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are control freaks who need everything in their perceived order
to feel secure. It is impossible to turn the clocks back 40 years.
The return to the traditional family isn't going to happen. The
modernization of the home has made the occupation of house
wifery obsolete. No one is wiling to pay a woman to stay home
all day and do nothing and as a consequence of this no one is
willing to pay women to raise their children" Bunny believes the
need for traditional family structure is extinct and the true loss is
not family values but a society that has not conceived another
way for raising children. Is it any wonder that so many women
go on welfare to raise their children in light of how easy it is for
men to flee their share of the financial responsibility? The
conservative argument is that the poor shouldn't have children.
Bunny strongly believes that we need to find a way for raising
children that does not take them away from caring parents.
I asked Bunny what would be her response to Kelly's
statement of despair and hopelessness for Generation X She
replied that Kelly's generation should not believe vtfia, they are
told and that they should check all supposed facts for them
selves. She believes it is natural that they are passionate to
reform the world. "Why aren't they rebelling for god's sakes!
There must be something they're furious about."
Bunny quoted Eugene Debs: 'Years ago I began to
recognize my kinship with all living beings...I said then and I say
now, that while there is a lower class I am in it, while there is a
criminal element I am of it, while there is a soul in prison I am
not free." A noble sentiment she sets her life toward.
Our lives are constantly changing but sometimes an
event of great magnitude causes a change in our perception,
and for better or worse, we are no longer who we were. Such an
event took place in the life of Lois Morford and her children
several years ago. They had taken a trip to Guatemala and
enjoyed seeing it with tourist eyes, but when they decided to
return to Guatemala their eyes were open, not to some idealistic
agrarian society free from the burdens of the modem world but
to the immense suffering and pain of a people being exploited
by economic colonization For the first time she and her family
became aware of how rich and wasteful Americans are and the
price of their avarice (the U S. has 5% of the world's population
and consumes 40% of the world's resources) Aside from the
impoverished conditions she saw all around her in Guatemala,
one woman told her that she and other women were locked in a
factory at night and given little pills (speed) to increase their
productivity. Human rights violations far greater than this have
continued to be committed in Guatemala since the democratic
ally elected president Col. Jacobo Arbenz Guzman was ousted
by a coup that was organized and directed by the CIA in retali
ation for Col. Guzman's expropriation of United Fruit Company
lands that he distributed to landless peasants. From this
awakening encounter in Guatemala, Lois has continued to
educate herself through alternative media and frequent visits
to Central America.
Lois feels that our nation is lacking values but she does
not credit this to the traditional complaints of the right. Instead
she feels it is perpetrated by our capitalistic nature. "After World
War 2 the U.S. was the only industrialized nation that had all of
its industry intact," she says. 'This resulted in the U.S. becoming
a very wealthy nation and created a higher standard of living
that Americans felt would only continue to increase." Lois
believes that Americans turned to their new wealth and its
purchases for their feeling of self-esteem. We continue to
promote material wealth as the key to happiness as our lottery
so aptly demonstrates, but as Lois points out, our abundance of
wealth is over. If we continue to promote materialism not only
w ll we continue to foster the mean-spiritedness Lois sees so
much of in our society, but also our own destruction. She thinks
we are becoming very much like a third world nation. "In third
world countries the rich live in guarded houses with huge walls
around them to keep the poor out. One can see much the same
sort of thing in America." Lois also understands that regardless
of w4iat country one lives in, huge international corporations
seek to impoverish the people in order to provide the cheapest
work force.
JOAN HALL
"Women must get into the political game and stay in it. "
-Eleanor Roosevelt
Lois believes that our hope lies in the environmental
movement. (Her son is the coordinator of the Green Party in
Alaska.) She looks forward to the day when people unite around
the world to stop not only the exploitation of Earth but also of
each other. "We are spending our children's inheritance," she
says. "Instead we should be saving our planet's beauty and
resources for future generations." She feels that perhaps the
most important preservation of resources is to invest in our
children and teach them real values, most notably respect for all
living things and a balanced lifestyle that consumes less and
wastes little. "It takes a whole community to raise children.
They have a natural sense of idealism that we should develop.
The media promotes little but materialist values to them. The
community needs to invest more time and energy into their
children's growth and development and find ways for them to be
involved w th and contributing to the community. It would be
nice to see a job or skills bank; a group of adults who have some
free time to share their interests and talents with our youth.
