This nation born in bloodshed, grew mighty by bloodshed - and perishes in bloodshed. Or maybe not. Is it unreasonable to imagine we have as good as a 50/50 chance? Help! Call 911! Done. Now what? The alarm clock rings and none can silence it. The people of the world fear and tremble. The great warrior nation goes again to war.

The war on terrorism, like the great wars on poverty, crime, drugs, disease, education and family, will never be won, or ended. This is because the people who profit from war, write the rules by which we agree to live. As long as business and government have unlimited credit, backed by workers, taxpayers, and consumers, war will continue and expand. America will perish.

The message of 9/11 is change or perish. The people of America are getting the message. How about you? Have you heard the message? Have you learned to count your blessings, which include the ability to change your ways and by so doing those of your neighbors? Have you learned you can no longer depend on the people you trust with your very life? Have you decided to abandon the sinking war machine for a life of peace and harmony in the little lifeboats of the New Age? If so, welcome aboard, we desperately need your help. If not, we'll try to save you a place and do without you - no hard feelings.

The name of the New Age lifeboats is Independence, the unfulfilled promise of our founders. From birth we have been dependent on others for the necessities of life; food, clothing, shelter, love, caring, companionship. You name it. We demand others provide it and we pay whatever price we can afford. The more we can afford, the more is supplied.

We pay top dollar for doctoring and get greater disease as treatment only spirals in cost. We die for lack of money and cure. Does this make sense? Of course not. So why do we continue this fraud that kills us, makes us weak and foolish?

One of the key answers is Tell-A-Vision. Once a week, TV news will tell us to pursue a healthy lifestyle. Get regular exercise. Drink more water. Eat more fruits and vegetables. Eat less meat. Get more rest. When the typical viewer/watcher gets this message, paid for by corporate sponsors, s/he will have received 100 messages telling her to watch more TV, drink Coca Cola, eat burgers and Doritos. Get new drugs from her doctor. Turn off this electronic mind bender.

How did we learn the alphabet, our math tables, science, history? We learned by repetition, repetition, repetition. Science has proven that anything repeated often enough becomes accepted as truth by the subconscious. By this simple method, the Machine Age has created entire nations of uncritical, unthinking, uncaring robots. There is hardly one of us that wants to be a cog in the machine that is Enron, Exxon, Arthur Anderson, World Com, Quest or America, because we perceive the machines are breaking down, as they always do. America is looking for its soul - and finding it. Hooray for America!

The message of Tell-A-Vision is consume, consume, consume. We have lost so much respect for the customer of yesteryear, we are called consumers. Implied in that label is the idea we produce nothing of value and our purpose in life is to consume what we are told, and like it. We are nothing if not obedient and we are sad to learn how much truth there is in this implication. If and when we learn this truth that oils the machine.

If we should decide we will no longer sail the ships of state or competitive nationalism, rather than go down with the captains, we must totally abandon ship. To leave one foot in the ship of state and the other in the New Age lifeboat, is to cause the kind of pain the image suggests. It's all about choice. You choose to change or you are changed by those who pay for the privilege of training you. If you don't choose freedom, you have chosen slavery, no matter what you call it. As Shakespeare might have said, A slave by any other name will smell as foul.

For those searching for the New Age lifeboat, it is in your yard and in your home. You book passage on this ship by learning to feed yourself. Not by using utensils as you were taught as a child, but by growing the food you need to live a healthy and prosperous life. Produce the basics of life and trade the surplus for the rest. Love yourself. Feed yourself. Love your neighbor. Feed your neighbor. Sounds like a big job, no? It isn't. It can be done with less time and effort than most folks expend to buy poisoned, processed, disease causing groceries.

Farming is hard work for lousy pay. This is true enough for anyone who has not learned better ways than grandpa and the corporate farmers have. New Age methods of profitable gardening, orcharding and vinting are readily available for the reading of a few books. It is a spiritually liberating exercise to produce good food, by the pound or by the ton. Even small towns form garden clubs to share know-how.

The next best thing for you to do is to help your neighbors grow good food for you, by purchasing their surplus at the local markets, regardless of price. You are not just buying food from such people, you are buying insurance, that there will be food for you when the ship hits the bottom and you are swimming for the lifeboats.

The thugs of world governments hold power by creating dependents from otherwise free people. They borrow credit, pay salaries, collect taxes, make rules, hire and arm enforcers with lethal weapons. All because people let them do this and expect them to. Then the people are taught they have no power to change anything. The people believe what they are taught by the repetition from cradle to grave and nothing changes for generations.

Personal independence allows the thinking person to withdraw support from her/his providers, because indirect provision is no longer needed or desired. So ends the support of national and global secrecy and the oppression of the poor by the rich. So ends the exploitation of the peaceful and humble by the ambitious and boastful war mongers.

He who creates an empire on an acre or a continent, is obligated to defend it against every threat, internal and external, real and imagined. He is in competition with every other empire builder, seeking to expand his holdings. War is unavoidable. Peace is what they call the cease fires between battles.

The empire builders need our support. They will have it if it takes scaring us to death and a lifetime of hypnotism. But as Ronald and Nancy Reagan told us, we can just say no. No, I won't depend on warmongers to protect me from all the threats they themselves create. Nor will I pay them to provide you with their wonderful services. It is so clearly a gang style protection racket they run, in the name of the people. Throw out some life lines. Man the lifeboats.

Ed Howes

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Freelance writer published in newspapers and on many websites. edhowes@hotmail.com justanotherview.com