|
News
Briefs: Defending The Guard
| Reducing Poverty | On
The Ballot | Fuel Reduction
| Get Wild
News:
Tax Gift to Hynix: Internal documents reveal just how city
staff screwed up.
News:
Business Decision: Health workers question closing.
News:
Double Jeopardy: Spotted owl remains on the brink.
News:
Undercovered #23: More war news that escapes mainstream attention.
Happening
People: Cary Thompson
DEFENDING
THE GUARD
Speaking to the Eugene City Club July 19,
Register-Guard Executive Editor Jim Godbold praised the "core
values" of his employers, the Baker family, and defended the business
from accusations that the owners are trying to "bust" the employees'
union.
"I absolutely don't buy into the notion that the paper
is attempting to bust the union, to have it decertified, to try to
make it go away," said Godbold. "I'm privy to conversations about
labor negotiations at the highest levels with family members and there
is no thought about busting the union."
|
Slant
Ç The closure of Eugene's
All Women's Health Services clinic doesn't make sense and the
lack of candor and communication from its administration and
board only fuels speculation. Why is it a good "business decision"
to eliminate relatively profitable abortion services in Eugene,
where options are few, but maintain them in Portland, where
options are many? Did the imminent unionization of workers have
anything to do with the closure? Was an exhaustive search conducted
for a new medical director? We urge the AWHS board and administration
to openly address these issues and more. Meanwhile, we support
any efforts to establish a new non-profit women's health clinic
in Eugene to provide these essential services.
Ç Gotta hand it to R-G Executive Editor
Jim Godbold for standing up at City Club last week and defending
his turf. He managed to side-step the tough questions, saying
he's not allowed to comment on the specifics of labor negotiations,
but now he's on record saying, among other things, that the
R-G is returning to investigative reporting after more
than a dozen years. The big questions, of course, are what will
they investigate and how deep will they go? Chances are it won't
be the hidden costs of sprawl, the folly of tax breaks for Hynix,
conflicts of interest within city and county government, PeaceHealth
finances, or spending on Duck athletics vs. academics. Will
the R-G really prod its sacred cows? And with six less
staff writers than they had in 2000? Of course they can.
It's a matter of priorities and commitment.
Ç Oregon school funding remains a tangled mess
and Gov. Kitzhaber is showing integrity and conviction in holding
out for permanent solutions. The tax-phobic R's in Salem figure
the economy will bounce right back, so let's just borrow against
the future and tighten our belts. But it might be years before
we see a healthy economy again, and squeezing our education
system will only add to our long-term economic woes. The best
solution is likely the simplest — a progressive income
tax hike dedicated to education.
Ç Last week's "Treadmarks" column about the
new breed of zippy little station wagons came to us from Jim
Motavelli with the headline "Rice Rocket." It slipped by us,
but a reader of Asian heritage called it to our attention. Would
we call a car made in Mexico a "Beanmobile"? Good point. Any
time we poke fun at cultural stereotypes we reinforce them.
Our apologies.
SLANT includes short opinion pieces and rumor-chasing
notes compiled by the EW staff. Heard any good rumors lately?
Contact Ted Taylor at 484-0519, editor@eugeneweekly.com |
But Eugene Newspaper Guild President Adele Berlinski
responded after the talk, saying, "As my mother always said, actions
speak louder than words. When a company hires a union-busting attorney,
drags out negotiations for years and breaks labor law repeatedly,
I'd say they want to gut or eviscerate the union, at the very least."
The R-G has been ruled guilty in 15 federal
unfair labor practices complaints, and when a City Club member asked
about it, Godbold said, "It has to do with obviously some real differences
of opinion about what's OK in terms of labor practices. … they
[the owners] still believe significantly enough in the correctness
of their actions that they are appealing every one, so it's not like
the case has been resolved completely yet."
Berlinski noted the company has already lost five
appeals in court, "and we expect them to lose more."
"Whatever you may have heard," Godbold said, "I can
promise you one thing: Both parties to these difficult negotiations
are acting with what they genuinely believe are the best interests
of their constituents at heart. This isn't about good guys and bad
guys. The issues that separate the two sides now are fundamentally
philosophical, not economic."
When asked to elaborate on what those philosophical
differences were, he declined, saying he was not allowed to speak
on the specifics of the negotiations.
