Sunday, March 17, 2024

How to Start Reducing Hyper-Partisonship

People are tired and frightened.

Yeah, we always are. People are more than usually tired and frightened.

We are tired of the often vicious hyperpartisanship. In polls, folks of all political persuasions loathe congress and desperately wish to cool off the red-hot partisanship.

Part of that is the viciousness. Folks who blame Donald Trump for that are not facing the whole picture. Sure, he’s exacerbated things; but it started while he was still just gouging tenants and workers around New York.

The base for most hatred, in our personal lives and our politics, is fear. A radio station once gave me a manual for talk radio. It said success required making your audience fear someone, then convincing them that you are the only one who can save them from what they fear. That creates devoted listeners.

Fear is part of us. We come into this busy, complex world yowling, clueless about our surroundings, and helpless. For a long time we’re children, dimly aware (until about 16, when we know everything) of how little we really understand. Our parents protect us, but necessarily teach us we need protection. (The many parents who abuse their kids, psychologically and otherwise, wreak more acute havoc.) Schools, particularly high school, exacerbate our fears: not too sure who we are yet, we get reminded how inadequate we are by other kids whose inner fears have led them to band together and reassure themselves by harassing or bullying those they can.

As adults, we may (or may not!) have comfort zones: family, workplace, bowling or bridge club, church, mosque or synagogue, reading group. Beyond those, the world feels dangerous. Free exploration of ideas may also feel dangerous, or just be something we lack time and patience for. So, more and more, we rely too much on political party or blogger or journalist. As we chose an allegiance in school, or as prisoners do, we become Republican or Democrat, or some subgroup treat not just overtly political issues but all issues, one of two ways: learn what X thinks and shout it; or learn what Y thinks and shout the opposite. In one move, we express loyalty to the group and proclaim to the world (and our inner voices) “No, I’m not lost and confused!!”

Ethnic hatreds are part of that. Considerably less so, I hope and believe, than in my youth. But the problem is wider: those who see things differently, do things differently, believe differently are dangerous. Fear is foolish, but powerful.

How can we push for the reasonably non-partisan and civil world we want? Push ourselves in that direction. Listen to folks we disagree with. Talk to everyone. Start with a smile, because you’re contacting a fellow human being. Recognize how much you each love your children, New Mexico desert, the Organ Mountains, and the sports, arts, hobbies, or causes to which you devote yourselves. Those children have different names, carpentry isn’t oil-painting, people ride horses, dirt-bikes, or bicycles, you pet a dog or a cat, but you both feel the same. You both want a better and more peaceful world, particularly for those children.

Find those common points. Laugh. Appreciate each other. Truly see each other. Then talk about Biden and Trump in that context. Not as antagonists, but fellow humans seeking the best course.

I hardly find anyone who can’t share a laugh, a sunset, or a ballgame, or teach me something.

                                      – 30 --


[The above column appeared Sunday, 17 March, 2024, in the Las Cruces Sun-News and will soon be on the newspaper’s website and on KRWG’s website, under Local Viewpoints. A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version will air during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM, streaming at www.lccommunityradio.org/).]

[ Guess I have little to add here, except a stanza from a poem:

    An ancient Chinese zen master

    visited hell at suppertime.

    Tables laden with fine food, but

    chopsticks three feet long. All the food

    fell to the floor. No one could eat.

    In heaven, same problem – but souls

    simply fed each other and laughed.

(I later learned that Jewish lore includes a rabbi having a very similar experience.  Anyway, I guess I’ve never seen a reason to let our differences blind us to our common humanity. Maybe something about how I grew up. Doesn’t mean I don’t speak up, very directly, particularly if I hear anything that sounds racist. ]

Sunday, March 10, 2024

Can Local Tragedy Inspire Improvements?

Death is real, in LCPD Officer Jonah Hernandez’s body-cam footage.

Surveillance video showed Armando Silva strolling around the property and sitting down. Hernandez approaches, uncertain whether Silva is the owner or the trespasser, then gets attacked too suddenly to draw a gun, and getting stabbed as he rapidly retreats.

