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Tap
Code
“By tapping covertly on our
cell walls using an alphabet code we maintained our unity. We encouraged and
cared for each other. We passed information, learned poetry, even learned new
languages.
I got to know my fellow
prisoners like brothers, though I’d never even seen them.”
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91101
10am,
September 11th, 2001 (91101). The images I watch on CNN and the headlines in the
morning Advertiser provide the ultimate disconnect. On TV: commercial airliners
transformed to powerful weapons ram first one tower and then the other of New
York's World Trade Center, jet fuel erupts, steel melts, the towers collapse,
and thousands die. America will never be the same! The Advertiser's headlines
focus upon the comparatively inane issues of our lazy island paradise. With the
six hour time difference I try to assimilate the two inputs simultaneously;
Impossible! Reality seems to be juxtaposed to fantasy.
But in a sense, all of America has been living in fantasy.
The carnage in New York City and in our nation's capital is a chilling reminder
of how we have drifted farther and farther away from truth and reality, as more
and more we hide behind the skirts of Political Correctness (untruth). While
distracted by balancing our investment portfolios, working two jobs to pay down
the credit cards, or shuttling the kids to Little League this and that, single
issue extremists and liberal legislators have incrementally replaced truth with
PC. Like frogs in a kettle of water brought slowly to a boil we've been "cooked"
by these single issue extremists who eke out their victories bit by bit with
total disregard for the broader context of reality. "MY cause, right or wrong,
but MY cause!"
Single issue EXTREMISTS; civil rights, abortion rights,
animal rights, environmental, Church-State, education, privacy rights, free
speech, and more, all have used twisted truths and false premises to dupe the
public and seduce accommodating lawmakers as we have looked the other way, not
daring to seem judgmental, prejudiced, homophobic, or politically Incorrect.
So then, what is REALITY? Reality is what we're watching on
TV this morning. But we've become so accustomed to accepting non-truths so as to
not rock the boat, not incur the public wrath of the extremists around us,
or--just as likely--not get slapped with a law suit, that the habit of denial
has led us to ignore the obvious signs of this catastrophe before it came. Time
and again we've been warned of our vulnerability by experts on global terrorism,
think-tank study after study, real time intelligence from communication
intercepts, and by the series of actual terrorist attacks against us; the
bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut and the military billeting in Saudi
Arabia, the bombing of the two American embassies in East Africa, the bombing of
the USS Cole in the port of Yemen. And our response?--another "declaration of
war against terrorism", pin-prick missile attacks on Afghanistan, and more
"studies". Only in the America of today, a free and liberal democracy
grown complacent and self indulgent by years of peace and unprecedented
prosperity, too comfortable to risk the actions that could have pre empted these
attacks, could such denial of reality exist.
If anything positive can come from the death and destruction
wrought upon our country today, it must be the realization that the fantasy is
over and truth must return to every aspect of our lives. We must have a foreign
policy and proactive diplomacy based upon how the world truly is rather than how
we wish it were; that strong anti-American sentiment prevails in many parts of
the world. Based upon my own experience with the evils of communism, there are
those who truly wish to do us harm; factions or governments who--because they
thrive by force--only respond to force, to crushing, mind- numbing force.
Domestically, our national security, law enforcement ,
anti-drug ,immigration, and social policies must again be based upon reality,
upon truth, and not the way special interest groups in these areas would have it
to perpetuate their own power and justify their existence. Truth is the common
denominator which will unite us in our healing, and our determination to go
beyond survival.
The months following Pearl Harbor were extremely difficult,
but our outrage, resiliency, and determination saw us through; "Remember Pearl
Harbor" was our rallying cry. The coming months and perhaps years will also be
difficult, but again our outrage, resiliency, and determination.....and
dedication to the TRUTH will surely see us through--and we will be stronger for
it.
"Remember nine eleven oh one!"
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