THE GREAT EXPERIMENT: AMERICA'S STRUGGLE TO BECOME "ONE NATION"

     The Pledge of Allegiance, written by a socialist—imagine that!—, also a minister, in the later nineteenth century, declared America to be “one nation.”  I am a loyal American, served in the Military Services and in a combat zone but do not believe that America is “one nation.”  Come to think of it, “one” seems redundant.  “Two nations”—huh?

My disbelief reflects the meaning of “nation,” which differs from that of “country,” “land,” or “state.”  It applies to people sharing descent, history, traditions, culture, and language, but not necessarily a defined territory.  Many peoples have both a homeland and a diaspora, and many in the diaspora retain some allegiance to the old country.  Because nationality is a common basis of identity, it usually takes a generation or two for, say, American Irish to become Irish American, or American Jews, Jewish Americans.  Even so, feeling for the old country in the new one endures in food, customs and rituals, parades, etc.  Some major cities have a “Chinatown” or a “Little Italy.”  Bostonian Irish contributed to the IRA fighting the British, and Jews, even non-Zionists, contributed specially raised funds before and after the Six-Day War, and give annually to Israel.  (Passover ends, “Next Year, Jerusalem”; I have said it, but I have never meant it.)

By definition, America seems not only not a nation, but even the antithesis of one.  Its peoples have come and are still coming from other countries.  They differ in their descents, histories, traditions, cultures, and languages.  Although immigrants have become naturalized and acculturated, distinctive differences among peoples remain.  At least in the first generation or two, they tend to live in national and religious enclaves which create conditions for intergroup conflict.  An attack by Irish workers, later abetted by Irish policemen, on a Jewish funeral procession in 1902 New York is but one such example.  These conflicts based on nationality and religion have been supplemented by the constant conflict between races, almost always between whites and people of color or regarded as people of color, however denoted.  (Irish were once thought “dark.”)  But not always: in the 1990s, in Los Angeles, blacks confronted Koreans who provided better grooming services at lower prices than did black-owned businesses.  To its shame, the NAACP took sides though it professes to serve the “advancement of colored people.”

Race is the major differentiator of groups and individuals, though, more generally, any differences presumably defining groups and individuals can underlie or prompt conflict.  Those affirming political equality in a multicultural—really, multinational—society seem to be losing to those denying it by citing group differences as justification.  These opponents of political equality necessarily affirm their superiority to others on the basis of one or more characteristics, the primary ones being race, religion, and gender (lesser, associated ones: nationality, morals, intelligence).  White racists think themselves superior to all people of color; Christians think themselves superior to Jews and Muslims; men think themselves superior to women.  Ardent anti-racists like Robin DiAngleo and Ibram X. Kendi play the race card in reverse by privileging what they believe to be black beliefs, feelings, or perspectives, exempting them from common standards, and excusing them from criticism—and thereby showing themselves to be racist and un-American, too.

America’s response to diversity has been bifurcated: enslavement, then segregation, of blacks and later discrimination against other peoples of color; yet a slowly developing myth about the country as a “melting pot.”  Between slavery and segregation, and ethnic assimilation, America tried to keep people of color separate and to assimilate whites of different European nationalities.  The ideal for whites was to be or attempt to resemble WASPS—an un-American ideal because it clearly excluded blacks.  But the pot cracked.  It survived during and for a few years after the Second World War, as America recognized disparate groups but promoted the “Brotherhood of Man.”  This notion was schizoid: a wartime—a we-are-not-like-Hitler—recognition that many Americans retained a vestige of their pre-American national identity; and an effort to override that recognition, to unify and rally all Americans in the war effort.  Later, some groups whose members descended from European countries adopted or accepted hyphenated designations for themselves, like Irish-Americans and Italian-Americans to maintain a trace of identity inherited from their nations of origin.  As usual, Jews are the exception.  Although Jews are suspected of and slandered for allegedly having dual allegiances, Jewish immigrants from Israel do not call themselves Israeli-Americans.  In the Civil Rights Movement, blacks not only asserted their citizenship as Americans equal to other Americans under the Constitution, but also—at least, many—insisted on their separate identity as distinguished by skin color by calling themselves blacks instead of negros or on continental descent by calling themselves Afro-Americans—, in the end, the proper American stance.

