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Between the impending war, the budgetary woes and the upcoming MLK holiday, one could easily forget that Jan. 22 is the 30th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision. One might overlook the peril that decision faces in 2003 and frankly, one might not fully take in the Bush administration's ongoing War on Women. You might be tempted to think of the above statement as hyperbole so I would like to take you on a short journey through the decisions this administration has made that affect the health and well-being of women. Shortly after taking office, Bush reinstated the Global Gag Rule. The rule denies funding for HIV/AIDS care and contraception to any organization that refers needy women to abortion services, even if our dollars are not used for those services. This was followed by denying $34 million to the UN population fund and opposing sex education and access to contraception at international Children's Summit, even as youngsters from around the world imperiled by HIV/AIDS begged for that help. The Bush administration opposed our country signing on to The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) despite the widespread support of this convention by the rest of the world. This administration denied $200 million scheduled for programs to support women and to address HIV/AIDS in Afghanistan. The last effort was to push an anti-education and contraception agenda at the Asian Pacific conference. The attendees drew the line and refused to go along. Shifting from their international efforts to national ones, the Bush administration through Ashcroft's Department of Justice threw their weight behind an effort in Ohio to ban certain abortion procedures. This was followed by legislation to increase fetal rights through the Unborn Victims of Violence Act and providing fetal health care through the CHIPS program. The woman is not part of either of these decisions. In fact the woman is denied both prenatal and postpartum health care. Appointments made in this administration both at the agency and judicial level are consistently anti-choice and anti-comprehensive reproductive health care. The recent appointment of Dr. Hager to an important health care panel would be laughable if not so painful. He has published books that advocate prayer as the first line of women's health care. All the nominations for the circuit court benches that were turned down because of their biased positions are now going to be recycled and will no doubt be confirmed. Three of our Supreme Court justices are nearing retirement and there is no doubt about the type of nominations that will be moved forward. Finally the U.S. government web site is now tainted with biased information based on little to no scientific evidence. An example is the Center for Disease Control's "revised" fact sheet on condom use, which supports the Bush administration's opposition to all forms of contraception. And of course there's the NCI website that suggests an unproven link between breast cancer and abortion. Three major decisions have been paramount to the full enfranchisement of women in our country: the right to vote, the right to contraception, the right to choose. All of these decisions acknowledge that women have the right to make decisions regarding their own bodies and can be trusted to make decisions that are in the best interests of their families and our society. The real meaning of Roe is our national confidence in the wisdom and compassion of women. We all need to stand up and speak out in support of this revolutionary decision and its key role in the health and well-being of American women. Plan to attend the very important Roe v. Wade 30th Anniversary celebration at 6 pm Tuesday, Jan. 21 at The Wild Duck. Your voice matters. For more information, call 342-6042 x18. Kitty Piercy is a former state representative, currently working as public affairs director for Planned Parenthood.
Here's a letter I received last Friday afternoon: Dear Tony Corcoran, I am a 64 year old disabled person who is on the Oregon Health Plan. They tell me the 1st of February '03 we will be cut off. I have 12 different meds I take twice daily so I can cope with pain and life. When that is all gone I will probably commit suicide. I don't believe in what you are doing to us. Sincerely yours, Dorothy Poe, Roseburg I showed this letter to some of my friends at the AFL-CIO/LERC legislative conference on Saturday. They just shook their heads and said, "How do you respond to something like this?" I guess I could tell Dorothy that if Measure 28 doesn't pass: 11,000 seniors will lose long-term medical care, schools will be cut by three to 15 days, 438,000 Oregonians won't receive treatment for treatable cancer, infants/toddlers and pre-schoolers with disabilities will see their services cut, adults with disabilities will lose home-care, we will even cut treatment for the severe mentally ill who pose a threat to themselves or others. All this because voters earning between $40,000 and $50,000 won't spend $118 additional tax dollars a year to support these needed services. Folks who earn between $30,000 and $40,000 would only have to cough up an additional $85 a year. But that won't offer Dorothy much solace, so I'll probably put her in touch with her local mental health provider and see if there are any charities in Roseburg that can help her out. Maybe I should also tell Dorothy that last week I visited with Cottage Grove families with developmentally disabled children who have been on waiting lists for services for 17 years. Representatives Floyd Prozanski, Phil Barnhart, and I met with 50 Lane County families with autistic or developmentally disabled infants whose services from EC Cares, Judy Newman's wonderful special education program for infants and pre-schoolers, are also threatened. Rep. Jeff Kruse was at the same meeting, he continues to insist that we can cut "somewhere else" and not threaten these programs. Kruse was nearly laughed off the podium at a recent