occurred during this administration has
worked to extinguish the channels through
which people can express dissatisfaction with
the government.
This campaign is taken to new heights by
designating environmental activists as “ter-
rorists.” If the government is allowed to
apply the terrorism enhancement to these
young people, we will allow the vise to be
tightened on what it means to stand up for
what is right in the U.S.
Steven Schuller
Brooklyn, NY
faced with a Hobbesian choice: they could ei-
ther starve or emigrate. More than one mil-
lion were allowed to starve while more than
three million emigrated to the U.S. When
these poor, starving people started arriving in
large numbers in the U.S., they were treated
in the same way that Mexicans are arriving in
the U.S. are today.
In 1999, former Gov. Kitzhaber signed
into law Senate Bill 771, which called for the
Oregon Department of Education to prepare,
and Oregon schools to teach, a unit of instruc-
tion to be known as the Irish Famine
Curriculum. Ask your school district how to
access it and read what those Irish immi-
grants had to face, how they were treated by
the media of the day and what contributions
they and their descendants have made to this
country before you decide your position on
today’s immigration debate. If we don’t
know our immigration history, we may be
doomed to repeat it.
G. Dennis Shine
Springfield
AN EQUAL BLESSING
IMPOSSIBLE MISSIONS
The U.S. emerged from World War II rid-
ing an economic engine built on cheap and
plentiful petroleum to survey a world full of
nations, all who looked to our accomplish-
ments and way of life as a goal. All nations,
even those who saw us as competitors,
wanted, or at least needed, to do business
with us. What happened to us? What hap-
pened to Our Town?
What happened was two impossible mis-
sions — a U.S. foreign policy and immigra-
tion policy built on internally inconsistent
(and thus self-destructive) assumptions and
doomed to fail. Why? Because it is politically
impossible for our leaders and psychologi-
cally impossible for our citizens to actually
face the root issues that lay behind our for-
eign policy and our immigration policy.
We will NOT face the issue of changing the
U.S. into a nation living within its means. The
U.S. has not and will not learn to live within
the budget of the natural and labor resources
that lie within the boundaries of the nation.
We will NOT face the issue of the chang-
ing face of the U.S. White America can no
more stop Latin Americans than Native
Americans could stop European colonists.
The truth is the “them” pouring over our bor-
ders are going to be the new us!
In Norway, in the 1930s, my father’s his-
tory teacher said, “There are two unstoppable
realities behind all the talk of ideology and
great men in history. Those two realities are
available natural resources and migration.” I
agree with him.
Leo Rivers
Cottage Grove
NOT SUCH A THREAT
Your news story “Terror Label” (5/10)
makes clear the extent to which the govern-
ment will go to justify its misguided war on
terrorism. While this supposed war was sold
to the American people as protection against
future 9/11s, we now find it being waged
within our borders against young people who
took a stand in defense of the earth and
harmed no living thing. While the govern-
ment has labeled the ELF/ALF the “#1 do-
mestic terrorist threat,” I think the FBI would
be hard-pressed to find a citizen who feels
threatened by them.
So, if the prosecution of these 10 activists
is not for our benefit, then whose benefit is it
for? Could it be for the benefit of an adminis-
tration that has come up short in its search for
those who participated in the 9/11 attacks?
Property destruction as a tactic of protest,
while contested among activists, has a long
history in the U.S. dating back to the Boston
Tea Party. The crackdown on dissent that has
I noticed your Slant comment (5/3) about
the silence on gun control after Virginia Tech.
Personally, as someone who was deeply af-
fected by what happened (my stepfather was
teaching the only class in the building not at-
tacked), I was grateful for it — all of us who
were deeply affected by the incident have
needed time to simply understand what hap-
pened. But I have started to wonder — what
do we do next? I think we need to take a
deeper look at ourselves and our lives.
When some people in Eugene heard that I
was headed to Utah for graduate school, I
was warned about the conservatives, and, by
some, the Mormons. Now, by some, when I
come home to visit, I’m asked how I can live
in such a conservative place. I have discov-
ered in my short time here that we have a lot
more in common than not. I could not have
survived this very difficult first year in my
Ph.D program without my conservative
Mormon friends. While my friends back
there in Eugene have been a blessing, these
friends here have been an equal blessing.
I think the deeper look we need to take is
at how we carry ourselves, how we treat each
other and how we treat those who are differ-
ent. I don’t know what the solution to not ever
having such an incident ever again is, but I do
know that one place that can’t hurt to go to is
a place of compassion — for ourselves, for
others and for those we don’t understand.
Brooke Robertshaw
Missing Eugene from Logan, Utah
BY KAREN KENNEDY
The Taser Dilemma
Police weapon used to subdue can also kill
A
few months ago the Eugene Police Department announced that
it planned to equip its officers with Taser stun guns. These
weapons are promoted as being non-lethal, but the facts do
not support this. As a community, we should be aware of the health
and safety problems these weapons could pose.
According to Amnesty International, the number of people who have
been killed by these weapons has been steadily increasing each year.
Sixty-one people died in 2005 after being shocked by law enforcement
Tasers. At least 152 people have died in the U.S. since 2001 after being
shocked by the weapon.
Most of those who died had pre-existing medical conditions, were under the in-
fluence of drugs or medication and/or were subjected to multiple or prolonged
electro-shocks. Among TASER-related deaths in the past year, for example, 40
were shocked more than three times and one person as many as 19 times. A major-
ity of those who died went into cardiac or respiratory arrest at the scene (Amnesty
International report, March 2006).
Taser stun guns fire 50,000 volts of electricity via two wires lead by a piercing
dart from distances of up to 21 feet. Tasers can also be applied close up as a “touch
stun gun.” Persons shot with a Taser experience severe pain and a loss of muscle
control which causes them to collapse.
Taser International, the company that makes Taser stun guns, claims that their
stun guns will reduce injuries and save lives by giving officers an alternative to
using firearms and batons. The company encourages liberal use of its weapon,
and promotes it as a non-lethal weapon that saves lives. Police depart-
ments are naturally attracted to this type of weapon.
Taser International grossly downplays safety concerns. There
has been little public scrutiny of this weapon, no consistent stan-
dards or guidelines on its use and no independent medical re-
search conducted on its safety.
Amnesty International supports the development of non-lethal
alternatives to firearms, and believes that police officers should
have the tools they need to do their jobs safely and effectively.
However, Amnesty’s research has shown that police are using the
weapons routinely rather than as a last resort, often to subdue unarmed,
non-compliant individuals who do not pose a serious danger to themselves or oth-
ers.
I welcome the EPD’s thoughtful pilot program to review safety and proper use of
this weapon, and encourage the public to attend any public meetings regarding
this issue. Providing our officers with better options other then the use of deadly
force is something we can all support. However, in almost every case where Tasers
might be used, there is no way to know if they would have been helpful in prevent-
ing death or causing death.
Karen Kennedy serves on the UO Senate and has been active in Amnesty International for more than 10 years. The UO
chamber of AI is active during the school year. See www.amnesty.org
JUNE 7, 2007 7