PAGE A4, KEIZERTIMES, FEBRUARY 3, 2017
KeizerOpinion
KEIZERTIMES.COM
Divergent paths
Sixty is the new forty. Sixty-eight
is not. It’s just old. I am still younger
than our newly elected President. It
is a time for introspection. How is it
that Donald Trump became a self-
professed billionaire president instead
of me?
It is petty of me to point out that
he had a several million dollar head
start. As last born of my parents’ four
children they had without complaint
taken on three jobs between them by
the time I was judged old enough not
to do dangerously stupid
things, left unsupervised.
That enabled us to enjoy a
princely lower middle class
existence.
That I started with less
cannot be used as an ex-
cuse. We all know that
America is the land of opportunity
and anyone with a good idea, a will
to work hard, and total disregard for
other’s welfare can become fabulously
wealthy. It can’t be helped that thou-
sands of people must be content to
work at the poverty level in order to
support each millionaire’s lifestyle. I
accept that.
Mr. Trump and I each had the
chance to go to college. I only lasted
the fi rst year at University of Wash-
ington before the siren call of wan-
nabe rock and roll hero drew me away.
Another strike against me—he is well
educated and I learned that I was not
rock and roll star material. Well, it was
really fun.
We each had some business set-
backs. As a partner I contributed
much toward bankrupting a restaurant
in Spokane. Again I am just a piker in
the business failure arena when com-
pared with Donald Trump. Nobody
would ever have extended to me loans
necessary to accumulating a billion
dollars in debt. It’s not easy to become
too big to fail.
Mr. Trump has turned his name
into a brand that sells board games,
steaks, cologne, vodka, furniture,
menswear, hotels, beauty pageants,
and even a university. I have yet to
create any branded product boasting
my name. Maybe it’s not too late for
me to seek funding for Vowell Cheese
Spread or Vowell budget motels. Or I
could, with hostility, take over the Or-
egon Dairy Princess Pageant and jazz
it up a little. Onstage milking contest
and cow trivia. If I understood Twitter
I could then mock the losers. And the
winners.
Like Mr. Trump I came
late to the political battle-
ground. He clearly had
far more of the strength
and savvy needed to run
a successful campaign. In
my failed campaigns to
become your mayor I had
the mistaken notion that it would be
bad to say something that wasn’t true.
I may have even admitted that I was
demonstrably less qualifi ed than the
candidates I ran against. I deserved
the losses.
Mr. Trump has revolutionized
America’s election process. Born with
more cash than working class Ameri-
cans will earn in a lifetime of labor,
he has sold himself as their champion.
Carrying that logic to its inevitable
extreme, he has appointed a Cabinet
full of billionaires who, having read
that some citizens are not billionaires,
are ready to fi ght for working class
Americans. You should get fl otation
devices now for all the trickling down
that their increasing wealth must sure-
ly produce.
I am sixty-eight. Is it too late for
me to be a billionaire President? It
doesn’t matter. I like living here in
Keizer. It is enough to have a really
great column which is read in print
and online by more Americans than
any other column ever in the history
of earth.
Protect
Medicare
Advantage
active lifestyle, leading to
a better overall quality of
life.
Despite this, almost
every year Congress pro-
poses new cuts to Medi-
care Advantage, threat-
ening the very programs
that help take care of and promote
healthy lifestyles for 348,000 Oregon
seniors. More and more seniors are
relying on the program, yet it contin-
ues to face possible budget cuts at the
hands of our legislators.
I am so grateful for the support
Reps. Greg Walden, Kurt Schrader
and Earl Blumenauer, who have al-
ready voiced for the program and
sincerely urge Oregon’s other mem-
bers of Congress, and the other se-
niors relying on Medicare Advantage,
to stand up to Congress, let them
know how valuable the program is,
and tell them to stop cutting funding
to Medicare Advantage.