City Club member Maryann Holser asked how has the
quality of the R-G's news coverage has been affected by the
current economic situation and labor dispute. Godbold said he couldn't
speak for Guild members, but "from the point of view of a supervisor
and an editor, I haven't seen a diminishing of the quality of their
work at all. They have been as professional and as energetic and as
incredible as they were when they were working under a signed contract."
Berlinski disagreed, saying "lots of good people have
left the newsroom and other departments" during these stressful times,
including Suzi Prozanski, Lance Robertson, Kimber Williams and Elaine
Bebe-Lapriore. "The copy desk has lost half its staff in the past
26 months. High quality newspaper workers won't be attracted to the
Guard, given our problems. The Guard has a bad reputation
in the industry as a workplace right now."
Godbold also spoke on the R-G's slipping revenues
and readership, challenges facing family-owned newspapers today, the
paper's policy of not publishing letters on its labor battles, and
plans for the R-G to resume investigative reporting.
City Club talks are taped and usually broadcast on
KLCC-FM the following Monday, but this talk has been delayed for airing
until 6:30 pm Monday, July 29.
— Ted Taylor
REDUCING
POVERTY
Cities such as San Francisco that enact
living wage laws above minimum wage are reducing poverty rates for
the working poor, according to a study released this spring by the
Public Policy Institute of California. The study is discussed in the
latest issue of Business Ethics magazine, www.business-ethics.com/
More than 60 U.S. cities, counties and public agencies
have adopted living wage policies since 1994.
"Living wages actually reduce poverty," says author
David Neumark, an economics professor at Michigan State University.
"If someone's getting up on a soapbox saying these are a disaster,"
he says, "there's really no evidence." For more information, visit
www.ppic.org
ON
THE BALLOT
Health Care for All-Oregon announced this
week that single-payer health insurance will be on Oregon's November
ballot. Local organizer Ruth Duemler says the grassroots group turned
in 98,001 signatures and sampling of 1,000 ballots by the secretary
of state's office indicated that 87 percent of the ballots were valid,
more than enough to qualify.
The group now faces an opposition campaign likely
well funded by the insurance industry and other business interests.
If it passes, the measure would establish a statewide insurance company
funded by a combination of employer and progressive income taxes.
FUEL
REDUCTION
With wildfires destroying homes and forests
at an alarming rate this summer, a collection of 148 U.S. conservation
groups sent a letter to the U.S. Forest Service July 18 clarifying
their positions concerning wildfire management on public lands. The
groups say recent media reports and statements by federal and state
officials have mistakenly criticized the environmental community as
opposing most fire management strategies, according to the Environmental
News Service.
|
Websitings
Best
of the West
This Eugene-based online magazine offers
a "progressive journal of rural and city life, ecology, arts
and letters, and peace from a Northwest perspective." Stories
by and on Trim Bissell, Peg Morton, Norm Maxwell, Starhawk and
others.
Kyoto
Now!
A grassroots global campaign based at
Cornell University promoting action to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions. Lots of good information on both global warming and
strategic action.
Media
Whores
The site that "set out to bring the media
to their knees — but found they were already there."
Websitings is a list of useful and sometimes
quirky web sites. See a complete list with hot links at www.eugeneweekly.com/websitings.html
Care to contribute to the list? Send suggested sites and a short
description to editor@eugeneweekly.com
|
The groups emphasize in the letter that they
have always supported "common sense approaches designed
to effectively protect homes and communities from fire," including
prescribed burning and reduction of underbrush.
The letter says most environmental groups only oppose
"those projects that would log old-growth trees in the name of fire
protection." The letter also points out that "industrial logging does
not fireproof a forest," citing the disastrous Rodeo-Chediski fire
in Arizona as an example. The forest that burned is heavily logged
and roaded.
GET
WILD
Oregon environmental groups are sponsoring
Wilderness Week, which began July 19 and continues through this weekend.
Upcoming hikes and camping trips include Brice Creek, Murderer's Creek,
the Siskiyous, Lemolo, Memaloose Lake, the Copper Salmon wilderness
and other wild places. The guided outings include tours of unique
areas that are unprotected from logging and road-building.
All the hikes, events and contact information are
listed on the website (www.oregonwild.org/wweek2002.html). For the
Brice Creek hike Friday, July 26, call 767-1368. The outings are free
and transportation is provided by carpooling.