Eugene City Club meeting on Measure 28 when he said that state agencies still have "slush funds" that could be used. What a joke! After the EC Cares meeting, one parent came out to Phil and I and asked us "not to be so partisan." We calmly explained to her that this was not partisan at all, it has to do with one group of people in the capitol that have a different view of the role of government than the other group. This is about issues, about services to frail members of our Oregon society, it just so happens that most of the people in one party are ideologically committed to limiting these government services, and the others are supportive of these programs. I'll leave it to you to figure out who's who. I should also tell Dorothy that these cuts are happening after we gave away $1.9 billion in kicker tax breaks to corporations and individuals in the 1990s. If we had just kept tax breaks, exemptions and credits at the 1999-01 level, it would have generated an additional $1.5 billion in the current biennium. Now Kulongoski's new budget proposes that 117,000 teachers and state employees should take an average reduction in take-home pay of $2,200 a year for the next two years, while ignoring the loss of $1.5 billion due to expanded tax breaks. Oh, well, as Oregon Supreme Court Justice Wally Carson says, "The governor proposes, the Legislature disposes, and the judiciary settles their hash." Co-Co Cocoa Puffs The 72nd Assembly of the Oregon Legislature begins on Jan. 13. The Senate still does not have a leader, puffs of black smoke are still coming out of the chimney — no pope yet. If we can't agree on a shared leadership structure we will probably default to a co-presidency, and co-chairmanships of committees evenly divided by party. This could actually be quite interesting. We haven't had a split 15-15 Oregon Senate since 1956 — it took them a month to organize that time — we could either end up in gridlock, or we might be able to triangulate the negotiations between an ultra-conservative House leadership, the governor, and the split Senate. Stay tuned. And whatever you do, please vote "yes" on Measure 28 — for Dorothy's sake. Sen. Tony Corcoran of Cottage Grove represents portions of Lane and Douglas counties in Senate District 4, which includes the UO area. He can be reached at corcoran.sen@state.or.us
Eugene's daily newspaper recently presented a front-page series of articles designed to create fear of increased crime in the streets and terror in the home. This is an obvious attempt to promote passage of Measure 28. State and local agencies threaten cuts to public safety and closing of jails and prisons, and the subsequent release of "dangerous" criminals if this measure is defeated. The city of Eugene spends $432,000 per year for the Interagency Narcotics Enforcement Team (INET) and $4.5 million annually for investigations but is unwilling to disclose the actual costs of conducting INET/SWAT raids, such as the one on Oct. 17, 2002 in the Whiteaker neighborhood in which a couple was accused of a drug operation that never existed. These military actions involve large numbers of personnel and weaponry. The Whiteaker raid was only one of several reported to the INDEPENDENT Police Review Project (IPRP) in 2002. Many raids go unreported by the mainstream media but are equally violent and unjustified: A local teacher was forced to allow armed SWAT team members to enter her home without a warrant. She says they woke up her children and asked them questions like, "Who does Mommy sleep with?" The Whiteaker raid included malicious property damage, including the destruction of a 100-year-old door. A reported SWAT team member, in his capacity as a Springfield cop, severely beat a woman in broad daylight in her home. We've seen a police report where he admits they forced their way into her home. We've also seen moving hospital photographs of her injuries. How does the SWAT team protect children and animals during their forays? Reportedly, SWAT team members routinely point loaded assault weapons at children. A 4-year-old in Bethel, children playing on their lawn, and a 22-month-old in Creswell have all had loaded guns pointed at them by the SWAT team. As Alan Pittman wrote in EW May 3, 2001: "At one point, Wendy says a helmeted SWAT officer aimed a 'machine gun' at her 22-month-old son, Cole. 'He's got the gun pointed, his finger on the trigger, and he's shaking,' she says." In Bethel the SWAT team let a man's dogs loose, according to neighbors. (They don't fix the doors they break in.) The man later found his dogs two miles away. The best thing we can say about the Lane County SWAT team is that it is enormously and dangerously incompetent. In its periodic attacks on local people in their homes, it achieves a consistent level of abuse, which exceeds innocent error and exposes the tyrannical impulses of local government. It hasn't been proven effective. It's never been independently monitored or reviewed. We question that it has had any benefit at all. Cops are uniquely unqualified to deal with the problem of drug abuse, so why are we giving them guns to deal with this issue? It is disingenuous for the cops to say that they are concerned about citizens' safety when they so consistently attack unarmed residents. Government needs SWAT teams to intimidate the public and create the illusion of safety. An armed police presence suppresses dissent while creating the inevitability of military tactics being practiced on the community, since the police will naturally seek out (safe) opportunities to try out their skills and equipment. Schools and social services are being held hostage by legislators who have threatened cuts to law enforcement and prisons as well, but have hinted that funding will be restored to the judicial system regardless of whether Measure 28 passes. Funding of services such as library and recreation with a combination of dedicated tax revenue and bond issues allows funds to be transferred from those services to law enforcement during the budget writing process.
