gbaldwin

Electoral Lessons from the Slums: When You Got Nothing, You Got Nothing to Lose

Posted on July 14, 2017July 14, 2017 by gbaldwin

In the following piece, “Electoral Lessons from the Slums: When You Got Nothing, You Got Nothing to Lose,” Talley Diggs discusses the political ramifications of how citizens interpret the concepts of peace and justice. Because of their history of political violence under corrupt and autocratic regimes, Kenyan citizens have long considered the two mutually exclusive. With impending elections next month, Mtaani University students are training to become Peace Ambassadors in the hopes of combating the post-electoral violence that spread in the wake of the 2008 elections. They hope to show that peace and justice are not mutually exclusive; that Kenyan citizens deserve both from their government.

This article is a stark reminder that we, too, in America deserve a government that does not see peace and justice as opposite ends of the political spectrum, that does not use violence to enforce its own concept of justice or suppress its citizenry into false pacification. Until peace and justice are not mutually exclusive terms, but complementary ones, we will not benefit from the ideal democracy at the heart of the American experiment. Our forefathers were Enlightenment idealists; flawed idealists, but idealists nonetheless. By pursuing a more perfect union of peace and justice, we as American citizens continue to walk the road they paved and show other nations how to walk that same road. We have stumbled and we will stumble again, but we must continue forward. Talley shows us how these Kenyan university students are leading the way; we would do well to follow in their footsteps.

Talley Diggs is a graduate student at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University, where she is pursuing a Master’s in International Affairs with a focus in security. Her experiences in Africa began in 2013, when she worked for the UN World Food Programme in Tanzania. During the spring of 2017, Talley worked for the UN Foundation’s Better World Campaign, which promotes the critical work of the UN and lobbies for a strong US-UN partnership. This experience taught her advocacy skills that will be incredibly valuable during her tenure as a Peace Fellow in Kenya.

“We are nobodies. If we don’t throw stones, no one will pay attention to us. Nothing is lost when our lives are lost,” a student in Huruma slum uttered despondently during a peace training. Last week CPI conducted trainings of community “Peace Ambassadors” for over 80 students at University Mtaani, the first and only higher education center located in a slum in all of Kenya. CPI’s Director, Deputy Director, and I were invited to Huruma as educators of nonviolent practices and conflict resolution, but we left having learned much about poverty and the perpetuation of political violence from our pupils.

The student’s bleak words haunt me as the Kenyan general election on August 8^thapproaches. The political stakes are high, regardless of which party is announced as winner. Forgotten in the candidates’ manifestos, Nairobi’s slum dwellers—an estimated 60% of the population concentrated on only 6% of the urban sprawl’s territory—have little to gain and even less to lose in the election.

A Brief Political History with a Tribal Twist

Kenya has never succeeded in conducting a free and fair election, and I’m skeptical that in five weeks’ time I will witness the ultimate legitimization of Kenyan democracy. The feat of a credible election would require accurate and independent ballot counts; detection of fraudulent voters (previous elections have had a serious issue with tens of thousands of deceased voters remaining registered); uninhibited access to polling sites; and absence of voter intimidation.

On August 8^th, Kenyans will head to the polls to either re-elect President Uhuru Kenyatta of the Jubilee party for a second term or elect Raila Odinga of the National Super Alliance (NASA) party. Both candidates come from prominent families whose political involvement spans the country’s history even before independence. Incumbent Uhuru’s father, Jomo Kenyatta, was the first president of Kenya. Meanwhile, NASA candidate Raila’s father, Oginga Odinga, was the first vice president under Kenyatta. The Odinga family has commanded the opposition movement for decades, most notably when Raila and his father led a failed coup attempt in 1982. Despite many years of efforts to register political parties that were met with political oppression and arrests, Oginga Odinga died in 1994 never knowing the presidency. His son Raila carries on the family legacy as he vies for the position for the fourth time—likely the 72-year-old’s last attempt.

Are there only two candidates running for president? In fact, there are at least six other candidates officially registered, but they are hardly even considered by pollsters. Why? Because party lines are tribal lines and, despite any attempts to encourage voters to make policy-informed choices, the overwhelming majority of Kenyans still blindly cast their votes for their tribe’s candidate. I could talk about Uhuru and Raila’s platforms, but they aren’t that different or profound, and nor do they even matter. It’s a numbers game, and the party garnering the support of the biggest tribes (or the ruling party in control of government officials…) wins.

What does this look like in the context of the 2017 election? Well, Uhuru is Kikuyu, which is the largest tribe (22%) in Kenya. Kikuyus have dominated Kenyan politics and been represented by three presidents out of Kenya’s four total. The current vice president William Ruto, who is running alongside Uhuru, is Kalenjin (12%), a tribe represented by one Kenyan president, Moi. Therefore, a substantial portion of the electorate is represented by Jubilee’s Kikuyu-Kalenjin political partnership. The Luhyas and the Luos each make up about 13% of the population, and the remaining populace is a compilation of 38 other small tribes in Kenya. Raila is a Luo, a community that harbors much animosity towards Kikuyus and vice versa. His party, NASA, is an opposition alliance that was formed in 2017 with the strict purpose of uniting minority parties and tribes with his Luo supporters to combat a Kikuyu-Kalenjin majority.

Over the course of his long political career, including his role as Kenya’s first and last Prime Minister from 2008-2013, Raila has garnered many passionate followers from a range of tribes. His appointment to Prime Minister was a response to extreme post-election violence when he lost to the incumbent Mwai Kibaki, a Kikuyu. Within fifteen minutes of announcing Raila’s defeat in the 2007 election, an obvious case of illegitimacy and fraud, Luos allegedly began attacking Kikuyus. Riots and state-sanctioned violence exploded throughout the Rift Valley and across Kenya’s slums. An estimated 1,500 lost their lives and hundreds of thousands were displaced in the first two months of 2008.

