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About The North Coast times-eagle. (Wheeler, Oregon) 1971-2007 | View Entire Issue (May 1, 2001)
PAGE 2 ARGUMENTS OF WAR & PEACE : MVfät <topö/k//vd g ,(V£ our SE^O vS bEMMS paRE&iS TO & i-HE AMERICAN PEOPLE, HAVE SPOKEN JONIK Recently a woman wrote to the Oregonian suggesting that President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney "want to violate the ABM treaty and abandon the Kyoto accord" (to build Star Wars and allow increased levels of arsenic in American drinking water), also that the U.S. has lost its seat on the UN Human Rights Commission, and she asked somewhat sardonically, "Is the U.S. becoming a rogue nation?" This is the third issue of the NCTE that local coastal folk have been interviewed about Election 2000. The questions are the same: -Do you think the extraordinary election of 2000 was legitimate and fair? ~What do you think might be the consequences of the election? And as promised before, as long as folks want to answer we will continue to ask. k MATTHEW GLEASON HARRY JOHNSON (He is an oceangoing teacher inspiring U.S. sailors about what they might do with the rest of their lives. ) I think if you changed things around a little bit here, a little bit there, Albert Gore could have been elected President If Ralph Nader hadn't run it wuld definitely have been Gore. If it hadn't been for the 'Butterfly Ballot', Gore probably would have won. If the majority of the U.S. Supreme Court hadn't selected George Bush by one vote.... It's the way things aligned themselves. I don't think there will be too many consequences from Bush's Presidency because I don't think he will be President after four years. The 2004 election will remove him from office In the meantime the rich will get somewhat richer, the poor somewhat poorer. I have the impression that people don't like Bush very much People didn't quite like what they saw as the post-election process ground on and on I think a lot of people changed their minds (He is a lifelong Democrat and his parents were Roosevelt Democrats.) What has happened in the past few months is that George Bush is clearly paying off his campaign debts in an avalanche. Every supporter is getting a lot of money and what ever else they want quickly — the 'faith-based' services, the tax cut; eliminating the estate tax, mining and oil drilling, dropping out of the ozone treaty, stopping federal funding for birth control and abortion; even the mention of abortion is taboo Bush's cabinet is filled up with corporate CEOs and oil people; his Vice President is an oil man like himself. He has surrounded himself with businessmen, anti-environmentalists and anti-poor people. This morning I found myself regretting voting for Ralph Nader — for about a minute. Then I said "Fuck them!" If the Democrats want us back they can move back to the left CYNDY LEE (She is a member of Sisters of Schlock. She is pro-choice on smoking organically tobacco and marijuana.) With George Bush as President a woman might not be able to get an abortion, but at least she can have a cigarette after sex. GREENS REASSESS 2000 CAMPAIGN ATTACKS DOUG SWEET (He is station manager of the North Coast's only public listener-sponsored radio station. KMUN-FM.)) I think the 2000 election wll set Republican Party politics back a number of years. The GOP doesn't do too well when they win and now they've got it all. Some Republicans hope rightwing Republicans wll restrain themselves so it won't seem so obvious they want to change the USA, but it is obvious voters will see whether they can hold back or not. I think it will be real clear in less than two years the direction we are going. It is very likely the Democrats will take back the Senate and maybe the House in 2002 — \Miich will depend on redistricting successes by the House GOP to favor "They're Tweedledum & Tweedledee!" We cried, perhaps exaggeratin'; For when they're not, Greens must concede: They're Hitler & Chamberlain. /‘T1’ ft ’0* V-* jL -XANDER PATTERSON LUCY’S BOOKS (Co-Chair. Pacific Green Party of Oregon) A lliance for D emocracy he Alliance for Democracy is a new movement that seeks to end the domination of our economy, our government, our culture, our media and the environment by large corporations. T We have united to examine the ways in which various eco nomic interests either enhance or harm the health of de mocracy and we focus on creating basic change. corporate rule; revive democracy. Piecemeal reform has been rendered ineffective. We seek dtep systemic alterations to establish economic and politi- cal democracy.