Tag: Worcester

Worcester State: Cowardly admins give in on free speech, antisemitism

On March 22, Worcester State University President Barry Maloney sent a college-wide email seemingly cementing the university’s reputation as an institution run by cowards who have allowed the college to turn hostile to Jews.

The email, in which Maloney implicitly blamed an observant Jewish professor for the school’s failure to stop anti-Israel and pro-Hamas* students from creating riot-like conditions on campus, was sent exactly 18 minutes before Shabbat began. On Shabbat, observant Jews refrain from social media and all forms of work; in the moments leading up to the weekly holy day, they are usually trying to finish any of the week’s unfinished business. It’s likely the professor/scapegoat is only seeing the message now.

As the top administrator of a university with a diverse student body, Maloney, or at least someone in his office, should have known that the timing of the email was a slap in the face to the professor and to the school’s Jewish community at large. Still, the form was perfect for the email’s content.

Maloney’s message, under the subject line “Moving Forward From March 13 Speaker Event” was different things to different people. For those who support Hamas, it was a huge victory. For campus Jews who – like the vast majority of Jews across America – support Israel and its war against Hamas, as well as all who support freedom of speech, the email was yet another insult from the university.

What happened on March 13?

The “March 13 speaker event” isn’t described in Maloney’s email, probably because of the immense embarrassment it was for the school. What happened was simple, though: after several engagements in which anti-Israel speakers lectured students about nonsense such as “settler colonialism” and questioned whether the atrocities of Oct. 7 actually happened, a Jewish professor invited IDF reservist Shahar Peled to speak. Peled, who was called up to duty as the massacre was ongoing, was to give an alternate point of view from what the university had previously offered, as well as to take questions and answers. As he was about to speak, a group of students, largely from the Muslim Student Association, disrupted the event to the point that it was entirely derailed.

Unlike members of a local socialist group, who protested peacefully outside, the MSA members and others forcibly disrupted the event, routinely shouting down Peled and making it impossible for attendees to hear more than a few words of his presentation. For example, Peled tried to describe a situation in which his battalion encountered an Arab family in northern Gaza after evacuations had already taken place. The family, Peled said, told soldiers that Hamas had shot their neighbors for trying to flee. Peled was interrupted by students heckling and accusing him of genocide.

A video on Twitter/X shows the moment a fire alarm caused the evacuation of Peled’s speech.

Moments later, after a few of the most egregious disruptors were escorted out, a protester pulled a fire alarm somewhere in the building. Everyone was ushered outside, where they waited for about 20 minutes. When the all-clear was given, attendees filed back in, but by that time any chance at order had vanished. The fire alarm sounded at least twice more (though the police knew it wasn’t necessary to evacuate everyone) and there was a general air of chaos in the room.

Antisemitism

While opposing the war itself isn’t inherently antisemitic, the display staged by the students clearly was. “It felt like a hate crime,” said one Jewish student after the event. A member of the Jewish community said that she was “shaken by the hate” the students displayed.

At one point, Peled said that he felt “proud to be Jewish” after all that had happened since Oct. 7. He was met with jeers.

Chaos reigns: This is while Peled was still trying to speak.

One or two students and a professor tried to provide cover for the antisemitism by saying that they were Jews against Israel, but these people represent an extremist fringe, tokens unrepresentative of the Jewish community. Recent polling shows that about 90 percent of all American Jews think Israel has a good reason to fight the current war, and more than two-thirds have no qualms about Israel’s handling of it.

For comparison, currently 17 percent of Black voters say they would back former President Trump for re-election. More than 1 in 5 Muslims, 21 percent, think that Hamas’s systematic rape, torture, and murder of civilians on Oct. 7 was acceptable. A Black voter is more likely to support Trump and a Muslim is more likely to support the Oct. 7 atrocities, according to the polling, than a Jew is likely to believe that Israel shouldn’t be fighting Hamas.

At one point, a student shouted at Peled that the conflict didn’t start on Oct. 7, to which Peled, trying to make himself heard, cited the 1929 Hebron Massacre, in which Arabs in pre-state Israel massacred dozens of Jews. Dropping any pretense that the protesters’ problem was with “Israelis” or “Zionists,” one of the students yelled, “The Jews started that,” letting his mask slip and garnering applause from most of the protesters inside the room.

The university’s response

How did the university respond to this? Did they condemn those who caused a long-scheduled event to end in chaos? Did the university condemn antisemitism? Did they punish any of the students shown clearly on video acting more like rioters than lecture attendees?

No.

First, Provost Lois Wims sent a message on March 14 saying that “there was a speaker on campus that has left some in the Worcester State community angry and upset, and we want to address these concerns.”

Note the language: people in the community were angry and upset – because of the speaker! The problem wasn’t the unruly antisemitic mob; it was the speaker who barely spoke.

These students whom the provost seems to believe were traumatized were only subject to having this speaker on campus because the “University upholds the First Amendment right to express differing viewpoints and acknowledges that some members of the community may find these viewpoints controversial or offensive.” Because the few words the speaker was able to get out might have been so traumatic, “students in need of support may contact the WSU Counseling Center.”

Really. The university’s leadership offered support to students because they voluntarily heard a few words from an Israeli Jew about Israel’s war on Hamas and yet had nothing to say about antisemitic disruptions that “felt like a hate crime.”

Flagrant dishonesty

There was not a single word in Wims’ message denouncing or criticizing the disruptions. Instead, the provost’s email dishonestly implied that the event went on as scheduled, despite a few interruptions. “While a majority of the audience listened respectfully, a handful of individuals were asked to leave the event after repeated requests to limit disruptions,” she wrote.

The audacious lunacy of Wims’ statement is easily visible in the videos of the event that circulated around the world, picked up even by Anadolu, Turkey’s official state-run news agency, And this ridiculous message was the only statement the university made until Maloney’s shameful March 22 email.

Worst practices

“Worcester State University stands firm in its commitment to academic freedom and to fostering an environment in which diverse perspectives can be shared in a safe and respectful manner,” Maloney wrote. This line sounds nice, but combined with the rest of the email, it is clearly an exercise in Orwellian doublespeak.

The students’ behavior was appalling; a (non-Jewish) professor at the event said, “I’ve never felt more ashamed of Worcester State students.” But who does Maloney blame in his email? Not the students. He writes, “I’ll note that the event on March 13 failed to adhere to some of our best practices with respect to WSU event sponsorship.”

You read that right! It wasn’t the students who silenced a speaker who are to be condemned. Instead, it was the professor who dared to invite someone a few find disagreeable to campus because he “failed to adhere to some of our best practices.” What are these best practices? Who knows? Maloney doesn’t say. Perhaps “best practices” involve not inviting Israelis? Not inviting Jews?

“Best practices” apparently allow for inviting a speaker to campus to accuse Israel of “settler colonialism” under the auspices of a lecture series that was supposed to be about domestic violence, as was the case with the Nov. 16, 2023, Candace Allen Lecture. That one-sided anti-Israel lecture was actually sponsored by the university’s office of multicultural affairs. (Contact me if you’d like a transcript.)

Maloney ends his email saying, “We expect that when members of the Worcester State community interact with one another they will uphold the University’s core values of academic excellence, engaged citizenship, the open exchange of ideas, diversity and inclusion, and civility and integrity. On these values, we must all stand firm and not allow any topic, artifact or individual undermine them.”

This is ironic, given that Maloney and Wims seem to “stand firm” on nothing. If they really care about “the open exchange of ideas,” why did Wims send an email downplaying out-of-control students disrupting an event while writing that those traumatized by the speaker can find counseling? Why does Maloney offer new rules for those organizing events and nothing for those who seek to shut them down? Why were none of the disruptors punished? Why do neither even condemn in general open and brazen behavior celebrating the shutting down of “the open exchange of ideas”?

Maloney, Wims, and the full administration should know that no one will be happy with their cowardly response. Those who support free speech and abhor antisemitism will view the university’s capitulation for what it is, a betrayal. The students they’re appeasing will only sneer, knowing that they’ve won.

*At least one of the students posted a video defending Hamas – not Palestinians, but Hamas itself – on the WSU 2024 Snapchat forum.

Nguyen statement: pro-Hamas lies, incoherence, and immorality

On November 10, Thu Nguyen, a city council member in my hometown, released a statement condemning Israel action’s in the ongoing war started by Hamas. The statement is worth examining because it is emblematic of the moral confusion and intellectual rot that has crept into much of the American left.

For background, Nguyen, who uses they/them pronouns, barely won re-election to the city council Nov. 7. Every single person who had a funded campaign and lost in the at-large council race was an ally of Nguyen, so there was no real alternative. For the two years leading up to the next election, it will be necessary to keep reminding Worcester voters of the increasing depravity of Nguyen and the need to defeat them in 2025.

Before proceeding, a note: This is not Thu Nguyen’s most extremist statement; that was when they openly defended Hamas. Most Americans are not that extreme, so that statement, while it was worth highlighting for the people of Worcester, is not worth engaging.

Nguyen’s text, which is available here, has not been altered. I did not add “sic” after every error in grammar and spelling because there were simply too many instances. I cut-and-pasted all but the last line, which was only available in the Instagram photo. Below, the statement is interspersed with my responses. The divisions are entirely my own; Nguyen posted an undivided block of text.

Council Member Thu Nguyen on Israel/Palestine
Statement as it appeared on Instagram and Facebook

Let’s take a look:

Reflections on Proxy Wars and Ones That’ll Never Reach You

Free Palestine

This is the headline, apparently. It’s not clear what Nguyen means when writing “proxy wars,” but, based on the rest of the statement, it is safe to assume that they aren’t referring to Israel being a front line for the liberal democratic world order, along with Ukraine, and Hamas a proxy for the Tehran-Moscow-Beijing alliance. In fact, the word doesn’t show up anywhere else in the post. This seems to be nothing more than an attempt to sound sophisticated.

