Watching the Watch List - A Big Job
If we are to try to prevent weapons from falling into the hands of potential
terrorists, and if we are to otherwise be able to keep an eye on such
individuals, we must recognize the enormity of such tasks.
As reported by
the McClatchy News Service, the government’s “watch list,” formally called the
Terrorist Screening Database, combines several sources, and it’s much bigger
than the formal no-fly list, about which we all have heard much.
About 1.1
million names, representing about 400,000 individuals, were included on what’s
formally called the "Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment" as of December
2013 according to the National Counterterrorism Center. Of
these, about 25,000 were U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents. This "TIDE" database encompasses those
suspected of involvement in international terrorism. And periodically, as was the case with the
Orlando terrorist, names are removed from that list, apparently to make it
somewhat less unmanageable! Click here to read the entire article.
Street in Muslim neighborhood in an American city
It occurs to me that to keep tabs on 400,000 individuals (and we are NOT even talking about a 24/7 operation), it would take about 80,000 law enforcement personnel, each one working a 40 hour week and having the responsibility of checking on five individuals. At present, there are only about 14,000 special agents and another 22,000 professional staff working for the FBI. And they have other things to do as well. That is a recipe for terrorists slipping through the cracks. It’s a big job. If it is to be done properly, we must be willing to pay the price for it, both in dollars and in a sacrifice of some individual freedoms.
Jack Lippman
More Jo Stafford ... and Blood Pressure Reduction
A few weeks ago, the blog featured a piece about Jo Stafford. Well, almost every day, I manage to listen to
a song or two by her on the CDs I purchased … and my doctor tells me that for
some unexplained reason, my blood pressure is down about ten points. I am trying to see if I can get my Medicare
Part D to reimburse me for the three CDs I bought. Meanwhile, here’s another sample of Jo’s
golden voice, this time from later in her career, 1956. Listen to her version of “The Nearness of
You.” Click Right Here!
JL
Where Will the Ghosts of the G.O.P. Go?
Many postings ago, I predicted the demise of the Republican Party. I thought,
however, that it would take 20 or 30 years to occur because of the pace of
demographic changes in the population. These included the increased number of voters
who might be classified as Latino, Afro-American … or within any other group other
than the traditional white, middle class cohort, leery of big government
and change of any kind who historically have voted Republican. I figured it would take a generation or so
for this last-mentioned type of voter to be hopelessly outnumbered.
What Donald Trump might look like as the returns come in on Election Night
Well, it looks like an “accelerant” in the form of the Republican Party’s presumptive 2016 Presidential candidate has been poured into the mix and the Party is in its death throes right now. Even though many Republican officeholders, party leaders and traditional G.O.P. voters are unhappy about this and flailing about, all going in different directions, Trump will be their candidate! The defeat to which he will lead the G.O.P. will destroy it, at least in the form in which we have known that Party since its founding in the 1850’s. This is a rare moment in American history. We are able to watch the death, breath by breath, of a political party. Its final passing will occur after the 2016 Presidential Election, soon after which its remains will be interred.
But from out of that grave will come
floating the Grand Old Party’s ghosts.
Like such spirits in gothic novels, they will be doomed to roam in
lonely misery until they find new homes where they will be welcome. That will take a while, so since these
ghosts will be with us for some time, let’s identify them.
Among them are the ghosts of those traditional G.O.P. voters who believe that we should have as little Federal Government involvement in our lives as possible, with as much of what the Federal Government now does handed back to the States, which they feel was the intention of the Constitution’s writers. With this will come a need for less Federal taxation and regulation. Belief in a strict interpretation of the Constitution and a withdrawal of the Federal Government from “social” agendas is part of these ghosts’ agenda. Among them you will find businesses and wealthy people, both of which groups quickly snap to attention (and open their wallets) at the mention of lower taxes, and those who believe in an aggressive military posture at the price of tending to domestic needs. Let’s call this group “the real Conservatives.“
A second group of ghosts believes pretty much the same, and has usually
goes along with the “real Conservatives,” but has felt betrayed by them, for
their goals are rarely accomplished.
They are impatient and now prefer, it appears, to strike out on their
own. Some of these ghosts believe that
there is a “socialist” agenda behind much of what the government does, intent
on taking away individual rights and sometimes it believes that government is,
by nature, inefficient and corrupt and is ready to “drown it in a bathtub” and
would really prefer a “libertarian” approach which it often confuses with
“benevolent anarchy.” These ghosts spend
their leisure time reading the novels of Ayn Rand or the economic treatises of
Frederick Hayek who preached that we are on the road to serfdom. We can call these ghosts “the Libertarians.”