Back to Top
Tax
Gift to Hynix
Internal
documents reveal just how city staff screwed up.
BY
ALAN PITTMAN
In February, the Eugene City Council narrowly
voted to give Hynix a new $2.2 million tax break. At the time, councilors
were unaware that Hynix was successfully appealing its taxes with
the state, costing the city about $480,000 this year in lost revenues.
City staff knew about the tax appeal but didn't tell
the council. When news of the appeal broke after the vote, councilors
said the staff should not have withheld information from the council
that would have changed the tax break decision. Several councilors
asked acting City Manager Jim Carlson for a detailed explanation,
but remained unsatisfied.
Citizens for Public Accountability obtained hundreds
of pages of city documents related to the Hynix tax appeal using the
state Public Records Law. The internal city e-mails and memos reveal:
Ç City officials had detailed knowledge of the appeal
months before the council vote.
Ç A math error lead to an underestimate of the
appeal's financial impact on the city.
Ç One city staffer twice recommended telling
the council about the appeal without success.
Ç City staff hid their detailed knowledge of
the appeal when a KVAL TV reporter broke the story.
What follows is a chronology of what the documents
show.
On Nov. 30, 2001, Hynix acting CEO M.H. Huh
writes a letter to the state tax court appealing the corporation's
taxes. On Dec. 26, the Hynix tax appeal is formally filed with the
tax court. The short public document says Hynix wants a reduction
of its assessed value from $752 million to $500 million.
Jan. 16, 2002, Lane County commercial appraiser Chip
Cool e-mails city treasury officer Sue Cutsogeorge warning that according
to the state Department of Revenue (DOR), Hynix's taxable value will
be reduced by about $60 million resulting in a "substantial refund."
Cutsogeorge e-mails back, "We are obviously very interested in knowing
what's going on with the taxes for this facility." Cool refers Cutsogeorge
to DOR for more information, "We have to be careful with disclosure
and confidentiality issues in regard to industrial facilities as well
as being sensitive to [DOR's] review and negotiation process."
Jan. 17, Cutsogeorge e-mails three other city finance
and development staffers alerting them of the Hynix appeal. Based
on the $60 million figure, Cutsogeorge calculates that the impact
of the tax appeal on the city could be about $100,000. Her calculations
later prove wrong.
Jan. 17, Cecil Preuit, senior industrial appraiser
at DOR, e-mails Cutsogeorge with more information on Hynix's appeal.
"It has pretty convincingly been shown that Hynix reported some of
their business cost as new capitalized improvements."
Jan. 17, Cutsogeorge e-mails Cool saying she understands
that basic information about Hynix's appeal is not confidential. Cool
e-mails back clarifying, "only when we get into the specifics of the
basis for the appeal and the info being submitted for review by the
company are we treading into the confidential areas."
Jan. 18, Cutsogeorge e-mails city finance and development
staff relaying information from Cool. "We determined that it is OK
to let folks know that Hynix appealed their value ... but we shouldn't
provide any specifics about why or about the estimate of the potential
impact. So if we wanted to mention this in the staff notes [to the
City Council], we should say that they paid $xx in taxes for the current
year but they have appealed their assessed value and the amount may
be reduced if the appeal is successful."
Jan. 18, Cutsogeorge e-mails city development staffer
Denny Braud, repeating her suggestion that the staff notes briefing
the City Council on the Hynix tax waiver decision include information
on the tax appeal. "I would also suggest adding at the end of that
paragraph a sentence saying that they have appealed their assessed
value and they could receive a refund this year if the appeal is successful."
But on Jan. 23, Cutsogeorge e-mails Braud, praising his draft of the
council briefing that doesn't mention the tax appeal. "This really
looks good." The final version of the council briefing for a Jan.
30 meeting makes no mention of the appeal.
Feb. 19, Cutsogeorge and Braud exchange e-mails again
discussing the uncertainty of the Hynix tax revenue estimates being
sent to the City Council due to the pending appeal.
Feb. 20, the City Council approves an additional $2.2
million in tax breaks for Hynix. The vote is 4-4 with the mayor breaking
the tie.
April 17, Cutsogeorge e-mails acting city manager
Jim Carlson and city development and finance staff describing a call
from KVAL TV news reporter Cathryn Stephens. "I told her we didn't
have any information about the amount.... [Finance manager] Dee Ann
[Hardt] left me a message saying that she didn't tell her anything
either."
