PAGE A4, KEIZERTIMES, MAY 6, 2016
KeizerOpinion
KEIZERTIMES.COM
Mother
playing ‘the woman’s card,’
she retorted: “Deal me in.”
Becoming a mother
and running a house-
hold gives a woman more
management skills than
most men will ever have.
Most successful people
will give ample credit to
their mothers. Moms don’t just kiss
away tears and bandage knees, they
also instill in their children the traits
they’ll need to fl ourish in the world.
Anyone who’s watched a wildlife
documentary knows how fi erce ani-
mal mothers are when it comes to
protecting their brood. We’ve taken
their names to heart such as grizzly
mama, a mother who protects their
child with the strength of a seven-
foot tall Alaskan grizzly bear.
We all love our mothers. They
make us who we are because they
are the primary care givers. They
feed us, dress us, read to us and tuck
us into bed. This of course does not
trivialize the father, but it is hard to
change centuries of tradition.
Moms are so grand that we have
dubbed the world around us Mother
Nature, which is appropriate because
mother is a force of nature when it
comes to her children. Nature is
sunny, rainy, stormy, calm and breezy.
Just like our mothers.
By LYNDON ZAITZ
We have a two bil-
lion-way tie for the best
mother in the world. With
few exceptions every-
one is certain that their
mother is the most loving,
kindest, funniest, pretti-
est and smartest mom in
the world. We all love our mothers.
Americans will celebrate Mother’s
Day on Sunday, May 8.
Doesn’t it seem we’re shortchang-
ing mothers when they have only
one day to call their own? It is not
really a day off for them—they may
get to eat breakfast in bed and a din-
ner at a local restaurant, but you can
bet that mothers across the nation
will be spending part of ‘their’ day
doing laundry, picking up after their
kids and the many tasks a mother
does every single day.
When I grew up my mother did
not work outside of the house. With
fi ve children (born over a span of
eight years) my mother never had a
day off. Vacation? Are you kidding?
Mom’s duties traveled with her:
cook meals over a campfi re, wash the
dishes, clean the trailer.
In the 1960s the Peace Corps
was called “the toughest job you’ll
ever love.” How quaint. The actual
toughest job is being a mother. Even
tougher is being a mother with a ca-
reer outside the home.
When presidential candidates say
that the only female in the race is
on my
mind
(Lyndon Zaitz is publisher of the
Keizertimes.)
Christine Dieker
Christine Dieker’s last day as ex-
ecutive director of the Keizer Cham-
ber of Commerce was April 28. She
retired after more than 17 years as the
manager and the public face of the
chamber.
The Keizer business community
was always her focus. She was a vocal
advocate of Keizer and its businesses
as any one. The Chamber today is
much different than when she took
the reins. The organization is much
more involved with government af-
fairs and lobbying efforts than ever
before.
Dieker oversaw the chamber’s
move from a small space in the Keiz-
er Heritage Center to a large, wel-
coming offi ce at Keizer Station, em-
phasizing the visitor center, and then
a move to a different space recently
due to development at the shopping
center.
It didn’t matter if the chamber had
a small or large offi ce. It didn’t mat-
ter that there was a new president of
the board each year. Dieker was the
constant for almost two decades.
While no longer executive direc-
tor Dieker, will still be very much
involved—she will head up the vari-
ous runs sponsored by the chamber
including the fi ve upcoming run
events at this month’s Iris Festival.
The Keizer Chamber is a stronger
organization because of Christine
Dieker. For that we say thank you.
—LAZ
Fatal stabbing
report
water we use in
“paint by num-
ber” kits. Jeff
Holly had a
degree in his-
tory from OSU,
he was a master
carpenter and
had worked in
theater in New Jersey, Portland and
Eugene. He volunteered at Fish of
Albany, Albany Community Theater
and The Majestic Theater in Corval-
lis. He was charming, funny, intelli-
gent and tender. I will always love
him and cherish the time he shared
with me.
Mary Ann Brevidoro
Albany
To the Editor:
Your report on the fatal stabbing
of Jeff Holly on Brooks Avenue (Long
ordeal ends in fatal stabbing, April 22)
was irresponsible.
