Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 18, 2018)
LET TERS TAX GIVEAWAYS DEMOCRACY IN ACTION I appreciate your printing the article on Lane County’s property tax give-away (“Low Taxes, No Oversight,” Sept. 20). It was refreshing to see a story that sourced actual numbers and attempted to offer some amount of context. I hope that your own writers might follow suit, as the piece does beg for a follow up. While I mostly disagree with the writer of “Just Livid” (Letters, Sept. 27), he does have a point about the tax subsidies exist- ing within a larger framework of business revenue and taxation. How much payroll tax are these companies paying? What are they paying in other city or state taxes? Had the buildings in the enterprise zone (those receiving the benefit) been sitting idle. If so, for how long? What do our City Council members have to say about all this? And speaking of City Council, don’t we have an election coming up? Does EW have any plans to print any information regarding the various ballot initiatives? Anything? Shaun Winter Eugene Some “longtime journalist” you know in- sulted one of the finest shows of democracy I have ever participated in, and you rebroad- cast that insult with all the power of your pen. I refer to your Oct. 4 Viewpoint (“Neigh- bors and Legacies,” Guy Maynard) about last spring’s meeting in Santa Clara, when the LTD asked the neighborhood if they wanted to provide space for the homeless and folks showed up in force to say “no.” That meeting was pure democracy at work. It was incredibly powerful. The peo- ple spoke. LTD listened. Just because some “longtime journal- ist” disagreed with the majority’s point of view does not make it an ugly meeting. It was great and I was very proud to be there. Loud and raucous? Yes. Ugly? No. Catherine Tanzer Eugene Editor’s note: Michael Tobin’s story was written through Eugene Weekly's work with the Catalyst Journalism Proj- ect and he is a contributing writer. Read info on ballot intiatives in this issue. REALITY SLAP Although Robert Sims may be correct that we’re all responsible for our plight, and that Caleb Cuff feels that “heroic fa- talism” won’t save us (Letters, Oct. 11), I offer this: Being naive to the larger powers that wield control, and to our hopeful hu- HOT AIR SOCIETY man nature, won’t save us. “People need to know there is hope” — yes, and yet, like knowing you can vote, where has it gotten us? To where we are now, tipping toward extinction, no matter how much we voted for change and hoped for better outcomes. And, no, “our future cannot include a ... vehicle for everyone,” yet the (saner) “solution is not to produce more” humans! And have we forgotten the rest of life we take down that made our lives possible? Climate deniers reject reality in order to “prosper,” and yet, you know what? Stud- ies show that “we the people” reject reality in order that we may win, thrive and get the “upper-hand.” On an evolutionary basis, it made sense for survival in a wild, scary and unknown world. Fast-forward that this “rejection of real- ity” has come home to roost in a very real and painfully ironic full-circle: fearful of a now “known” environment we’ve created, not one born eons ago. Chris Hedges (“Empire Falling,” Sept. 27) is the “bleak” reality slap we need, not want. If feeling naive, watch the documen- tary Greedy Lying Bastards to understand what gave us Trump and Kavanaugh. As for a “transformed mindset” — hell, didn’t Marx, Eugene Debs and Henry Wal- lace have one? Sean S. Doyle Corvallis PROTECT PRO-CHOICE I didn’t watch the Senate vote to con- firm Brett Kavanaugh, because I knew I couldn’t do anything to change it. Instead, I spent the day knocking on doors and talk- ing to voters about the issues and candi- dates on the November ballot, because that’s what how we can protect access to safe and legal abortion. With Roe v. Wade threatened now like nev- er before, it is imperative that we do everything that we can to hold the line in Oregon. We need to defeat Measure 106, which is nothing more than a backdoor ban on abortion, and we need to elect candidates to the legislature who will vote to protect reproductive rights. One of those candidates is Marty Wilde. At the recent City Club candidate forum, Mark Herbert made it abundantly clear that he is not 100-percent pro-choice when he said, “I am conflicted about the whole is- sue of abortion to be candid with you.” At a time when women’s rights are under attack, BY TONY CORCOR AN Idiot Winds! Lawn Signs Speak! BIENNIAL MIGRATION: BIRDS OF A FEATHER FLOCK TOGETHER … Q uit whining about Barf Kavanaugh! Get over it. A woman got disrespect- ed once again by Donald Trump with the total