At the national level Democrats may be forgiven for doing little for DACA and TPS recipients or for immigration reform in general. But, in a majority Democratic state like Massachusetts, there is no excuse for the legislature dragging its heels on reasonable immigrant protections called for by the party’s own platform. House Speaker Robert DeLeo has repeatedly manipulated and maneuvered to shelve bills and limit votes on immigration, and now he’s trying to strip immigrant protection provisions from the FY2019 budget.
Of course we can’t blame it all on DeLeo — who now has exhausted every last cent of his political capital with progressives. House Democrats can’t — and shouldn’t — hide behind the Speaker forever. Ultimately they will be held to personal account. Too many members of the State House sound like Republicans in their willingness to “go along to get along” with cruel attacks on undocumented families. It’s simply hypocrisy for Massachusetts Democrats to chastise Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell for their lack of spine when they themselves are guilty of the same.
Last year I attended the Massachusetts Democratic convention in Worcester, at which a new party platform was drafted. Among the hollow declarations of resistance and highfalutin but ultimately meaningless verbiage added to the platform were planks calling for a living wage and sensible immigration polices.
It was left to groups like RaiseUp to fight to get living wages on the November ballot because Democrats themselves didn’t find it important enough. And even though the state party’s platform calls for immigrant protections, these proved to be hollow promises as well:
“Becoming a sanctuary state, where all immigrants and refugees feel welcome and safe in all communities of the Commonwealth.”
“Eliminating policies that make local and state officials responsible for the enforcement of national immigration laws.”
For many of us the MassDems platform has no value other than to document the hollowness of a party whose real-life politicians have no intention of standing by the party’s professed values.
Representatives, start acting like Democrats. Ultimately voters are going to look at your positions and voting record, not Speaker DeLeo’s. Do the right thing. Stand up for the principles we voted for last year. Stand up for some of the state’s most vulnerable people. Show some backbone. Defy the Speaker. Keep immigration protections in the budget.
Here in Massachusetts we have 38 days to register for the Massachusetts primaries, 58 days until we vote in them, 100 days to register for midterm elections, and 121 days until the fate of nation is sealed. But it’s been over a year and a half since the 2016 presidential election and we feel only the faintest of pulses from a Democratic Party led nationally by septuagenarians older on average than Brezhnev’s Politburo, with few new ideas and little backbone. This is a party desperately in need of major rehabilitation, not the slow-moving suicide in progress.
Despite a progressive insurgency, the DNC and DCCC still can’t bring themselves to give up the Big Money donors and slick top-down campaign machinery they’ve always counted on. Their direction hasn’t changed — today it’s even further to the right with campaigns featuring more veterans, more members of the security establishment, more prosecutors, and more tech wizards and hedge fund managers. Capitalism may not be working for most of the country, but it sure is for these Democrats. When Tammy Duckworth quipped that Alejandra Ocasio-Cortez represents only the Bronx, it spoke volumes about a party unwilling to confront the future, much less the present.
Our last president left the Democratic Party in virtual receivership, according to Donna Brazile. And the losing presidential candidate called in the DNC’s chits to literally turn it into her own presidential campaign. Today the very existence of the Poor People’s Campaign is a symptom of how badly Democrats have represented the working poor — or anyone a paycheck or two from sliding out of the middle class. Yet, while Democrats do little for the average American, Republicans are doing their worst.
In November we again have a choice between truly evil or lesser evil, oligarch or technocrat. We’ve been properly conditioned to always vote for the lesser evil. And the Democratic Party can always count on us. Liberals smugly argue that Conservatives vote against their own interests, but that’s not entirely true. In 2016 White America got exactly what it always wanted — Reconstruction 2.0. Whether trade, taxes, budget, infrastructure, medical care, or even their children’s lives or their own retirement, White America was willing to take any hit to unroll and unwind everything the Black Guy had tried to accomplish. Last year the Democratic Party leadership traveled down to Berryville, Virginia to specifically court the white middle class. We should all be watching midterm results in Berryville to see how this works out for them.
Liberals won’t admit that they also vote against their own interests by supporting massive military budgets, corporate bailouts, and helping dismantle the social safety net. And centrist Democrats apparently love trickle-down economics every bit as much as their kleptocratic Republican brethren. The “Better Deal” that Democrats announced in Berryville focuses on “pocketbook” issues and, just like Republicans, claims that what’s good for America’s corporations is also good for America’s workers. But progressives take issue with this neoliberal fable, increasingly questioning not only income inequality but the Capitalism behind it.
Each year, those of us who recall — that the Democratic Party was the party of the Bay of Pigs, Viet Nam, the largest increase in federal and state prison inmates in American history. carte blanche for the Patriot Act, Libya, Syria, Drone Tuesdays, and the biggest corporate bailout since the Great Depression — each year we remind centrist Democrats they’ve been hoodwinked. And each year they call us irresponsible dogmatists. But history and newspaper clippings don’t do them any favors.
Some things simply have to be abandoned and created anew. In software refactoring only gets you so far: sometimes you need a complete rewrite of the code. With a dumpy old house, add-ons and endless tinkering with electrical and structural problems often turn out to be more costly than bulldozing and rebuilding. Now, because of widespread dysfunction and corruption, many Democrats have begun to recognize that ICE must be abolished and rebuilt from the ground up. What they don’t see is that the same applies to their own party.
“He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed.” — Proverbs 13:20
Sheriff Tom Hodgson often claims that everything he does is to keep us safe, but Hodgson’s job description is to run the county jail. Instead, the sheriff frequently steps outside his areas of responsibility and competence, neglecting official duties and leaving chaos, conflict, and mismanagement in his wake.
Hodgson is less interested in being a county sheriff than a xenophobic mouthpiece for far-right views. With his continual attacks on immigrants, that a Boston Globe editorial characterized as crossing the “line of decency,” Bristol County’s own Joe Arpaio wannabe frequently makes the Trump-like claim that more immigrants equals more crime.
At a state committee hearing last month State Senator Sonia Chang-Diaz challenged Hodgson to prove it. For a moment the sheriff looked like a deer in the headlights, mumbling that he’d have to get back to her. And when he finally did, his numbers were not scientific studies but talking points from an organization the Southern Poverty Law Center classifies as a hate group.
But this is an old story. In 2011, Duval Patrick opposed the Department of Homeland Security’s efforts to turn local lawmen into federal immigration officers. Hodgson thumbed his nose at the governor’s “moronic” stance and signed onto the DHS program anyway. Patrick then vetoed budget earmarks for Hodgson, and Hodgson responded by echoing right-wing conspiracy sites that Patrick (and Obama) were flying in plane-loads of illegal immigrants (and Muslim terrorists) into Massachusetts. And he threatened to shut down the Ash Street jail.
This is classic Hodgson – a martinet who once tried to shame prisoners on work release by literally placing them in chains. Who illegally charged them housing and medical fees. Who puts “his” inmates on food restrictions and limits contact to family members. Who presides over the county lockup with the worst suicide rate in the state. Who oversees a prison population three times the size the facility was designed to hold. Who advocates putting political adversaries like Somerville mayor Joe Curtatone in jail. Who, in his inauguration speech, promised to send inmates to build Donald J. Trump’s Great Wall.
Tom Hodgson was appointed Bristol County Sheriff by William Weld in 1997 to fill a retirement vacancy, and he’s been the incumbent ever since. Hodgson is the Massachusetts county sheriff with the greatest share of suicides at his jail, the Trump Wall sheriff, the chain gang sheriff, the Joe Arpaio wannabe who wants to arrest mayors of sanctuary cities. Hodgson has been accused of flouting a Massachusetts SJC ruling on ICE detentions, of political patronage schemes, and of abusing prisoners. Hodgson spends so much of his time on talk radio flogging dubious anti-immigration “facts” and conspiracy theories that it’s a miracle he ever clocks in at his day job. But most galling, the sheriff claims to speak for the people of Bristol County — when in fact much of the time Hodgson is out of the office representing a hate group, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).
And it seems everybody’s got a Tom Hodgson story.
A retired Fall River cop recalls in a recent editorial that the sheriff wanted to patrol the streets of Fall River. That was a no-go. Fall River mayor Jasiel Correia tried an end-run around his own police department, inviting Hodgson to run the city jail and involving Rep. Paul Schmid in funding it. That too was a no-go.
In 2015 the sheriff deputized thirteen military recruiters. But as soon as they had been sworn-in, the Department of Defense launched an inquiry, sending a Naval petty officer to investigate. There were obvious questions about members of the armed forces performing law enforcement functions – since the Constitution specifically prohibits it. Hodgson’s reasoning: “We’re doing these things for the right reasons, certainly for the public’s protection and for our national security.” Great. But what about running the jail?
Recently the publicity hound sheriff played Dr. Phil when he offered up his deep psychological insights into Aaron Hernandez on TMZ, WLNE, WBZ and others. Viewers learned that Hodgson regarded himself as a “fatherly influence,” recommending the Bible and “Tuesdays with Morrie” to Hernandez.
Hodgon spends so much time out of the office, providing psychological counseling to celebrity prisoners, or trying to become one himself, that he is apparently unable to keep up with the paperwork. The Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights and Economic Justice had to file a lawsuit to obtain records related to the BCSO’s participation in federal ICE programs, but Hodgson violated the state’s public records law by failing to produce the documents. “Sheriff Hodgson appears to think he is above the law,” said Sophia Hall, Staff Attorney at the Lawyers’ Committee. “But as President Trump has learned, that is why we have courts.”
Since 2012 inmates in county lockups in Massachusetts are twice as likely to commit suicide as prisoners in state facilities. Of the 14 county lockups the worst offender is the Bristol County Sheriff’s Office (BCSO) facility. Since 2008 there have been 14 suicides at the BCSO jail, 50% more than Suffolk County and twice the number at Essex and Worcester facilities. The BCSO jail represents almost a quarter of all 65 county prison suicides from 2006 to 2016 but only 13% percent of the total county prison population. The BCSO lockup also spends the least amount of money per inmate of any facility in the state.
For all the bibles and the tough talk, the sheriff’s management style isn’t working – and it’s cruel. In 2013, when Aaron Brito committed suicide in Hodgson’s lockup, his mother received a call from an anonymous BCSO employee: “Your son died today. If you want more information today, call St. Luke’s Hospital.”
Tom Hodgson has had a contentious relationship with his corrections officers. Five officers were punished for speaking about labor negotiations with the sheriff and by 2008 Hodgson had spent $1 million on a losing case he took all the way to the Supreme Court. Hodgson also spent $3.7 million on other legal cases, making him far and away the most profligate legal spender of all county sheriffs. Before a new round of lawsuits in 2018, Hodgson had already flushed $4.7 million of taxpayer money down the drain. $1.3 million of that was handed over to “Special Deputy” attorney Bruce Assad and $1.3 million to attorney Ronald Lowenstein, another donor whose family was flagged in 2004 for giving more than the legally permitted campaign maximum.
Many of the sheriff’s employees or contractors are also donors. Filings with the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance show a current quarter million dollar war chest and a history of $1.3 million in donations. Occupations from hundreds of entries in donor records include: corrections officer, canine officer, captain, warrant apprehension officer, internal affairs officer, deputy, chief, contractor, investigator, or simply BCSO. An audit of these records might lay to rest persistent accusations of patronage.
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FAIR is probably the most influential anti-immigrant hate group in the United States. It was founded in 1979 by a Michigan ophthalmologist, John Tanton, functions as a lobbying group, and is deeply embedded in the Trump administration. MediaMatters notes that the mainstream media often uses FAIR’s “statistics” without realizing that it’s a hate group. The CATO Institute has slammed FAIR’s studies and statistics as “fatally flawed” and “sloppy.” The Southern Poverty Law Center lists FAIR and a number of other groups in the Tanton Network as hate groups. Yet many journalists just keep quoting FAIR’s “facts.”
* * *
In 2015 Tom Hodgson appeared with Dennis Michael Lynch at an Islamophobic venue in Stoughton which had previously hosted Dutch neo-fascist Geert Wilders. Lynch is an Islamophobe, a white supremacist, a supporter of the Constitutional Sheriff Movement and of sovereign citizen Cliven Bundy, about whom he made a film.
That same year Hodgson appeared with a representative of the Federation for Immigration Reform (FAIR) at the Fisherman’s Club in New Bedford. Despite the name, FAIR has little to do with reform. Instead, its goal is assuring White Anglo-Saxon dominance. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, FAIR has links to white supremacists and eugenicists. Its founder, John Tanton, wrote to one eugenicist: “I’ve come to the point of view that for European-American society and culture to persist requires a European-American majority, and a clear one at that.”
