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About Keizertimes. (Salem, Or.) 1979-current | View Entire Issue (April 6, 2018)
APRzL 6, 2018, KEzZERTzMES, PAGE A5 KeizerOpinion KEIZERTIMES.COM The quiet dignity of a community man He never sought out the spotlight, yet he helped shape Keizer into what it is today. John Carpenter Jenkins passed away on Easter Sunday at the age of 94. A Nebraska native, Jenkins served his country in the Signal Company. He rose to the rank of corporal, provid- ing, in part, radio com- munication between Army aircraft and their base on Guam. Taking advantage of the G.I. Bill, Jenkins enrolled in the University of Nebraska and took engineering courses. Engineer- ing was to become his life-long career. John and his wife Gina moved to Keizer in 1956 and have lived in the same house since. The couple had three children and fi ve grandchildren. As a member of the Rotary Club of Keizer for more than 40 years, Jen- kins served as the unoffi cial historian of the city’s most infl uential group. A supporter of all kids, he was an impor- tant conduit between the hundreds of exchange students from around the world that called Keizer home for a year. Jenkins kept the club informed of the exchange students when they returned home and kept those stu- dents informed of what was happen- ing in their ‘adopted’ city. Locally he served as cubmaster of the Cub Scout Pack 141, a sturdy, outgoing mentor to years of Keizer boys. In early 1995, Jen- kins was surprised by the Chamber of Commerce and named as Keizer’s First Citizen, an honor bestowed on those who volunteer in the community. He was instrumental in the effort to save the original Keizer School building that now serves as the Keizer Cultural Center on the Keizer Civic Center campus. A volunteer all of his life—due to the infl uence of his father—Jen- kins made Keizer a better place. He worked mostly behind the scenes; he knew that’s where the real work was done. He was a friend to all, especially the kids from near and far. — LAZ our opinion The good things about America By MICHAEL F. VALDEZ I do not live in a blue or red state, but the United States of America. Who could believe the highest of- fi ce in our United States, the presi- dency, regardless of which party holds that position, can be mocked, lied about and tried for impeachment by our own Congress, supported by some federal courts. In the past, their negative remarks were kept to themselves. I have always stated, “A country that falls, falls from within.” Sadly, we are ap- proaching those days at a very fast pace. The current president is being held back by irresponsible people of our country, why? What have our Senators and Congressman done for the state of Oregon? Nothing. Oregon is in debt, the city of Salem is in debt. As of 2016, Oregon was ranked fourth in divorces in the United States. We are ranked in the lower 10 percent as far as poverty is concerned. Now tell me what our local government has done for us? Yet we continue to send the same deadbeats back to Washington, D.C. and elect the same deadbeats here in our state government. All our elected offi cials say is, “Resist, resist.” Resist, what? Oregon loses in the end. No, Governor Brown, it is not your state, it belongs to the citizens of Or- egon. Judge Vance Day has been found guilty already? How? Our military is the strongest in the world, being held back by know- it-alls in Washington, D.C. who have never served in the armed forces or seen a battle. The ones, who have served, claim to be the Jehovah’s in the righteousness and wisdom. They let Michael Moore’s movies be fed to our college students, showing the Unites States as the aggressors. I am tired and weary of being lec- tured by foreign countries who have never won a battle yet they continue to ask for millions of U.S. dollars in aid and complain if they don’t receive enough. I say stop our support and get the United Nations out of the United States. Put the U.N in Germany or France and let them carry the burden. They hate us and always vote against us as well. I am tired of the breast beat- ers, critics of America at home and abroad who set impossible yardsticks for the United States, but never apply the same standards for other countries. We never lost the Vietnam War, the Iraq or Afghanistan wars, not the sol- diers on the ground, but the Ameri- cans who cried for peace were the losers of that war. Whining parents and a weak Congress lost their backbone. This trust in American sentimen- tality is reinforced every time the terrorist read our editorials, watch our bi- ased television stations or listen to a debate between all Americans alike. This encourages them to set bombs and take pot shots at our troops. In this case, the Ameri- can warrior really is turned in as the victim. Right now back east, they are fi ghting over statues dated back to the Civil War era. How many people are aware that China owns more than 2 percent of Oregon land? Nobody knows how much more for sure, but every state in the nation is in the same situation—China owns land in every state of the United States. As I previously stated, every coun- try that falls always