Today, America’s response to its diversity parallels its historical response.  Some, perhaps most, seek to adopt the position which blacks have adopted and which others are still attempting to adopt—an America as a nation of political equality defined by the Constitution, notably the Bill of Rights, which overarches identifiable nations, with integration or assimilation at the personal level allowed as a matter of choice.  Others, growing in numbers and power, seek to maintain racial and religious separation, re-establish white Christian domination of others, and, by the logic internal to such bigotry and to the extent deemed by them possible, undertake ethnic confinement or cleansing.

The struggle between American diversity and white Christian nationalism redefines the terms of Lincoln’s question: whether “that nation” “conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal,” “can long endure.”  I have my doubts.  The answer, if present trends of Republican manipulation of elections and other political misconduct are not soon checked, the door will swing shut and lock out democracy.  Worse, the demands of domination and repression will become increasingly brutal as the numerical advantage of political egalitarians grows larger and requires greater effort to control by social supremacists.  The amoral, aggressive behavior of Republicans in Congress and in supermarkets and stores is a harbinger of greater future abuses of the norms of civility and the rule of law, and of more violence.  As ever, power without restraint will grow unchecked.  If Republicans succeed, as their unprincipled, determined, and disciplined quest for power suggests, Democrats, often thoughtful, tolerant, and tentative, will be politically incapacitated or isolated—conditions from which, short of revolution, they will not soon emerge to save democracy.

If so, the Great Experiment will fail; America will not succeed in becoming one nation of many diverse nations embraced by a government, the first of its kind in history, struggling to ensure political equality under the law, with liberty and justice for all.  Which, SCOTUS originalists, is what the Founding Fathers intended in the Bill of Rights.

ARE LAS CRUCES PUBLIC SCHOOL STUDENTS LEARNING WAY TOO MUCH?

BULLETIN: The Las Cruces teachers union is demanding a raise.  The timing of this demand reflects sleazy politics; it waited until the election was over so that a raise could not become an issue.  It knows that its demand will be met because current or former teachers elected or re-elected to the School Board will vote for a raise.  Comment below, after the blog.

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At a recent medical appointment, a young technician giving me some tests told me with a hint of pride that she was a graduate of Arrowhead Park Early College High School.  I hope that she lied.

Carrying Bruce Lancaster’s The American Revolution with me to read between tests, I chose to ask her a simple question: in what century did the American Revolution occur.  First answer: nineteenth century; second answer: seventeenth century; third answer: sixteenth century.  (Apparently, she does not know in what year the Declaration of Independence was signed.  July Fourth—whenever.)

I asked her whether she had read a complete novel in high school English.  Her response: she could remember reading only one: Orwell’s 1984—had I heard of him or it?

I know that one swallow does not a summer make and that one student does not all students represent.  But how does even one student graduate from any high school in the LCPS system, not to mention its flagship high school, and know so little history and have read so little fiction?  Apparently, teachers teach history without dates and English with few novels.  Has she heard of Austen or Dickens or Hawthorne or Twain?  Not likely.

Is time being spent raising student consciousness in history and English?  I know that CRT, feared by many parents, politicians, and propagandists, is not taught in the LCPS system.  But if it were, they need not fear students learning much from CRT because they learn so little even at the best public high school Las Cruces has to offer.

I sent this story to the members of the current School Board, with a comment like this one but here revised and expanded for a larger audience: no reply.  While they protect, praise, promote, and pay teachers, the teachers do little in return except blame everyone else for their failure.  (They could blame their failure on New Mexicans’ low average IQ, 95.7, which includes them.)  Their failure is defined by a decades-long record of student failure to achieve 50% proficiency in reading and math in 4^th and 8^th grade tests.  School Board members, in the name of transparency and accountability, should explain these results.  They should explain why, if everything is for the students—their favorite mantra—, the entire LCPS system is doing nothing for them.  They must be satisfied with these results, for, when they ran for the School Board, they did not say anything about this record of gross educational ineffectiveness.  But we know the answer: incumbents take no responsibility and newcomers do not want to assume any.  Their slogan: in the League of Women Voters, The Bulletin, and The Sun-News, we trust (to ask no questions, run no stories, and feature apple-polishing blurbs).