Cutsogeorge writes that Stephens has a tax court document
indicating Hynix wants its value reduced by $250 million. "It surprised
me that she could get something from tax court, since I've been told
by the county and the state that information about an appeal on industrial
property is confidential."
Cutsogeorge says Stephens questioned why the council
wasn't told of the appeal before they granted the Hynix tax break.
"I didn't respond to her assertions/questions."
April 17, Cutsogeorge e-mails Hardt estimating the
impact of the tax appeal to the city could be $400,000 if Hynix's
value is reduced by $250 million and half of that value is not exempt
under previous tax breaks. "My math appears to have been wrong in
the first [Jan. 17] calculation … sorry about that." Cutsogeorge
also tells Hardt that "my research on the [tax appeal] process indicates
that this information should not be confidential."
April 17, Hardt e-mails Carlson that staff knew about
the appeal in January but didn't tell the council. Cutsogeorge "brought
up the point that we could consider including some language in the
exemption AIS [council briefing] about Hynix's tax appeal. I didn't
make any additional effort to have this information included in the
AIS."
April 19, Carlson e-mails the council and budget committee
with his explanation of what happened. Carlson says staff knew about
the appeal in January but based on "sketchy information" estimated
the impact at only $100,000, an amount that was "was not felt to be
too important." Carlson says, "With the benefit of hindsight, we should
have at least raised the issue for full information, even though we
would not have known what the impact of the appeal would be." Carlson
does not mention Cutsogeorge's e-mailed admission of a math error.
April 23, Councilor Gary Rayor e-mails Carlson, saying
he "definitely" wouldn't have provided the swing vote for the Hynix
tax break if he'd known of the pending tax appeal. "Withholding related
legal information by whomever is a serious breach of judgement and
duty."
Back to Top
Business
Decision
Health
workers question closing.
BY
JACQUELYN LEWIS
The permanent closure of the All
Women's Health Services (AWHS) clinic in Eugene July 16 sent out a
shock wave that still resonates throughout the entire community. The
shutdown was a surprise to the organization's employees and patients,
the medical community and local pro-choice organizations.
AWHS is a non-profit feminist organization dedicated
to providing women-controlled healthcare. The clinic provided a variety
of services, including annual exams, STD screening, donor insemination,
pregnancy testing and abortions. The organization operates another
clinic in Portland, which will remain open.
Lois Smith, executive director in Portland, says the
reasoning behind the Eugene shutdown "can be summarized as a strategic
business decision we've made for the organization." Smith, who was
unavailable for follow-up comments this week, also says the closure
will allow the Portland clinic to concentrate on a more full spectrum
of women's healthcare. However, former employees and community members
speculate otherwise.
Employees were called into a mandatory meeting the
morning of July 16, where Smith told them the clinic was officially
closed.
"It was completely a shock to all of us," says Sarah
Macrorie, a former health worker at the clinic. She says the employees
were simply given their last paychecks and unemployment handbooks.
"There was a pretty broad range of reactions," Macrorie
says. "Some people started crying immediately." While Macrorie says
she felt "thoroughly insulted," her immediate reaction was to ask
questions. "All the answers I got were really unsatisfactory," she
says. "They were really vague. Everything you do is a business decision,
and I feel shafted by that answer."
Former clinic coordinator Penny O'Leary says she became
physically ill upon hearing of the clinic's shutdown. "We felt like
we were making a difference," she says, "and that dedication was stamped
out in such a cruel, harsh and sudden way. I just can't believe it.
If it was purely a business decision, one would think they would have
made arrangements ahead of time. It was baffling."
According to O'Leary, Smith pointed to Medical Director
Sarah Hendrickson's resignation as one reason for the closure. Hendrickson
planned to leave the clinic at the end of July, and AWHS was searching
for a replacement. However, Macrorie says the search was insufficient.
"My understanding was that a good effort was not made."
O'Leary says employees' impending unionization could
have been a deciding factor in the board of directors' decision. "We
had authorized the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) to recognize
us as a bargaining unit," she says. "We were working with the women
in Portland and we were afraid for our jobs." O'Leary says employees
planned to file union papers July 8 and attend a board meeting the
next day to announce their plans. Later, the employees were told the
meeting would be closed and they would not be allowed to attend.
