New England Public Radio

Journalists: Members Of The Opposition Party?

Commentator and journalist Shaheen Pasha has a rule in her house. Her kids are never allowed to tell each other to shut up. It’s not just a matter of politeness, she says. Shutting people up can be dangerous.

As a child, my Pakistani immigrant mother taught me no one has the right to silence another person. She told me to respect a person’s voice even if you disagree.

That lesson, delivered to me at age 4 , stuck with me as I became a foreign journalist, reporting from the Middle East. There, rulers and government lackeys silenced the masses. Journalists were told to toe the government line. Stories were killed for calling into question the government’s motives or business dealings.

‘If the public lost faith in the government, there would be anarchy,’ we were scolded. And we would be to blame for the chaos that ensued. We were warned: shut your mouth or face the consequences.

I expected that in the autocratic regimes in which I reported. I never thought to hear those words — told to reporters here in the U.S. as we have been by the President’s chief strategist, Steve Bannon, who said the media should, and I quote, ‘Keep its mouths shut.’

Journalism is suddenly under siege here in America. President Trump has announced he is in a running war with the media. We, he said  ‘are among the most dishonest human beings on earth.’ Purveyors of fake news.

It’s classic. I’ve heard it all before. It’s exactly what leaders around the world say to manipulate the public into losing faith in the press.

Every semester, I teach my students that journalists’ first obligation is to the truth. When Bannon calls media the opposition party, he’s not completely wrong. To be in opposition of anything that’s not true is precisely our job. Freedom of press is protected by the constitution to serve as society’s watch dog. In other words, to keep powerful people honest.

It can be a thankless job, especially in today’s politically divisive environment. But what’s the alternative? In countries where the state controls the media, journalists learn to self-censor. Government minders shape the narrative. Human rights violations are swept under the rug. Corruption runs rampant with a handful of elites gaining power and wealth because there is no one to expose them.

Rumors abound, stirring up unrest because citizens aren’t sure what to believe.

As a journalist, I’m not willing to shut up. When you silence the media, you control the message. You control the people.

We should all be afraid of that.”

Commentator Shaheen Pasha teaches international journalism at UMass Amherst. She lives with her family in Amherst.

Confusion At Western Mass. Resettlement Agency After Trump Executive Order

President Donald Trump’s executive action last week on immigration and refugees has sent shocks around the world, including the agencies and volunteers helping resettle refugees in western Massachusetts. Mohammed Najeeb runs the New Americans program for the Western Massachusetts chapter of Ascentria Care Alliance. That organization has publicly opposed Trump’s order.

Najeeb said his office was planning to take in 346 individual refugees during the current fiscal year, which ends in October. Now, he said, there’s confusion about what comes next, and refugees who are already here are feeling uneasy.

Click the audio player above to hear Mohammed Najeeb of Ascentria Care Alliance speak with New England Public Radio’s Henry Epp.

RELATED: After Preparing To Welcome Refugees, Northampton Now Waits

Hopes And Expectations From Some Western Mass. Trump Supporters

At noon on Friday, Republican Donald Trump will become President of the United States. In last year’s election, every county in Massachusetts went for Democrat Hillary Clinton. Still, more than a million Bay Staters voted for Trump. Ahead of his inauguration, we wanted to hear from some Trump supporters in Western Massachusetts on their hopes and expectations for his presidency.

Craig and Rachie Vermes live in Ludlow. They both work at local hospitals. There’s a Trump campaign sign and an American flag in their front yard.

Craig is an antique collector. He restores a lot of old machinery. He has a soft spot for old telephones. Vermes said his love of antiques goes back to his teens. His admiration of Donald Trump goes back a few decades too, to when he first read The Art of the Deal.

“As a businessman, he’s just a phenomenal and compassionate guy,” Vermes said. “When I first heard that he was running, I started supporting him right then.”

Trump ran on the idea of making America great again. But Vermes sees Trump as something new, not nostalgic, in Washington.

“Trump owes no one anything,” Vermes said. “He doesn’t owe anyone any back deals, he’s not even going to accept a salary. So he’s in it for America, he’s not in it to make money for himself. He’s got billions. He doesn’t need any more money.”

