Thoughts on Truly Decreasing Crime

[sorry i forgot to post this yesterday!]

Everyone’s shouting about crime, but few are quietly offering cogent suggestions.

One critical problem for police, judges, and the public is that someone commits a crime, gets arrested, but must be released because of mental incompetency.

Federal and state constitutions guarantee folks accused of crimes a fair trial with a lawyer; but if defendant can’t understand the proceedings or help that lawyer, no fair trial is possible. As a sometime municipal judge, I had to let people go, unless they were extremely dangerous. I couldn’t try ‘em. Or incarcerate them or force treatment on them.

These are not issues our local governments can fix.

These are difficult problems. As LCPD Chief Jeremy Story said Wednesday, “Competency is a huge issue. It’s a complex problem.” He mentioned a woman with hundreds of cases – petty misdemeanors such as breaking windows, trespassing, shoplifting – whom he can do nothing about.

We can do better. “You’re incompetent, so skate free!” is no longer a sane option, for defendants or for the community. The state has been trying some promising new ways of getting defendant/addict in a room with therapist early on, using forensic navigators, but those programs are limited.

Other states and the feds authorize competency restoration. The court orders defendant to participate in a program to restore sufficient mental competency to understand the legal proceedings and participate in their defense. This may occur on an in-patient or out-patient basis, or even in jail. It may involve education, mental health treatment, or other efforts, including managing the defendant’s disruptive behaviors or other problems that impede the restoration process. Courts provide a reasonable period of time, such as 6-12 months.

What’s critical is resources: personnel, solid training of that personnel, beds in facilities, etc. Which our flush state can afford, but has been doing poorly on for a while. Governor Martinez destroyed our mental health treatment system, and there are gaping holes in the performance of current state leaders.

Programs in Minnesota, California, and Texas – e.g., both progressive and not – offer models worth looking at.

We might also make better use of our involuntary commitment statute, which authorizes “An interested person who reasonably believes that an adult is suffering from a mental disorder and presents a likelihood of serious harm to the adult's own self or others,” to request the D.A. to investigate whether a thirty-day period of evaluation and treatment is warranted. The D.A. must act within 72 hours. He may petition the the court for a hearing. The court issues a summons. “If the proposed client is summoned and fails to appear . . . or appears without having been evaluated, the court may order the proposed client to be detained for evaluation.”

Presumably. “an interested person” could be a friend or relative, a shopkeeper, or anyone with a reason to care about that the proposed patient might do to himself or others. Some say involuntary treatment never works. That’s reasonable, but never say never. Experience shows that sometimes, though the person in need of treatment couldn’t or wouldn’t have asked, an enforced period of contact with caring professionals, free of normal environmental and peer pressures, can trigger an interest in getting clean and well. And the person will be off the street and living a healthier life for a spell.

We must improve our competency law; authorize competency-restoration; invest heavily in personnel and training, statewide; and ensure that all these laws work together.

                                                 – 30 –

 

[This column appeared Sunday, 15 December, 2024, and will presently be up on the Las Cruces Sun-News website and also 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/). For further information on the topic of this column, please go to my blog, https://soledadcanyon.blogspot.com/ .]

Whether or not it's Genocide, We Should Oppose What Israel is Doing in Gaza

We must not let our passions about international bad conduct lead to mistreatment of individuals here in the U.S. whatever their countries or religions do elsewhere.

Is Israel committing genocide in Gaza?

Genocide means acts committed with the intent to destroy, wholly or partially, a national, ethnic, or religious group, by killing or seriously harming members of the group or inflicting conditions calculated to bring about the group's destruction. It’s an international crime. South Africa’s formal charges mean the International Court of Justice may some day decide the genocide issue.

Hebrew University’s ProfessorAmos Goldberg, a top expert, says, “Yes, it is genocide. It is so difficult and painful to admit it, but . . .after six months of brutal war we can no longer avoid this conclusion.”

“Intent” is a key issue. Israeli officials say and do some things that evidence an intent to destroy. In U.S. law, if you intentionally act in a way that is likely to kill someone, that’s ample intent. Destroying homes, schools, hospitals, and water supplies sure sounds like creating “conditions calculated to bring about the group’s destruction.” Legally, Israel’s killing of 50,000 civilians, many women and children, is intentional.

Israel argues “self-defense.” Certainly on October 7^th Hamas massacred innocent civilians who’d done nothing to deserve being beaten, raped, kidnaped, and/or massacred.

But if a dozen KKK members terrorists bombed an NAACP meeting, no one would argue that authorities could destroy the culprits’ hometown, or state, and everyone in it.

Professor Goldberg argues that “the level and pace of indiscriminate killing, destruction, mass expulsions, displacement, famine, executions, the wiping out of cultural and religious institutions, the crushing of elites (including the killing of journalists), and the sweeping dehumanization of the Palestinians — create an overall picture of genocide, of a deliberate conscious crushing of Palestinian existence in Gaza.”

Nor does perceived danger excuse genocide. Groups in Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, and Burma have arguably committed genocide because of what Goldberg calls, “an authentic sense of self-defence.” Genocide doesn’t require the insanity and complete lack of provocation that characterized Nazi Germany’s conduct.