Watching the bodice footage hurt. How much more must it hurt to watch when Jonah was your pal and co-worker? His face tight, tone steady, LCPD Chief Jeremy Story explained that if open records laws didn’t require him to release it, he wouldn’t.

The bodicam, moving backward to escape the knife, shows the assailant, the knife striking, blood spattering. Hernandez moans in pain. The assailant doesn’t care. Then Hernandez’s view of the bystander, who’s shot the assailant, struggling to keep Hernandez alive. Through a blood-stained lens, he’s just above us, his hand pressing on the neck wound, shouting alternately “Stay with me, man! I got you!” and “Shit!” maybe even after Hernandez is gone.

Afterward Chief Story mentioned that watching the video had deeply affected people who usually don’t show that sort of thing. Count me among them.

The details help say two things are important: what happened why; and where we go from here. Story passionately, blending controlled grief and anger with logic and understanding. As he said, we can either tear each other apart over the situation, changing nothing, or come together to effect real change. Amen.

What what killed Hernandez was not a mistake by him, or anyone’s personal anger at him: it was a situation in which we have a great many homeless people, most of them harmless, but some who commit crimes. Our greed-based economic system, rampant homelessness, the suddenly easy availability of fentanyl, homelessness, and perhaps our society’s disintegration into warring armed camps . . . killed Hernandez.

He wasn’t killed by City Council denying any police budgetary requests. He was not killed by judges being “soft on crime.” Chief Story mentioned that (as my previous column discusses) local judges must dismiss cases against mentally incompetent defendants. He an individual with 124 municipal court cases dismissed, as well as district court felonies and magistrate court charges. In the past year.

Locally and legislatively, folks are trying to improve laws and practices, striking a balance between equality/fairness (our constitutional amendment on bail) and safety (better outreach, more patrols, and better handling of with repeat, or “prolific,” offenders).

This is not “a homeless problem.” Trucks making night withdrawals from construction yards aren’t driven by homeless folks. Armando Silva killed Hernandez. Another young man broke into a nearby restaurant. At night. Ate and drank. Then penned a note, apologizing, saying he’d been hungry and thirsty and cold. Then used their phone. To call police to come arrest him for his crime. Homeless folks are as varied as everyone else. Most are suffering. Mostly, it’s not their fault, either.

We’re a complex society. We have created the problem. We all need to fix it. “All” doesn’t mean only those who get paid to fix things. And aiming at root causes will work best.

Meanwhile, in Story’s words, “let’s focus emotions on productive goals.” Fix that “incompetent to stand trial” loophole. Make clearer that our reformed bail law doesn’t require repeated re-releases of folks whose past convictions and plethora of new arrests say eloquently that pubic safety requires holding them before trial.

Let’s honor Jonas Hernandez by working together.

                                                  – 30 --

 

[The above column was written for the Sunday, 10 March, 2024, edition of the Las Cruces Sun-News and is on the newspaper's website and on KRWG’s website under Local Viewpoints. A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version will air during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM, streaming at www.lccommunityradio.org/).]

[The knifing of Officer Hernandez and the unpleasant experiences of some small-business owners and others recently are evidence of a serious problem that has at times generated more heat than light. We all need to hear the testimony of those merchants. In my view, while we need to recognize how easily many citizens could slip into homelessness, and deal with that problem in a humane, sensible, healing way, whatever costs there are to our humanity and decency (and constitutional restrictions) shouldn’t be borne disproportionately by folks who happen to live or do business in certain areas of our community. We need to listen to them; we also need, as Chief Story does, to look into and understand the context; and we need not to attack each other.

Toward that end, I’ll be co-hosting a radio show on which guests will include both Chief Story and several of the citizens who have told their stories to the City Council during public-input sessions. That’ll be the 8:30 to 9:30 hour on 13 July of our weekly show. [“Speak Up, Las Cruces!” airs 8-10 a.m. each Wednesday on KTAL-LP Community radio, 101.5 FM, and streams on our website (linked above), re-airing 2-4 pm the same day and thereafter available on our archives. I want listeners to hear directly from those citizens, but also consider Chief Story’s perspective. It’s the kind of discussion we should be having, on community radio and elsewhere.]