In 2016 the Sheriff was one of three speakers at a “Patriots Unity Day” rally in Randolph. The second speaker was Jessica Vaughan, of the nativist organization Center for Immigration Studies (CIS). Like FAIR, CIS was founded by John Tanton and publishes dubious statistics on immigration. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, CIS also maintains links to white supremacist and anti-semitic groups. CIS executive director Mark Krikorian quipped after the deadly 2010 Haitian earthquake: “My guess is that Haiti’s so screwed up because it wasn’t colonized long enough.” The third speaker was Raymond Hanna with the anti-Muslim hate group ACT for America, which also has white supremacist ties. In Arkansas ACT’s “March Against Shariah” events were organized by a Nazi and publicized on Stormfront.
In June this year the Sheriff appeared with Dan Stein and Michelle Malkin at an annual “Hold their feet to the fire” broadcast with anti-gay bigot Sandy Rios. Stein is executive director of FAIR, and characterizes America’s immigration laws as an effort “to retaliate against Anglo-Saxon dominance.” Stein describes Central American immigrants as engaged in “competitive breeding” and asks: “Should we be subsidizing people with low IQs to have as many children as possible, and not subsidizing those with high ones?” Malkin too has links to white supremacist groups, including VDARE, and to Islamophobic groups. Malkin opposes the 14th Amendment, which gave citizenship to slaves.
On October 19, 2017 the SouthCoast Chamber of Commerce hosted Bristol County sheriff Tom Hodgson and Helena DaSilva Hughes at the Wamsutta Club to discuss immigration. During his presentation the sheriff cited questionable statistics from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), claiming that illegal immigration costs taxpayers $116 billion a year. The CATO Institute calls FAIR’s new study “fatally flawed” and “even more sloppy” than their previous one.
According to FAIR’s 2011 annual report, that was the year the organization began cultivating sheriffs like Hodgson. “In 2011, we identified sheriffs who expressed concerns about illegal immigration.” FAIR staff “met with these sheriffs and their deputies, supplied them with a steady stream of information, established regular conference calls so they could share information and experiences, and invited them to come to Washington to meet with FAIR’s senior staff.” Since roughly that time Hodgson’s main job has been as a FAIR spokesman.
* * *
Not so focused on law and order as it claims to be, FAIR sees its true mission as the preservation of Anglo-Saxon civilization from rapacious hordes of brown non-English speakers. FAIR peddles white supremacy, eugenics, and dubious statistics on immigration. The following quotes from John Tanton — Hodgson’s colleague on the advisory board — betray FAIR’s chief preoccupations:
“As Whites see their power and control over their lives declining, will they simply go quietly into the night? Or will there be an explosion?” (October 1986)
and
“I’ve come to the point of view that for European-American society and culture to persist requires a European-American majority, and a clear one at that.” (December 1993)
FAIR’s current president, Dan Stein — with whom Tom Hodgson appeared at an event last June — likes to add a dash of anti-Irish conspiracy theory to his white supremacy:
“I blame ninety-eight percent of responsibility for this country’s immigration crisis on Ted Kennedy and his political allies, who decided some time back in 1958, earlier perhaps, that immigration was a great way to retaliate against Anglo-Saxon dominance and hubris, and the immigration laws from the 1920s were just this symbol of that, and it’s a form of revengism…” (August 1994)
In an interview with “Alt-Right” darling Tucker Carlson, Stein maintains that Latinx immigrants coming to the U.S. are godless, low-IQ haters:
“Immigrants don’t come all church-loving, freedom-loving, God-fearing … Many of them hate America, hate everything that the United States stands for. Talk to some of these Central Americans. […] Should we be subsidizing people with low IQs to have as many children as possible, and not subsidizing those with high ones?” (October 1997)
For FAIR it’s not just about white culture, church, and the English language. As Stein’s quote above shows, like their goose-stepping cousins FAIR sees America threatened by inferior races. But here’s Tanton again:
“Do we leave it to individuals to decide that they are the intelligent ones who should have more kids? And more troublesome, what about the less intelligent, who logically should have less? Who is going to break the bad news [to less intelligent individuals], and how will it be implemented?” (September 1996)
How, indeed, does FAIR want to see it implemented?
FAIR’s “final solution” is the preservation of “Anglo-Saxon dominance” by privileging white people through overtly racist immigration policies and the use of mass deportation and eugenics for ethnic cleansing.
Schemes like this didn’t work out so great for the Third Reich. And they’re not going to work for Tom Hodgson and his brownshirted buddies at FAIR.
* * *
Tom Hodgson has spent the majority of his life in law enforcement and took only a few criminal justice classes in college before dropping out. But by the frequency with which he offers up his views, he is an expert on everything — 911, Criminal Justice reform, the second amendment, the Constitution, the psychology of Aaron Hernandez, the Iran deal, Islam, drug abuse, Obama, the military, religion as therapy — and Immigration.
Among members of the Hodgson’s right-wing echo chamber: Howie Carr, Chris Resendes (a former employee of the Sheriff), John Keller, NRATV, Fox and Friends, Jeanine Pirro, Laura Ingraham, and Lou Dobbs.
Some of Hodgson’s like-minded friends: Dan Rea, Rick Wiles, Robert Spencer, Sandy Rios, Tom Roten, Jessica Vaughan, Dennis Michael Lynch, ACT America, FAIR, CIS, NumbersUSA, VDARE.
* * *
Bristol County Sheriff Tom Hodgson’s passion is badmouthing immigrants, though his day job is running a county jail. But Hodgson is less interested in being a county sheriff than a mouthpiece for far-right views. His continual attacks on immigrants prompted the Boston Globe to accuse him of crossing the “line of decency,”
Last year Hodgson joined the national advisory board of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). This formalized a long relationship with the organization. FAIR, CIS, and several sisters organizations were founded by fellow advisory council member John Tanton, a white supremacist who believes in applying eugenics to controlling non-white population.
In July 2017 the Center for New Community published a report, “Crossing the Line: U.S. Sheriffs Colluding with Anti-Immigrant Movement,” which described Hodgson’s relationship with FAIR starting around 2011.
FAIR’s 2011 Annual Report describes a strategy of identifying “sheriffs who expressed concerns about illegal immigration.” FAIR “met with these sheriffs and their deputies, supplied them with a steady stream of information, established regular conference calls so they could share information and experiences, and invited them to come to Washington to meet with FAIR’s senior staff.”
New Community reported that FAIR seemed to capitalize upon blurry lines between sheriffs’ official duties and their work for FAIR:
“Despite Hodgson’s endorsement, FAIR’s recruitment event did draw some scrutiny. When inviting sheriffs, FAIR used materials suggesting the event was sanctioned by the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program (HIDTA), a U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) program. FAIR’s flyer for the event featured HIDTA’s official logo and stated that participants’ travel and lodging costs “may be covered by your agency’s HIDTA funding.’ ONDCP officials sternly rebuked that claim. ‘In no way is the ‘border school’ sanctioned, co-hosted, or endorsed by the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Program,’ Rafael Lemaitre, ONDCP’s associate director for public affairs, told the Southern Poverty Law Center. ‘Any use of the program’s logo to imply support for this conference is unacceptable, and the local HIDTA director has asked for this to be corrected as soon as possible,’ Lemaitre added. ‘Additionally, at no time have any HIDTA training funds been requested or been approved for use in association with this conference.”
In 2014 Hodgson, Brock Cordeiro, and Linda Ross used Bristol County Sheriff’s Office letterhead and email addresses to organize a meeting in Washington, DC, to support Senators Jeff Sessions and David Vitter in promoting anti-immigrant policies.
It is not known whether Hodgson himself spent Massachusetts taxpayer money on these activities or on travel to Washington. Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance (OCPF) data shows no travel expenses paid by his campaign, and public information requests for the Sheriff’s travel records have been ignored since May 23, 2018.
In recent weeks it has become clear that the Sheriff’s views on immigration deeply influence how the Bristol County House of Correction operates.
In May 2018, an ICE detainee described in detail the medical neglect he received at the Bristol County House of Correction. In June 2018 Tom Hodgson was sued by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Economic Justice and Latham and Watkins LLP for violating the rights of an ICE detainee and thumbing his nose at the Supreme Judicial Court’s Lunn Ruling. That same month Freedom for Immigrants released its National Report on Abuse Motivated by Hate, which focuses on bias- and hate-motivated abuse in ICE detention facilities. Bristol County was mentioned in the report several times. Aída Chávez reported on the Bristol County abuses in the Intercept. According to the report, detainees were abused physically and verbally, prodded to battle in gladiator-style fights and were called “gorillas” and “baboons.”
In 2017 the New Bedford Standard Times reported that the Southern Poverty Law Center classifies FAIR as a hate group, and that the Anti-Defamation League considers it an “extreme anti-immigrant group.” The Standard-Times asked Sheriff Hodgson for comment and he waved the notion of racism away: “I’ve never run into anybody that’s even hinted at that kind of thing.” The newspaper asked FAIR executive director Bob Danes for comment and quoted a statement from the organization’s website: “immigration policy should not discriminate on the basis of race, creed, color, religion, gender, or nationality.”
Besides Tom Hodgson’s amateur psychoanalysis of Aaron Hernandez, no other topic interests him as much as immigration. Hodgson has left quite the trail of commentary. Anyone interested can view these videos featuring Hodgson’s “expert” views on immigrants or these videos demonstrating the sort of racist propaganda FAIR disseminates.
* * *
Hodgson’s Office of Campaign and Political Finance filings show he is a member of the Constitutional Sheriff’s Association:
Here, then, is the assortment of racists, xenophobes, Islamophobes, birthers, gay-bashers, conspiracy nuts, and white supremacists who serve on the national advisory board with Tom Hodgson.
* * *
Lou Barletta – as mayor of Hazelton, PA, signed anti-immigration legislation in 2006 that was declared illegal a year later
Sharon Barnes – apparently no DACA supporter, who wrote recently: “It is our country. They and their parents need to be kicked out […] strengthen our laws and get rid of the locusts.”
Gerda Bikales – who shudders at bilingual education and regards Spanish as a ghetto language: ”I don’t think Yiddish or Italian represented a threat to the union. But we are now setting ourselves up for an entrenched language ghetto.”
William Chip – who would like to repeal the 14th Amendment
Donald A. Collins – who has published a number of recent articles on the extremist white national VDARE website
Dino Drudi – another Massachusetts zealot Mr. Hodgson probably knows; they sound alike
Bob Eggle – whose son Kris, a park ranger, was killed by drug dealers on the US-Mexico border
Robert Gillespie – a proponent of population control in developing countries
Otis Graham – the first director of John Tanton’s Center for Immigration Studies, and a man the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) says has extensive contacts with American white supremacists
But documents stored in George Washington University’s Gelman Library by Otis Graham, a close friend of Tanton who helped him launch and run FAIR in the 1980s and who currently serves as a board member at the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), make the point about Tanton’s interest in race one more time. Most instructive is a Tanton plan in the files to create what he called a “League for European-American Defense, Education and Research” or, to use Tanton’s acronym, LEADERs. In a 1993 cover memo attached to his LEADERs plan, Tanton, who is white, wrote to Graham: “For a decade or more, I have been musing about the drift in our society back toward organization along group lines, all the while realizing that there was no group for me – no legitimate group that I could join to further or defend my own particular social, cultural or linguistic interests.”
A serial creator of organizations, Tanton, who by then had already funded and founded an array of anti-immigration groups that included FAIR and CIS, added that “with the establishment of several national organizations behind me, I need to pick my targets carefully and in a way that reinforces what has gone before.” The plan makes clear that Tanton saw LEADERs as bolstering his anti-immigration work.
The document offers an argument as to why LEADERs, which is clearly a “European-American” (read: white) version of the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Educational Fund, is needed: “[T[here is currently no socially acceptable umbrella organization to which persons of European ancestry can belong to defend and promote their common interests. Absent such an organization in a highly organized society, European-Americans will continue to see their history rewritten, their character and accomplishments denigrated, and their faults magnified. They will steadily lose ground and position to other groups… . For those not resigned to this gradual or not so gradual decline, a new organization tailored to the needs and interests of European-Americans as a group is essential.”
