FEBRUARY 16, 2018, KEIZERTIMES, PAGE A5
KeizerOpinion
KEIZERTIMES.COM
Yet another conversation
Here we go again. A community
conversation, co-sponsored by the
Keizer Chamber of Commerce and
the city’s Community Development
Department, will be Wednesday, Feb.
28 to discuss the future of River
Road.
We’ve been here be-
fore. The last time was
the River Road Renais-
sance Advisory Com-
mittee in 2012, led by a
high-priced consulting
fi rm out of Portland.
What came out of that
endeavor was the cre-
ation of fi ve districts
along River Road. From that came
a short-lived project of beautifi ca-
tion, adding meandering sidewalks,
bioswales and native plants. Unfor-
tunately, the Renaissance Project
was stopped short when the Urban
Renewal District funds were used
to pay off construction overruns of
Keizer Civic Center and making up
for shortfalls at Keizer Station.
The 43-page report from the ini-
tial River Road Renaissance discus-
sions haven’t been sitting on a shelf
for six years. The report gets perused
from time to time. It is one of two
reports about Keizer that gather
more dust than attention. The other
is the Keizer Compass report, a com-
munity project that set out to design
what the city should look like in the
2020s.
Yet, here we are, getting ready
for another discussion about Riv-
er Road. If you are talking about
something you can say you’re doing
something. Not in our book. Talk is
cheap, we’ve talked and talked be-
fore. Let’s implement.
We urge the facilitators of the up-
coming Community Conversation
to keep the discussion on track and
not let it turn into a bitch session
about what the city is doing wrong.
If there must be another conversa-
tion about River Road let it be one
that answers the primary question:
what kind of city/River Road corri-
dor do the residents of Keizer want?
It is a basic question, one that needs
to be answered before a shovel of
dirt is turned or a zone is
changed. If the majority of
people do not want to ex-
pend public money to turn
Keizer in general and Riv-
er Road specifi cally into a
dense, commercial center,
then the conversation ends
and we should move on.
It is important to re-
member that iterations of reports
about the future of Keizer were the
work of a very small number of resi-
dents. To make credible policy one
should rely on more than the opin-
ions of less than 1 percent of the citi-
zenry.
When having a conversation about
River Road specifi cally, though, it is
important to have all those affected.
That includes not only the people
who own a business along the city’s
main thoroughfare but the people
who own the properties. A lessor has
only so much leeway to make major
structural or landscape changes. If
we’re going to talk, let’s be sure all
the players are at the table.
The community conversation
about River Road may very well
hinge on a few narrow topics such
as sign and landscape codes. We can
have that conversation but the city
and its people will be best served if
a consensus is reached to give the
Chamber of Commerce and the city
a direction.
After this discussion we want to
see action, as do most of the people
interested.
—LAZ
our
opinion
Their words still resonate
Millions of Americans will have a
holiday on Monday, Feb. 19, known
as President’s Day—to honor both
Abraham Lincoln and George Wash-
ington. They and millions of their fel-
low American residents will use that
day to sleep in, enjoy a hobby or go
shopping.
As with any holiday that honors a
person, we hope that at least a bit of
time is spent to think about Lincoln
and Washington, specially, what they
said. Lincoln was our most quotable
president; what he said resonates to
this day.
Some of his nuggets:
“Whatever you are, be a good
one.”
“Government of the people, by
the people, for the people, shall not
perish from the Earth.”
“Do I not destroy my enemies
when I make them my friends?”
Our fi rst president, George Wash-
ington, had his own set of quotes that
live on through the ages and are as
relevant today as in the 18th century:
“To be prepared for war is one of
the most effective means of preserv-
ing peace.”
“If the freedom of speech is taken
away then dumb and silent we may
be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”
“Laws made by common consent
must not be trampled on by individu-
als.”
The world is a different place than
it was 200 years ago. People are the
same, as they have been through mil-
lenia.
The lessons of our forebears ring
true in the 21st century.
—LAZ
Only the comfortable can retreat from justice
By MICHAEL GERSON
For some years, the main politi-
cal project of the right has been to
take control of the government while
denigrating the government. Donald
Trump drew this strategy to its logi-
cal conclusion during his presidential
campaign, asserting as a kind of re-
frain: “Our politicians are stupid.”