Also what “reaching you” means is certainly up for debate. Given that antisemitism has skyrocketed to “historic” levels as a direct result of the war and that there have been increased instances of aggression and even a recent incident of lethal violence in Los Angeles, it is safe to say that the war has reached people far outside of Gaza, a fact to which Nguyen is either oblivious or finds uninteresting.

I find it interesting the people who never experience war on their land in their lifetime getting so worked up and reinforcing the violence of war and bombings on other humans. As if you ever walked miles towards safety, as if you ever had to decide between taking cover in a building for shelter or whether it was safer to stay outside in case the building collapsed on you- all in a split second.

It’s worth noting that many Jews in Worcester and around the U.S. and around the world actually know people and have relatives in Israel, people who are now fighting for their state’s survival. Some are Holocaust survivors; others are the children of Holocaust survivors. I personally have friends who are on the front lines, or who are living under rocket fire daily. A good friend of mine found out recently that one of those murdered on Oct. 7 was a relative.

The idea that the war is just some far off thing in some distant land is simply wrong, and it’s an offense to Nguyen’s constituents to tell us such a reprehensible and obvious lie.

Worth noting is that Nguyen, just like most of the protesters across the country, goes to great lengths to describe how terrible everything is for Gazans, but doesn’t even bother to mention or consider the sheer brutality of Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel.

The council member, like other “progressives,” doesn’t consider how Israelis might feel, given that 1,400 compatriots were slaughtered. And even “slaughtered” sanitizes what happened. Hamas’s useful idiots encouraged online a ridiculous and shameful debate about whether babies were beheaded or simply murdered another way, as if that were better (they were beheaded), but we know that Hamas’s savagery was at least as extreme as the Nazis’. They murdered grandmothers and used the women’s own cellphones to upload the video to Facebook, so that their family members could watch their elders being slaughtered. Hamas’s thugs raped young girls – so hard their pelvic bones were broken – and, while doing so, took the girls’ phones and called their parents so the mothers and fathers could hear their daughters screaming as they were violated. They beheaded migrant workers with farm instruments. They cooked babies in ovens. Virtually every evil imaginable, they carried out.

Perhaps the reader is wondering whether Nguyen addressed this barbarity before. The answer is a resounding “no.” Nguyen could not even bring themself to vote in support of a resolution in the Worcester city council calling for the speedy release of hostages, many of whom were and are American. Nguyen gives every indication that they simply do not care about what happened on October 7.

Also, note that, while Nguyen doesn’t realize it, their description of daily life in Gaza also describes life in Israel: whole communities have been evacuated; people are still running for cover due to the ongoing rocket barrages from Hamas, as well as Hezbollah and even the Houthis in Yemen. And while Nguyen, like other American leftists, was happy to spread false information about Israel bombing a hospital in Gaza, they’ve said nothing about the fact that Hamas has bombed Barzilai Medical Center, a hospital in Ashkelon, at least three times since the war started. Hamas hit same hospital before; even in 2008, administrators moved many departments underground. The outrage is highly selective.

Both Israelis and Palestinians are suffering as a result of Hamas’s actions. Nguyen expresses sympathy for only one group and exudes an open disdain for the other.

Also note: Nguyen has never, ever, made a public statement from elected office about any other war in the world. Azerbaijan invaded Nagorno-Karabakh recently and forcibly displaced every single Armenian there. The images are staggering and horrifying. Nguyen said nothing.

The councilor did nothing to publicize the fight of the women of Iran to free themselves from theocracy. Nguyen has said nothing about any international conflict at all – not Azerbaijan; not Syria, not anywhere. Again, this is selective outrage.

Its troubling cause this isn’t our reality yet we have the audacity to say anything but demand a ceasefire. Its not our city being destroyed, bodies under rubble, and what we wake up to and close our eyes praying and falling to our knees about.

Ceasefire. Sounds nice. A lot of people – including people who, unlike Nguyen, are honest – have heard this phrase and are now calling for it. And it really does sound nice. It sounds like ending violence. It sounds like peace.

But it’s not.

A ceasefire before the return of the hostages and the overthrow of Hamas would simply set the stage for another October 7. Hamas has vowed that it would carry out the same kind of massacre again and again. As many have already noted, there was a ceasefire on October 6.

A ceasefire would let Hamas remain in power. And that is a moral depravity.

What’s more, a ceasefire would put a price tag on the head of every single civilian in the world. If Israel is pushed by the world into a ceasefire because of reports of civilian casualties (and, really, we don’t even know how many civilian casualties there are, given that the numbers are coming only from Hamas), then every single terror organization and rogue state in the world would know that they can act with complete and total impunity, so long as they are able to barricade themselves behind a few thousand civilians.

Based on the logic Nguyen uses here, the U.S. never could have fought World War II or the Civil War, because both brutalized civilians. Would Nguyen feel satisfied if this “principled stance’ were taken, even though it would have left the Nazis in power or slavery still in place in America? Is Nguyen pro-slavery? Pro-Nazi? Or does Nguyen single out only Israel because of a special animosity toward that state? Or does Nguyen simply have no idea what they’re talking about?

Of course these questions apply to everyone calling for a ceasefire.

There’s too many better logic and arguments for me to come up with more. If a shooter was in a school, we wouldn’t bomb the school. If hostages were held in a hospital, we don’t bomb a hospital. 

It’s probably for the best that Nguyen doesn’t come up with any of the “many better logic and arguments” than they’ve already put forward, because doing so would make them look even more ridiculous.

No, we don’t bomb a school if there is a shooter inside. But – get this – that’s an entirely different situation. A school shooter is a threat to anyone in the school. Bombing the school kills the shooter and everyone the shooter is a threat to. But Hamas isn’t a school shooter, and Hamas isn’t a threat only to the people in Gaza. Hamas is an organization that maintains state power and has genocidal intent for the people outside the “school.” If we wanted to simplify the situation down, as Nguyen does, the “shooter” would also be carrying a bomb large enough to blow up the city, and be intent on using. Instead of blowing up the school, the authorities would be planting snipers around the building, hoping to take out the shooter with minimal loss to civilians – essentially exactly what Israel is doing, but on a tiny scale. 

We condemn gas chambers used in the holocaust and agent orange in the Southeast Asian War yet white phosphorous chemical warfare is okay.

This statement is grotesque. The most obvious reason is that there is no hard evidence that Israel used white phosphorus at all, and we know for certain that Israel did not use it as an indiscriminate weapon of chemical warfare. In fact, white phosphorus is used legally in war as a way to light up an area. There is no question: Israel did not attack civilians with white phosphorus. Israel is not engaged in chemical warfare. The point bears repeating: if Israel did not care about reducing civilian casualties, the war would have been over on October 9.

The second, and more odious, reason this statement is grotesque is that Nguyen is comparing Israeli actions to the Holocaust. Comparing Israeli actions to Germany’s slaughter of two-thirds of all European Jewry is called “Holocaust inversion” and is a particularly insidious form of antisemitism, specifically named as such by the IHRA definition of antisemitism.

A simple model was dropped by her agent for making such odious statements, and yet Nguyen since in Worcester’s city council. Again: voters take note. In 2025, we have a moral duty to oust Nguyen.

And I find arguments unnecessary, a distraction, I can’t find words to reach people who don’t see children with names written on their arms to note their deaths tragic and just a fate one must accept under the pretense of war. I don’t see how to reach one’s empathy if they don’t think losing 3 generations in one day with no lineage left to light incense or create an altar to mourn the lives lost, simply erased upon this blood soaked earth.

In other words, “I’ll continue to condemn Israel and defend terrorists, even though I can’t figure out a legitimate argument for doing so.”

Here Nguyen does what you’ll find anti-Israel, pro-Hamas people doing all over the country: refusing any form of discussion. “I find arguments unnecessary,” Nguyen says. In writing this, Nguyen – who, as we’ve seen, either knows nothing about the conflict or is a useful idiot purveying misinformation – has decided that they don’t need to actually discuss the issue with anyone. There’s no need to listen to any Jews aside from the token few who agree with them.

Engaging with, in Nguyen’s case, the very people they purport to represent would be “a distraction” from spreading the latest and best misinformation Hamas sends through al-Jazeera.

I don’t see how we can explain history in a society that thinks critical race theory is a theory and not the experience of the majority of people in the United States in systems that rejects the truth.

Now Nguyen is, in a post about Palestinians, discussing critical race theory. Here, they are linking American racial problems to Israel, a conflation that makes no sense and serves only to demonize the Jewish state. It is common for American leftists to portray Israel as “white” and the Palestinians as “people of color,” even though Palestine is one of the most racist societies in the world toward Black people, with 44 percent of the population saying they wouldn’t want a neighbor of another race. (Check out how the Palestinian press depicted Condoleeza Rice, whom they referred to as a “Black spinster.”) The American white/Black dichotomy simply makes no sense when superimposed onto the conflict.

Also, in case Nguyen is reading: Critical race theory is a theory. It’s the third word in the actual name of the school of thought. In that phrase, it’s actually the noun: “critical” and “race” modify “theory.” Whether a person disagrees or agrees with it, it is still a theory, just like evolution is a theory. Nguyen seems not to understand that a “theory” in science is a way of best understanding a pattern of facts. Here’s a definition from the American Museum of Natural History.

The whole discussion of “what is a theory?” might seem like an aside, but it’s not. The point is that this level of ridiculousness is exactly where the anti-Israel argument is. The people who are so fervent in their condemnation of Israel are the people who speak so forcefully on topics about which they are completely and totally misinformed. Nguyen, who holds a Bachelor’s degree from a prestigious university, repeating “just a theory” like some proponent of intelligent design, is a perfect example of the sad reality.

What we are up against is monstrous, toxic to the bones.

Indeed, what we are up against is monstrous. Unfortunately Nguyen, full of disinformation and lies in service of Hamas, is part of that monstrosity. Worcester voters must take note.

It thrives on us giving up on each other. It thrives on us choosing ourselves over our collective liberation. It thrives on us refusing to acknowledge each other’s humanity. So I get our innate need of survival, but I don’t believe in doing it at the sake of others. At the sake of genocide. Free Palestine.