The international community, led by Kofi Annan, intervened to create a leadership position for Raila in hopes of appeasing his followers and suppressing the tension. Eventually the International Criminal Court investigated responsibility for the horrific violence and indicted Uhuru and Ruto for crimes against humanity and inciting ethnic violence. After ICC charges were confirmed against them in 2012, Uhuru and Ruto made a timely announcement for their presidential and vice presidential candidacies in the 2013 election. Alas, they conveniently won the election—which fortunately only saw mild protests and violence, but also saw 2 million votes tallied than registered voters listed—and the ICC dropped all charges against Uhuru in 2014. The Prime Minister position was discontinued.

Never Forget…Never Again

Will the 2017 election resemble 2007 or 2013? Will it be rigged with widespread violence or rigged with relative acceptance? Or will Kenya surprise the world with its first impartial election? This is a tough test to pass. If Uhuru genuinely win, he may still be accused of influencing the turnout and violence may follow. If Uhuru loses, he may pull some strings and still be announced winner, in which case violence may follow. If Raila genuinely wins and Uhuru peacefully steps down, then we will give Kenya’s democratic system a pat on the back but there will likely still be violence. If Raila loses, whether truly or by vote tampering, his supporters may cry rigged-election wolf and violence may follow. In the best scenario, the election will be carried out seamlessly without a single car set on fire—but I’m mentally catering towards caution.

There remains a pervasive sense of election anxiety among Kenyans who remember the 2008 violence. Billboards and posters are all over Nairobi displaying a gruesome image of unattended toddlers holding each other in a street full of rioting men yielding machetes or a close-up of a broken skull cracked upon rubble in a pool of effervescent blood as a tower of tires burns in the background. Beneath the graphic images, there is always the Peaceful Elections Campaign’s slogan “Never Forget…Never Again!” One sign reads, “our brethren’s lives are worth more than just a few hundred shillings,” referring to those who followed violent orders in 2008 for wages as low as 100 or 200 shillings ($1-2).

I hear constant talk about the importance and necessity of peaceful elections on the radio, on television, and in the candidates’ speeches. Rhetoric of non-violence and peace dialogues are everywhere I look—that is until I looked outside of my sphere of educated friends and into the slums. Because I had heard nothing but positivity, I had written off the idea of post-election violence. Many of my friends here are still convinced nothing will come of it, and I so hope that they prove me wrong. However, after spending time discussing electoral tension with University Mtaani students in Huruma slum, I felt less hope for them or for Kenya.

A Peace Ambassador trainee analyzes the challenges in her ward

Justice or Peace: A Dangerous Dichotomy

The focus of CPI’s training was peace, but another significant word arose from our discussions: justice. I was discouraged to find a widely-held belief that peace and justice are mutually exclusive outcomes rather than complimentary achievements. The trainees informed me that the two words had been politically charged by the campaigns. Uhuru was evoking peace on the campaign trail to signal his administration’s progress and his desire to unite the nation under his leadership. Although, there have been claims by opponents that Uhuru’s push for peaceful elections is a sugar-coated method of pacifying resistance and undermining the opposition. After all, who could vote against peace? Conversely, Raila is pulling the justice card calling for a more just Kenya and just elections, which insinuates that his loss would be a political injustice.

By pitting peace and justice against each other, the two candidates are creating a dangerous dichotomy and widening the chasms in society. The contentious peace versus justice debate, often found in the transitional justice sphere, is not conducive to Kenya’s democratic development at this time. Voters deserve peace and justice from their democracy.

Hilary stands before a “Never Forget…Never Again” poster as he directs an egg-drop activity symbolizing the fragility of life and peace

CPI’s training engaged students in lively discussions and activities to understand the origins and nature of conflict, to differentiate conflict and violence, to analyze problems in the students’ slum wards, and to create action plans for responding to conflict before, during, and after the election. The students we addressed at University Mtaani are not your average college students. While enrolled in Mtaani’s Diploma in Civic and Development Education program, they are also community leaders and many run their own nonprofits in Huruma and Kibera slums. The students range in age from about thirty-five to sixty, as many of them never had access to higher education until Mtaani came to them in the slums. It’s no coincidence that Mtaani means “street school.” These passionate students jumped at the opportunity to enroll in a diploma program to officially study civic engagement and development—knowledge that many of them were already applying to their communities.

Mtaani students are developing skills that will enable them to return to their wards and lead local solutions to local problems. When I asked an older gentleman, a Muslim cleric by profession, why he had chosen to return to school, he told me, “You can’t transform others until you transform yourself.” This inspiring group of local leaders is in the process of educational transformation to better themselves and the future of their communities. Through our training sessions, CPI hoped to spread the message that peace and justice are possible to the very actors who would play a critical role in their communities’ responses to election results.

Peace: A Force More Powerful

I quickly learned two lessons. First, the political climate was far worse than I had gaged. My previous conversations with expatriates and middle class Kenyans had not reflected the violent realities of the specific demographic most vulnerable to post-election violence. Even my Kenyan colleagues were stunned into silence by the trainees’ tales. When I asked a woman to compare the current election temperature with that of 2007, she spat “It’s the same, actually it may be worse!”