The public should understand that those School Board members who have been teachers—they always argue that their experience qualifies them for the position—are compromised by a conflict of interest between pleasing friends and (former) colleagues, and serving the students.  The results identify the winners.  Since School Board members and LCPS teachers have neither desire nor plan to do better, voters in future elections, particularly parents, wanting better, should replace every incumbent and demand a teaching staff do-over.  With this long record of poor student academic performance, the odds are that any teacher whom you know or meet is a bad one.

By the way, the same goes for Bill Soules, who has no constituency except teachers and is not conflicted between seeking their votes and proposing suitable legislation.  His politician’s interests prevail over parents’ concerns for their children.  He avoids trouble and assures re-election by voting to infuse the system with large dollops of money.  I know: I suggested and he scorned some no- or low-cost ways to improve curriculums and instruction.  Anyone paying attention has noticed that, in his many years as chair of the Senate Education Committee, public education in New Mexico has remained ranked as the worst in the nation.  Surely, Soules deserves some credit for the state’s distinction.

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Comment: Any across-the-board raise at the local or state level would waste public funds, cannot make current teachers better, and may not attract more, much less better, teachers.  Giving mediocre teachers more money to attract better teachers is an expensive way to attract talent.  With only about 5% attrition and few vacancies, that approach would cost many millions each year over many years, and get little in return.

With or without more many, for the LCPS to get better teachers, it must establish higher standards for hiring them—something more than a PED certification and a 98.6^oF body temperature—and protection from worse teachers.

If the School Board must spend more money on teachers, it should spend it to improve teacher quality.  I suggest two ways.  One is to give current tuition refunds for courses to learn what they should be teaching.  Another and better way is to develop a two-track salary structure: one track for new hires and current teachers who pass a one-time-only, independently developed and administered, subject-matter tests of teacher competence, with a high passing score (95 or better); the other track for current teachers who decline to take the test.  My guess: current teacher will fight any such test because it would expose their incompetence.

WORRIED ABOUT CRT IN NEW MEXICO'S SCHOOLS? THINK AGAIN!

I congratulate PED for repeating deficiencies of the Common Core State Standards in its Proposed Revised K-12 Social Studies Curriculum.  Consider one Performance Standard for the First Grade:

Inquiry 22. Construct Compelling and Supporting Questions

●  1.1. Explain why a compelling question is important.

●  1.2. Generate supporting questions related to compelling questions across the social studies disciplines.

Absurd.  PED assumes that first graders understand “compelling” and “supporting.”  PED assumes that they can distinguish between them.  PED assumes that first-grade teachers understand them, can distinguish between them, and can teach first graders their meanings and the difference between them.  And lack of realism is pervasive.

Pace PED, neither teachers nor students can possibly know which questions are “compelling” and which “supporting” because of the vagueness of the terms,  Moreover, neither teachers nor students can have enough knowledge to generate supporting questions to compelling questions in the half dozen or so “social studies disciplines,” even if they know what they are.  Reality check: Experts in fields related to social studies often debate which questions are more or less important than others.

Dear Reader: can you perform to the level of these first-grade standards?  I admit that I cannot.

No less absurd: Teachers cannot readily, perhaps not possibly, assess whether students meet stated performance standards.  What standards do teachers have to know when a student has explained something?  How can teachers ascertain whether students have generated supporting questions to compelling questions in each field?

The performance standards do not stipulate what students are supposed to know and what teachers presumably must teach.  Performance standards fail because they assume that students have learned without specifying that teachers have taught the information necessary to perform.  Relatively minor issue: no standard states that students know the names of and can identify the continents; major bodies of water or major river systems; major mountain ranges or deserts; major countries; the fifty states, their capitals, their major cities, and their postal abbreviations.  Likewise, the distribution of populations, wealth or poverty, religions, and races.  Relatively major issue: teachers do not know enough to teach students about diverse cultures and societies throughout the world without presenting partial, superficial, and biased accounts of them.  Can white teachers give an informed, unbiased account of Blacks in Africa or urban America or Latinx in Brazil or rural New Mexico?  Can Christian teachers give such an account of Judaism in Israel?  In America?  In the Lower East Side and in Los Angeles?   Surely, PED jests.

The result of these deficiencies is that this curriculum is irresponsible in defining “performance,” not content, not what teachers teach to students so that they can satisfy yet-to-be-defined appropriate grade-level standards.  If students cannot meet PED performance standards, the blame for their failure can be shifted to what they could not perform and away from what the teacher failed to teach.  In addition, the statement of the curriculum is larded with jargon impenetrable to non-professionals, including most parents and many school board members.