"Many of us felt that the AWHS Board of Directors
and administration chose to shut down the Eugene facility rather than
address staff and community concerns," wrote former employee Bayla
Ostrach, in a Register-Guard column July 22.
O'Leary says concerns included a recent change in
the pay scale. Under the former system, workers could receive a 50-cent
raise for each of five skill levels. However, under the new system,
employees were limited to one raise per year. The organization also
reduced employees' hours over the past year.
O'Leary says AWHS may have been facing even more significant
financial struggles. "It didn't look like a business doing well,"
she says, pointing to the $99,000 the business was expected to lose
in 2002. However, she says, the Eugene clinic performed more abortions
than the Portland facility. "Those clients pay more per visit," she
says. "I don't know how closing the Eugene clinic is going to benefit
their business."
"I think the administration was looking for an excuse,"
Macrorie says, "and they found one, whatever that may have been. I
do think it had to do with the fact we were making trouble for them."
Macrorie says the clinic was also providing abortions
in a "harsh environment" for such services, adding, "We have a conservative
Catholic medical organization running this town."
Smith says AWHS will be coordinating follow-up care
with clients in Portland. However, O'Leary thinks the Portland facility
is already understaffed and appointment slots are booked until the
end of August.
"As it is, nearly 40 women would have come to Eugene
AWHS for abortions this weekend," wrote Ostrach. "… the time
and money it will take to make an appointment in Portland may mean
the difference between having an abortion and being forced to bear
a child they cannot care for." She also calls AWHS's decision an "abandonment
of care" and says many patients who recently had abortions and already
paid follow-up fees will have to pay another physician if they are
unable to travel to Portland.
Smith says AWHS "will continue to work with the pro-choice
community in Eugene and Lane County."
Macrorie is optimistic, saying, "The position is ripe
for another clinic to open, and there will be plenty of support. We
have a void, but that void will be filled."
Back to Top
Double
Jeopardy
Spotted
owl remains on the brink.
BY
ORNA IZAKSON
Remember the northern spotted owl, the
bird on whose behalf logging once halted on national forests in Oregon?
You haven't thought about the bird for almost a decade. It's time
to think again.
New lawsuits, the eight-year-old Northwest Forest
Plan, bigger, badder birds and current logging all are threatening
the spotted owl, which has become the poster-bird for the fight to
protect ancient forests.
The issue has been rising in prominence in the past
couple of weeks. First, activists discovered an owl family including
a baby on the edge of the controversial Berry Patch timber sale in
the Willamette National Forest.
The owl family and its still-dependent owlet were
a startling reminder that the landmark 1994 Northwest Forest Plan
allows owl habitat to be obliterated and owl populations to decline
based on the prediction that in 50 to 70 years both the habitat and
the birds will rebound.
The plan considered three categories of habitat for
the owl: protected areas such as wilderness, matrix lands that are
supposed to be the source of all or most timber volume, and "late
successional reserves" (LSRs) where the Forest Service is growing
trees that will eventually become good owl habitat.
The problem, explains Susan Jane Brown of the Vancouver,
Wash.-based Gifford Pinchot Task Force, is that the plan expected
all the suitable owl habitat on matrix lands to be cut in 20 years,
while the LSRs wouldn't offer good habitat to replace it for 80-100
years — a sizeable gap for a species on the brink.
"What do you do for the next 60-80 years if you're
a spotted owl?" she asks. "You go extinct because there isn't any
habitat on state or private lands."
According to Doug Heiken of the Oregon Natural Resources
Council — one of the first groups that worked to protect the
owl — this period of greater risk "is the Northwest Forest Plan's
dirty little secret."
The case of the Berry Patch owl family is a particularly
striking example of how the Forest Plan reduced protections for individual
owls. Usually, the Endangered Species Act (under which the owl is
protected) would require much larger buffers around the imperiled
birds. According to Mike Gebben, a wildlife biologist with the Willamette
National Forest, owlets at the age of the one near Berry Patch may
be able to fly by the time logging started on June 16, but usually
can't even feed themselves reliably until as late as September.
In the LSRs, owls would have a window through Sept.
30 to get out of the way of logging, Gebben explained. The birds also
would have had bigger buffers, too, if they'd been found before the
plan went into effect in 1994.
"It's kind of like double jeopardy for these birds,"
says Shannon Wilson, a forest-issues coordinator with the Oregon chapter
of the Sierra Club. "They're in matrix and they were found post 1994
… They're just these extra spotted owls that (the USFS) didn't
plan to manage around."
