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-
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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
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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.)