Students gave accounts of bribes they’d been offered and death threats they’d received from various campaigns. Men told us that they’re already sending their wives and children back to their families’ villages to get them out of the slums before chaos unleashed. It seemed really early to be relocating, but they explained to me that voters wouldn’t be able to travel in the days leading up to the election. Those who are registered to vote in Nairobi would not be allowed to leave with their precious vote. Upon trying to board busses, their IDs would likely be checked by unofficial campaign members and if they represented an influential vote (if they were Kikuyu or Luo) they may be denied departure. For the trainees who were planning to stay and cast their votes, many were relocating within the slums. Why? Safety in numbers. There is already a shuffling of people among the wards so that tribes can concentrate and feel a sense of protection. One student described how gangs have formed in preparation for the violence. These accounts really concerned me in their mild—and eerie—resemblance to pre-war conditions.

The second lesson presented itself from the challenge of preaching peaceful reactions to rightfully angry voters. How do you tell the homeless and hungry man before you that he should harness his emotions through his words and not his fists? How do you convince the exhausted woman—who has brought an infant to the training and has a family of six at home that shares a bucket for a toilet because the government doesn’t provide running water—that she should remain calm and wait five years for the next election? Our students all want sustainable, definite peace, but they have yet to witness a successful means of achieving it.

“If we don’t throw stones, no one will pay attention to us,” echoes in my mind. Peaceful slums allow the world to look the other way as people die in the streets. Burning slums have at least received moments of (horrific) recognition. A student explained, “politicians use us as banks of votes, then we are forgotten.” Violence has served as a form of communication for the voiceless and forgotten. During the sessions, CPI strived to educate the trainees in nonviolent forms of communication to express their political discontent. After a video was showed on Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., I was amazed to discover how foreign the concept of peaceful force was to them—or at least how it wasn’t an intrinsic civic value. As always, education is the solution; the education of peace will not occur in a day of training but over the course of generations. It will take 80 strong students this election to promote peaceful responses. Their influence will empower their communities and maybe next election entire sections of slums will follow suit.

A student at Mtaani smiles after training

Wondering what you can do to bring peace to Kenya? Please click below to contribute to our work with pastoralists through Global Giving!

This piece was originally published at The Advocacy Project.

Testimony Regarding Misogynistic Activity of Rep. Robert Fisher

Posted on June 16, 2017 by gbaldwin

Testimony Regarding Misogynistic Activity of Rep. Robert Fisher,

To the Honorable Members of the NH House Legislative Administration Committee

Delivered by Representative Ellen Read, Rockingham 17. May 12, 2017.

Introduction: Why Does This Testimony Still Matter a Month Later?

This testimony regarding the misogyny of a NH State Representative is still relevant for two big reasons. First, Fisher got off the hook by quitting, which he did only because he realized he was going to face a perjury charge. The House should have made it abundantly clear his worldview was not acceptable. And yes, he should still face that perjury charge, and the citizens of NH need to pressure the Attorney General to pursue it, as the AG has given us the run-around about it. We need your help.

Second, we in the House are still being told there is not culture of misogyny or sexism, even though it is in front of us every day. Women are constantly silenced. And outspoken women like Rep. Sherry Frost are crucified for speaking truth, while men can say and do unthinkable things with impunity. False equivalencies and double standards abound. And it is in the NH House because it is in our society. We MUST call it out. Speaking up doesn’t make us victims; it makes us trailblazers, like those who came before us.

Testimony Regarding Misogynistic Activity of Rep. Robert Fisher

Delivered by Representative Ellen Read, Rockingham 17. May 12, 2017.

First I want to talk about misogyny, because I think it is a word used often but not well understood by many. Misogyny is the broad discrimination, active hatred, and belief in the inherent inferiority of women.

With that in mind, I’d like to start out by having you participate in a rather abstract a thought experiment…

What is the difference between the discrimination, hatred, and denial of human rights of a select group of people based on their body parts, and the discrimination, hatred, and denial of human rights of a select group of people based on the COLOR of their body parts? In other words, what is the difference between racism and misogyny?

I submit that there is no difference, logically or ethically. It is a sad tendency of human nature and human history to try to pick out a group of people, often that are physically identifiable, and dominate them in order to feel superior and powerful.

So, I have another question for you to ask yourselves, what would we do, as the NH House of Representatives, if a fellow member said something like: “to give blacks autonomy is to take away the very thing that made race relations realistic—what I dislike is the general attitude that somehow we owe blacks something for work….”

Or how about: “Before emancipation, there was less freedom, and therefore it was not necessary to teach blacks consequence. Consequence was strictly a white’s game…Blacks enjoy the autonomy that civil rights has afforded them, but don’t expect the relics from back in the day to continue to benefit you without the sacrifices you were making… Civil Rights took the lid off Pandora’s Box, but blacks never internalized, learned, or passed down the concept of responsibility for their freedoms.”

Or what would we do if a member said, “Slavery isn’t an absolute bad, because the slaver I think probably likes it a lot. I think he’d say it’s quite good, really,” or, “blacks just wish they were good enough to be enslaved by whites?”

What would this body do?

What if we found out that this member was responsible for founding a branch of the Ku Klux Klan, with 200,000 members?

I ask you, what would be our ethical responsibility in that circumstance, to maintain the integrity of this body?

How are the actual comments of Robert Fisher any different, really? Other than the fact that he discriminates, hates, and believes to be inferior a group of people based on their body parts, rather than the color of those parts, he is the same as any Klan member.

So, here is the thing… I absolutely believe in this individual’s first amendment rights to say all this filth. I am of the Larry Flynt school of thinking about the first amendment. He said, “If the First Amendment will protect a scumbag like me, it will protect all of you.”

But this is not about what was SAID. This is about who this individual IS; what he BELIEVES.

If he had never said these things, but it came to light he merely silently believed them, our problem would be the same.

There are plenty of jobs that this individual would not only be woefully unequipped to hold, but would be dangerous in. For example, he could never be a rape counselor, or any kind of therapist. He also could not work in any school setting based on his beliefs about adult relationships with children. In fact, we all know that he would be immediately fired from almost any corporate job, and probably most jobs, if it came to light that this is what he believes.

