paint community level decision-making
to reject harms like GMOs, fracking, toxic
pesticides or corporate water withdrawal,
to name just a few, as recipes for doom
and gloom because of the “patchwork of
regulations” that will be created.
The corporations feign chaos, but it’s
centralized, corporate control of our own
state governments that truly devastates our
communities — not people at the local
level exercising real democracy and
asserting their right to self-government
against corporate harms. "Patchwork
of regulations" is corporate speak that
really means: How dare communities
say no to harmful corporate practices
in order to embrace a more sustainable
existence? It’s an offensive tactic used
to prevent any weakening of corporate
power. The corporations’ use of “intrastate
preemption” against us is their way of
exercising greater “rights” to destroy
our communities than we have rights to
protect them. For more information, go to
oregoncommunityrights.org.
Delaney Pearson
Community Rights Lane County
Eugene
TRANS-PACIFIC
HOCUS-POCUS
When I was young, my parents warned
me not to eat anything unless I knew where
it came from. Sensible advice — so good
that even Congress acted on it. In 2002
responding to public demand, lawmakers
enacted a straightforward law called
COOL (Country of Origin Labeling).
For the last six years, in secrecy,
corporationists have come up with
the Trans-Pacifi c Partnership. Of the
document’s 29 chapters, only fi ve address
tariffs and actual trade. The other 24 consist
of various ways to “free” corporations from
any accountability and responsibility! TPP
laws would void buy-local laws and could
override other existing laws!
Their extreme deregulation only helps
global banks, big pharma and corporations
themselves. The trade agreement includes
a process called ISDS (Investor-State
Dispute Settlement), a bit of legalese
hocus-pocus that elevates corporations
to the status of corporate states equaling
nation states.
There are already pending cases of
corporations claiming lost profi ts in ISDS
cases including: suing Egypt for increasing
its minimum wage, Phillip Morris
challenging Australia and Uruguay anti-
smoking laws, lost compensation from a
moratorium on fracking in Quebec. The
list goes on, and the cases would be tried
by corporate lawyers, in secret.
I can’t do much about this TPP, but a
call to someone who could might help.
Please call Sen. Ron Wyden and voice
your concern.
Bill Joosse
Elmira
REINSTATE JAMES FOX
The UO administration needlessly
created controversy that resulted in the
termination of James Fox as head of
Special Collections at the Knight Library.
Newspaper editorials, letters to the
editor, electronic media and words
of mouth have, for several months,
accumulated mostly in support of Fox.
I wish to add my name to the growing
number of artists who are spreading the
word they are reconsidering donation of
their own archives to the repository of
Special Collections.
In recent years the library has collected
several of my photographic projects related
to the history and culture of Oregon.
During the past two years I had been
in serious discussion with Fox whether
Special Collections, upon my passing,
might become the permanent home of
50 years work — visual records of my
personal view of life in Oregon rural and
urban landscapes. Under the leadership
of Fox, Special Collections has been an
increasingly important repository for our
regional history.
The newly appointed university
president should follow The Register-
Guard’s and EW’s recent editorials that
suggest he reinstate Fox, who originally
tried to warn the university to deal with
potential problems with massive email
records. Instead of consulting with him
as an expert resource, the UO made him
a scapegoat.
John Bauguess
Dexter
TOWERS ENDANGER BIRDS
After reading EW, where can a person
easily go within the city to refresh one’s
spirit in the spacious outdoors while
walking silently beside trees? The
opportunity to de-stress, surrounded by
natural beauty and open sky space, with
no reminder of corporate privatization of
public resources, is offered by the trails
along the Amazon Creek corridor. We
taxpayers, along with donors from the Be-
Noble Foundation, the Audubon Society
and others, contributed generously to
protect the corridor’s natural ecosystem
and wildlife habitat.
Citizens of Eugene, please claim
stewardship of this unique area and its
birds, especially. The U.S. Department
of the Interior wrote to the Federal Trade
Commission in February 2014, declaring
that the non-ionizing electromagnetic
radiations emitted by cellular towers
“injure, cripple and kill birds in a variety
of ways.” “Study results have documented
nest and site abandonment, plumage
deterioration,
locomotion
problems,
reduced survivorship and death.” The FCC
was charged with using outdated standards
that don’t protect organisms from adverse
effects of exposure to cell tower radiation
(1.usa.gov/1jn3CZg).