“Genocide” or not, killing or maiming 100,000 civilians is not conduct that the U.S. should support.

Legally, the argument might differ in a declared war between nations. Dresden, Hiroshima, and German bombing of London were ugly acts of war. However, that excuse didn’t apply to German treatment of Jews and others. Nor does it here. The whole pattern of Israeli abuses of Palestinians, including extensive violence by Israelis against West Bank residents that has amounted to usurpation of that area and rendering its population homeless, is further evidence of an intent to destroy.]

Each side can accurately claim extensive and unjustified violence perpetrated against it.

In Israel’s defense, Britain set a forest fire and walked away. By promising Arabia to eveyone during World War I and continuing its conduct during World War II, Britain (largely) created a situation where deserving folks had honest but inconsistent claims to territory, with hostilities magnified by their differing religions.

The rest of the world should likely have helped maintain peace during the last century, and perhaps should act to restore peace now; but that won’t happen. We can only hope that the better instincts of both Israelis and Palestinians, and weariness of mutual mass destruction, somehow come to the fore.

Some truths are incredibly sad. But opposing genocide – or whatever softer term you choose – ain’t anti-Semitic.

                                                                  – 30 –

 

[This column appeared Sunday, 8 December, 2024, in the Las Cruces Sun-News

and on the newspaper's website, and will presently be posted also 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/). For further information on the topic of this column, please go to my blog, https://soledadcanyon.blogspot.com/ .]

[This is a hard column to write, for many reasons. I have close friends who are Israeli; and they are torn by all this, suffering a mix of fear and concern, loathing for Mr. Netanyahu. (Said one friend, “Netanyahu cares only about his own interest.” ) I think they’re mortified at the mounting death toll, but wholly uncertain not only what they personally could do about this but, perhaps how Israel, even with its ideal leader, could at this point make this situation anywhere near right. I’m hearing concern for the dead, as well as fears that Israel’s conduct will ultimately endanger the country, rather than saving it.]

[I sure can’t imagine how this gets made right! I have no wisdom to offer.]

[Whether or not this is the international crime of “genocide” isn’t the main issue. However, it seems worth noting that while this may be genocide, it feels like something different and less purely evil [more justified, if such could ever be justified] than the Holocaust. The Holocaust destroyed people of a whole ethnic group for no cogent reason, with absolutely no provocation. The Middle East is different. I blame Britain, for promising Arabia to everyone for most of the 20^th Century, then putting Israel and Palestine in a box they each believed they owned, and watching the inevitable violence from afar. It’s like the difference between murders: Richard Speck’s massacre of 8 student nurses in Chicago, versus a wife’s murder of her abusive husband is loading the deck unfairly, but Speck versus a man’s murder of his wife’s lover, or rapist? Still murder, but.]

[Whether Israel should have been created, whether it should have been created where it was created, are questions beyond my pay grade. However, Israel is there, and has been; and Palestine has too. Each has the right to exist. I desperately wish we could entice them to peace; but each has brutalized the other too extensively to make that emotionally appetizing to either. It’s also tragic that each side is currently being led by folks who don’t have the common interest as their top priority. Neither Netanyahu nor Hamas is improving the lot of their respective constituencies.]

[The column's first sentence deserves emphasis.  We should not be harassing or hating Jewish or Muslim students for what Israel and Hamas do, nor should  we mistreat in any way folks from Russia, India, or any other country for the nation's sins.  That's just plain good sense and fairness: this is the United States, where all ought to be welcome; individuals have little control over their governments, and individuals in dictatorships have even less.  I urge everyone who feels strongly about international events to keep this in mind.  Maybe I feel strongly about it because I traveled internationally and experienced courtesy and warmth from people who loathed some of our country's worst behavior.  It's also true that both Jews and Palestinians have been poorly treated by the world's "great powers." ] 

A Day at the Beach - 1940

This photo moves me greatly.  It shows two sisters.  The younger, lying on the sand, is highly imaginative, but even her creative mind likely cannot imagine that soon she will suffer so horribly and needlessly that everyone reading this knows her name, has heard of her writing, perhaps has even seen the play named for her, of which Las Cruces had an excellent production just a few months ago. 

The link to that play didn't seem to work when I posted this on Facebook: https://soledadcanyon.blogspot.com/2024/10/remembering-anne-frank-in-challenging.html

Positive Steps by Memorial Medical Center

Memorial Medical Center appears to be upping its game.

Wednesday MMC held a public board meeting that was mostly comments and criticism from the public. Several folks started with a litany of bad experiences and criticism; Earl Nissen asked about the poor folks with cancer MMC turned away; but MMC gave good answers to many questions (though not Earl’s). When I suggested they hire an ombudsperson, they produced on the spot someone they’d already hired.

