Eugene weekly., February 10, 2011, Page 4, Image 4

letters
TO THE EDITOR
GIVE IT BACK
PERS retirees got a nasty surprise
last week when they took a look at their
PERS benefi t checks. The net amount was
reduced by a considerable amount. When I
spoke to the PERS offi ce they told me that
the federal and state tax rates had changed
and that PERS was required to remove
more money for taxes from PERS benefi t
checks. They also told me that there was
“nothing they could do.”
I called The Register-Guard news
desk. The person I spoke with claimed not
to know anything about this. I spoke with
Congressmen DeFazio’s offi ce. The staff
person there claimed that “this is a state
issue, so call your state representative,
not us.” I haven’t yet tried my state
representative but I’m sure the answer will
be “this is a federal issue, so talk to them,
not us.”
Here is an opportunity for Gov.
Kitzhaber to keep some faith with the
retired who elected him by directing
the state Department of Revenue to
immediately issue revised rates to add
back the money taxed away from PERS
benefi t checks. Retirees living on fi xed or
reduced incomes don’t need to pay more in
taxes. Retirement benefi ts almost always
go instantly into the local economy for the
purchase of goods and services.
It doesn’t make good sense to remove
more money from benefi t checks to pay
taxes when the federal government just
passed a tax rate reduction, the intent
viewpoint
of which was to stimulate the economy
by giving citizens more of their own
money to spend. This tax increase takes
money from retirees that is needed to buy
medicine, pay bills and stay alive. Give it
back.
Gerry Merritt
Eugene
LUCK IS RIGHT
Alicia Luck’s letter (“Temporary
Jobs,” 1/27) proves that District 4J is
still turning out thinking graduates and
good writers. But for how long? Cuts
in school budgets, and weird priorities
in spending what remains, threaten the
future viability of Eugene as we know
it. To me, that means a community of
educated, thinking, communicating
people, engaged in useful and interesting
occupations.
Keeping road workers employed may
feed their families for a few months, but
if the road work is not necessary we’d be
better off giving our tax dollars directly
to the unemployed, and letting them fi gure
out better ways to spend their Life.
Face it, we’re at or past the peak of oil
production in this world, and the inevitable
decline in available quantity will continue
to force gas prices up. This can only result
in fewer car miles being driven, and less
need for roads and highways. Yet at every
level of government, plans are drawn up
for exotic new ribbons of concrete that
will not be needed! On the other hand,
SORRY, COMMISSIONERS
The recent smearing of our fi ne Lane
County commissioners is really an
outrage. What I would like is some justice
from Big Money buying politicians. I am
reminded of politicians who took money
from big businesses for their campaigns
and then allowed development on land
that they owned and subsequently profi ted
from. This has taken place in Lane County
since I moved here in 1993, and no legal
BY SHAUL COHEN
Time to
Re-engage
Turmoil in Egypt offers an
opportunity
BY SHAUL COHEN
N
obel Prize winning author Naguib Mahfouz
lamented the political and moral corruption
of Cairo in his 1947 novel Midaq Alley. Fifty-
fi ve years later another Egyptian novelist, Alaa al
Aswany, echoed similar concerns in his bestselling
book The Yacoubian Building. In the intervening years
Egypt’s population exploded, its economy stagnated,
and its politics remained little different than they
were under King Farouk, whose government banned
the publication of Mahfouz’s novel more than half a
century ago. In many respects, the recent upheavals
come as no surprise; the question wasn’t whether the
people of Egypt would register their disgust and desire
for change, but only when and how. Prompted by the
spark in nearby Tunisia and the opportunities afforded
by the internet, their time is now. Unfortunately, the
assertion that Egyptians deserve and are entitled to
better representation and fair leadership catches
many in that country and around the world unprepared
to facilitate a constructive transition that will give
ordinary citizens a greater stake in the rule of their
country.
Though it has the trappings of an electoral system,
Egypt is only at the beginning of the learning curve
in relation to participatory democracy. The country’s
monarchy fell to a revolution in 1952, but its rulers
since then have consisted of a repressive (though
widely popular) strongman in Gamal Abdel Nasser,
who was succeeded at death in 1970 by his deputy,
Anwar Sadat, whose assassination in 1981 led to the
presidency of Hosni Mubark, who still clings to power
today.