More active than the first two groups is a third set of ghosts. Not content just to philosophize as do the
first two groups, they are constantly looking to find someone to blame for the
problems the nation faces. Usually that “someone” is identified as “those
people” who receive some sort of government subsidy in order to get by,
immigrants or the offspring of immigrants, academic people, “do-gooders,” and
those who take what they feel is a proper course of action but which these
ghosts see as only being “politically correct,” dirty words to them. They also
blame scientists, unions and “mainstream” media which they seem to think was engaged
in sort of conspiracy to kill the G.O.P.
This group of ghosts is characterized by never offering any solutions to
any problems. They see their role to be
that of placing blame, and little more. Lacking
a real home at present, they haunt the frequencies of talk radio. This is group of
ghosts we can call “the Blamers.“
The fourth and final group of ghosts comprises those who are fed up
with everything they see happening in this country and are willing to be active
in bringing about change or preventing change (depending on the issue
involved), regardless of how it is accomplished. They are willing to do away with freedoms and
resort to violence if pushed to it. They
are more than just talk, however, since they are the ghosts of owners of guns
(including assault weapons to use in the coming domestic Armageddon in which
some of them believe), KKK types and right-wing militia activists. In life, these ghosts were outwardly
religious, but far from religious in their actual beliefs. While staying friendly
with the Blamers, these ghosts believe
that both the Conservatives and the Libertarians, despite their agendas, are fools. And there you have the
final ghost group, “the Dangerous Ones.”
Now that the Republican Party is practically
dead, where do these ghosts go? What is to be their happy “haunting” ground
now that the Democrats are destined to control the Presidency, the Senate and
the Supreme Court for the next twenty years or so? (The remnants of the Republican Party will
still control the House of Representatives for a few more years due to
gerrymandering of districts dictated by Republican State governments, but even
this will soon wear off.)
I feel that within the next decade, two
political parties will emerge to cater to these four groups of Republican ghosts. One will be on the far right and consist of
the Blamers and the Dangerous Ones. The other will be a “right centrist” party
and appeal to the Conservatives and the Libertarians.
Eventually, these two parties will merge, each
recognizing that they cannot go it alone against the Democrats. Sadly, the new merged party will be comprised
of different groups whose only purpose would be to defeat the Democrats but
have no real united agenda of their own on which all of their members agree, somewhat like the dying Republican Party of today. United in nothing
but hatred, these people will never learn.
Look for this “merging” process on the
right to start to happen no sooner than the year 2030! Why so long? Remember that after the election
of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, the strength of the Republican Party was such that
it took almost a quarter of a century until a Democratic President was again elected!
That is the kind of enduring purgatory into which the
ghosts of today’s Republican Party will shortly be entering.
This new party will succeed in electing candidates for national office only if and only
when the Democrats become sufficiently corrupt, lazy or misdirected to
disturb their center-left coalition.
If this “new” party ever does succeed, however, it will certainly fall
apart after a couple of decades, at most, as did the Whig Party (ca. 1830 –
1850). That party was based on a broad
spectrum of often violently conflicting ideologies, with their only point of
agreement being that they hated Democrats, specifically Andrew Jackson and his
followers.
Objects of their opponents' hatred in 1832 and in 2016, Jackson and Cllinton. Tp succeed, ideology must involve more than hatred.
Some people never will learn. We can refer to such people and their ghosts as Republicans, or as I did in a recent posting, members of the “Hypocritical Party” or “Hippos," or even members of the B.I.G. (Bigotry, Ignorance and Gullibility) Party, another recent re-naming which appeared in this blog. In this vein, Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts referred to them as the Repugnant Party. Take your choice.
Objects of their opponents' hatred in 1832 and in 2016, Jackson and Cllinton. Tp succeed, ideology must involve more than hatred.
Some people never will learn. We can refer to such people and their ghosts as Republicans, or as I did in a recent posting, members of the “Hypocritical Party” or “Hippos," or even members of the B.I.G. (Bigotry, Ignorance and Gullibility) Party, another recent re-naming which appeared in this blog. In this vein, Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts referred to them as the Repugnant Party. Take your choice.
JL
Agricultural Usage
And here's a short story of mine from the "archives."
And here's a short story of mine from the "archives."
“In
the good old summertime,” cousin Mike, “we have lots of fun down here in
Florida ... barbecues, beer drinking, swimming at the beach, and fireworks
right in the backyard too, ‘specially for the Fourth of July. Betcha don’t have
all that kind of good stuff up north in New York, right?”