I still view with skepticism and concern Apollo Global, the private equity firm that owns Lifepoint, which owns and operates MMC. There’s significant tension between maximizing profits and maximizing patients’ care. Private equity firms sometimes wring hospitals dry. They’re under investigation, and bear watching – by feds, states, cities, and journalists. They’re part of a U.S. health care system that keeps our costs high and our care minimal. Elsewhere, health care is too essential not to be public. Only in the U.S. do medical bills cause 530,000 bankruptcies annually. That’s two-thirds of all U.S. bankruptcies.

Most providers at Memorial are competent and caring. We’ve had consistently good experiences, although some friends haven’t. Two surgeons operated on me this year, Dr. McGuire at Mountainview and Dr. Pinheiro at MMC. Both doctors came highly recommended, impressed me, and did great jobs.

MMC has an unusal situation. Because its predecessor, Memorial General, was a Hill-Burton public hospital, jointly owned by City and County, which still own the land, MMC’s lease and the purchase contract obligate MMC to keep operating certain departments open and fulfill other promises, including reporting requirements. MMC appeared in breach, notably of obligations to treat indigent patients with serious conditions such as cancer.

A public outcry and a national news story helped awaken the City to its oversight responsibilities. The City investigated. The City wrote MMC demanding compliance. The County joined in the demand.

The good news is that MMC is providing requisite information, if perhaps a little more slowly than the City might like, and negotiating issues. Sources at both City and MMC seem optimistic that the negotiations will lead to improvements, without costly litigation. Trusting no one completely, I’ll be interested to see what actually develops.

It’s good news that MMC has switched CEO’s: John Harris, by all accounts, was dictatorial, played favorites, retaliated against folks who pushed for better medical care and raised issues. So the apparent good news comes after a lot of good people got punished and left, or got fired. The AG and others are still investigating possible medicare fraud and other alleged problems.

Dennis Knox, the new CEO, appears a breath of fresh air. He is more responsive to questions and concerns. He speaks of increased transparency. The other guy clammed up and wouldn’t even answer my calls when I investigated MMC for columns. He held Wednesday’s public board-meeting; MMC says it’ll do that once a year, henceforth. (I’d respectfully suggest every six months.) Yeah, the meeting was MMC trying to put on its best face; but no reasonable observer could fail to conclude that that Board includes at least a majority who seriously care about patients and community.

MMC has a lot of caring, competent providers, but it took those news stories, Yoli Diaz’s complaints, and the official investigations to prod Lifepoint into upping MMC’s game. The ultimate owner remains Apollo Global, which has given us reason to stay alert. Thanks, Yoli, Raul, Gretchen Morgenson, and local officials.

                                       – 30 --

 

[This column appeared Sunday, 24 November, 2024, in the Las Cruces Sun-News

and will presently appear 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/). For further information on the topic of this column, please go to my blog, https://soledadcanyon.blogspot.com/ .]

[As I say in the column, let’s credit MMC for losing former CEO John Harris and hiring someone who seems a better bet; and for responding reasonably to the City’s notice of breach; and for Wednesday evening’s public board-meeting. These are positive moves. I’m not delighted that MMC is ultimately owned by a private equity firm, Global Assets. However, if MMC is prepared to bring itself into compliance with its contractual obligations, the City [and County] will remain in a kind of partnership.

I did think Wednesday evening’s session showed both why some people are unhappy with MMC’s work and that there are many caring medical professionals on MMC’s board. (I never doubted that most line people we see at MMC are qualified and caring; I’ve doubted whether management does right by them, or by us.) Recent history at MMC, including some reprisals and firings discussed in my columns, and the temporary closure of the mental health ward, are cause for concern, and cost us some very fine medical professionals. But let’s hope that, going forward, Lifepoint/Apollo manage MMC in a way that reflects a healthier balance between profits and topnotch are. I’m guardedly optimistic about that.]

Thoughts on the Recent Disaster

So, what happened?

Yes, we are a stubbornly sexist nation founded on racism. Even macho Mexico has elected a woman president before we have, and Mr. Trump was a bad joke.

But Democrats are barking up the wrong mesquite if they think racism motivated all Trump voters, or even a majority.

Many voters are angry. In 2016, I wrote that people were angry and Trump was yelling angrily, so they kind of liked him. Our inequitable corporation-dominated system provides good reason for anger.

Unfortunately, a huge swath of voters get their information not from our “papers of record” or from fact-based journals that attempt neutrality but from partisan on-line material created, often carelessly, by partisans or Putinists. One Trump voter solemnly told me that Harris had been a high-class prostitute during college and Trump, when younger gave poor Black entrepreneurs low-interest loans and often forgave them. Hunnh?

The Democrats haven’t “abandoned workers,” despite globalism. Most of this century, Democrats supported workers against capital, battled the profit-driven corporate excesses of our huge corporations, and protecting poor folks, various minorities, and [legal] immigrants. Support of LBGTQ folks continues that commitment to protecting the weak and minorities in a closed-minded population. However, it offends some, just as, Democrats’ support of civil rights once alienated some white workers. Republicans used this issue well.

As Blacks need protection from racism, and workers from low pay and unsafe working conditions, and women from abusive partners (and strangers who grope or rape), and the environment from pollution, LBGTQ folks need protection from prejudice and abuse. Allowing LGBTQ folks to live their lives needn’t cost workers anything; letting women flourish (and make choices) needn’t harm men. We are all citizens.