And WHY is that? Because as a society, as a nation, we have come to agree on a few core principles. We have decided that as a society, we are NO LONGER a people who hate other races, or believe in having sexual relationships with children. And likewise, we no longer believe that women are inherently inferior, are not due their equal human rights, or must be dominated. We have agreed as a country that those things are all part of a shameful past, but this is not who we are NOW.

It is so understood and accepted that we do not believe these things, that unless you explicitly state that you are FOR them, there is the societal presumption that OF COURSE you are against them. OF COURSE you are not racist. OF COURSE you are not sexist. OF COURSE you know rape is horrible. This is our societal presumption and norm.

So, if this individual could not hold almost any job in our country because of his beliefs about women, then what bar is there to be an “Honorable” member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives?

I put to you that unless this individual explicitly RAN HIS CAMPAIGN on a women-hating and pro-rape platform, that he essentially LIED BY OMMISSION to the voters of his district, and so violated their sacred trust. After all, can you imagine him getting elected if he revealed his true position on women?

How can he faithfully represent a district when he does not even believe that over half of his constituents are entitled to basic freedoms or deserve not to be physically violated? There is no district in the country that he could represent when he so fundamentally disagrees with an inherent part of our culture.

Therefore, he is in blatant violation of his sworn oath of duty. It is now the ETHICAL MANDATE of this committee to maintain the integrity of this body and recommend that he be essentially fired, like he would anywhere else in the state or country… and it is up to the full body of the House or Representatives to do the actual firing.

A steady stream of injustices does not earn Republicans moral superiority

Posted on June 16, 2017 by gbaldwin

By Gunnar Baldwin, Jr.

The narrow passage of the American Health Care Act in the U.S. House of Representatives is a powerful call to action for any citizen who has a conscience. Almost daily since the inauguration we have heard news of another executive or legislative action that will create additional hardships for the poor, the sick, the aged, minorities, the foreign-born, and those affiliated with the wrong gender. Through no fault of their own, vast numbers of people have been transformed into scapegoats – parasites obstructing the Great White American Dream. The government actors who are busily crafting policies to deny them equitable treatment are simultaneously staking their claim to the moral high ground. This is now even more true, since offices designed to protect civil rights will not be given priority or full funding under Trump’s administration and the Department of Justice headed by Jeff Sessions.

It is time for Democrats to expose this farce as starkly and succinctly as the young boy in The Emperor’s New Clothes. The inconsistency between minimum standards of ethical behavior and the wholesale disregard for the plight of the least fortunate in our society is happening in plain sight and could not be more obvious. Trump, who framed his campaign on protecting the interests of the little guy, is pursuing an agenda that is diametrically the opposite, openly and without reservation channeling resources away from programs that aid these constituents and straight to the pockets of his fellow billionaires.

For me, the myth of Donald Trump as a champion for the working class embodies the fundamental difference in assumptions underlying the Democrat and Republican parties. Republicans operate under the assumption that federal and state government bodies owe nothing to anyone, ignoring the fact that vast disparities in wealth reflect disparities in opportunity rather than different work ethics. Although Paul Ryan has stated that “We have got this tailspin of culture, in our inner cities in particular, of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working or learning to value the culture of work,” the truth is starkly different. Persistent unemployment is much more often the result of decades of neglect and underfunding of public schools, after school programs, vocational training, and the lack of other opportunity-building programs in poorer neighborhoods.

A child born to a poor family in the US faces formidable barriers to educational and economic advancement. A child born to a wealthy family is more likely to expect a streamlined path to opportunity. The Republican assumption ignores how different segments of the population became poor or wealthy in the first place. To a significant extent, current income disparity in the US is structurally built on the lingering impacts of slavery and the exploitation of waves of immigrants from disfavored ethnicities.

A second flawed assumption underlying the views of many Republicans is the idea that bad things only happen to other people. Like it or not, we are all participants in a commonly-shared risk pool that includes natural disasters, health threats, violent crime, bankruptcy, and other threats. We do not get to opt out. Yet many people do not recognize this fact until they need expensive cancer treatment or their home is ruined by a flood. And proactive measures to prevent many types of harm are deemed expensive and wasteful.

Moral bankruptcy is the Achille’s heel of the Republican Party. The myth of moral superiority is a central pillar holding up the house of smoke and mirrors that calls itself conservatism. The mindset that poverty and poor health are always the result of irresponsibility, immorality, and laziness is the convenient argument that absolves government of having to intervene on anyone’s behalf. It the pretext that allows wealthy senators to spend their days crafting new tax cuts for themselves and their colleagues instead of working for constituents who are struggling with two jobs to cling to the bottom of the economic ladder.

Under the guise of shrinking big government (code for shrinking their fair share of the tax burden), the Administration and its allies are funding tax loopholes and subsidies for favored industries by slashing budgets for education, cancer screenings, vocational training, early intervention programs, opioid hotlines, and veterans’ benefits.

Finally, while the Republican Party cultivates the myth that the less fortunate are the problem obstructing America’s return to greatness, its messengers are consistently supported by Evangelical conservatives. As long as the magic words “pro-life” are uttered, the budget for virtually any program that supports the lives of infants, growing children, and adults is fair game for the chopping block. It is time for Democrats to burst the bubble in which US conservatism exists and challenge the mindset that allows the giant cop-out that is central to its approach to government.

We do not need to look far to see how the President’s agenda is leading to a perverse reversal of campaign priorities when it comes to fixing the most pernicious problems here at home, notably with respect to healthcare. Although Trump made a campaign promise to help end the opiod crisis, the American Health Care Act actually exascerbates this problem. By cutting healthcare funding across the board to fund tax breaks for the top 1%, the AHCA erodes already inadquate resources for responding to one of New Hampshire’s most vexing challenges. It spotlights the greatest bait-and-switch America has ever seen in the arena of campaign promises: the wide gulf between rhetoric and following through with funding that exemplifies conservative politics today.