In short, this curriculum is a compendium of professional incompetence and an exercise in educational obfuscation and pomposity.  It gets teachers off the hook and puts students on it.  Someone should ask Bill Soules if he is happy with it.

 

HOW DOES "ALL [PEOPLE] ARE CREATED EQUAL" MEAN WHAT IT SEEMS TO SAY

I am an American citizen who absolutely, positively believes as a first principle that “all [people] are created equal.”  Similarly, I believe in their endowment of “unalienable Rights,” among others unnamed, “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  I just as absolutely, positively believe that whatever makes us individuals also makes us unequal.

The apparent paradox is easy to resolve.  The principle of equality prominently stated in The Declaration of Independence is a statement of political—I say again: political—equality and nothing more.  It is certainly not a statement denying the facts about the numerous differences among individuals and groups of people.  None of the Founding Fathers thought that people were equal in other respects, and no one whom I know thinks otherwise.  They knew and we know that individuals differ in many ways.  They knew and we know that factors like intelligence, aptitudes abilities, character, and morals are commonly associated with groups defined by race, gender, ethos, religion, nationality, class, or wealth.  Thus, stereotypes: Jews greedy and duplicitous, Blacks unintelligent and lascivious, women weak and hysterical, etc.

However, when the Founding Fathers wrote The Constitution of the United States, they were not making a political declaration of rights but drafting a political definition of government power, federal and state.  For whatever purposes—probably to maintain the unity of northern and southern states in the new country—, they did not assume, much less assert, that being “created” equal politically implies continuing equal politically, despite the peoples’ endowment by “their Creator” with “unalienable Rights.”  They wrote as if they believed and thereby allowed others to believe that these factors as associated with groups justified restrictions on their rights.  As a result, federal and state governments initially denied non-whites (slaves, Indians), whites with little property, women, Jews, and Catholics rights, among others, to vote and own property.

America’s first two foundational documents create an ambiguity about equality—is it universal as an inherent, enduring birthright common to all people or particular because of individual or group differences?—and thereby allows Americans to be egalitarian with justification or bigoted by rationalization.  Egalitarian in respect for all others and in impartial comity in political and personal relationships; bigoted in a sense of superiority to and entitlement over those different by race, gender, ethos, religion, nationality, class, or wealth.  America’s culture wars reflect this inherent ambiguity in its first foundational documents.  Yet the distinction between egalitarians and bigots has never been a clear one.  Most people are a mix of different inclinations, regarding some groups favorably, other groups unfavorably, with exceptions for known individuals.  In general, race, then gender, then religion are primary factors in American reflections on equality.

The history of political equality in America has followed roughly parallel but opposed paths.  In the majority, egalitarians have struggled to eliminate political barriers to full citizenship—in chronological order, wealth, religion, race, and gender—which have slowly been removed.  In the minority, bigots have striven to reimpose, protect, or expand these barriers.  Today, the political descendants of the one-third of the people who remained loyal to the British throne and crown are loyal to political inequality based on these barriers.  No longer Tories supporting a monarch, they are Republicans pledging allegiance to an authoritarian.  Unlike small-d democrats who at least in theory believe in the inherent political equality of all people, authoritarians, like Orwell’s pigs, resolutely believe in the inherent superiority of some people over others, some being more equal than others.

In this important sense, today’s Tories/Republicans are not only not any more “real Americans” than other Americans, but are Americans only by accidents of geography and birth (the Fourteenth Amendment protects their citizenship).  Their efforts as conservatives trying to conserve inequalities identify them as less than “real Americans.”  For what is “real” about “Americans” is a distinctive commitment to unqualified equality, which means that “we the people” are part of an experiment whether a government of all individuals equal under law is possible.  It appears to be failing.

Today, in addition to the many well-known threats to democracy from the Right are the fewer, lesser-known threats from the Left.  Its threats arise from a confusion of equality and equity, and a too precious, too partisan sense of individual entitlement.  My example of the former is money.  Almost no one believes that all Americans should have the same income and pay the same taxes—equality conceptually pure but practically impossible.  Almost everyone believes that every American should have a fair shake and pay a fair share; inequalities would persist on a reduced scale, but inequities would gradually diminish and perhaps disappear.

