MAYORAL CANDIDATE GANDARA RE-VISITED: ANOTHER FIRST FOR A WOMAN STILL UNQUALIFIED

This blog begins with a brief response to Peter Goodman’s editorial endorsement (22 October) of Kasandra Gandara and continues with the support of my points in my 3 May blog “Kasandra Gandara for Mayor: Another First for a Woman Also Unqualified.” 

 

Goodman opines,

 

Kassandra Gandara is by far the best choice.  She’s a social worker with extensive experience in our city government, and a committed progressive. We disagree strongly on certain issues. (She has an unduly rosy view of the police and our water future.) But she studies issues carefully and with a relatively open mind. She’s a dedicated, caring, and innovative public servant. She’s been a moving force in some key reforms, such as LITE.

 

Goodman and I differ on two points.  One, Gandara’s experience has nothing to do with her non-existent record as a leader; she is first a follower, then an enthusiastic supporter, of others’ initiatives.  She does not address problems or approve a solution until they reflect a majority (e.g., LITE; actually, it is LIGHT).  Two, she was once a progressive and still operates under that label, but many no longer recognize her as such since she has become a Councilor and Mayor Pro Tem.  Indeed, she has become a slavish servant of the police and fire departments, as one would expect of a member of the secret Select Committee on Public Safety—hardly the role of a "progressive" public servant who mouths allegiance to transparency and accountability and one who may be in criminal violation of the Open Meetings Act.

 

With Gandara thus set aside, I take Goodman’s recommendation of Alexander Paige Baca Fresquez as the best of a mostly mediocre roster of candidates.  The little which I know about former County Commissioner Isabella Solis disqualifies her as anyone who could represent the views of Las Cruces citizens or act in their interests.

 

 

Accounts of Kasandra Gandara’s candidacy for Las Cruces mayor appeared in Mike Cook’s 14 April Bulletin article and Justin Garcia’s 17 April Sun-News article.  Both articles note but do not stress the fact that she would be the city’s first female mayor.  Yet, despite the disaster or disappointment of two recent firsts for females—Susana Martinez as state Governor and only women as city Councilors, respectively—, many Las Cruces voters will consider what is between a candidate’s legs more important than what is between the candidate’s ears in this fall’s election.  For them, sex still sells.

 

Garcia’s article reported a coincidence too pat to be a coincidence, one suggesting a comfy, corrupt relationship between Gandara and the LCPD.  The police arrested Jason Estrada, the first candidate for mayor on the grounds of selling cannabis illegally.  He then ended his candidacy; the police then dropped the charges.  In effect, the LCPD cleared the field before the announcement of her candidacy and may have deterred others.  Why?  My guess is that the LCPD appreciates Gandara’s indifference or resistance to police reform—about which, more below.

 

Everyone yawned at her announcement.  Everyone knew that Gandara would seek the office because she is politically ambitious.  But ambition is not a qualification.  Nor, in answer to Garcia’s question why should Las Cruces elect her Mayor, is her claim to be an “experienced leader.”  Nothing in her biographical sketch about residency, education, employment, or status as Councilor or Mayor Pro Tem shows leadership.  She claims to be a leader because of egotistical opinions of her importance based on this biography.

 

Her record is not one of leadership.  Gandara does not cite any initiative of her own on policies or programs.  Without taking the lead in anything, she favors and supports almost everything.  She shares everyone else’s concerns about “public safety, poverty, affordable housing (‘absolutely a top priority’) health and behavioral health, business and workforce development and education.”  I doubt that her support in these areas, even if more than lip-service, would distinguish her from other candidates, though priorities among them might differ.  Speaking of lip-service, I note that she assumes that communication is the key to most issues, as long as they are not controversial issues—which explains her logorrheic discourse.

 

Garcia also asked Gandara whether she believed that the LCPD needs reform.  She ducked the question.  Instead, she bloviated about “community policing” and police building relationships with the community; “She said that she would build trust between the department and the community they police” without saying how (elsewhere, she says that the Mayor has little influence on crime).  In short, she is long on pieties which mean anything or nothing.  She has taken no leadership role in addressing multiple problems reflected in cases of severe police misconduct.  Notably, she made no reference to LCPD murders and maimings, some with multi-million-dollar settlements, some quite recently, which have occurred during her eight years in office.