Report from Concord – May 31, 2017

Posted on June 5, 2017June 5, 2017 by gbaldwin

By Rep. Marjorie Porter, Hillsborough

This term I am serving on the House Election Law committee, and oh, boy! Sparks sure do fly some days! Especially so as we dealt with SB 3, dubbed by some as “the voter suppression bill.” Students, especially, are concerned. We listened to seven hours of public testimony—most in opposition—and held several work sessions, before voting to recommend it ought to pass along party lines—Republicans for, Democrats against.

Election Law is seen as one of the most partisan committees now-a-days, but it wasn’t always so. According to one long-serving representative, there were fewer bills to deal with in the past. The goal of the committee then was to encourage voter participation by making the voting process as smooth and hassle-free as possible, while maintaining its integrity. Both parties shared the goal, and bills were recommended to pass or fail with bipartisan support. As one former committee chair told us, “I served ten years on Election Law, we prided ourselves in being non-partisan. Less than 5% of votes were party line. Very few.”

But something changed. And that change occurred right around 2006.

Students of NH history will recall 2006 as the election year Democrats won control of the House, Senate, Executive Council, and the Governorship for the first time since 1874. I imagine this came as quite a shock to the state’s Republican Party.

And in 2008, NH Democrats held their majority at the State House. Barack Obama was elected President, and we elected Democrats Jeanne Shaheen, Paul Hodes, and Carol Shea-Porter to Congress.

How could this even be possible in rock-solid Republican New Hampshire?

At first this shift was blamed on all those migrants from Taxachusetts, but a survey done by UNH at the time disproved that theory. The majority of our Massachusetts newcomers were Republican, and they settled mostly in the southern part of the state. It was the smaller towns upstate that seemed to be turning blue. (Indeed, that still seems to be holding true today. State representatives from most of the towns along our southern border—Hudson, Pelham, Derry, Londonderry, for example—are Republicans, and the GOP candidates for higher offices also do well there.)

So, if newcomers weren’t the reason the state turned blue, then it must be something else. In the eyes of many, there was no way Democrats could have won unless there was something shady going on. There must be voter fraud—massive voter fraud. And oh, of course, all those students voting.

It’s interesting to note Secretary of State Gardener has said he first heard mention of those phantom “busloads of voters from Massachusetts” in 2006.

It’s important to note here that study after study has shown there is no evidence that in-person voter fraud is going on in NH—the most recent coming out of Dartmouth a few months ago. And even in these days of cell-phone cameras, there is not one photograph of a bus from Massachusetts unloading fraudulent voters at New Hampshire polling places. No reports to the Secretary of State or the Attorney General either. And if Democrats are being shipped in to vote, why do all our southern border towns remain so solidly Republican?

None the less, the myths persist. Even the President believes them.

Politics being what it is, the Red Tide of 2010 brought the NH House and Senate back under Republican control, and Bill O’Brien became Speaker. Himself a former Democrat from Massachusetts, he was determined to do something about this perceived voter fraud. In 2011 he was caught on tape telling a Tea Party group he wanted to get rid of same day registration, and prevent students from voting here, because they were young and foolish and voted liberal.

Pretty much from then on, there has been a partisan divide on Election Law. Bill after bill is filed in an attempt to solve a problem that does not in fact exist.

To be honest, it is hard for either side to understand the others’ position. Although my Republican colleagues admit voter fraud is not rampant, they still believe it is happening, and laws need to be tightened to prevent even the perceived threat from occurring. They say even a few illegal votes threatens the integrity of our elections. We Democrats, alert to court rulings striking down voter ID laws in Texas and North Carolina as discriminatory, fear voter suppression, especially for our most vulnerable citizens—the poor, the homeless, and the elderly. We say even a few people disenfranchised by our laws threatens the integrity of our democracy.

SB 3 is a long and complicated bill, but my objections to it are basically two.

First, the form new voters must complete to register at the polls is long, and wordy, and often times difficult to understand. It took my husband eight minutes to complete. Although he is a former high school civics teacher, there were terms he did not understand, and with which he needed help. It seems like a literacy test. Using this form on Election Day will create longer lines, and make more work for our already over-worked poll workers. It may well discourage people from voting.

And second, if those registering to vote do not have with them the required pieces of paper proving they live where they say they live, they will be required to produce them within a certain time period. If they fail to meet the deadline, government officials, either town or state, may show up at their door. They may be prosecuted and face a $5000 fine. All this, even if they did vote legally, and live where they said they live. Having government agents knock on your door and ask to see your papers seems like a bad scene from an old black and white WWII movie. Not the America I know.

In all those long hours of testimony, there was not one municipal voting official who testified in favor, although many did in opposition. They understand the new requirements are not needed.

Why I Am a Democrat

Posted on May 26, 2017May 26, 2017 by gbaldwin

Why am I a Democrat?

As I sit down to write this, we are in a moment of unparalleled Constitutional crisis. The head of the FBI has just been fired by the President in a move that can only be described as a not-so-subtle attempt to derail the Bureau’s investigation into Trump’s ties to Russia. The GOP is waging a war on women’s bodies, voting rights, education, and the environment. They are seeking to unravel the threads of democracy, restore inequality and control of the few over the many. This, friends, is a terrifying time, a waking nightmare. If you feel this way, please know that you are not alone.

