July 17, 2002
YOUR TURN TO JUDGE HOMELAND SAFETY
by Mark Scheinbaum
American Reporter Columnist

Basically the Commander-in-Chief said, "It's time to keep our eyes and
ears open to trouble, and to troublemakers, in every neighborhood."
The vermin had hid amidst an unsuspecting population, training in
places such as South Florida, invaded domestic shores and attacked with
vicious vengeance from the sky.
With power and global publicity, the enemy's attack shook the heart
and soul, but also the resolve of a Republic, which after all, was still
pretty young by the scale of the history of nation-states.
But the attackers on the Homeland failed, and although I'm
paraphrasing here, the Commander-in-Chief noted, "In every housing project,
and in every factory, there are people who talk against what our nation
stands for. Who plot against us."
It was critical to the success (or hoped-for success) of everything
from educational reform, to national defense that potential saboteurs of the
administration be rooted out. And lest civil libertarians recoil at the new
rules, the leader whose own steadfast resolve had helped the nation unify
after the attack, said "It's for mailmen, police, public works employees, but
if patriotic kid's spy on their parents, or spiteful neighbors on the lady
down the hall who spurned their sexually advances, well, that can't be
helped."
The Commander-in-Chief spoke of the new realities in a world where his
nation's former supporters had now isolated him. "Thankfully the exemplary
friendship of our friends in Russia are a source of constant support in our
global efforts." Indeed, it was Moscow's leaders who first showed up with a
hug, a hand, and a handout.
There was some legislative grumbling, and some counter-culture types,
exiled themselves from the ruling party, but mostly the nation said the
attack was the last straw. Borders would be tightened and patrolled as never
before, and every block, every courtyard, every rural community, and every
school and office building would provide the eyes and ears for this new cadre
to fight the terror--perhaps just minutes away--which could again strike at
any time.
Yup, boys and girls, it was 40 years ago, and no matter how Comandante
Fidel Castro tried to expand his "Committees for the Defense of the
Revolution," the expansion seemed only to foster the festering poison of
neighborhood ingrates and tattletales. The frenzy following the ill-fated Bay
of Pigs, solidified a regime of suspicion and repression leading to political
and economic disaster, all in the name of Homeland Security.
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Mark Scheinbaum, is chief investment strategist for Kaplan & Co., BSE, NASD,
SIPC of Boca Raton, Fla; former UPI newsman, and is a past winner of the
Florida Political Science Association award for his thesis dealing with Cuban
foreign policy.