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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 18, 2016)
OPINION 6A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, JANUARY 18, 2016 Founded in 1873 STEPHEN A. FORRESTER, Editor & Publisher LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager CARL EARL, Systems Manager JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager HEATHER RAMSDELL, Circulation Manager ‘I have a dream’ AP Photo/File Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, addresses marchers during his “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 28, 1963. Which nation do we want? Martin Luther King responded to injustice with optimism T he contrast between President Obama’s State of the Union and what Republican presidential candidates are saying is pro- found. In the simplest terms, it was about how one chooses to view America’s future — optimistically or pessimistically. The presi- dent spoke encouragingly about new opportunities. Donald Trump and his competitors talk mainly about excluding whole swaths of groups that America once welcomed. When South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley responded to President Obama’s speech by encouraging legal immigration, Trump and other Republicans pounced. One GOP critic said that Trump should deport Nikki Haley. All of this prompted The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page to say: “A party that rejects Nikki Haley as a spokesperson is one that really doesn’t want to build a governing majority.” There is something about this that is relevant to today’s holiday that honors Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In response to the racial violence of the Jim Crow era, Dr. King chose to lead what might be called an optimistic resistance. King looked at segregation, in- timidation of blacks at the polls and lynchings and he focused on what was possible to make America a better place. The movement that Dr. King led caused changes that made life better for African Americans. He also liberated the South from a debilitating way of life. Though large parts of it are still less suc- cessful than the U.S. as a whole, desegregation, voting rights and other initiatives partially weaned the South of its crippling adher- ence to outmoded economic and social patterns. There was a backlash to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which FYI: King’s movement inspired. Oregon State University political scientist Bill Lunch discovered it during interviews he did with a Republican right-wing splinter group in 1986. One of the group’s followers’ dominant motivations was repeal of the Civil Rights Act, as it pertained to the advancement of blacks as well as women. T he anti-immigrant theme of the Republican pres- idential primary debates is a reminder that racism is always with us. Overall, Republican hopefuls for the White House have far more in common with 1960s white southern dema- gogue Gov. George Wallace than with the hopeful and as- pirational Dr. King. King was about lifting up, while 2016’s Republican presidential ¿eld is all about putting down: Putting down one another, putting down America’s success, put- ting down immigrants. They are a sour bunch, with mes- sages deeply at odds with their professed patriotism. America crossed an important line in 1964. We began rejecting the politics of racial division and set course for a future where ev- ery child can aspire to greatness. But we’re not going back to a nation where bigotry is set in statute. Clippings from the press of the Paci¿c Northwest and the nation It’s time for change in the rural West F ederal agencies hold 50 percent of the land in the West. The real issue isn’t that they own the land, but that they too often administer it poorly, and without regard to the local community. Decisions take too long because the bureaucracy is paralyzed by analysis required in futile attempts to prevent environmental lawsuits. Agency lead- ership too often ignores the clear intent of legislation in favor of political pol- icy, and gives greater consideration to the opinions of distant interests than to local property owners and lease hold- ers who depend on the best steward- ship of these lands to maintain their livelihoods. The bureaucracy has become too big, too unresponsive. — The Capital Press T his is the conclusion of the speech delivered by the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., Aug. 28, 1963: I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the dif¿culties and frustrations of the moment I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal.” I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of free- dom and justice. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a na- tion where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor’s lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nulli¿- cation, will be transformed into a From every mountain-side Let free- situation where little black boys and dom ring. And if America is to be a great black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white nation this must become true. So girls and walk together as sisters let freedom ring from the prodi- and brothers. gious hilltops of New Hampshire. I have a dream today. Let freedom ring from the mighty I have a dream that mountains of New one day every valley York. Let freedom ‘Free at shall be exalted, every ring from the height- hill and mountain shall Alleghenies of last! Free ening be made low, the rough Pennsylvania! places will be made Let freedom ring at last! plains and the crooked from the snowcapped places will be made Thank God Rockies of Colorado! straight and the glory Let freedom ring almighty, from the curvaceous of the Lord shall be revealed and all Àesh peaks of California! we are shall set it together. But not only that; This is our hope. let freedom ring from free at This is the faith with Stone Mountain of which I return to the last!’ Georgia! South. With this faith Let freedom ring we will be able to hew out of the from Lookout Mountain of Tennes- mountain of despair a stone of hope. see! With this faith we will be able to Let freedom ring from every hill transform the jangling discords of and molehill of Mississippi. From our nation into a beautiful sympho- every mountainside, let freedom ring. ny of brotherhood. With this faith When we let freedom ring, when we will be able to work together, to we let it ring from every village and pray together, to struggle together, every hamlet, from every state and to go to jail together, to stand up for every city, we will be able to speed freedom together, knowing that we up that day when all of God’s chil- will be free one day. dren, black men and white men, This will be the day when all of Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and God’s children will be able to sing Catholics, will be able to join hands with new meaning: My country, ’tis and sing in the words of the old Ne- of thee, Sweet land of liberty, Of gro spiritual, “Free at last! Free at thee I sing: Land where my fathers last! Thank God almighty, we are died, Land of the pilgrims’ pride, free at last!” Is vast inequality necessary? fact, the top 0.1 percent hundreds or thousands of times greater than average. consists mainly of business This is the view expressed executives, and while some of these executives may ow rich do we need the rich in a widely quoted recent essay by venture capitalist have made their fortunes by to be? Paul Graham, and it’s pop- being associated with risky That’s not an idle question. It is, ular in Silicon Valley — that startups, most probably got arguably, what U.S. politics are sub- is, among people who are where they are by climbing stantively about. paid hundreds or thousands well-established corporate ladders. And the rise in in- Liberals want to raise taxes on of times as much as ordi- comes at the top largely re- high incomes and use the proceeds nary workers. Paul Second, we could have Àects the soaring pay of top to strengthen the social safety net; Krugman executives, not the rewards conservatives want to do the reverse, huge inequality based large- claiming that tax-the-rich policies hurt ly on luck. In the classic old movie to innovation. But the real question, in any case, everyone by reducing the incentives to “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre,” an old prospector explains that gold is is whether we can redistribute some of create wealth. Now, recent experience has not worth so much — and those who ¿nd the income currently going to the elite been kind to the conservative posi- it become rich — thanks to the labor few to other purposes without crip- tion. President Barack Obama pushed of all the people who went looking pling economic progress. through a substantial rise in top tax for gold but didn’t ¿nd it. Similarly, Don’t say that redistribution is in- rates, and his health care reform was we might have an economy in which herently wrong. Even if high incomes the biggest expansion of the welfare those who hit the jackpot aren’t nec- perfectly reÀected productivity, mar- state since LBJ. Conservatives con¿- essarily any smarter or harder working ket outcomes aren’t the same as moral dently predicted disaster, just as they than those who don’t, but just happen justi¿cation. And given the reality that did when Bill Clinton raised taxes to be in the right place at the right time. wealth often reÀects either luck or Third, we could have huge inequal- power, there’s a strong case to be made on the top 1 percent. Instead, Obama has ended up presiding over the best ity based on power: executives at large for collecting some of that wealth in corporations who get taxes and using it to make society as job growth since the to set their own com- a whole stronger, as long as it doesn’t 1990s. Is there, how- pensation, ¿nancial destroy the incentive to keep creating ever, a longer-term Inequality is wheeler-dealers who more wealth. case in favor of vast inevitable; get rich on inside in- inequality? And there’s no reason to believe formation or by col- It won’t surprise that it would. Historically, America the vast lecting undeserved achieved its most rapid growth and you to hear that many fees from naive in- technological progress ever during the members of the eco- inequality vestors. nomic elite believe 1950s and 1960s, despite much higher of America As I said, the real top tax rates and much lower inequali- that there is. It also economy contains ty than it has today. won’t surprise you to today isn’t. elements of all three learn that I disagree, In today’s world, high-tax, low-in- stories. It would be equality countries like Sweden are that I believe that the economy can Àourish with much less foolish to deny that some people are, in also both highly innovative and home concentration of income and wealth fact, a lot more productive than average. to many business startups. This may at the very top. But why do I believe It would be equally foolish, however, to in part be because a strong safety net deny that great success in business (or, encourages risk-taking: People may be that? I ¿nd it helpful to think in terms actually, anything else) has a strong willing to prospect for gold, even if a of three stylized models of where ex- element of luck — not just the luck of successful foray won’t make them quite treme inequality might come from, being the ¿rst to stumble on a highly as rich as before, if they know they with the real economy involving ele- pro¿table idea or strategy, but also the won’t starve if they come up empty. luck of being born to the right parents. ments from all three. So coming back to my original And power is surely a big factor, question, no, the rich don’t have to be First, we could have huge inequal- ity because individuals vary hugely in too. Reading someone like Graham, as rich as they are. Inequality is inev- their productivity: Some people are you might imagine that America’s itable; the vast inequality of America just capable of making a contribution wealthy are mainly entrepreneurs. In today isn’t. By PAUL KRUGMAN New York Times News Service H