Part of this crisis involves a larger philosophical question about semantics, the meaning of words, a field of study which has been uncannily politicized these days. Accusations of “fake news,” and the wielding of “alternative facts” and false equivalencies are all part of this administration’s attempt to gaslight this country into authoritarian control and submission. Words are emptied of meaning – freedom, access, choice cloak the forces of white supremacy, misogyny, bigotry, and xenophobia. It is not a coincidence that Orwell’s 1984 has returned to the bestseller’s list. Trump’s mandate, like that of Big Brother, is that we believe the party over the proof of our own eyes and ears.

Being a democrat means understanding what these words – freedom, access, choice – really mean, and what they should mean, to us as citizens of the world’s oldest democracy.

At this point, it would be useful to introduce myself and give you some background on me and my family.

First and foremost, I, Dr. Emma Van Ness, am an educator. I teach at Plymouth State as an adjunct, the exploited lower class of higher education. My specialization is twentieth century Italian studies, especially post-war Italian cinema, including neorealism. I teach Italian language and film classes, Sex and Cinema and Deviants in Cinema, classes which focus on psychos, sociopaths, Nazis, Fascists, and criminals. So as you can see, I am particularly qualified to criticize the Trump administration.

I am also a feminist. I spend most of my days talking about women, mothers, sisters,

John Anderson, 2-star General w/ Winston Churchill, Omar Bradley, Field Marshal Montgomery, and others

gender, but today, I want to focus on fathers, particularly my grandfathers and my great-grandfather. The men of the “Greatest Generation” in my family carry a special significance for me today, as a resistor.

But let me first tell you about my father. He voted for Trump. I begged him not to and laid out the issues that I found troubling, including the infamous pussy-grabbing video, and my own father refused to talk to me about it. He still refuses to address why I would find it so upsetting that my own father would vote for a man who bragged about sexual assault. He dismisses my “hysteria”, making communication with him nearly impossible. So I have looked to the older generations for guidance in the void that my father’s example has left in his wake as he abandons principle for party.

Why am I a democrat? Because besides being a “liberal academic elitist snowflake,” I have a ton of military history in my family.

My great-grandfather, General John B. Anderson, was a major general in World War II. A graduate of West Point and veteran of World War I, he commanded the XVI Corps of the Army Artillery Unit. His most significant achievement was ferrying Churchill across the Rhine, despite Eisenhower’s protestations. He fought in the Ruhr Valley and liberated Roermund, in the Netherlands, where there is a street named after him. He retired after the war since he was almost completely deaf because of the roaring of the cannons. I never knew him since he died before I was born, but his figure looms large over Van Ness family lore.

My paternal grandfather, Capt. Harper “Smiling Jack” Van Ness, went to the Naval Academy and became a naval aviator. Besides flying test planes and living on a Destroyer, where he developed a particular hatred for asparagus “because it was all we had to eat for months,” he later went to work for NASA as an aeronautical engineer. After the war, he considered being an astronaut for the nascent space program before he was told that at six foot three inches, he was too tall to fit in the shuttle. When I was a little girl, I still remember visiting him at the Air and Space Museum where he worked. He was the gentlest, kindest man, an avid athlete and runner, and me and all of my siblings and my daughter all share his broad, crooked smile.

My maternal grandfather, Dr. Humphrey “Jiggs” Cordes, was also a captain in the Navy during World War II. He was stationed in the Pacific, also on a Destroyer, awaiting the order to invade Japan when he saw a strange-looking plane, the Anola Gay, only to later discover what the contents of its belly had been. I can’t imagine what he must have felt knowing what he had been spared at the hands of nuclear annihilation, the horror he had been spared and the horror it had cost so many other innocent Japanese citizens at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He wept when he told me this story because he knew that war is horror, pure and simple, not a political chess game or a means to boost one’s approval ratings.

When Jiggs returned home, he earned his Ph.D. in Classics from University of Chicago, later to be my alma mater as well, and became a Latin teacher for more than fifty years at the Latin School in Chicago.

I most clearly followed this path, the one of education, because I have a reverence for learning and a curiosity and love for knowledge. Now, nationally and in New Hampshire, we have people running the Departments of Education who know nothing about the vocation of teaching – because it is a vocation. I am underpaid. I do not receive benefits. This is what my labor is worth under the current system, according to the powers that be. I do not teach business, accounting, or science, anything related to the STEM fields. I teach humanities.

Speaking of humanities, a field that is often dismissed, considered obsolete or elitist, I think it is worth noting what Churchill said as Prime Minister, when asked, during the war effort, if the government should cut funding for the arts. His response – “Then what are we fighting for?”

Jean Genet, the French playwright and novelist who was part of the so-called “School of the Absurd”, stated that fascism is theater. Hitler and Mussolini held rallies to consolidate power and make a show of their popular support. So does Trump. When he should be leading our nation, he is campaigning for re-election. Trump is a reality tv star from a rich family who received seven deferments from Vietnam. When I see him wearing a military jacket, pandering to veterans or the troops, he seems to me an oversize boy playing soldier. He speaks about using nuclear weapons and “bombing the shit” out of ISIS. Does he have any concept of what that means or what the consequences of those actions are? A nuclear bomb does not just hit terrorists, no matter how precisely and carefully you drop it.

Being a democrat means holding this administration accountable. When Trump dropped the MOAB, the “mother of all bombs” on an ISIS cave system in Afghanistan a few weeks ago, I was waiting for class to begin and mentioned the event to some of my students as they were milling in. One student exclaimed, “Awesome!” Later, I read that Donald Trump Jr. expressed the same satisfaction that his father had fulfilled his promise to “bomb the shit out of ISIS.”