When addressing the current budget crisis in funding education, health and social services, the potential loss of revenue for the punishment industry should be viewed as a positive development by elected officials. Prioritizing public safety funding would free us from the cost of militarizing the police, allowing us to focus on services that are truly of value to our community. Drug prohibition exists to provide employment for police and has no place in the treatment of substance abuse. Trimming the fat from state and law enforcement budgets will not increase crime, and may reduce police violence committed in the name of public safety. Patricia Binder, Sherry Franzen and Randy Gicker are Eugene residents and members of the INDEPENDENT Police Review Project. For more information, call 485-3020.
WORDS
VS. BULLETS "Guns don't protect people; people protect people," says Orville Etter, local activist. Dan Robinson
LCC
SOS LCC's first financial cuts reached $4 million. A list of losses filled two pages of the LCC Torch. Now losses are doubled; without help, the college will be gutted, with spring term losses of 243 sections (243 classrooms of 25 students each). Meanwhile, part-timers, well-educated, experienced and working for less pay, will be cut. In the English department, for example, 29 teachers may depart by spring. Multiply these losses by the number of other departments. Students already struggle to get classes they need; soon it may be much worse. Oregonians fear tax hikes, but a generation of uneducated youth is more frightening. If colleges do not gain substantial backing, they will be shockingly diminished. Imagine the cultural, educational, social, artistic, and financial losses. But with Measure 28, the typical taxpayer will pay less than $3 a month extra; you could be saving the college for one dime a day (ocpp.org). Meanwhile, KMTR reports (12/4) that for every $1 invested in higher education statewide, $10 returns to Oregon as graduates hit the workforce! However strong the desire to resist taxes, without school funds we'll say goodbye to many teachers, and to the future they provide us. Vote "yes" on Measure 28. Roger Steinmetz
…
AND SHELTERCARE Linet Armstrong
NO
CLOTHES Phil Kessinger
RUN,
RABBIT, RUN Is there not already enough bloodshed and violence in society today, without having the taxpayer-sponsored slaying of innocent animals promoted as a fun event? It is particularly distressing to know that children as young as 12 are blatantly being desensitized toward animal suffering and killing. The advertisement for this cruel "workshop" states that "all equipment (including dogs) will be provided," and the participants will learn "about safety and ethics." For one thing, dogs are living creatures, not "equipment." For another thing, how an event that consists of families tromping around the forest carrying shotguns and blowing rabbits away (after the defenseless animals have been chased and terrorized by trained dogs) can be viewed as the slightest bit ethical is beyond me. The Oregon government should be promoting life-affirming, compassionate pastimes, not sponsoring violent, destructive activities such as the maiming and killing of animals for "fun." Barb Lomow
PURE
GOLDSCHMIDT Goldschmidt first gained notoriety in Eugene much before his well-publicized lobbying on behalf of Hyundai/Hynix. At a key point in the Riverfront Boondoggle's inception in the 1980s, Goldschmidt pledged several million dollars in state lottery funds to kick-start this disastrous project. Five years ago, under pressure from faculty, students and citizens, UO President David Frohnmayer promised no further construction in the Autzen Bridge Overlook until all planned construction had been completed south of the railroad tracks, which in fact might take 30 years. However, Frohnmayer has conspicuously not repeated that vow. This past election for governor was a routine "lesser of two evils" affair, but if Goldschmidt had once again been the Democrat nominee, the choice would have been much more difficult. Junior Robertson WISH
LIST Joel C. Woods
LIFTING
THE LID
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