PAGE 4, KEIZERTIMES, JANUARY 16, 2015
KeizerOpinion
KEIZERTIMES.COM
Don’t say Islam is violent
By DEBRA J. SAUNDERS
Here’s what I love about the
French: They’ve long understood the
dangers presented by radical Islam.
French President Francois Hollande
swiftly called the deadly shooting at
Paris’ Charlie Hebdo magazine “an act
of exceptional barbarity,” without
doubt a terrorist attack. There was no
hedging. The Socialist leader didn’t
engage in the sort of blather White
House spokesman Josh Earnest of-
fered on MSNBC shortly after the
shootings. Earnest called the attack a
“terrible act of violence,” but not nec-
essarily terrorism.
He repeated the mantra that Islam
is a “religion of peace.” Given that the
shooters proclaimed “Allahu akbar”
(God is great) and “We have avenged
the Prophet Muhammad,” Earnest
came across like an addict in denial.
The Council on American-Islamic
Relations knew better than to throw
out the “religion of peace” line. In
its statement, CAIR condemned the
shootings as an assault on free speech.
CAIR supports free speech, “even
speech that mocks faiths and religious
fi gures.”
Back to Hollande, who understood
how to react to the carnage. No hand-
wringing about welcoming people of
all faiths. No need to state the obvious
—that most Muslims don’t go around
killing cartoonists. No hesitation to
call this rampage what it was.
The shootings of journalists in
their offi ce were meant to make crit-
ics hesitate before stating what they
think and believe. When these masked
murderers shot cartoonists and police
offi cers, they were warning the world
that you cannot criticize radical Islam
without risking your very skin.
You could call one work of former
Jyllands-Posten culture editor Flem-
ming Rose’s Denmark’s version of
Charlie Hebdo.
In 2005, Rose
ran 12 largely
unflattering
cartoons
that
lampooned the
Prophet Mu-
hammad.
A year later, after two imams circu-
lated the cartoons -- along with others
not published in the Danish paper --
violence erupted in the Middle East.
In 2008, Danish police arrested three
men for plotting to behead a cartoon-
ist who depicted Muhammad wearing
a bomb as a turban. To show their sup-
port for free speech, 17 Danish news-
papers reprinted the 2005 cartoons.
For his trouble, Rose won a repu-
tation for being an unreasonable man
of questionable judgment. As he told
me in 2008, some Europeans believe
“you shouldn’t offend Muslims be-
cause they are so weak, they are so im-
mature (and) they are such a different
kind of minority that if you treat them
like everybody else, they will go wild.”
Rose was astonished that Islamists had
no problem with the message, “If you
say we are violent, we are going to kill
you.”
Whatever you do, do not say that
Islam is not a religion of peace.
In solidarity, media across the globe
should be reproducing the work of
slain cartoonists Stephane Charbonni-
er, Georges Wolinski, Bernard Verlhac
and Jean Cabut. Rose wrote in Politico
on Wednesday, “In the immediate af-
termath of the Charlie Hebdokillings,
news publications in the United States
and around the world were publish-
ing blurred images of the Muhammad
cartoons so as not to offend.” Now
you know why these terrorists shot
French journalists and their police
protection.
( Creators Syndicate)
guest
column
Climate change hurts the valley
By CAMILA THORNDIKE and
DAN GOLDEN
The region’s economy is heavily
dependent on agriculture, viticulture
and forestry—all of which are climate-
sensitive. Summers are hotter and
dryer with rains occurring as storms,
rather than replenishing drizzles.
Snowpack is decreasing. Less water
for irrigation, increasing incidence of
pests and disease, and growing com-
petition from weeds threaten local
agriculture. It is becoming less attrac-
tive to grow some of the region’s most
popular wine varietals. In the forest,
the range and growth rates of trees
such as Douglas fi r are increasingly re-
stricted, diminishing the profi tability
of forestry. Hot summers and more
particulate matter from forest fi res se-
verely impact the health of the elderly
and those with respiratory problems.
But these hardships are tiny com-
pared to the challenges our children
and grandchildren face if we fail to
act on climate change. Every reputa-
ble authority—from the Pentagon to
the United Nations—warns that our
current trajectory will lead to unprec-
edented social, economic and military
crises. If we cannot secure a transition
from fossil fuels before the end of the
decade, it will not be possible for fu-
ture generations to adapt.
Fortunately, the solution is in sight.
Oregon has the rare opportunity to
lead our country and the world with
the policy economists and climatolo-
gists say we need. We can hold out-of-
state polluters accountable for climate
change with a price on carbon, either
by charging them a fee or by requir-
ing them to buy permits before they
burn fossil fuels.
