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Insider
Baseball : A Bloody Mess -- The guts and gore
of school funding.
Viewpoint
: Hogging the Pie -- Porkers make out while
working stiffs take the blame.
Letters:
EW readers sound off.
A
Bloody Mess
The
guts and gore of school funding.
Salem: Oregon's version of the loya jirga, the
Legislature's third special session (SS
III), is set to convene on Wednesday, June 12th. Indirect democracy
at its best — 91 duly or dully elected villagers, sheepherders
and goatropers, lawyers and snake oil sellers, labor goons and sizemorrhoids,
and even a few of them troublesome Portland liberals will all meet
in a big tent and start looking for the tax camel's nose snorting
under the walls.
Last week Mullah Simmons, the speaker, gathered his
warlords around him and issued his edict: "Thank you all for your
input. I have consulted my chief economist, the chicken-entrails guy,
and he has assured me the goose that laid the golden eggs is simply
molting right now, and everything will be hunky-dory by December.
OK? OK! Let's go kick some Democrat booty." You see, Mark still thinks
that "negotiations" means: Take it as I offer it, or I'll stuff it
down your throat.
When last we talked, I reported after SS II that the
Republican legislative leadership voted out a horrendous budget —
more than $300 million in cuts to K-12, huge cuts to higher education
and community colleges, nasty cuts to human services and public safety,
more than $500 million total — all along straight partisan lines.
The governor vetoed part of the package because the Republicans relied
on one-time spending that will put us in a deep hole in the next biennium.
Since then we've gotten worse news. Including Ballot
Measure 13's defeat and restorations the governor made in his vetoes,
our poor state economy has the total deficit now at $880 million.
Even David Reinhard, the right-wing columnist for The Oregonian,
is calling for temporary increases in the state income tax to prevent
huge, bloody cuts. Reinhard's metamorphosis from Bill Sizemore sycophant
to John Taxhaber toady has revived my faith in humanity and my belief
in miracles — almost.
For the past seven years Reinhard has made a living
insulting the governor, but now he's seen the light. Now he wants
to quickly put aside the blame game and increase the Oregon income
tax by $124 million. Wow! Will wonders never cease?
Republicans are dead in the water in November if they
refuse to adequately fund schools and higher education; not to mention
if they try to make deeper cuts in senior and disabled services, nursing
homes and programs for children at-risk. I've always suspected that
Reinhard was a little smarter than Speaker Simmons. But both plans
fall far short of a real solution. Neither identifies where the $100
million to $120 million in cuts will come, which programs will be
wiped out. And both Reinhard and Simmons rely on the same old accounting
tricks that Oregonians rejected in May. They want to re-submit Measure
13 with $180 million in theft this time rather than $220 million (say
goodbye to 7,000 college scholarships, opportunity grants, that are
currently funded with this endowment); and they want to move the last
payment of this biennium into next biennium. They know damn well the
next Legislature is not obligated to pay that $220 to schools. Thus,
K-12 alone stands to be out $500 million from the end-of-session budget.
Higher ed — especially the UO — gets hammered as well.
Human services, relief nurseries, Project Independence, OSU extensions,
who knows what else? Only the Mullah.
Republican leaders have the same mindset that
their Senate Majority Leader Dave Nelson recently displayed: Oregon
voters who defeated Measure 13's theft of education endowment funds
were just plain stupid; if we force 'em to vote on it again they'll
go for it. Good luck! Remember the Death with Dignity referral? Voters
repudiated that Republican referral by a greater margin than the original
initiative!
Special Session III will be a total waste of time,
unless some "moderate" Republicans show up. Do you believe in the
Easter Bunny or trickle-down economics? Here, take my rooster, PLEASE
— he's bleeding.
On the other hand, the good news is Democrats did
well in the primaries. Susan Castillo and Dan Gardner avoided general
election challenges due to their wide margin of victories. Teddy Kulongoski
drew the most conservative Republican, Kevin Mannix, in the governor's
race. All three of my endorsements in primaries made it — Phil
Barnhard, Terry Beyer, and Kurt Schrader — and Measure 13 lost.
I would have hated to show up to SSS III if that hummer had passed.
Some Republicans are insufferable enough without them stickin' that
one where the sun don't shine. Have a nice day!