 

Worse, Gandara has not taken any action, much less a leadership role in action, on an even smaller scale.  I know from my direct experience with her that she took no action when she learned that five code violations alleged by the LCPD were false, that then-Police Chief Patrick Gallagher had lied to me in her presence, and that the LCPD would not address, much less withdraw, its false allegations even when Internal Affairs found them unfounded.  One reason may have been her cozy relationship with former City Attorney Jennifer Vega, who vigorously supported the LCPD and suborned City Council despite this record of LCPD dishonesty.  Gandara’s reluctance to deal with the facts, insist on honesty in city officials, and demand amends for misconduct does not speak well of her moral character and what it would mean for her “leadership” of City Council.

 

In Cook’s article, she claims that “As mayor, Gandara said she will facilitate greater communication between the city and the community….‘I will talk to [note: not with] anybody….I will listen and do my best.  You’re going to get a responsive…mayor’.”  This claim is not credible.  Set aside my case to the contrary.  Readers know that, on 5 March, I publicly asked Gandara questions about Vega’s sudden and surreptitious departure from office.  In the months since, I have had no response, not even the courtesy of a reason for not answering them.  None of the five questions to Gandara is out of bounds of ordinary information about government operations to which the community is entitled.

 

1. Is Jennifer Vega still the City Attorney or not?  If not,

2. When did she leave the position?

3. Did she give notice and resign, or was she fired?

4. What explains her departure?

5. Why has no one in city government announced her departure?

 

All other members of City Council and the City Manager to whom I sent these questions have also not answered them.  So I have grave doubts that Gandara, like her “amazing, compassionate” fellow Councilors, believes in transparency about government conduct or can change the culture of a “black box” Council and Administration.

 

I have even more doubts about her claim to be “a strong proponent of performance-based budgeting that mandates ‘accountability all the way around’.”  If so, Gandara would have asked how the Public Works Department managed to spend $750,000 on a flood control project as ineffective and environmentally destructive as it was expensive.  The answer might lead to measures preventing wasted funds otherwise available to the causes which Gandara supports.  Without exploring waste and the incompetence creating that waste, her talk about performance-based budgeting is blather.

 

Bottom line: no spine.  In terms of character, convictions, and conduct in office, Kasandra Gandara promises more of the same slack, shabby governance long in decline in Las Cruces under current Mayor Ken Miyagishima and more recently under Mayor Pro Tem Gandara.

ELITE STUDENTS' MORAL CONFUSION BODES ILL FOR A PLURALISTIC SOCIETY

In a recent New York Times op-ed (17 October 2023), “The Moral Deficiencies of a Liberal Education,” Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, a professor of medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania among other positions, pronounced the failure of major universities to provide the kind of education which would enable their students to make reasonable moral judgments.  He cited recent responses on these campuses, particularly Harvard, to the hostilities which recently erupted in the Middle East.

 

When a coalition of 34 student organizations at Harvard can say that they “hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence” and students at other elite universities blame Israel alone for the attack Hamas carried out on Israelis on Oct. 7 or even praise the massacre, something is deeply wrong at America’s colleges and universities.

 

Dr. Emanuel’s indictment is too narrow; “something is deeply wrong” outside its elite institutions of higher learning as well, pervasively inside America’s moral culture.

 

One such something in these students’ proclamations is the all-or-nothing assignment of blame: Israel is “entirely responsible for all unfolding violence,” not responsible for some or even none of the current violence.  This deficiency leads to demonization of one side of a conflict, canonization of the other, with the complexities of five millennia or of the last century of conflict in the area not taken into account.

 

Another such something is a twisted sense of moral accountability for conduct; Israel is responsible for Hamas’s attack.  This position makes a mockery of moral analysis; the victim causes the abuser or attacker to abuse or attack.  This position parallels the common expression that the victims “got what they deserved” or “they were asking for it.”  Of course, the abuser or attacker decides what is deserved or requested.  This deficiency presumes to justify any violence against anyone for whatever reason the abuser or attacker offers, in this case, the victims’ existence as Jewish citizens of Israel.

 

The aim of these deficiencies, both of which pervade American politics in the Age of Trump, is to exonerate or justify the abuser or attacker.  It is not surprising that they dominate the thinking of some of the best and brightest of students at institutions of higher education.  For they, like the primary and secondary schools which send them their graduates, have taught a catechism of the vices of racism, sexism, and classism; of colonialization, displacement, and dispossession; and of the pure and undisputed virtues of those adversely affected.  Yet their students’ antipathies and sympathies are highly selective, for the conflicts exist worldwide.  Few care about abuses of one people by other people in African and Asian countries; many care about abuses only in Greater Palestine.  For two reasons: the proximity and predominance of white, male decision-makers, and the involvement of Jews, the worldwide scapegoat of last—or is it first?—resort.