Virginia Gates
Brooks
a box
of
soap
(Don Vowell gets on his soapbox
regularly in the Keizertimes.)
letters
To the Editor:
I am writing to you as
an Oregonian and senior. I
am one of over 348,000 Oregonians
that benefi t from having a Medicare
Advantage health care plan. While
many people have heard of Medicare
and Medicaid, not as many people
have heard about Medicare Advan-
tage or know just how benefi cial it
is for seniors.
For myself and every senior on
Medicare Advantage, the health plan
provides many more options to live
a healthy lifestyle, including preven-
tative screenings, routine checkups,
the Silver & Fit and Silver & Strong
fi tness programs, and a gym mem-
bership among others. These aspects,
which are not often available under
traditional Medicare, truly have been
a tremendous blessing for me. The
program further helps encourage an
A picture of American shame
By MICHAEL GERSON
The image of President Donald
Trump, fl anked by Vice President
Mike Pence and Defense Secretary
James Mattis, signing an executive
order that (among other things) ex-
cludes Syrian refugees from America,
is indelible. Three powerful American
leaders, targeting and dehumanizing
some of the most vulner-
able people on earth. A
picture of bullying. A pic-
ture of cruelty. A picture of
national shame.
It sits in my head beside
images of Syrian refugees
in Lebanon and Jordan,
bewildered by the loss of
their old lives, assets de-
pleted, living (in some cases) eight to a
room, exploited by human traffi ckers.
Many families feel compelled to put
their boys to work and their girls into
early, forced marriages. “My home is
all broken in Syria,” a girl of 6 told
me while coloring a kinetic picture
of helicopters and bombs. Trump is a
champion at punching down, but sel-
dom this far.
This executive order is a security
measure that very few actual security
professionals would prioritize, given
that refugees are some of the most
carefully vetted people who enter the
country. Meanwhile, the downside of
(in effect) targeting foreigners by their
religion is immediate and consider-
able—worrying American Muslims
and embarrassing America’s Muslim
friends and allies in the world. When
some radical cleric in, say, Central
Asia, says, “The new American presi-
dent hates Islam,” he does not require
a conspiracy theory to support his
claim. And all of this may have been
done with no security upside at all,
given the utter incompetence with
which the order was drafted, and the
likelihood that the courts will prevent
its implementation.
Trump came to power promis-
ing that masterful leadership would
replace the “stupid” kind. This action
was malicious, counterproductive and
inept—the half-baked work of ama-
teurs who know little about security,
little about immigration
law, and nothing about
compassion.
There is more systematic
thought, however, behind
Trump’s attempt to recast
America’s global role—
presumably the guiding in-
fl uence of adviser Stephen
Bannon. In his inaugural
address, Trump asserted the “right of
all nations to put their own interests
fi rst” and promised, “We do not seek
to impose our way of life on anyone.”
Trump’s version of America is a nor-
mal nation, like Holland or Ghana,
concerned with its own borders and
business, and generally indifferent to
the “way of life” chosen by others.
Our national identity, like for other
nations, is ethnic and cultural. Trump’s
America is vaguely Christian. Vaguely
1950s. Vividly white.
A number of policies emerge from
these convictions: a walled country, a
closed economy and highly restricted
immigration. Traditional American
commitments—to the special re-
lationship with Britain, to a strong
and growing NATO and European
Union, to America’s Pacifi c security
umbrella—seem up for grabs. The
trumpet always calls retreat.
Every American president since
World War II has disagreed with the
stunted and self-defeating view of the
country now held by Trump. Over
the last century the United States
other
views
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Early impressions shaky
Granted, it’s early to make conclu-
sions about our new president and his
cabinet. Nevertheless, there are a cou-
ple of serious concerns here that have
already come up in the past two weeks.
The U.S. Constitution, Bill of
Rights and political traditions have
established freedoms that have not
been seen, even considered, in many
parts of the world. They are
(1) a free and fair vote and
(2) a free and respected press.