Wilson notes that, according to USFS documents, substantially
more owls live on matrix lands than in LSRs or wilderness. As of Sept.
1997, 505 owl pairs lived in protected areas of western Oregon national
public lands from the Willamette National Forest north, with 100 of
those in wilderness. By contrast, 675 pairs were unprotected, meaning
they lived on matrix lands or were found after 1994.
But things could get worse for the owls. A lawsuit
by the Western Council of Industrial Workers (WCIW) is forcing the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service — the federal agency responsible
for recovering imperiled plants and critters — to reevaluate
the status of the owl and the marbled murrelet, another old-growth-dependent
bird. In the process, the suit is challenging the basis of both birds'
protection under the ESA and asking that any habitat designated as
critical to their survival be revoked.
As many predicted before Bush took office, the new
White House is being far less than aggressive when faced with lawsuits
that suit its positions. Bush's Justice Department — whose job
it is to defend agency decisions such as the listings — has
repeatedly settled cases by reducing protection for species rather
than fighting them.
The WCIW lawsuit is in federal court in Eugene before
Judge Ann Aiken. A coalition of environmental groups has asked to
intervene in the case, concerned that the Bush administration will
accede to industry interests over the needs of imperiled species.
"We have to be at the table to protect the public
interest and protect the species," Heiken says. "There is a precedent
here. They could come to some very dramatic conclusion in a settlement
that takes away the very heart of the protective measures for the
spotted owl and the marbled murrelet."
Brown, for her part, is very worried.
"I really fear for the owl," she says. "I think that
the Bush administration is just salivating over the opportunity to
delist the owl … We've got owl populations that are just crashing.
In short, she says, "I think the owl is screwed. But
we'll continue to fight what the Bush administration wants to do."
Back to Top
Undercovered
#23
More
war news that escapes mainstream attention.
BY
KATE ROGERS GESSERT
Ç French government sources predict an
early U.S. attack on Iraq, in time for fall elections (Ha'aretz).
In past weeks there have been repeated exchanges of fire between U.S.
and U.K. planes and Iraqi ground artillery. According to Iraqi sources,
one Iraqi man was killed and six injured July 14 (AP); on July 17,
five people died and 17 were injured in the bombing of an Iraqi residential
neighborhood (Times of India).
Ç Afghan civilians and humanitarian aid workers are
targets of violence in northern Afghanistan as followers of rival
warlords rape, rob, shoot, extort, and steal farmland. Forced labor,
sexual violence, and forcible recruitment make life difficult at local
camps for displaced Afghans. Once again, people are calling for an
expansion of the international security force now working in Kabul
(Human Rights Watch).
Ç The U.S. and Britain are seceretly paying huge
sums of money to Afghan warlords to persuade them to support Karzai's
fledgling government. "You do not buy warlords in Afghanistan," explained
a source in the British Foreign Office. "You 'rent' them for a period."
Commanders have been promised a $40,000 pickup truck each in exchange
for proof they have killed Taliban or al-Qaeda members. Meanwhile,
peacekeeping forces are limited and funds for emergency help and reconstruction
are running low (Guardian).
Ç From May to mid-July, Palestinians killed 74 Israeli
civilians, 18 younger than 18, and 98 Palestinian civilians, 24 under
18, were killed by the IDF (B'tselem).
Ç On the West Bank, under ongoing Israeli military
occupation, international observer-activists continue to ride in ambulances,
stay with Palestinian families, visit families living in houses occupied
by the IDF, march with Palestinians protesting 24-hour curfews, accompany
trucks of food and water containers past road blocks into sealed-off
villages, escort Palestinians to hospitals and family gardens, and
teach children in improvised summer camps. Although some internationals
have been harassed, beaten, shot, and imprisoned, more than 1,000
have come to the West Bank (International Solidarity Movement).
Ç To date, 250 to 1,000 internationals from many countries
have been denied entry to Israel — not only observers, but doctors,
nurses, legislators, and administrators from organizations such as
CARE., Save the Children, and U.N. Humanitarian Affairs Office. More
than 120 internationals have been deported, many forbidden to return
for 10 years (ISM and Al-Ahram Weekly).