 

These elite students ignore or dismiss the recent history of Israel.  After Russian pogroms, Jews lobbied to secure a British commitment, the Balfour Declaration, promising a Jewish state in Palestine, then occupied by British troops.  After the Holocaust, the United Nations, dominated by America and European countries, relieved the British of their League of Nations Mandate and established Israel as a sanctuary for Jews, both the earlier arriving Zionists and the later arriving refugees.  In short, America and European countries appropriated land conjointly occupied by Jewish Europeans and Muslim Palestinians, without much regard for the latter.  Jews accepted this gift of the international community.

 

Sadly, nothing fails like success.  Israel would presumably have been happy to live within its assigned borders.  But, threatened by armies from surrounding Arab states, Israel pre-emptively protected itself in the Six-Day War, which left them occupying the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights.  For many years, Israel was willing to return occupied land in return for peace by treaties with Arab states.  But, when no such treaties were made, Israel slowly succumbed to the idea of a Greater Israel incorporating the West Bank, thus the incremental encroachments of its expanding settlements.

 

Palestinians have a justified quarrel with just about everyone.  But America is across the ocean, Europe is across the sea, but Israel, populated by the hated Jews who occupy not only the land granted by the United Nations, but also much of the West Bank, is close by.  So Palestinians quarrel with Israel and Jews, and Hamas is first and foremost among Palestinians in its purposes of destroying Israel and exterminating its Jewish inhabitants.

 

Speaking for myself as a Jewish American, I approve of what the United Nations did in 1947 but disapprove of what Israel has done since 1967.  Indeed, I am appalled at a state which purports to be both democratic and Jewish, but treats resident Arabs as second-class citizens and conducts itself contrary to Jewish principles and values.  Despite its love for Israel, the United States should adopt a policy which it used in dealing with South Africa when it was an apartheid state—boycott, divest, and sanction—but only until Israel abandons its settlements and returns to its original borders.

 

Speaking for myself as a citizen with an eight-word code of conduct—seek truth, do right, demand justice, pursue peace—, I deplore the barbaric Hamas attack, not on military targets, but on Jews (“innocent civilians” is the term everyone now uses for Gazans).  The number of killed, 1400, may seem small, not quite half the number of those killed on 9/11.  But proportionality makes it enormous.  The populations of Israel and the United States are, respectively, about 9,400,000 and 331,900,000.  The number of deaths proportionate to 1400 would be 50,000, a mid-size-city worth of citizens and more than nine times the combined number of people who died on 9/11 and 12/7.

 

Some students at America’s elite institutions of higher education may believe that “‘the Israeli regime [is] entirely responsible for all unfolding violence’” or that “Israel alone [should be blamed] for the attack Hamas carried out on Israelis.”  If so, their justification of Hamas’s massacre denies Hamas moral agency in initiating yet not being responsible for its attack.  They thus infantilize Hamas leaders and fighters as somehow too something-or-other to be held accountable for their conduct.  Much worse, some of America’s best and brightest students are comfortable with others killing Jews simply because they are Jews.  In them and many other students, genocidal antisemitism is alive and well.  As future leaders in their fields and communities, they make the prospects of a truly pluralistic which they claim to want less bright.  For now, forgive them; they know not what they do (not know).  Going forward, teach them what they need to know.

A RECKONING OF THE COMBATANTS ISRAEL AND HAMAS

The best time to write about a political/military debacle is years later, when one can revisit the facts with “emotions recollected in tranquility.”  For now, however, saying something is almost compulsory, and most of what is said will be emotional.

 

In response to the Hamas attack on Israel and an impending Israeli counterattack, media coverage will follow a familiar sequence.  First will be reports about the Hamas attack, with terrorists hunting down and killing, or capturing and torturing Jewish civilians, and its emotional impact.  Then will be reports about the Israeli counterattack, with its emphasis on siege tactics depriving the Gazan population the basics of life, with its emotional impact.  Last will come reports of the clamor of voices from all sides for “peace-at-any-price” talks to stop the deaths and destruction.  Only years later will calmer voices analyze and evaluate what has occurred, why, and to what end.