These are two premises upon
which our American society,
its values and standards, has
been built and have endured
the tests of time for more than
two hundred years.
President Donald J. Trump
now insists, regarding the last election,
the one that elected him, that there
were three to fi ve million who voted
illegally and, further, that these fraudu-
lent voters cast their ballots for his op-
ponent, Hillary Rodham Clinton: This
proven would enable Trump—who
won the Electoral College vote—to
claim the popular vote which every
pertinent fact on the subject has de-
nied him so far.
He demands that an investigation
take place even though there is a to-
tal lack of evidence to back up his as-
sertion while a universal conclusion
has been reached that there was no
fraud. When Trump makes charges
of this kind he reinforces the prejudic-
es of his true believers, who apparently
believe, without question, everything
he says, while, in doing so, they un-
dermine confi dence in our democ-
racy which, as we know from history,
is a fragile condition.
Another matter that confounds
is Trump’s assault on the free press.
He calls reporters the most dishonest
people on earth and persons who lied
about his inauguration turnout num-
bers. He also has made a huge effort
to disagree with the numbers who
showed up in cities all over the na-
tion to advocate for the protection of
women’s rights and to denounce him
as president.
Photos of the two events, the in-
auguration and march on
Washington, D.C., and
elsewhere, cannot lie but
Trump says they do, caus-
ing one to wonder wheth-
er a reputable ophthalmol-
ogist should be brought
in. Of course, America’s
press is human and has
made mistakes; yet, to ac-
cuse all the press as willfully practicing
mendacity is silly, sad and subversive.
Though I want to know more
about how he will ultimately deal
with immigration, trade agreements
and treaties, Social Security and Medi-
gene h.
mcintyre
Keizertimes
has been a cheerfully abnormal na-
tion. American identity (in this view)
is not based mainly on blood or soil,
but rather on the patriotic acceptance
of a unifying creed. American leaders,
Democratic and Republican, have be-
lieved that a world where the realm of
freedom is growing is more prosper-
ous and secure; a world where free-
dom is retreating is more dangerous.
The reason is not mystical. Dictators
tend to be belligerent. Governments
accountable to their people are gener-
ally more peaceful.
It is the lesson of hard experience.
America found that it could not avoid
the bloody disorders of Europe by ig-
noring them. It found that a Pacifi c
dominated by a single, hostile power
is a direct threat to its economy and
security. It found that Russian aggres-
sion in Europe is like Newton’s First
Law—moving until some force stops
it.
And America has often accepted
refugees, refl ecting its deepest values
and building reserves of trust and re-
spect. The Soviet Union or Cuba un-
der Fidel Castro were not working out
unique and special “ways of life.” They
were producing fl eeing victims who
would be imprisoned or murdered at
home. It is in America’s nature to of-
fer at least some of them a home and
refuge. The same should be true for
Bashar Assad’s victims, including the
children of a broken country.
This is the difference a creed can
make: When Ronald Reagan spoke
on foreign policy, tyrants sat uneasy on
their thrones and dissidents and refu-
gees took heart. When Donald Trump
speaks on foreign policy, tyrants rest
easier and dissidents and refugees lose
hope.
care, “the Wall,” the Affordable Care
Act’s replacement, the appointment of
a Supreme Court justice, voting rights,
sanctions against the Russians, NATO,
and other urgent and pressing domes-
tic and foreign matters, my immedi-
ate concern is the effort on his part
to deny voting rights and dictate what
reporters write and say about him.
We want change that fi nancially
benefi ts all Americans, improves all
facets of our infrastructure, and keeps
us safe from harm as much as possible.
However, to improve on some condi-
tions of life in these United States does
not mean one favors a totalitarian state,
a dictatorship, tyranny or a fascist gov-
ernment to take the place of what we
value, cherish and do not want to lose
for the sake of any one man’s vanity,
a need to make himself larger at free-
dom’s expense.
(Gene H. McIntyre’s column ap-
pears weekly in the Keizertimes.)