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About Keizertimes. (Salem, Or.) 1979-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 1, 2017)
SdPTdMBdR 1, 2017, KdIZdRTIMdS, PAGd A5 KeizerOpinion KEIZERTIMES.COM Help heal Harvey havoc Anyone who has lived in the Willamette Valley long enough has experienced fl ooding of some kind, whether it was the Willamette Riv- er or a tributary. It is safe to say that no one today has seen the level of fl ood happening in southeast Texas this week. We all remember the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans 12 years ago. The Mis- sissippi River’s control systems and levees played their own tragic part in the devastation of Loui- siana. We Oregonians bemoan the rain, but we have never had 50 inches of rain fall in a matter of days. That rain total is now a record for the continental United States. The rain came from both the hurricane and the tropical storm; fl ooding result- ing from hurricanes kill many more people than a storm’s winds ever will. The loss of life in Texas after the wrath of Harvey has been merci- fully low, but there is still plenty of suffering by people in Houston and southeast Texas. People can send their thoughts and prayers, fi nancial assistance is vital, too. Using the internet it is easy to make a donation to help with the rescue and recovery efforts. People are helping each other in Texas, people are helping animals, too. Both humans and animals need aid. To assist fi nancially people can opt to donate to the American Red Cross through their web- site, redcross.org. Other options are: • disaster.salvationarmyusa.org. • ghcf.org/hurricane-relief (this is a fund established by Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner). • texasdiaperbank.org (designate your donation for Disaster Relief). Diapers are not provided by disaster relief agencies. • spca.org (SPCA of Texas have staff, volunteers and supplies work- ing with offi cials to help in the di- saster relief. — LAZ our opinion School time School begins next week, a time for drivers of all ages to be vigilant about kids walking and crossing Keizer streets in the morning and again in the afternoon. Kids will be kids which means that their safety isn’t necessarily foremost in their minds. They will take shortcuts, chase and throw balls to each other. It is up to drivers to keep on eye on the little ones. Veteran drivers will be on the road along with young drivers who may have started driving in the sum- mer and have no experience driving in school zones. School zones and residential streets just before and just after school is no time to be driving distracted. The new school season is timely for Keizer drivers to take part in the Drive Healthy campaign to cut down on distracted driving. The program, from the Oregon Depart- ment of Transportation, Oregon State Patrol and AAA, is designed to encourage healthy driving by gami- fying it. After downloading the LifeSaver app, a driver should turn off their cellphone while in the vehicle. The app will register whether the driv- er unlocks or uses their cellphone. Each month its scores will be post- ed and the app reset. People will be able to see who the safest drivers are. We encourage all drivers to take part in the Drive Healthy campaign, we also encourage all drivers, re- gardless of their level of experience, to be mindful of pedestrians on our streets as school gets going. — LAZ Chemawa Rd. plants ing these plants, most residents along Chemawa would vote to move and destroy them right away and let the lovely plants twisted inside of the plots grow to show their beauty. Also, we residents would not have to break our backs cutting them down more often than crews have been doing, especially where we can- not see the street safely. Lorna Moore Keizer letters To the Editor: My neighbors and I have highly objected to, and wondered why the grass- like plants along Chemawa Road N. were ever allowed. They are unsightly and brushy...a terrible sight and a terrible choice for all residents along Chemawa to have to trim down, not only for a better looking scenic view but they are ac- tually—in some areas—are making entry onto Chemawa Road unsafe. Who okayed these beastly plants anyway? Whoever it was obviously knew nothing about gardening, plant selection or beauty. If I were to take a survey regard- Share your opinion Email a letter to the editor (300 words) by noon Tuesday. Email to: publisher@keizertimes.com Pardon deepened moral damage to the GOP By MICHAEL GERSON Repetition is the enemy of main- taining proper distinctions. It is a short road from being serially outraged to being slightly bored to being com- pletely inured. Thus, many are likely to fi nd the pardon of former Arizona county sheriff Joseph Arpaio to be just another ... something. Just another public feed- ing of Donald Trump’s base; or just an additional shiny distraction from real issues; or just one more cause for head-shaking and shoulder-shrugging; or just further evidence of the tawdry political company kept by the presi- dent of the United States. This would be a mistake. This pres- idential action is not “just” anything. Following his expression of sympathy for the “very fi ne people” attending a white supremacist rally in Charlot- tesville—who were, he said, defending “our history and heritage”—Trump must have known his next move would be highly symbolic, either as a retreat from prejudice or as its affi rma- tion. What followed with the Arpaio pardon constitutes the most forthright racist incitement of the Trump era. Trump has called Arpaio a “great American patriot,” employing a defi - nition of patriotism that includes ex- treme ethnic profi ling, terror raids, and cruel and unusual punishment. A defi nition of patriotism that covers using internment camps in extreme heat, parading women and juvenile of- fenders for the cameras in chain gangs, and degrading inmates in creative acts of bullying. This is not patriotism; it is the abuse of power in the cause of bigotry. Resulting from a process that evi- dently did not involve the normal re- view and recommendation of the De- partment of Justice’s pardon attorney. Was White House Coun- sel Donald McGahn in- volved in this permission for swaggering govern- ment oppression? Better question: Why did he not resign in protest? Congressional Repub- licans have often taken a wait-and-see attitude toward the dishonoring