GROUND ZER0, New York, N.Y.--Aug. 31, 2003-- Today is the Eve of Vigilance.  It is the last day of August.   It hallmarks the Month of Vigilance.  
        Two long years have passed since the Terrorist attack of Nine Eleven, September 11, 2001.
        For some, it seems like two centuries.
        In many ways, it is forever for me.
        I count each day, and sometimes each minute, by the Clock of Vigilance.    Thus far, from Ground Zero forward, the hands have passed through 718 days and nights.    Moving at a rate of 1440 minutes per day, the total passage measured at the rate of 60 seconds per unit, a total of 1,033,920 minutes from Ground Zero.
       A lot can happen in a million minutes.

      During that million minutes a new grandson was conceived and born to our family.   Angus was conceived on or immediately after September 11, 2001.  He is a reminder of the Hope that rises out of the destruction, the chaos of human nature.
        As part of that million minutes, a blackout smothered the northeast, reminding more than 60 million people that all the conveniences of modern life can be wiped out in virtual seconds, leaving us all to live with candles and ourselves.  
        Two wars have been fought, one in Afghanistan, one in Iraq.
        North Korea has rattled its nuclear swords.   Africa is in bloody turmoil again.
        In the million minutes that have passed since the Terrorist attack, I've risen each morning to write and publish the VigilanceVoice.    Combining all I have written on Vigilance--about 2,000 words a day--I've produced over 1.4 million words--a little more than a Vigilant Word a minute since that dark day on the Second Tuesday of September.   I've learned to spot Terrorism with the precision of an eagle noting the twitching whiskers of a field mouse 2,000 feet below.
        The world, as I see it, has taken on a new complexion during the past one million Minutes of Vigilance.    We are hurling spaceships toward Mars, seeking to explore the far reaches of space.  Ironically, while we reach out to the stars with one hand, our other hand squeezes the blood and guts of our neighbors.

        North Korea threatens to launch a nuclear weapons test, adding one more player to the nuclear Russian Roulette gang who believe holding their finger on the nuclear trigger enhances their ability to bully anyone who tries to bully them.  Sadly, they are right.
        Mars, the fourth rock from the sun, is glistening red in the sky--the closest it will be to Earth for another 60,000 years.   I see it as the symbol of human blood spilled daily in the Middle East, Africa and other war-torn sections of the world where Terrorism and Vigilance do battle.   Warriors fight one another in an endless battle of power between cultural factions who refuse to give up the "old" for the peace of the "new."   The legacy goes back to when Caine bludgeoned Able to gain power and respect out of envy and intimidation.

       A million minutes later, we still hunt the two chief Beasts of Terror.  Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein appear to have escaped the Sword of Vigilance.   Their escape illustrates the difficulty of destroying Terrorism.
        They remain "at large," reminding us that the Beast of Terror can live in myth as well as reality.
         The million minutes of the past year have changed me greatly.   I look at the world through different eyes.
         Vigilant Eyes.
         When I do, I see the Beast of Terror more clearly, as though the fog lifted from years of blindness.
          I see Fear, Intimidation and Complacency more vividly than ever before.  I realize these Triads of Terrorism--Fear, Intimidation and Complacency--are the true Terror threats to our nation, to all nations and peoples.   The Terrorism we need to fight against is not the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon or the ill-fated flight 93 heading toward the White House.   Those acts of horror were the outcroppings of Fear, Intimidation and Complacency.   The seeds of the Weeds of Terror, not the weeds, must be attacked.