Again, Nguyen, like anti-Israel people across the country, is speaking nonsense. The word “genocide” actually has a meaning; it’s not simply an invective to be thrown around. According to Oxford, “genocide’ means “the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group.” Unintended civilian collateral damage, no matter how awful, is not genocide.

Israel is deliberately killing Hamas, and there is likely collateral damage. That’s not genocide. If that were genocide, then the Allies, who killed millions of Germans during World War II, would have been guilty of it against Germans. Of course we weren’t; only an idiot would think that.

The claim of “genocide” is particularly pernicious, because it paints Israel as a uniquely evil state, in line with Nazi Germany, aiming to wipe out an entire people. This is nothing more than a modern incarnation of Middle Ages blood libel.

If ya haven’t spoken up, its not too late.

While Nguyen didn’t mean it like this, this part is true. We missed our shot to get rid of Nguyen in the past election cycle – and really, looking at how far Nguyen dropped in votes, and taking note that there was no alternative who was not an ally of Nguyen, that was a huge missed opportunity to run someone good, or for someone of the challengers to have broken ranks, condemned Nguyen’s support for Hamas, and won. But there is another election in just a couple years, and the voters can get rid of Nguyen then.

For the reader not in Worcester, next year’s presidential and Congressional elections will present similar choices.

We need to escalate and stop the systems. We need to not live business as usual. We need to dig deep into our souls. This “Thanksgiving,” this Christmas, this New Year, this holiday season for everyone. We owe it to each other. Our humanity depends on it.

Here Nguyen wraps up with the nonsensical. “Thanksgiving” in quotation marks. Why? No one knows. Another thing no one, likely including Nguyen, knows is what exactly “stop the systems” means. Here, Nguyen, like some freshman in college just discovering socialism, throws in a word to sound clever, even though they won’t – likely can’t – articulate what it is they mean, what this “system” is.

And thus concludes Nguyen’s diatribe. Virtually every sentence is nonsense, and it is packed with all kids of misinformation, slander, antisemitism, and sophistry. Virtually every anti-Israel, pro-ceasefire argument that I’ve come across is nothing more than this. Granted, there are many actual well meaning people who get swept up in calls for ceasefire, but they’ve been swindled, taken in by arguments like those of Nguyen and other Hamas defenders.

Dear reader, these arguments are vacuous and dangerous. You know it. We all know it. Don’t let people like Nguyen and their allies dominate the discussions. Speak up. Respond to them. Call out their nonsense, and don’t be fooled by them throwing lots of words they themselves don’t understand into a statement or post on Facebook or Twitter.

Some lessons from the 2023 Worcester elections

Capping off an election season marked by harsher than normal rhetoric, a larger than usual portion of voters cast their ballots in the Worcester elections on Nov. 7, endorsing the status quo. In doing so, they gave their seal of approval to the work of Mayor Joe Petty, the city council as a body, and the city manager, providing a mandate to continue in a similar direction. Some initial thoughts on the lessons of this election are below.

This election cycle was marred by antisemites, terror apologists, and those who refused to condemn them. I’ve already written about that here, here, and here.

Overview of the results

In the city council at large races, every single incumbent maintained their seat. Their order of victory was similar as well, with a few changes. Petty came in first and Toomey came in second, as was the case a year ago. King still came in third, despite his run for mayor. In addition, the conservative Donna Colorio, who in 2021 came in sixth, traded places with Hamas-defender Thu Nguyen, who came in fourth then but this year dropped down to sixth.

In the district seats, the center-left Jennie Pacillo sailed to a clear victory in the open District 1, while the moderate incumbent Candy Carlson fended off leftist challenger Rob Bilotta, 52.8 to 47.2. George Russell easily defeated in District 3 a challenger with no clear political ideology, while newcomer Luis Ojeda, a well-loved gym teacher and coach at Claremont Academy, won the open seat in District 4. In the fifth district, Etel Haxhiaj prevailed over challenger Jose Rivera, 51.3 to 48.7, representing a decline in support from the previous election cycle, in which Haxhiaj won 54 to 46.

Joe Petty handily won the race for mayor, receiving half the vote total in a five-way race. His closest rival, King, only took about 25 percent.

School committee candidates this year ran under different rules than in prior years, so a direct comparison is difficult. Still, former Worcester Public Schools superintendent Maureen Binienda was by far the big winner. In her race for one of the two at-large school committee seats, she took more than 10,000 votes, more than anyone else in the whole election cycle, aside from Petty.

Larger turnout doesn’t mean progressive victory

In Worcester and across the country, progressives have often lamented low turnout in elections, particularly municipal elections, arguing that if only more people voted, there would be a dramatic leftward shift. That proved not to be the case in Worcester. On Nov. 7., 22 percent of voters turned out – more than in at least a decade. Voters trounced the left-wing slate, knocking off no incumbents at all.

The most left-wing of all the at-large city council members is Thu Nguyen (they/them), and they saw the most significant decrease in their percentage of the vote, dropping from fourth to sixth place. Etel Haxhiaj, who represents District 5, managed to hold onto her seat, but by a far smaller margin than she won it in the previous cycle.This year she edged out challenger Jose Rivera 51.3 to 48.7, while she won her seat 54 to 46 in 2021, her margin of victory shrinking from about eight points to less than three, and that is with the advantage of incumbency.  Meanwhile, in District 2, moderate Candy Carlson, a bête noire of Worcester’s progressives, defeated her left-wing challenger Robert Bilotta by nearly six points.

On the school committee, progressives fared even worse. Another of their bêtes noires, Maureen Binienda, took more votes than anyone else, and actually took more votes than any other candidate in any of the elections, aside from Joe Petty, as mentioned above. In the school committee districts, the most right-wing candidate of the cycle, Kathi Roy, defeated Nelly Medina, backed by progressives.

The fact that more people turned out and progressives did worse suggests that the general public is not nearly as left leaning as progressives have hoped.

Money and politics

While Bilotta had far less cash in hand than Carlson, his campaign was buoyed by money spent by left-wing groups such as the Worcester Working Families Independent Expenditure PAC and several other groups, which also provided volunteers.

Bilotta wasn’t the only progressive that the WWF IEP spent money on. Indeed, they spent tens of thousands of dollars on social media ads and mailings both supporting candidates they endorsed and denouncing liberal, moderate, and conservative candidates they opposed. It does not appear that the money did much.

WWF and their allies made a lot of noise about the Chamber of Commerce-backed Progress Worcester’s coming into being, but they never adequately explained to voters why money the WWF IEP spent, which came largely from two couples living in the suburbs, was legitimate and money the Chamber of Commerce spent on their PAC was some kind of anti-democratic measure.

In the end, it doesn’t appear that any of the money did very much. The only candidate backed by both Worcester Working Families and Progress Worcester was Guillermo Creamer, and he failed to take a seat in the at-large council race. While he was at the top of the list of those who did not win, he only beat the next highest vote getter in that category by 32 votes.

Voters support abortion rights – when they’re really on the ballot

Nov. 7 was a day of victory for pro-choice advocates. Voters in Virginia punished candidates who wanted to add restrictions to abortion, while voters in Ohio chose to enshrine abortion into their state’s constitution. As the New York Times wrote, abortion is a winning issue for Democrats.

At the same time, Worcester showed that voters are sophisticated enough to know the difference between when abortion is on the ballot and when charlatans cynically pretend pro-choice candidates are opposed to women’s rights. Nguyen, looking for an issue to rally voters, pushed a measure against so-called “crisis pregnancy centers” that the city’s attorney – as well as others, including the liberal Democratic mayor of Easthampton, who used her veto powers for the first time since she was elected in 2017 to strike down a similar bill – said wasn’t constitutional and would open the city up to costly lawsuits it would likely lose.

Despite the fact that the question around the CPC legislation was about whether the city could constitutionally pass the ordinance, and not about abortion rights, Worcester Working Families painted every council member who voted in line with the attorney’s legal recommendation as anti-choice. They even smeared Petty as “siding with anti-choice extremists,” despite the fact that he, as well as others who voted against the CPC rule, were endorsed by Planned Parenthood in previous cycles.

The voters saw through this dishonesty.

Voters don’t like smear campaigns

WWF actually spent a lot of money spreading dishonest smears around Facebook, accusing people of “siding with extremists” and other such things. They accused council member Moe Bergman, who increased his share of the vote this cycle, of using “racist dog whistles” for saying a decade ago that society and kids are different than they were in previous decades.

Working with a newsletter called Worcester Sucks and I Love It, (WSILI)  this group has essentially recreated the dynamic that former city council member Michael Gaffney had with a blog called Turtleboy Sports. In fact, WWF/WSILI is essentially a left-wing mirror image of the right-wing Gaffney/Turtleboy alliance, which this blog played a lead role in dismantling. Both of these groupings work based on the assumption that those who disagree with them are enemies, not people with different opinions. Both used juvenile names for citizens with whom they disagreed: the right-wing faction referred to people as “fupasloths” while the left-wing grouping refers to “townies” and “lady uncles.”

WWF/WSILI, just like Gaffney/TBS, paint their opponents are some sort of conspiracy, as well. Gaffney referred to the cabal as the “McGovern crime family,” while WWF/WSILI think that there’s a “normative six” who work to thwart “progress.”

Just like Worcester voters rejected Gaffney and his grouping, they rejected the WWF/WSILI grouping. Sure, Nguyen is still in the council, but everyone else who had a real campaign was also aligned with Nguyen and the WWF grouping. While WWF made a point of arguing that calls for “civility” and “consensus” were some kind of right-wing trickery, these concepts resonated with voters, most of whom are tired of the extremes on each side constantly yelling and demonizing their opponents.

Conclusion

The above represents some initial thoughts about the results of the Worcester elections. Much of what is written here is fairly obvious, but it is worth stating. Most importantly, it is worth repeating Worcester’s voters sent a clear, unambiguous message that they reject ideological warfare. They want the city council and the school committee’s members to work together to solve the challenges that face the city.