Sen. Tony Corcoran of Cottage Grove
represents portions of Lane and Douglas counties in the newly formed
Senate District 4, which now includes the UO area. He can be reached
at corcoran.sen@state.or.us
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Hogging
the Pie
Porkers make out while working stiffs take the blame.
BY
WILLIAM A. SMEE
There's an old joke about three Little Leaguers:
It's the bottom of the ninth, and the home team's one run
back. Player #1 steps up and strikes out. Player #2 does the same.
And finally, so does Player #3. Then, afterwards, Players #1 and #2
accost Player #3, accusing him of losing the game.
Public employees and their pension system are now
being blamed for everything from the entire state budgetary mess to
Osama's beard going gray. Forgotten or ignored (conveniently, in the
case of mainstream media and its corporate handlers) are the analogs
of Players One and Two: the boom-and-bust nature of the American economic
system; and a spate of revenue reductions and tax breaks — passed
either directly by taxpayers through the initiative, or else via "their"
elected representatives — which have mostly benefited the rich
(remember when individuals and corporations more or less split the
bills? Now it's more like 80/20).
But hey, it's easier to condemn PERS, right? Particularly
when a tame Fourth Estate continues to hand out little else but one-sided
information delivered directly from the very businessmen and women
whom have made out like bandits from the above situations, and would
just as soon your attention was focused elsewhere.
Well, since were playing dumb, here are some other
facts that are not generally known:
Some (and I emphasize "some") public employees —
those who actually make it through the whole 30 years, that is —
may indeed be set to gross more after they retire than before, or
are already doing so, as various sources have indicated. But keep
in mind that after retirement, employers no longer pick up health
insurance premiums. That outlay comes out of retirees' own pockets
— and that's AFTER taxes. And if you don't know how sky-high
THOSE costs have become these days — levels exacerbated further
by scandalous increases in co-pays and deductibles (more fat cats
at work?) — then you really haven't been paying attention.
Even during the economic expansion of the '90s,
when the bloated wallets of the wealthy got even fatter, state employees
consistently were granted little or no pay increases — and even
were forced to give back some raises already won in negotiations in
order to stave off layoffs — with the inevitable result that
now our salaries are on average far behind those in other, similar
sectors. Thus, that 5 to 10 percent "extra" suggested above barely
ends up balancing out.
As reported in The Register-Guard (now there's
a friend of labor) back in December, public employers had every chance
to sign on to the same variable account as PERS, but refused to do
so. Are public employees now to be penalized for administrative timidity,
or conversely for the fiscal foresight of their retirement fund managers?
The bottom line is this: Instead of taking on thousands
of fellow working men and women who have managed to maintain a fair
piece, wouldn't it make more sense to direct one's energies at the
few porkers whom are hogging most of the pie, and whose short-sighted,
self-serving, pathological greed is largely responsible for our current
financial problems? Instead of carping at the success of the well-organized
public employees unions, ask yourselves why similar benefits haven't
been negotiated by YOURS (assuming you still have one, of course;
or aren't one of those myopic souls who thinks the Old West ideals
of rugged independence still apply).
The moneys just not there to grant a decent pension
to everyone who's worked most of his or her adult life? Hogwash; if
your boss tells you that, he or she is lying. Don't think for one
moment that Phil Knight or Alton Baker III is sleeping in a refrigerator
box somewhere or diving in Dumpsters for half a box of Chicken McNuggets.
They and their cohorts are drinking champagne and smoking contraband
cigars while they figure out how to beat Connecticut in the "Disparity
Between Haves and Have-nots Game" ("We're Number Two? Try Harder!").
Keep this in mind, if nothing else: The plutocrats
love it when we fight among ourselves. "Divide and conquer" is still
the rule for controlling the awesome potential power of the masses,
and none know it better than the snorting, wallowing "lucremaniacs.
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THE
BEST CHOICE?
Our recently re-elected "hardest working
act in show business" County Commissioner Anna Morrison just voted
to raise her salary by approximately $17,000, or a 31 percent pay
increase (even though she was given annual cost-of-living adjustments
all along), just two weeks after the primary election. Ms. Morrision,
who's re-election was virtually bought and paid for by donations from
special interests such as the timber industry and land developers,
has recently stated "I'm excited that the people in West Lane County
felt that I was the best choice, and that they've let me come back
for another four years. I think that I truly, in the first term, have
listened to the people in my district." It appears to this listening
voter that the only people she has listened to are people with special
interests.
