True, there’s no silver bullet for terrorists to be closed off ever and always, Mr. President. True, there’s no foolproof method of surveillance, even though many of us feel strength and honor in those who run security for our government.
But in the systems you oversee, there are issues you barely covered or omitted entirely today in your speech on tightening down on terrorists.
The following core issues have to be put high on your list for strengthening security:
1.ill-training of not highly qualified people hired to be ‘watchers.’
Just saying, knowing quite a few agents and employees from CBI, FBI, and TSA, some are just outstanding. But some are not anywhere near choice in perception, quickness of intellect, focus or good judgment, or even physical fitness. If the President wants a squad of watchers; each watcher has to be tightly trained. There is no room any more for those who have poor instincts or who give far more attention to the speck on the wall than to the termites that are chewing the house to the ground.
Grandma’s Rule: The best watcher over the cookie jar is one who
a) is well trained in human nature, that is, knowing all sneak-tactics possible…
b) and does not like cookies.
2. nepotism and favoritism
Hiring practices in many areas of ‘watchers’ has way too much nepotism involved, way too much opening the newest position by law to all comers, but already having chosen the new hire from among friends and acquaintances, and thereby rejecting all comers. The days of “You need a job? I can get you on the line” are way over, and never ought be part of security company hires, whether private or governmental. The President can make the walls fall down about the too interior hiring practices that bloat instead of choosing intelligent brawn coupled with bravery.
Grandma’s Rule: Dont use a dull spoon for a day, when you really need a sharp knife to do the job for years’ on end.
3. egotism and small-town protectionism
by those on watch: hoarding their information, lists, reports, intelligence, holding out to be ‘the one’ to gain credit… instead of freely encrypting and sharing critical data with other cleared ‘watchers.’ The President can cut through all small-group protectionism immediately. Governors and Mayors need to cut through all that with their investigative, security forces, and law enforcement groups. Otherwise it’s like the nation has a map for security, safety, tracking… but with most of the major and minor roadways completely erased.
Grandma’s Rule: In order for your life to continue happily, no matter where you are, you must tell me immediately about any possible blood loss, harm, or death… to anyone.
4. political correctness vs political directness
Being politically direct takes, as they say, huevos. It’s often difficult to be direct about the realities of our times– as some say, “someone might be offended.” But we no longer live in the even then falsified ‘poof’ reality of the 1950s when we were told all bad people had been vanquished in wwII. The President must act as a ‘knowing man’ and let his most highly trained and disciplilned government agencies suspect what they suspect with good reason, and know what they know. too. Holding hatred of a group of people by nationality, color or any other attribute has no place, in my opinion, in reliable, and accurate assessment of ANY person who may harbor ill will toward others, be ill mentally, a danger to themselves or others. However, it would help immeasurably if all in oversight, security, surveillance and investigative positions were truly trained in more than just an absurd pop psychology, so all had knowledge in depth, about certain mental disorders and their often predictable deteriorations that occur over time, their often highly deleterious outcomes.
Grandma’s rule: Be sharp and kind… not kind and stupid.
5. Systems that dont work infect systems that already work well
Laws of the land and habeus corpus can most certainly remain as the guiding principles and necessities. But the President has to truly clean house in all his agencies. Watching the evidences even minimally covered by MSM, many US citizens are convinced that parts of every US agency built to protect us, including all security, and all safety such as the FDA for instance, are too often larded with poor documentation, half-baked theories, lack of action, being as we military wives say, ROD, which means acting ‘retired on duty”, squirreling away info privately to create one’s own little fiefdom, living high off the hog, spending more time reveling than reviewing, blocking the truly talented from progressing, not giving best missions to best experts… all that has to be pulled out into the open in all agencies… and assesssed. And cleared.
Grandma’s rule: Never allow Kudzu to take root in the fields you keep for food.
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CODA
Kudzu is a miraculous plant in its right environ. But it is also an invasive plant that given root, in a forest, for instance, grows thrice as fast than any other plant, propagating itself wildly, and soon climbs over the tops of the trees, canopying them, cutting them off from sunlight, and thereby killing to blackness, the entire forest itself. Kudzu was mistakenly planted by the ton during the dust bowl days, and still today, in the South, one can see whole dead forests while the kudzu waves on green and wild atop the dead heap.
The picture of the 13 indigenous grandmothers at the top of this article, is from a meeting in 2004. The intention amongst them was to “create opportunities for individuals from different nations to meet and share their ways of life, heal relations, create collaborative relationships, and combine resources in order to manifest solutions to the challenges that currently threaten the global village.”