Joseph Guzzardi – listed as a member of white nationalist group VDARE’s “editorial collective”
Carol Joyal – a frightened suburbanite with odd notions of how immigrants parent their children and whose review of The Camp of the Saints terms it a “prophecy” of the Third World destruction of the West; everyone else just called the book racist
Richard Lamm – former Colorado governor who said that “new cultures” in the U.S. are “diluting what we are and who we are.”
Once again, here’s what the Southern Poverty Law Center has to say about Lamb, FAIR, and their connections to the Pioneer Fund:
Probably the best-known evidence of FAIR’s extremism is its acceptance of funds from a notorious, New York City-based hate group, the Pioneer Fund. In the mid-1980s, when FAIR’s budgets were still in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, the group reached out to Pioneer Fund, which was established in 1937 to promote the racial stock of the original colonists, finance studies of race and intelligence, and foster policies of “racial betterment.” […]
The Pioneer Fund liked what it saw and, between 1985 and 1994, disbursed about $1.2 million to FAIR. In 1997, when the Phoenix New Times confronted Tanton about the matter, he “claimed ignorance about the Pioneer Fund’s connection to numerous researchers seemingly intent on proving the inferiority of blacks, as well as its unsavory ties to Nazism.” […]
One of FAIR’s long-time leaders, and a personal hero to Tanton, is the late Garrett Hardin, a committed eugenicist and for years a professor of human ecology at the University of California. Hardin, who died in 2003, was himself a Pioneer Fund grantee, using the fund’s money to expand his 1968 essay, “The Tragedy of the Commons.” In it, Hardin wrote, “Freedom to breed will bring ruin to all.” […]
Hardin wasn’t alone. A current FAIR board member, three-time Democratic governor of Colorado Richard Lamm, sounded a similar theme in 1984, while still governor, saying “terminally ill people have a duty to die and get out of the way.”
K.C. McAlpin – an Islamophobe who wants to ban Muslims for ideological reasons: “Congress has used that power in the past to ban the immigration of Communist Party and National Socialist (Nazi) party members who were deemed to be threats to our national security. This case is no different.”
Robert D. Park – formerly with the Border Patrol, founder of the “Article IV – Section 4 Foundation,” a group which maintains that a Constitutional provision provides justification for defending the U.S. from “invasion”
Randy Pullen – former chairman of the Arizona GOP and old white expert on Black Lives Matter: “Yes black lives matter. The best way to end the slaughter of young black men is to take guns away from blacks as they are the main killers.”
Alan Simpson – Reagan-era immigration bill sponsor
John Philip Sousa IV – great grandson of the famous Sousa, nutty birther, and friend of Joe Arpaio
John Tanton – read this and this and this profile of this prolific white nationalist, racist, and eugenicist
Alan N. Weeden – member of the family who owns the Weeden Foundation, a major donor to white supremacist initiatives, and proponent of Secure ID schemes
In some not-so-distant dystopia Americans will educate their children like Elon Musk, abandoning the language arts to make more time for robotic flamethrowers. Or they will live in a state like West Virginia, where the Department of Education was just abolished. It’s safe to say that most Americans will spend more time checking their messages than reading poetry — especially the old classics.
One of my favorite bloggers — himself an old classic — is the philosopher Robert Paul Wolff. Besides his many political and philosophical writings, Wolff knows and loves poetry. He recently quoted Dylan Thomas to echo his thoughts about our receding democracy. I confess I hadn’t read “Do not go gentle into that good night” for more than thirty years, but it echoed my own feelings as well. The poem expresses the sadness that most of us “of an age” will fail to achieve what we so dearly hoped for in our youth.
For me, Thomas’ poem both forgives and curses the wise men who couldn’t figure life out, the good men who didn’t do enough good in it, the wild men who tried vainly to hang on its fleeting joys, and the serious men blind to its realities. Thomas asks his dying father, who has come to a point where he can survey the landscape of his own life, to “curse, bless” him with his fierce tears as he passes into “that good night.”
“Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
Despite the compassionate end of an old man’s unrealized dreams and days, there is no other way to live than by refusing to abandon his dreams. Although we are now witnessing the dimming of our own democratic ideals, what choice do we have but to rage and fight?
Do not go gentle into that good night
Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
— Dylan Thomas (1952)
Ceri Richards, Twelve Lithographs for Six Poems by Dylan Thomas
Hundreds of Democratic primary winners are waiting for November. Many are first-timers, younger and browner, offering the party new ideas, a different future, and inspiring forgotten constituencies and new voters. They include gubernatorial, congressional, senatorial, and state candidates. Many of them have very little national exposure.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump keeps staging campaign rallies throughout the country. The other day he made a stop in Duluth, Minnesota — a state where he only narrowly lost in 2016, and a city where he received an old fashioned ass-whupping, where the StarTribune summarized Trump’s visit as a “potent mix of hubris, divisiveness and victimhood that has come to mark his rallies, energizing his supporters and appalling his opponents.” Trump had come to improve his odds in 2020 — and to troll Democrats.
Sometimes being appalled is enough to generate an idea. So here’s one that occurred to me:
From this second until November Democrats must dog Trump’s rallies. Every city he visits. Every cheeseburger stand. While Trump goes about selling his personal brand at the expense of his own party, Democrats should start selling the Democratic Party at rallies visually similar to Trump’s. A changing roster of Democratic primary winners would appear at rallies delivering a simple, consistent message to the American public — “America, you have a choice!” Or “This is the real face of America!”
To be sure, Democratic midterm winners represent different political views. The point of a campaign like this would be to slam Trump’s policies and to celebrate a party that actually cares about people. It could combine candidate appearances with voter registration, fundraising, and local interviews. It would be simple, celebratory, and unabashedly confrontational. A campaign like this could potentially bring progressive and centrist Democrats together without papering over our very real differences. And it would signal that the Democratic Party has finally gotten up off its behind to take their messsage directly to the people.
Midterm elections are in 128 days. Democrats can’t send their own autocrat on tour, but they sure could start reminding voters of the stark choices before us right now — and the diverse roster of Democratic candidates who stand ready to make all the difference in November.
Yesterday I attended a “Families Belong Together” rally in New Bedford, one of hundreds of similar events taking place nationwide. Between 400-500 people attended, overflowing into the balcony at the Bethel AME Chuch on County Street. It was good to see friends, neighbors, my sister-in-law, and to hear heartfelt expressions of concern for detained children and famillies. It was a tangible reminder that we — our undocumented friends included — are all members of a single community. It was also an affirmation of our responsibility for one another.
Over the years I’ve been to a number of events like this, often following something horrible — mass shootings, acts of hate, threats to civil liberties. Now it’s the Federal government caging children. Over the years I’ve noticed the same concerned citizens meeting as one, praying as one, the same clergy bowing their heads in unity, making the same reassurances, hearing the same exhortations from politicians and community leaders. There’s a “feel good” aspect to it all that disturbs me. Why aren’t people marching in the streets? Why aren’t there fewer bowed heads and more raised fists?
To be sure, the good friends of immigrants showed up and were counted. Community, union and faith leaders were in the pews. New Bedford House Representative Tony Cabral brought a daughter with every reason to be proud of her dad. New Bedford City Council member Dana Ribeiro spoke warmly to her city, and Brockton Council member Jean Bradley Derenoncourt delivered a moving appeal for America to keep faith with those who arrive here just looking to survive. The Coalition for Social Justice’s Maria Fortes pressed for House adoption of Senate Amendment #1147 — immigrant protections being now considered in conference by the House.
But the event did not reflect well on an overwhelmingly blue Massachusetts House that refused to vote on the Safe Communities Act and on Congressional Democrats who have done little for TPS and DACA recipients (both of whom were present yesterday). With the exception of Tony Cabral, not one other state representative bothered to show up at the New Bedford rally. And the lone U.S. Congressman who spoke should never have been invited.
Bill Keating (MA-09) gave an energetic shirtsleeve speech — all clenched fists and outrage at the Trump administration’s caging of six year-olds. The problem with Keating’s performance was not its dramatic fist-pumping; it was the hypocrisy. Keating has voted repeatedly for GOP anti-immigrant bills. H.R.3009 punished Sanctuary Cities. H.R.4038, the American Security Against Foreign Enemies Act, restricted absorption of Syrian refugees. H.R.3004, “Kate’s Law,” took a hard line against desperate people who re-enter the United States. And Keating’s “On the Issues” statement on immigration reads like it was written by Jeff Sessions himself:
“Bill Keating opposes amnesty. As a District Attorney, Bill Keating enforces our laws and believes that everyone must obey them. His office has prosecuted thousands of criminal cases that resulted in defendants being detained for immigration and deportation action. Bill believes that we must secure our borders, and wants to punish and stop corporations that hire workers here illegally. Bill does not support giving people who are here illegally access to state and federal benefits.”
Toward the end of the rally a group of local children recited ‘families deserve to stay together” in multiple languages, sweetly honoring children now sitting in ICE and CPB cages. With the event ending, clergy lined up awkwardly, a long interfaith blessing was delivered, and attendees filed outside into the hot summer air.
A recent set of Gorsuch-weighted Supreme Court rulings have finally given Republicans something to crow about. The court’s approval of Trump’s Muslim Ban seemed like a blast from the German Vergangenheit but recent labor and reproductive rights rulings have been equally disturbing. Mitch McConnell and Neil Gorsuch met for a photo-op to troll Democrats. Their meeting demonstrated just how badly “checks and balances” work in this country and how shattered American democracy really is.
But while the extreme right exults in the belief that their Crusaders have finally pulled off a Reconquista, let’s remember the Dred Scott decision. Then, as now, the case reflected a Supreme Court that had totally lost its way — and the irreconcilable differences between Americans’ views of what sort of nation we want to be.
Dred Scott was a slave who sued for his and his family’s freedom in a state where slavery was illegal. In 1846 Scott filed suit from St. Louis, Missouri, where since 1824 there had been legal precedent for recognizing the freedom of escaped slaves: “Once free, always free.” Scott’s wife Harriet was friendly with Abolitionists who championed the family’s legal case. Scott lost the suit, re-filed and appealed, and lost again. In 1857 his case was again heard by the United States Supreme Court.
On March 6th, 1857 the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 against Scott. Chief Justice Roger Taney delivered the majority opinion, which was that Africans, free or not, could not be citizens of the United States. “The right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution.” Furthermore, African-Americans had “no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” Consequently, freedom and citizenship could not be conferred upon non-whites and, since by the court’s criteria Scott was not a citizen, Scott had lacked “standing” to bring the suit in the first place.
The South did a victory lap. The Richmond Enquirer wrote, “A prize, for which the athletes of the nation have often wrestled in the halls of Congress, has been awarded at last, by the proper umpire, to those who have justly won it. The nation has achieved a triumph, sectionalism has been rebuked, and abolitionism has been staggered and stunned.”
But the Charleston, South Carolina Mercury speculated that this was just the beginning of a greater conflict between North and South: “In the final conflict between Slavery and Abolitionism, which this very decision will precipitate rather than retard, the principles of the judgment in the Dred Scott case may be of some avail to the South in giving an appearance of justice and moderation to its position.”
The Supreme Court had ruled in favor of White Supremacy and slavery but now it was the law. Abolitionists mocked the reckless, immoral ruling and doubled their efforts to end slavery. Ultimately Dred Scott, just as the Mercury had predicted, ignited a national conflagration that overturned slavery and destroyed the South.
Modern-day slavers and reconquistadores want to return us to 1857. America is as deeply divided now as it was then, and the prospects of a Trump Court for decades is deeply unsettling. But the fight for America’s soul is far from over. The arc of justice is frustratingly long but it will arrive. Whether in 2018, 2022, or later — Congress will pass into younger, browner, more progressive hands. Laws will be written to make legally explicit our liberties, protecting them from capricious, partisan rulings. The Trump Court will shuffle around in their robes, dreaming of Dred Scott.
The other day I noticed that the liberal-ish press had suddenly become obsessed with civility and had begun hectoring us to listen to our better angels — to “play nice” with the Deplorables. Someone denied a cheeseburger to a White House spokeswoman who lies for a living, defending the cruelest of policies. And you’d have thought the end of civilization was near.
On the importance of maintaining “good form” both CNN and FOX News were in total agreement: “Fox Business host Trish Regan defended CNN’s Jim Acosta on Tuesday, calling verbal attacks on the reporter at a Trump rally are ‘not only bad manners, it’s bad form,’ while calling out both sides for a total lack of civility.”
