LET TERS
SELECTIVE OUTRAGE
Police all over the country are planning
a big show of support at upcoming funerals
for their Dallas comrades. Where’s the
show of support for those they murdered
and their families? Where’s the outrage
by the police community that their own
murdered innocent people?
This apparent lack of concern,
understanding and human decency for
anyone other than their own is at the root
of why so many Americans have come to
distrust and dislike the police. This attitude
of “we’re right, you’re wrong” creates a
lack of respect for the police, which in turn
makes it easier to strike against them.
Whatever outreach Oregon police
departments plan to make to their fellow
officers in Dallas ought to be met with an
equal show of respect and outreach for the
victims at the hands of police. That would
be one small step towards soothing the
public mood.
Alex Kaye
Eugene
VIOLENT CYCLE
The news is full of police killing
black men, and being killed in return. We
VIEWPOINT
need to understand that poverty breeds
violence. Then the police become fearful,
overreact and become violent, which leads
to violence in response.
It’s a dangerous positive social feedback
cycle. “Positive” in the sense of a feedback
cycle that moves a complex system further
from stabilization. Another example is
the melting of the Arctic ice and global
warming. A negative feedback cycle, like
a thermostat, stabilizes a system.
Most of the poor and near-poor — the
working class — are white, and I think
they are becoming more likely to explode
also. There are other ways to kill people
than using a weapon. A documentary
on health care I watched said that the
main determinant of health in the U.S. is
income. The main reason is stress, caused
by financial pressure. Stress sets people
off. For example, when unemployment
rises, so does child and wife abuse.
We need to do something about our
economy, either create more government
jobs or set up a guaranteed minimum
income, paid by the government to
everyone below a certain income level and
financed through higher corporate taxes.
This would help all of us to benefit from
automation instead of just the rich people
who own the machines.
Lynn Porter
Eugene
DON’T GIVE MORE POWER
The Lane County Board of
Commissioners is overreaching itself
by trying to have veto power over the
ballot initiative process! It is a ridiculous
idea and just shows the level to which
these elected officials are influenced by
corporate money interests.
The initiative process is tedious and
difficult, but it exists to give citizens some
direct say in government policies. One of
the current proposed initiative petitions
is for local control over protecting
“health, safety and welfare” by banning
aerial spraying of forest herbicides and
pesticides. The other seeks to assure
that citizen rights won’t be abridged by
the kind of move the commissioners are
proposing.
Both are opposed by the corporate sponsors
of four-fifths of the county commissioners.
The dissenting commissioner, Pete Sorenson,
has called this plan to give the Board of
Commissioners power to stop initiative
HATE CRIMES
Amidst the hypnosis of Oregon
Country Fair and Olympic Trials, Eugene
tries to sweep this under the rug: At least
nine Asian businesses have had doors
or windows broken since October, with
increasing frequency.
This appears to be an epidemic —
not just a mental health issue but an
apparent series of hate crimes. A healthy
administration and vigilant media could
help to find perpetrators and assure the
community, but instead we have nothing
but silence.
Fortunately, community members have
stepped up to support the victims, but this
epidemic is spreading, and the more we
BY MICH A EL R OOK E-L E Y
Liberals Out of Touch
IT’S TIME TO RECONNECT WITH REALITY
W
ith the British electorate’s dra-
matic and unexpected decision to
pull out of the European Union,
The New York Times reports that
“the same yawning gap between
the elite and mass opinion is fueling a populist back-
lash” all across Europe and the United States.
Here at home, election season is upon us and
widespread frustration with conventional party
politics has been the motivating force behind both the
Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders campaigns. The
Trump appeal, as with the “Brexit” revolt, has much
to do with resentment toward migrants and refugees.
Meanwhile, across the aisle, we must recognize
that the Democratic Party, in particular, has lost touch
with its traditional working-class base, and we of
the “liberal elite” must take some responsibility for
having compromised our values and, in the months
ahead, for putting us back on course.
