 U.S. troops to feather Haliburton's
oil cap.
There are others who
see him as John Wayne, standing up to Terrorism around the
world and defying anyone bent on attacking America or its
children to step across the Line of Vigilance.
Black and White! White
and Black! Gray! Shades of Gray!
 |
.....through
different glasses |
In world of constant
push and pull, the Right shoving at the Left, the Left shoving
at the Right, the children get trampled.
When I scour the world
newspapers, I look for the headlines that scream about the
future of the children of the entire world, and specifically
about those in a particular country, a particular state, region,
city, village, community.
It's hard to find
any such headlines.
The headlines are
full of adults killing adults. If children get caught in the
crossfire, it still comes back to the adults--"If only
the adults hadn't...." "If only the adults would...."
Some people in America
believe that if John Kerry is elected our children will be
safer. Some believe the opposite.
The same is true of
George W. Bush.
In Russia, the mothers
and fathers of the slaughtered children who were held hostage
and many shot in the back by Terrorists when they tried to
flee, the same Black and White, White and Black argument rages
over the leadership and how it is handling Terrorism.
 |
Gangs
in Central and South America ... |
The New York Times
this Sunday reported about the gangs in Central and South
America and how many of the members of the groups are undergoing
incredible pain--almost torture--to have gang tattoos removed.
The public, enraged at the gangs' anarchy in Terrorizing citizens
and communities, have set out a mandate to reduce gang power
to rubble.
 |
...are
having gang tattoos removed |
Southern Hemispheric
nationsthat rarely join hands in any situation have agreed
to rid their nations of gang influences, and have set into
motion Terrorism squads to seek and destroy the gang Terrorists.
The tattoos give a
gang member away. In the Honduras they are known as "maras,"
after a species of swarming ants. According to the New
York Times, "Over the last decade gangs have spread
like a scourge across Central America, Mexico and the United
States, setting off a catastrophic crime wave that has turned
dirt-poor neighborhoods into combat zones and an equally virulent
crackdown that has left thousands of gang members dead, in
hiding, in jail or heading to the United States."
The
authorities estimate there are 70,000 to 100,000 gang members.
They are being hunted down and killed
or tortured by both authorities and vigilantes--citizens sick
and tired of gang control.
By having their tattoos
removed, they hope to escape being uncovered by a local citizen
and hunted down like rabid dogs, staked out and covered with
honey so that fire ants can sting them to death.
Black and White! White
and Black!
Civil rights in many
countries, similar to the Patriot Act's intrusion on the Constitutional
rights of citizens in the U.S., are at peril as the clean
up sweeps through the jungles and towns.
So who is the Terrorist?
Who is the Sentinel of Vigilance?
How does anyone distinguish
Black from White or White from Black when everyone steps on
his or her own views, and sees the world through his or her
own cultural, religious, ethnic, economic, political and personal
lenses?
I have only one solution
to looking at anything in this confusing world--and that is
through the eyes of the children, current and future generations.
 |
We should
learn to look through the eyes of children |
Only when I read a
story that cites the decisions by adults to act in a certain
way that benefits the Children's Children's Children, and
not just their own, but all, do I stop and nod my head in
agreement.
If there is any "real
truth" in this world of madness where Terrorism is being
used to Terrorize the Terrorists, and the Terrorizing Forces
are employing the same tactics as the Terrorists, it is not
in simple justification of "right" versus "wrong,"
or "good" versus "evil."
The only valid "truth"
is what is right for future generations.
If one can cite endless
reasons why hunting down and killing gang members is the right
way to make the world safe for future generations, and will
teach future generations how to handle challenges they face
that benefit future generations, then stripping the flesh
off a gang member in South America and hanging him up for
the flies to suck his blood is okay.
If one can sit down
in a classroom anywhere in the world and teach children that
blowing up a car and killing someone while injuring others
because he is an accused Terrorist will make the world safer
from further Terrorism, and that acts of Terrorism against
Terrorists are justified, and that children should feel free
to use Terror Tactics against those who Terrorize them, then
that is okay too.
If one presidential
candidate can tell the children that every decision he makes
is for their benefit, then prove it by showing the base of
all decisions are rooted in the future of the children, not
only in his country but all others, then that person deserves
to be voted for above another who cannot make claim to such
foundations.
The world is not really
as confusing as the headlines make it appear.
 |
|
The
children lose when headlines are Black and White |
What is confusing
is the headlines and those who report the "news."
Vigilance is not about
revenge or retribution, it is about evolution and reconstruction.
It is about stepping
back and questioning everything from the perspective of all
children today, and all who will be.
It is about asking
the question: When White and Black appear, who looses?
The answer is the
children.
Seeing all Black or
all White means the children have been lost.
It means the viewer
is blinded to what is right for the Children's Children's
Children.
If you're not sure
about this, read the headlines again and again, and the stories
under them.
 |
Change
your focus and stop seeing all Black or all White |
Search deeply for
any reporting on how the headline relates to the future of
the Children's Children's Children, for if the madness in
the world serves any purpose, it is to remind us we have abandoned
the Generational Foresight necessary to justify our decisions
and our beliefs.
You can start changing
your focus today. Take the Pledge of Vigilance.
See the world through
a new pair of glasses that has no room for Black or White,
but only for what is Right for the Children's Children's Children.
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