War, to many Americans, has become an abstraction. To some, it is a burden and to some, a vocation, a career. Yet regardless of how you feel about the validity of the global conflicts we are involved in as a nation, it bears noting that we have the ability to, with our nuclear arsenals, destroy all life on the planet many times over. I do not feel safe and I fear for my family, my friends, my daughter, and humanity when our commander in chief is engaging in gratuitous saber-rattling at a country with a nuclear arsenal and another unstable, megalomaniacal leader at its helm. There is a thin line between bravery and stupidity and our President is squarely on the latter side.

So why am I a Democrat? To honor the memory of these men, my family’s Greatest Generation, who fought for democracy against the dark forces of racism, antisemitism, and authoritarian rule, but also to safeguard my daughter’s future from those who would erode her freedoms, her control over her own body, her education, her ability to have a future that is based on more than empty rhetoric.

The Neorealists, Rossellini, Visconti, and others, made films to record the consequences of Fascism and Nazism on the landscape of their cities and their psyches. Like them, we must hold these Fascists accountable through a call to realism, to reality, by not forgetting what words really mean, that semantics only allow their meaning to bend only so far, and most importantly, that in the wake of true horror and destruction, words fail and actions prevail.

I have heard my forefathers’ call to action in my own and I will not blink nor look away. It is time for us to act, to save our democracy for future generations.

That is why I am a Democrat.

Republican House Budget Fails to Pass

Posted on April 19, 2017May 26, 2017 by gbaldwin

Author: Rep. Suzanne Smith, Grafton 8 representing Plymouth, Hebron and Holderness

This past week was to be an exciting, if long week at the State House. The House Finance Committee’s budget was to be voted on by the full House membership. The Finance Committee worked for 2+ months to come up with a budget which would not raise ANY taxes or fees and would try to satisfy the many needs of our constituents (children, families, developmentally disabled, those in need of substance abuse funding, retirees) and our infrastructure (municipalities, roads, bridges, etc.)—the list is endless.

I voted NO on the Finance Committee’s budget bills, which came before us this week in the NH House. I was joined by a vast majority of Democrats, who wanted to see the State taking better care of its citizens, and by the new “House Freedom” caucus, which wants to see the State stop funding just about everything.

Some of the reasons I voted NO are:

The budget cut funding for the Governor’s Commission on Prevention, Treatment and Recovery by $6.5 million, which would have come from the profits of alcohol sales in the state (the alcohol fund has been underfunded in every budget).
The budget underfunded Domestic Violence Services by $1 million. This money would go directly to NH’s crisis centers. (Voices Without Violence is our local crisis center.)
Community Mental Health Services is underfunded by $10 million.
Underfunded the Developmental Disability System by $47 million, which will continue the waitlist for services—potentially 380 people—the highest number in at least 10 years.
The budget cut $256 thousand from heating expenses from Glencliff Nursing Home in Warren—a nursing home for individuals who also have a mental illness or developmental disability.
The budget eliminates funding for targeted full-day kindergarten from the Governor’s proposal.

There were a few items that Democrats advocated for and were included in the budget, but overall, I could not in good conscience vote “Ought to Pass”.

The Republican majority prides itself with putting together a budget without raising any taxes and fees. How can they manage to do this? Well, first, this budget raids RGGI—a dedicated fund that helps consumers cut energy costs. Second, Alcohol Fund monies should be going towards substance abuse treatment, where it is truly needed. Instead that money will, once again, go to the General Fund. Third, the House passed KENO, a form of gambling popular in Massachusetts, which will potentially bring in money, if it passes the Senate.

Unfortunately, many of the cuts in the budget (such as domestic violence cuts) mean that the State is not eligible for federal matching funds.

What next? The Senate has already begun work on their version of the budget, and it will need to come to the House once they have finalized their deliberations. By June 30, it is hoped that NH will have a budget which will get us through the next 2 years. Stay tuned.

Scott Pruitt: Bad News and Challenges Ahead for New Hampshire

Posted on March 24, 2017March 24, 2017 by gbaldwin

The appointment of Scott Pruitt to head the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has prompted worries concerning the likely impact of his policies on New Hampshire, as well as New England more broadly. Although the Tenth Amendment of the US Constitution reserves broad latitude to New Hampshire to address many environmental matters at the state level, there are many ways in which the federal government can override and influence state efforts.

Scott Pruitt is fundamentally opposed to the EPA’s mission to help ensure a clean environment and manage the country’s natural resources in a manner that serves both present and future generations. During his tenure as Attorney General of Oklahoma, he initiated numerous lawsuits challenging the Clean Water Rule and the EPA’s Clean Power Plan. He has continuously challenged the legitimacy of the EPA’s regulation of carbon dioxide and maintains that there is little scientific consensus on climate change. New Hampshire is already profoundly affected by the early effects of climate change, and the State is downwind from major sources of air pollution in rustbelt states. While New Hampshire does not contribute significantly to these problems, it does stand to suffer the increasingly severe adverse impacts. This should alarm anyone with a love for the natural world or an economic stake in tourism, forestry, or agriculture, to name a few.

[blockquote text=”The source of Mr. Pruitt’s positions on the environment should be centerpiece of scrutiny and a central basis for efforts to resist his agenda as EPA head. ” show_quote_icon=”yes”]

The source of Mr. Pruitt’s positions on the environment should be centerpiece of scrutiny and a central basis for efforts to resist his agenda as EPA head. His views are not the result of candid disagreement over scientific findings, but are nakedly the product of his unabashed support for the oil and gas industries – his primary constituents. The connection between these constituents and his EPA agenda could not be more clear.