Our capitalist masters have always played us against each other, as southern aristocrats maintained power by playing Blacks and poor Whites against each other. It’s not us poisoning you and ripping you off, it’s the welfare cheats. The pregnant females getting abortions. The immigrants. The socialists.

It was and wasn’t the economy, which has been doing well. There had indeed been inflation initially, and folks recalled the pain of it. They feared high prices, so they rushed to vote for a fellow promising to raise everyone’s prices with tariffs – as if Chinese would kindly decline to raise prices to cover tariff amounts.

There’s also an international trend toward authoritarian governments. We face an axis of dictatorships, and recent right-wing gains in European countries. Democracy is in decline. Is it our human tendency to duck out on freedom and seek a Leader in times of crisis or uncertainty? Marx thought Labor would eventually rebel against capital. Much of our working class has “rebelled” by jumping into Capital’s lap.

In 2016, many voters felt that since the government wasn’t serving them properly, they’d toss Trump into the works. Instead of focusing on understanding folks’ anger, too many political leaders either enabled (or deified) Trump or grew too obsessed with his narcissism. Meanwhile, Democrats compounded their electoral challenges through Biden’s long delay in withdrawing from the race.

Trump’s defects seem obvious: but if you want to weaken the country, who cares? To weaken the country, a guy appointing wholly unqualified people to high positions is fine. Imagine President Kamala Harris naming Hunter Biden Attorney-General and Travis Kelce Defense Secretary.

Voters wanted fairer and more efficient government. Instead, they’ll watch it get dismantled. Vladimir Putin is laughing.

                                -- 30 –

 

[This column appeared Sunday, 17 November, 2024, in the Las Cruces Sun-News

and will presently appear 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/). For further information on the topic of this column, please go to my blog, https://soledadcanyon.blogspot.com/ .]

[Two major points I don’t mention: inflation and the Middle East. It’s very tough for an incumbent president to win-election when the country is suffering inlation. Meanwhile, around October 7 of last year, when Hamas butcherred 1,000 Israeli civilians, in addition to being sorry to hear of the attack and sympathizing with victims and there families, I told a friend “There goes the election,” meaning the U.S. Presidential Election. Obviously Israel would overreact, as Hamas had intended for Israel to do, and the U.S. would be involved supporting Israel, and the Democratic President (Biden, I assumed then) would be brought down by the conflict. I think the conflict did hurt Harris, particularly in Michigan; but it wasn’t the deciding factor.]

[Unless something surprising happens, I hope my next several Sunday columns won’t mention the national political scene. There’s a lot to discuss locally.  I am very glad to live in New Mexico! ]

 

Surviving Trump -- and Helping the Republic Do So

Friends ask, “If anyone has any advice on how to survive this, please share it.”

This is both familiar territory and not.

In 1952, just five, I wore a sandwich sign urging a vote for Adlai Stevenson. My father, a Stevensonian Democrat, won a minor local office in that election. But General Eisenhower beat Adlai. Both were decent, competent men serving their country.

In 1964. a college freshman, I campaigned for Lyndon Baines Johnson, whom I soon came to loathe as he escalated the inexcusably stupid Viet Nam War.

1968 I cast my first presidential vote – for Black Panther ex-con Eldridge Cleaver. A college dropout, I asked passengers entering my New York City cab, “Which of the three little pigs are you voting for?” Richard Nixon, Hubert Humphrey, and segregationist George Wallace all seemed unacceptable -- as some now equate Trump and Harris, because of Palestine. When Chicago police beat antiwar demonstrators outside the Democratic Convention, I listened on radio, late at night, concluding that the only course for a person of conscience was to begin assassinating high U.S. officials, killing as many as possible before being killed. [I didn’t!] Four years later, during Nixon’s re-election, marked by Watergate, I was the kind of young dissenter Nixon wanted to destroy.

In 2000, we elected Al Gore but five supreme court justices gave us George Bush.

I believed Richard Nixon would continue the Viet Nam War [despite his “secret peace plan”] and break laws to punish us; I believed Bush was a wholly unqualified fellow who’d be the tool of right-wingers, and disbelieved his silly excuses for starting two wars. I was right. But Trump is different: he’s not only wrong on policies, he abhors our democracy.

In 2016, in Democrats’ local headquarters on Election Night, we were shocked and dismayed, believing Mr. Trump was an incompetent narcissist, somewhat spiteful and lacking in compassion or judgment, all of which proved true. In 2020, Mr. Biden wasn’t my first choice for nominee, but he was a decent and competent gent who prevailed. If only he’d stuck to his promise to stay one term then let younger folks take over!

For more than five weeks, although a civilized nation re-electing Mr. Trump, who promised to be even worse this time seemed unthinkable, I thought it was probably about to happen. It has.

Two questions: will what we have of democracy survive? And will progressives?