Sunday, March 3, 2024

Folks without Homes Shouldn't Pay the Price for our Economic System; but Small-Business Owners Shouldn't Pay the Price for our Community's Decency, Humaneness, and Lawfulness

Homelessness is epidemic in our country. And here.

It presents tough problems. A small number of those homeless are addicts or legally nutty. Some commit crimes. We know locking everyone up doesn’t work; but some citizens are suffering so badly --- starting days picking up others’ feces and garbage, getting threatened, and having stores broken into – that it’s Red Alert Time.

Our city manager form of government minimizes politics and cronyism. The council hires a manager to run operations. If you don’t like his work, you can complain to city council; but you can talk with the manager. (Well, Manager Ifo Pili invited folks to contact him, without mentioning he’s retreating to Utah.)

Public input at council meetings offers many harrowing accounts of unpleasant experience, though few practical ideas. We need change; but suggestions I hear are unlawful, unconstitutional, or impractical. Can’t legally ship people away. Legally, crazy folk can’t be tried for crimes. Their constitutionally guaranteed right to a fair trial is meaningless if they’re too far gone to cooperate with their lawyer. Local judges send ‘em up to Las Vegas, the State says “Yep, too crazy to try!” They’re back on the streets. Not the local judge’s fault, nor the City’s.

The City is trying new tactics. Fentanyl complicates the problem. We must curb the inflow, although that’ll increase prices and therefore crimes. We must invest in prevent addiction and treating addicts. We all, including city government, must do what we can.

Most comments expressed regular folks’ deep and honest frustration. Some folks try to use the situation to make political capital. But no councilor should dismiss the pain and anger we heard as just politically-motivated eloquence.

One angry citizen sarcastically “congratulated” Councilor Johana Bencomo “for creating such a beautiful magnet to bring crime and lawlessness into our district. Thank you for a job well done.” He’s entitled to think Community of Hope is a problem, not part of the solution. He’s entitled to dislike Councilor Bencomo. She sure didn’t cause the homelessness epidemic. Camp Hope long preceded her election, and helps the situation. (His main [and quite legitimate!] complaint is Burn Lake housing squatters who aren’t in Camp Hope. I sympathize with the problems inherent in living so close to a huge homeless encampment; but I thought this comment had more vitriol than sense.)

Another speaker inaccurately claimed the City Council had decreased the police budget, impliedly helping to cause Officer Jonah Hernandez’s tragic death. Pili later said that the council has repeated improved budgets that increased police spending 25% recently. The angry citizens had left. Understandably: they have businesses to run and kids to watch; but I hope they listen later to what councilors and Pili said.

We all need to work together, producing creative, helpful ideas, debating factually, and collaborating to improve the situation. Not folks personally attacking councilors, nor councilors dismissing aggrieved citizens. Instead of political adversaries using this tragic situation, let’s combine all our efforts to deal with an unprecedented and highly challenging situation.

I’m inviting citizens to discuss this on radio – with us and LCPD Chief Jeremy Story. (Unlike Pili, he’ll be here. For a long time, I believe. And hope.) I also hope the city schedules a work session.

Civil discussion can eliminate some myths, clearly communicate citizens’ real issues, enlighten folks on what laws and practicalities are in our way, and give everyone’s ideas a fair hearing.

Listening is important.

– 30 –

[The above column appeared Sunday, 3 March, 2024, in the Las Cruces Sun-News and on the newspaper's website, as well as on KRWG’s website under Local Viewpoints. A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version will air during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM, streaming at www.lccommunityradio.org/).]

[What I hope I articulated in the column is respect for all concerned. I watched the entire video of the Public Comment and Councilor Comment items, plus the City Manager’s Comments. I was moved by the public input. Many speakers clearly balanced their understandable distress and anger with understanding of the humanity (and, mostly, decency) of folks without homes and with the limits on what city councilors could do. I share their outrage and feel some duty as a citizen to try to help better things. However, some, either because of their understandable anger or for other reasons, viciously attacked councilors, mostly for things beyond those councilors’ control. I wanted to get folks with very different perspectives together in a room, to discuss things on radio, and will do so the morning of 13 July. I hope it’ll be a candid but civil discussion that moves participants and listeners toward mutual understanding, and perhaps working together toward improvement.]