Vermes is excited for a shake-up of what he sees as widespread corruption in Washington. He likes Trump’s pledge to “drain the swamp.” At the same time, he’s a big fan of his Democratic congressman, Richie Neal, who’s been in Washington since the late 1980s.

“I’m hoping, for Western Mass., that if our congressman and our senators can work with Mr. Trump, I think that would be a great thing,” Vermes said.

Craig and Rachie Vermes at their home in Ludlow. (Henry Epp for NEPR)

Craig’s wife Rachie grew up in Taiwan. She moved to the United States over a decade ago to pursue a graduate degree. Now she’s a United States citizen, and immigration was at the forefront of her support for Donald Trump.

“If the government says we will give all free benefits to all illegal immigrants, then what about us? We followed the rule,” she said. “I think the government should take care of legal immigrants first and their own citizens, then we can consider about other things.”

Since the election, there’s been a sense of anxiety and fear from many groups that felt Trump’s campaign set an offensive tone — of racism, sexism, Islamophobia. I asked Craig and Rachie what they’d say to people who are scared of Trump’s presidency. Craig rejected the notion that Trump himself is biased toward any group.

“If somebody’s afraid, if somebody’s concerned, I think what they’ve got to do is be properly educated and not listen to these 60-second blurbs on the news, and look at the actual facts to this and who’s saying it,” Craig said.

Rachie said it’s easy to be scared these days, especially with the way things are shared on the Internet.

“There are so many…laws [that] protect us here. If he puts out some law…I’m sure we will have communities, lawyers working together to examine the fairness of the law,” Rachie said. “But you cannot just sit [at] home and read [the] Internet and say ‘I’m so scared.’ Scared of what? Scared of [the] future? Everybody’s scared of [the] future.”

Craig and Rachie Vermes both said they felt silenced during the election — especially at work — where they say they were surrounded by vocal Clinton supporters. Now, Rachie said, it’s time for everyone to give Trump a chance.

“Obama had not only four years, but eight years of chance to take care of [the] country. Now we can give this person four years to see how he does,” Rachie said. “If we don’t like him, if he fail[s] us, in four years, we will let him know. Hopefully, he will bring some fresh air, fresh idea[s], fresh set of viewpoints to our government.”

Former Springfield Mayoral Candidate Weighs In

I found Craig and Rachie Vermes through searching Donald Trump’s federal campaign finance records for contributions from Western Massachusetts. There were some notable local names in those records: Eugene Cassidy, head of the Big E, and Peter Salerno, the executive director of the Springfield Symphony Orchestra. Cassidy declined a request for an interview. Salerno and I played phone tag, but he ultimately did not respond to a request to comment.

There was another somewhat recognizable name from the Springfield area who was willing to talk: Sal Circosta. He ran for mayor in 2015, losing to Domenic Sarno. Circosta said he came around to support Trump late in the Republican primary.

“After some consideration, I just said, ‘You know what? This is so much opposite of what we usually get, this might be a breath of fresh air for us in politics.'”

I met Circosta at La Fiorentina, an Italian pastry shop in Springfield’s South End. Circosta is Italian-American, and he said for the first time he can remember, every member of his family voted for the same presidential candidate. So what attracted them to Trump?

“Plain speaking,” Circosta said. “Italians are known to speak very bluntly. Not always the most charitable group of people, but they speak what’s on their mind. My mother and father, I never had a question [of] what they thought. They made it very blunt with me.”

Sal Circosta at La Fiorentina in Springfield.

Trump’s bluntness, Circosta said, looked strong, and that translated into votes. For Circosta, there’s also policy substance to his support of Trump. Most notably, he’s pro-life — against abortion. He’s also hopeful that Trump can help struggling cities, and as a veteran of the National Guard, he believes Trump will support the military.

But for a supporter, Circosta has one interesting descriptor for the president-elect. We got to the subject of the infamous Access Hollywood tape. Circosta said those were the words of a narcissist. I asked if that was a concern to him — that someone he considers a narcissist is going to be president. He said it’s not.

