The Shedd Institute
from lethal “painted” bike lanes.
Otis Haschemeyer
Eugene
WHY NOT, WYDEN?
I didn’t know much about Ron Wyden
before I attended his May 5 Town Hall in
Cottage Grove. The vast majority of the
questions at the event revolved around
health care. And even when they didn’t,
Wyden’s answers did. So let’s talk about
health care.
A huge number of people support the
U.S. joining the rest of the civilized world
in creating a single-payer health care sys-
tem. One of the first questions asked of
Wyden was whether he supported that
idea. His answer dodged the question.
Later, another questioner expressed dis-
appointment in the senator’s answer and
asked again. Again, the senator dodged the
question, and the young person who asked
was left muttering to himself, dissatisfied.
Sen. Wyden was speaking to a crowd
that clearly wanted to hear him say that he
supports a single-payer system. His dodg-
ing of the issue made it pretty obvious that
he doesn’t.
Attention, politicians. People want to
hear more than just “I’m going to fight the
other team.” They want to know that you
understand the problems we face and that
you’re not afraid to talk about the real so-
lutions.
Ivan DelSol
Cottage Grove
KEVIN MATTHEWS FOR
COUNTY COMMISSIONER
I’m tired of the phrase “the perfect is
the enemy of the good,” especially when
coming from people who should know bet-
ter than using it against the people’s own
interests.
Kevin Matthews is a proven progres-
sive for Lane County, not an establish-
ment Dem chasing unavailable votes and
heavily polluted corporate money by being
unabashedly “centrist.” There’s no time or
energy to play the centrism game — not
on our County Commission or any other
legislative body.
Indeed, our very planet may not survive
if we stay stuck in the past, losing and with
dangerous electoral ways.
How many more buttes do you want
to see knocked over by the greedy gravel
companies in Lane County? How many
more years do you choose to live in a con-
servatively hamstrung county that tries
to use county funds to sue FEMA for the
corporations and against the salmon and
floodplain habitat protection?
With Stewart’s resignation, we had the
chance for a saner Board by the appoint-
ment of an outspoken environmentalist
like Matthews. We’ll have another chance
in 2018, if we elect Kevin Matthews to the
County Commission.
Change the tired trope to “Don’t let
your fears be the enemy of what actually
works for real people.”
Dianne Lobes
Eugene
BOXES OF ALLOWABLE
ACTIVISM
There are many futile ways of attempt-
ing to help the Earth’s balanced life sys-
tems. The Community Environmental Le-
gal Defense Fund (CELDF) categorizes its
many pointless forms into “the boxes of
allowable activism.” These containers en-
compass the ways permitted by each soci-
ety to remedy its problems.
Writing letters to the editor, running for
office, lobbying, begging politicians, sign
waving and trying to change legislature are
not even allowed in some other dictatorial,
fascist regimes. In ours, unfortunately, they
only portray a semblance of democracy, a
hollow feeling that “here, if a individual or
group is determined, he or she can shape
everyday reality.”
To be sure, this has worked in some in-
stances, although never unaided by stron-
ger, riskier, more radical, even painful acts.
These “cages of allowable remedies”
are the actions that the system, the global
economy, the banks, the governments and
the big corporations with their puppets the
regulating agencies “allow” freedom fight-
ers to “effect change” with. They have very
little elbowroom and aren’t beneficial even
in the cases where their (limited) aims are
attained.
Agencies to regulate food, the environ-
ment, labor standards, government, corpo-
rations, drugs allowed, etc., restrict rather
than aid the efforts of the most intelligent,
compassionate and vital members of our
world. They are a straitjacket upon the
sane, psychiatric drugs meant to deaden
the senses of the intelligentsia, lobotomies
for healthy brains.
Methods needing another level of cre-
ativity and sacrifice are required today.
This time let’s put our two cents, our sweat
and our blood into the mix.
David Ivan Piccioni
Eugene
www.theshedd.org - 541.434.7000
My Lucky Star
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David Lindley
eugeneweekly.com • May 18, 2017
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