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Jack is a graduate of Rutgers University where he majored in history. His career in the life and health insurance industry involved medical risk selection and brokerage management. Retired in Florida for over two decades after many years in NJ and NY, he occasionally writes, paints, plays poker, participates in play readings and is catching up on Shakespeare, Melville and Joyce, etc.

Monday, November 30, 2015

An Insightful Column about the G.O.P, "Support" for Those Opposing Middle Eastern Refugees and Some Thoughts of Lao Tzu


                                               

A Recommended Column

     Pitts
 

Leonard Pitts’ recent column in the Miami Herald suggests that we may be headed for a one-party system in this country as the Republican Party goes berserk over the fruits of the seeds they have sown over the past decade, whereby a large portion of their party's faithful now seem to make their political choices based on racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, the validation of unrealistic fears and the promise of quick fixes to complex problems.  Read this Pulitzer prize winner's full column  from the Miami Herald.
JL



                                              

The Lessons of History
For those looking for historic precedent for opposing the acceptance of Syrian and Iraqi refugees from Middle East terror into the United States, I draw your attention to the following material, excerpted from the Holocaust Encyclopedia maintained online by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.  The full entry can be seen by clicking on  the Museum's web site.

But here is the pertinent excerpt:

“After Nazi Germany initiated World War Two by invading Poland, Roosevelt, like many government officials and ordinary Americans, suspected that refugees from German-controlled Europe were potential Axis spies, who would provide intelligence to the enemy and who, if permitted to settle freely in the United States, would serve as a “fifth column” in the event of a German or Japanese invasion. Jewish refugees were particularly vulnerable to this perception because they were presumed to (and often did) have relatives under German control whose lives could be used as incentive for them to spy.


At a press conference on June 5, 1940, Roosevelt stated: “Now, of course, the refugee has got to be checked because, unfortunately, among the refugees there are some spies, as has been found in other countries. And not all of them are voluntary spies—it is rather a horrible story but in some of the other countries that refugees out of Germany have gone to, especially Jewish refugees, they found a number of definitely proven spies.” While Roosevelt lent his support to James G. McDonald, his advisor on refugees, to facilitate the admission of a few thousand European scholars, artists, politicians, and rabbis above the quota in 1940, the State Department and the supporters of a restrictive immigration policy in Congress prevailed on the larger refugee issue. As a result the flow of refugees slowed to a trickle between 1941 and 1945.”


 
And we all know what happened in Europe between 1941 and 1945 to those "refugees."
 

Yes we did it in 1941, and gosh darn it, we can do it today!  Even FDR said it was okay!

JL


                                                       

Lao Tzu
The Ancient Chinese sage and mystic, Lao Tzu, included the following thoughts in his "Way of Life."  Lao Tzu was the founder of Taoism.

 

A man's work, however finished it seem,
Continues as long as he live;
A man, however perfect he seem,
Is needed as long as he live:
As long as truth appears falsity,
The seer a fool, 
The prophet a dumb lout,
If you want to keep warm keep stirring about, 
Keep still if you want to keep cool, 
And in all the world one day no doubt
Your way shall be the rule.    

Read this over a few times.  The older you are, the more meaning it may have to you.
JL 
                                                                                                                                                       



                        
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