As the calendar turned to November and the Israel-Hamas hot war conflict turned about one month old, another week of protests and counter-protests engulfed Washington, DC and Montgomery County as well. A huge, well-organized pro-Palestine (and pro-cease fire) protest occurred on Saturday, November 4th in Washington, DC. Protesters marched on the White House and (some) also defaced / spray painted several federal statues and buildings. A pro-Israel rally is expected in the coming week(s) as well in DC.
At this particular protest on Saturday, Nov 4th were members / activists from a “non-profit” funded by our tax dollars in MoCo, often called “CASA de Maryland” or just “Casa”. Now a sprawling multi-state non-profit that has five offices alone in Maryland, including two in Montgomery County, the lefty-leaning issue advocacy org pushes a variety of issues beyond just immigration reform (which was its bedrock issue at founding). Since 2018, as reported here at CleanSlateMoCo, Montgomery County taxpayers have been taxed to provide over $6 million in funding to this organization. Their local influence is palpable as their “sister” org, a political action committee, ‘endorses’ and works to elect many of our County Councilmembers. They even work across the river in VA on local elections in the off years. Councilmember Fani-Gonzalez was just posting images of herself on Twitter / X.com showing off her canvassing efforts with CASA’s sister org.
The public financing of CASA is a big problem. More roads and bridges, better and cleaner school buildings, and public safety are all put on the back-burner each budget cycle so that CASA can get basically a cool million per year in taxpayer grants (on average). It is maddening. And basically “non-profit” cronyism. Why does ‘CASA’ get these grants over other deserving non-profit orgs? We know why. Connections. Influence.
Anyways, CASA leadership stepped in it this week when it posted about its activists’ attendance at the pro-Palestine rally in DC on Saturday and then went on a rant about “brown and black freedom fighters” in Gaza. We won’t rehash what was posted (both on CASA’s website and on X.com) but needless to say, it was nonsensical and bad enough that the social media blowback was immediate, even from sitting CMs, and the org had to issue a retraction almost immediately (see screen cap below):
They also now have to endure numerous “denouncement” proclamations from members of the County Council, who no doubt now feel compelled to distance themselves from the nonsensical, ignorant rant that CASA posted on Monday, November 6th. There are few things these sanctimonious MoCo politicians dislike more than bad press or their name associated with someone or something that “hurt” some other group – particularly a minority group.
And herein lies the big problem with the “diverse” (in the shallowest use of the term because there is no idea diversity in the body) County Council of Montgomery County – it wants to be “all things to all people” in ethnically diverse MoCo and yet still weigh in, even officially at times, and opine on complex geopolitical events thousands of miles away – without “offending” anyone.
This isn’t going to work, long-term. Similar to what was described about MCPS by my writing buddy Michael earlier, you simply aren’t going to able to “unify” a super-diverse group of people with major differences stemming from long-term and deep seated ideologies and histories. This isn’t to say we don’t try to mend fences and embrace common humanity and promote peace – but this County Council government isn’t the vehicle to “heal the world” or even heal divisions in MoCo.
The people of MoCo would be much more unified and probably much less ill-tempered with one another if they saw actual progress via accountable schools, new roads, more bridges and trains, and policy that promotes a lower cost of living – not a high tax, high inflation one.
Can’t local politicians stick to the basics? Public servants wanted – not full-time activists and geopolitical opinion editors.