        Vigilant Eyes, whose acuity has been sharpened by daily honing of the Principles of Vigilance, allow me to see the insidious nature of Terrorism's most seductive handmaiden, Complacency.
          Complacency seeks to divert our attention away from the true sources of Terrorism.  It distracts us.   It creates red herrings we chase down dead-ends.
         Politics is one such form of Terror-based Complacency.   As the political debates begin to storm, and the rhetoric becomes more vitriolic between contenders for key power positions, I cringe.   Grown men attack grown men with venom of distrust and disgust, making them appear like liars and cheats.  By knocking down one's opponent the strategy is one might rise above the victim's carcass and take command.
         I hear little spoke about Vigilance in politics.    I hear little about the need for Courage, Conviction and Right Actions for the Children's Children's Children to defeat Terrorism's Fear, Intimidation and Complacency.   Instead, politics feeds Terrorism.   I hear only about ugliness of the other's actions, and how unless he or she is defeated, the people will be raped, pillaged and plundered.
          I wonder how we will ever learn to evolve if we listen to the same story over and over.    When people try to make one another wrong so they can be right, they rise to power on the bodies of their enemies, not on the virtue of their deeds.
          The Romans set the example.   On the steps of the Senate they sank their daggers into Caesar's back and rose to power with his blood on their hands.
          I shudder thinking the children of this nation will be subject to the brutality of political Terrorism, watching the men and women who lead them--their alleged leaders, role models--slinging dung and throwing rocks like bullies at others.  The lesson to the child:  to rise above the pack, one must eviscerate his or her enemy in public.

        "Never hit a man when he's down," the child learns, "kick him, it's easier."
         A million minutes of Vigilance hasn't cured the Terrorism of politics.
         My Vigilant Eyes see the need for us to change our rhetoric.   We need to promote Vigilance, not feed Terrorism.
         I realize the need to start a Vigilance Party.   
         The platform of the party is simple:  to make decisions that benefit future generations, specifically, the Children's Children's Children.
         Politics tends to be the sum of two poles--the conservatives versus the liberals.   But in between is something called the center.   It is called, Vigilance.   It is about making decisions for the Children's Children's Children.  It is about judging things solely on their economic, social, political, cultural and religious impact on future generations, not on its impact tomorrow.   Tomorrow is a selfish decision.    Future generational decisions are selfless ones.
         In the million minutes since the Terrorist attack, I see children differently.   I see their innocence gone.
        Before Nine Eleven I saw children as being born with a purity, an innocence that must be protected with all our sinew put to work to hold back the calluses of time and experience that harden their souls.

        After Nine Eleven I realize the importance of teaching a child to be a Sentinel of Vigilance.   I realize how important it is to let the child know about the presence of the Beast of Terror, and how to deal with the Beast.  
        Children who are victims of Terrorism walk into the Beast's jaw with unsuspecting innocence, whether it be the hands of a child molester or the false expectations that the world will be fair and just to the child.
         The Eyes of Vigilance help me realize that a child must learn to see the Beast of Terror in the darkness and expose it as early as possible to the Sword and Shield of Vigilance.
         Children who are not taught how to turn Fear into Courage, or Intimidation into Conviction, or Complacency into Right Action become children of the Beast, become his slaves, servants.
           Much has happened in the past million minutes.   The most powerful event of all, however, has been the awareness of the world that Terrorism is not going to pass.  It will remain, as it always has, only it will be on the horizon rather than hidden as it has been in the past.

          Terrorism is like Mars.   People can see it.   It is red, the color of blood.   It glimmers in the sky like a fiery eye, a hostile eye, watching earth.
           But Mars is not all bad.
           Terrorism can be tamed.
           The earth has a number of spaceships rocketing toward the Red Planet.   We are trying to conquer Mars, to understand its mysteries.
           As we reach into outer space to learn about space, so must we reach into the Beast of Terror's belly here on earth and explore his entrails as we seek to do the guts of Mars.
           The billions of dollars being spent on space exploration needs an equal amount spent on Vigilance Exploration.
          We all need to look through the Lens of Vigilance, to learn to have Eyes of Vigilance.   If we don't learn how to spot Terrorism within ourselves, our families, our communities, our regions, nations and the world, then all the space exploration in the world won't really matter.

         Eyes of Vigilance will be the gift the Children of Vigilance give us if we teach them how to see what we have been so blinded to see.    Teaching children to look into the face of the Beast of Terror with Courage, Conviction and Right Actions is the great lesson I've learned in the past one million minutes.
          Now, it is time to learn how to focus that vision.

Aug 30--Switching On Terrorism/Vigilance

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