and destruction of their party. Now they can hardly deny that Trump’s worst moments are his most authentic moments, or that his defi ni- tion of loyalty requires defending the indefensible. A few voices —includ- ing both Arizona senators and House Speaker Paul Ryan—were critical of the pardon. But congressional hear- ings demanding an account of the pardon’s purpose and process would demonstrate seriousness in the only task—the only path of self-respect and self-preservation—left to Republican leaders: attempting to salvage a party identity separate from racism. These legal and political ramifi ca- tions are clear enough. But it is the moral damage that is deepest: the stoking of tribal hatreds; the reckless fracturing of national unity; and the statement made about human worth. A society’s treatment of prisoners is a measure of its commitment to hu- other views Wheatland Publishing Corp. • 142 Chemawa Road N. • Keizer, Oregon 97303 phone: 503.390.1051 • web: www.keizertimes.com • email: kt@keizertimes.com MANAGING EDITOR SUBSCRIPTIONS dric 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 (Washington Post Writers Group) Is there an end to Afghanistan involvement? It’s probable that many Keizerites feel that other peoples throughout the world live differently and be- lieve differently from what’s fl exibly recognized as the average American. Meanwhile, in this column writer’s experience, having lived for extensive periods of time as a civilian in other lands and places, nowhere on earth is in greater con- trast to our U.S.A. than Af- ghanistan. Any American, should he or she want to look closely, will see that Af- ghanistan is a virtual caul- dron beset by ethnic, reli- gious, cultural and tribal factions that have endured since the British tried to make it a peaceful, productive colony in the 1800s. There are available to the American seeking insights from the days of old, the dia- ries of British occupiers who wrote letters home to their families just be- fore they became another casualty. President Trump, who’s known widely for not doing his homework on any subject and who apparently can be easily persuaded by a White House full of U.S. military gener- als, now believes that more troops along with pressure on the redoubt- able Pakistan and some olive branches extended to the diehard Taliban, will bring him and his inner circle a win- ning strategy that hasn’t worked for the 16 years we’ve been there as well as the best of efforts by England (19th century) and Russia (20th century). Whatever moves him at that mo- ment, Trump has now said that the “American strategy in Afghanistan and South Asia will change dramati- cally,” with “a shift from a time-based approach to one based on conditions.” What that means in specifi c terms, always the Trump approach, heavy on the vague and the general, can re- sult in nothing or something. From which, as usual, Trump will claim a great outcome even if the facts add up to zip. Warring against the Taliban has al- ready cost our country more than $714 billion. Yet, he, himself, alone, a self- proclaimed “no one’s better” nego- tiator, who promised in campaign- ing to get us out of wars overseas, has given Defense Secretary James Mattis the author- ity to raise troop levels and “target the terrorist and criminal networks that sow violence and chaos throughout Afghanistan.” Some Americans talk about the Afghans as though we are there to save them from themselves. They don’t want to be saved by us or any- one else: they’ve proven that for cen- turies. Their condition is mostly due to Afghan geography as a path from Asia and the Far East to the Middle East and further west. They have fought off foreigners, using whatever near-Stone-Age-weapons they could carve for use and later the weapons they could re-apply for their own use from the British, the Russians guest column Keizertimes man dignity. Some of these men and women are guilty only of the wrong geography in trying to feed their fam- ilies. Others have done terrible things. But they are still—all of them—men and women, human beings, at the complete mercy of the state. Accord- ing to Jewish and Christian teaching, they bear God’s image, which can never be completely effaced. Treating them humanely is the expression of a defi ning national belief: that human rights are not earned or granted, they are recognized. Or not. Arpaio made a career of dehuman- izing prisoners in his charge. His par- don sends the signal that some people are less than human. In one sense, this is perfectly consistent. Trump has em- ployed dehumanization as a political tool from the start—of refugees, of migrants, of Muslims. By his pardon of Arpaio, he has metaphorically par- doned his own cruel and divisive ap- proach to politics. It is a further step in Trump’s normalization and entrench- ment of bigotry in our public life. This creates a personal dilemma for many Republicans. How do they ex- plain to their neighbors, and to their own children, their involvement with an institution that has been allied with forces of exclusion (at least at the na- tional level)? The answer is not for all people with pricked consciences to leave, lest only unpricked consciences remain. But complacency is permis- sion. Resistance is required. Any party that swallows the Trump/Arpaio ethic will be poisoned. And gagging, in this case, is a sign of health. and, now the Americans. They will always seek their independence while we’ll simply spend more treasury to die there. Fifty-seven years ago, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned about a future where the military-in- dustrial complex would rule the land. We see it quite plainly in Afghanistan where U.S. generals want more stars, stripes and celebrity and American arms-building companies want to sell more weapons at huge govern- ment-gone-wild profi ts. We have so much more we could do with our tax dollars than buy more warring; it’s so very misguided that our cur- rent president is so easily persuaded by these people, but, to understand it all, just follow the money. Remember, too, that the U.S. has spy satellites and drones to keep an eye on what’s happening in Afghani- stan and nearby. There’s no need to spend more than what’s been spent on them to empty to the bottom an already depleted treasury and waste more American lives on a battlefi eld with no victory, not now, not ever. (Gene H. McIntyre lives in Keizer.)