 

I ignore the editorial spin-meisters.  On the one side, they have an agenda to advance, either to excoriate Israel for, or to exonerate Israel of, its many faults and failures.  On the other side, they have an equal and opposite agenda to advance, either to excoriate Hamas for, or to exonerate Hamas of, its many faults and failures.  The rigid parallelism is deliberate, because of rights and wrongs on both sides.  What is uncertain is whether it is possible, and if so, how, to assess fairly the rights and wrongs on both sides of these political/military events   How does one compare incremental, apartheid-like abuses of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and its control of Gaza over decades against the intermittent, small-scale Palestinian terrorist killings and raids, and infrequent but large-scale attacks like the current one over the same period?  No fair-minded person can claim to achieve a solid, fair assessment.

 

For both sides cite a litany of accumulated abuses by the other side to justify either terrorist killings, raids, or attacks, now of unprecedented size and savagery, or police or military retribution.  The problem with such citations is that every abuse on one side has an antecedent abuse on the other side.  The logic of using past abuses to justify present abuses leads to an infinite regression which cannot achieve a conclusive determination of greater blame.  Each side offers such justifications, but they actually justify nothing.

 

Ironically, in one important respect, Israel and Hamas share similar objectives.  As its ever-expanding settlements suggest, Israel has sought and still seeks to acquire and annex all land in the West Bank under the doctrine of a “Greater Israel.”  Achieving such an outcome would likely require exiling Palestinians or including them necessarily as second-class citizens in that larger state to preserve its Jewish identity.  This objective is wrong far more as a matter of morality and legality than of politics.  Israel must return to and live within its original internationally recognized boundaries, perhaps with some minor modifications for security concerns identified in the aftermath of the Six-Day War; the West Bank should be cleared of all Israeli settlements and established as a Palestinian state.  Moreover, Israel’s Palestinian citizens should have full rights as citizens.  As both its small- and large-scale attacks on Israel suggest, Hamas is determined to implement its charter, the destruction of Israel, the occupation of its land, and the death of its Jewish citizens, and thereby unilaterally reverse the United Nations's decision to create Israel 75 years ago.  Israeli and Hamas objectives are similar, but they are not identical.  Both wish to acquire land, but both would treat the inhabitants quite differently.

 

Thus, similarities end here, and moral and legal differences between Israel and Hamas begin.  Israel’s reprehensible objective to divest people from their land is morally and legally different from Hamas’s despicable objective to dispatch civilians.  Israel does not intend genocide; Hamas does.  Great sufferings under Israeli occupation of the West Bank or Israeli control of Gaza cannot justify genocide.  Nothing can.  The media will try.

 

In coming weeks, media coverage of the Israeli-Hamas conflict will stress civilian casualties and human suffering in a “siege.”  It will report civilian casualties in urban warfare in different ways.  It will imply that Israelis do not try to avoid them but ignore that Hamas uses Gazan civilians as shields and puts them in harm’s way, often by placing military personnel or weapons in homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.  It will report without comment factually and morally perverse Hamas statements like the following: “Any targeting of innocent civilians without warning will be met regretfully by executing one of the captives in our custody, and we will be forced to broadcast this execution.”  In this case, the media did not note that Israeli forces do not target “innocent civilians.”  That Israeli forces give warning of attacks on mixed civilian/military buildings.  That Hamas cannot claim to “regretfully” execute a captive Israeli (or American) when the execution is after and in retaliation for Israeli military operations.  That Hamas is not “forced to broadcast this execution” but chooses to do so for public relations purposes.  In its “fog of war,” the media will lose sight of the fact that, in its fanaticism to achieve its objectives—destroy Israel, kill Jews—, Hamas will sacrifice “innocent civilians,” Gazan or not, for its cause.

 

Even generally reliable media can issue seriously flawed (or biased?) reports.  The Washington Post corrected an article “What is Hamas, and why did it attack Israel now?” by Niha Masih (9 Oct; updated 11 Oct) because “An earlier version of this article incorrectly described Hamas’s aim as the creation of a Palestinian state along the borders that existed before the 1967 war.  Hamas does not recognize the existence of Israel and is committed to replacing it through armed struggle with a Palestinian state stretching from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River.”  Note that neither the article nor the correction identifies Hamas’s genocidal objective.