“I
guess not,” Mike replied. “In fact,
fireworks are illegal in New York, except for the big displays like Macy’s and what
some towns do in the parks. You know,
handling fireworks is dangerous. You can
blow a finger off. I read about some kid
doing that in the papers every year.”
“I
know, I know. They’re illegal the same
way here in Florida too! But anyone can
get them from places like the Fireworks Queen over on 441. All ya gotta do is sign a form saying they’re
for agricultural use. You know, stuff
like for scaring the birds away from crops.”
“Is
that how you got the stuff you told me you shot off for the Fourth of July?”
“Yesiree! I just signed the form and came home with a
carload of rockets, pinwheels, shootin’ stars and whatever. You should have been here to see it. It was great!”
A
ringing of the doorbell interrupted the conversation. Miltie got up to answer
it and came back into the living room a minute or so later with a piece of
paper in his hand and a confused look on his face.
“Mike,
there was a guy at the door says he’s a volunteer from the County Fireworks
Watch Bureau. He had that damn piece of
paper that I signed over at the Fireworks Queen when I bought the stuff I just
told you about. Wanted to know where my
farm was. I gotta fill out this form
telling him where or I’m subject to a $2000 fine or thirty days in jail. Told me to mail it back to him by next
Thursday or he’ll be back with a Sheriff’s Deputy to take me in. Do you know any farmers around here?
“Miltie,
we don’t have this kind of crap up in New York and I don’t know any farmers in
New York, let alone down here in Florida, but I have an idea. Let me get on your computer and maybe I can
come up with something.”
Twenty
minutes later, after doing some Google searching, Mike smiled.
“Miltie,
look what I just came up with on the internet.”
Both of them leaned over looking at the laptop’s screen, where they read
the following: “Fertile
Swamp Farm – 300 acres of farmland growing vegetables all year round. You can experience the pleasures of being a
‘gentleman farmer’ by renting a few acres of our land for a month or by the
year. Call us at 1-800-555-7226 for
info.”
“I
get the idea, Mike. We can rent a little
bit of this guy’s farm, and maybe he’ll backdate the papers, and we can say
that’s where we used the fireworks. You
are a genius! I’m going to call him
right now.”
The
next day Mike and Miltie drove out State Road 80, way past Belle Glade and
Clewiston at the bottom of Lake Okeechobee into the heart of Hendry
County. Finally they saw a sign reading
“Fertile Swamp Farm – Next Left – 500 Yards.”
Following the directions, they turned into a one way dirt road with two
well-worn tire ruts leading to a ramshackle farmhouse next to which there was a
gravel parking area in which about a dozen cars and pick-ups were parked. A teen age boy waved them into a spot and
pointed to the farmhouse door. Once
inside, they found themselves among a bunch of people who from their attire,
obviously didn’t have anything to do with farming. A bald middle-aged man, seated at a table,
greeted them and checked off Miltie’s name from a list before him.
“Glad
you could make it. Let me explain the
deal to you,” he said.
“Hold
on a minute, we really don’t want to become ‘gentlemen farmers.’ We just
schlepped out here because we figured we could rent some farmland from you for
a while. All we want to do is make our
use of fireworks for agricultural purposes legal.”
“I
know, I know,” said the man. “Look
around you. Why do you think all these
other guys are here? Can’t grow anything
but weeds in this frigging swamp anyway.
It’s all polluted mud. But I manage
to squeeze out a living off of guys like you.
The going rate is $100 an acre a month, minimum two acres for three
months, discounted to $500 if you pay in cash, which is the only way I do
business anyway. Okay? Make up your mind. There’s a line behind you. And before you ask, sure, I’ll backdate the
deal. It’s quarter the price of the fine they’ll hit you with. Sign right here.”
Miltie
signed and forked over $500 to the farmer.
They got into their car and quickly fell in behind the line of vehicles crawling
back down the rutted road leading to State Road 80. Once the cars cleared the dirt road and were
back on the highway, three or four cars which had been impatiently waiting
there made the turn onto the dirt road leading up to the farmhouse. Business
was good at Fertile Swamp Farm that day!
Meanwhile,
the bald headed farmer was talking on the phone to his brother.
“Bennie,
I know the fireworks stores are slowing down now that the Fourth is over, but
you gotta keep pushing them. Tell them
we’ll up it to $25 for each one of those Agricultural Usage forms they copy and
give to you. And wait until you see the
neat uniform shirt I got for you to use.
It comes with a “smokie” hat so you’ll almost look like a state trooper
when you knock on their doors.”
Jack
Lippman
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