Which came to mind following
the revelation that chief of staff John
Kelly had kept Rob Porter in a sen-
sitive position (White House staff
secretary) after being in-
formed by the FBI that
there was a protective
order against him. As it
came to mind when Mi-
chael Flynn was elevated
to national security ad-
viser following repeated
FBI warnings that he
might be compromised
by the Russians. As it
came to mind after the elevation of
Anthony Scaramucci to, well, any po-
sition of public trust.
I have to admit that the Trump ad-
ministration has acted with a certain
consistency in these matters. Trump
and his team accused the government
of being corrupt—and have proved
it beyond reasonable doubt. They al-
leged that the government was brim-
ming with stupidity—and took it as
a kind of recruiting challenge. Across
the executive branch, it is a golden
age for the unqualifi ed and unfi t. This
is the natural outcome of contempt
for professional experience, contempt
for governing skill, contempt for gov-
ernment itself.
Democrats seeking to take control
of the House and deny re-election to
the president—along with the con-
servatives resisting Trump—will be
sorely tempted to run with the theme:
Trump and his political allies are stupid.
This would be a variant of Trump’s
strategy to win power by promoting
contempt for those who hold pow-
er. It might lead to a shift in partisan
control. It would do little to recover
our national spirit. Someone, from left
or right, must restore respect for the
enterprise of governing as a source of
national unity and moral aspiration.
Is this even remotely possible in
our fractured republic? As a home-
work assignment, prospec-
tive leaders might read the
speeches of Robert F. Ken-
nedy. The late 1960s were a
time not only of division but
of political violence. Ken-
nedy accurately described
Americans as inhabiting dif-
ferent, unconnected islands.
His response? During his
(tragically brief) presidential
campaign, Kennedy urged Ameri-
cans to look beyond mere economic
measures of national success and to
focus on cultural and spiritual excel-
lence—on “the intelligence of our
public debate,” on the “integrity of
our public offi cials,” on our “cour-
age,” “compassion” and “devotion to
our country.” He challenged tradi-
tional ideological divisions, calling for
a “better liberalism” that “knows the
answer to all problems is not spending
money” and a “better conservatism”
that “recognizes the urgent need to
bring opportunity to all citizens.” And
he confronted a politics premised on
confl ict. “Some look for scapegoats,”
Kennedy said. “Others look for
conspiracies, but this much is clear:
Violence breeds violence, repression
brings retaliation, and only a cleaning
of our whole society can remove this
other
opinions
sickness from our soul.”
Kennedy talked of politics as the
realm of urgency and necessity. At
any given moment in a democracy,
great issues of justice and morality
are at stake. The claim that politics is
dirty and irrelevant is an argument
only comfortable people can make. If
you were to live in a neighborhood
plagued by poverty, dominated by
gangs and served by failing schools,
the effectiveness of government
would matter greatly to you. Retreat-
ing from the cause of justice is only
conceivable for those who have few
needs for justice themselves.
Kennedy also talked of politics as
the realm of nobility. At its best, gov-
ernment is about the right ordering
of our lives together. It can’t be unim-
portant because justice is never unim-
portant. Political rhetoric and ideals
can raise the moral sights of a nation
and point men and women to respon-
sibilities beyond the narrow bounds
of self and family.
And Kennedy understood that
criticizing the corruption and stupid-
ity of those in power is not a politics
suffi cient to a great country. “We can
perhaps remember,” he said, “if only
for a time, that those who live with
us are our brothers, that they share
with us the same short moment of
life. ... Surely this bond of common
fate, surely this bond of common
goals, can begin to teach us some-
thing. Surely we can learn, at the least,
to look around at those of us, of our
fellow men, and surely we can begin
to work a little harder to bind up the
wounds among us and to become in
our hearts brothers and countrymen
once again.”
(Washington Post Writers Group)
Trump should forgo military parade
Keizertimes
Wheatland Publishing Corp.
142 Chemawa Road N. • Keizer, Oregon 97303
Phone: 503.390.1051 • www.keizertimes.com
MANAGING EDITOR
Eric A. Howald
editor@keizertimes.com
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
SUBSCRIPTIONS
Derek Wiley
news@keizertimes.com
ADVERTISING
Paula Moseley
advertising@keizertimes.com
PRODUCTION MANAGER
& GRAPHIC DESIGNER
EDITOR & PUBLISHER
Lyndon Zaitz
publisher@keizertimes.com
One year:
$25 in Marion County,
$33 outside Marion County,
$45 outside Oregon
PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY
Publication No: USPS 679-430
Andrew Jackson
graphics@keizertimes.com POSTMASTER
Send address changes to:
LEGAL NOTICES
legals@keizertimes.com
Keizertimes Circulation
BUSINESS MANAGER
142 Chemawa Road N.
Laurie Painter
Keizer, OR 97303
billing@keizertimes.com
RECEPTION
Lori Beyeler
INTERN
Periodical postage paid at
Salem, Oregon
Random Pendragon
facebook.com/keizertimes
twitter.com/keizertimes
On July 14, 2017, President Don-
ald Trump was in Paris on Bastille
Day to join French President Em-
manuel Macron on his review-
ing podium to observe representa-
tions of that country’s military might.