My example of the latter is public education.  Many people are concerned about the persistent gaps in academic test scores and advanced course enrollments.  Some want to eliminate the gap in enrollments by eliminating advanced courses.  Doing so eliminates the gap, without doing any real good and by doing much harm; this demand is mere cosmetics in the name of equality.  The gap in abilities does not go away—no good done—and all of the talented students, whether whites or of color, suffer the deprivation of an enhanced education suitable to their needs—actual harm to them.  (Advocates of this equality attack classes for good students, but they ignore classes for poor students.)

Any quest for equality beyond the political, even for reasons thought to be good, would pervert what it means to respect people for who and what they are, and would suppress non-political differences.  To aspire to make people equal in any non-political sense of the word is to seek their uniformity.  Such uniformity is not only undesirable, but also, fortunately, impossible to achieve.  Any attempt is unpleasant except for those—that is, the aforementioned pigs—forcing it, because their position and function would exempt them from equality.

Moralist that I am, I must say it: For constitutional democracy to survive today and thrive tomorrow, its citizens must live by its inherent values.  They must embrace decency, seek truth, do right, demand justice, and pursue peace—extraordinary but inescapable demands.  The question is whether people can satisfy them in their daily living.  Civility toward and respect for others cannot be a sometime thing for some people.  My recent experience in Las Cruces—with its police, city attorney, city administration, City Council, and media—does not give a hopeful promise.

COUNCILOR FLORES REINFORCES THE CANCEL CULTURE IN LAS CRUCES

Readers of my blog, whether viewed on my website or in my distributed email, have the unqualified right not to read it or even open it, to skip it or trash it.  They have the unqualified right to send me their brickbats as well as their bouquets; most do neither.  But elected officials with publicly funded email accounts have no right to block any constituent, regardless of whether they intend to read or respond to their emails.

But Councilor Yvonne M. Flores, a lawyer on City Council, chose to make a point by blocking my emails to her government account (yflores@las-cruces.org).  She wanted me to know that she so much detests me or my opinions about antisemitism, police dishonesty, the City Attorney, and the incompetence and waste by Public Works—all matters which should be matters of concern to Councilors—that she rejects them and those which I have not yet written.  Better I should applaud her and her colleagues’ heroic action in banning plastic shopping bags from retail stores and thereby striking a blow against climate change, environmental degradation, and the fossil-fuel industry.

Councilor Flores is just one of the city’s officials and its residents who believe that I, because of my background, should not have relocated to Las Cruces and then criticized it.  As I imagine her notions, this Yankee loud-mouth—probably, New York (you know what I mean)—should either keep quiet here or relocate elsewhere if he finds so much to criticize about Las Cruces (and New Mexico).  These outsiders!

I could be accused of picking on a woman except that she has company on the Council.  Mayor Miyagishima, having made public and private promises that I could present my case to the police auditor, began to quake at the thought and quibble at the terms after the temporary spasm of public protest for police reform relaxed.  So when I sent OIR the materials which I might have presented to it, he pitched a fit.  He persuaded Council to disqualify my case from OIR review by setting a start date for reviewed cases long after mine, though I was still pursuing it by administrative appeals.

Councilor Johana Bencomo, who had spoken so earnestly about police reform until she, too, realized that the public no longer cared, had heard the City Manager admit the false charges and the need for a retraction and an apology, but had been scolded into submissiveness by the Mayor, was pleased to stress this deadline in a working session so that I would get the message of her betrayal of my case.

Long before, Councilor Gabriel Vazquez had refused to respond to an email about police reform when he, too, followed the issue while it had a crowd and abandoned the issue when it did not.  Now that he is running for Congress, the electorate should know that he is not likely to respond to or represent those with whom he disagrees; he will be Heinrich’s puppet and serve the Progressive Voters Alliance under the direction of Don Kurtz.

Councilor Sorg, who styles himself Mayor Pro Tem Emeritus, made several promises to me about the OIR review which he apparently broke before he made them.

My Councilor, Kasandra Gandara, while making City Hall meetings possible, likely disclosed confidential information about my case in conversations about it with her friend in the Law Office, whom she defended by blaming one of its senior lawyers.