Lots of people noticed the break from reality and bizarre lack of perspective. Philosopher Robert Paul Wolff (author of “The Poverty of Liberalism”) wrote, “The norms of public political discourse vary considerably from country to country, and even from neighborhood to neighborhood within a country. The British Parliament is much more raucous than the American Congress, and I will not even talk about the Israeli Knesset. Only in the world of the Washington elite does being denied service at a restaurant appear to be a violation of sacred norms calling for serious discussion of the foundations of democratic society. […] But whatever the local norms of civility may be, it can always be asked under what conditions it is right, even required, to violate them as part of a political protest.”
On December 12th, 1964 Malcom X spoke at the Oxford Union Club in England and talked about “the necessity, sometimes, of extremism, in defense of liberty, why it is no vice, and why moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. […] I doubt that anyone will deny that extremism, in defense of liberty, the liberty of any human being, is a value. Anytime anyone is enslaved, or in any way deprived of his liberty, if that person is a human being, as far as I am concerned he is justified to resort to whatever methods necessary to bring about his liberty again.” Earlier that year Malcom X gave his Ballot or the Bullet speech at King Solomon Baptist Church in Detroit, reminding listeners of the incivility and extremism of the American Revolution. Turns out, for much of American history dissent usually trumps decorum.
Media Matters observed that the “right-wing media are criticizing Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) after she encouraged people to publicly protest Trump administration officials who are complicit in the atrocious family separation policy at the U.S border. But the ‘civility’ these outlets are touting has been absent in their many vicious past attacks on Waters.”
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting took the liberal-ish press to task for its preoccupation with manners and distaste for speaking truth to power. FAIR pointed out that the Washington Post had run “three articles between Sunday, June 24, and Monday, June 25, calling for ‘civility’ and criticizing those who interfered with the dining experiences of Trump administration officials.”
In a Bloomberg News editorial, Jonathan Bernstein wrote, “Civility Is Important in a Democracy. So Is Dissent.” Bernstein observed: “In these times, however, it’s a joke to focus on incivility by Democrats even as the Republican president routinely says things that are as bad as or worse than the attacks of the most irresponsible Democratic no-name precinct chair.” In an unusual footnote, Bernstein reminded readers that when it comes to civility in a democracy, “of course incivility wasn’t the most important problem with U.S. democracy; indeed, restrictions on the franchise and full citizenship were so severe that there’s a good case to be made that it wasn’t a real democracy until at least 1965.” Whatever temporary gains we’ve made were made in the street.
Finally, Nation writer Sarah Leonard spoke my mind with her article, “Against Civility: You can’t fight injustice with decorum.” Among Leonard’s excellent points: “Throughout history, activists have seldom won battles against injustice by asking politely. […] The people being targeted [for protest] are adults living and working in a democratic society; facing consequences for their actions, as conservatives would agree, is what grown-ups should all do. […] To cling to civility is to allow the powerful to commit crimes, as long as they do so with a smile and a handshake.”
If we are truly listening to our better angels, they’ve been whispering — “#resist.”
This my last appeal for citizens to advocate for protections for immigrant families in the 2019 budget. Originally proposed as Budget Amendment #1147 by Senator James Eldridge, these protections have been incorporated into Senate Bill S.2530 and are now in conference with the House. Call your State House Representative to ask them to support immigrant family protections. What’s happening in Washington should terrify and motivate state House Democrats to support such protections. This should be our answer to hate.
Here’s why the protections are so important
The Supreme Court just ruled in favor of Trump’s Muslim Ban. An ACLU petition asks Congress to pass legislation to block racist exclusions like this. While a ban is not the same thing as a registry, we don’t yet know how Trump’s Muslim Ban will affect citizens of the Muslim-majority countries who live in Massachusetts, whether CPB, ICE, or DHS will ask the Commonwealth to help track these Muslim neighbors — or if the occasional law enforcement official might have personal motivations to share data with ICE without authorization.
Protections for immigrant families in the 2019 budget bar the Commonwealth from cooperating with such registries.
Trump’s deportation machine is abusing families and children in shockingly cruel ways. Elizabeth Warren has a lengthy report on her visit to a McAllen, Texas Border Patrol facility where she was horrified by the treatment of incarcerated children. A report issued recently describes racially-motivated abuses of detainees in ICE facilities, including the Bristol County House of Correction. Last week it was reported that the Boston Public Schools took it upon themselves to share data with ICE, and on the Cape high school students were reported to ICE by guidance counselors for supposed gang affiliations simply because they spoke Spanish. This insanity must end. Let police deal with real criminals and end vigilantism.
Protections for immigrant families in the 2019 budget prevent state officials from being used as federal agents. Only the Massachusetts Department of Corrections will be able to fulfill some of these federal immigration functions.
Customs and Border Patrol is stopping vehicles on parts of I-93 and demanding that passengers produce proof of citizenship. Warrantless stops with requests for “papers!” is creepy and totalitarian enough without state and local police being enlisted in violations of the Fourth Amendment. Even with the 100-mile border “loophole,” many of these stops are unconstitutional. Let’s affirm that, at least in Massachusetts, a “nation of laws” requires warrants and probable cause to stop people.
Protections for immigrant families in the 2019 budget define strict rules under which police officers can ask about immigration status and require training on the law for all officers.
Read about these provisions yourself. Despite malicious misinformation, these provisions do not prevent police from arresting real criminals. They do make Massachusetts a lot safer for everyone and strengthen Constitutional protections many of us can still remember once having.
Call your State House Representative to ask them to support protections for immigrant families in the 2019 budget.
As we rapidly slide into authoritarianism led by a racist vulgarian, the press has oddly become fixated on not the danger to our democracy but on civility and balance. To hear some tell it, we have too much democracy. No, we hear a lot lately, the threat to America is bad manners.
The mainstream media considers it “uncivil” to lob hardballs at a politician or shout “non-responsive!” at his evasive answers. Instead, it steers a safe, middle course, avoiding “controversial” phrases and judgments. The “split-screen” showing both sides of an issue is a fixture of the media, whether in the Op-Ed section of a newspaper or on your favorite cable news show.
Civility is why “nationalist” is the style guide’s choice for Richard Spencer — instead of the more accurate “white supremacist” or “neo-Nazi.” If a Congressman uses the N-word it will be reported as a “racially-charged remark” and not as a “racist” epithet. When reporting climate change there must be “balance” to the 99% of scientists who regard it as fact. Civility means fairness and fairness requires false balance. So readers are obliged to hear from petrochemical lobbyists to provide indispensable new insights into a nonexistent “debate.”
Recently the press began worrying that Sarah Huckabee Sanders was denied a cheeseburger at a Virginia restaurant. The liberal press fretted — is this the end of civility? The Washington Post warned in its best Mom voice, “Let the Trump team eat in peace.” Al Jazeera worried that liberal vexation at a mendacious fundamentalist White House spokeswoman reflected “growing concern about political tribalism” in the United States.
When U.S. Representative Maxine Waters suggested challenging Trump administration figures in public, Politico headed for the bomb shelter: “Waters scares Democrats with call for all-out war on Trump.” House minority leader Nancy Pelosi rebuked Waters, calling for “unity” — even though a recent CNN poll showed that 42 percent of Americans want Trump to be impeached — including a very unified 77 percent of Democrats.
The liberal reticence to vigorously challenge Trump seems based on fears of ridiculous things Trumpistas might say. In a piece entitled “The Left Loses its Cool,” Politico quoted Florida’s GOP Attorney General Pam Bondi: “When you’re violent and cursing and screaming and blocking me from walking into a movie, there’s something wrong,” she said. “The next people are going to come with guns. That’s what’s going to happen.” For Trump supporters having an unpleasant lunch is worse than ICE throwing children into cages or dying because somebody took your healthcare away. Nonsense like this often goes unchallenged.
While the president was busy signing, un-signing, and re-signing executive orders on family separations, the press seemed far less intererested in discovering why sitting U.S. Senators were denied entry to DHS detention facilities. When immigration attorney David Leopold appeared on CNN and pointed the finger for the White House’s inhuman family separation policies at “white nationalist, Stephen Miller,” host Kate Bolduan cut him off: “I don’t know if you want to go as far as to — I mean, let’s not — I just did an entire segment about civility here. I don’t know if you want to call Stephen Miller a white nationalist.”
Thus “civility” ended what could have shed some light on the issue of family separations. Leopold was on the right track: to really understand White House immigration policies you first have to understand its White Supremacists. Yet while the mainstream media pulls its punches, censors guests, and cuts off lines of inquiry, FOX and Sinclair, right-wing radio and conservative papers throughout the country dispense with such niceties and play hardball.
“When they go low, we go high,” Michelle Obama told Democrats shortly before the 2016 election. This was a sweet sentiment. But during that same campaign Donald Trump mocked a disabled journalist and called Mexicans rapists and criminals. This became the new standard of civility. Last March Trump tweeted that Maxine Waters was a “very low IQ individual.” The Tweet was reported but Waters largely had to defend herself in the press.
The stakes have never been higher. We ought to worry less about civility and more about democracy. If we really want to salvage what’s left of it we need to take the gloves off and aggressively confront injustice and untruth.
That goes for both liberals and for a very timid and diminished Fourth Estate.
Last week Bristol County Sheriff Tom Hodgson went before the cameras to demand an apology from the Attorney General. He should have instead taken the opportunity to apologize to the people of the Commonwealth.
Maura Healey heard the growing complaints about abuses at Hodgson’s facilities — the highest suicide rate in the state, high recidivism, abuses of the mentally ill, overuse of solitary confinement, chronically overcrowded and dirty facilities, inadequate food and denial of medication and medical care, kickbacks from a phone vendor, civil rights violations of inmates, and violation of the Supreme Judaical Court’s ruling on ICE detentions. Hodgson is knee deep in lawsuits. The Attorney General was duty-bound to address the worst of the abuses so she sent a letter to Executive Office of Public Safety and Security’s Daniel Bennett asking him to investigate.
But to hear Tom Hodgson tell it, it’s all a big Democratic witch hunt. “It smacks of partisan politics, given my work on immigration.” His “work,” as he puts it, consists of relentless shilling for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), which the Southern Poverty Law Center lists as a hate group. On any given day Tom Hodgson can be heard on talk radio conflating immigrant children with MS-13 gang members, suggesting that Massachusetts mosques are Al Qaeda recruiting stations, or that immigrants are disease vectors. You probably heard him grandstanding from the Rio Grande or testifying for anti-immigrant legislation in Washington. Hodgson fancies himself an immigration expert but he can’t even handle the job he was actually hired to do — competently running a county jail.
Hodgson has only himself to blame for his jail’s suicide rate. “If something happens to me, I want people to know that I’ve been getting no help, no matter how many mental health slips I’ve put in,” Michael Ray wrote shortly before his suicide. Only weeks before, an article in the Globe asked, “Why Is The Suicide Rate In Bristol County Jails So High?” If Hodgson’s’ talk radio schedule hadn’t been so full he might have rolled up his sleeves and done something about it.
But on June 1, 2017 Tom Hodgson was having brunch with the Mass Fiscal Alliance, a group that promotes anti-immigrant rhetoric just like the Federation for American Immigration Reform, where Hodgson sits on the advisory board with its white supremacist founder, John Tanton. Nine days later Michael Ray was dead. Two weeks after Ray’s death, on June 28th, Hodgson was back flogging anti-immigrant talking points at a far-right event called “Hold Their Feet to the Fire.” Hodgson appeared with gay-basher Sandy Rios, FAIR president Dan Stein, VDARE contributor Michelle Malkin, white nationalist Congressman Steve King, Muslim-basher Robert Spencer, and Sebastian Gorka, another self-styled “Muslim expert” whose ties to a Hungarian Nazi group were too much for even the White House. Rather than dealing with the suicides Hodgson had better things to do.
So hats off to Maura Healey. She has nothing to apologize for. Unlike Hodgson, she’s actually doing her job — which includes seeking justice for those abused, neglected, and left to die by callous disregard for their human rights. The Sheriff must be held accountable. There is such a level of willful neglect and poor leadership at the Bristol County House of Correction that it is an insult to hear the Sheriff demanding an apology for the many lawsuits he has brought upon himself and his staff.
Suddenly a few Republicans are demonstrating that they actually have souls. Franklin Graham, Laura Bush and even Melania Trump are among those who have recently spoken out against separating children from their parents at the border.
