Category: Granite Views

As more than one observer has noted, most Americans behave with respect to political campaigns and elections as they do toward sports teams and competitions. They have their favorites and then generally sit back and watch. True, some go out and stump for their candidate (or put out lawn signs), but generally most of us just follow the contest by way of cable news or local TV channels. And what those bring us these days, especially in the closing hours before Election Day, is a constant stream of strident messaging that caricatures opposing candidates as irresponsible, incompetent, or perhaps even dangerous. What is especially common is the format of these ads, whether on TV or in other forms of the media. They typically feature an especially unfavorable black and white photo of the opponent, probably snapped at an off moment along the campaign trail, while the favored candidate, featured smiling and in a color-rich setting, is portrayed as trustworthy, honest and friendly.

By extension — and probably without our adverting to the fact — this caricaturing of political candidates can easily lead us to include in our opinion those who support candidates we oppose. In short — and how many times have we all heard this? — they simply become “those people.” It’s a short step, for example, from portraying a candidate who favors a woman’s right to free choice to viewing that candidate’s supporters as “baby killers.” The political ads are replete with such exaggerations; indeed, that is what gives them the desired impact.

In his book Faces of the Enemy: Reflection of the Hostile Imagination, the philosopher and social observer Sam Keen documents the many ways, over time, we tend to conceptualize those who are our opponents as less than ourselves. In the extreme cases of warfare, the dehumanized enemy is portrayed as just that, less than human, and therefore easier to destroy.

But even in the political sphere such characterization can lead to condescension, disregard or even disdain. The higher the moral stakes, the greater the danger of regarding “the others” as unworthy or dangerous. The polarization in our society today, with its attendant imaging, makes the point.

Can we, will we break through this barrier of prejudice and start to engage in civil conversation with those who hold views opposite to ours? We cannot change everything, but we can start by reaching out and seeking not to convince others but to understand how they take the positions they do. The danger of not trying is to further harden difference, and that makes working toward a common good impossible.

by Jeff Rapsis

In London, visitors to St. Paul’s Cathedral who approach the tomb of architect Sir Christopher Wren are greeted with this inscription: “If you seek his monument, look around you.”

The same may be said about Raymond Wieczorek, longtime Manchester politician and businessman, who passed away recently at age 93.

Yes, look around you. Wieczorek, often called “the Wiz,” played a key role in developing much of what we point to today with pride about modern-day Manchester.

Examples abound. The SNHU Arena, which opened in 2001 and prompted a rebirth of the city’s downtown. The “new” terminal at Manchester-Boston Regional Airport, christened in 1994 and now a regional economic engine. Zoning changes that led to a vibrant millyard business district.

During his time as mayor of Manchester from 1990 to 2000, Wieczorek’s vision and support made all these things happen.

I remember Ray being most proud, I think, of City Hall Plaza, the downtown office tower across from City Hall that was completed in 1992. At 245 feet, it remains the tallest building in northern New England.

Ray enjoyed following the construction, which he could see happening every day he came to work. To him, it was a tangible sign of good times to come for the city he called home.

All of this is more remarkable when you consider that the early years of Wieczorek’s time as mayor were among the darkest ever to hit the Queen City.

In the late ‘80s, New Hampshire suffered through a prolonged real estate mortgage crisis. One day in October 1991, the FDIC took over eight Granite State banks — five of them headquartered in downtown Manchester.

As a reporter for the Union Leader, I was downtown that day. The sight of the feds arriving, briefcases in hand, had many people convinced that a new Great Depression was underway.

Not Ray. He followed his instincts, honed by decades in the insurance business. He took a conservative business approach to guiding the city through the crisis, both in government and in the community.

The approach worked, although he had to make some hard choices. Members of the school custodian’s union never forgave him for replacing them with a private cleaning service.

But most importantly, the Wiz recognized the value of investing for the future. That’s what made such a difference in the long term.