First, Mr. Trump, disgusted that his Attorneys-General, VP Pence, and others chose patriotism over licking Trump’s golf shoes, will appoint worse flunkeys this time. He and his advisors have announced plans to challenge our Democratic system. Smarter folks than Trump have detailed plans. He and allies have weakened a lot of the guard-rails we once relied on; but people of good will acting lawfully and non-violently, might just manage to thwart his effort and save the republic. Stay loyal – but watchful.

Individually, we must face this directly without letting it eat us up inside. As Buddhists say about getting others’ criticism, meanness, or bad acts, they’ve handed you a chalice of poison. You alone decide whether or not you drink it, by choosing to take that anger and hatred inside you. Hating Trump does nothing to control his excesses, but weakens you, when our country might need you. And you’ve a life!

Also, recall that many Trump voters are much better people than he. They’re our neighbors, too.

                                       – 30 --

 

[This column appeared Sunday, 10 November, 2024, in the Las Cruces Sun-News

and will presently appear 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/). For further information on the topic of this column, please go to my blog, https://soledadcanyon.blogspot.com/ .]

As far as surviving this personally, try not to let it poison everything! That’s hard, at times; but the better we do at it, the more we enjoy our personal lives and the stronger we are to do what little we can do. We’re all that hummingbird in the old tribal legend: as all the animals flee the huge forest fire, the leopard sees the humming bird repeatedly flying toward the fire, then away again, and asks why. The hummer explains that the forest has sustained it all its life, and, in gratitude, it is flying to the river to drink, then dropping water on the fire; and to the leopard’s comment that the fire is too big to be controlled that way, the hummer says that doing what it can beats the alternatives, and if everyone does what s/he can, who knows?

I’d also recommend a glance at Nicholas Kristof’s Manifesto for Despairing Democrats in the New York Times. One on his list that I work on is: “5. I will try to understand why so many Americans disagree with me. Too many Democrats reflexively assume that any person backing Trump must be a bigot or an idiot. But let’s beware of invidious stereotypes, for finger-wagging condescension alienates centrist voters; it’s difficult to win support from people you’re calling idiots and racists. Many working-class Americans have been left behind economically and have reason to feel angry. And Democrats aren’t going to win elections as long as they seethe at a majority of voters. ”

As far as our democracy, in a previous column [A Grim Direction We Might Take], ’ve made clear how this could go, and why, as best I could within the 570-word Sun-News limit.

Will it?

Mr. Trump’s own actions and words suggest that his Presidency will be an assault on our democracy in the sense that it will further weaken the “guardrails” and be dominated by Mr. Trump’s personal/political interest.

Where will that leave us? Friends who assert the traditional protections will save our democracy are unreasonably optimistic. Friends who say that there’s no chance we can save democracy are too pessimistic. We have some chance. Our greatest hope is Mr. Trump’s own incompetence.

Another factor is Trump’s health. His mind appears to be softening toward dementia – but how fast is anyone’s guess. He’s a fat slob of advanced years, which is not ideal for continuing good health.

Normally, one would figure that if Trump screws up badly or overreaches in obvious ways, popular opinion will punish him politically. However: so far, the conservative sources many people read or watch are doing a great job of presenting inaccuaracies; while some Trump voters aknowledge this but vote for him anyway, others believe and repeat wildly inaccurate facts Neither is a hopeful sign.

A Grim Direction We Might Take

Here’s some nuts & bolts of why recovering democracy might be tough if a dictatorial president and his associates overstepped traditional boundaries and chose to retain power permanently.

We can’t be sure either constitutional and traditional guardrails or public opposition would save us.

Our democracy is limited: the Senate and the Electoral College give less populous states disproportionate power. If we ever started a Constitutional Convention, the skew would be even worse.

Republicans controlling “swing state” legislatures have been busily changing the rules, purging voter rolls to decrease poor and minority voters, and increasing legislative control over voters’ decisions. There’s even a crazy argument that a legislature could legislate that it, not citizens voting, would choose presidential electors.

We’ve nearly lost the Supreme Court as a principle-based check on presidential power. Trump’s three appointments, Republican senatorial chicanery during Obama’s Presidency, and recent judicial longevity created a nine-member court with five extreme conservatives. And counting.

Thus, executive overreaching, legislative “adjustments” curbing traditional voting rights, and bad corporate conduct would likely all be found “constitutional.” They might even let legislatures usurp citizens’ rights to vote for presidential electors.

Meanwhile, Trumpian legislation would weaken the “non-partisan” civil service. Once, a newly-elected mayor appointed a whole new police department, loyal to him, helping at his rallies and harassing his critics. Presidents appoint top “political” officials but a core civil service has some expertise and non-partisan interest in just collecting the garbage, inspecting drugs or food, etc. A key Trump agenda item is to weaken that protection, letting Trump appoint lackeys, regardless of ability. We’d get non-evidence-based decision-making, elections could disrupt the whole government, and career civil servants who’d developed real skills and expertise could be fired at a presidential whim.

One hopes that abusing immigrants and maybe ethnic minorities, and curbing personal freedoms of speech and choice, would trigger a wave of negative public opinion. Well, look at Brave New World or Putin’s Russia. Citizens don’t stand up to Putin because (a) he’ll kill them and (b) his tight media control few even know the facts.