Let’s see: naming five of six other councilors finding ways to silence me, shunt my case aside, or betray it sure ain’t picking on a sixth one.  Nevertheless, Councilor Flores sets the bar so low there is no going below it.  Whatever citizens of Las Cruces think of me or my views, they should ask themselves what they think of a councilor who behaves irresponsibly in her position and immaturely in her person.  They should also ask about the political integrity of Miyagishima, Bencomo, Vasquez, Sorg, and Gandara.

With an election under way, even reasonable people who think of themselves as Progressive might consider whether an all-Progressive City Council is too much of a good thing or, as I think, not good enough.  Bev Courtney’s views, when I can understand them, do not sit well with me, but it would sit well with me if she represented District 1.  For that reason and for her brains and bravery, we need a return of Ceil Levatino, with whom I have had the pleasure of disagreeing respectfully.

P.S. Would someone please forward this email to Councilor Flores.  I do not want to be accused for writing behind her back even though she has blocked my emails.

NOTE TO BLOG: I emailed her three times on 10 October and once before sending this blog as an email.  All four got this message.  A friend forwarded the 10 October blog to her; it was not returned.

11 Oct 6:00 & 10:10 pm update: My friend had his email blocked, but he failed to so inform me because he had the wrong email address.  I assumed that he had not contacted me because his email had not been blocked.  I retract the accusation that she blocked (only) me (unless, of course, she blocked out everyone to block out me, but I am not egotistical or paranoid enough to take that possibility seriously).  Still, all emails to all other Council members and three senior city officials were received.  What is with Councilor Flores's email account?

11 Oct 10:05 pm update: Ignoring my first paragraph, the Las Cruces City Attorney Jennifer Vega-Brown asked me to remove her from my distribution list so that she would no longer receive my emails, usually the texts of my blogs.  I note that the request is not her first insult to me and that she thinks that, as a public official using a taxpayer-funded email account, it is appropriate for her to request a taxpaying citizen not to communicate his views with her, even if some refer to her and even they are part of a mass distribution.  As a lawyer, she should know, but apparently does not know, that the Constitutional right to petition government implies the right to communicate with government officials.

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SCHOOL BOARD CANDIDATES: LWV ASKS BAD QUESTIONS, GETS BAD ANSWERS

I know that the people, men as well as women, in the League of Women Voters of Southern New Mexico mean well.  They always mean well.  They do not always do well.  Exhibit one and only: the “2021 Voters Guide” in the 8 October issue of The Bulletin.  The questions which they asked of this year’s School Board candidates make that point.

Their four questions show them ill-prepared to elicit critical information from the candidates.  The questions are:

1. What do you think are the strengths and weaknesses of the Las Cruces Public Schools?
2. Do you thinking funding should be expanded for multicultural education in public schools?  Explain.
3. How would you change the priorities of the school district as reflected in the district’s budget?
4. What changes, if any, would you propose to support online learning?

The questions are poor ones for a variety of reasons.

Question one enables paeans of praise to everyone—administrators, staff, teachers, students, parents, community—and personally favored or popular programs.  Did the LWV expect anything significantly different from the candidates?  What information would this question elicit to inform a decision to support one candidate rather than another?

Question two successfully distinguished two candidates—Abelardo Balcazar and Henry A. Young—who had the courage not to give the reflexive “yes” or “absolutely” answers from the celebrators of an inclusive multiculturalism regardless of literary merit or historical contribution in America or even just New Mexico.  Both provided education-oriented, not crowd-pleasing, answers.  The other four—Raymond M. Jaramillo, Pamela M. Cort, Robert C. Wofford, and Eloy Francisco Macha Camborda—should show that an increase in cultural inclusiveness and personal worth ensures a demonstrable increase in academic performance justifying the actual and the opportunity costs.

Question three should precede, not follow, question two.  Aside from answers which avoided the questions were answers which added money for some budget items without subtracting money from others.  In short, they promised everyone more and nothing less for the same budgeted money.  Advice to voters: hold on to your wallets or watch out for a midnight heist.

Question four is, of course, a loaded one.  It forces the candidates to support online learning.  Mr. Balcazar handled it reasonably; the rest booted it.  The question should ask about online instruction, which is what computers can provide, not online learning which students may or may not do.  At present, research does not show that on-line learning matches in-class learning or is good enough anyhow.  Mr. Balcazar’s circumspection beats everyone else’s acquiescence to computer/internet razzle-dazzle.