Unfortunately, Council Member Nguyen seems to have already rejected the voters’ mandate. Instead of congratulating the victors and moving forward, Nguyen took the Trump route, complaining that the largest number of voters the city has seen in a decade defeated their allies in “the illusion of democracy.” The rest of the council should reject this attitude.

While the progressive bloc labeled the idea anathema, Worcester voters really do what consensus buildings.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post said that Kate Toomey came in third place in the at-large city council race, with Khrystian King coming in second. In fact, King came in third and Toomey second.

Worcester Working Families IEP: Hypocrisy, smears, support for extremists

If you’ve been on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, and you’re a Worcester voter, you’ve likely seen ads for a group called the Worcester Working Families IEP. Sadly, despite the moniker, this group is hardly representative of Worcester’s working families. Instead, it’s a vehicle that uses dishonest smear tactics to endorse at least one extremist candidate and a few others whose morality lies somewhere in a grey area. To do that, the group funnels tens of thousands of dollars from wealthy out-of-town donors to influence Worcester politics.

A personal note

This section is a personal reflection on the conflicting feelings I felt about writing this, as well as why I felt the need to do it. If you’re interested only in the points I’m making about the group itself, just scroll down to the next sub-heading.

Before delving into the facts, I want to say that I hate to write this article. As I look through the list of those who’ve donated to the Worcester Working Families Independent Expenditure PAC and its officers, I count mostly people I don’t know or don’t know well, but there are a few people who I know to be decent, some of whom I even count as friends. I won’t use their names because of that, and also because I do not want to tar anyone who doesn’t deserve it. While OCPF lists two officers, I have no way of knowing how much control those officers have over the candidate selection and communications process. Indeed, according to an ad on Facebook, the group seems to have hired someone for communications.

I also don’t know how much of what the group does the donors actually know about; when you give money to an organization, you hope they will perform good deeds with it, but in reality, once the money is out of your hands, you have no control over what the group uses it for. It is possible that some of the donors thought they were donating to the Working Families Party, a well-known organization that I once worked with to help elect Tish James to the New York City Council. (WWF is not the WFP.)

This article is aimed at the organization political entity, not any individual or group of donors or staff.

While it would be easier for me to just look away, pretend I hadn’t noticed the group, I would then myself be a hypocrite. In this very blog I’ve criticized candidates and elected officials, almost entirely those on the right, for working with out-of-town entities to funnel money to local elections. Even if I agreed with everything WWF IEP said, how could I justify saying nothing about “the other side” doing the same exact thing?

A few years ago, I used this blog to combat former City Council Member Michael Gaffney and the blog that served, at least then, as his mouthpiece, Turtleboy Sports (TBS). While there were several things that appalled me about Turlteboy, I argued then that what upset me most about the Gaffney/TBS alliance was the complete lack of civility that was introduced into the discourse, including the demonization of anyone who disagreed with them.

I wasn’t lying. Later on, in 2020-2021, I watched along with the rest of America as people on both sides of the aisle lobbed invectives at each other, condemning the violence and anti-democratic tendencies of their opponents while excusing it on their side. I vowed then to call out bad behavior on both or all sides.

Sadly, WWF IEP, bolstered by big money from outside the city, is using tactics that are eerily reminiscent of TBS in order to support several candidates, one of whom is a left-wing incarnation of Mike Gaffney.

Just like TBS did, Worcester Working Families is destroying civility in Worcester’s elections and, more generally, Worcester itself. The only difference is the team they are batting for.

The Money

Where the money comes from isn’t a secret; anyone can find that date on the state’s campaign finance website. However, the average person who sees an ad on Facebook isn’t going to look there; thus it’s necessary to write about it here, names excluded, as mentioned above.

Over the course of its existence, which dates back one election cycle to the end of 2020, the organization has has raised a total of $36,211.59. In national politics, this would be a paltry sum, but in a local election, even half of that would be a huge amount. Of that amount, this organization, supposedly based in Worcester working families, has raised a whopping $22,774.00 from just two millionaire couples living in wealthy suburbs. That’s 62.89 percent of the total budget. The rest of the IEPAC’s money comes from less than 20 people in Worcester and a few more in the suburbs. Of that, nearly $12,000 comes from big donors and another candidate’s political committee.

I’m sure the out-of-town donors are lovely people. But it’s simply dishonest to call an organization “Worcester Working Families” when the overwhelming majority of its lucre comes from very rich people who do not live in Worcester. And why should people who live outside of the city have a much louder and more effective voice in Worcester’s elections than, say, me or you, simply because they have tens of thousands of dollars to dispose of?

It’s not fair. Progressives always argue that we shouldn’t allow people to “buy elections,” so why are progressives trying to buy elections? Just days ago, WWF blasted a new PAC called Progress Worcester, backed by the Worcester Area Chamber of Commerce, founded just recently, for pouring money into ads for candidates WFP opposes. But what’s the difference? If we’re to agree that anyone who has money can pour it into Worcester’s elections, then what’s the criticism?

Smear Tactics

As egregious as the financial hypocrisy is, the group’s smear tactics against its opponents are just as bad. I was filled with rage when Turtleboy Sports operated as a vehicle to smear some candidates, and now I feel the same when less vulgar, but just as ridiculous, tactics are used against other candidates by another group.

The most recent example is around so-called “Crisis Pregnancy Centers,” which are really just shady fronts for anti-abortion groups. A resolution was put before the city council to craft regulations aimed specifically at the two CPCs in Worcester. As it turns out, doing so is very likely not legal. The city solicitor advised against it, pointing to other cities’ actions: those that had passed such ordinances had no CPCs, while a similar resolution was vetoed by a liberal Democratic mayor in a city that has a CPC for fear of a lawsuit. Some councilors did shop around to find a lawyer who would say that the regulations were legal, but seeking out attorneys who tell you what you want to hear is obviously a bad recipe for avoiding lawsuits. And the ultra-conservative Massachusetts Family Institute already vowed to sue the city.

Petty and two of the other candidates Worcester Working Families smeared as anti-choice fanatics…were previously endorsed by Planned Parenthood!

A long drawn out fight took place in the city council. Some councilors voted to push on with the regulatory process, while the majority chose to effectively kill the regulations due to the potential for costly legal troubles. Both sides are legitimate: the CPCs are a problem, but a lawsuit the city would likely lose would lead to the same outcome – unfettered CPCs – but with the city’s budget significantly impacted and the CPCs public standing enhanced by their victory.

There’s nothing wrong with disagreeing with one or both sides. What is wrong is to make inflammatory accusations against those who voted against, throwing truth into the trash in a dishonest pursuit of votes.

Example: slandering the mayor

WWF put forward ads like the above for everyone who voted against the order on CPCs, even if they had supported it before the legal opinions were given. The group knows that Joe Petty isn’t anti-choice, but this “anyone but Joe” ad implies strongly that he sides with “extremists.” Who are the extremists? It doesn’t say, but a whole bunch of people who ran across these ads on Facebook, and don’t have the time to follow the CPC saga, now probably think that Mayor Petty, as well as all the others who worried about lawsuits, is in line with southern lawmakers who want to ban abortion.

This, despite the fact that Petty voted for the regulations on CPCs before the city solicitor and, apparently, the attorney general’s office warned of a costly lawsuit!

This, despite the fact that that Petty said, “Abortion is healthcare. Period,” well before he voted for the CPC regulations in 2022.

The WWF ad is dishonest, but no one there seems to care about that. Recent elections show that candidates who are for abortion rights tend to win when their opponent is opposed. So why not pretend the opponent of the candidate you endorsed is anti-choice? Honesty just gets in the way.

If you were to believe “Worcester Working Families,” you would think that Petty is a candidate of the extreme right. But this is the same guy who became the first mayor to lead and help organize a huge, progressive rally at City Hall in defense of immigrant rights. Then, he was smeared by the right-wing out-of-town Turtleboy Sports and unhinged Mike Gaffney; now he’s being smeared by the left-wing out-of-town backed WWF.

Also: Petty and two of the other candidates Worcester Working Families smeared as anti-choice fanatics, Candy Carlson of District 2 and at-large council member Moe Bergman, were previously been endorsed by Planned Parenthood!

Endorsing a terrorist sympathizer

One of the candidates WWF has endorsed is incumbent council member Thu Nguyen. Nguyen (they/them) is a fairly bland candidate, except for a single fact:

Nguyen defended Hamas.

Sure, that sounds like a terrible exaggeration, as if I’m doing exactly what I said I didn’t want to do, i.e., to smear candidates I don’t like. But click the link above: In addition to spreading misinformation about the Israel-Hamas war, Nguyen literally posted a propaganda video defending Hamas.

I asked WWF via social media repeatedly what they were going to do about one of their endorsees endorsing Hamas and they simply didn’t reply. WWF obviously knows about this, and most organizations usually don’t keep silent when one of their candidates supports a U.S.-government-designated foreign terrorist organization. But from WWF there was no response forthcoming: not to me, not to the voters of Worcester.

Lack of moral clarity on antisemitism

While I wouldn’t classify WWF as antisemitic, there is a huge lack of moral clarity in their ranks on this kind of issue. While most of the people on their list have argued that representation matters, they are trying to push the only Jew on the city council, Moe Bergman, off of it at exactly the time that antisemitism in America has reached historic proportions. Further, every single one of the people they smear is someone who has attended a rally in support of Worcester’s Jewish community and/or the hostages, including Americans, currently held in captivity in Gaza.

Of their endorsees, not a single one – please correct me if I am wrong – has turned up to any of the events in solidarity with the Jewish community. On the other hand, two of those they’ve endorsed spoke at a nominally “pro-Palestine” (and if you’re not condemning Hamas, are you really pro-Palestinian?) rally, and at least one other, one of their school committee candidates, attended.

What does this say about them?