falls from within. I’m so glad to be an American after 37 and a half years of military service, of which three of those years were in combat as an infantry offi cer in Viet- nam. I stand ready to defend our way of life. If you cannot meet our stan- dards, then leave and go live in some other country. I’m tired of hearing about all of the bad things of America. Let’s start today talking and support- ing all the good things we stand for. But, it is too late; the fi nal state of it is long but deteriorating life was brought about when Congress and the federal courts succumbed to the power of the internal struggle that started years ago. It is expected with the passing of the Republic, an alternative nation we will become. Help us God, let us rest in peace guest opinion (Michael F. Valdez lives in Keizer. He retired from the infantry with the rank of Colonel.) Trumpism is not a normal political moment By MICHAEL GERSON Is it time for anti-Trump conser- vatives to recognize that they have lost the political and policy battle within the GOP and to accommo- date themselves as best they can to an uncomfortable reality? This is the argument of the Ethics and Public Pol- icy Center’s Henry Olsen, one of the most thought- ful political analysts on the right. On issues such as trade, immigration, and the Muslim travel ban, he argues, Republican crit- ics of Donald Trump are dramatically “out of step with conservatives.” And the pos- sible options are limited. A primary challenge to Trump is “doomed to failure.” The creation of a third party is a pipe dream, since “there simply aren’t enough dissatisfi ed conserva- tives.” This leaves anti-Trump conserva- tives, in Olsen’s view, with one vi- able choice—to make peace with a Trump-dominated movement. “If they are willing to work with other conservative-movement types on immigration and trade to reach common ground,” he contends, “they might fi nd other longtime conservatives are willing to work with them.” Olsen’s historical mod- el is conservative “fusionism”—a theory associated with conservative thinker Frank Meyer that asserted common political and intellectual ground between social conservatives and libertarians in the middle of the last century. Olsen’s hope for a return to normalcy within the conservative movement—in which even deep disagreements did not lead to com- plete rupture—is understandable. But his real contribution is probably not what he intended. Olsen sees this as an important but normal po- litical moment, in which the policy views of populists and conservative intellectuals need to be reconciled on issues such as trade and immigra- tion. An intellectual dialectic within the Republican coalition is straining to produce a new, more pro-worker synthesis— which Olsen himself has long advocated. But this begs the question: Is this a normal political moment? If Trump were merely proposing a border wall and the more aggressive employment of tariffs, we would be engaged in a debate, not facing a schism. Both Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush played the tariff chess game. As a Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney endorsed the mas- sive “self-deportation” of undocu- mented workers without the rise of a #NeverRomney movement. But it is blind, even obtuse, to place Trumpism in the same cat- egory. Trump’s policy proposals— the details of which Trump himself seems unconcerned and uninformed about—are symbolic expressions of a certain approach to politics. The stated purpose of Trump’s border wall is to keep out a contagion of Mexican rapists and murderers. His argument is not taken from Heritage Foundation policy papers. He makes it by quoting the racist poem “The Snake,” which compares migrants to dangerous vermin. Trump pro- poses to ban migration from some Muslim-majority countries because Muslim refugees, as he sees it, are a Trojan horse threat of terrorism. Trump’s policy ideas are incidental to his message of dehumanization. So how do we split the political difference on this one? Shall we talk about Mexican migrants as rapists the opinion of others Wheatland Publishing Corp. • 142 Chemawa Road N. • Keizer, Oregon 97303 phone: 503.390.1051 • web: www.keizertimes.com • email: kt@keizertimes.com Lyndon A. Zaitz, Editor & Publisher POSTMASTER Send address changes to: SUBSCRIPTIONS One year: $25 in Marion County, $33 outside Marion County, $45 outside Oregon PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY Publication No: USPS 679-430 Keizertimes Circulation 142 Chemawa Road N. Keizer, OR 97303 Periodical postage paid at Salem, Oregon (Washington Post Writers Group) The president we have Recall is fading. Nevertheless, memory reminds us that President Donald Trump led us to believe that as president he would be looking after all Americans. So far, he’s worked mainly on behalf of opposites to his oft-re- peated promises during the campaign as he now leads and directs his cabinet to dismantle and otherwise do away with the federal regula- tions that were hard- fought into existence over many decades and thereby have protected American consumers everywhere and on-the-job workers through both Republican and Democratic adminis- trations. Sally Greenberg, ex- ecutive director of the National Consumers League is one national leader who takes issue with Trump’s promises while he ran for of- fi ce and what he and his immediate subordinates have been up to during the past 15 months. She’s said, “The consumer protections that were put in place over the past two generations are being destroyed brick by brick under the Trump administration.” That may sound as an exaggeration but, should one read far and wide, he will fi nd that same conclusion has been reached by every consumer advocate in the na- tion. Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, has said this adminis- tration is the most anti- and de-regu- latory in American history. Columnist David Lazarus of the Los Angeles Times has verifi ed Weissman’s comments and further informs his readers that, after interviewing Weissman himself, that Trump’s insistence that fewer rules means more jobs and a more vibrant economy is not true. What has been found by looking into this matter on the effects of regulations is that our nation is better off when there are rules that keep tabs on and exert safety, health and economic mea- sures to control corpora- tions that too often have gone wild in their pursuit of profi ts and beyond, that is, unbridled greed. What facts surface af- ter a year of the Trump administration? Even half way through the Trump administra- tion’s fi rst year, the Offi ce of Man- agement and Budget reported doing away with or ending for any form of amendment, 860 regulations hav- ing to do with consumer and worker safeguards and environmental pro- tections. What we’re talking about in this matter include looser emission standards for fossil fuels, workplace safety regulations now gone that pro- tect against exposure to hazardous chemicals, and, among so many oth- ers, elimination of safe drinking water guarantees. Recently, Trump installed his super conservative budget director, Mick Mulvaney, as interim director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bu- gene h. mcintyre Keizertimes on every other day? Shall we provide rhetorical cover for alt-right bigots only on special occasions, such as af- ter a racist protest and murder? The point applies in other ar- eas. While some Republicans have criticized media bias, Trump has at- tempted to systematically delegiti- mize all critical information as “fake news” and referred to the media as “the enemy of the people.” While other politicians have pushed back against investigations, Trump has at- tempted to discredit federal law en- forcement as part of a “deep state” plot against him. We have seen similar damage in the realm of values and norms. In the cultivation of anger and tribal- ism. In the use of language to in- fl ame and demean. In the destruc- tion of a common factual basis for politics, making policy compromise of the kind Olsen favors impossible. What would fusion with this type of politics look like? Trump defi nes loyalty to conservatism as contempt for many of our neighbors. One might as well have proposed a fu- sion between popular sovereignty and Abraham Lincoln’s conception of inherent human rights. They were not a dialectic requiring a synthesis. They were alternatives demanding a choice. Which raises a fourth option: For elected leaders to remind Americans who they are and affi rm our com- mon bonds. For conservative pol- icy experts to defi ne an agenda of working-class uplift, not an agenda of white resentment—which will consign Republicans to moral squa- lor and (eventually) to electoral ir- relevance. For principled conserva- tives to hear the call of moral duty and stand up for their beliefs until this madness passes. As it will. reau. The CFPB was created to deal with the reckless corporate behavior that resulted in the close-call collapse of the country’s fi nancial-services and brought on the worst recession in U.S. history. He, like Energy Sec- retary Rick Perry, who wants to ter- minate his department, Ryan Zinke, who seeks to turn all federal lands and waters over to oil drilling and private development, and Scott Pruitt, EPA administrator, are determined to bring an end to most of which the average American has treasured and valued for 120 years. Incidentally, regarding Mulvaney and the CFPB, he’s seen to it that all U.S. credit cards, in lengthy changes to terms and conditions, no longer afford the consumer any pro- tections in the use of his credit cards. We’ve learned more of late as GOP members of Congress have gone to work at “protecting” Americans from “government interference with com- petitive, innovative markets.” Just keep in mind, though, that, in a nation without any government interfer- ence, your car may stall on the free- way due to contaminated gas, access to your favorite beach or national park may be prevented because oil drillers have it barricaded off, your waters be- come non-potable because fi ltration’s gone, your food and meat have adul- terating materials in them because it has not been inspected and the air you breathe is cancer-causing most every- where while deadly in work environ- ments. (Gene H. Mczntyre lives in Keizer.)