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PAGE A4, KEIZERTIMES, NOVEMBER 18, 2016 KeizerOpinion KEIZERTIMES.COM Malheur Refuge standoff taught us about a few things Ammon Bundy, quoted on his acquittal of charges in the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge armed oc- cupation, expressed amaze- ment that anyone could fail to take the side of the “people” instead of the gov- ernment. Ideally, government is of the people, by the people, and for the people. I am both people and part of the government. I also own a share of the Malheur NWR equal to Ammon Bundy’s. I spend a lot of time at wildlife ref- uges and have traveled to spend time at Malheur. Teddy Roosevelt’s generation understood the value of protecting habitat for wildlife and bird migration. We owe them a debt of gratitude and a sense of responsi- bility in leaving it be. We ought to share the same commitment to our children. Much of the land in the West was either purchased or taken by the United States for expansion and then turned over to states and individuals in land grants and homesteading pro- visions. Free use of much of the un- claimed land was allowed by the U.S. government. Much of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land is now leased for cattle grazing, mineral and oil extraction. A fair portion of the revenue gained from these leases is returned to the states involved. It is estimated that granting local control to the states encompassing these fed- eral lands would increase administra- tive costs without solving the ques- tions of usage. The Ashanti Tribe of Ghana has a saying: “Land belongs to a vast fam- ily of whom many are dead, a few are living and a countless host are still unborn.” That seems a nice recogni- tion that Earth is a common heritage. It looks like a road to ruin to see land as only a vehicle for increasing revenue or territorial domain. Personal own- ership of land is actually a fairly recent concept in human history and even then has enough restric- tions so that it is more accurate to say that I have rights to the land on which I live than to say I own it. I don’t have absolute freedom to use my small piece as I see fi t. I am subject to zon- ing law, must pay taxes, am liable for lawsuits brought against the property and must abide by restrictions agreed on by the community in which I live, not to mention the state’s right of eminent domain. I had nothing to do with the cre- ation of the land on which I live, no say in what happened here 50 years ago, and 50 years from now no one will remember my claim to owner- ship. Wildlife conservation pioneer Aldo Leopold said, “We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect” At our current rate of setting aside about 10 percent of land for wild- life habitat we stand to lose about half of all species in the near future. Still, that 10 percent is in jeopardy from the Ammon Bundy mindset. If control of federal lands is handed to those who live nearest to it will they decide in favor of reducing operating costs over giving migratory birds a place to feed and rest? Your answer is found in the ongoing decline of spe- cies. Author Paul Brooks was more blunt: “In America today you can murder land for private profi t. You can leave the corpse for all to see, and nobody calls the cops.” If only that were an exaggeration. a box of soap A needed inspirational message (Don Vowell gets on his soapbox regularly in the Keizertimes.) letters To the Editor: I am sharing this message from a friend, Bret Oldham, with all my Facebook friends. This is precisely what I had in mind to inform to the citizens of America. I used to coach basketball and was very successful at it. One of the reasons for that success was due to the abso- lute team mindset that I instigated. Ev- erything was accomplished as a team with each individual doing their part. There was no fi ghting between the team members. Everyone wanted the same thing; they wanted the team to be successful. This simple analogy is a small example of what is needed now in this country. We are all Americans. Like it or not we must all be on the same team. Not any political team; the American team. We must stop antagonizing the divi- sion that is rampant across this great nation. Stop boasting if your side won in the election. Stop being bit- ter if your side didn’t win. Stop bash- ing each other. Stop the hate. We need unity among all citizens at this delicate time in our country’s history. No mat- ter what your political beliefs are, your religious beliefs are, your race, your sexuality, or your fi nancial status, at the end of the day we are all still Ameri- cans. Our diversity is what has made this country the most powerful nation on earth. Please remember, united we stand, divided we fall. It’s not always easy but let’s all try a little harder to ac- cept each other’s differences. Let’s get back on the right path and start mak- ing a concerted effort to be kind to each other. It all starts with you. Bret Oldham Keizer Veterans Day 