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.