___________________________________ 681 Moiri Street, Waltham, MA 02451 • Tele: (781 ) 894-1 1 79 • Fax:(781)894-0279 E-mail: peoplesall@aol.com • Web site: www.afd-online.org 503-325-4210 www.lucysbooks.com 34812th Street PO Box 854 Astoria OR. 97103 Lauta Snyder, Proprietor THINK GLOBALLY. SHOP LOCALLY. INTERVIEWS BY MICHAEL McCUSKER themselves as a result of the 2000 Census. I think they will quickly lose the Senate. I think the main thing the 2000 election and the first Clinton election in 1992 taught us is this country doesn't do well without a two party system. The parties are still cohesive enough to recognize when one party is splintering and will probably lose elections, vtfiich the other party will recognize. Third party move ments tend to give an election to the better organized of the two major parties rather than have any special impact. Frankly, I think it is time we worked at developing a parliamentary system in the United States. It seems to me it would give voters a lot more control over the democratic process because there is an opportunity to have votes of no confidence against the government on a more regular basis rather than the four years they have to wait. In our current system we try to do that with mid-term elections. I think we will see through Bush quickly. All that campaign rhetoric about "compassionate conservatism." People are already seeing how this administration says one thing publicly but is doing something else entirely different. I don't think this period of Republicans in all parts of government will last very long. If you look at vtfien Clinton first won the Democrats had all three branches of government, and it lasted only two years. I don't think people like all branches of the government in one party's hands. There is no reason for a party in complete power to compromise, other than to win an election. The hubris after such a win as this last election — Bush did wn all three branches — leads to overreaching. It is what happened to the Democrats in Clinton's first term and it will most likely happen with Bush's Republicans. I think the next year and a half will be rough for political progressives but I think the Republicans will discover they don't have the power they think they do. Progressives will push harder than ever to challenge their power. The Christian right seemed much less visible the last election. I don't think they've lost power in the GOP but they have lost credibility with most people who see it as a pulpit for the Republican Party, including a lot of Christians I know who are getting tired of the church being used politically. It is one thing to say you are a moral person, quite another to claim that only Republicans are moral — to politicize one's own religious beliefs and force them upon others as law and mandate. THEDA SPRACKUN (She works with victims of domestic abuse at the Women's Resource Center in Astoria. She is also one helluva a singer.) Since George Bush took office in January — and I mean took — I have had a sense of inner uneasiness. During the past eight years, under Bill Clinton, I didn't feel this way. I believe this to be significant criteria for discussion, despite the fact that coming from a feeling is no longer very valued today. As I hear things on the news, this uneasiness becomes stronger. Issues I and many others have worked hard and heart- fully on are taking giant steps backward under the Bush regime. State programs are losing funding for many social reforms that are just now showing positive long-term results. Social work programs that under Clinton gave us room to work with the poor or uneducated from the inside out face going back to simple repeat bandaging programs. These moneys, it now appears, wll now go back to funding the fighting games that many little boys who are now grown up have not grown out of. Since Bush's takeover, new research has magically popped up that says that maybe children really aren't that damaged by domestic violence. There is a new tax exemption WHY I DO NOT DO E-MAIL Friends, colleagues and family have been amused and/or exasperated by my agnosticism toward the electronic revolution in communications. Certainly a word of explanation is in order Contrary to speculation. I am not a technophile I carry a Toshiba laptop for word processing and writing projects between separate work stations at home and at the beach. I am convinced that computerized word processing dramatically increases the quality of writing because it makes it so easy to edit and change. Like most people, I view technology as a useful tool. Yet if modern civilization has taught us anything it is that tools must be made to serve their masters instead of enslaving them. Somewhere the line must be drawn between those things that enhance our existence and those that clutter or obstruct it. I have decided to draw that line at e-mail, partially to avoid unwanted communications from university administrators, partially to avoid unwelcome solicitations from strangers, and partially to avoid time-consuming messages from people who could easily leave a voice-mail message via telephone or send a note through the U.S. mail. Anytime one draws a line of distinction, there are going to be obvious drawbacks and perhaps even cases where one makes "an exception to the rule. " Yet it's sometimes important to draw that line I have chosen to draw that line at e-mail. I apologize to those inconvenienced by my position. Hopefully, there are redeeming qualities to my personal transactions that may encourage forgiveness. -DAVID A. HOROWITZ David Horowitz is a professor of history and piano, the former at Portland State University, the latter accompanying jazz singer Dory Hylton as well as solo in the Pacific Northwest's better saloons. He and his wife Gloria Myers commute between their homes in Portland and Arch Cape