Large newspapers owned by zillionaires just copped out on editorializing about the Presidency. Newspapers were already in decline. Meanwhile, a Wall-Street Journal study showed that someone signing onto X to discuss chess or basket-weaving, not seeking political discussion, will be buffeted with pro-Trump messages, courtesy of Elon Musk. How might a coalition of reasonable people seeking a return to democracy ever form, and communicate? Musk could buy Facebook, too. After an innocuous post or two, we’d get one saying Kamala was a college prostitute or Trump spent years rescuing dogs. What if Wikipedia were “acquired” by some Trumpist billionaire? What if universities’ scientific research was funded based on companies’ and scientists’ obeisance to right-wing ideology?

What if every federal clerk reviewing your tax or medical issue decides based on your Trump-friendliness? As was surely true in Nazi Germany. Terrible; but with no press left to write about it and no Supreme Court requiring fairness and justice, well, live with it!

It could happen. We don’t wear some magic shield. As in Russia, they perhaps could gain and hold dictatorial power; but (as in Russia) they’d severely weaken the country. When political loyalty trumps merit, your science, your education, your health, and your military security all deteriorate. Look at Russia!

And, as always, the wealthy interests cheating and poisoning us have great ploys to make us blame each other.

                                              – 30 – 

 

[This column appeared Sunday, 3 November, 2024, in the Las Cruces Sun-News and 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/). For further information on the topic of this column, please go to my blog, https://soledadcanyon.blogspot.com/ .]

[Yeah, the column paints a grim picture, but a sufficiently plausible one that it’s worth some serious effort to avoid. Do I think Donald Trump will be elected President again? This morning, I don’t. But for a month I’ve been pretty pessimistic. I kept thinking, “It’s unthinkable that in the 21^st Century a reasonably educated and successful nation could actually elect this guy again,” but feeling pretty sure that we would do so. Obviously, we very well may.

If we do, resistance to the kind of anti-democratic efforts described in the column would be the order of the day. (It was soberting, and helped generate this column, to read [in a recent New Yorker] some of Alexei Navalny’s writing from prison. He was a good and courageous man and died in prison for opposing dicatorship in Russian – reminding me that even our partial democracy is a hell of a privilege in this world.)]

[However, whatever happens, we need to soften this hyperparisanship. We means “we all” there.” We [progressives, skeptics, people of good faith, humanists – whatever you and I are] have a more specific task: to recognize that alhough, yeah, some of Mr. Trump’s most dedicated supporters are racists and haters, many who will vote for him are NOT. I play pickleball with a bunch of ‘em. Some, including people from ethnic minorities, are not being well served by our system [or feel that they’re not] and dislike politicians generally.

What remains important for each of us to do, I think, is to engage with our neighbors. To understand that they are not demented fucks who idolize that huckster, but decent folks – who pet their dogs and make their children laugh just as we do – who, like us, are being cheated, poisoned, and otherwise mistreated by a corporate economic system that has convinced them that in fact, it’s the asylum seekers and illegal immigrants, the people on welfare, the people whose colors, faiths, language, genders and conduct are different.

Underneath, we are allies: we would all like a saner, safer world in which individuals had more of a chance and more personal freedom.

Whether “we” [progressives] win this election and bask in victory or lose it, and feel we’re in danger, finding common ground with our neighbors is an urgent need.

Because while Donald Trump is an incompetent narcissist, the schism that leads nearly half our country’s “adults” to vote for him is a continuing danger; and even the party we’re supporting is too kind to big corporations, too sluggish about dealing meaningfully with climate change, supportive of what many now call genocide, and resistant to doing the normal stuff other modern democracies do, such as taxing excessive wealth, making health available to everyone, etc. ]

[So, I’d say: vote for Kamala and Tim’ and drive someone to the polls who might not otherwise get there; but, whichever side wins, be a skeptic, a critic, a watchdog. Being a pain in the ass to power is an obligation of all citizens.]

 

 

Please Vote! Here Are Some Thoughts

If you care about nothing else, vote for Harris-Walz at the top of your ballot. Mr. Trump is wholly unqualified: he’s a danger to our country not only in his narcissism but in his incompetence, his dictatorial inclinations, his complete indifference to policy details, and how easily foreign leaders manipulate him. Harris and Walz are interested in government, interested generally in helping average people, and seem to be decent, highly competent human beings who care.

U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich is experienced and highly effective, and speaks of tackling climate change and expanding health care access. Nella Domenici spouts generalized accusations that everything she dislikes in our state is Heinrich’s fault. She’ a privileged, private-equity person from elsewhere who hopes we’ll vote for her because her father was Pete Domenici and she grew up in New Mexico. She ain’t Pete. Oddly enough, he was a friend of mine. And a good and highly competent man, despite our ideological differences. (He once told me that when, as non-partisan mayor of Albuquerque, he considered a Senate run, choosing his party was a close call.) His daughter is further right; her private-equity career means sympathy for our wealthiest citizens; if elected, and if Mr. Trump were President, she’d be in his possible majority in the Senate, helping him do whatever nutty thing enters his head. Pete wouldn’t have been Trump’s puppet. Heinrich will be a strong member of the loyal opposition. That’s important.

