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About The Observer. (La Grande, Or.) 1968-current | View Entire Issue (March 9, 2021)
Opinion 4A Tuesday, March 9, 2021 Other Views Functionally illiterate about our own democracy e know — or think we know — why so many home-grown goons stormed the U.S. Capitol. Most notably, a defeated cult leader pumped his Kool-Aid down their throats. But that’s not the whole story. Trump was able to gin them up because they were so dumbed down. They had no idea they were doing any- thing wrong. They felt justi- fi ed to breach DICK POLMAN the legisla- POLITICAL COLUMNIST tive branch simply because the president decreed it. They had no clue about separation of powers, or co-equal branches of government, because they’d never learned about either. They truly believed the vice president could magically overturn the election because they’d never learned how our democracy actually works. For this, we can blame the demise of civics education in America. In 1838, a young Abraham Lincoln warned in a speech that unless children are taught “reverence for the Constitution and its laws,” we might fall prey to “mobo- cratic” rule. What we suffered on Jan. 6 was a mobocrat invasion — perhaps a harbinger of the future. In a recent new report, a group called Educating for American Democracy tells the tale: “Civics and history education has eroded in the U.S. over the past 50 years, and opportunities to learn these subjects are inequitably distributed. Danger- ously low proportions of the public understand and trust our democratic institutions. Majorities are func- tionally illiterate on our constitutional principles and forms. The relative neglect of civic education in the past half-century — a period of wrenching change — is one important cause of our civic and political dysfunction.” Suffi ce it to say a demagogue’s odds of success are heightened when the people he seeks to exploit have little understanding of how the system works . If we poll all the insurrectionists, I bet we’d discover a disproportionate share would fl unk a civic literacy exam. Last year, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellow- ship Foundation reported that only one-third of native- born Americans (and only 19% of those under age 45) would be able to pass the basic test that’s given to immi- grants who aspire to become citizens. Some stats for our Hall of Shame: 57% of native-born Americans don’t know how many justices serve on the U.S. Supreme Court; 60% don’t know what countries the U.S. fought in World War II; only 13% know when the U.S. Constitution was ratifi ed; only 24% could name one thing that Ben Franklin was famous for (37% said he invented the light bulb). When I was a public school kid, we had civics classes all year long (commonly called social studies), and I dis- tinctly remember we couldn’t advance to fi fth grade unless we correctly named all nine members of the high court. But today, 31 states reportedly require only a half year of civics education and another 10 states require nothing. In public education during the last half century, civics has taken a back seat to science, technology, engi- neering and math. Obviously, there’s nothing wrong with the STEM curricula — we need people on the cut- ting edge of those disciplines. But two educators, making the pitch for civics, recently warned: “Without a basic understanding of our constitutional system, the foundations of democ- racy and the separation of powers enshrined in it, how can Americans discern fact from fi ction? Without understanding what generations have fought and died for — those core principles of putting country before leader or party, the checks on power our Founders insisted on — how can they be informed and empow- ered citizens that our system requires to survive?” Chief Justice John Roberts agrees: “(Our constitu- tional) principles leave no place for mob violence. ... We have come to take democracy for granted, and civic education has fallen by the wayside. In our age, when social media can instantly spread rumor and false infor- mation on a grand scale, the public’s need to understand our government, and the protections it provides, is ever more vital.” He wrote that 13 months before the Capitol was stormed. If we continue to ignore these warnings about our education system, too many Americans will remain putty in the paws of demagogues. As the current cult leader exclaimed on the stump fi ve years ago, “I love the poorly educated!” ——— Dick Polman, a veteran national political columnist based in Philadelphia and a writer in residence at the University of Pennsylvania, writes at DickPolman.net. Email him at dickpolman7@gmail.com W My Voice River Democracy Act should become law BILL ANEY FORESTER & WILDLIFE BIOLOGIST ears ago, in search of my fi rst career job as a biologist, I interviewed with a private fi rm in Portland. The interviewer asked me a hypothetical question about how I would help to manage a piece of ground. My reply was a simple ques- tion: “What are your objectives?” He nodded, smiled slightly and made a note. I felt this was an impres- sive start to my interview and, while I didn’t get the job, I did learn an important lesson: Good management starts with good objectives. This concept is key to the River Democracy Act of 2021 recently intro- duced by Sen. Ron Wyden and Sen. Jeff Merkley. The senators started in October 2019 by asking Orego- nians what wild and scenic streams deserved protection, and the resulting public nomination process yielded thousands of responses and nomina- tions from people across the state. After vetting these nominations, the Oregon senators are now pro- posing adding about 4,700 miles to the list of Wild and Scenic Rivers in Oregon, all on public lands. Protecting a stream under fed- eral law gives federal land managers their marching orders for managing these areas: protect water quality and cultural foods and resources while working with thinning and pre- scribed burning to reduce the risk of damaging wildfi re. Here we see the value of establishing objectives for management of the public’s land. The new proposal adds about 700 miles of local streams to the wild and scenic river system, including the South Fork of the Umatilla and Walla Walla, the Upper and Lower Grande Ronde, Imnaha and John Y Write to us The Observer welcomes letters to the editor. Letters are limited to 350 words and must be signed and carry the author’s address and phone number (for verifi cation purposes only). Email your letters to news@lagrandeobserver.com or mail them to the address below. Day rivers. Maybe you are as sur- prised as me to fi nd these streams are not already listed as wild and scenic. The Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of 1968 law is imperfect. My experience implementing this law is that federal land managers often avoid proposing any projects in the identifi ed river corridors. This might be good if you believe preservation is the best way to manage public lands, but it is not a good long-term strategy in dry, fi re- prone forests. The 2021 law makes it clear that a wild and scenic river designation does not set aside these areas as reserves. The law instructs managers to pur- posefully evaluate the risk of severe wildfi re and work with local and tribal governments to develop a plan that deals with these risks, and then do something about it. Reducing the risk of high-inten- sity fi re does not mean high-intensity commercial logging. Since almost all water in Oregon originates on national forests, maintaining the quality, quan- tity and timing of runoff is one of the most important purposes of the pub- lic’s land. Through the careful use of tree thinning and prescribed fi re we can maintain healthy forests and water quality. There are plenty of bad exam- ples of commercial logging on pri- vate lands that have devastated stream courses. Oregon’s somewhat anemic, or perhaps poorly enforced, Forest Practices Act fails to protect these values. I can take anyone up on Mount Emily to see fi rsthand what bad man- agement of private industrial forest lands means to headwater streams. To be clear, the law does not affect private property or any existing water rights. The law does withdraw federal stream corridors from mineral entry, meaning that no new mining claims can be made in these areas. This is a good development, as mining and water quality go together like oil and water. We should also anticipate some opposition to management of these areas from the preservationist camp, such as the opinions expressed reg- ularly by George Wuerthner, who asserts all federal forest lands should be off-limits to logging. This ignores the fact these lands are part of the public estate specifi cally because they can provide resources. Open spaces, clean water, wildlife habitat and, yes, wood products and forage are all legitimate products of federal lands when managed properly. That’s why we have national forests. Much of the outdoor recreation we enjoy in Northeast Oregon is focused around good water for camping, fi shing, hiking and boating. For this reason alone, protection and sound management of these areas should appeal to us all. Yes, this law is a big and bold step forward for conservation. Good man- agement starts with solid objectives, and the River Democracy Act pro- vides those objectives and deserves to become law. ——— Bill Aney is a forester and wild- life biologist living in Pendleton and loving the Blue Mountains.