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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 26, 2016)
Wednesday, October 26, 2016 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon 2 O P I N I O N Flaming out By Craig Rullman Columnist Letters to the Editor… The Nugget welcomes contributions from its readers, which must include the writer’s name, address and phone number. Let- ters to the Editor is an open forum for the community and contains unsolicited opinions not necessarily shared by the Editor. The Nugget reserves the right to edit, omit, respond or ask for a response to letters submitted to the Editor. Letters should be no longer than 300 words. Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned. The deadline for all letters is noon Monday. To the Editor: It is not yet Halloween, but the holidays are just around the corner and that may mean holiday gift-giving. I hope when you spend your holiday dollars, that you might take a few things into consideration. In Sisters, we are blessed with a diverse, eclectic, high-quality abundance of small businesses. These entities are one of the many things that lend Sisters its unique feel, indi- viduality and appeal. These small businesses employ our locals, feed families and put roofs over heads. Yes, in summer we have a thriving tour- ist trade, however, when winter rolls around, things tighten up and it can be very difficult to maintain a small business in this town. As consumers, when we spend our money on large, clearing-house websites, or at big- box stores, we are doing nothing to stimulate our local economy or to better the town in which we live. I would like to ask that this holiday season, you walk the streets of Sisters. Go into businesses you drive by but may have never entered. Investigate the diverse offerings our dynamic town. Purchase at least some of your gifts locally. Who wouldn’t love to receive a gift or gift certificate from one of our many retail bou- tiques, our local artists, restaurants, spa/beauty locations, music venues, health and fitness centers, lodging options ... the list goes on. Please, this holiday season, consider stim- ulating our local economy by shopping the many local, small businesses that make Sisters such an amazing place. Jennifer McCrystal See LETTERS on page 26 Sisters Weather Forecast Courtesy of the National Weather Service, Pendleton, Oregon Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Monday Chance rain Chance rain Slt. chance rain Chance rain Chance rain Chance rain 62/42 56/35 52/36 55/37 52/37 51/na The Nugget Newspaper, Inc. Website: www.nuggetnews.com 442 E. Main Ave., P.O. Box 698, Sisters, Oregon 97759 Tel: 541-549-9941 | Fax: 541-549-9940 | editor@nuggetnews.com Postmaster: Send address changes to The Nugget Newspaper, P.O. Box 698, Sisters, OR 97759. Third Class Postage Paid at Sisters, Oregon. Publisher - Editor: Kiki Dolson News Editor: Jim Cornelius Production Manager: Leith Williver Classifieds & Circulation: Teresa Mahnken Advertising: Karen Kassy Graphic Design: Jess Draper Proofreader: Pete Rathbun Accounting: Erin Bordonaro The Nugget is mailed to residents within the Sisters School District; subscriptions are available outside delivery area. Third-class postage: one year, $45; six months (or less), $25. First-class postage: one year, $85; six months, $55. Published Weekly. ©2016 The Nugget Newspaper, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. All advertising which appears in The Nugget is the property of The Nugget and may not be used without explicit permission. The Nugget Newspaper, Inc. assumes no liability or responsibility for information contained in advertisements, articles, stories, lists, calendar etc. within this publication. All submissions to The Nugget Newspaper will be treated as uncondition- ally assigned for publication and copyrighting purposes and subject to The Nugget Newspaper’s unrestricted right to edit and comment editorially, that all rights are currently available, and that the material in no way infringes upon the rights of any person. The publisher assumes no responsibility for return or safety of artwork, photos, or manuscripts. A column in these pages (“Looking Outward: Just Look at the Facts,” Dan Glode, The Nugget, October 19, page 23) posits that opposition to HRC is rooted in genetically inherited misogyny. The author, after speculating whether white males might be “hard-wired that way,” goes on — in a bizarre and inescapably rac- ist twist — to tell us that white men should move to the back of the bus. The operating theory behind that appalling sug- gestion is a byproduct of the secular fundamental- ism that is eradicating free speech, re-segregating com- munities, and ruining col- lege campuses around the country. Beneath the banner of inclusiveness — and just how one becomes inclusive by insistence on exclusiv- ity is a notion you can try to figure out — the theory sug- gests, among other things, that opposition to their party’s candidate simply must be based in racism or misogyny. The new social funda- mentalist has, as in Glode’s piece, completely abandoned the legacy of Martin Luther King, who gave his life attempting to unite by faith and example, and by lifting the discussion above myo- pic divisions. Instead of that magnificent dream, where the only judgment is based on “the content of charac- ter,” all things must now be understood in the context of skin color and plumbing. Don’t like the female candi- date? You must hate women. Don’t like the President? You must be a racist. Worse, the adherents of this shame-based fundamen- talism like to claim the moral high ground on both sides of an argument. The tactic is to make a claim: “mostly white men are clinging to power and don’t want to share,” begging us to assume that is both true, and that the alter- native on offer is some sanc- tified, untainted, and thor- oughly righteous other. That flawed suggestion — even a cursory study of world his- tory reveals it as a canard — is then generally followed by the claim that because you are a white man, you cannot possibly examine yourself, defend yourself, or even reasonably address the proposition. That’s racism. What they really want is for the opponents of their philosophy, those cling- ers and deplorables, to shut up and sit down. Which is also why they are so fond of “rules of discourse” and other such nonsense, so long as those rules insulate their ability to project theory as fact. What is more, the secu- lar fundamentalist relies on wholesale indictment, pro- jecting their own sentiment as if it were unassailable, and as if we all share in their virtuous condemnations and self-loathing. They have become particularly adept at “virtue signaling,” which is newspeak for wearing T-shirts and pasting bumper- stickers aligning themselves with one alleged victim class or another. Instead of elevating the conversation, which they inherently cannot do, these fundamentalist strains ulti- mately retreat into a kind of pathetic and spinning carou- sel of accusations and pleas. And always, just underneath the surface, one detects a malignant kind of seething. That seething is also behind the creation of the now-widespread university Star Chambers, where stu- dents — and even faculty — can be thrown out of school for “micro-aggressions” and any number of other alleged violations of conduct with- out even the right to see the evidence or cross-examine the accuser. The new breed of social warrior loves that take on justice, because nothing trashes their theory faster than an actual and thorough investigation of the facts. Not least of the problems, beyond asserting that oppo- sition to a political candidate is rooted in an entire race’s DNA, is that at the end of the day, this philosophical bent can’t help but remain essen- tially accusatory and divi- sive, lumping entire classes of people into labeled bas- kets, and therefore perpetu- ating exactly that which it purports to dislike. We can only hope that this new kind of militant fundamentalist philosophy — which might properly be understood as a cult — will ultimately flame out in the face of the more common desire to seek mutual pros- perity and success. Opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and are not necessarily shared by the Editor or The Nugget Newspaper.