Another insidious form of child abuse has taken place for decades in Palestinian occupied territories, where Israel routinely rounds up and imprisons hundreds of children each year. I am forwarding an appeal from Jeff Klein, of Mass Peace Action, asking Congress to support the McCollum Bill, which so far has only two Massachusetts Congressional sponsors. I have written about Betty McCollum’s legislation before. Please read Jeff’s letter and then contact Congressional Reps. Richard Neal, Niki Tsongas, Joseph Kennedy III, Katherine Clark, Michael Capuano, Stephen Lynch, and Bill Keating, to let them know they need to be on the right side of this issue. They need to be better friends to children than to a government that just last month slaughtered hundreds of demonstrators.
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STAND UP AGAINST THE ABUSE OF PALESTINIAN CHILDREN
Dear Activist,
When many Americans and their elected officials are protesting the mistreatment of immigrant minors at our southern border, it is time to renew our demand that Members of Congress also speak up to protect Palestinian children.
When we sent out our earlier alert on the McCollum Bill, Promoting Human Rights by Ending Israeli Military Detention of Palestinian Children Act, H.R. 4391, only one member of the Massachusetts delegation, Rep. Jim McGovern CD2), had co-sponsored the resolution. Since then, CD6 Rep Seth Moulton has joined him in supporting the bill. But other members of our delegation have not yet taken a stand against the abuse of Palestinian children. This is unacceptable.
There are two things you can do.
CALL YOUR MEMBER OF CONGRESS to ask that they co-sponsor the McCollum Bill. Do it again even if you have called before. (And please thank Reps. McGovern and Moulton for their co-sponsorship.)
This is Rep. McCollum’s explanation of the bill:
“Given that the Israeli government receives billions of dollars in assistance from the United States, Congress must work to ensure that American taxpayer dollars never support the Israeli military’s detention or abuse of Palestinian children. Congresswoman McCollum’s legislation, the Promoting Human Rights by Ending Israeli Military Detention of Palestinian Children Act, requires that the Secretary of State certify that American funds do not support Israel’s military detention, interrogation, abuse, or ill-treatment of Palestinian children.”
ASK THAT THEIR OFFICES ATTEND A BRIEFING JUNE 25 on H.R. 4391 and the situation for Palestinian children after the U.S. embassy move to Jerusalem. You can use the No Way To Treat a Child campaign tool to send an email asking Members of Congress to send a representative to the briefing. If you are in contact with a relevant Congressional staffer, also please phone them directly.
Each year the Israeli military arrests and prosecutes around 700 Palestinian children. Last year alone, more than fourteen Palestinian boys and girls under the age of 18 were shot dead by Israeli occupation forces in the West Bank and Gaza Strip — and many more were wounded – using resources provided by our own government. We cannot allow this situation to continue.
For Massachusetts Peace Action and its New Day for Israel and Palestine organizing project.
Jeff Klein, Convener, MAPA Palestine/Israel Working Group
A NEW DAY is a network sponsored by Massachusetts Peace Action.
PLEASE SIGN UP for regular “A NEW DAY” Action Alerts if you have not already done so and please reach out to your contacts to have them sign up for by emailing A-NEW-DAY@masspeaceaction.org (and please note your Congressional District).
(NEW DAY members will receive a limited number of action-oriented emails)
Both Conservatives and Liberals are awash in nostalgia for days long gone. Trump Republicans long for the good old days when men were men and women and Blacks and Hispanics and gays and foreigners knew their place. Centrist Democrats dream of the glory days of Obama and Camelot. Or what might have been with Hillary.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is pouring money into entrepreneurs, ex-prosecutors, ex-security establishment, and ex-military for Congressional races that don’t challenge Democratic incumbents. Even in “safe” Congressional races, Democratic candidates still like to play up their national security bona fides, for example as Alexandra Chandler is doing in MA-03, or incumbent Bill Keating does at every opportunity in MA-09.
In a recent piece in Blue Mass Group, Chandler penned an essay that spelled out her vision for the proper use of American power. She didn’t challenge the misuse of that power, only that more of it should be in Congressional hands. Otherwise, Chandler argued for a return to a “rules-based international order,” return of a Cold War footing regarding Russia, strengthening of military and intelligence alliances, and defending spy agencies (even after learning of rogue torture, surveillance and rendition programs).
Like many Democrats, Chandler makes excuses for Israel’s murders of Gazan demonstrators while still managing to blame Hamas (“I am confident that given different orders and rules of engagement — for instance, not to use live ammunition and to use numerous specialized riot and border control tools at their disposal — they could have protected themselves, and the security of the Israeli-Gaza border, notwithstanding Hamas-directed provocateurs among the protestors.”) Chandler strongly touts her national security resume but has little to say about criminal justice or immigration reform. And not a shred of criticism of the super-predatory capitalism we experience in the 21st Century.
Chandler is the perfect example of Democratic nostalgia for the good old days when NATO and the G7, the IMF, the World Bank, and Western institutions and alliances could put the screws to Russia while still pursuing their own colonial interests. The good old days when America (together with allies who couldn’t say “no”) would throw around their weight with a higher class of people running the show. In this nostalgic Democratic daydream, as long as well-spoken men and women (not reincarnated P. T. Barnums like Trump) have the codes to nuclear footballs and are the ones spying on the citizenry for their own good, the world is in good hands. But Democrats forget that the Kennedys, Johnsons, Clintons, and Obamas were also frightening stewards of American military, surveillance, nuclear, and economic power.
Someone sent me a link to a piece from the Cato Institute perfectly titled “A World Imagined.” Libertarians are not clear-eyed critics of Capitalism but they do seem to have 20-20 vision when it comes to the defects of Neoliberalism. In this piece the author shows why we should not be so quick to embrace a lopsided world order long loved by Republicans and Democrats alike. The author argues convincingly that Trump’s polices and authoritarian inclinations are simple-minded exaggerations of the old realpolitik long practiced by Kissinger, Albright, Cheney, Bush, Kerry, Clinton, and their friends in the national security establishment. They embrace a world order based on American Exceptionalism, a world run by white men of privilege, with foreign and domestic policies ultimately resting on authoritarianism, austerity, and privilege. Trump’s only innovation is exulting in a widespread view that a master race deserves to run the world and make the country great again.
The other night I was watching “The Good Shepherd.” You might say it’s a movie about privileged white men keeping each other’s secrets — until they decide to betray one another. Matt Damon plays Edward Wilson, a Yale undergraduate inducted into the “Skull and Bones” society, who then becomes an OSS operative and later a CIA director. Wilson has a lot of blood on his hands — and not just for the Bay of Pigs but for sins much closer to home. Make some popcorn. The movie’s decent, if perhaps a bit too long.
At one point Wilson visits a mobster named Joseph Palmi (played by Joe Pesci), who controls criminal enterprises in Cuba. His character is based loosely on Sam Giancana and Santo Traficante, who Kennedy enlisted for the Bay of Pigs. Palmi agrees to help Wilson. At one point there is this exchange:
Joseph Palmi: Let me ask you something… we Italians, we got our families, and we got the church; the Irish, they have the homeland; the Jews their tradition; even the niggers, they got their music. What about you people, Mr. Carlson, what do you have?
Edward Wilson: The United States of America. The rest of you are just visiting.
The movie, of course, is fiction. But the scene nevertheless holds a very real truth. We shouldn’t become too nostalgic for the Kennedy years or the post-war “rules-based international order” and its domestic reflection in a segregated nation. The America of 1961 and an administration some still wistfully call “Camelot” bore all too many similarities to Trump’s America of 2018.
When Theodor Herzl published Der Judenstaat in 1896, anti-Semitism was the raison d’etre for a Jewish state. “Die Welt widerhallt vom Geschrei gegen die Juden, und das weckt den eingeschlummerten Gedanken auf.” (The world resonates with screams against the Jews, and that wakes long-slumbering thoughts.)”
Herzl had in mind either a Jewish state in what is now Argentina or in the “ever-memorable historic home” of Palestine, which was clearly his his preference. Herzl saw the poorest European Jews emigrating first to the new state — the most desperate, those of “mediocre intellects” who would do the rough work of establishing a foothold. They would then be followed later by “those of a higher grade.”
Herzl thought it would be necessary to entreat the Sultan [Turkish emperor] to give European Jews some of the land Turkey was then occupying. In exchange, Herzl daydreamed, Jews would get the Ottoman Empire’s finances back in order. The new Jewish state would be neutral, form a bulwark against Asian “barbarism,” and would be a Eurocentric state “in contact with all Europe, which would have to guarantee our existence.” In exchange, the Jewish state would guard the extra-territorial sanctuaries of Christendom and Christians would be grateful to a people they once hated.
It may irk today’s Zionists to hear Israel referred to as a “colonial enterprise,” but this is precisely what Herzl imagined it to be in its infancy. Israel was to be created by two separate organizations — the Society of the Jews, and by the Jewish Company. Like the Hudson Bay Company which explored Canada, and the London Company, which founded the American colonies, Herzl’s Jewish Company (later the Jewish National Fund, and later still national offshoots like the American and Canadian Jewish Federations) were set up to create a pipeline of colonists to a new land. The Jewish Company was to be based in London.
The chapter, “The Jewish Company,” describes how the company acquires land and builds housing for its first wave of poor Russian and Romanian workmen. There would have to be inducements to work for their homes, to stay out of trouble — and the seven hour day was one such inducement. No man was to be idle, for development of a moral citizenry was one of Herzl’s goals. A tenth of the citizenry was to be tasked with military defense. The Jewish Company would provide housing, set up bank accounts, provide loans, create employment by creating industries, purchase a family’s assets when they emigrated, and help them as soon as they arrived in the Jewish state. What Herzl described was — without irony or exaggeration — a vast “colonial enterprise.”
Herzl anticipated the use of indigenous, non-Jewish labor. This was the 19th Century, slavery was not an alien concept, and Herzl worried about the misuse of local slave labor instead of well-compensated seven-hour-a-day workers, which he regarded as a morally repugnant shortcut. The Jewish Company would, therefore, prevent the abuse and enslavement of non-Jewish labor by using boycotts (the irony!), roadblocks, or “various other methods.”
In “Local Groups: Our Transmigration,” Herzl describes the process of resettlement. No one would have to migrate in steerage, though luxury travelers would have plenty of travel options. Each travel group would have a rabbi, who would be enlisted in the nation-building project. “Our rabbis, on whom we especially call, will devote their energies to the service of our idea, and will inspire the congregations by preaching it from the pulpit.” The long history of Zionist co-optation of Judaism seems to begin with this.
The Middle Classes — and by such Herzl was not referring to sad-sack “mediocre intellects” from Russia and Romania, but German-speaking Austro-Hungarian elites of whom he was a member — would lead this new society. What Herzl described sounds very much like the world of English colonials in India: “The middle classes will involuntarily be drawn into the outgoing current, for their sons will be officials of the Society or employees of the Company ‘over there.’ Lawyers, doctors, technicians of every description, young business people — in fact, all Jews who are in search of opportunities, who now escape from oppression in their native country to earn a living in foreign lands — will assemble on a soil so full of fair promise. The daughters of the middle classes will marry these ambitious men. One of them will send for his wife or fiancee to come out to him, another for his parents, brothers and sisters. Members of a new civilization marry young. This will promote general morality and ensure sturdiness in the new generation; and thus we shall have no delicate offspring of late marriages, children of fathers who spent their strength in the struggle for life. Every middle-class emigrant will draw more of his kind after him. The bravest will naturally get the best out of the new world.”
Herzl’s theory of the state is simplistic. He rejects Rousseau’s Social Contract out of hand, instead grasping at the Roman Empire’s concept of “gestor” — advocate. The role of “gestor” is played by the Society of the Jews. “This organ of the national movement, the nature and functions of which we are at last dealing with, will, in fact, be created before everything else. Its formation is perfectly simple. It will take shape among those energetic Jews to whom I imparted my scheme in London.” The “energetic Jews” Herzl was referring to were members of the Maccabean Club in London, with whom he met in 1895.
In describing how the land would be occupied by the new settlers, Herzl writes, “In America the occupation of newly opened territory is set about in naive fashion. The settlers assemble on the frontier, and at the appointed time make a simultaneous and violent rush for their portions. We shall not proceed thus to the new land of the Jews.” Herzl, the cultured Viennese idealist, would never have imagined today’s hilltop settlers of the West Bank.