[I also hope it’s clear that while obviously the homelessness epidemic is a serious contributor to our problems, as is the fentanyl epidemic, (a) homelessness is mostly NOT the fault of the homelessness, (b) most homeless folks are not criminals, and (c) that “solutions,” or, at least, improvements, are not always easy to identify or implement, we need to be humane and just both toward folks without homes (a situation many are a missed-paycheck away from) and folks who live near them or have small businesses. As I’ve said before, those small-business owners and residents should not have to pay the price for our efforts to remain a decent, humane, and lawful community.]

[I send in my columns Thursdays, mid-day. Stuff happens between then and Sunday morning, when the paper gets read, and I post a column here and record the radio-commentary version. For example, this week, between deadline and Sunday morning, came a very interesting press conference by LCPD Chief Jeremy Story, who [very reluctantly, as I would feel in his place!] showed TV cameras and news reporters footage of the killing of Officer Hernandez, and discussed where we are, how we got here, and some sensible steps to get somewhere better. Immediately afterward I wrote next week’s column. I want to discuss his suggestions, and praise his level-headedness and judgment in saying what he needed to say despite what must be strong grief, anger, and other emotions. I was marveling at how his discussion exemplified balance. (While recommending steps to deal with the practical problems caused by the 2016 bail-reform amendment to the New Mexico Constitution and by the rights of mentally incompetent defendants discussed above, he could reiterate his respect for those rights and tell us that he too voted for the bail amendment, and believes in its purposes.) Toward the end, he spoke of balance, analogizing how we must proceed to parenting. Spoke of balancing grace with justice, love with accountability, discipline with freedom.]

Sunday, February 25, 2024

How Experts Rank Our Presidents -- and Maybe Why

Recent Donald Trump FACTS include him telling Vladimir Putin to “do as he liked” to NATO allies behind in their dues, Congressional supporter Mike Turner endangering U.S. intelligence sources by blabbing about an important secret the government knows about Russian weaponry, and two different courts socking Trump for nearly half a billion dollars total for assorted bad conduct such as fraud, touching a woman without permission, and saying false things about her. We also hear that Joe Biden is old.

Most recently, Alexander Smirnov, the dubious figure Trump and his allies relied on to claim that Joe Biden took bribes in connection with his son’s dubious business dealings has admitted that Russian intelligence was involved with his disseminating anti-Biden allegations Smirnov apparently made up. That undermines the retaliatory impeachment Trump’s House supporters are struggling to trigger.

In this context, let’s read the results of the 2024 Presidential Greatness Project Expert Survey.

It’s not political. Voters are current and recent members of the Presidents and Executive Politics Section of the American Political Science Association, the foremost organization of social science experts in presidential politics.

Respondents ranked prexies on overall greatness or failure. Professors averaged the scores.

Abe Lincoln, FDR, George Washingon, TR, and Harry Truman are the top 5, although Republicans and Conservatives would rank Washington first and James Buchanan last. Not surprisingly, Warren Harding, William Henry Harrison, Franklin Pierce, Andrew Johnson, and Buchanan occupy the 40th-44th slots. Harding has move up two places since 2015, and Harrison down two.

The results aren’t extremely partisan. Dwight Eisenower stands 8th, though he mostly played golf. To gauge how politics might have skewed the results, I compared how experts of different parties and ideologies ranked some recent presidents. The new poll listed six “political/ideological” groupings: Republican, Democrat, Independent/Other, Conservative, Liberal, and Moderate. Each grouping ranked Bill Clinton 10th, 11th, or 12th,, Each ranked FDR 2nd or 3rd.

Who did the experts rank last? Hi, Mr. Trump!

By contrast, Joe Biden is 14th, right behind Bill Clinton and John Adams and ahead of Woodrow Wilson and and Reagan.