 The media will not report facts which qualify exonerations of Hamas violence or sympathies for Gazan suffering.  Gazans elected Hamas.  They knew its objectives to seize Israel and kill Jews, they assented to genocide, and they have cheered Hamas attacks until Israeli counterattacks spoiled their celebrations and led them to pose as “innocent civilians” suffering at the hands of their more powerful enemy (unsaid: whom they provoked).  It will not label as antisemitic those who exonerate Hamas, sympathize with Gazans, and ignore that Hamas and Gazans would make Jewish Israelis victims of genocide.  Instead, it will allow them to hide behind the distinction, absurd in this case, between being anti-Israel and being antisemitic; in this case of genocide, there is no distinction: no Israel, no Jews; no Jews, no Israel. 

REPUBLICANS WANT A DYSTOPIAN AMERICA FOR MOST AMERICANS

One prominent Congressional Republican and a leading member of its radical Freedom Caucus has told us what Republicans want for Americans.  (I generalize about Republicans because most vote as a bloc; former New Mexico District 2 representative Yvette Herrell was a member of this caucus and would become one again if re-elected.)  Addressing a Turning Point Action Conference in July 2023, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene had much to say, somewhat inelegantly, on three topics: “the Democrat Party … [as] the party of pedophiles” (she offered no fewer than 16 likely indicators), the Democratic Party as a socialist party, and the Democratic Party’s support of Ukraine as a precursor to a larger war (with side remarks about the threat to the nation from immigrants).

 

The middle of Rep. Greene’s speech is a muddle of partisan drivel.  It attributes to Democrats a socialist philosophy of government.  Her bizarre account of recent history to support this attribution jumbles and distorts selected facts out of context to attack the Democratic Party and its leaders since Roosevelt for being imbued with socialism.

 

Lyndon B. Johnson is very similar to Joe Biden. How are they the same? [“similar” ¹ “same”] They're both Democrat [sic] socialist. Lyndon B. Johnson was the majority leader in the Senate. Does that sound familiar? [Biden was never a Senate majority leader.] He was vice president to Kennedy. Joe was Vice President Obama [sic]. He was appointed [sic] as the president after JFK was assassinated, then he was elected. His big socialist programs were the Great Society. The Great Society were [sic] big government programs to address education, medical care, urban problems, rural poverty, transportation, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps and welfare, the Office of Economic Opportunity and big labor and labor unions. Now LBJ had the Great Society but Joe Biden had Build Back Better and he still is working on it.  The largest public investment and social infrastructure and environmental programs that is [sic] actually finishing what FDR started, that LBJ expanded on, and Joe Biden is attempting to complete. Socialism.

 

The conceptual vacuity of Rep. Greene’s thesis is her equating socialism with social programs.  Socialism is “a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole” (Oxford Languages).  It is quite different from any one or more government programs intended to address societal concerns.  In this technical but critically important sense—which Rep. Greene would claim is advanced by an elitist know-it-all who should be ignored for that reason—, she does not know what she is talking about.

 

Unwittingly, by eradicating from the federal government the purported evils of socialism—departments, agencies, administrations, and bureaus; and a wide variety of programs—, Rep. Greene would make America a dystopian society.  Since she equates socialism and societal programs, it is fair to strip away the Democratic programs which she regards as “socialist” to see what remains for a non-socialist, Republican government.  The “socialist” government programs … address education, medical care, urban problems, rural poverty, transportation, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps and welfare, [and] the Office of Economic Opportunity.”  (Democrats supported “big labor and labor unions,” but no government program did so.)  The mention of OEO implies her basic assumption that most of these programs provide relief largely, if not only, to people of color.  Otherwise, she has little regard for those variously disadvantaged: students, the sick, the poorly housed or homeless, the poor in general, the commuting, the hungry.  Her list, though confused (“welfare” would cover many of these items), is not complete, for other such programs would also meet with her disapproval.  Presumably, she would strip away these and other programs in the name of an anti-“socialist” agenda which would, if executed, reduce the country to a condition worse than it was in, in the 1890s.

 

Rep. Greene would want to reduce or eliminate organizations responsible for “socialist” programs: departments of Education, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation; and Administration for Children and Families, and Food and Drug Administration.  Also organizations which other Republicans have targeted for reduction or elimination: among many others, Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Internal Revenue Service, Social Security Administration (privatizing it would reduce account “security”), Environmental Protection Agency, Bureau of Land Management, and Bureau of Indian Affairs

 

Thus stripped down, the federal government would consist largely of the remnants of thirteen other organizations stripped of “socialist” programs.  For instance, Department of Agriculture would lose its food stamp program.  One question: if Republicans were to eliminate all such “socialist” programs, would their bigoted and resentful Republican followers be satisfied with the results?  Would everybody else be satisfied?