So if you seek his monument, look around. Or better yet, take a drive on “Raymond Wieczorek Drive,” which connects the F.E. Everett Turnpike to the airport and the development around it.

Like most Americans, I am ready to move beyond the 2022 midterm elections. Votes are still being counted, with the Democrats projected to have a slim majority in the Senate and Republicans projected to have a slim majority in the House. The forecasted red wave failed to materialize.

While I am ready to move on, I am intrigued by what happened across America on Nov. 8. Being a very moderate Republican (some would call me a RINO), I have struggled with the direction of the party. The extremism on both the left and right have prevented meaningful progress on major issues facing our country.

After poring through post-election news, I found something that resonated with me. Tim Alberta of The Atlanticsuggests that Trumpism is toxic to the middle of the electorate, and yes, I agree with that. Here’s an interesting quote from Alberta: “In each of the three states that saw major Democratic victories — Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — 25 to 30 percent of voters said they had cast their vote in opposition to Trump.” This sentiment carried out across the country. In state after state, and county after county, voters rejected Trump-endorsed candidates.

We also learned that the quality of the candidate mattered. The party can’t put up candidates simply because Trump endorsed them. The voters expect some level of experience and a vision for the future of our country and for problem-solving the many issues we face. This drove so much of the split-ticket voting across the nation. We saw that right here in New Hampshire. Gov. Sununu, a moderate Republican, sailed to victory, a result of his leadership over his past three terms and ability to connect with the voters. Other key races in New Hampshire were won by the Democratic incumbents.

At the end of the day, New Hampshire is a purple state, and voters are not so aligned with one party versus another, but rather with the specific candidates who understand the issues facing our state. As I am known to say about many issues, in terms of voting, New Hampshire tends to get it right. Is it possible the rest of the country is following suit?

We were thrilled to learn last year that our daughter and her family living in Florida were relocating to New Hampshire. Our grandson would be nearby, and his parents too. Plans were made, houses were sold and bought, and the relocation process began. Imagine everyone’s shock when it was quickly discovered that there was no daycare available for our grandson in New Hampshire. No center within a reasonable geographical distance had availability, and in fact most had lengthy waitlists. The pause button was hit, and a Plan B evolved.

A recent article in NH Business Review, “In search of childcare solutions,” addresses the child care shortage. The article notes, “The reasons behind the waitlists are part of a vicious cycle. Workers are leaving childcare centers due to low pay. In turn, the centers are not able to take in as many children, because they lack staff and can’t meet the required teacher-child ratios. In an attempt to solve this, childcare centers raise their rates, so they can pay workers a higher wage and retain them. However, this results in some families having trouble affording childcare.” Lather, rinse, repeat.

In 2014, as part of my Leadership NH program, Steven Rowe, who at the time was President of Endowment for Health, gave a compelling presentation. He noted that the developing brain is like a sponge, and by age 3, 80 percent of the neural construction is complete. What happens in those first three years is critical in terms of early childhood development. He noted that investments in early childhood development yield, by far, the greatest returns. Yet as a society we invest the least at the time of greatest impact. NH Business Review confirms this in its recent article. It notes according to nhchilddata.org, the average annual pay of the state’s child care workers is $24,490 compared to the average annual income in New Hampshire of $59,270 (not even half).

This year the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services created the Child Care Strengthening Plan, funded through American Rescue Plan funds (see dhhs.nh.gov). Its goals include building a better child care system, helping more families afford quality child care over the next three years, and ensuring equal access to child care programs, services and activities. It’s a start in addressing a glaring problem for New Hampshire families. In addition to delivering on the details of this plan, we should also be planning for what’s beyond it. As we prepare to vote in November, this is a great topic to discuss with the candidates when they ask for your vote.

Over lunch a few years ago, a friend asked me a simple, but very direct question: “Steve: when you think of the Holocaust, what image comes to mind?” It caught me off guard as we had been talking about politics prior to the upcoming election. I paused, thought for a moment — my mind flashing through a series of recalled images — and replied: “The picture of an emancipated Elie Wiesel, in a prison suit, standing in a bunk room with similarly starved inmates. The other is the open pits with thousands of bones uncovered in the course of liberating the Nazi concentration camps.”