A collection of quotes from dis-
gruntled neighbors and police blotter
records do not constitute the truth. I
lived with Jeff Holly for the nine
years previous to the Brooks Avenue
move. My neighbors remember him
shoveling snow from their driveways
and borrowing a ladder to save my
home from rain damage.
We never know our neighbors,
a violent tragedy only muddies the
letters
The state of disunion
By MICHAEL GERSON
The 2016 presidential race already
counts an extraordinary accomplish-
ment: It has made the 2000 election
seem like the good old days.
Before Bush v. Gore became
a Supreme Court controversy, the
contest seemed to demonstrate that
American politics was modernizing
in a hopeful direction. Clintonism
(including Al Gore’s slightly revised
version) had helped Democrats come
to terms with what was right about
Reaganism, particularly on crime,
trade, welfare and basic economics.
George W. Bush was Reagan-like on
taxes and trade, but set out to com-
pete with Clintonism on domestic
policy—proposing conservative and
free market methods to improve edu-
cational outcomes for minority chil-
dren and provide prescription drug
coverage in Medicare. It seemed as
if 21st-century versions of liberalism
and conservatism were conducting
plausible arguments about how best
to govern in response to new eco-
nomic realities.
A decade and a half later, the par-
ties have turned hard against both
visions. The left has systematically
forced Hillary Clinton to uphold
the banner of anti-Clintonism on
crime, trade, welfare and basic eco-
nomics. The right was content, at
fi rst, to reject Bush’s compassionate
conservatism. Now a signifi cant por-
tion of the GOP base, under Donald
Trump’s leadership, is rejecting Rea-
ganism in favor of nativism, protec-
tionism and isolationism.
Both Clintonism and Reaganism,
no doubt, needed updating. But the
parties have gone further, essentially
abandoning the two most compel-
ling, successful governing visions of
the last few decades. With the infl u-
ence of Bernie Sanders and the suc-
cess of Trump, American politics has
launched into uncharted ideological
waters.
The seas are
pretty choppy.
We are seeing
the interplay of
(1) fear caused
by rapid eco-
nomic change,
(2) deep politi-
cal polarization, (3) declining trust in
almost all institutions and (4) strong
resentment against political and eco-
nomic elites. The result is a political
atmosphere charged with radicalism
and heavy with threats.
How in the world did we get
to this state of disunion? One un-
expected, compelling explanation
comes from Yuval Levin, in his new
book The Fractured Republic. Levin
faults a “perverse and excessive nos-
talgia” by baby boom politicians for
America in the 1950s and 1960s. For
liberals, this was a golden age of job
security, growing wages, high tax
rates and relative economic equality.
For conservatives, it was a promised
land of family stability, commu-
nity strength and conservative so-
cial norms. Levin describes this as a
“consolidating America” in which
industrialization, restricted immigra-
tion and the shocks of depression and
war led to greater social, political and
economic cohesion than America
had ever seen.
But this postwar period was also
an infl ection point. The second half
of the 20th century saw the “decon-
solidation of America,” with growing
social libertarianism, vastly expanded
immigration, the globalization of la-
bor markets, the growth of informa-
tion technology and general abun-
dance. These were centrifugal forces
that made both our economy and
culture far less cohesive and central-
ized.
Both right and left, in Levin’s
account, miss the cohesion of mid-
other
views
century America, and yet both are
also relieved (in different ways) to be
freed from those forces. “The right
generally longs for cultural consoli-
dation,” Levin told me, “but is glad
for the economic deconsolidation.
And the left longs for economic co-
hesion but is glad of the cultural lib-
eration.” Each side is convinced the
other has achieved the greater vic-
tory and thus believes the country is
going to hell.
This backward looking approach
has deformed American politics.
“Because both parties are channel-
ing that nostalgia,” argues Levin,
“their objectives and priorities tend
to be embodied less in concrete
policy proposals and more in vague
and aimless frustration, which often
manifests itself as populist anger.”
Levin warns of a real risk: a kind
of general deconsolidation that be-
comes extreme individualism, leav-
ing men and women isolated, aimless
and alone. The answer, however, is
not to recapture the culture and re-
impose economic or social cohesion
(which Levin regards as a hopeless
task). It is to cultivate community in
the space between the individual and
the government. “The middle lay-
ers of society,” argues Levin, “where
people see each other face to face,
offer a middle ground between radi-
cal individualism and extreme cen-
tralization.”