On Dec. 8, the Northwest Eco-
nomic Research Center at Portland
State University presented to the leg-
islature their long-awaited study on
the impacts of a state carbon pollution
fee in Oregon.
It showed a sig-
nifi cant reduc-
tion in carbon
pollution and a
negligible effect
on our economy.
Another study,
conducted by
Regional Economic Models Inc., pre-
dicts that a national carbon tax would
create 450,000 new jobs in our region
by 2025 —if all the revenue were re-
turned to citizens as a dividend.
Buckminster Fuller once said that
a problem adequately stated is very
nearly a problem solved. Our problem
is not a shortage of solar panels or eth-
anol or hybrid cars, nor is it an abun-
dance of gas and oil pipelines. Our
problem is underpriced fossil fuels. We
do not pay their hidden costs when
we fi ll our tanks—that comes later, in
the form of emergency drought relief,
hurricane cleanup and forest fi res. If
polluters were accountable for these
costs, a price signal would reverberate
throughout our economy. It would
reward smart decisions and punish
wasteful ones. Both proven and novel
energy alternatives would attract new
capital. Nothing but a price on carbon
can spark the systemic transformation
we need, and that’s because it targets
the problem at its source.
The 2015 Oregon Legislature
should hold the polluters accountable
for the damage they do to the Wil-
lamette Valley economy by making
them pay to pollute. And 100 percent
of the revenue should be distributed
evenly among all Oregonians, because
the natural benefi ciaries are the vic-
tims of climate change—all of us.
other
views
(Camila Thorndike is executive di-
rector of Oregon Climate. Dan Golden
is policy director of Oregon Climate.)
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Washington’s psychological polarization
By MICHAEL GERSON
As the 114th Congress begins in
earnest, there are a number of things
—such as tax and immigration re-
form and trade agreements—that
political adults would like to get
done for the good of the country. A
commitment to incrementalism and
compromise can be found, with suf-
fi cient diligence, among individual
lawmakers in both parties.
But these scattered good inten-
tions are as unlikely to cohere as
dry sand. This is not just a function
of policy disagreement. President
Obama and congressional Repub-
licans hold fundamentally different
views of recent political history,
particularly the outcome of the No-
vember midterm election.
The GOP is feeling the mo-
mentum of its best congressional
performance since the New Deal,
and Senate Republicans are enjoy-
ing the pleasing weight of commit-
tee gavels in their hands. Elected
Republicans generally believe that
Obama was humbled by voters and
should act like it—that he should
make concessions commensurate to
his losses, as President Clinton did
following his 1994 midterm defeat.
Obama, in contrast, seems to
view the November outcome as his
fi nal liberation from a dirty politi-
cal game characterized by complete
Republican bad faith. He fi nds no
repudiation in the verdict of an
unrepresentative, midterm elector-
ate. And he is no longer required
to pretend that he cares about the
political fate of the 4th District of
Podunk. His reaction to the elec-
tion has been to seek new avenues
of executive action as an alternative
to congressional dysfunction. So far,
he has been politically rewarded.
This type of polarization seems
more psychological than ideologi-
cal. Obama and congressional Re-
publicans are
inhabiting al-
ternative po-
litical realities,
with no overlap
in which com-
promise might
take root. The
two sides are
not simply disagreeing about the
proper path up the mountain; they
see a different mountain in a differ-
ent place.
According to Frances Lee, an
insightful political scientist at the
University of Maryland, diverging
interpretations of an election are
not unusual. “The meaning of elec-
tions,” she told me, “is almost always
contested.” One much-studied ex-
ample is the 1984 presidential elec-
tion, in which Ronald Reagan had
a number of structural advantages,
including an easy path to renomi-
nation and a strong economy. Over
time, however, interpretations of the
election outcome “were winnowed
down to a focus on (Walter) Mon-
dale’s mistake in saying he would
raise taxes and his closeness to spe-
cial interests,” according to Lee. The
narrative of Mondale squandering
the election won out.
Political scientists call this a
“constructed explanation.” Election
outcomes are not self-interpreting.
“In reality,” said Sir Henry Sumner
Maine, “the devotee of Democracy
is much in the same position as the
Greeks with their oracles. All agreed
that the voice of an oracle was the
voice of a god; but everybody al-
lowed that when he spoke he was
not as intelligible as might be de-
sired.”
As to the 2014 election: “It may
well be,” Lee told me, “that no sin-
gle conventional wisdom will ever
emerge. ... Faced with ambiguity,
people tend to believe what they
other
views
want to believe. When people are
surrounded by social networks that
also want to believe the same thing,
their views will harden further.”