Ç Israeli Rami Elhanan, whose daughter, 14, was killed
by a suicide bomber, works with Bereaved Parents for Peace. Members
of this Israeli-Palestinian organization recently laid 1,000 coffins,
each draped with an Israeli or Palestinian flag, at New York's U.N.
headquarters. "What is the point of revenge?" asks Elhanan. "Will
it bring back my daughter?... Everybody knows what the solution will
be. We will withdraw to the pre-1967 borders, the Palestinians will
get the West Bank and Gaza Strip, there will be no right of return
for the Palestinian refugees, and Jerusalem will be divided. The only
question now is how many people will die before this happens ... Up
to last week there were 2,007 casualties [since September 2000]. Among
them are 266 Palestinian children... and 60 Israeli kids. This is
the price of not making peace..." (Independent).
Ç In recent articles, Israelis are confronting social
and economic costs of the occupation. Gila Svirksy writes of Israel's
recession, rising inflation and unemployment, low funding for social
and environmental programs, limits on free speech, growing racism,
increases in violent crimes, and violence among schoolchildren (Coalition
of Women For Peace.) Daphna Levit of Ben Gurion University outlines
ways for a country to "avoid the grueling financial demands of [responsible]
economic government. .. Focus on and exploit national fear ... by
issuing continual and ominous warnings of imminent attacks ... If
the voters are sufficiently terrified and anxious about their prospects
for survival, they will back you all the way to national bankruptcy."
Ç B'tselem has released a new report, "Land Grab,"
showing that settlements occupy 1.7 percent of West Bank land and
control 42 percent. More than 60 percent of Israelis now support evacuation
of all or most settlements, as well as unilateral withdrawal of the
IDF from the West Bank and Gaza.
Ç Palestinian academics and public figures have called
for an end to suicide bombings: "It is our national responsibility
to issue this appeal in the light of the dangerous situation engulfing
the Palestinian people ... Suicide bombings deepen the hatred and
widen the gap between Palestinian and Israeli people ..." (Palestinian
Center for Rapprochement between Peoples).
Ç The Israeli occupation is enabled by U.S. weapons
and military aid, $1.8 billion in 2002, $2.1 billion proposed for
2003. The U.S. also supports Israel's own defense industry, granting
billions of dollars in recent years to develop Israeli aircraft, anti-missile
lasers and missiles, and Merkava tanks, with engines now produced
in the U.S. by General Dynamics. In addition, Israel receives free
American Excess Defense Articles, including, from 1994 to 2001, thousands
of machine guns and grenade launchers and 64,000 M-16 rifles (Foreign
Policy in Focus).
Ç Any country receiving U.S. military aid must spend
all or most of the money purchasing weapons from U.S. companies. Israel
has bought 237 F-16 fighter jets, with 102 more on order from Lockheed
Martin at $34.7 million each. It also buys Apache gunship helicopters
from Boeing at $14.5 million each. Other weapons in the Israeli arsenal
include Phantom and Eagle fighter jets, sold by Boeing for $18.4 million
and $38 million respectively, Cobra attack helicopters from Bell Textron
at $10.7 million, Sea Stallion and Blackhawk helicopters from Sikorsky,
and missiles: Boeing's $40,000 Hellfires and Raytheon's Mavericks,
Sidewinders, Sparrows, and Patriots, ranging from $84,000 to $600,000
each (Foreign Policy in Focus).
 |
Cary
Thompson
Shortly after he moved to Eugene in 1969, Californian Cary
Thompson found work at the Willamette People's Co-op across from Edison
School. "They had cheaper and better-nutrution food, and the people
owned it," he says. "I got excited about alternative lifestyles."
A year later, he helped start a commune west of town, the Rainbow
Valley Wild Chicken Ranch. "The house was a wreck," he recalls. "I
stayed there about a year." Following a stint at the Health Food and
Pool Store, Thompson opened his own New Frontier Market in '73, when
the Frontier Market went vacant. "We were among the first to combine
a neighborhood convenience store with bulk foods and organic produce,"
he notes. Thompson opened the Red Barn in '82 and helped launch Oasis
in '87 — "I was buyer and spiritual advisor." As a member of
Eugene's Sister City Committee in the early '90s, he took an interest
in fair-traded craft items and opened Greater Goods with partner Joan
Kleban. Thompson's current volunteer project, the Helios Resource
Network, aims to provide networking resources and a meeting location
for small non-profit organizations. —
Paul Neevel
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