LET TERS
WHERE THE BUCK STOPS
Attending the University of Oregon
Commencement June 18, where my
daughter was graduating, I was surprised
and pleased to hear President Michael
Schill admit, “My generation has royally
screwed up.”
But I was hugely disappointed in his
next line: “It is up to your generation to fix
it.”
No. His next line should have been: “I
am so sorry, and I will be dedicating the
rest of my life to fixing it.”
This is something we all should have
learned in kindergarten: You clean up your
own mess. Sure, we could blame our par-
ents’ generation for the mess we inherited,
but most of us benefited financially from
the continuing destruction of our climate
and our ecosystems during our adulthood,
so it is incumbent upon us to spend that
profit on cleaning up our mess, to use the
power and influence we have achieved to
change the system so that it is no longer
making the future worse for our children.
The bucks stops here, President Schill.
You can start by implementing a compre-
hensive aggressive carbon reduction plan
at the UO immediately, as the students
have been imploring you to do.
Sharon Blick
Eugene
GO GREEN
I am a Pacific Green Party voter and ac-
tivist, and I encourage others to consider
registering and voting Green.
4
June 28, 2018 • eugeneweekly.com
I first registered as a Green in 1999,
when the party was still officially the Pacific
Party of Oregon. It soon affiliated with the
national Green Party organization and the
name changed to “Pacific Green Party.”
My motivation was intellectual and
temperamental. The major political parties
were committed to policies of exploitation
for wealth accumulation by the wealthy
at the expense of nature and people. The
Greens were an international movement
supporting human rights, nonviolence, de-
mocracy and ecological wisdom.
I was animated by a tendency to chal-
lenge authority and root for the under-
dog. The initial enthusiasm and successes
of the 2000 Ralph Nader presidential cam-
paign cemented my loyalty to the party and
its ideals.
I would not support one of the major
parties as a possibly lesser evil, when both
are leading on paths of increasing violence,
inequity and ecological devastation.
Since 2008, I have regularly run for
U.S. Congress as the Pacific Green candi-
date in the Oregon 4th District. I do not run
to punish Peter DeFazio for shortcomings
as a Democratic representative. I believe
we are fortunate to have a leading progres-
sive Democrat as our representative.
I run to promulgate a better vision for
the future and to give voters the opportu-
nity to vote against the system of militaris-
tic imperial larceny that the United States
has become.
Mike Beilstein
Corvallis
IMMIGRANT TRUTHS
A HISTORY OF EVIL
People who steal bikes or forge checks
rarely face jail time, let alone federal pris-
on or the loss of children, because those
are misdemeanors. But so is illegal border
crossing. So why are immigrant families
treated differently, torn apart and impris-
oned?
It can’t really be about deterrence. The
U.S. didn’t warn Mexico first.
It’s not about numbers. Since 2000,
border arrests have plummeted from
1,600,000 to about 300,000 annually.
It’s not about gangs. They’re less than 1
percent of crossings.
It’s not about crime. Immigrants are half
as likely to offend as those born here. True,
drug traffic is up at the border. But Califor-
nia Border Patrol says they just need more
agents.
It’s not about human trafficking. That’s
less than 1 percent of border crossings.
It’s not about welfare. Undocumented
immigrants don’t qualify for benefits, yet
they pay $12 billion in annual taxes.
It’s not about taking American
jobs. Crops are rotting and meat packers
closing.
It’s not about the law. Nothing requires
putting infants in cages.
What it’s really about is evil, ugly, raw,
dehumanizing racism that treats brown
families as political pawns. Trump’s re-
prieve is incomplete. Don’t let up. Re-
unite the families.
Rachel Rich
Eugene
The current U.S. policy of confinement
of brown babies in concentration camps
should come as no surprise.
Our country has a long history of white
exclusiveness (racism) starting with the
active government and religious-supported
genocide of the Native American popula-
tion; the enslavement of millions of blacks
for the benefit of white landowners; the
family gathering picnic-style lynch par-
ties after the Emancipation Proclamation;
Jim Crow laws; the illegal imprisonment
of Japanese citizens during WWII as the
feared “yellow peril” (while white Ger-
mans were ok).
When Chinese laborers finished build-
ing the transcontinental railroad, the pro-
moted fears of “yellow hordes” taking over
jobs resulted in persecution, lynching and
killing of these undesirables.
We have a sordid history of dehumaniz-
ing other races, usually justified by warped
“Christianity” and white supremacy. The
separation of brown babies from brown
mothers and imprisoning them in “tender
age” concentration camps is just another
sordid chapter of white racism.
Enough of our population (indirectly)
elected a known racist, and we got exactly
what was promised. The Trump regime is
simply evil, and those who support it are
knowingly complicit.
Daniel Schlender
Springfield