2016 To the Editor: I sit here looking out the window at the American fl ag, with tremendous pride. It is impossible not to have a heavy heart over watching rioters burn that same fl ag. Watching pro- testers vandalize buildings, cars, and blocking traffi c, preventing work- ing people from getting to or from home, to work, to pick up the kids. All under the guise of “their rights.” In 1944, 18-year-olds stormed Normandy. Many gave their lives to protect a free world, to give us the freedoms we have today. Today we have 18-year-olds staging “cry- ins” on colleges campuses because they didn’t get their way. Therapy dogs being brought in to help them grieve, college professors weeping over a lost election, making exams “optional” while students grieve. Should it be any surprise that high school students walk out in protest given the brain washing they have experienced from teach- ers like this? Some parents have been com- plaining for years, about a leftist agenda that has been in control of our public schools. No surprise at the increases in enrollment in pri- vate schools. Look at the prolifera- tion of private/church schools in the valley. Have we become a society that teaches our youth “you have the right to have anything you want whether earned it or not?” G.I. Wilson Keizer Keizertimes Wheatland Publishing Corp. • 142 Chemawa Road N. • Keizer, Oregon 97303 phone: 503.390.1051 • web: www.keizertimes.com • email: kt@keizertimes.com SUBSCRIPTIONS MANAGING EDITOR Eric A. Howald editor@keizertimes.com ASSOCIATE EDITOR Derek Wiley news@keizertimes.com One year: $25 in Marion County, $33 outside Marion County, $45 outside Oregon PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY ADVERTISING Publication No: USPS 679-430 Paula Moseley advertising@keizertimes.com POSTMASTER Send address changes to: PRODUCTION MANAGER Andrew Jackson Keizertimes Circulation graphics@keizertimes.com 142 Chemawa Road N. LEGAL NOTICES Keizer, OR 97303 legals@keizertimes.com EDITOR & PUBLISHER Lyndon Zaitz publisher@keizertimes.com BUSINESS MANAGER Laurie Painter billing@keizertimes.com Periodical postage paid at Salem, Oregon RECEPTION Lori Beyeler facebook.com/keizertimes twitter.com/keizertimes A triumphant GOP, mired in crisis By MICHAEL GERSON The Republican Party is every- where triumphant—House and Sen- ate, executive and legislative, national and state—and yet faces a series of crises. There is a crisis of identity. Trump now leads a coalition including the Republican establishment—and peo- ple who despise the Republican es- tablishment. The insurgent president- elect—lacking relevant experience, adequate personnel and actual policy proposals—cannot exercise power without the help of those he ridiculed. Trump has chosen to incorporate this confl ict into the structure of the West Wing. His chief of staff, Reince Priebus, was the sponsor of the 2013 Republican autopsy report, which called on the party to accommo- date America’s multicultural future. Trump’s chief strategist, Steve Bannon, has made a career out of resisting that future. This is less a team of rivals than an ideological cage fi ght. Every good presidential transition should involve betraying a few of your friends. Not everyone who helps a president to become president is fi t to help him govern. Bannon—whose Breitbart News invited the alt-right into the conservative mainstream and who has made a business model out of spreading conspiratorial nonsense —belongs in this category, along with Sarah Palin, Rudy Giuliani, Corey Lewandowski and the rest of the dis- tracting campaign sideshow. For the Republican Party, this is also a governing crisis. Trump won offi ce promising to undo globaliza- tion, bring back manufacturing jobs and fulfi ll “every dream you ever dreamed.” So expectations are pretty high. But Trumpism, for the most part, consists of cul- tural signals and symbolic goals, not a set of developed proposals. M a n y Republican members of Congress are frankly confused. Are they supposed to follow Trump’s lead or supply his agenda? He has em- braced massive infrastructure invest- ment, but there is no favored bill or detailed plan. Obamacare must go, but what approach to “replace” does Trump prefer? Speaker Paul Ryan is pushing for tax reform. Does the president-elect have any interest in the topic at all? The biggest frustra- tion reported by Republicans who have met with Trump is his inability to focus for any period of time. He is impatient with facts and charts and he changes the subject every few min- utes. Republican leaders need policy leadership, or permission to provide it themselves. One area where the agenda is uni- fying and well developed concerns the reversal of Obama-era execu- tive orders. Republican lawyers have spent the last year and a half working in study groups on reversal language, in order to be ready on the fi rst day of a GOP presidency. The action most likely to cause controversy would overturn President Obama’s limited amnesty for students brought illegally to America