BY VIP SHORT
Society in Denial
The burgeoning terror front
A
s I climbed the many steps of the newly
commissioned Battleship Eugene (an ob-
scenely expensive and excessive garri-
son, with all the charm of Darth Vader’s summer
home, and only four bicycle parking spots) to at-
tend the first in a series of sentencing hearings
for the 10 “let’s paint them terrorist” defendants, I
felt cautiously optimistic. I’d seen U.S. Judge Ann
Aiken in action a week or two earlier, sentencing some
friends who had been polite but unwavering in their antiwar visits to congres-
sional offices there. It seemed hopeful that Aiken would put this whole terrorist
matter into a more appropriate context. Probably she’d spell out the difference
between youthful monkey wrenchers, acutely cognizant of our planet’s desper-
ate straits and refusing to sink into apathetic denial even as they made ex-
tremely poor action choices, and actual terrorists, those who prescribe both
targeted and indiscriminate murder of human life in the delusion that it ad-
vances their agendas.
Alas, the distinction still requires spelling out, I guess by non-judicial
amateurs like me. Real terrorists set out to shoot, lynch, burn and blow up
other people. They completely extinguish innocent life because their cause
supposedly has such greater importance. The Unabomber is a terrorist. The
bombers of N.Y.C., Atlanta and Oklahoma City were terrorists. The KKK and
Aryan Nation and all the “pro-life” doctor shooters — duh. And it is very fair
to ask, at this point, exactly why the U.S. government is interested in diluting
and expanding its notion of what constitutes terrorism.
Are we soon going to have color codes to help clarify the degree of
threat from all the new burgeoning terror fronts? The peace terrorists can be
pink, since the Code Pinkers have already led the way with their scary pres-
ence. And of course, any vicious tree-hugger is now a green terrorist.
In our system, the courts serve to shape and amend social policies as
well as enforce existing law. Judge Aiken was handed an historical opportuni-
ty to inform the world that while our community is part of the U.S., this is not
Alberto Gonzales’ U.S. But instead the judge opted to go with the script, with
the result that we now live among terrorists. (How strange that the guy who
was one of the most active perps but turned in all his friends lives here free
as a bird and somehow is not a “terrorist.”)
J
udge Aiken laid responsibility on some of the defendants’ parents,
chewing them out for failing their kids. This was not only a cheap shot,
it was so off-target as to be a Cheney shot. The judge should have in-
dicted the actual failure here: a society in severe denial, intoxicated by ob-
scene consumerism and threatening the entire planet with its selfish, bloated
and wasteful ways. A society so clueless that it takes a Monday off to celebrate
one of its heroes yet completely fails to transmit Dr. King’s message about what
works and what doesn’t when it comes to social change. A society that has not
even begun to educate its own people about nonviolent methods and philoso-
phy. A society that can’t go 10 years without invading and wrecking someone
else’s homeland.
It’s always easier to punish and put away the truth-telling provocateurs,
to scapegoat the canaries in our coal mine. Easier to pretend that some prob-
lem has for the moment been “solved” by labeling and demonizing individuals
who are serving to symptomize the problem.
Apparently the judicial branch of our system is choosing to follow the
other two (criminal executive and spineless legislative) down the road of fail-
ing its people. Failure to see the big picture and treat holistically ultimately
will result in a massive systems failure (i.e. death) of the entire social organ-
ism. Ironically, this is what actual terrorists have been going for all along.
WHO YOU GONNA BLAME?
Vip Short, D.C., of Eugene is a holistic physician and nonviolence trainer.
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Eugene Weekly • 1251 Lincoln Street • Eugene, OR 97401 • 541.484.0519 • fax 541-484-4044
4 JUNE 28, 2007
TO THE EDITOR
DOWNTOWN CLOWNS
Sometimes change comes about because
people are bored and dissatisfied with them-
selves and their lives. They live somewhere
for a long time, and one day someone says, “I
am tired of looking at that statue of Colonel
Pickwick on the town square. Why don’t we
replace it with a newer, contemporary art-
work like the people over in Alphaville just
sired?” And then a lot of people look at the
old Colonel, and they can see it. And they say,
“John Wisebody is right!” And so, they hire a
famous N.Y. art name to create something,
and then, when it’s done, they look at it and
go “ahh.” But five or 10 years later, they feel
empty and depressed again because the prob-
lem with their lives wasn’t out there; it was
internal.
This is the whole basis of our culture:
compulsive, addictive consumption. Our the-
ory of economics and its need for constant
growth feeds our disease.
When I read Jerry Diethelm’s article
(6/14) about changing downtown Eugene, I
waded through childhood reminiscences
about the good old downtowns to get to the
phrase conveying the real message (and,
guess what, it’s about — money): “[to con-
struct] a new kind of downtown, one that de-
velopers can help us build.”
In Lincoln County, there are now 800
houses on the market because developers, in
their greed, came in and overbuilt. USA
Today rated this area of the coast as the #1 re-
sort traffic jam in America. But still the devel-
opment keeps coming. After many years of
rejections and set-backs, a company has fi-
nally gotten approval and started on a devel-
opment right next to the Girl Scout Camp that
will be the largest in the town.
Northwest Portland reminds me a lot of
the way my old home, Berkeley, used to be:
laid back, home for artists, intellectuals, the
unusuals. But developers have been buying
up all the cheaper, ordinary properties, tear-
ing them down and erecting skyscraper mil-
lion-dollar condos. Where the energy used to
be calm and human-contact-producing, it is
now busy, over-crowded, frenetic. Both of
these examples were created in the name of
“city planning.” But the real reason was to
make a bunch more money for a bunch of
people who have enough money already.
And change always has consequences that
are not foreseen. Building better roads causes
more people to feel they need more cars,
which then gluts the freeways.
If you walk around downtown Eugene,
you can see that it’s not a ghost town like
many of our bigger cities. There are lots of
people walking around, a lot of good shops
and a lot of organizations promoting good ac-
tivities. You can experience that the energy of
this area is a good and positive, just the way it
used to be in Berkeley and NW Portland.
Compared to most places in this country
today, there is no problem here. Therefore,
there is no reason to solve it.
Abe Frankel
Eugene
MONGERING FEAR
Terrorism: Instilling in us (the general
population) an overwhelming fear (terror) of
speaking our minds.
Gethin Lynes
Dexter
NO ACCOUNTABILITY
In the June 14 Slant, EW mentions the fea-
ture editorial in the R-G by EPD Officer Erik
Humphrey, who criticizes the City Council,
defends the city manager and calls for city-
wide council elections. On June 1, 1997,
Mayor Jim Torrey, a proponent of citywide
council elections and a strong city manager
form of government, sat in his car and
watched while Eugene police tortured pro-
testers in violation of international law
(Amnesty International 8/21/97) with pepper
spray. The city manager let the cops investi-
gate the police from other agencies, and the
cops got away with it.
In the aftermath of the Magaña-Lara case,
sympathetic police consultants were brought
in by the city manager, and no one was held
accountable even though numerous cops
were aware of the complaints against the two
sexual predators and did not respond appro-
priately. Under the city manager, the cops got
away with it.
Erik Humphrey bemoans the appointment