Herzl did not have a democracy in mind, nor would differences of opinion be permitted in the new state: “I incline to an aristocratic republic. This would satisfy the ambitious spirit in our people, which has now degenerated into petty vanity. Many of the institutions of Venice pass through my mind; but all that which caused the ruin of Venice must be carefully avoided. We shall learn from the historic mistakes of others, in the same way as we learn from our own; for we are a modern nation, and wish to be the most modern in the world. Our people, who are receiving the new country from the Society, will also thankfully accept the new constitution it offers them. Should any opposition manifest itself, the Society will suppress it. The Society cannot permit the exercise of its functions to be interpreted by short-sighted or ill-disposed individuals.” It seems he got his wish.
Today the state that Herzl envisioned still operates without a constitution. Its borders remain in dispute. Its citizens argue whether they are Jews or Israelis. Israel has greater religious diversity than the United States owing to large Palestinian, Bedouin, and non-Jewish European groups. And a million of its citizens live abroad.
Book Review: Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, by Arlie Russell Hochschild. ISBN: 9781620972250
This is a frustrating, disappointing book. It is a book that will make no one happy. Carlos Lozada’s review in the Washington Post, for example, accuses Hochschild of condescension and preconceived notions about the Tea Party. The former is partly true. I don’t think the author successfully manages to disprove the view many have of the Southern Far Right — that they’ll believe any stupid damned thing and will stubbornly vote against their own self-interest. But some Tea Partiers actually liked her book. Ralph Benko, writing in Forbes, called it a “delight” — which might be going a bit overboard.
I found myself wondering where Hochschild was headed in her “exploratory” and “hypothesis generating” study. It took over a hundred pages to lay out her thesis, finally described in Chapter 9, “The Deep Story.” From time to time Hochschild acknowledges the racism of the South, but there is really only one page (146-147 in the hardcover edition) devoted to it. Instead, environmental protection is the lens through which she timidly chooses to look at values of Louisianans. In Chapter 14 (“the Fires of History”) Hochschild discusses the shocks to poor whites following the Civil War that might account for so many today still holding racist views and repressed class antagonisms (think Faulkner’s “Abner Snopes”). But, again, it’s only mentioned in passing.
Ultimately, Hochshild’s book is a fool’s errand. It’s impossible to bridge the empathy gap with people who themselves have no empathy for anyone but White Christians. And, though her efforts to empathize with people who reject science, fact, and blame all their problems on others, may be praiseworthy, I just can’t bring myself to do it. These are seriously delusional people who have given up on remediating their fracked bayous because they think the Rapture is the proper solution for environmental problems.
There is some truth in right-wing critiques of the book, like Lozada’s, that the book paints cartoon characters. In order to explain her subjects’ irrational, dangerous, delusional, anti-social, and self-destructive views and behaviors, Hochschild concocts several two-dimensional archetypes — the Team Player, the Worshipper, and the Cowboy. A better analysis would have looked at the effects of generational racism coupled with the toxic effects of propaganda from FOX News and right-wing pastors. And it would have included a critique of Capitalism, a topic Hochschild won’t touch any more than her subjects. But Hochschild’s goal was to befriend them, not to truly explain the pathology.
I’m sorry, but it’s hard to feel sorry for people who home-school their children or indoctrinate them in Christian madrassas, vote to bring cancer-producing industries into their communities, to kill themselves and their children — and then pay the petrochemical companies for the privilege. It’s hard to feel much pity for people who believe every stupid lie they hear on FOX News or from the pulpit and uncritically support the most rapacious version of Capitalism — while blaming every brown face in the world for the failures of their verkakte worldview.
Rather than bridging the compassion gap, Hochschild’s book convinced me that we need to let these people go. Let them secede and form their own Kingdom of Gilead, where they can spend their money on guns, church tithes, and petrochemicals. Let them live with self-inflicted poor health, poverty, superstition, and ignorance until the Rapture vacuums them up.
There are huge and irreconcilable differences between the two Americas. Half of us believe in democracy, the other half in Adam and Eve romping with Ayn Rand around a Deepwater Horizon platform.
Would you let your county sheriff fix your teeth or provide home health visits for a parent? Would you permit him to perform surgery on you or provide psychiatric services? Of course not. Your county sheriff is a man with a badge and a gun. So why on earth would you expect him to provide expert treatment and rehabilitation to those with substance abuse problems? Unfortunately, this is exactly what’s happening right now in Massachusetts.
The Legislature just passed long-awaited criminal justice reforms. An important objective was to keep people with substance abuse disorder out of jail and provide needed treatment. Yet several recent jail projects are already undermining the intent of these reforms. And they show just how inclined we are, as a punitive society, to always look to incarceration as the solution to a social problem.
In Hampden County, MassLive reports, Sheriff Nick Cocchi is rolling out an 86-bed “treatment facility” for opioid abusers in his jail. Cocchi says it’s conceivable another 100 beds will be needed. Within the next 60 days people with substance abuse disorder will be civilly committed under Section 35 and incarcerated in either the Hampden County jail or in the Hampden County Sheriff’s WMRWC Mill Street facility.
Sheriff Cocchi, like many sheriffs in Massachusetts, is now left with “empty beds” in his jail because of drug courts and other diversion programs. In some jails these “beds” are now being filled by ICE detainees and civil commitment is seen as a mechanism for filling others. Cocchi says “he anticipates seeking additional funding from the legislature during next year’s budget” and that “the new programs are for now carved out through savings and reallocations from within the annual Sheriff’s Department budget.”
A new report in MassInc by Ben Forman and Michael Widmer (“Revisiting Correctional Expenditure Trends in Massachusetts”) documents the cost of incarcerating someone at the Hampden County jail at almost $80,000 per year. A 90-day Section 35 commitment would cost almost $20,000. Certainly, more comprehensive and cost effective treatment can be provided outside of jail.
Civil commitment can either be a part of a criminal sentence or (more and more likely) a process initiated by a “spouse, blood relative, guardian, a police officer, physician, or court official.” But if sheriffs and legislators believe addiction is a disease, why then is prison the cure? In Massachusetts there have been a number of lawsuits challenging the incarceration of substance abusers precisely because prisons are not even close to being treatment centers.
In Suffolk County Sheriff Steven Tompkins wants to “partner” with AdCare to run a Vivitrol program at his South Bay jail. The Suffolk County program will target “pre-trial detainees” — those not convicted of any crime. The ultimate responsibility for the safety and effectiveness of a client’s rehabilitation program will rest with a law enforcement official, not a psychological or medical professional. And by outsourcing services to a private corporation — what could possibly go wrong?
Vivitrol is both controversial and currently the the go-to treatment for sheriffs. Vivitrol blocks the “high” from opioids for up to a month. Other Medically Assisted Treatments (MAT) with buprenorphine or methadone are not favored by sheriffs, although Vivitrol is problematic in many ways and may result in fatal overdoses. The drug made news recently because the Trump administration’s opioid treatment plan is typical of his style of crony capitalism — “a single drug, manufactured by a single company, with mixed views on the evidence regarding its use.” Vivitrol will be the only drug treatment given federal prisoners. Through an “Inspiration Grant” Alkermes gave to the National Sheriff’s Association, prison staff and contractors all over the country get a “taste” of the drug, then are allowed to buy more with taxpayer money. No wonder that Vivitrol CEO Richard Pops says “the best days of Vivitrol are still ahead of it.”
Over in Worcester County Sheriff Lewis Evangelidis is building a $20 million “intake” section for his jail, he says, for people with substance abuse disorder. The intake process will also screen for gang affiliation, prior offenses, and determine if those about to be incarcerated are detoxing or need psychological services. But, given the suicide epidemic among county jail prisoners in Massachusetts, legislators ought to be asking why medical issues are not being treated in medical facilities run by real medical professionals.
Some feel the brand-new criminal reform bill is a good start. But Massachusetts could learn something from Portugal, where medical, not carceral, treatment is used for drug addiction. Under Portugal’s 2001 decriminalization law, “anyone caught with less than a 10-day supply of any drug — including heroin — gets mandatory medical treatment. No judge, no courtroom, no jail.”
Prison is an inhumane and ineffective solution for dealing with drug addiction. So why, in a state with some of the best medical care in the nation, can’t we can do better than turning over drug treatment to sheriffs? Why should a sheriff — having no clinical expertise and possibly even unethical relationships to vendors— be permitted to determine treatments for drug rehabilitation? Why not invest in community-based treatment on demand instead of arresting and incarcerating people for low-level crimes committed and driven by their addiction? And why aren’t we taking the tens of millions of dollars used to civilly commit people and instead investing it in health and mental care in our communities?
If we believe substance abuse disorder is a medical problem, let’s put our money where our mouth is — in treatment rather than more investment in jails.
It does not surprise me that the tagline for the Poor People’s Campaign is “a national call for moral revival.” In politics, given a choice between money and morality, you know which will win. It’s also no surprise that the demands of this campaign are not strictly economic but target racism, the environment, criminal justice, voter disenfranchisement, healthcare, foreign policy, militarism, budget priorities, and democratic institutions. The very existence of this movement is a clue that, for all their lofty platform planks, Democrats simply haven’t been listening to America’s most vulnerable people.
Tip O’Neill famously said that all politics is local. Perhaps. But local politics are now national. Dozens of Congressional primary races highlight the ideological wars being fought within the Democratic Party — viciously and with considerable help from out of state donors.
UMass Amherst political science professor Raymond LaRaja writes that, for all the Democratic Party’s disagreements, “if there is one thread that links party adherents today, it is a view of themselves as outsiders trying to gain for themselves and others a share of the fruits of American democracy and capitalism, which have been denied to them by social status.” But there any agreement ends.
In this authoritarian age a lot is at stake. Democratic Party centrists think they can tinker with and improve Capitalism, while progressives and socialists know that only radical change — and a stronger defense of democracy — will make life better for working families. These are irreconcilable philosophies that must eventually end in divorce. But for the moment — here we are together in a very odd bed.
No surprise, then, that the “moneyed and highly organized factions” run their political races differently too. Since their objective is to win and not necessarily fight for principles (either during or after an election), Democratic centrists run campaigns based on “viable candidates” while progressives are more interested in principles. Centrist Democrats won’t waste a dime on a candidate who can’t win, and they will look for one who can — even if he is barely distinguishable from a Republican.
Progressives, on the other hand, are willing to see their candidate go down in flames — if only for the chance to have her issues heard by voters or to keep the party from sliding even farther to the right. And progressives often have to fight the good fight with little or no support from Democratic Party institutions like the DNC or DCCC. This too is an irreconcileable difference that must eventually end in divorce.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) doesn’t yet have a Fifty State strategy but is trying to get there. It previously conceded elections in some states and put all its chips on “sure things” in others. The DCCC’s “Majority Makers” program is targeting dozens of Red districts thought to be winnable. The special Alabama Senate election of Doug Jones provided the party with new energy — but lowered the bar for its candidates. The DCCC doesn’t even conceal its bias toward Blue Dogs like Henry Cuellar over progressives and has even gone out of its way to sabotage the campaigns of progressives like Laura Moser. In the New York primary DNC Chair Tom Perez endorsed Andrew Cuomo, breaking a promise that the DNC would never again interfere in a primary election.
Last April I attended a meeting of Marching Forward in Dartmouth. The group was recruiting campaign volunteers after deciding to support four swing state Congressional candidates in the midterm elections. Three of their four candidates were DCCC “Majority Makers” — Andy Kim (NJ-03); Mikie Sherill (NJ-11); and Perry Gershon (NY-01). Volunteers would travel to these swing states and essentially take their marching orders from the DCCC.
It’s difficult to begrudge Marching Forward’s efforts. After all, each of their candidates is challenging an especially noxious Trump Republican. Each was chosen, like genes for therapeutic treatment, to target a specific defect in a specific Congressional district with precisely calibrated politics and personal attributes. Andy Kim, for example, is a former Defense Department analyst; Mikie Sherill is a decorated Navy helicopter pilot and “get-tough” federal prosecutor; and Perry Gershon is the Chief Investment Officer at Jefferies LoanCore Capital Markets LLC. None is what anyone would call a progressive. And the number of DCCC candidates waving military and national security resumes should worry everyone in post-911 America.
These candidates, to use LaRaja’s words, all want “peace, protecting the environment, separation of church and state, guarding the right to an abortion, and quality of life issues like eating locally-grown food.” But generally absent from the campaigns of these genetically-engineered DCCC candidates are issues important to brown, black, and poor people. Each represents the Clintonite wing of a Democratic Party that Thomas Frank describes in “Listen, Liberal” — gatekeepers, lawyers, entrepreneurs, prosecutors, the security establishment, technocrats.