Birds in the Amazon Creek Corridor
need readers to write nick.r.gioello@
ci.eugene.or.us to ask planners to deny
the ATT CUP 14-003 75-foot cell tower
proposed for 4060 W. Amazon Dr.
Jane Katra
Eugene
FEAR AND DENIAL
EW co-owner Anita Johnson writes that
it was “unlikely” that Sen. Wayne Morse
was correct that “John Kennedy, had he
lived, would have ended the Vietnam War”
(“Reckoning with the Past” story, April
30).
On Nov. 12, 1963, Morse was the
fi rst member of Congress to be told by
President Kennedy that he had decided to
pull out of Vietnam. JFK signed National
Security Action Memorandum 263 to start
the withdrawal, a month before he was
removed from offi ce. A copy is archived at
jfkmoon.org/vietnam.html.
I also heard Professor Christian Appy,
subject of Johnson’s book review, at a Morse
Center event last year, but was less impressed.
In most countries, when the military
leadership and “intelligence” agencies
assassinate the president and then reverse
his policies, that is considered a coup
d’etat. The biggest secret of the coup of
Nov. 22, 1963, is the perpetrators knew
they’d get away with it due to fear and
denial. Two years ago, Robert Kennedy
Jr. urged “all Americans” to read JFK and
the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why
it Matters by James Douglass, the best
introduction.
George Orwell wrote in 1984, “Who
controls the past controls the future: Who
controls the present controls the past.”
Mark Robinowitz
Eugene
WHY MENTION RACE?
I started to read “The Teaching Poor”
cover story April 23 and became slightly
puzzled. What century am I living in?
The article opens with the statement that
“Michael Copperman teaches composition
to at-risk students of color.”
What color am I? Pink? Which color is
referred to here?
I expected something different from a
supposed liberal weekly. Or is that how the
university labels this course? Still more
puzzling. A supposed liberal university?
No wonder Europeans sometimes are
aghast when confronted with U.S.
American reality.
Lioba Multer, Ph.D.
Reedsport
OFFENSIVE TACTIC
Corporations think local democracy is
a patchwork of nonsense. It doesn’t matter
what state you’re from, corporations
love attacking democracy when local
people act to protect their quality of
life. One of their favorite strategies is to
CHARGING AHEAD
“If your tenants want to drive electric
vehicles it’s your job to accommodate
that.” Thus spaketh Rep. Phil Barnhart,
presumably aiming the comment at
landlords (“Bills on Capping Carbon,
Charging Stations Still Alive in Salem”
story, April 30).
The promise of free stuff and services
for which someone else is forced to pay
trumps calls for personal responsibility and
accountability in this deep-blue state. Barnhart
will have his job for as long he wants it.
Jerry Ritter
Springfi eld
OREGON LEADS THE WAY
Recently I watched Oregon Experience
on public TV recalling Gov. Tom McCall’s
achievements of setting new standards for the
rest of the nation with our Beach Bill, Bottle
Bill and Land-Use Planning law. I believe that
Oregon can also be and should be a leader in
providing health care for everyone.
The Affordable Care Act is a step
in the right direction by covering more
citizens. However, as Jim Wallis, CEO
of Sojourners, has asked, “Will there still
be those who are too poor to be healthy
in America? How do we move from a
mindset that views health care as merely a
commodity and not a human right? These
are the questions we should be asking.”
As a longtime health professional,
I believe that a single-payer system,
expanded universal Medicare for everyone,
is not only the right thing to do but will
provide better health results for more folks
for less money.
HB 2828 will fund an important study
to determine the best way for Oregon to
actually provide health care for all. Now is
the time for each of us as citizens to stand
up and demand that our state legislators
pass this bill. Let’s go, Oregon. We can
again be a leader for our nation and at the
same time join the rest of the countries of
our developed world in providing health
care for all.
Shirley Kingsbury
Eugene
EUGENEWEEKLY.COM • MAY 7, 2015
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