as children. Most Repub- licans think that executive order was illegal; but most Americans will prob- ably fi nd the victims of reversing the order to be sympathetic. This hints at the long-term po- litical crisis faced by the triumphant other views GOP. Trump won the presidency in a manner that undermines the GOP’s electoral future. He demonstrated that the “coalition of the ascendant”—in- cluding minorities, millennials, and the college-educated—is not yet as- cendant. But in a nation where over half of babies under 5 years old are racial and ethnic minorities, it eventu- ally will be. Trump was elected by a 70 percent white electorate. But that was about 2 percentage points lower than in the 2012 election—and that number has been dropping by about 2 points each presidential election for decades. Trump’s white turnout strat- egy is not the wave of the future; it is the last gasp of an old and disturbing electoral approach. The fi nal crisis faced by the GOP, and just about everyone else, relates to the quality of our political culture. Trump won offi ce in a way that dam- aged our democracy. He fed resent- ment against minorities, promised to jail his opponent and turned shallow invective into an art form. If he gov- erns as he campaigned, Trump will smash the unity of our country into a thousand shards of bitterness. We should hope that the president- elect will be sobered by the respon- sibilities of high offi ce and discovers hidden resources of charity (even though malice has been the habit of a lifetime). He deserves the space at least to try. But Republicans may end up depending on a younger generation of leaders —Paul Ryan, Ben Sasse, Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, Jeff Flake, Marco Rubio—to demonstrate the possi- bility of unifying aspiration and civil disagreement. And that would lay the foundation for a lasting and honorable victory. (Washington Post Writers Group) No to corporate taxes, yes to big salaries Consider incongruous. It’s a fancy word meaning something is not consistent with what is logical. Further, consider the follow- ing information that was made available in the media a few days ago. The University of Oregon’s trustees last week approved a con- tract extension for men’s basketball coach Dana Altman that will pay him $18.45 million through April, 2023. Altman will earn a base sal- ary of $1.8 million this season and is due a retention $850,000 bonus this spring at the end of the contract’s fi rst year. Altman’s the fi fth highest paid coach in the Pac-12 while his new deal places him among the na- tion’s top 20 highest paid coaches. The work he does manages a sports event named basketball, there’s no life or death involved. Altman has taken Ducks basket- ball to play in the national tourna- ment but did not fi nish as national champions. Meanwhile, Ducks football head coach, Mark Helfrich was a winner for a couple of years but this year has been the coach of a team that has lost more than half of its games. He’s already been paid millions of dollars for his coaching work; however, should he be fi red due to lack of support for him due to this year’s dismal record, he nev- ertheless will receive $11.6 million. Altman and Helfrich are not un- usual for the amounts of remunera- tion they receive along with perks that add up to tens of thousands of dollars every year. All sports at UO, OSU, Portland State and other public institutions in the state are paid huge amounts for coaching games that are simply pro- vided for en- tertainment’s sake. Yet, these coaches sala- ries and perks, while adver- tised as being paid by generous alums and game revenues, student fees and tax dol- lars get manipulated to help with the huge coach salaries paid. Then there’s the voting down of Measure 97. Measure 97 would have required the many national corpo- rations that do business in Oregon to pay a higher tax on the profi ts they make in our state. When you think of what the revenue estimat- ed to have been $6 billion over the next biennium, you begin to realize that since all that money would not have gone to life and death actions, much of it would as it was intend- ed to help those with- out health insurance and the wel- fare of Or- egon’s senior citizens and helped many more kids in school to graduate and provide much more vo c a t i o n a l and techni- cal courses of study and learning. gene h. mcintyre So, getting to the bottom line on this issue, collectively, we Orego- nians are willing to pay coaches lav- ish salaries and perks only known to CEOs and executives in major corporations but we’re not willing to require those corporations that make the big bucks in our state to pay their fair share in taxes that mean so much more than watching young men and women get broken bones, concussions and life-long in- juries. It’s all very incongruous. (Gene H. McIntyre’s column ap- pears weekly in the Keizertimes.) Share your opinion Email a letter to the editor (300 words) by noon Tuesday. Email to: publisher@keizertimes.com