For years, Scott Pruitt has had a cozy relationship with Devon Energy and other energy companies, tailoring his actions in his former positions to align with the interests of extractive industries like oil, gas, and coal. Furthermore, it is no secret that Mr. Pruitt has received hundreds of thousands of dollars of contributions from these industries. He is a seasoned member of an inside club that knows that serious action on climate change would not only undermine, but collapse, the value of fossil fuel assets and the lucrative profits they generate. The fact that new jobs and opportunities could – and must – come from renewable energy and a green economy is an anathema to his sponsors’ entrenched interests.
Even more alarmingly, the new head of the EPA has often allowed his energy company staff to draft the text of his own reports, bills, and personal correspondence – often using text drafted by oil company reps verbatim. During his confirmation hearings he never mentioned the earthquakes in Oklahoma that were widely attributed to fracking. Nor did he mention the countless families that now have poisoned wells or flammable kitchen faucets. Now Mr. Pruitt is poised to begin dismantling over 50 years of progress in reversing environmental destruction.

[1. Jeremy Diamond and Rene Marsh, Emails reveal Pruitt’s behind-the-scenes collaboration with oil and natural gas giant, CNN, (February 22, 2017) http://www.wmur.com/article/emails-reveal-pruitts-behind-the-scenes-collaboration-with-oil-and-natural-gas-giant/8966922.]

[2. NH DES, Fact Sheet: Global Climate Change and Its Impact on New Hampshire Skiing, https://www.des.nh.gov/organization/commissioner/pip/factsheets/ard/documents/ard-24.pdf ]

Be an Existentialist Hero from the Comfort of Your Own Home: Sartre’s The Flies and Political Resistance

Posted on March 8, 2017March 8, 2017 by gbaldwin

This has been a difficult few months for many of us. We may find ourselves at a crossroads, incredulous about what we witness on the news every day. Is this our reality? We do not recognize this America, or perhaps we recognize it all too well, from ugly episodes we thought we’d left far behind in a shameful past. From a philosophical standpoint, this government is denying verifiable truth with alternative facts, imposing walls and bans, manipulating the worst elements of human nature, fear and anger, for destructive ends. We have seen this before; history repeating itself in a bizarre festival of incompetence, hatred, bigotry, and greed.

It is not a coincidence that the word resistance has been revived under these circumstances [1]

[blockquote text=”We do not recognize this America, or perhaps we recognize it all too well, from ugly episodes we thought we’d left far behind in a shameful past. ” show_quote_icon=”yes”]

How do we resist? Perhaps we should consult some experts. Jean-Paul Sartre, the existentialist philosopher, along with his partner Simone de Beauvoir endured the humiliating experience of the German occupation of France during World War II. Sartre was even taken prisoner by the Nazis and escaped, returning to Paris where he and de Beauvoir survived together, writing and developing a politically engaged philosophy of existentialism which would become fashionable in America in the postwar period.

In 1943, Sartre writes the play, The Flies, a retelling of the classical Oresteia cycle, in which Orestes and his sister, Electra, return to their homeland of Argos to avenge the death of their father, Agamemnon, by killing their mother, Clytemnestra, and her new husband, Aegisthus. Orestes and Electra find Argos under a swarm of flies, Sartre’s metaphor for talking about Nazi-occupied Paris despite the censors.

Living in humiliation because of their illegitimate government, the citizens of Argos have become morally degraded and abject, filled with shame, anger and self-loathing. Avenging his father’s death is not enough; Orestes must rid the city of the flies and lift the scourge that has befallen his home.

The flies become the classical Furies and Orestes refuses Zeus’s aid in freeing the city of them. “An existentialist hero, rebelling against tyranny and taking on the weight of personal responsibility, he prefers to act freely and alone.”[2] Orestes must walk out of the city with the flies and liberate the city himself, without the help of the gods and Fates, who have proven to be unreliable and untrustworthy. The burden of Orestes’ freedom and the freedom of Argos lie on Orestes’ shoulders alone.

We now find ourselves surrounded by another swarm of flies. The buzzing is unmistakable. Yet the importance, the powerful message of Sartre’s existentialism is that it reminds us that

resisting is a choice, as it was then. We can choose to walk out of the city with the flies or live among them. “Sartre’s audience would have recognized the debilitating effects of the compromises most of them had to make, and the humiliation that came from living under tyranny.”[3] Freedom is a choice, personal and real, that we make every day. It is not given and we must fight for it. As difficult a burden as this can transform itself into the ultimate act of liberation.

Existentialist philosophy places the burden of action squarely on the individual. For that reason, it is both terrifying and liberating. During Nazi occupation, there were no more excuses for inaction and “any act of rebellion brought a real moral burden.”[4] For Sartre and his audience, their involvement in the Resistance meant real risks for themselves, their friends and family.

The risk of rebellion has become real for many of us again. We have sacrificed relationships to this administration, worried about the health and safety of our loved ones, and watched as dishonesty and discord divides our nation. Yet there is hope if we can recognize how each of us must make the decision daily to be like Orestes.

Sartre thus explains our existential burden; Zeus confronts an old woman who has heard the sounds of a murder in the streets below her home. “You’re quite old enough to have heard those huge cries that echoed and re-echoed for a whole morning in the city streets. What did you do about it?” Zeus asks. Sartre shows that the old woman too was responsible for the murder outside her door because she did nothing to stop it. “What could I do, a woman alone?” she exclaims. “I bolted my door.”[5]Now, like then, we cannot afford to bolt our doors.

We must not capitulate. We must not surrender. The stakes are too high.

Thanks to technology, the bolt becomes a metaphor we can overcome.

Be like Sartre. Be like de Beauvoir. Be like Han Solo and Princess Leia if you prefer! But be an existentialist hero from the comfort of your own home.

There is a role for everyone in the resistance.

[1] The Resistance never really went away; thanks, Star Wars!

[2] Bakewell, Sarah. At the Existentialist Café. New York, Random House, 2016. 158.

[3] Ibid.

[4] ibid.

[5] Sartre, The Flies. (1.1 50-1)