Of course, the U.S. Congress is not the only battlefield. Republicans must be fought in state houses too. EveryDistrict has an approach similar to the DCCC’s, but aims to put more Democrats in state government, neglected for decades by the DNC. And who in their right mind would wish for EveryDistrict to fail? In 26 of 50 states Republicans have a trifecta — total control of both houses of the legislature and the governor’s office. In contrast, Democrats have only 8. EveryDistrict’s strategy is to pick horseraces it thinks it can win, and Democratic winners twill then make the state more liberal. At least that’s the theory.
The Bernie wing of the Democratic Party consists of idealists, progressives, and socialists. Funding their candidates are various PACs that endorse and support progressive campaigns and/or candidates of color — people with a serious personal stake in making real change. They include: Color of Change, Democracy for America, Justice Democrats, Our Revolution, and The Collective PAC. They don’t take corporate money, they don’t have much support from the Democratic Party, and their campaigns are funded by individual donations. Sometimes even their campaign videos are self-produced, as in the case of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is challenging Blue Dog Democrat Joe Crowley in the NY-14 Congressional primary.
Massachusetts primaries will be here in roughly 90 days. The primaries and the general election will provide more clues about the future and the soul of the Democratic Party. Last September I pondered where Democrats were headed:
It’s still a bit early to definitively answer the question of what kind of Democrat represents the future of the party, but we should know by the time the Democratic primaries come around. If Reagan Democrats like Keating remain unchallenged, and a slew of Baby Keatings appear on ballots, then we’ll know the party’s true character — regardless of whatever lofty language is written into the platform.
We are indeed knee deep in Manchins, Joneses, Heitkamps, Moultons, and Baby Keatings. But I no longer think the future of the Democratic Party can be divined so quickly or easily. The fight for the party’s soul could take a decade — after all, it took the Tea Party twelve years to turn the GOP into a bunch of goose-stepping kleptocrats. This fight will continue as America becomes browner and poorer — and as our democratic institutions struggle to recover from the shocks of years of authoritarianism.
If you compare the two videos in this post there are obvious differences between Democrats. The America I want to live in will not be led by PAC-reliant, flag-waving technocrats but by courageous working people with moral centers and very personal stakes in an inclusive democracy. But for now we may need the technocrats — and they us — to keep the Republic from sliding even further into the abyss.
It turns out that Hillary Clinton was right about one thing — Trump’s supporters are Deplorables.
It was a fleeting, and uncharacteristically harsh, judgment from a party now running its own right-to-lifers, gun-toters, and militarists, lip-syncing the GOP’s lyrics that White America was somehow “left behind.” Taking a cue from the GOP, the Clintons’ DNC and DCCC is now downplaying racial injustice in order to court Deplorables with their Better Deal – which Dems announced last Summer from the Heart of Dixie. But their midterm strategy – sending people of color to the back of the bus if not throwing them under it – neglects the stinking rot at the root of our so-called American “democracy.”
A new study by Diana Mutz from the Department of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania, debunks the theory that White America voted for Trump because they were afraid of losing their jobs. They were simply afraid of losing their privilege.
“This study evaluates evidence pertaining to popular narratives explaining the American public’s support for Donald J. Trump in the 2016 presidential election. First, using unique representative probability samples of the American public, tracking the same individuals from 2012 to 2016, I examine the “left behind” thesis (that is, the theory that those who lost jobs or experienced stagnant wages due to the loss of manufacturing jobs punished the incumbent party for their economic misfortunes). Second, I consider the possibility that status threat felt by the dwindling proportion of traditionally high-status Americans (i.e., whites, Christians, and men) as well as by those who perceive America’s global dominance as threatened combined to increase support for the candidate who emphasized reestablishing status hierarchies of the past. Results do not support an interpretation of the election based on pocketbook economic concerns. Instead, the shorter relative distance of people’s own views from the Republican candidate on trade and China corresponded to greater mass support for Trump in 2016 relative to Mitt Romney in 2012. Candidate preferences in 2016 reflected increasing anxiety among high-status groups rather than complaints about past treatment among low-status groups. Both growing domestic racial diversity and globalization contributed to a sense that white Americans are under siege by these engines of change.”
Another study by Steven V. Miller at Clemson and Nicholas T. Davis at Texas A&M confirms Mutz’s “loss of privilege” theory, and also refutes the notion that democratic traditions inoculate Americans from fascist leanings. In “White Outgroup Intolerance and Declining Support for American Democracy,” Miller and Davis write:
“Democracy has been durable in the United States – so durable, in fact, that serious inquiry into Americans’ attitudes toward it has been uncommon. No more.”
Working from World Values Survey data from 1995 to 2011, Miller and Davis discovered that:
“White Americans who would not want an immigrant/foreign worker, someone who spoke a different language, or someone from a different race as a neighbor are more likely to support strongman rule in the United States, rule of the U.S. government by the army, and are more likely to outright reject having a democracy for the United States. These findings are robust across multiple model specifications we analyze and report in the appendix as well.”
Their study documents the strong correlation between White America’s bigotry and proto-fascist leanings. Once White America perceives that the benefits of democracy are being extended to “others” their commitment to democracy is quickly abandoned. Like a child playing a board game, if they can’t win, they won’t play.
But this hardly comes as a surprise to the rest of America:
“[White] American citizens have not historically exhibited the sort of lofty, normative commitments to things like equality and tolerance that we might expect from one of the richest and longest-running continuous electoral democracies in the world. As Sullivan and Transue (1999) note, most citizens were willing to apply double standards that afforded one set of rights to popular groups while denying rights to more extreme or less popular groups.”
Tinkering with Capitalism may sound like a plan, but Democrats need to do a better of job of defending democracy. The surest way to do this is by defending the rights of all citizens and opposing every institution of an authoritarian, surveillance, and police state America. Once Democrats are back in power – unless they roll back the Patriot Act, stop the endless wars, pare back the military budget, dismantle FISA courts and institute sweeping reforms of the criminal justice system and ensure police accountability – they will have done nothing to rescue what’s left of our shredded democracy.
The day after is a good time to reflect on what you’ve done. Whether it’s drinking, casual sex, or Memorial Day.
On Memorial Day American newspapers, both conservative and liberal, are littered with variants of “thank you for your service.” The jingoistic lie that seventeen years of endless war has somehow kept us safe grates on me every time I read it. In fact, the opposite is true. Destroying Iraq, Libya, and Syria has not made us safer. It has made the world a more frightening place and invited retaliation by those radicalized by our militarism. Creating a ring around Iran and supporting ruthless regimes in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel, the Philippines, and elsewhere has not strengthened our democracy. It has hastened the appearance of our own Orange Mussolini.
The military today is a mercenary force. People enlist for money and the many benefits we refuse to give other citizens – among them free college education, healthcare, and preferential hiring. Some serve because they have no qualms about traveling halfway around the world to kill those doing no harm to us. Please, let’s not paint them with the same brush as the Greatest Generation.
Instead of saying “thank you for your service” I would ask our warriors what, in fact, they have done to protect me. Did killing an entire Iraqi family at a roadside checkpoint make me safer? Did killing thousands of innocent civilians by drone make me safer? What enduring signs of success in Iraq and Afghanistan can you point to with pride and say — “I did that!”
There are no satisfactory answers to any of these questions. There is only the objective truth that the endless wars go on, benefiting no one but defense contractors, destroying lives and nations. No matter how many parades and flags and speeches we throw at this reality, the truth remains – the blood on the hands of American warriors has served no purpose, and our national veneration serves only to protect them from the remorse that any other man would be expected to show when accounting for his sins.
Scaremongers are busy trying to convince House legislators that one of the FY2019 budget amendments will end life as we know it and plunge the Commonwealth into lawlessness and anarchy. So I have an idea — let’s actually read it ourselves. But first, some context.
The Massachusetts Senate just approved its version of the FY2019 budget, adding several key provisions of the Safe Communities Act as Amendment #1147. These provisions prevent officers of the Commonwealth from being used as federal immigration agents. Police cooperation with federal agencies, including tracking residents in a federal “Muslim” (or other) registry, will be regulated and standardized. Police officers can’t simply go rogue and become junior G-men on the state’s dime. They, like the rest of us, will be subject to Massachusetts law.
Almost one half of Amendment #1147 concerns the establishment of registries. The heart of the budget amendment is the same heart found in the Bill of Rights — everyone, regardless of immigration status, is entitled to know the charges against them, see them in writing, and have a lawyer present during interrogation. Equally important, there is nothing in this legislation barring police from investigating or detaining anyone associated with a crime.
But Charlie Baker has threatened to veto the amendments. Anti-immigrant groups and the extreme right misrepresent them as a threat to public safety. Bristol County Sheriff Tom Hodgson — like Trump, never one to worry about truth — goes so far as to accuse the Senate super-majority which passed the budget amendments of siding with criminals: “This is a case of the lawmakers protecting lawbreakers at the expense of people whose safety they were sworn to uphold.”
In the language of Hodgson’s own immigrant father — this is pure bollocks. Hodgson especially dislikes one of the provisions because it’s going to negatively impact his career as a mouthpiece for FAIR, a white supremacist anti-immigrant organization. He just might have to get back to addressing his own prison suicides, recidivism rates among the highest in the state, the Securus kickback scandal, and five current lawsuits for mal- and misfeasance.
But I digress. So, without further ado, let’s read the budget amendment.
Messrs. Eldridge and Lewis, Ms. L’Italien, Mr. Brownsberger, Ms. Friedman, Ms. Jehlen, Messrs. Hinds and Barrett, Ms. Chang-Diaz, Mr. Crighton, Ms. Creem, Messrs. DiDomenico, Boncore, Welch, Cyr and Lesser, Ms. O’Connor Ives and Mr. Collins moved that the proposed new text be amended by adding the following:
SECTION XX. Chapter 147 of the General Laws is hereby amended by adding the following section:-
Section 63. (a) As used in this section, the following words shall have the following meanings, unless the context clearly requires otherwise:
“Civil immigration detainer request”, any request by a federal immigration officer authorized under 8 C.F.R. section 287.7 or by any other authorized party, including any request made using federal form I-247A, I-247D or I-247N, asking a non-federal law enforcement agency, officer or employee to maintain custody of a person once that person is released from local custody or to notify the United States Department of Homeland Security of the person’s release.
“Law enforcement agency”, any state, municipal, college or university police department, sheriff’s department, correctional facility, prosecutorial office, court, or program of one or more of the foregoing entities, or any other non-federal entity in the commonwealth charged with the enforcement of laws or the custody of detained persons.
“United States Department of Homeland Security”, the United States Department of Homeland Security and its component agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the former Immigration and Naturalization Service, Customs and Border Protection, and any other federal agency charged with the enforcement of immigration laws.
Police only inquire about immigration status when the law requires it
No officer or employee of a law enforcement agency, while acting under color of law, shall inquire about the immigration status of an individual unless such inquiry is required by federal or state law; provided that a judge or magistrate may make such inquiries as are necessary to adjudicate matters within their jurisdiction.
Police will be trained on the requirements of this law
All law enforcement agencies in the commonwealth shall, within 12 months of passage of this act, incorporate information regarding lawful and unlawful inquiries about immigration status into their regular introductory and in-service training programs. If a law enforcement agency receives a complaint or report that an officer or employee has inquired about an individual’s immigration status when such inquiry is not required by law, the agency shall investigate and take appropriate disciplinary or other action.
A detained person must be provided a copy of his detainer
If a law enforcement agency has in its custody a person who is the subject of a civil immigration detainer request or a non-judicial warrant, the agency shall promptly provide the person, and his or her attorney if the person is represented by an attorney, with a copy of such detainer request or non-judicial warrant, and any other documentation the agency possesses pertaining to the person’s immigration case.
DHS interviews require consent and preserve the right to an attorney
An interview between a United States Department of Homeland Security agent and a person in the custody of a law enforcement agency conducted for immigration enforcement purposes shall take place only if the person in custody has given consent to the interview by signing a consent form that explains the purpose of the interview, that the interview is voluntary, and that the person may decline to be interviewed or may choose to be interviewed only with an attorney present. The consent form shall be prepared by the office of the attorney general and made available to law enforcement agencies in English and other languages commonly spoken in Massachusetts. The office of the attorney general may work with interested not-for-profit organizations to prepare translations of the written consent form. The law enforcement agency shall make best efforts to provide a consent form that is in a language that the person understands, and to provide interpretation if needed, to obtain the person’s informed consent.