Instead of desperately trying to
go back in time to recover lost unity,
Levin urges citizens to look forward
-- as well as downward, to improve
the cultural patch around them. This
future orientation may seem like an
odd message for a conservative --
and it is all the more powerful for
coming from one. The goal is not to
make America great ... again. It is to
make America great in a distinctly
21st-century way.
(Washington Post Writers Group)
What will US foreign policy be in 2017?
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In the realm of too silly to believe,
Donald J. Trump could be this na-
tion’s next president. Although polls
lead one to believe that a victory by
Hillary Clinton over Trump is a fore-
gone conclusion, we won’t be certain
of the outcome until, at the very ear-
liest, near midnight on Nov.8.
In the meantime, Trump has now
said enough about his foreign policy
ideas to let us know that should he
become president it is most likely
that there will be a rather dramatic
break by him from years of Repub-
lican Party orthodoxy where inter-
nationalism ruled. He has told us
he believes that too much has been
asked of the United States and that
it is now time for other nations to
shoulder a much larger share of the
fi nancial and other burdens dealing
with threateningly dangerous ter-
rorists and aggressive nations such as
China and Russia.
Trump is not at all happy that we
spend billions upon billions of U.S.
dollars in support of other nations.
Why are we, Trump pontifi cates, not
fully reimbursed for the costs of keep-
ing these people safe and well when
they’ve become rich and prosperous
at our expense? Further, Trump does
not see value in having bases in the
many places we have them and pro-
jecting power around the world as all
this money spent overseas brings lit-
tle or nothing for us in return.
Spending our human and mate-
rial resources elsewhere rather than
at home, says Trump, has caused the
U.S. to fall from a powerful, wealthy
country to a poor one, a weak-
ened debtor nation. We now lose
much more of-
ten than win at
everything we
do and have
become a na-
tion of suckers
where we look
after
other
nations
that
are
wealthy
enough to take care of themselves,
resulting here in our suffering from
economic decline, lacking of good
jobs, a rising national debt, and a fall-
ing apart infrastructure.
He views NATO as a good con-
cept but has lost its value through the
years and has simply become a fi -
nancial drain on the U.S. that we can
no longer afford. Then, too, he asks,
why can’t these nations—that have
become rich while we protected
them—pay their own way now?
Trump prefers to draw back. His
views come from our experience in
Afghanistan and Iraq which Trump
considers foreign policy blunders.
Then, too, he sees these involvements
overseas as damaging to international
trade, causing loss of fi nancial stand-
ing and prestige to the U.S.
He’s not prepared to trigger a
third world war with Russia in
Ukraine or China in the South Chi-
na Sea. Further, he does not want to
send hundreds, much less thousands,
of U.S. troops to fi ght ISIS (Islamic
State in Iraq and Syria) even if gen-
erals at the Pentagon want to see it
happen. Meanwhile, he would exert
a lot of pressure on other countries
that are in the ISIS neighborhood to
use their troops while we continue
gene h.
mcintyre
providing air support to rid the Mid-
dle East of threats by the Islamic State
to take it over. How far will he go to
defeat ISIS?
What can we expect from Trump
on foreign policy matters? His style
has been to surprise us but has pro-
vided some strong clues as to where
he stands and it seems evident to
conclude that he does not want more
warring overseas while believing that
his talents as a successful negotiator
in business deals will help him suc-
ceed in foreign affairs. He leaves no
one to doubt that he’s very smart,
possessing the ability to make good
deals that will benefi t every Ameri-
can.
Under a President Trump the U.S.
would mainly go it alone, build-
ing a wall on our southern border
with Mexico and ending or adjust-
ing our international trade agree-
ments and treaties. These matters
that Trump promises to bring into
existence sound real good to those
Americans who want to realize im-
provements they believe are now de-
nied them. How all this would work
itself work out under a Trump presi-
dency is unknown, but apparently it
does add up to isolationism and eco-
nomic nationalism here. What could
happen is that what many wish for is
what we get; but, it’s no dream come
true with nations like China, a glob-
al juggernaut already exceeding U.S.
overseas in trade and, often, infl u-
ence, too, creating the middle class
we want back.
(Gene H. McIntyre’s column ap-
pears weekly in the Keizertimes.)