Similarly, former Las Cruces City Councilor Gabe Vasquez is a better Congressperson than was Trumpist Yvette Herrell. This campaign has gone way negative: he emphasizes her draconian position on abortion, she stresses some out-of-context remarks he made regarding the police. The reality is that she’d help pave Mr. Trump’s road, while Gabe wouldn’t; and she simply doesn’t get the fact that we should not be effectively murdering young ladies for getting pregnant, whether they were unwise or victims of rape or incest. Their bodies are theirs, not mine or Yvette’s.

Samantha Salopek Barncastle is challenging two-term incumbent NM Senator Carrie Hamblen (D-38). Barncastle has long been attorney for Elephant Butte Irrigation District, which has frequently drawn fire from environmentalists and some small farmers.

The District Attorney race ain’t the easy choice I wish it were. I’ve known Fernando Macias at least slightly for 50 years. He’s highly experienced and has done a lot of good. Some also find him a little grandoise and imperious: “My Way or the Highway!” Some very good friends, Democrats, some holding office here, say they would never vote for him. Michael Cain, while charming and an experienced criminal lawyer, is simply not as strong a candidate as Fernando, although Cain argues that his decades specializing in criminal law outweigh Macias’s wealth of experience as judge, county manager, commissioner, and state legislator. Friends passionately support both. Which would rescue the office? Bottom line: if I thought this race were close, I’d vote for Fernando. If not, I’d wish I could write in Atticus Finch.

I discuss local races in my blog post on http://www.soledadcanyon.blogspot.com/. County Clerk Amanda Lopez Askin, Tara Jaramillo, Bill Soules and Nathan Small, among others, have served us well and deserve re-election. I’d also vote for Sarah Silva if I could.

I think I favor all four proposed constitutional amendments, and the bond issues. Despite strong distaste for our state’s use of the gross receipts tax, I’d approve Las Cruces’s small requested increase.

                                              – 30 --

[This column appeared Sunday, 27 October, 2024, in the Las Cruces Sun-News and will be up soon  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/). For further information on the topic of this column, please go to my blog, https://soledadcanyon.blogspot.com/ .]

[What else should I note here?

> That our County Clerk, Amanda LopezAskin, is a star in that position. I’ve thought so more and more strongly. And the lady challenging her in this election basically promiss to do stuff Askin is already doing, such as being transparent and outgoing and pro-active about educating voters and increasing registration. So that’s an easy one.

> We had District 3x state representative Tara Jaramillo on our radio show recently, and she was distinctly more impressive than most folks realize. It came through in the depth of her commitment to public service and all that inspired it. Runs deep in her family, and in her. And she’ll be fierce about giving kids he best chance we can, particuarly kids with an extra helping of problems.

> I touched on the state senate race between Carrie Hamblen and Samantha Salopek Barncastle. I’ve run into Barncastle in court, representing right wing interests who didn’t seem to have our community’s best interest at heart, and as EBID’s lawyer, pushing for water issues to come out in ways EBID would prefer; but I haven’t seen her out just doing good for our community. Meanwhile, I think her pals at EBID have lost their taste for her company, or at least for her professional help. By contrast, Hamblen seems a straight-shooter, she’s effectively progressive, and a top conservation group gives her 100% approval for the whole time she’ sbeen in ofice. Hamblen makes sense for the modern and growing community we are. Barncastle pobably doesn’t.

> This morning I looked again at a seven-minute black&white film about the passionately Nazi American Patriots rally that drew 20,000 to New York’s Madison Square Garden in February 1939, about when Hitler was completing construction on his 5th or 6^th concentration camp. It doesn’t answer any questions. Just documents that they were there, listening to an orator and finding some way to mix love of Hitler with love of George Washington, who maybe they didn’t know turned town office a few times, including after serving two terms as our president. Shows ‘em sincere as hell, conflating our democratic tradition with hatred and prejudice. I alwas wondered how. We might be finding out, the next few years. ]

On Following its own Ordinances, Let's Give the City an Incomplete for Now

After a 2018 scandal, which some Las Cruces city councilors thought might trigger criminal charges, the City followed an independent investigator’s recommendations to keep a keener eye on handling of public funds. A 2019 Ordinance created an Oversight Committee and an Inspector-General position to be filled with Oversight Committee approval. Another ordinance created a Public Safety Select Committee. (“PSSC”).

Then-City Manager Ifo Pili didn’t like oversight. The IG position sat unfilled for years, violating the ordinance. The oversight committee did some good work we’ll never know the details of. (The Ordinance required publication of Committee findings; but that mostly didn’t happen.)

In 2023, the City hired an IG, but he reportedly clashed with Pili and left. Then Pili [without required Committee approval] appointed as IG an oversight committee member whom Pili reportedly didn’t consider a threat. Mandatory committee meetings stopped in 2023. The committee dwindled to one voting member, former City Councilor Jack Eakman. I was told the problem was filling committee positions that required folks with solid experience in Business (Eakman), Auditing, and Law. Eakman kept urging action. In April he served an IPRA Request. The City denied him 33 documents on dubious attorney-client privilege claims.