complicity of his Repub- lican colleagues in the U.S. Senate and House. What did you expect? Justice? Remember who did it. Remember those 11 Republican white guys on the Senate Judiciary Committee hiding behind the skirts of the bespectacled hired- gun Arizona prosecutor. Remember that asshole Lindsay Graham for the rest of your life — but pay attention to Election Day. If you’re really pissed and want to exact revenge: Vote, dammit! My neighborhood has been plagued with nauseous distractions lately. Radiant Art Robinson lawn signs arising next to 2016 Trump-Pence signs next to Gary Williams signs. They represent this year’s Republican flock: Art and Gary, Oregon’s Kook Brothers, distant poor-boy relatives of the Koch Brothers. But I swear them boys are doing us a public service! They make it easier to iden- tify the knuckleheads; they’re all clumped together even though Trump can’t even run again until 2020. Art and Gary clearly demonstrate their political ideology with their self-identification with Kavanaugh’s patron saint. Those flocking guys make it very easy to identify my favorite stand of local lawn signs urging support for Congressman Peter DeFazio, for Heather Buch as East Lane County Commissioner, and Oregon House District 11’s Marty Wilde and House Dis- trict 7’s Christy Inskip. But the governor’s race is critical. We lack a progressive super-majority in the Oregon House and Senate. Legislative races are important, but without Kate Brown we lose the capacity as progressives to move forward and protect education funding and our most vulnerable young families and seniors and disabled. Remember the vote last January — Measure 101? 60 percent of Oregonians vot- ed overwhelmingly to approve a package of health care taxes to ensure low-income Oregonians would keep their health coverage. Compassionate physician/millionaire Dr. Knute the Brute campaigned against Measure 101 last January. Remember. I haven’t seen any Knute Buehler lawn signs yet. They’re probably purpose- ly not being planted next to Trump’s signs. Knute is still pretending to be a moderate Republican gubernatorial candidate while masking a legislative voting record that doesn’t match up. Why is the race so tight? Follow the money. The Oregonian recently reported that between them, Brown and Buehler have raised more than $21 million, breaking the 4 October 18, 2018 • eugeneweekly.com previous record of $18 million spent in 2010, when Democrat John Kitzhaber beat Republican Chris Dudley (Kavanaugh’s Yale drinking buddy … small world). In addition to the $21 million that’s been reported to our secretary of state this cycle, there’s the “dark money.” We don’t know how much has been spent by groups like Priority Oregon, a well-organized and well-funded conservative political action committee shielded from revealing their contributions and expenditures in the gover- nor’s race until after November. This is how the Robert Mercers and the out-of-state hedge funders of the world attempted to derail Peter DeFazio’s previous congressional campaigns. This is how the Koch brothers’ money makes it into Buehler’s campaign without your knowing about it. We don’t know, for example, how much Priority Oregon has spent on Buehler’s pathetic TV ads. And we won’t know until after the election. These ads are part of the reason the race is tight. Follow the money! Brown’s campaign has responded to Priority Oregon’s untruthful ads by demand- ing that stations cease airing ads sponsored by Priority Oregon. The most blatant is one accusing the Brown administration of allowing childcare facilities to sell pot: “You can sell drugs while running a daycare.” That’s a lie. Fake news, to coin a phrase. Kate Brown held her own in the debates. The debates, and her ads, have success- fully painted Knute Buehler as a guy who talks one way now, but voted the other way as a legislator. Obviously progressives don’t like him. I just wonder if conservatives do. Real red-meat Republicans should support Aaron Auer, the three-time Second- Amendment Christian Constitution Party candidate for governor. He’s just to the right of Knute, you know, like on abortion and LGBTQ rights! I don’t care if it’s a “blue wave” or a “pink wave” on Nov. 6, I’m hoping for both. There’s so much at play in this election. Complacency is our enemy. How else do you explain Trump and Kavanaugh to your daughters and sons? I’m pretty confident that DeFazio will dispose of Radiant Art Robinson handily (for the fifth time). But Kate and the down-ticket races in Lane County and the state ballot measures will be determined by our turnout. Vote Dammit! Former state Sen. Tony Corcoran of Cottage Grove is a retired state employee.