Assuming that they don’t agree with Nguyen that Hamas is just misunderstood, this shows that WWF is so hellbent on winning elections that they are willing to let support for a group listed by the U.S. government as a national enemy just slide. This doesn’t make any sense, because denouncing a candidate for supporting terrorists or – better yet – pushing that candidate to say they made a mistake – would garner sympathy from voters and, very likely, actually help Nguyen garner support. But they are too cowardly to do what is in their own interest!

At the very least, the group’s decisionmakers, whoever they may be, are at best cowardly and morally unclear.

Look twice at WWF endorsed candidates before voting

Really, if WWF’s decisionmakers can overlook support for an organization that beheads babies, what else might they overlook in the candidates they endorse? There might be a good candidate here or there that WWF supports, but one thing is for certain: Worcester voters shouldn’t trust anything that Worcester Working Families IEP says about them.

As for the candidates themselves, those who are touting openly an endorsement from Worcester Working Families should be considered morally suspect. At the very least, when you’re totaling up each candidate’s strengths and weaknesses, the WFP endorsement, while not disqualifying, should be counted as a point against. That is unless they can at the very least make a statement saying that Nguyen was wrong for spreading disinformation and support for terror.

Is a bit of decency and consistency too much to ask for?

Voters take note: Thu Nguyen openly defends Hamas

I realize that the title of this post sounds crazy. The idea that a member of the Worcester City Council is defending a terrorist organization that has vowed to wipe out the world’s Jews, an anti-Israel and anti-America organization aligned with Iran, and through them Moscow and Beijing, sounds positively unhinged. Still, facts are facts.

Further, Nguyen’s defense of Hamas did not come out of nowhere; it fits into an escalating pattern of extremism on the part of the city councilor.

Background

On October 17, Nguyen was one of only two city council members to vote against a resolution stating that Worcester would “condemn the recent barbaric and inhuman taking of hostages in Israel, including a number of American citizens, and prays for their immediate and safe release and return to their loved ones.”

Nguyen made a rambling statement before casting their vote against the resolution. While they made a token, sentence-long condemnation of the violence of Hamas, Nguyen repeated uncritically that organization’s propaganda, including that Israel was going to commit “genocide” against Palestinians and that the IDF, Israel’s military, had bombed a hospital, killing 500 people.

Even before Nguyen spoke, details had already emerged showing that it was extremely unlikely that Israel had bombed the medical facility. We now know, as the U.S. intelligence community has asserted with “high confidence,” that the explosion was due to a projectile misfired by the terrorist Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which had been aimed at Israel. While the “fog of war” was still heavy as the council meeting was ongoing, Nguyen doubled down on this false assertion the next day, October 18, the same day the president told the world Israel was not responsible.

The best-case scenario is that they are posting inflammatory rhetoric about something of which they are entirely ignorant. But Nguyen’s pattern of behavior suggests something more sinister.

Next fact.

As mentioned above, Nguyen stood in a public forum and accused Israel of “genocide.” No one who understands the definition of the term really believes that Israel is engaged in this crime against humanity, and we know that Nguyen had been made aware that this false accusation is an anti-Jewish blood libel. On October 16, Nguyen posted an image from a group called “Jewish Voice for Peace,” a non-Jewish organization (in fact, the founder of one of its chapters was a Muslim Palestinian-Jordanian also on the board of a group the U.S. government listed as a non-indicted co-conspirator with Hamas). According Anti-Defamation League, JVP is as an extremist group that uses antisemitic imagery and endangers Jews.

That day, I reached out to Nguyen via social media, as chronicled here, with a link to the ADL statement and, trying to appeal to Nguyen, said that using JVP as token “Jews” to advance such rhetoric was similar to using Candace Owens as the “voice of the Black community.’ It’s certain that Nguyen read the message, because they replied, saying glibly, “More like Angela Davis.” Nguyen therefore knew that they were spreading the views of an extremist organization engaged in antisemitism.

On Oct. 22 and 28, Nguyen published one-sided “free Palesitne” statements. The irony here is that as an excuse for voting against the resolution calling to free the hostages, Nguyen said “we need to grieve the death in both communities.” But Nguyen hasn’t done that: they spared only one throwaway, milquetoast line was given to the 1,400 innocent people who were slaughtered and raped by Hamas, and yet have written post after post on social media about Palestine and are urging people to a “free Palestine” demonstration, spreading Hamas propaganda and blood libel in the meanwhile.

Maybe the reader is asking, “Okay, the above evidence paints a picture of a person who is clearly anti-Israel and doesn’t care about the welfare of Jews, but can you really accuse Nguyen of supporting Hamas based on this?”

Thu Nguyen in support of Hamas

The answer is, of course, no. There are many different types of Israel-haters and antisemites; they don’t all support Hamas. But Nguyen cleared up any confusion we might have had on October 25.

On that day, Nguyen – the supposed defender of women’s rights – posted a defense of the organization whose members on October 7 raped girls so forcefully their pelvic bones were broken.

That’s right: a sitting Worcester city councilor told us via social media that the organization that slaughtered 1,400 people and kidnapped 200, including a six-month-old baby, is really not as bad as people think. Nguyen did this by linking to a video on Instagram showing hostages Hamas released saying that they had been treated well in captivity. The video concluded with a man insinuating that CNN had lied when the hostages said they “went through hell.”

Of course, the same hostage did say she went through hell. Being captured by a murderous group of thugs and brought to a foreign land isn’t pleasant. What Nguyen’s link failed to mention was that the husband of the former hostage is still locked in Gaza, dramatically limiting her ability to speak freely. And even if that weren’t the case, Stockholm Syndrome is extremely well known.

There is no possible reason imaginable that Nguyen would post this to their official campaign page except that they are sympathetic to the U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization. And when I pointed this out on social media, they doubled down.

Instead of responding in a normal way – “I regret this terrible oversight, which certainly does not reflect my views,” etc. – Nguyen posted the following:

An aside

Let’s look at what Nguyen thinks, based on this statement. Even if they weren’t an antisemitic Hamas supporter, is this the kind of person who should represent us?

Someone who believes that constituents condemning their representative’s blood libel and support for Hamas on social media is a “stalkerish obsession”?

Someone who believes that, in a democratic system, when your representative comes out in support of terrorists – or, really, anything with which you disagree – you’re supposed to just “leave them alone”?

Someone who thinks “fearmongering” is the same as “look at what this person said”?

Someone who thinks criticizing a politician via social media is “intimidation”?

Anyway, I responded via X.

Nguyen still refuses to denounce Hamas

And Nguyen responded, almost incomprehensibly:

I responded that calling someone a “stalker” is slanderous, and Nguyen immediately removed that post and then blocked me on Facebook (which is not actually legal for municipal representatives to do on non-personal pages).

How can anyone believe Nguyen doesn’t sympathize with Hamas?

Thu Nguyen posted a link defending Hamas from accusations that they made the lives of the people they abducted hell. What other explanation could there be? Nguyen responded to criticism of their defense of the anti-Israeli, anti-American terrorist group that holds the people of Gaza captive by deflecting, by insulting one of their constituents. Why would they do this if they didn’t support Hamas? What possible reason could there be? There’s only one possible answer, unless we hear otherwise.

Thu Nguyen supports Hamas.

Worcester city council must reject Thu Nguyen’s indulgence of antisemitism

There is something deeply unsettling in Worcester City Council member Thu Nguyen’s attitude toward Jews and the Jewish state.

Most recently, Nguyen, who uses they/them pronouns, took issue with a statement that City Council Member Moe Bergman put forward for the council’s consideration. The text, below, seems uncontroversial:

That the City Council of the City of Worcester does hereby condemn the recent barbaric and inhuman taking of hostages in Israel, including a number of American citizens, and prays for their immediate and safe release and return to their loved ones.

Who could take issue with a statement calling for the release of hostages, many of whom are children? Apparently Thu Nguyen. They posted to social media Bergman’s proposed resolution, complaining, “There is no acknowledgement of the death and suffering of the Palestinians and what has unfolded. I urge us to speak. If we are to go on record regarding Israel-Hamas, we must also be on the record calling for a ceasefire and an end to the killing of Palestinians, the collective punishment, and imminent genocide.”

Other city council member’s should ignore, or even condemn, Nguyen.

First, it’s worth pointing out that Bergman’s statement is directed only at those held captive by Hamas. There is also no acknowledgement of the death and suffering of the hundreds of Israelis who were slaughtered, unprovoked, by the thugs who streamed into Israel on October 7. Nguyen doesn’t seem to mind that they were not mentioned. Why would this be?

Unfounded accusations of Israeli of “genocide”

But notice something else in this statement. Nguyen not only minimizes the horrors perpetuated by Hamas; they also accuse Israel of “genocide.” This is an antisemitic trope with no basis in reality. The idea that evil Israel is plotting to wipe out an entire population of innocent victims is nothing more than a modern form of blood libel.

On October 7, Hamas perpetrated the worst terrorist attack in Israel’s history, perhaps the worst ever carried out in the developed world. Babies were burned and beheaded, girls were raped while their parents were forced to listen by cellphone, people were burnt alive in bomb shelters, Holocaust survivors and toddlers were taken captive and brought into Gaza. The list goes on.

What does Nguyen think the proper response should be to a state-like entity sending its “warriors” across the border to rape, murder, and kill? Israel decided it would topple the terrorist organization responsible. While President Biden agrees with this decision – he even said it was necessary to do so – Nguyen wrote in another rambling statement, “Demanding that people leave within 2/4 hours and then bombing the escape routes. We cannot with our conscious(sic) encourage this behavior. We must call for a ceasefire and negotiate towards peace.”

Nguyen’s statement on Facebook

A ceasefire! Negotiations toward “peace”! How nice that sounds. Israel should just lay down its weapons and have a nice conversation with those who came to rape and murder her citizens! That will solve everything! Obviously, this is a stupid idea. No “negotiations” are possible with a group that wants to murder you – and Hamas’s founding charter, which calls for the eradication of all Jews – makes that intent clear.