“He’s a pragmatic narcissist,” Circosta said. “I don’t even know if that’s a term, maybe I just invented it. I’ll have to trademark it. But as a pragmatic narcissist, he wants to make sure that he does things to make himself look good. There’s no doubt that Donald Trump wants to go down as the greatest president in U.S. history. I think that’s a good thing!”

Circosta said he knows Trump has been divisive through the campaign and the transition, but he hopes he changes course.

“We have an extremely divided country right now,” Circosta said. “He says some nice things that I think are going to help unite us, but then the next day he’ll say something idiotic that divides us again. I want to see if he uses his office to unite our country as one American people again.”

We’ll all see if and how Donald Trump attempts to do that in his inaugural address.

 

 

New England Readies For Trump’s Refugee Plans

Annual US Refugee Ceiling Can Go Up Or Down

President-elect Donald Trump hasn’t elaborated much on immigration policy, beyond what he laid out during the campaign. But enough has been said that many believe he will limit the number of refugees allowed into the U.S.

Before the election, at numerous campaign events, then candidate Donald Trump made it clear he would not be putting out the welcome mat for refugees from Syria, who now number in the millions.

“We have no idea who these people are, where they come from,” Trump said at an event in September. “I always say — Trojan Horse! Watch what’s going to happen, folks. It’s not going to be pretty!”

Trump’s Trojan Horse includes Muslim refugees from mostly Middle East countries where ISIS and other terrorist groups operate.  

About half of the 85,000 refugees who came to the U.S. last year are Muslim, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of data from the U.S. State Department. Many are living around New England, and a few hundred came through IRIS — Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services, in New Haven, Connecticut. IRIS Director Chris George said in the coming year his agency expects to resettle about 500 people. Or at least that’s their hope.

“That’s partly based on an assumption that 110-thousand  will come to the United States,” George said. “That was the number the White House and State Department gave us.”

But anything can happen after January 20th, George mused, when Donald Trump becomes president.

The refugee “ceiling” — the uppermost number of displaced people allowed in to the U.S. — is set by the president, based on among other things, world events. Federal funds are allocated to a few hundred agencies, like IRIS. Presidents have the power to stop the U.S. refugee program on a dime, like President Bush did after 9/11.  

What will Trump do?

“That’s a question all of us are asking,” George said, and then sighed.

“A president can exercise the highest level of authority, when it comes to border control or foreign policy,” said Sudha Setty from Western New England University Law School. “So in terms of setting that refugee ceiling for future fiscal years, future President Trump does have the authority to set that ceiling very low.”

Setty said Trump’s freedom to exercise sweeping decisions, like banning Muslims from entering the U.S. continues a disturbing trend of the last two administrations.

“The lesson of the last 15 years has been that we have given the president a tremendous amount of power,” Setty said. “And we have not put into place a lot of accountability measures when it comes to anything that is deemed to be national security or terrorism or national security related, and that’s not changing any time soon.”

Trump has called for a more rigorous system to vet refugees. Kathleen Newman from the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., said it’s a rather rigorous process as stands. Once people are recommended by the U.N. or an embassy to come to the U.S., multiple screening levels ensue. 

“The State Department, both bio-metric and biographical information,” Newman started to list.  “They go through the FBI, the CIA, the National Counterterrorism Center databases, and Department of Homeland Security,” Newman said. And, she added, “There’s an extra layer for the Syrians to make sure nothing has been missed.”

It can take up to two years, or longer. And since 9/11, a number of applicants have been rejected because of their ties, direct or indirect, to terrorist groups.    

Amherst College political scientist Ruxandra Paul is watching both sides of the Atlantic right now. She said if U.S. leadership changes direction on its decades-long commitment to refugee resettlement, more global uncertainty is sure to come. 

“Donald Trump has been suggesting that the U.S. has contributed too much and that allies from western Europe are not covering their share of the burden,” Paul said.