The more serious criticism of these four questions is that they pretend that the School Board need not identify and address the persistent problems which plague public education in Las Cruces as well, of course, as the rest of New Mexico; and which school board policies can address.

The problems are suggested by one fact otherwise glaring but for everyone’s efforts to cover it up with a thick veneer of undeserved praise for the perpetrators.  The fact: for decades, 4^th-grade and 8^th-grade proficiency scores in reading and mathematics have hovered around 50 percent.  The students assumed to benefit most from more emphasis on multiculturalism are those least proficient (and whose ability to pass relies heavily on subjectively assessed work products.  So my challenge above to Mr. Jaramillo, Ms. Cort, Mr. Wofford, and Mr. Camborda becomes more pertinent; how more multicultural instruction ensure academic improvement?

One critical implication: teachers K-4 have been only 50 percent effective, and teachers 5-8 are no better.  Are the candidates OK with mediocre teachers?  Are they content with the results of current hiring and retention policies and practices?  Can they not enact policies directing the superintendent to raise hiring standards and to use the means necessary to ensure that prospective teachers meet them before they are hired?

In the end, I am appalled that the League of Woman Voters is so ill-informed about public education or so timid about asking important questions about problems and solutions.  And I am more appalled by the candidates, especially those offering their incumbency or experience in education as a qualification, for not taking the initiative to address the issues which matter to the quality of a Las Cruces public school education.

SNAFU Deja Vu: Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Lessons of History

[NOTE: With Monday Indigenous Peoples' Day, this blog is almost a confession of U.S. sins against the Vietnamese and Afghani peoples.  And against ourselves; we did not "pledge ... our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor"; we betrayed them.]

I would put Craig Whitlock’s The Afghanistan Papers on my shelf with books on the Vietnam War but shall send it instead to my ex-son-in-law, a native Pakistani, now a naturalized American.  His reading will differ from mine.  He will respond to the cultural, social, political, religious, and economic dynamics of the area.  I respond, déjà vu, to the political and military similarities of the wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan.

Everyone has cited the major similarities between the two wars in terms of domestic politics and military performance: the United States lost both wars, caused the death and maiming of thousands of American soldiers and millions of Vietnamese and Afghani civilians and soldiers, and squandered not only resources better spent on anything else, but also opportunities to promote peace in Southeast and Southwest Asia.  Typically, it fought the wars for the wrong reasons and then with the wrong strategies and the wrong tactics.  Throughout, the White House and Executive Branch departments and agencies lied about everything about the wars: body counts, soldiers’ deaths by friendly fire or civilian deaths from misdirected bombs; the use of torture; corrupt in-country politicians and venal U.S. contractors; etc.  Perhaps worst of all are flag officers who directed troops to risk their lives in the service of their country and misled or lied to Congress to avoid risk to their careers by speaking the truth.  Every one of those flag officers involved with Afghanistan at home or abroad should be busted and dishonorably discharged.

The similarities suggest that the military service academies teach military history in order to repeat its mistakes.  Clearly, academy graduates learned nothing about fighting insurgencies in foreign countries (see endnote).  Lesson one: be true to American beliefs in national territorial integrity, self-determination, and democratic processes; ensure that our political and military actions comport with those beliefs.  Lesson two: have a legitimate rationale for involvement or intervention, stick to it, and avoid “mission creep.”  Lesson three: know the country, its government, and, crucially, its people and their culture as well as the enemy.  Lesson four: have and maintain resolve and support for military action, particularly by honest reporting, in both countries.

The U.S. failed in both wars because it did not learn these lessons.  Consider lesson one in Vietnam.  Although it was not party to the 1954 Geneva Conference, the U.S. announced support of its agreement: end of French occupation, partition of Vietnam along the 17^th parallel, and scheduled national elections in 1956 to unify the country.   But the U.S. soon abandoned its principle of self-determination after it replaced France as Vietnam’s occupier and supported Catholic Ngo Dinh Diem, who refused to hold the scheduled elections because he knew that communist Ho Chi Minh would easily defeat him.