Propaganda directly from Hamas

Also notice the little detail about “Demanding that people leave…and then bombing the escape routes.” This is propaganda directly from Hamas. Hama’s supporters spread this narrative around the Internet for a bit, before video emerged debunking the claim: the “bombing” was an explosion of a vehicle, which couldn’t have been caused by Israel, as there were no troops in Gaza, nothing flying overhead, and no projectile incoming. Smarter antisemites stopped talking about this before Nguyen made their post.

But let’s look closer at Nguyen’s two statements. One accuses Israel of plotting “genocide.” The other condemns Israel for telling Gazan civilians to get out of areas where there is going to be intense bombing and fighting. If Israel is plotting to murder all Gazans, why is it telling them to go a dozen miles south temporarily so that they can avoid being endangered?

Special standards for Israel

Yes, it’s true that Gazan civilians are dying in Israel’s response to Hamas. That is sad, and every Jew I’ve spoken with or texted with, including friends who are now in the IDF, who are scared but desperate to fight Hamas, have expressed sorrow at the deaths of innocent Gazans. But has Nguyen no idea of what happens in war? Can Nguyen, or anyone, name a war in which civilians weren’t killed? Has Nguyen ever looked at the photos of Berlin or Rome or many other European cities, bombed out as a result of World War II? No one accuses the U.S. of genocide, even though our air force carried out a bombing raid on Tokyo that killed 100,000 civilians on a single night in 1945.

Would Nguyen argue that the U.S. should have just sat out the war and “negotiated” for “peace” with the Nazis?

War is horrible. You don’t judge a country’s entry into a war based on the ugliness of the conflict. You judge the war based on whether or not the intended outcome is just, and whether the country making war is doing its part to prevent civilian casualties.

Europe after World War II

Israel is obviously doing its part. It gave civilians notice, while Hamas gave none to the innocents before they raped and murdered and captured them. That’s why Israel even extended the deadline for people to leave northern Gaza. That’s why Israel turned on water to southern Gaza and why it’s made way for food shipments.

Given the above, that Israel’s aims are just and that its defense forces are doing their part to get civilians out of harm’s way, it is impossible to imagine that anyone could seriously believe that Israel is trying to wipe the Gazans from the face of the Earth, i.e., to commit genocide. Also interesting to note is that Nguyen hasn’t condemned any other country for “genocide” or war crimes. They didn’t even note that Azerbaijan expelled nearly every single ethnic Armenian from Nagorno-Karabach a few weeks ago. Worcester has one of the largest Armenian populations in America, so this is certainly as local an issue as Palestinian suffering.

Clearly, given that their only statements on foreign policy relate to Israel, and that they expend far more words condemning the Jewish state than Hamas, Nguyen is singling Israel out as an actor of unique evil, the Jew of nations.

Not only did this statement make nonsensical claims that promote antisemitism – endangering Jews everywhere – but Nguyen also includes another piece of dishonesty. They write, “I did not intend on writing a statement not because I don’t care but because I am still learning and working through my emotions.”

Nguyen doesn’t seem to have been “still learning and working through my emotions.” Before posting that statement, they had already spread lies. On October 12, the eve of the “day of rage” proclaimed by Hamas, when tens of thousands of Jews around the world, including here, were deciding whether to send their kids to school or to keep them home for fear of violence, when Worcester synagogues needed police protection to ensure Jews’ safety, Nguyen had already decided they “learned” and “worked through” their emotions enough to post a statement from Jewish Voice for Peace accusing Israel of plotting genocide.

Again: at the very moment Jews around the world and here in Worcester were taking shelter, Nguyen posted an inflammatory statement accusing the Jewish state of genocide.

And don’t be fooled by the word “Jewish” (or the word “peace”) in JVP’s name. As I pointed out to Nguyen, JVP is labeled by the Anti-Defamation League as an extremist organization that fans the flames of antisemitism. This is an organization that literally posted a picture of IDF soldiers drinking the blood of children.

“Jewish Voice for Peace” sounds nice, but it’s an extremist organization

Using a fake Jewish organization to spread lies about Israel is a grotesque form of tokenizing Jews. As a public servant, Nguyen should know that the vast majority of Jews in their community are still reeling from the violence of October 7 and, along with President Biden, Sen. Chuck Schumer, and a host of other American leaders, support Israel in defending herself.

Nguyen must at least intuit that they’re engaging in gross antisemitism; that’s why, throughout their statements they use this fake Jewish organization and refer to their Jewish friends as cover. It’s a form of tokenizing, as in the case of every white racist who assures the world that they have Black friends.

I responded to Nguyen on Instagram, noting that using JVP as a way to express the opinions of the Jewish community is similar to using Candace Owens as a messenger of the opinions of the Black community. Nguyen replied, oddly, only that they viewed JVP as Angela Davis. I wrote about this and, of course, Nguyen felt aggrieved, bringing us to another act of dishonesty on the council member’s part.

While most people would issue an apology if someone pointed out that they shared a post from an organization identified by the ADL as an extremist group, Nguyen let the propaganda stand. Then, when this Jew-endangering behavior was pointed out, they jumped to an old standby: “…believing in the dignity, the right to live and freedom of Palestinians is not anti-semitic. This notion of being anti-Jewish over the simple acknowledgement of a community is a reductive argument that detracts from the conversation of history and people’s humanity…” Obviously, I never called Nguyen an antisemite for “believing in the dignity,” etc. of Palestinians. I suggested that they were ignorant or antisemitic for dishonestly accusing the Jewish state of “genocide,” a form of blood libel, on the eve of a day when violence against Jews had been called for worldwide.

The Worcester city council should reject an amendments to the statement condemning kidnapping from the council member most guilty of spreading antisemitism.

And voters should reject Nguyen in November.

Appoint Eric Batista City Manager Now

For some reason, the left wing of Worcester’s city council has become so enamored of a specific way of searching for the city’s chief executive that it eclipses the goal of filling the spot with the right person. The term “national search” is repeated as nauseum with a sort of fervor that borders on the religious, as if this particular ritual were an end in and of itself.

But why? The answer isn’t readily apparent.

The Worcester Public Schools Superintendent Example

Adherents of the national search ritual point to the selection earlier this year of Dr. Rachel H. Monárrez to replace the outgoing Maureen Binienda as superintendent of the Worcester Public Schools, which took place only after a painstaking national search was conducted by the school committee. If the city needed a national search for a school superintendent, why shouldn’t we conduct a national search for our chief executive, the city manager?

The answer is straightforward: the Worcester Public Schools are failing, while the city itself is not. The schools system isn’t in dire straits because of Binienda or any policies she implemented; it has been for decades, and there’s no clear reason why. At least as far back as the 1980s, the system was a mess. During my four years of high school alone, during the 1990s, gym classes were ended for all juniors and seniors (too expensive), a period was cut from the end of the day to save money, and the state considered de-accrediting Worcester’s schools. The air was so toxic in North High at the time that, just after I graduated, the state threatened to shutter the school unless the city intervened and did something about the strangely-thick air permeating the windowless basement classrooms. The city obliged, setting up large blowers to circulate air down the hallways and outside.

The financial situation during that period was so bad that the school committee called a snow day – in June of 1989. This gave students and teachers time off to lobby at the statehouse for more funding. Hundreds of kids and our teachers descended on Boston to implore Governor Dukakis to send more money our way.

Now, years later, the schools have received more money, and the school committee has allocated funding to replace all the high schools with modern, non-poisonous buildings, starting with Worcester Vocational High School, now Worcester Tech, and then North High. Despite controversy during her tenure over her position that poverty was a more important issue than structural racism, Binienda’s tenure saw some innovative changes.

Despite these changes, Worcester public schools are still, to put it mildly, troubled. Out of the 24,000 or so high schools in America, North High ranks somewhere between 13,383rd and 17,843rd, according to U.S. News and World Report. These are national rankings, so thank you to Mississippi and Alabama. Other schools in the city aren’t much better: the number one school in the district, University Park, is number 82 in Massachusetts alone, and prepares only about 48.5 percent of its students adequately for college – less than half. The corresponding figure for other schools in the city is between 18.5 percent to 32 percent, or below a fifth to just under a third. Reading and math grade-level proficiency is also abysmally low.

Worcester’s schools have improved incrementally, but they have been bad for decades. There have been multiple superintendents over these years, and there have always been brilliant students, educators, and administrators in the city’s schools. Clearly something has to be changed on a systemic level. It therefore makes sense for the city to engage in a national search, specifically to find someone from outside the school system, who can look at the way it functions, look at its culture, as an objective outsider, in order to make the changes that might be both necessary and painful to those who’ve come of age in the school system professionally.

Worcester isn’t its School System

Worcester, though, is actually already moving in the right direction. Anyone who remembers this city in the 1980s or 1990s can attest to that fact. In the 1980s, Worcester was a decaying mill town. The New York Times described it that way when its reviewer wondered why Bruce Springsteen would open his tour here, leading to a quixotic boycott of the Gray Lady, even though no one really thought the description was wrong.

From the 70s through the 90s, the population was shrinking, reaching a nadir of around 160,000 residents, 40,000 people less than lived here in the middle of the 20th century, and nearly 50,000 people less than call the city home now. Despite an attempt to revive downtown with a mall – twice, first with the Worcester Galleria, and then with the Worcester Common Fashion Outlets – the common refrain was, “Would the last person to leave downtown Worcester please turn out the lights?”

No one wanted to be here; the selling point on Worcester that colleges offered was nothing more than its proximity to other places. “Don’t worry about Worcester! We have a lovely campus with a big fence, and you’re not that far from Boston or Providence, or even NYC!” I recall students at Clark (where I attended briefly in the 1990s, before, like so many thousands of others, leaving town) expressing their despair at not having learned more about Worcester before deciding which school to go to – and making an alternate decision. Now, students come to Worcester and – almost unheard of even a decade ago – actually stay here.