We Americans learned that Trump
was deeply impressed and wants a
similar military parade here on July 4
of this year.
Bastille Day honors
the thousands of Parisians
who struck back against
a monumentally cor-
rupt Louis XVI, his fam-
ily and friends after years
of having their fellow
Parisians thrown into a
cesspool of a place whose
name was the Bastille where they
typically were beaten and tortured
for transgressions such as stealing
a loaf of bread. French men and
women were fed up with their treat-
ment and turned to revolution, in-
cluding the beheading of their king
and members of his court.
We’ve now got tens of thou-
sands of Americans whose fi nancial
and general economic circumstances
are so bad their living conditions have
come to homelessness while thou-
sands of others have mainly lost ev-
erything, including health care for
themselves and their children, about
whom a threat continues that every
fi nal safety net will be taken away
and the last hope of avoiding destitu-
tion will be lost.
Although discontent represents
a common view among these and
other Americans, a full-blown revo-
lution here appears unlikely now, but
not unthinkable. Regardless of num-
bers of Americans living wherever,
President Trump wants a big military
parade estimated to cost in the seven
fi gures, delivered by U.S. armed forc-
es in Washington,. This writer likes
the idea of a parade but not one that
glorifi es U.S. killing machines.
A military parade would pay trib-
ute to Trump while in fact he’s ad-
vised to get a grip on where this na-
tion’s people live and breath and
cancel such an outlandish extrava-
gance to advertise the U.S.
military, a military that’s al-
ready so large and bloated
in manpower and materi-
als that every other coun-
try in the world knows
full well it has no chance
against it. Meanwhile, our
military is rife with waste
and corrupted by fi ghting
unnecessary wars. Further, such a pa-
rade will simply enrage and further
upset those Americans who dire-
ly struggle and those who’ve lost that
struggle and now inhabit our side-
walks, our parks and private property.
No, instead, since large numbers
of those Americans with excessive
control over money, money that
fi fty to sixty years ago was gener-
ally more evenly spread throughout
the American population, we should
have a parade that recognizes them.
So, the American version of a Bastille
Day parade would simply show how
disproportionately rich our wealthy
have become. In a word, America’s
“one percent” could display their
collections of material goods.
Their displays could include
signs that inform the parade go-
ers as to what amount they will re-
ceive every year in future by way
of the tax reform bill passed last
month by Republicans in Congress
and signed into law by President
Trump. Also, miniatures or models
of their many homes could be set
gene
h.
mcintyre
up on traditional fl oats like those in
Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. Then,
too, their fl eets of super expensive
domestic and foreign cars could be
lined up behind fl oats driven by their
private chauffeurs.
President Trump could still re-
ceive accolades by way of high praise
and recognition for his wealth accu-
mulations. Should he wish to do so
he could wear a generalissimo uni-
form and stand or sit at the head of
the parade displaying fl oats with rep-
licas of his New York City tower,
his hotels, his private homes and his
resort golf courses, as well as every
achievement of his as a business deal
maker.
Oh, sure, of course, there could
be a few M1 Abrams military tanks
and LGM-30G ICBMs in the mix
of fl oats. After all, we formerly were
proud as a peaceful people intended
to resemble ancient Athens, not en-
tirely given over to a Sparta-look-
alike! The result of the rich showing
their wares? Perhaps the American
people would awaken from their
long slumber to vote persons into
federal public offi ces who will keep
their jobs because they design and
pass legislation into laws that begin
to help to address and reverse the de-
mocracy-disabling disparities in U.S.
pay and salaries, living standards, op-
portunity, and chance to embrace the
American dream.
(Gene H. McIntyre lives in Keizer.)
Share your
opinion
Email a letter to the editor
(300 words) by noon Tuesday.
Email to:
publisher@keizertimes.com