Interestingly, Barack Obama is 7th. He was 16th in 2015 and 8th in 2018, so respect for his presidential greatness soared from 2015 and 2018.

Certainly there was some partisanship. Democrats placed Obama and Biden 6th and 13th, respectively, and Republicans 15th and 30th. Similarly, George Bush (pere) was ranked 11th by Republicans, 15th by Independents, and 19th by Democrats, while Bush (fils) ranked 19th, 31st, and 33rd.

But nothing helped Trump’s ranking much. Democrats, and “Liberals” ranked him 45th, as we might expect. Independents and “Moderates” also placed Mr. Trump 45th. Among Republicans and “Conservatives,” his rating leapt up to 43rd.

That is, experts from his own party ranked him 43rd of 45.

I’m not Mr. “Rely on Experts for Everything.” But when experts in the U.S. Presidency are ranking the 45 presidents, and the Republicans and Conservatives rank a recent Republican President 43rd, that seems worth noticing. Does it offend Maybe experts on the U.S. Presidency when someone takes an oath to support our Constitution then struggles to stay in office when that Constitution says, “Please leave, sir!”

I mean, I’m no slave to restaurant ratings, either; but if gourmets and healthy food experts ranked Ken’s Steakhouse 67th among 67 restaurants in town, and his sisters and the guys on his bowling team all ranked the place 65th, I might find somewhere else to dine.

                                                           30 – 

 

[The above column appeared Sunday, 25 February, 2024, in the Las Cruces Sun-News and on the newspaper’s website (or, at least, I think it will be – couldn’t find it just now), as well as on KRWG’s website under Local Viewpoints. A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version will air during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM, streaming at www.lccommunityradio.org/).]

[Not a lot to add. But here’s what I was reading, the Official Results of the Presidential Greatness Survey - White Paper. ]

[Apologies to two long-gone presidents, neither of whom is likely to care : first, to Benjamin Harrison, for erroneously tossing his name into that list of bottom-feeders.  Benjamin's grandfather, William Henry Harrison, belonged there.  Not because he did so badly, but because it's hard to evaluate a gentleman whose Presidency lasts 31 days.  Folks at the Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site in Indianapolis, Indiana caught my error and stood up for Benjamin.  Thanks!   Michael Hays stood up for Dwight David Eisenhower, recalling from our childhood watching federal troops require southern states to integrate schools, as required by Brown v Board of Education.   Eisenhower didn't just play golf. My bad.  Probably lingering bad feelings from when my father, an Adlai Stevenson partisan, had me wearing a sandwich sign opposing Ike when I was about 5 years old.  Ike won, of course.  Anyway, my bad.  What I did particularly like about Ike, when I learned it, was that he was among a bunch of soldiers tasked with driving a horseless carriage across our vast country very early in the 20th Century.  He recalled how hard it was, around the time he approved spending a bundle to create the Interstatete Highway System.  ]

 

On Sun, Feb 25, 2024 at 8:03 PM Michael L Hays wrote:

Peter,
I write to protest your snideness toward #8, Dwight David Eisenhower.  "Dwight Eisenower [sic] stands 8th, though he mostly played golf" is really a shameful and gratuitous slur on this president.  After all, he could not have been #8 for "mostly" playing golf.  He was also a decent and honorable man.

I shall mention only one of his accomplishments, one which I saw on TV and which stirred me: sending the 101st into LIttle Rock in 1957 to enforce the court-ordered integration of Central High School.  I remember seeing the troops marching down the street with--holy moly--fixed bayonets!  Eisenhower was furious at AK Governor Orval Faubus's resistance to a court order, Army Chief of Staff Maxwell Taylor, whom DDE called to order the 101st troops to Little Rock instantly, knew he meant business, and the 101st Commander Major General Edwin Walker gave the order to fix bayonets.  Not only was DDE determined to uphold the law, but he did so despite what I am sure was his birthright racism.

I think that you need to make an apology, and not just to me.

Michael

P.S. You might ask yourself whether the Good Donald would do a similar thing in a similar situation.