The fact that our county's economy and unemployment
rate are among the worst in Oregon should overshadow any argument
justifying an increase in commissioner pay. In fact, pay increases
are, in effect, rewarding those commissioners responsible for the
sad state of our country's economic condition. I suggest that the
commissioners reduce their pay to a level that is commensurate with
their job performance, which I suggest be rated at or below poor.
In addition, Ms. Morrision knew what the job paid, and she voluntarily
ran for re-election on that basis — or, wait a minute, maybe
she knew that they were all going to get a whopping pay increase after
the primary election. I guess we'll never know, like so many other
things that she has done in the past
William "Bill" Fleenor
Mapleton
EDITOR'S NOTE: Bill Fleenor ran against Anna Morrison
in the recent primary election.
A
PEACEFUL SOCIETY?
This binary and dichotomous argument over
violence vs. non-violence as methods of revolution and resistance
is growing redundant. Can we agree to disagree and organize and act
instead of argue? Is life really so simple that only one solution
is possible?
Many letters and articles query whether a peaceful
society has ever been achieved through violence or non-violence, as
the case may be. Do we even know what a truly peaceful society looks
like? Humankind has been at war with itself in one form or another
for most of our short history. Is conflict human nature? That I do
not know.
This does not excuse or in any way exonerate the deplorable
ways in which humans hurt and oppress one another and the planet.
Let's opt for improvement. What is essential is acting with kindness
and non-judgment toward others in our daily lives.
Changing the state of a crumbling society requires
getting involved in acting to dismantle a corrupt system ruled by
greed and shortsightedness while simultaneously creating a positive,
life-sustaining, renewable and non-consumptive community (thank you
Mr. Houser). This is a request to come together and act instead of
arguing, because life is too short.
Bree McKenzie
Eugene
THE
REAL PIGS
I live on the corner of 17th and Patterson,
where the melee on Friday night (5/31) occurred. I saw it in its entirety,
and what I witnessed repulsed me. I have heard analogies to other
protests that have occurred in Eugene over the past few years. From
what I have seen of timber sale protests and what I have read about
the tree-sit downtown five years ago, I can say that what occurred
on Friday night did not resemble them at all.
This was not a case of peaceful protest being violently
broken up by overzealous cops. This was merely a drunken throng without
a cause outside of blind rebellion and showing little regard for safety
and dignity bringing onto itself the consequences of its own aggression.
It was the students who initiated the conflict with
a beer-bottle projectile that nearly hit the first patrol car at the
scene. Bottles were hurtled continuously afterwards, too many of them
landing dangerously near people at the front of the crowd. When backup
arrived and the cops moved to clear the street, some of the malcontents
threw bottles directly at them. That's not protest; that's assault.
And what was the cause at hand? Was some injustice
being exposed, some oppression decried? Was there something to have
been said beyond "fuck you pigs," or was this merely an excuse to
give vent to baser instincts? Who were the real pigs on Friday night?
Don't get me wrong; I believe in protest. I know
that cops abuse their authority and the people. I know that the criminal
justice system is corrupt, and I believe our government's priorities
are skewed, but what happened on Friday night doesn't lend me any
more faith in the people at large. And that's a travesty that can't
be pinned on an authority, but for which we are all responsible.
DJ Fuller
Eugene
NO JOE SCHMOE
I felt a slight constriction wrapping its fingers around
my throat. Front pockets, back pockets, coat pockets, nothing. A certain
trepidation gave way to a mild resignation as I peered through the
window. Alas, the keys were dangling in the ignition, doors locked,
windows closed. It was a first.
He was just getting into his car when he saw me standing
there, head atilt, hanger in hand, face crunched. He came to my aid
explaining that he was an expert with a hanger, having locked his
keys in his car more times than anyone he knows. He wielded the hanger
deftly, but my car locks evidently do not succumb to hangers no matter
how deft or persistent the wielder.
Fast-forward. He walks to L&L to wait over coffee.
I drive off in his van, loaded with expensive photography equipment,
tools, and gas. He has offered me his car to drive to my house in
Springfield to get my spare key. The feelings that arise in me from
this man's display of trust and kindness are nearly unbearable. The
25-minute round trip is a blur.
I find him sitting and reading his book like he doesn't
have a care in the world. I give him his car key and attempt to give
him money for the coffee, the gas, the kindness. He won't have it.