Lee locates this disagreement
within a broader electoral trend—
a three-decade period of very close
two-party competition. “I’d say that
2014 has done nothing to shake the
two parties’ confi dence that they
can win control of U.S. national
institutions. No party sees itself as
a permanent minority. No party
seems to believe it needs to funda-
mentally reform itself in order to
compete. Post-2014, Republicans
believe they have been given a vote
of confi dence from the voters and
that Obama has been repudiated.
Democrats are demoralized, but
they don’t see themselves as having
‘lost’ the American people. Certain-
ly, Democrats have no less confi -
dence than before that they can win
the 2016 presidential election.”
This is an underestimated source
of dysfunction in American politics:
The parties do not view themselves
as losers, even when they lose. The
2012 election should have dem-
onstrated to Republicans (among
other lessons) that they need a se-
riously revised outreach to minori-
ties, women and working-class vot-
ers. The 2014 election should have
demonstrated to Democrats (among
other lessons) that a reputation for
unreconstructed liberalism seriously
limits their geographic appeal.
Both parties could gain electoral
advantages by realistically addressing
their weaknesses, which would also
open up the possibility of legislative
progress. But everyone, unfortu-
nately, seems to like what they see
in the mirror.
(Washington
Group)
Post
Writers
Putin’s follies have harsh consequences
The Financial Times of London
reported the other day that Russia’s
former Finance Minister Alexei Ku-
drin has said of Russia: “There will
be a fall in living standards. It will
be painful. Protest activity will in-
crease.” What prompted Kudrin to
make such a statement?
Not having heard a lot of talk
about Russia of late, what’s going
on now? The Western sanctions on
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s
banks, combined with the drastic
drop in oil prices and the fl ight of
capital, also caused by the sanctions,
means that Russia is realizing a
rather dramatic difference between
money fl owing into the nation’s
economy and what it must have in
its reserves to pay debts and fi nance
its imports.
Putin can do little if any-
thing about his country’s plight
as long as the Western sanctions
are in place, while ending them
would require him to pull out of
Crimea and leave the independent
Ukraine alone. But, Putin would
have to admit that his adventure
into Ukraine was wrong and that
means the long knives in the Krem-
lin, reputed to be sharp as razors for
centuries, and never hesitated for
use when “needed,” could be used
to cut him from offi ce.
So, while at present he’s been
immensely popular, and has pulled
many a shenanigan to keep the
“wolves” from his door, if Putin does
not back down, Russia will con-
tinue to pay a steep price. It’s well
known that a lot of Russians have
become world
travelers, can
now afford to
gene h. own a car, like
purchase
mcintyre to
Western goods
and prefer the
status of living
like Americans
(if there’s not a whole lot of pretend
and exaggeration in that claim).
In the meantime, to keep his
head-of-gover nment-position,
Putin has undertaken some reck-
less adventures, including the
takeover of Crimea and the inva-
sion of Ukraine.Recently, too, he’s
been sending ships and planes into
foreign waters and air space and be-
ing cheered at home by the Russian
hawks that are always looking for the
chance to reclaim U.S.S.R. power
and glory now found only in the
history books.
Yet, even though Putin appears
to be in that proverbial position be-
tween a rock and a hard place, he
has another Russian bear up his
sleeve. More important to the av-
erage Russian than travel overseas
and Western goods is...vodka! The
price of vodka has increasingly gone
up and up of late and Putin has or-
dered his government to rein in its
rising cost. He knows that its cost
now exceeds the ability of the aver-
age Russian to buy it and this con-
dition could seriously threaten his
popularity.
Russia’s economy is expected to
slide deeper into recession this year.
It’s predicted that in 2015 infl ation
will reach at least 10 percent and
probably higher given the present
standoff over Putin’s incursions and
the sanctions that have followed.
So, what’s a guy with Putin’s am-
bitions to do? Perhaps, all things
considered, and factoring into de-
cision-making over the evermore
aggressive and threatening Islamic
State, al Qaeda, and other less well-
known jihadists, the smartest action
Putin could take under present cir-
cumstances is to move to ally Russia
more closely with the West.
The West, meaning Western Eu-
rope, Canada and the U.S., should
be viewed more seriously by Rus-
sia as its friends as Russia’s great-
est threat presents itself not from
the West but from Russia’s south-
ern borders. His fi rst step to im-
proved relations, although a tight-
rope act for him at home now, is to
get out of Crimea and Ukraine to
reassure the West that he is a respon-
sible player on the world stage and
deserves saving from the terrorists
who see each Russian through the
same jaundiced eyes every other in-
fi del is seen by them.
(Gene H. McIntyre’s column ap-
pears weekly in the Keizertimes.)
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