“Yes,” he said, but a fuller picture — an important additional facet — is an image of the German neighbors who peered from behind their lace curtains, watching, as the Gestapo dragged away their Jewish neighbors. Their silence, their inaction, to what was being done, while understandable given their concern for their own safety, over time, had allowed a totalitarian regime to take such measures without opposition.

That lunch conversation and its insights have stayed with me, deeply impressing on my conscience.

This month marks the appearance of Ken Burns’ new documentary, The Holocaust. While some of Ken’s films give us reason to celebrate the beauty, places and people of our country, this has a very different intention and impact. It is a historical documentary but also a cautionary tale.

A cautionary tale sets out a story, the roots of an event, the impact of an event, and the lessons to be drawn from it. It invites — nay, challenges us — to look around at our present situation and ask, “Could that happen here?” His film does and the answer is “yes.” But with a qualifier: “It is happening now.”

Institutions and movements have arisen since the Holocaust to amplify and instruct regarding the horrors and the lessons of that tragic time, but despite those, bigotry, racism, intolerance, extreme nationalism and supremacy have mushroomed in countries around the world. “Ethnic cleansing” — the term itself proclaiming that only one “pure race” can/should inhabit a country, has set tribalism against multiculturalism. “Difference” has become the criterion of choice, its impact felt in the political ads that blanket our state now in the days leading up to the midterm elections and likely to follow into the voting booths as well.

But we are a country of indigenous people and immigrants. Of the latter, no matter how long we have lived here, we came from someplace else, and we have made our way and enriched this country, this noble experiment in multicultural democracy. To honor our forebears and their epic journey — regardless of race, religion or culture — we must not wait till we can look out our windows to see what is happening. The time to resist is now. Otherwise, the option is complicity. And by now we should know where that can lead.

The first time I worked on redoing the Minimum Standards for Public School Approval was 1992. I was a brand new member of the State Board of Education, which was embroiled in a huge controversy (Concord Monitor’s sixth biggest story of the year) over its seemingly heavy-handed approach to revising the document that governs how New Hampshire runs K-12 education. It was trial by fire as my first assignment involved 300 angry education supporters in Exeter. The next week it was 600 in Salem. So I asked for authorization from then state board chair Judith Thayer to conduct a meeting aimed at bringing the constituents together to review their concerns. We met for a half day at the Legislative Office Building and came up with solutions that seemed to satisfy the parties. They passed unanimously. Overall, It was a great lesson for me. I learned how not to approach changing the minimum standards. Inclusiveness and transparency is the lesson!

The second time I took on this task was in 2003 when the new governor, Craig Benson, asked me to chair the State Board and charged me with redesigning public education, a charge most would have run screaming away from. But it was exactly the charge that I wanted.

Both Benson and I were not good students. I’ve often said “school taught me that I wasn’t very bright and life taught me that school was wrong.” We wanted a system that would work for every student! What the State Board came up with is called competency-based learning. We were the first in the nation to put it into our regulations and started a national movement.

But don’t take it that success was easy, because it was not. Change scares lots of folks. Especially when it involves kids. That state board set out to create what former Executive Director of the New Hampshire School Boards Association Ted Comstock (RIP) said was “the most inclusive process in state history.” Sounds like we succeeded.

We’re about to do it again. The nonprofit that I lead, the National Center for Competency-Based Learning, has been tasked by the New Hampshire Department of Education to update the minimum standards. We have an All-Star Team of New Hampshire public school professionals who’ve worked tirelessly to put together a draft to begin this important discussion. So, let’s bring the conversation all over the state to get input from educators, parents, kids and the entire New Hampshire community. I can’t wait!

Fred Bramante is a past chairman and member of the New Hampshire State Board of Education. He speaks and consults on education redesign to regional, state and national organizations.