4 FEBRUARY 10, 2011
well educated young people will be very
much in demand.
I’m all for fi xing potholes in the most
cost-effective way possible. But creating
jobs by taking money from other
economically stressed people — via an
obviously blind government — makes
no sense at all. We need life, not jobs.
Thanks, Alicia!
Christopher Logan
Eugene
EUGENE WEEKLY
For more than 50 years Egypt has held elections
for government, but that’s not the same thing as
having a choice. Cairo as described in recent years
by al-Aswany was far more crowded, corrupt, and
violent than in earlier generations, and his barely
veiled depiction of Mubarak (labeled the “Big Man”
in the book) and his government convey a sense of
frustration and bitterness that refl ect the growing
isolation of the ruling class and the indignation that
the proud and alienated Egyptian people feel. In his
novel, political offi ces were bought and sold, and the
only suspense was how many votes would be accorded
to the opposition to demonstrate that the country was
a democracy.
Meanwhile, the U.S. has been a good friend to
Mubarak, and to Sadat before him. Once Nasser,
with his provocative mix of socialism and refusal to
accept a bi-polar cold war, was out of the way, Egypt
became a useful ally in a volatile region, and the Suez
Canal that he nationalized in 1956 — fi nally ending the
British imperial role there — still counts in geopolitics
and global economics. For that strategic value, one
American administration after another has been
willing, even eager, to overlook the true nature of
Egyptian rule. Save for a “tut-tut” here or there, no
infl uence was brought to bear on behalf of the rights
of ordinary people and their need for economic and
political reform.
Americans often genuinely root for the good guys
struggling against their evil oppressors, but in a way
that is usually devoid of any sense of context or strategy.
The glancing engagement with international affairs that
romanticizes the resistance but can’t be bothered with
“nation building” is part of an old and alarming pattern.
As a result, many oppressed communities (including
some right here at home) long for America’s help and
attention, but their hopes are tempered by cynicism
and their expectations are often quite low.
It’s too soon to know what Egypt’s post-Mubarak
fortunes will be, but even before the headlines fade,
there are lessons to learn. One of these is that for all
our cheerleading on behalf of nascent democracies,
the peoples of oppressed countries feel entitled to
more than a brief presence on Twitter, Facebook,
and CNN. In that sense, it will be a challenge to try to
engage them in a way that doesn’t evoke echoes of the
exploitative relationships of the past, where American
foreign aid was a down payment on compliance and
a dowry that could be used to help keep the masses
in their place. Noting the lack of attention being paid
to Tunisia just now, Egyptians will be wary that, as the
spotlight moves elsewhere, they will be left to do the
hard work unaided and unnoticed.
Of course it doesn’t have to be this way. A healthier
engagement between nations includes mutual respect
and the creation and maintenance of bonds among
citizens. So long as relations are left to diplomats,
we’ll be stuck learning about one another from
dusty textbooks and Wikileaks. It would be better to
proactively lower the barriers between people, and to
build respect and appreciation across the divides. That
approach would serve us well in other places that may
soon be where Egypt is now. Saudi Arabia and some of
the smaller Gulf states will have their day, a reckoning
long postponed by the same sort of American support
that propped up Mubarak for 30 years. So too will
countries with whom we have less cordial relationships,
like Iran, and Libya. A key lesson from Tunis and Cairo
is that change comes in its own time, and it’s best to
anticipate the demise of dictatorships, whether they
are the province of friend or foe.
One of the characters in The Yacoubian Building
notes that the rule of Abdel Nasser, the father of
modern Egypt, “brought us defeat and poverty. The
damage he did to the Egyptian character will take
years to repair.” That damage was compounded by
another 40 years of oppressive rule enabled by the
support of the U.S. No matter what happens with the
Egyptian government now, it is critical to re-engage
with its citizens, and indeed, with the people of many
of the other countries in the region and beyond.
Democracy deserves no less.
Shaul Cohen is an associate professor of geography and co-director of the
Peace Studies Program at UO.
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