 

The remaining organizations would address national defense and veterans’ affairs; international relations; business, finance, and resources; and research—a government concerned with security and business only.  It would not be a government concerned with people.  This Republican government would be indifferent to five of six purposes of the Constitution as they are defined by its Preamble:

 

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

 

Missing from a Republican, “socialism”-free government are any means to “establish Justice” or “insure domestic Tranquility” or “promote the general Welfare” or “secure the Blessing of Liberty.”  Indeed, this “socialism-free” government not “of the people, by the people, for the people” would be either destabilized by people discontented with their oppressive, impoverishing living conditions or despotic by the coercion necessary to control and suppress discontented people.  If the functions of this government were shared with the states, most Americans would be reduced to the status of indentured servants (whites) or slaves (people of color) to the oligarchs of industry and their lackeys and lickspittles in government.  The United States would not be “a more perfect Union.”

 

The no-longer-covert Republican attack on the Constitution appears in Republican efforts to progressively constrict the electorate, to increasingly discredit the rule of law, and to systematically corrupt the Constitution itself; it is intended to weaken, then overthrow, democratic government.  January 6, 2021, becomes Day One in the calendar of America’s dystopian future of Republican autocratic rule.  Are you going to vote for your or your children’s and grandchildren’s future suppression and destitution?  If so, vote Republican; vote for Yvette Herrell.

IN READING AND MATH, WE'RE 51st! WAY TO GO, NEW MEXICO!

Two-and-a-half months ago, in a blog “Who Is Trying to Improve New Mexico's Public Education?  Or What the Hell Is Bill Soules Doing for Public Education in New Mexico?,” I noted that, on the Senator’s watch (2013 to the present), public education has gotten worse, not better, in the state.  Soules’s response: silence, a response reflecting his indifference to the education of students if steps to improve it would jeopardize his political attractiveness to teachers.  He could have responded by defending his record; blaming others, circumstances, or conditions; even admitting his misjudgments and mistakes.  But no: with the arrogance of ensured re-election, Soules thinks it unnecessary to explain this pathetic educational performance or his part in it to the electorate.

 

But Soules is not the only official whose stance on public education is irresponsible.  Michelle Lujan Grisham’s position parallels his political calculus: teachers vote, students don’t, and parents offer praise to curry favor or keep a low profile.  The Governor’s agenda is Soules’s: just throw money away on the teachers in the name of supporting public education.  So what are the results in terms of reading and math proficiency in 4^th and 8^th grades?  Take a look at the latest data on their watch:

 

 

The more the state spends on teachers, the less students get in education.

 

Embarrassing.  Or it would be if New Mexican voters really cared.  But lip service to public education and pious but pallid praise of those so very dedicated, hard-working teachers is the easy camouflage of indifference.  So candidates for School Boards have little to say about the fundamental failure of public education to provide a minimum: the ability to read, if not also write.  With a work force largely semi-literate and semi-numerate, New Mexico can look forward to a subsistence economy and a low quality of life for its citizens as far into the future as the eye can see.

 

A WORD ON IRAN'S ALLEGED INVOLVEMENT IN THE HAMAS ATTACK ON ISRAEL, AND MORE

A number of commentators allege that Iran prompted the Hamas attack on Israel.  Their reason is that Iran wants to disrupt the three-party negotiations of the United States, Israel, and Saudi Arabia to achieve an Israel-Saudi rapprochement and a United States-Saudi security arrangement.  Commentators are unlikely to believe Iran’s disclaimer of involvement in the Hamas attack.

 

Iran’s long-time support of Hamas is well known.  Iran has been generous with monetary and military assistance, including advisors.  Nevertheless, Iran’s disclaimer is believable.  If Iran prompted the Hamas attack, it would be concerned that U.S. intelligence learned of it, although too late to alert Israel, or might learn of it after the fact.  Either way, that intelligence finding would serve to support negotiations, though perhaps deferred for a short time to placate anger in the Arab world at Israel’s “siege” of Gaza.  For the U.S. would make its intelligence findings known to Saudi Arabia, with the message that they confirmed Saudi’s fears of Iranian subversion and confirmed its need for a rapprochement and security arrangement.  The Iranians, fearing discovery of any involvement making that three-party negotiation more likely to achieve success, would refrain from involvement.

