LET TERS
ANTI-DEMOCRATIC
NONSENSE
Love your
new life.
Weight loss surgery can help you take off the
extra weight, move and breathe easier, and
reverse some health conditions. What’s not
to love?
Weight loss surgery
Counseling support
Nutrition advice
peacehealth.org/weightsurgery
Democracy keeps on taking hits from
special interests. Last summer, [local re-
tired attorney] Stan Long and his corpo-
rate industry buddies attempted to grant
power to the county commissioners to de-
cide what initiatives Lane County citizens
could vote on.
The community’s reaction was swift in
letting the commissioners know: “Don’t
you dare mess with the people’s business.”
The commissioners dropped the corporate-
concocted plan.
However, democracy in action was lost
on Stan Long, who then filed a lawsuit
claiming the county erred in approving ini-
tiative circulation for an aerial spray ban
on herbicides and — get this — securing
the right of the people to govern their own
affairs over that of, let’s say, corporate in-
dustry.
The lawsuit is absurd, largely because
Mr. Long failed to voice his complaints
within the clearly allocated 60-day win-
dow allowed. I can’t imagine the courts
rewarding tardiness.
The hearing date is Feb. 3. Mark your
calendars. Let’s pack the courtroom!
Mucking with direct democracy, wheth-
er by changing the rules in the middle of
the game or gaming the courts, is bad news
no matter one’s political stripes. Muting
people’s political speech and ultimately
the people’s right of self-government just
means we become more subject to the rule
of the corporate class.
I won’t sit idle. Beside protesting this
court case, I will do my part to make sure
the aerial spray ban and the right of local
community self-government initiatives
make it to the ballot and are ultimately
voted in by the people.
Bullies beware.
Michelle Holman
Community Rights Lane County
Deadwood
POWER TO THE PEOPLE
Last month, I saw the We the People
2.0 documentary at the Bijou Art Cinemas.
It opened my eyes to what “democracy
where I live” really means.
The Community Rights Movement —
championed locally by Community Rights
Lane County (CRLC) — is the only grass-
roots, action-oriented effort seeking to
give meaningful legal authority to We the
People. This movement seeks to amplify
the voice of the people over the clamor of
government and corporate interests that
threaten our way of life and our planet, for
profit.
Our situation is increasingly dire. Ac-
tion is required. Join me in attending Com-
munity Rights Lane County’s monthly
meetings on the third Monday of the month
at the First United Methodist Church (1376
Olive St.) from 6-8 pm. And check out
CRLC at communityrightslanecounty.org.
Marge Holman
Eugene
TRANS PACIFIC PUPPETS
I love Eugene, but I am constantly
amazed at how uninformed some people
can be. Leigh Anne Jasheway spends two
paragraphs trashing The Donald [“Beware
Trumplestilsken,” 12/29] and then, in the
next paragraph, says how great it is that the
6
January 12, 2017 • eugeneweekly.com
people can get together and stop the Trans
Pacific Partnership.
This is stunning. It is The Donald who
is going to, and pretty much already has
stopped the TPP. The people have almost
nothing to do with it, other than electing
Trump.
If Hillary had won, we would be getting
TPP. If Obama were to stay in power, we
would be getting TPP. If Bernie had been
elected, he would probably have stopped
it.
That Jasheway does not know that a key
issue of the Trump campaign was to stop
the TPP and other such trade deals that are
very bad for America shows an amazing
lack of awareness of the political situa-
tion leading up to the election. In actuality,
Bernie and Trump almost exactly agreed
on trade, trade deals and getting industry
going again.
The TPP was a globalist initiative, cre-
ated and paid for by international corpora-
tions and pushed by their puppets in gov-
ernment, such as Obama.
Time to take the head out of the sand
and give the devil his due.
Jim Showker
Eugene
UO DID RIGHT
After hearing more of this ongoing sto-
ry about Prof. Nancy Shurtz’s Halloween
party for the past few months, I feel com-
pelled to comment.
I am not a University of Oregon law
student. However, if I was, and I was in-
vited to a private party at an instructor’s
house, I would already feel awkward.
Then, if she came into the room wear-
ing a white lab coat and blackface, and then
started doing something weird with silver-
ware, I would be running to the nearest exit.
Whether Shurtz is racist or needs some
kind of health evaluation, either way the
university got it right this time when they
decided to relieve the professor of her in-
structional duties.
Law school is expensive. You need to
get the best you can out of it.
Elizabeth Arbogast
Eugene
RESIST FASCISM
It is not too late to reject our president-
elect, and there is something you can do:
Go to refusefascism.org and sign the call
to say, “NO! In the Name of Humanity, We
Refuse to Accept a Fascist America!”
And in the days leading up to his inaugu-
ration, it is up to us — it is up to the masses
— to get into the streets and declare a re-
sistance to the fascist regime that will come
under a hateful, sexist, racist, Muslim-bash-
ing, wall-building, climate change denier.
We cannot “wait and see” what he
does — for we have already seen what he
has done to women, to families and to the
people. We must prevent the Trump-Pence
regime from taking power!
Lola Bravo
Eugene
LETTERS POLICY: We welcome letters on all topics and
will print as many as space allows, with priority given
to timely local issues. Please limit length to 200 words
and include your address and phone number for our files.
Email to letters@eugeneweekly.com, fax to 484-4044 or
mail to 1251 Lincoln, Eugene 97401.