Liberals, some would say, simply feel guilty for
being dealt a privileged hand. No, liberals today don’t
operate out of guilt for lifestyle choices and professed
political views that may seem inconsistent … but we
are falling out of touch.
I live in a beautiful home in a virtually all-white
upscale neighborhood of like-minded (liberal)
academics and professionals. We comprise a
community of legal aid lawyers, social workers,
professors, public school teachers, homeless
advocates, reproductive rights counselors, health
care policy reformers, reentry (from prison or jail)
supporters, public defenders, psychologists helping
a financially-strapped and emotionally-stressed
4
proposals before they get to the voters “a
really bad” idea. He is correct.
The Register-Guard and Eugene
Weekly have also come out against giving
commissioners this added power, and they
are correct.
Don’t let county commissioners usurp
power over the voter’s initiative petition
process.
Robert Jacobs
Eugene
July 14, 2016 • eugeneweekly.com
clientele, doctors serving those on the street without
insurance and resources, socially conscious judges
and a host of dedicated public servants.
We support all the right causes, e.g. a $15 minimum
wage, Black Lives Matter and a clean environment.
And yet, with the end of each workday, we return to
our comfortable zip code; the working class and the
poor do not live in our neighborhood.
Although our political leanings have been all
about bringing moderation and justice to a capitalist
system, we’ve been co-opted into lifestyles that
perpetuate and aggravate a class-based society. Our
young children, so much of whose time is spent at
home or in the neighborhood, are being raised largely
in a segregated world.
Two Americas. Out of sight, out of mind. All
across our nation, gated communities serve as
Trumpian walls. Sadly, we have rendered ourselves
ineffectual in addressing these obscene class divisions
— the “income inequality” mantra that has become so
popular in political speeches and so absent in political
action. Yes, we need to walk the walk.
As embarrassing, offensive and dangerous as he
may be, Don “Make-America-White/Male-Again”
Trump is not solely to blame. He simply says out
loud what Republicans have believed for at least a
generation; meanwhile, Bill Clinton and the Democrats
ignored their traditional middle-class base and chose
shareholders over jobholders, Wall Street over Main
Street. With the fraternity of investment bankers
running through a revolving door with the Obama
administration, it’s no surprise that we’ve traded labor
unions for corporate profits and replaced organized
labor with temps and independent contractors.
The success or failure of our public schools — and
the hopes and dreams of our students — is largely
pre-determined by the socio-economic class of the
parent body in the surrounding neighborhood. And
now we have charters and privatization undermining
our teachers’ unions and a public education system
that was once envied around the globe. Rather than
embarking on a single-payer health system, we’ve
saved seats at the table for insurers and Big Pharma.
Libertarians, including so many of the white male
entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley, see little need for the
kind of social safety net so common in most every other
industrialized nation. And the “shared economy” to
which we once aspired has come to mean Airbnb and
Uber.
In short, we’re living in a segregated society. The
American Dream of upward mobility into a large and
welcoming middle class is fading fast for those who
struggle so desperately. To update James Carville’s
advice to Bill Clinton’s campaign in 1992, now “it’s
the [class-based] economy, stupid.”
Many of us whose political lives blasted off in the
1960s have lost the pathway toward the kind of world
we set out to create. With a gimlet eye, we see our
expectations diminished and, in moments of harsher
self-assessment, a legacy betrayed.
As we encourage one another in our retirement
years with renewed energy around the issues that have
inspired our lives, let’s acknowledge that we’ve fallen
out of touch — not out of breath, not out of guilt, just
out of touch — and commit ourselves to reconnecting
across class lines (and with the politically-aroused
Millennials) as we move our generation’s agenda
forward. For starters, how about some low-income,
subsidized housing in our finest neighborhoods? Let’s
talk: union2757@comcast.net.
Michael Rooke-Ley is a long-time resident of the South Eugene neigh-
borhood.