City Leadership and the Renaissance

The beginnings of the “Worcester Renaissance” pre-date the tenure of Ed Augustus, the city manager who recently resigned, leaving open the current vacancy. Union Station, for example, was remodeled in 2000, before his time as manager. However, it was during Augustus’s tenure that the city’s changes took root and, for the first time, actually seemed permanent.

While Augustus was in office, the quality of the city, and of its government, were strong and were continually improving. During the height of the pandemic, America was subjected to bizarre, rambling press-conferences in which the president and his advisers said nonsensical things (maybe try a little bleach?), and the national health apparatus confused everyone by issuing contradictory rulings (don’t wear a mask, masks are okay, definitely wear a mask, any mask is good, only these kinds of masks are good, if you have a vaccine you don’t need to wear a mask, no, never mind, you do, and stay inside, church services are illegal, outdoor events are illegal, you should go to these demonstrations though, don’t get together…). In Worcester, Augustus, along with Mayor Joe Petty, and chief doctor Michael P. Hirsh, sometimes with public health commissioner Mattie Castiel, held daily press conferences that were pleasantly boring. The city leaders worked around the clock to make sure we had the information we needed, to provide the best possible guidance based on the information they had been given, and to generally make Worcesterites feel like they were in good hands, at least locally.

Now, as the pandemic recedes (hopefully), the city has rebounded. 

After Augustus retired this past spring, Eric D. Batista became acting city manager. Appointed by Augustus, Batista has moved up the rungs of city management. Hired as a project manager, he became the director of operations and project management, then moved up to lead the city’s innovation office, and then on to assistant city manager. Raised in Worcester, a graduate of North High School (according to speakers at the recent city council meeting), Batista obviously knows the city well.

Batista spent a decade in city government, watching and assisting in the improvements, most recently as assistant city manager. If the city were in turmoil, or were heading in the wrong direction, or was decaying in the way that it was during the 1980s and 1990s still, then we would need to carry out a national search, to look everywhere to find someone who could help us to break us out of the municipal malaise. But the city leadership, Augustus and others, have already done that – with Batista’s assistance.

Considering the above, it becomes clear that there is no need for an expensive – some say $100,000 – national search to find a replacement for someone already doing solid work, and who has been trained, gaining increasing responsibility, over the course of a decade on the job. There is no virtue in hiring from without. Studying organizations, scholars at the Wharton School of Business say that internal hires tend to do better in their first two years than external hires, for several reasons, including getting “up to speed,” meaning, largely, building relationships. While external hires might do better after a couple years, they are also more likely to leave before that period is up. Others note that with when hiring from within, there’s less risk – you know what you’re getting. Also worth noting: in corporate America, corporations that are doing well don’t generally replace an outgoing CEO with someone from outside. For example, Coca Cola’s CEO, James Quincey, worked his way up the management chain, making his way to COO and, now, to CEO. Those who read the business pages know that it’s the ailing businesses that make headlines by replacing their CEO with someone from another, more successful, firm.

Why should Worcester break with good practice?

Where is “the best”?

Some argue that if we don’t have a national search, there will be a cloud hanging over Batista, since we won’t know if we have “the best.” How can this be? Is there a cloud hanging over the Coca Cola CEO, since he was hired from within? Or of Wendy’s?  Or of a myriad other successful corporations? Why must we have an obsession with finding someone from outside? Is there a cloud hanging over, say, any of the district councilors because voters didn’t entertain the possibility of electing someone from outside the district? Are at-large councilors therefore superior in quality to district councilors?

One could become philosophical, and wonder if anyone is “the best” for anything. Perhaps the best manager for the city of Worcester is not in America; why limit the search to the United States? Maybe the perfect manager is in Toronto? Perhaps London offers the best city manager. Maybe they are in Cape Town or Perth or Shanghai? (Actually, scratch Shanghai.) There are 7 billion people in the world; there is no way that we can interview all of them, even if we narrow that down to the few tens of millions who are trained in public management. Perhaps your spouse isn’t really the best for you; did you conduct a national search, or did you limit yourself only to people you happened to come into contact with? This is extreme, but it is the natural logical conclusion that we come to if we follow the logic that we have to run a national search just to be sure.

Transparency

Others have argued that there could be a perceived lack of transparency. Where is this lack of transparency? The process is fairly straightforward:

  1. Batista applied for the job of project manager with the city and was hired in for that role in 2012.
  2. He did a good job, so Augustus promoted Batista to chief of Operations and Project Management in 2015
  3. Seeing that Batista continued to do good work, Augustus promoted him to Director of Innovation in 2019.
  4. Apparently highly impressed, Augustus promoted Batista to Assistant City Manager in 2021.
  5. Augustus resigned as city manager, and the council asked Batista to become Acting City Manager.
  6. Impressed with his work in the actual position needing fulfillment and with the decade’s worth of work that Batista has performed for the city already, people began to think that Batista should simply maintain the role and save the city the costly $100,000 search.
  7. In line with public sentiment, Mayor Petty proposed that the city council just go ahead and hire Batista to the position.

Where’s the lack of transparency? Judging by the council meeting earlier this week, the public is well aware, and supportive, of Batista’s becoming city manager. While a few spoke in favor of a national search, many people from the community, including community leaders like Rev. Jose Perez, spoke in favor of Batista’s appointment to the position.

Worcester is doing well, and after many decades, it is moving forward. For many of us who grew up here, this is the first time we’ve ever seen or heard of people wanting to move to the city, of news outlets in major markets actually trumpeting what Worcester has to offer. For the first time in years, many of us go downtown to do something fun, or actually have a choice of where to go to eat. We have attractions to show out-of-town visitors that don’t solely involve boy-on-turtle sex.

There is no reason to change direction, and, for that reason, there is no reason to carry out a national search for a city manager. It is in the interest of the city to keep the “renaissance” moving forward, and appointing a city manager who worked so closely with Ed Augustus, the man responsible for guiding so much of it, is the best way to do that.

The council should do what’s right for Worcester, and appoint Eric Batista city manager now.

“Scandal” around Joe Early is an extremist witch hunt

The ongoing campaign against District Attorney Joe Early has much more to do with the far right in Worcester County trying to gain its political foothold than it has to do with any “corruption” on the part of our DA. It is vitally important that all people of good will – Democrats, Republicans, and independents alike – understand that the ongoing calls for trials and resignations have more to do with votes than they do with a few lines in a police report.

The reasons for the anti-Early campaign

While Worcester has long voted Democratic and moderate Republican, the city had a few Trump-style Republicans in its elected leadership, and there are a couple of representatives of that faction of the GOP elected to office in other parts of the county as well, notably Ryan Fattman in the Worcester and Norfolk district State Senate seat, among a few others. That faction has been represented by the Turtleboy Sports blog (TBS), which publishes juvenile townie fare mixed with Trump-style propaganda messages.

Now, however, this faction of the Republican Party is losing what grip it had on power. In 2017, its leader, Michael Gaffney, was handily defeated in the Worcester city council elections, as were the other candidates it fielded for that body; Donna Colorio, its sole representative to the city’s school committee, was pushed out by Dante Comparetto’s youth- and grassroots-powered candidacy. In the process, the influence of TBS was dramatically reduced.

This year, the extremist faction’s representatives outside of the city are facing tougher-than-expected battles for re-election. There’s a very real chance that the 17th Worcester district could go Democratic, as current Rep. Kate Campanale leaves that seat to run for Register of Deeds. Even Jen Caissie, the Trump-style Republican in this district’s oft-overlooked Governor’s Council seat, is facing her strongest challenge yet, and from an uninspiring candidate at that.

In short, the Trump faction of the local GOP could potentially lose everything in the upcoming elections – and they’re willing to do anything they can to maintain relevance. Knocking out a Democrat in a county-wide seat with a TBS-aligned independent candidate would serve that purpose well. Challenging Early would deprive moderate Democrats of a county-wide seat on the one hand, and the fight to keep Early in office, on the other, would drain Democrats of both the money and people-power necessary to win grassroots elections to defeat local Trump clones.

The anti-Early campaign

The campaign to smear Early, started when some state cops fed information to the TBS blog, which then published it, albeit partially incorrectly. According to their “reporting,” a young woman named Alli Bibaud was picked up for driving under the influence of heroin and alcohol, and the police filed an arrest report. Among other things, the police report noted that Ms. Bibaud stated that her father was a judge and was going to be very upset with her, and that she had performed sexual acts to obtain heroin.  Her father, TBS said, Judge Timothy Bibaud, decided that he was above the law, and called – this is what TBS wrote – Early and asked the district attorney to do him the favor of having the police report altered to redact those statements.

How incendiary! Except…it’s not. While Early’s opponent is calling for him to resign, there’s simply no reason for anyone to be upset about anything the D.A. did.

If one looks fully into the facts of the “scandal,” studies up on the history of Joe Early’s stances on arrest reports and what should and what should not be included in them, and reads the report put out by Attorney General Maura Healey’s office after an investigation, one comes away with the view that this is all, as the saying goes, much ado about nothing.

Early’s history on related issues

Several things in Early’s work as a DA are important to note in this controversy.

First, Early has been increasingly concerned about stigmatizing those who are addicted to opiates and other substances. Just over a year and a half ago, I attended a public forum on opiates, at which Early spoke. There he stated that he, in his office, would do what he could to shield those addicted from unnecessary scorn and embarrassment. That, he argued, would help to create a climate in which people experiencing addiction would look for help.

Second, Early has been on record now for several years in arguing that documents used in court proceedings should contain only information salient to the charges being filed, that police reports shouldn’t be used for probable cause in applying for a criminal complaint, and that salacious information in such documents is problematic, in that they can generate adverse publicity and undermine the defendant’s right to a fair trial.

Not holding people up to unnecessary scorn, advocating that only necessary data be included in court records, trying to ensure that negative publicity isn’t generated, thus affecting a person’s right to a fair trial: these are the exact ingredients that should lead one to expect that the DA would complain about a police report including someone’s statement that she had to offer a blowjob for heroin. How could such a fact help to indicate whether someone was or was not driving under the influence at that moment?

No similar cases?