Though we as a small community don't have many of the prob
lems that turn children to gangs in larger cities, too much of our
children's time is focused towards competition. We have an old
system that creates failure by continuing the idea of winners and
losers, A's and F's, and other such nonsense. Every child should
be made to feel as equally valued and needed as any other
child. Encourage them to discover themselves and they will
naturally come to roles that benefit both themselves and their
community. It is a lot better than building more prisons to lock
them up in when they come of age. Perhaps with a common
community effort for the sake of our children’s future, America
will redevelop what poorer nations haven't lost - a rich sense of
culture, community, solidarity, and values other than material
ism." Lois was impressed with the values of people in poor
nations. Instead of finding self-esteem in wealth, power or fame
they valued such traits as compassion, generosity, honesty and
simplicity in themselves and each other. 'They may not have
much but they are a far richer people than us."
It is not only a greater sense of community Lois has
witnessed in third world countries. Ironically she has seen more
democracy in small villages than in the U.S. "Democracy is a
word you hear a lot of in this country but you sure don't see
much of it," she says. It has been, for her, a deep sense of
inspiration to see how these small villages come together and
allow and encourage everyone to speak 'They work together
and equally. Even under the worst of circumstances they listen
to each other and make decisions as a group." For Guatemalans
the worst circumstances have been soldiers shooting the men of
Columbian Cafe
1114 Marine Drive
flstoria, OR 97103
503-325-CAFE (2233)
There is probably no tougher struggle than to be a
woman in today's society The pressures directed toward women
of what to be and no, to be are immense Ye, in spite of all the
contradictory demands women are finding themselves, gaining
strength in the greater effort required of them. I see Kelly, young
but already applying her independent nature and talents to the
common good. Bunny, Lois and McLaren are strong indepen
dent personalities and have found where they can best serve
society. The real work of community and society has usually
been left to such vwmen Women have been the glue of our
social framework The better par, of human nature is feminine,
the wllingness to pu, personal ego aside and listen, to uplift and
draw people together, and most of all to always promote hope
The womb creates new life and humanity's consciousness
Houri: Mon - Fri Sam - 2pm
Sat 1 0 a m - 2pm
Pinnari: Wad • Sat. Opon 5pm
URIAH HULSEY.
F ir e
M o u n ta in
School
P .O . B O X 9 6 . A R C H C A P E , O R E G O N 9 7 1 0 2
the villages, raping then shooting the women and disemboweling
or beating the children to death against rocks Frankly, though
the severity differs, many nations are geared to violently exploit
their people and this exploitation is supported and often protect
ed by forces promoting U.S. interests. Do you know the true cost
of your sugar?
Lois is as Barbara Hansel spoke of her, a quiet saint
She lives on the modest amount of money she makes from
renting rooms in her Astoria home to boarders and with this
money she goes to Central America to help any way she can
One of her proudest achievements is her friendship with her
very conservative neighbor She always tries to put hatred and
anger aside to accomplish what she can and promote tolerance
when the opportunity arises. She is one small light looking for
the light in others and helping us all to see.
My interview with McLaren Innes was brief and so were
her statements. Her brevity made her words no less valid. "Get
out and do it. You eat wha, you work for," is her answer to social
and personal change. McLaren does not support traditional ways
of approaching problems.She learned from her expenence in the
peace group Beyond War that anger and aggression, the usual
responses to problems, only elicit more anger and aggression
and solve nothing. She points to the immense hostility in politics
as an excellent example Because this hostility is promoted
through mass media she turns to the alternative press as her
source of news and information She admits that she is not as
well informed on many issues as she would like to be, but then
Thomas Jefferson said that a person who never looks at a
newspaper is better informed than readers whose minds are
filled with falsehoods rather than truth.
"I chose to live in Astoria in 1978 having followed a
friend here from San Francisco via Tokyo," McLaren says. "I
do work that's available including bookkeeping, managing the
Community Store and now accounting supervisor at Tongue
Point Job Corps Center. The multicultural population at Tongue
Point reminds me daily of the challenge in communicating
meaningfully between people with different value systems,
mores and customs. And it is twice as hard if one perceives
themself as the majority ."
McLaren sympathizes with young people and believes
that we do not involve them enough in community decisions
She feels that we need to listen no, only to our youth but also to
each other. Keeping lines of communication open between
government and citizens is important to her She promotes the
adage that two heads are better than one, the more opinions
that we as a nation are willing to listen and give solid though, to
the more likely we are to create a healthy society 'A team of
five Presidents would be much better than investing so much
power and responsibility into one wtiite man," she says cnsply
McLaren has an optimistic outlook having wtnessed
remarkable progress in her lifetime She does no, believe we will
abandon efforts to move our nation progressively forward She
believes that we are jus, in a time of confusion brought on by so
many dynamic changes in our culture 'The world has become
too small a place for us to not get along," she says Confusing
times perhaps, but growth never comes without challenge
I’S TAV^*
Connon BeochOregon
Michael Miller (aka Sasha) lives in Seaside He wrote
about Voltaire s 300th birthday last November for the December
1994 NCTE.