If the person in custody indicates that he or she wishes to have an attorney present for the interview, the law enforcement agency shall allow him or her to contact such attorney, and in the case that no attorney can be present, the interview shall not take place; provided, however, that the law enforcement agency shall not be responsible for the payment of the person’s attorney’s fees and expenses.
State employees may not be used as federal immigration officers
SECTION XX. Chapter 126 of the General Laws is hereby amended by adding the following section:-
Section 40. Agreements to Enforce Federal Law.
No officer or employee of any agency, executive office, department, board, commission, bureau, division or authority of the commonwealth or any political subdivision thereof, with the exception of the department of correction, shall perform the functions of an immigration officer, whether pursuant to 8 U.S.C. section 1357(g) or any other law, regulation, or policy, whether formal or informal. Any agreements inconsistent with this section are null and void.
No cooperation with a federal “Muslim” or other registry
SECTION XX. Chapter 30 of the General Laws is hereby amended by adding the following section:-
Section 66. (a) Under no circumstances shall the commonwealth, any political subdivision thereof, or any employee or agent of the commonwealth or any of its political subdivisions, establish any operation or program that requires, or has the effect of causing, persons to register or check in based in whole or in part on their religion, national origin, nationality, citizenship, race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation or age, or maintain any records system, government file or database for the purpose of registering persons based in whole or in part on those categories.
In the event that any federal government operation or program requires, or has the effect of causing, persons to register or check in based in whole or in part on their religion, national origin, nationality, citizenship, race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation or age, including but not limited to any such operation or program created pursuant to 8 United States Code, sections 1302(a) and 1303(a):
no resources of the commonwealth or any political subdivision thereof shall be expended in the enforcement or implementation of such registry or check-in program;
no employee or agent of the commonwealth or any of its political subdivisions shall access, or seek to access, any information maintained pursuant to such registry or check-in program; and
no employee or agent of the commonwealth or any of its political subdivisions shall provide or disclose or offer to provide or disclose information to, or respond to a request for information from, such registry or check-in program.
This section shall not apply to any government operation or program that: (1) merely collects and compiles data about nationals of a foreign country entering or exiting the United States; or (2) issues visas, grants United States citizenship, confers an immigration benefit, or temporarily or permanently protects noncitizens from removal.
Nothing in this section shall prohibit or restrain the commonwealth, any political subdivision thereof, or any employee or agent of the commonwealth or any of its political subdivisions, from sending to, or receiving from, any local, state, or federal agency, information regarding citizenship or immigration status, consistent with Section 1373 of Title 8 of the United States Code.
The wording of Montigny’s bill was similar to Massachusetts House bill H.825, filed only two days earlier by state Representative Carlos Gonzalez, and co-sponsored by Carole Fiola, Russell Holmes, and Bud Williams. The House version had more teeth — it required that “the cost of local and long distance telephone service provided to prisoners in department of correction facilities and county houses of correction shall be the same as the rates charged for comparable residential telephone service.” Like the Senate version, Gonzalez’s bill also sought to put an end to kickbacks.
A second House bill, H.966, with identical wording, was filed not long after by Representative Chyna Tyler, and co-sponsored by Mike Connolly, Tricia Farley-Bouvier, Paul Heroux, Mary Keefe, Kay Khan, Elizabeth Malia, Juana Matias, Timothy Whelan, Bud Williams, and Senator James Eldridge.
These two House bills were identical to H.1614, which had been filed two years earlier by Benjamin Swan, and co-sponsored by Gloria Fox, Elizabeth Malia, Ellen Story, Carolos Gonzalez, and Mary Keefe. This 2015 version was placed on the back-burner until October 2016, when House Speaker Bob DeLeo scuttled it by sending it off for “study.”
Despite impressive work by the Legislature, the price-gouging and anti-corruption provisions in all these inmate phone service bills never made it into the Criminal Justice Omnibus bill, S.2371, passed recently and signed into law. Instead, legislators decided to punt these matters to a Department of Corrections “study”:
“The department of correction, in consultation with the department of telecommunications and cable, shall study and report on: (i) the cost of local and long-distance telephone service provided to prisoners in department of correction facilities and houses of correction; (ii) a comparison of the rates with comparable residential telephone service; and (iii) information relative to commissions and revenue collected as part of telephone services provided to prisoners in department of correction facilities and houses of correction. The report shall be filed with the house and senate chairs of the joint committee on the judiciary, the house and senate chairs of the joint committee on public safety and security and the house and senate chairs of the joint committee on telecommunications, utilities and energy not later than December 31. 2018.”
Unfortunately, the Department of Corrections has a glaring conflict of interest. The DOC itself profits from prison phone contract kickbacks, so it will be interesting to see what sorts of justifications they cook up for maintaining their own cushy deal with Securus.
It’s shameful and jaw-dropping but, despite commendable individual efforts, the Legislature has shown that it is unwilling to end the sleazy practices of price-gouging a mainly indigent prison population and permitting public officials to acccept kickbacks.
As promised, I’m sending you the Action Alert I promised last week.
With hope fading for protections for our immigrant neighbors, sitting around doing nothing is not an option. There are several key pieces of Safe Communities legislation that can still make it into the 2019 state budget as amendments. These provisions have broad public support and give critical protections to all immigrants, regardless of status.
Sen. Jamie Eldridge, sponsor of the Safe Communities Act, has filed an amendment advancing four key protections from the bill. His amendment has a good chance of succeeding but we need to get as many Senators as possible to endorse it — and be ready to fight for it.
The “ask” from Senators is simple — take a stand for immigrant families in the Commonwealth by co-sponsoring Senator Eldridge’s amendment #1147. We also want Senators to oppose Senator Fattman’s amendment #1136, which would allow police to detain people for federal immigration authorities.
We are also asking for support for Senator Eldridge’s amendment #176, to boost funding for adult basic education and English classes from $31 million to $34.5 million, and Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr’s amendment #658, to boost funding for the Citizenship for New Americans (CNAP) program from $400,000 to $500,000. Not only should we encourage eligible immigrants to become U.S. citizens — we should provide adequate program funding.
Hello, my name is __________ and I live in [city or town]. I am calling to urge Senator [name] to take a stand for immigrant families by co-sponsoring Senator Eldridge’s amendment #1147. I urge the Senator to advocate with Senate leadership, and vote for the amendment when it comes to the floor. I also support amendment #176 to boost funding for ESL programs, and amendment #658 to boost funding for the CNAP program. In addition, the Senator should OPPOSE Sen. Fattman’s amendment #1136, which would end protections gained under the Lunn decision. Massachusetts should be taking the lead in protecting immigrant families. Anything less in the Trump era is unacceptable. Thank you for taking my call!
Call the Senate Leadership:
You can reach Senate President Harriette Chandler at 617-722-1500 and Senate Ways & Means Chairwoman Karen Spilka at 617-722-1640. The message for them:
Hello, my name is __________ and I live in [city or town]. I am calling to urge President Chandler / Chairwoman Spilka to take a stand for immigrant families by supporting Senator Eldridge’s amendment #1147 and OPPOSING Sen. Fattman’s amendment #1136, which would end the protections we won under the Lunn decision. I also urge support for amendment #176 to boost funding for ESL programs, and amendment #658 to boost funding for the CNAP program. Massachusetts should be taking the lead in protecting immigrant families. Anything less in the Trump era is unacceptable. Thank you for taking my call!
Want to make things really easy? Use MIRA’s Phone2Action tool, which automatically connects you — no need to look up names or phone numbers! Keep your call short and sweet. Call volume matters: we want to demonstrate overwhelming support for Senator Eldridge’s amendment. If you get a voicemail, make sure to leave your name, address and phone number!
What else can I do?
Call your Senator and Senate leaders today! Then forward this message to everyone you know. And for the greatest impact, sign up to phone bank with the ACLU on May 17, 22 and/or 23!
American democracy begins with the word “we.” We the People. It’s a tiny word with a Napoleon complex: a third person pronoun appropriate to any group to which the speaker belongs. It seems so obvious yet the meaning of “we” has always been a bit dishonest, and the groups to which “we” belong equally so.
David Swanson’s book Curing Exceptionalism makes this point. In an interview discussing the book Swanson says that, if there is any hope of ending American Exceptionalism, citizens need to be very clear about what is meant when the word is invoked. “‘We just bombed Syria.’ — I didn’t bomb Syria. Did you?” he asks. “At least part of the time, try to see if you can make ‘we’ mean a smaller or larger group than a nation.”
When a white supremacist says “we are a nation of laws” while advocating for the deportation of brown people, what he really means is that current laws apply to brown people, not the colonists who took the land from them. That’s a whole different “we.”
Or when a liberal repudiates torture because “this is not who we are,” he’s speaking only for himself and not about the torture long practiced by police, the military, or foreign despots trained at American institutions like the School of the Americas. Torturers are most certainly who we are.
Sometimes the problem is that state propaganda uses “we” when referring to government policies it wants citizens to rally around. Dissidents, such as young Jews who oppose the Israeli occupation, say “not in my name” to make it clear that their views differ from what are assumed to be mainstream Jewish views about Israel.
Sometimes the problem is that “we” are ignorant of belonging to a group or even knowing much about that group. Most White Americans, for example, don’t really think of ourselves as a separate racial category. We don’t recognize white privilege and we don’t question its generational benefits. After all, we’re the “default.” Everyone else is a category — at least until you start trying to see through another man’s eyes.
And this brings us back to American Exceptionalism, nationalism, and overt racism. All are founded on the notion that “we” have some God-given right to privileged status — whether it be a white man in the boardroom or the American ambassador at the UN Security Council. It matters little that White America spans different European (and non-European) cultures, languages, socioeconomic and educational levels. Like an AMEX card, membership has its privileges. When an individual chooses membership in a “we” based on a ridiculous proposition — that skin color, religion or nationality say more about us than common struggles and interests — that choice is clearly all about the privilege.
The more you ponder the word, the less “we’ makes much sense. Though long banished from polite conversation, Americans having an honest reckoning with race and class would do the most to transform a scatter of unhappy, divided individuals into a truer version of the word”we.”
And only after we have sorted out our common domestic identity will we be able to sit down at the UN as just one nation among many others.
Donald Trump’s call to “Make America Great Again” has little to do with greatness — and his supporters damn well know it. In word and deed the GOP has become the party of white racism and xenophobia. You’d think Democrats would want to do a better job of standing up for multiculturalism and human decency.
That’s what you’d think.
So it’s difficult to understand why, nationally, so little has been done to help DACA recipients as they twist in the wind. Or why Massachusetts House Speaker Bob DeLeo has done everything he can to shelve the Safe Communities Act (SCA) — not to mention most progressive pieces of legislation. Even a compromise SCA bill, which gave assurances to law enforcement, has gone nowhere.
With hope fading for protections for our immigrant neighbors, sitting around doing nothing is not an option. There are several key pieces of Safe Communities legislation that can still make it into the state budget as amendments. These provisions have broad public support and give critical protections to all immigrants, regardless of status.
Stay tuned. Next week the Massachusetts Safe Communities Coalition will be calling upon everyone to take to the phone banks and call up state legislators to approve these amendments. I will be forwarding details.
Say yes to multiculturalism. Say yes to human decency.
Donald Trump’s call to “Make America Great Again” has little to do with greatness — and his supporters damn well know it. In word and deed the GOP has become the party of white racism and xenophobia. You’d think Democrats would want to do a better job of standing up for multiculturalism and human decency.
That’s what you’d think.
So it’s difficult to understand why, nationally, so little has been done to help DACA recipients as they twist in the wind. Or why Massachusetts House Speaker Bob DeLeo has done everything he can to shelve the Safe Communities Act (SCA) — not to mention most progressive pieces of legislation. Even a compromise SCA bill, which gave assurances to law enforcement, has gone nowhere.
With hope fading for protections for our immigrant neighbors, sitting around doing nothing is not an option. There are several key pieces of Safe Communities legislation that can still make it into the state budget as amendments. These provisions have broad public support and give critical protections to all immigrants, regardless of status.
Stay tuned. Next week the Massachusetts Safe Communities Coalition will be calling upon everyone to take to the phone banks and call up state legislators to approve these amendments. I will be forwarding details.
Say yes to multiculturalism. Say yes to human decency.