Last year, the U.S. gave the UN.. Refugee Agency (UNHCR) more than $1.5 billion. The European Union next in line, followed by several European countries, gave in the hundreds of millions.    

From a legal perspective, a President Trump will be on solid ground if he chooses to lower the refugee ceiling. If he does, Paul said, it’s possible other countries will do likewise.     

Scrubbing Away Hateful Words Atop Mount Tom

A group of people hiked up Mount Tom on Friday to clean up racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic graffiti.

The hike up to the mountain’s rock face is short but breathlessly steep. The wind was fierce Friday. That didn’t stop 39-year-old high school teacher Damien Johnson. He painted solvent on a rock to get rid of graffiti.

“‘[Expletive] BLM’ — Black Lives Matter, ‘Trump 2016,’ ‘God hates fags,'” Johnson reads aloud. “It’s everywhere.”

Johnson lives at the bottom of the mountain in Holyoke. He was part of an earlier effort here, about a month ago, that power-washed another batch of graffiti, which wasn’t hateful.

These new words were painted before the election. This week news spread about it on Facebook, drawing a steady stream of people to get rid of it.

“To me, if you don’t stand up and vocalize and fight back against racism — I feel like I have a responsibility to do that,” said Johnson. “It breaks my heart.”

A group of people spent the day scrubbing rocks on Mt. Tom to erase racist and anti-Semitic graffiti. (Nancy Eve Cohen)
A group of people spent the day scrubbing rocks on Mt. Tom to erase racist and anti-Semitic graffiti. (Nancy Eve Cohen)

“I’m just taking another wack at Hitler,” said Tom Peake of Easthampton. “They painted Hitler on this rock. And we’ve been trying to get it off. You can’t even read it at this point.”

Peake was scrubbing away the words with a wire brush.

“I love this mountain. I wake up every morning and look at it,” said Peake. “I thought I’d come up and help out.”

Forty-one-year-old Ed Mooers put some muscle into erasing the letters “KKK.”

“This is my backyard,” said Mooers, who tries to hike up here as much as possible. “To know that someone who is a neighbor of mine hates another neighbor of mine — I can’t stand for it. It really makes me angry.”

Mooers said if the graffiti returns, so will he.

When Politics Intersect With Preschool Playtime

Reading his grandson’s daily updates from preschool has gotten commentator and writer Robert Chipkin thinking. Maybe they’d be useful for some adults he’s been listening to lately.

I envy my two year old grandson, who leaves day care every afternoon knowing exactly where he stands, clutching a progress report in his tiny hands. Crafted in educationally correct day-care speak, the day’s “progress” ranges from the mostly sunny “James learned the proper use of the word please,” to the partly cloudy “James is still working on the proper use of the personal pronoun,” to the downright enigmatic, “James has discovered so many things to do with his hands.”

All of which sounds so civilized that I thought such progress reports would make a fine addition to the preschool squabbling and that has so far marked the nation’s presidential campaign. Imagine if the nightly news reports sounded like this:

  • Donald continues to show high levels of self-esteem and particularly enjoys building the highest tower of blocks. His next project is a giant wall. In his free time, he continues to explore the fluid properties of objective truth He is currently vocalizing a new sound – which appears to mean yes to the children who want to hear yes, and no to those who don’t.
  • Hillary is still working on making more friends. While others are on the playground, Hillary prefers to plan out the rest of her day surrounded by a small group of advisors, who she refers to by their email addresses. She’s demonstrated exemplary hygiene; she loves to wash her hands of almost everything. At show and tell she told us about her dream to one day both marry the president and be the president. The boys said that was impossible. But that’s what boys always say.
  • Bernie continues to make new friends among the children by promising them ponies for their birthdays. He plays equally well with Hillary’s friends and Donald’s by simply asking what they want and saying they can have it if they wish hard enough. Bernie has made “huge” progress on his language skills and was the only child to repeat the day’s lesson: that coming in second is as good as winning.

Of course all the children are winners because winning isn’t about building towers, or washing hands or promising ponies. Winning is about playing well with others.

Robert Chipkin is a columnist for the Republican newspaper. He lives in Springfield.