(And no, he doesn't ask for my phone number.) He says that he taught
his daughters never to accept a ride from a stranger. He spared me
that predicament, though he wasn't the kind of stranger from whom
daughters need protecting. He was the kind of stranger who makes this
world a better place, a stranger with compassion for a fellow human
being.
His name was Joe.
Molly Sirois
Springfield
SEXUAL
TERRITORY
I'd like to thank you for Lisa Igoe's important
article "Rape Culture" in the current EW (5/16). Coupled with
your prominent display of Womenspace "Stop the Violence" ads in the
front of the book, these are the things that make you a paper I want
to listen to. Until I reached page 28; and found that this is a case
of teaching you what you need to learn. Perhaps you should have looked
a little closer at the picture you're running for an advertiser, in
the very same issue, on page 28. The "Club 1444" ad depicts a young
woman hitch-hiking.
Her costume is uncharacteristic of real women (particularly
in semi-rural areas like ours) whose poverty and whose county's limited
public transit sometimes leaves them no transportation alternative
but the thumb. The female hitch-hiker is depicted in your paper wearing
nothing but a topless dancer's costume from the solar plexus down
to her pants; pants which, unbuttoned at the top, she is pulling down
with her finger, wearing a seductive expression. The message is abundantly
clear: Women who hitch-hike are "asking for it."
Women who hitch-hike, women who are young and don't
own cars, women who wear T-shirts and jeans, and certainly any woman
who is all of the above, is the designated sexual territory of men;
who are statistically more likely to have the happiness to own a vehicle.
Of course, advertisers are necessary to a paper like
EW. Still, I don't suppose such a politically correct, savvy
group as yourselves need some preaching to about the evils of domination
by advertisers, as the death of a free media. Perhaps what we have
here is a failure to communicate between your editorial department
and your ad department. You'll hear more about this when I get done
throwing up.
Sybil Fabian
Portland
EDITOR'S NOTE: Our advertising and
editorial departments operate independently of each other; however,
we do appreciate feedback on both our ad and editorial content.
BAD
TIMING
Nuclear waste issues could not have come
at a worse time. Post Sept. 11 doesn't lend itself to public technical
discussion about potential terrorist targets or a need to think in
geologic time.
The anti-nukes have lightened up for on-site dry cask
storage. Now if the pro-nukes will back off of Yucca Mountain storage
— now, then maybe, just maybe the issues can be properly sorted
out. This would require that both sides refrain from turning up the
rhetoric and remember that these issues are a more important then
whether or not commercial nuclear power has a future. Present nuclear
waste issues must be decided separately because of the very large
existing inventory of long lived, highly radioactive and toxic material.
Dan Solitz
Eugene
MAKE
IT SAFE
I think that moving the nuclear waste to
Yucca Mountain is smart, just not at this time. There isn't good enough
technology to move the nuclear waste safely, so we should hold off
for now.
We need to wait until there is a way to move all
of the nuclear waste off of the nuclear power plant sites anyway.
Right now, if it is moved, there will still be waste that will be
cooling for five more years until it is ready to be moved. Also, waste
will always be produced as long as the plant is still making energy.
Besides that, the casks that the nuclear waste is shipped in leak
radiation at the rate of a chest x-ray. Whenever someone is
driving next to the trucks down the freeway or are stopped waiting
for one of the trains to pass, they are exposed to the radiation.
Just think, would you rather wait a few years for technology to catch
up or be exposed to this radiation while you're driving your child
somewhere?
As you can see, there is no point in moving this radioactive
material when we could wait a few years for the technology to make
it safe. I like the idea of having all of the nuclear waste in one
spot instead of spread out, but it's not the solution right now. So,
please call your senator and urge him to vote against this until there
is technology suitable enough for something this dangerous.
Derek Manwill
Eugene
FISCAL
FOLLY
I am writing this in response to continued
attempts to rationalize the West Eugene Parkway. As a conservationist
who is concerned about the health of our city, the health of our citizens
and the health of the natural systems that clean our air and water,
I oppose the WEP on a number of grounds. Five things in particular
concern me the most.
Ç The west Eugene wetlands comprise the last remaining
1/100th of historic wetland prairie. Building this highway is not
the way to conserve this minute island of threatened ecosystem
Ç Bisecting that with a high-speed highway is as compatible
with protecting this essential life supporting system as is building
an "athlete friendly" highway through Autzen Stadium. Endangered species
will be impacted no matter how it is planned.