Despite all the above facts, which exonerate Early entirely, people like his opponent, as well as newspaper writers, argue that there are no instances similar to Early’s or his office’s actions in this case. However, Early’s office released documents on more than 90 instances it considers similar.

While it is true that there isn’t one that is exactly the same, there are a couple of redactions of documents, and many impoundments (in which a document is temporarily hidden from public view). Regardless of a lack of an exact match, there are many dozens of examples in which the DA’s office acted to remove information from the public’s eye when the office judged that negative pre-trial publicity could, as Early has often worried about publicly, negatively affect a person’s right to a fair trial.

Most of these impoundments were for violent criminals and others who might be a danger to the public. Some were impounded to protect witnesses, but in other instances, to avoid pre-trial publicity. If the DA’s office was going to worry about their right to a fair trial, why would Early not be concerned about the right to a fair trial of a woman accused of a lesser charge? And why would he not be concerned about a report that needlessly stigmatizes exactly the population that he’s stated publicly he wanted to help de-stigmatize?

Ms. Bibaud’s father, a trained legal expert, knew what should and what should not go into a police report. If there is an unfairness, it is one that Joe Early cannot control: most people do not know that certain things shouldn’t be made into public information, should not be included in police reports or other legal documents. Judge Bibaud knew that the report included embarrassing information that, because it was impertinent, simply should not have been there. He knew that he had good grounds to complain to the DA’s office. There is no more corruption in this than knowing that, if there is a pothole in front of your house, you can and do call your city council member to ask that s/he do something to get it fixed.

What’s the difference?

Another important question to ask is simply, “What’s the difference?” Some act as if Ms. Bibaud is exonerated by the change of the report. But what, really, is the difference? The report still notes that she was picked up for operating under the influence, that she was extremely intoxicated, and that she had admitted to using heroin. Why does removing talk of blowjobs and angry fathers indicate justice not being served? Neither of these statements can be used against her to prove guilt; they are simply embarrassing. According to the AG’s report, a judge even agreed separately that the statements in question shouldn’t be shown, but instead sealed away.

As it turned out, Early was right: the statements in the report were completely unnecessary to establish guilt. Ms. Bibaud pleaded guilty, received inpatient treatment, and lost her license for a year – the same thing that happens to others who drive under the influence.

To sum up

Joe Early did nothing wrong. Instead, he acted as a district attorney should: he ensured that justice is served, but without needlessly embarrassing and stigmatizing a young woman suffering from heroin addiction. Given the ravages our communities are seeing from opiate addiction, Early’s actions are a reason to vote for him, not a reason for him to resign.

The “scandal” around the DA’s office is nothing more than a political smear, the flames of which are fanned by a Republican Party faction desperate to maintain power.

Labor, community groups and elected officials say “Vote for Dante Comparetto”

WORCESTER, Mass. – Labor leaders, elected officials, and representatives of community organizations gathered at the Educational Association of Worcester’s headquarters this morning to announce their support for Dante Comparetto’s bid for a seat on the city’s school committee. Supporters highlighted argued his years of advocacy for Worcester families and support of working people’s rights make him the ideal candidate.

“He’s been an absolute staunch advocate for the educators in Worcester and the members of this union,” said EAW president Roger Nugent. “We are very pleased to unanimously endorse him.” The 2,800-member EAW represents Worcester’s teachers, many administrators, instructional assistants, bus drivers, and other school employees, and is a local of the National Education Association.

City Council member Candy Mero Carlson, chair of the Worcester Democratic City Committee spoke on behalf of the WDCC, saying, “I’m extremely pleased that Dante made a decision to run, because he is all about our kids today; he is all about our Worcester Public Schools.”

Carlson added, “I look forward to working with Dante on behalf of all of our kids in the Worcester Public Schools.”

It was clear that Comparetto has the backing of organized labor. Central Massachusetts AFL-CIO President Joe Carlson, Mary Colby of the Massachusetts Nurses Association, and Fred Taylor of Carpenters Local 107 attended, each representing their unions.

Taylor emphasized how well prepared Comparetto was to answer labor’s question. According to Taylor, the Carpenters’ endorsement committee “peppered” Comparetto with questions, and he answered them all adeptly.

Colby stated that Comparetto would be an ally and an advocate for students’ health. “An important issue that nurses hold dearly is to ensure that the nurses to have a partner in education,” she said.  “Our goal is to ensure that safety is maintained in the Worcester Public Schools. I think Dante is the person to do that.” She added that she believed Dante would fight to make sure that each school has a nurse.

Shanique Spalding, of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, which also endorsed Comparetto, picked up on the issue of students’ health and wellbeing. “Now more than ever we need to work together on holistic solutions that recognize the connection between health care access, student achievement, and breaking the cycles of poverty,” she said. “When young people are taught how to make healthy decisions, build safe relationships, and focus on their futures, they thrive and we all win. We can make a better and brighter future by making sure that Dante wins this election cycle.”

City councilor Sarai Rivera praised Compratto, saying he’s someone “who comes from a perspective of community.” Rivera, herself a product of the public school system and a parent of public school children said Comparetto understands that “good schools equal good neighborhoods.”

Another council member, Khrystian King, praised Comparetto for fighting to ensure adequate funding for education, specifically through the “No on 2” campaign in 2016. “I’ve seen the work that he’s put in leading up to the elections, I’ve seen the work that he continues to put in on the campaign trail, and I’m quite confident that that work ethic will continue upon election,” King said. “Dante is a champion for Worcester.”

Support also came from the state legislative delegation, with Rep. Dan Donahue speaking on behalf of most of the city’s delegation to the House of Representatives in Boston. “He’s someone who gets it,” Donahue said of Comparetto. “I know that he’s going to have the ability through all his previous experience to really not just be a voice on the school committee, but to be an advocate and an organizer.”

Other state legislators endorsing Comparetto include Reps. Mary Keefe, John Mahoney, and Jim O’Day.

Paul DePalo, chair of Greater Worcester Our Revolution, said that “Dante understands that building a world class school system means addressing the whole child, and that means engaging with the community and being responsive to the community. I know for sure that he’s going to be a standing advocate for students and teachers.”

In accepting these endorsements, Comparetto said he was “honored.” The endorsements “reflect the more than 15 years of work that I have dedicated to our community. For my entire adult life, I have been serving the Worcester community, and bringing people together to solve problems. I have founded nonprofits that improve our city, served our city on boards and commissions, and started my own small business.”

Comparetto noted that the schools face challenges, saying, “I want to bring [my] experiences to the school committee in order to bring our community together to make our school district the best in the state.”

Image: Left to right: Khrystian King, Candy Mero-Carlson, Joe Carlson, Sarai Rivera, Paul DePalo, Dante Comparetto, Mary Colby, Fred Taylor, Shanique Spalding, Rep. Dan Donahue, Roger Nugent.

“Camaraderie to make the city better”: Worcester World Cup teams ready to play

WORCESTER, Mass. – Captains of teams participating in the 12th annual Worcester World Cup (WWC) games met Aug. 3 at the Pleasant Street Neighborhood Network Center to discuss game rules and to determine matchups.

The soccer tournament, scheduled this year for Aug. 11 through 13 at Foley Stadium’s Commerce Field, is a series of matches between teams representing Worcester’s diverse immigrant community. The event, which is organized by about a dozen volunteers, engages Worcester-based soccer (or football, as the sport is called in most other countries) players and fans from Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the U.S.A. This year, there are 19 teams, 16 male and 13 female.

Even though not affiliated with any official soccer leagues in the U.S., the games and players seem to draw a wide respect from professionals. George Cortes, of the United States Soccer Federation said that the referees would actually be assigned by USSF.

“It usually isn’t allowed,” Cortes, himself a professional referee, said, referring to USSF-assigned referees calling games of unaffiliated leagues like the WWC, but the organization made an exception in this case.

“Worcester is becoming known to people from other cities” for the games, Mushtaq Alzahiri, who was born in Iraq and now lives in Worcester, said. His team won the championship a year ago, and he is eager to defend it. Soccer, he said, “is my passion.”

Of course, soccer is a sport, and there are rivalries.

“We’re coming back to take what is ours,” Charles Allison, president of the Liberia Association of Worcester County and a partisan of the Liberia team, said, smiling. He noted that, of the previous 11 tournaments, “we are the six-time champions.”

But the tournament aims to help unite Worcester’s diverse immigrant communities as well. “This is important because it shows immigrants coming together and uniting themselves,” Allison said. “This is about immigrants, and this is about camaraderie to make the city better.”

While the captains met, organizers went over the rules, all typical to soccer: the clock would not stop for anything, yellow cards and red cards, and so on.

The rules are designed to encourage sportsmanship, said Laura, one of the organizers. “We’re celebrating in a fun, safe space,” she said.

WWC is a project of and fundraiser for Cultural Exchange Through Soccer, a city organization that serves as “a vehicle to develop young leaders,” Laura explained.

Albert, another volunteer organizer, said that the organization has a youth group, which “is to bring kids from different backgrounds – I’m from the Congo – together, let them play, tour colleges” and develop leadership in other ways.

The team captains drew papers randomly, each of which had a letter written on it, representing a time slot. As the time slots were filled in by Tereza Ngendahoruri, a volunteer, on the board, it became apparent who would be playing whom. The schedule is:

Worcester World Cup – Men’s Bracket

Friday, Aug. 11:

 

5.30: Brazil v. Ghana

6.45: U.S.A v. Nigeria

8.00: Guatemala v. Honduras

 

Saturday, Aug. 12:

 

9.30: Kenya v. Somalia

10.45: Togo v. Myanmar

1.15: Albania v. El Salvador

2.30: Jamaica v. Iraq

3.45: Ecuador v. Liberia

 

Worcester World Cup – Women’s Bracket

Sunday, Aug. 13

10:15 AM Game 1: USA vs Ecuador

12:30 PM Game 2: USA vs Italy

02:45 PM Game 3: Ecuador vs Italy

Tickets are six dollars and allow admission to all games.