 

If this line of reasoning is plausible, it implies that Hamas acted independently and, so it appears, impulsively out of frustration and fecklessness, without any discernible military purpose, only the desire to kill or capture civilians.  Hamas has been the de facto government in Gaza since 2005, when Israel withdrew.  In 2006, Gazans elected Hamas, not the Palestine Authority, to represent them, but they have had no chance to change their minds.  Since 2007, Hamas has governed Gaza despotically, with its primary mission the elimination of Israel and the exile or extermination of its Jewish population.  The welfare of Gazan civilians is of secondary concern, with the result that Hamas military personnel and weaponries are sited amongst the civilian population.  Hamas, relying on Israeli military forces’ efforts to minimize or avoid civilian casualties, risks Gazan civilian casualties in using civilians as human shields against attacks.  (Those who accuse Israel of indifference to Arab lives do not acknowledge that Hamas could not use civilians as human shields if Israeli forces were indifferent to Arab lives.)

 

Moreover, Hamas has no Plan B, unless that simply is to engage Israeli forces in high-casualty urban warfare.  Israel is unlikely to engage Hamas in this way, though it may use commando forces to attack specific targets.  More likely, by attacking civilian infrastructure in a “siege”—that is, destroying shipping facilities, fuel depots, power facilities, and water purification plants, and disrupting food and perhaps medical supplies—, Israeli forces will attempt to turn the civilian population against Hamas.  But the human costs will be very great and very well known to the world.

 

In all likelihood, pressure will once again be brought to bear on Israel to relent and return to a hostile interval deferring a repetition of hostilities to some unknowable date.  What began with a bang will end with a whimper, until the cycle begins all over again.  One step toward an alternative to this deadly cycle is the neutralization or elimination of Hamas as an active player in Middle East politics.  How neutralization or elimination is to be achieved—that is the question.  Israel’s “siege” of Gaza may or may not be the answer.  Those who oppose this answer are obliged to suggest something which does not kick the can down the road, perhaps at even far greater costs in lives. 

SCHOOL BOARD CANDIDATES' RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ON CENSORSHIP AND READING PROFICIENCY

A month ago, I invited all School Board candidates to address two issues.  I said that I would use their responses in a blog.  Three of nine candidates responded.  I let their responses speak for themselves; I give them verbatim.

 

One issue is the controversy about the inclusion of Jack of Hearts and Other Parts in the Mayfield High School library.  Because of its relevance to School Board policy, I asked that candidates tell me their position on the inclusion of this book in a high-school library and their more general position on censorship of or restrictions on library access or course requirements related to materials with sexual content.

 

The other issue is poor reading proficiency by those who have finished fourth grade (only 21%).  I asked that candidates tell me what priority they assign to this issue relative to other identified issues, and what specific policies or practices they would propose or support to address this issue to improve results.

 

 

District 1: Patrick D. Nolan (incumbent) and Joseph W. Sousa did not respond.

 

District 4: Julia E. Ruiz and Edward Posey Howell did not respond.  Teresa Maxine Tenorio (incumbent, President) did not respond to the first issue because legal counsel advised School Board members not to discuss an issue to be resolved in a formal proceeding.  She did respond to the second issue:

 

[Tenorio] I brought to our August board retreat agenda the presentations of two potential contractors, and discussion that if selected, a contractor would work with the school board and district leadership to collect stakeholder input and guide the development of our district’s strategic plan. The contractor we chose is Cooperative Educational Services of New Mexico. Our agreement is “Building a Better Future Through Education: A Six-Year Study of Transformative Change in New Mexico Schools”. It’s beyond just the strategic plan. Our agreement includes an audit of aspects of instructional and departmental functions. My intent is to align board goals (TBD) with the strategic plan.

 

As President, I will lead the board to ensure our goals are S.M.A.R.T, specific, measurable, attainable, reasonable, and timely. Board goals that I will recommend and support will be 1) to increase the rates of proficiency and above in English language arts (ELA) and math from xx% to xx% by x amount of time; and 2) to decrease student chronic absenteeism from xx% to xx% by x amount of time. With board approval and legal guidance, I hope we will be able to discuss and approve incorporation of these board goals into aspects of the superintendent’s evaluation matrix.