The U.S. also did not learn lessons two, three, and four.  Fear of a communist regime as the first domino to fall in Southeast Asia was a fear without foundation.  Knowledge of Vietnam was skimpy and scattered; worse, leaders ignored OSS/CIA findings that Ho Chi Minh was more nationalist than communist; perceived parallels between the American war for independence and Vietnamese efforts to achieve independence from foreign occupiers, until 1946, the French and the Japanese; and expected these parallels to win American support against French colonial re-occupation.  And, from the escalation of hostilities after the Tonkin Gulf fabrication, lying became the modus operandi of the U.S. and South Vietnamese governments, to each other and to their peoples.  Gradually, support, never strong, weakened with Buddhist monk immolations and eroded with distrust in the White House and Pentagon leading to growing anti-war demonstrations.

Afghanistan differs in only one respect.  By eliminating the draft—the white middle class preferred to let others (minorities, the poor, and the hyper-patriotic) fight wars—American presidents did not need much popular support to make a plaything of a small professional military.  They needed only a supposedly legitimate reason (WMD in Iraq) to commit troops to military actions which then evolved into chaos—the only progress made in 20 years’ fighting in Afghanistan.  By the way, this 20-year effort gives the lie to those who think the U.S. would have won in Vietnam if it had kept on fighting.

Americans were justifiably outraged by the al-Qaeda attack on the Twin Towers and the loss of some 3000 civilian lives.  Retaliation was a political and military necessity.  However, the desire to destroy al-Qaeda training camps, kill its terrorists, and capture or kill bin Laden did not justify enlarging these focused efforts into an anti-Taliban war.  In little time and with little thought, the U.S. redefined its mission and redirected its efforts to do what no one imagined doing at the outset.  Without having an exit strategy to go with an entry strategy, without a view of the entire undertaking, the U.S. built failure into its unfocused mission, misguided at the beginning, mismanaged in the middle, and muddled at the end.  But, then, thinking ahead is not taught at the military academies.

Dislike how they came to power and used it, the U.S. should have accepted that the Taliban represented the collective determination of Afghans whether out of affection, indifference, fear, or impotence to defeat it and develop some other centralized government, if they wanted a centralized government.  But no one in any kind of mind at all—never mind a “right mind”—would think that Afghans were just longing for a white, Christian, capitalistic, democratic nation to invade, occupy, and overthrow their way of life.  “We always wanted to liberate women and send girls to school, and the good Americans have arrived to make us do what we have always wanted to do”—not.  Put like this, it is clear that the U.S. acts like “ugly Americans”: hubristic, arrogant, ignorant, imperious, domineering—generally lacking in human empathy and cultural sensitivity—and, thus, naïve, gullible, easily duped and swindled, and scorned and mocked.

In retrospect, Americans should be ashamed of their country’s involvement in these two needless wars and its implication in thousands and thousands of needless deaths, damaged minds and bodies, and destroyed property.  Those who served—flag officers excepted—deserve credit for doing what they may (or may not) have believed was in the service of their country.  But their country did not serve them or anyone else other than war-mongering politicians and war-making profiteers.

In prospect, Americans need to resist the traditionally easy recourse to hostilities as a solution to problems mostly impossible to solve by military means.  Military response times may be short, but military responses over larger battlefields and over longer times should be planned carefully, both for getting in and getting out, and not self-defeating in the effort.  The best revenge is served, not hot and impulsive, but cold and calculated.

A note on fighting insurgencies, if they must be fought to serve a national interest.  First, the U.S. should support only those governments which have considerable popular support and a collective will at least as great as America’s to fight insurgents.  Second, it must understand and commit to what it takes to defeat an insurgency—no temporary or trivial undertaking.  An insurgency depends on two things: mobility and camouflage.  Its small forces must be able to move to strike targets suddenly and withdraw quickly.  Its troops must be able to blend into the populations to be, say, farmers by day, fighters by night.  Counter-insurgency tactics which will not work are grandiose sweeps and thrusts, special forces raids, and overwhelming, but often indiscriminate, firepower from the air, with troops returning to the comfort of bases with PXs, bars, hot meals, hot baths, and clean sheets.  The only workable tactics are long-term troop occupation and control throughout the country, with troop units assigned to and supplied in specific areas of responsibility.  They manage all movement within the area and round the clock, get to know the people, and, if the people want and define it, provide economic or educational assistance.  But these tactics can work only if the U.S. strategy honors the four lessons reflecting American principles.