When some some councilors seemed quite interested in a proposal for citizens’ police oversight, Mayor Ken Miyagashima, who opposed it, referred the proposal to the PSSC to die. The PSSC never even invited further discussion!

The PSSC looked like an improper “executive committee.” It was supposed to report information to the full council, but no one saw that happening. It appeared that the committee either wasn’t doing its job or was possibly violating the Open Meetings Act.

In June 2023, citizen Michael Hays requested documents concerning the PSSC. The City stiffed him, violating IPRA so blatantly that settling the lawsuit cost the City nearly $200,000 plus paying its own lawyers. [Full disclosure: I represented Mr. Hays.] I hope the new city manager and city attorney are improving things. When Eakman re-submitted his document request, the City gave him all the documents it had wrongly denied him. The documents showed that by late 2023 a professional auditor and three apparently qualified attorneys had volunteered to serve on the Oversight Committee and been vetted.

Violating the Ordinance, the City delayed appointments, saying staff needed to amend the Ordinance. Recently the City Council adopted amendments that somewhat weaken the Oversight Committee and have it report to the city manager. (The amendments don’t seem so urgent that we needed more than a year with NO oversight committee.) The ordinance is silent on handling misconduct allegations against the city manager, but I’m told that the city clerk would appoint an “Ethics Committee” from among citizens serving on boards. Not ideal.

A simple plan – to have three qualified citizens use their expertise to investigate city affairs that seemed to need that – seems less promising now. I hope good people take this on and prove me wrong.

Citizens have asked whether those committees still exist, or still function. No straight answer was available, probably because city officials were trying to figure out the right course of action. But that wasn’t a good look.

I asked again recently. The City hopes to appoint a new oversight committee ASAP. The PSSC? High city officials couldn’t really answer that yet.

I’m glad we have a new city manager and attorney, but doubt the long wait and the amendments have helped curb official misconduct.

                                                           – 30 –

 

[This column appeared Sunday, 13 October, 2024, in the Las Cruces Sun-News

and on the newspaper's website and will shortly be up 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/). For further information on the topic of this column, please go to my blog, https://soledadcanyon.blogspot.com/ .]

[This was a harder column to write than some are. I wanted to be neither too critical of the city nor insufficiently critical. Opinions vary on whether or not, or by how much, the amendments mentioned actually weaken the committee. Further, how strongly should one factor in positive expectations of Ikani Taumoepeau and Brad Douglas? Certainly our experience of Douglas’s predecessor made her departure likely to be an improvement. I hope we can discuss all this on a radio show soon, hopefully with divergent points of view represented.]

[Vote! I’m feeling extremely pessimistic about the national election. These are demented and dangerous times. What can we do when climate-change-charged storms are killing folks in Florida and pushing most to vote for a climate-change-denier who’ll do nothing, when unions in Pennsylvania are leaning more and more toward voting for a man who loathes unions, and that voters worry Kamala Harris “can’t handle Putin” while her opponent is a Putin-admirer and such a Putin toadie he sent Putin hard-to-get COVID tests when in office. Of course, he has denied that, and accused reported Bob Woodward of having “lost his marbles” for reporting such a thing, but the Kremlin has now confirmed Woodward on that point. I’d hate to have to explain all this to Dwight Eisenhower.

The local and state situation is not so discouraging.]

                --  30  --

 

[This column appeared Sunday, 13 October, 2024, in the Las Cruces Sun-News and on the newspaper's website and  on KRWG’s website, under Local Viewpoints. A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version aired during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM, streaming at www.lccommunityradio.org/). For further information on the topic of this column, please go to my blog, https://soledadcanyon.blogspot.com/ .   APOLOGIES for not getting this one posted here until now AND for not doing a column at all this week. ]

[This was a harder column to write than some are. I wanted to be neither too critical of the city nor insufficiently critical. Opinions vary on whether or not, or by how much, the amendments mentioned actually weaken the committee. Further, how strongly should one factor in positive expectations of Ikani Taumoepeau and Brad Douglas? Certainly our experience of Douglas’s predecessor made her departure likely to be an improvement. I hope we can discuss all this on a radio show soon, hopefully with divergent points of view represented.]

[Vote! I’m feeling extremely pessimistic about the national election. These are demented and dangerous times. What can we do when climate-change-charged storms are killing folks in Florida and pushing most to vote for a climate-change-denier who’ll do nothing, when unions in Pennsylvania are leaning more and more toward voting for a man who loathes unions, and that voters worry Kamala Harris “can’t handle Putin” while her opponent is a Putin-admirer and such a Putin toadie he sent Putin hard-to-get COVID tests when in office. Of course, he has denied that, and accused reported Bob Woodward of having “lost his marbles” for reporting such a thing, but the Kremlin has now confirmed Woodward on that point. I’d hate to have to explain all this to Dwight Eisenhower.

The local and state situation is not so discouraging.]