Ç Don't sacrifice other projects that will make our
neighborhoods safer and provide better access. I'd rather spend my
tax dollars on projects that make existing highways more safe and
convenient. The intersections at 6th and I-105 and at Beltline and
I-105 are dangerous and should carry a higher priority. These projects
will be delayed if the WEP is built.
Ç It is fiscally unwise. Spending $105 million on
a slab of pavement that will ultimately not solve our transportation
problems is not a prudent use of limited coffer funds.
Ç Other better, cheaper, more effective alternatives
exist that will ultimately make our community stronger. Do no ignore
this fact. Compact growth is the desired outcome, and the WEP is incompatible
with this end.
James Ekins
Eugene
DRIVE
THEM OUT
If opening up Broadway street to traffic
will be such a boom to business downtown, then it follows that other
traffic-oriented solutions will work wonders for other areas of town.
Why should downtown be the only place in Eugene to receive such taxpayer
subsidized infrastructure?
I propose that the city of Eugene begin condemnation
procedures on the walkway that runs down the Valley River Center.
Think of how much business a new road through the mall will bring!
Should we deny the merchants at the mall the benefits that are being
extended downtown? Such a road will undoubtedly drive out (no pun
intended!) those unwanted kids and other low-lives, like senior citizens
— who utilize the walkway space for socializing or walking.
If being able to drive through an area will increase business and
revitalize a flagging area, then we shouldn't hesitate to implement
this solution everywhere.
I'm sure everyone will join me in this patriotic,
um, drive to make our country stronger by investing in business —
through road building.
Ryan Foote
Eugene
LIMIT
BUREAUCRATS
Re: "Sssuck" (5/23): Hallelujah —
at last one person is aware of how the bureaucrats are raping and
plundering the taxpayers. And the pension plan is only the tip of
the iceberg.
Term limits for all bureaucrats! Term limits are the
only thing that will permanently return the government to the people.
Frank Skipton
Veneta
SALES
TAX TIME
It is time for Oregonians to bite the bullet
of pride, and have a sales tax. They are cutting off their noses to
spite their faces. Tourism is one of the largest industries in the
state. Tourists use our facilities, our police, our roads, all our
infrastructure. There is no reason why they should not help pay the
expenses like in all other states. The tax would then be shared by
all and would be much less of a burdon on the individual. The tax
is NOT regressive because food, housing, and medical would be exempt.
The poor have little money to spend on anything else. And while we
are talking about taxes, Congress should vote down this idea of removing
the inheritance tax. Just one more gift to the very, very rich!
Margaret C. Waite
Eugene
FIGHTING
TYRANNY
Steve Veit writes (6/6) that the losing
tactics of anarchists have resulted in some of the worlds great dictatorships:
Franco, Hitler, and Mao all wrested order from Bakuninist anarchy
and its sympathizers. This statement is so ridiculous that one would
think that Veit studied history under J. Edgar Hoover.
Anyone who knows anything about anarchism
as a philosophy and social movement knows that anarchists have always
fought against all forms of tyranny.
The Russian anarchist Bakunin left Marx's First International
because he believed the dictatorship of the proletariat envisioned
by the state communists, would lead to a dictatorship over
the proletariat.
Anarchists collaborated with communists in the Russian,
Chinese, Spanish, and Cuban revolutions (in Russia and Spain they
were the most popular and progressive force), but anarchists were
quickly liquidated by the authoritarian communists once they seized
state power.
As for fascists, nowhere in the world can the establishment
of fascist rule be attributed to anarchists. Anarchists have always
fought fascism relentlessly and often violently.
Mr. Veit goes on to claim anarchists want to arrest
human development by eliminating benevolent institutions like NATO,
EU, NAFTA, UN, etc.
This is true if you equate human progress with the
further centralization of power, and the proliferation of a global
military-industrial complex that is beyond the control of the people
and is protected by thick layers of bureaucracy.
As I see it, the anarchist conception of progress
means working for greater egalitarianism and sustainability —
and less bureaucratic tyranny.
Brenton Gicker
Eugene
LETTERS POLICY: We welcome letters on all topics
and will print as many as space allows. Please limit length to 250
words, and submissions to once a month. E-mail to editor@eugeneweekly.com,
fax to 484-4044, or mail to 1251 Lincoln, Eugene 97401.
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