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Wednesday, June 29, 2016 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
O
P
I
N I
O
Happy
Independence
Day!
John
Kass
American Voices
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To the Editor:
I live a short distance north of the north
end of Runway 2 at Sisters Eagle Airport and
am very aware of flight traffic generated by
airport operations. I, like many, enjoy the soli-
tude offered by our Sisters Country environ-
ment. Particularly sitting on my deck watch-
ing the occasional doe and fawn grazing in
Indian Ford Meadow. I have read the many
negative letters and opinion pieces about
airport operations recently published in The
Nugget. And, I have previously expressed
my own concern for safe flight operations to
Benny Benson.
A few years ago when airport improve-
ments were being contemplated I watched
with considerable interest. I was impressed
with the ambitious plans the Bensons had.
The much-needed rebuilding of the runway
was a good beginning.
Sisters has long suffered from the lack
of a robust economic base beyond tourism.
We have witnessed the departure of a num-
ber of businesses. The Bensons have brought
a world-class global engineering business
to Sisters by the name of ENERGYneering.
Today ENERGYneering employs about 50
engineers and technicians in well-paying jobs
at the airport.
In addition to ENERGYneering, there
are four other businesses located at the air-
port. Further development, inspired by the
See Letters on page 10
Sisters Weather Forecast
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Wednesday
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In the aftermath of the
Orlando massacre, the
Democrats applied a law that
serves them well:
“Never let a good crisis
go to waste.”
So they used the bodies
of the dead as leverage for
their politics and framed the
national debate in terms of
gun control rather than ter-
rorism inspired by the radi-
cal jihadists of Islamic State.
It was all about pro-
tecting their presumptive
Democratic Party presi-
dential nominee, Hillary
Clinton. They had to protect
her. So they shouted about
the guns.
All that emotion about
gun control, much of it
sincere and thoughtfully
offered, was nevertheless
used by party operatives to
herd voters. It was about
shaping the argument on
their terms, about captur-
ing the rage and fear out of
Orlando and offering people
a simple solution they could
reach for.
It doesn’t matter if that
solution won’t work. What
matters to political tacti-
cians is defending vulnerable
flanks by keeping the issue
on safe ground.
The crisis for all
Americans involved the hor-
ror of terrorism and the evil
of Omar Mateen, the New
York son of Afghan immi-
grants who was inspired by
Islamic State to slaughter 49
innocents at the gay night-
club in Orlando, Florida.
But the crisis for
Democratic politicians was
of a different sort. They
didn’t want to discuss
Islamic State or jihad. They
offered gun control.
And they had to imme-
diately brand the tragedy to
their advantage. So led by
the president and aided by
the American media that by
and large prays on the altar
of big government activ-
ism and reviles the Second
Amendment, it was done.
Is it cynical to think so?
No. It is cynical to insist oth-
erwise. I don’t want to drag
you away from your safe
space, but that’s how politics
works: Frame the debate so
your political assumptions
and buzzwords are incorpo-
rated into the news narrative
and the rest is all gravy.
And so it was the guns.
Gun control was the
shield to protect Mrs.
Clinton, to keep the dia-
logue away from terrorism,
from any mention of Islam,
which would invariably lead
to a discussion of her many
policy failures in the Middle
East.
It was not what Mateen
said clearly by his own hand
on his social media accounts,
where he said he slaughtered
Americans for the glory of
Islamic State.
Republicans use similar
Pavlovian dark magic. There
is little difference between
the party tacticians. They are
experts in prompting their
meat puppets.
Instead of gun control,
the Republicans often opt
for patriotism and fear of all
Islam.
And while Democrats
used 49 bodies from Orlando,
Republicans used thousands
of Americans killed in the
9/11 terrorist attacks. They
used them to wage war, first
on Afghanistan, then in Iraq.
Many Democrats were for
that Iraq war, too, before
they were against it.
Out of a ruined Iraq, the
Islamic State was born and
so was the Syrian civil war.
As the authors of this,
Republicans have paid for it
in the collapse of their party.
It was the guns, not ter-
rorism, not the Islamic State,
until Obama’s own CIA
director, John Brennan testi-
fied before Congress.
Obama and the Democrats
have been stressing that
Islamic State has been weak-
ened and that Trump and
some Republicans exhibit
racism by demanding a stop
in immigration from Muslim
countries.
But Brennan said the CIA
believes efforts to degrade
the Islamic State haven’t
worked as well as we’d
hoped, and that the Islamic
State is planning to send
fighters to infiltrate refugee
groups and immigrate to
attack the West in guerrilla-
style strikes.
He said the Islamic State
“has a large cadre of Western
fighters who could poten-
tially serve as operatives for
attacks in the West.”
Reality isn’t a slogan
to fit on Republican or
Democratic bumper stickers.
But it’s out there.
© 2016 Tribune Content
Agency, LLC.
Opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and
are not necessarily shared by the Editor or The Nugget Newspaper.