 

Superintendent Ruiz is beginning to share with me some of his plans, which I fully support, in identifying where improvement and support is needed within Tier 1 instruction and interdepartmental collaboration. He is looking deeply into student assessment data, data that is currently embargoed by the PED. District leadership can see it but not share it publicly until PED officially allows it.

 

I serve on the New Mexico School Board Association’s Legislative Resolutions Committee. We recently met in Albuquerque to discuss and vote on resolutions submitted by districts across the state. We approve a resolution asking legislation to improve funding for districts to hire more math and ELA literacy interventionists and coaches. I know our board approved our own districts budget request for 4 such literacy coaches, but it’s not enough and I will be lobbying our senators and representatives for more.

 

Lastly, I believe we need to offer in-person tutoring. The current PAPER tutoring company we use has been helpful for those who have used it, but it’s not a fit for all students or families. Our BETICO outreach department is offering parent classes to support their children. I wish more families would take advantage of this. I want educational leaders at LCPS — including myself — to use the strategic plan and goals in such a way (not punitive!) that cultivates a culture shift among all involved and motivates, supports, and celebrates improvement in student achievement outcomes.

 

I also hold to account and appreciate our district and schools for continuing to meet other basic needs of a large percentage of our students that must be met in order for them to come to school able to focus and learn.

 

District 5: Ernest B. Carlson and Carol Lynn Cooper did not respond.  Jose L. Aranda and Edward Frank (former School Board member) did respond.  They address both issues.

 

[Aranda] I am against book banning and I promote literacy and more reading-not less, or restrictive.

I think 3rd grade, not 4th, is where most students should be proficient in reading. I am aware and concerned about the poor literacy and math rates by those in LCPS district, and state. So, I propose a back-to-the-basics approach to involve more print books, the use and access to more libraries, and mandatory tutoring for those not proficient!

I apologize for this brief response but look forward continuing this discussion.

 

[Frank] You have identified two key issues for LCPS. On the issue of the book, Jack of Hearts and Other Parts, I am in total agreement with your position. Your blog's [my link] treatment of the book was extensive and thoughtful. The book should remain in Mayfield's library. Student safety is my number one priority and information contributes to their safety. Many more people are harmed by ignorance than knowledge. I have not read the book in question, but I did read an article written by the book's author, L.C. Rosen, and I feel confident that the book's objective is to inform students that thoughts of sexuality are normal and that all sexual activity must be consensual and safe.

 

My number two priority, after safety, is reading. Reading is the gateway to all knowledge, even mathematics, which was my specialty. I am not a reading expert, however, I have some ideas on how to address the students who are reading below grade level. First of all, we need to have regular assessments beginning in first grade. These assessments should be conducted informally by educators; they can do this by simply asking students to read grade appropriate materials. Students who are falling behind should be assessed by a reading specialist who will generate a plan involving the participation of the child's teacher and parents. Once we have identified a child with a reading deficiency we should prioritize getting that child up to grade level, even at the expense of other subject areas. 

Our community is lucky to have the Children's Reading Alliance which encourages parents to read to their children from birth. Ultimately, their programs will start to make a difference.

 

Although the powers of school board members are limited in curricula matters, if elected, I will work with the superintendent to make the improvement of reading a high priority.

 

 

As a citizen, I appreciate candidates and officials who communicate with citizens because they make representative democracy work.  The LCPC elections may be by district, but the winners serve the entire LCPS district.  I wish that I had had responses from the four political novices—Sousa, Ruiz, Howell, Carlson—who did not respond, but I do not criticize them because this campaign is their first rodeo.  I cannot say the same about Nolan, District 1 incumbent candidate; he is not novice and has the benefit of advice from his Councilor-wife Johanna Bencomo.  Not having heard from him, I have decided that he will not hear from me (= get my vote.  But I shall not vote for his rival, Mr. Sousa, unknown to me.).  Likewise, Cooper, District 5 incumbent candidate.

 

District 4 has, in Teresa Tenorio, a conscientious representative who has offered an impressive response detailing her position on improving reading.

 

Likewise, District 5 has, in Jose Aranda, a candidate who seems earnest and sensible in his general positions, and Edward Frank, a candidate providing a detailed and reasonable response to both issues.

 

 

I just cannot resist ending with this aphorism from Mark Twain:

 

If voting made any difference they wouldn’t let us do it.