August 18, 2024 - Democratic Convention, Voting by Mail, and Thoughts on Communism

 

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Voting By Mail Requests Lagging Behind

Palm Beach County Election Supervisor Wendy Link reports that requests to ‘vote by mail’ are running far behind those of prior years.  That is probably because Republican-sponsored legislation, designed to reduce voting by mail, traditionally more popular with Democrats than with Republicans, has changed the law.  Being originally signed up to vote by mail does not automatically continue without your action! Not all Florida voters are aware of this.

If you have not renewed your Vote-by-Mail ballot request since November 9, 2022, your mail ballot request has expired and you will need to complete a new request to receive a mail ballot for the 2024 elections!

To request to receive a mail in ballot, or check on your Vote-by-Mail status, go to VotePalmBeach.gov or call (516) 656 6208 or CLICK RIGHT HERE.  You must do so by October 24, no later than 5:00 p.m.  Do it right now!  Do not delay!

JL

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Democrats Swing Into Action

Keep your eyes on this week’s Democratic Party convention in Chicago.

In her first major policy speech since launching her campaign for president, Kamala Harris last week explained the core of her economic agenda and argued that she would protect the middle class for generations. She promised to fight big corporations and bring down the costs of food, housing and raising children. A centerpiece of her economic pitch is a new federal ban on price gouging on groceries.

Her newly unveiled economic plan mostly builds on policies embraced by President Biden, and wasn’t super-detailed, outside of a few policies.  Expect more detailed information to come out at the Democratic Party’s convention, where the Party’s platform probably will be announced.

Harris delivered her speech last week in North Carolina, a state that Democrats believe she could potentially win, despite it not voting for a Democratic presidential candidate since 2008.  It demonstrated her ease at explaining policy matters, especially compared to President Biden.  This will become far more evident at the convention. 

JL

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How Rotten is the G.O.P.?

Check out Heather Cox Richardson’s ‘Letter from an American’ dated August 16 to learn how truly rotten the Republican Party is.  Visit https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ or just CLICK HERE. It’s a very short read.

And if you have a bit of spare time, get out of the hot sun and read her book ‘How the South Won the Civil War’ to learn how unrepresentative our government really is and the shenanigans that made it that way.  

JL

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Is ‘Communist’ a Dirty Word?                                           

Back in 1871, after France’s defeat in the Franco-German War, the city of Paris was ruled by a hastily formed body, elected by its working people, known as the ‘Commune.’  If you’ve seen the play ‘Les Miz,’ that is its setting.  After two months of rule by the Commune, the French government sent in its troops and put an end to it, killing many of its members, referred to as ‘Communards.’

Now that’s a word that might be new to many.  But the word ‘Commune,’ from which it is derived, was not new.  A century earlier, when the French people violently ended the monarchy in that country, Paris was ruled by a group from 1789 until 1785, a period marked by political turbulence and violence, known as the Paris ‘Commune.’  It was a failed ‘popular’ revolution ending in terror and dictatorship, including the beheading of King Louis XVI.  

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Today, whenever there is an attack upon political movements that are based on unifying working people, such as but not limited to their unionization or increased taxation of the wealthy and businesses, such movements are inaccurately accused by their extremist opponents as being ‘communist.’  

That is a more recent word traceable to the economic theories of Karl Marx, initially appearing in his ‘Communist Manifesto’ in 1848, and later elaborated upon in his ‘Das Kapital.’

Today, ‘communist’ has replaced ‘communard’ to broadly describe those dedicated to replacing the established order by any means with an all-encompassing economic system, denying individual rights, and that supposedly uses government to control and redistribute a nation’s wealth.

Communism should not be confused with ‘socialism’ which can include governmental activities benefiting members of a ‘society’ without replacing an established economic order as Marxist communism would do. These include such programs as Social Security, Medicare, Unemployment benefits, School lunches, Food and Drug approvals, etc.  I repeat:  These are not 'communist' programs.

Attackers who accuse their targets of being ‘communists’ attempt to bring to mind these violent periods of French history, and of course today’s totalitarian communist governments in Russia and Cuba, thereby trying to discourage voters from supporting movements which might appeal to working people.  Rabble-rousers such as the late Senator Joseph McCarthy practiced this extensively during the 1950s and some Republicans continue to do so today.

JL

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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri 

Strange “Hits’! The large number of those accessing Jackspotpouri from Singapore and Hong Kong has somewhat lessened.  I suspect that the Chinese are playing around with internet transmissions, possibly to try to identify who is reading them. 

Email Alerts: If you are NOT receiving emails from me alerting you each time there is a new posting on Jackspotpourri, just send me your email address and we’ll see that you do. And if you are forwarding a posting to someone, you might suggest that they do the same, so they will be similarly alerted. You can pass those email addresses to me by email at jacklippman18@gmail.com. 

Forwarding Postings: Please forward this posting to anyone you think might 

benefit from reading it (Friends, relatives, enemies, etc.) If you want to send someone the blog, you can just tell them to check it out by visiting https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com or you can provide a link to that address in your email to them. There’s another, perhaps easier, method of forwarding it though!  

Google Blogspot, the platform on which Jackspotpourri is prepared, makes that possible. If you click on the tiny envelope with the arrow at the bottom of every posting, you will have the opportunity to list up to ten email addresses to which that blog posting will be forwarded, along with a brief comment from you. Each will receive a link to click on that will directly connect them to the blog. 

Either way will work, sending them the link to https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com, or clicking on the envelope at the bottom of this posting. 

Again, I urge you to forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it, particularly if they are a registered voter. This is an election year. Spread the word. 

JL 

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