Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 25, 2016)
OPINION 6A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, JANUARY 25, 2016 The anxieties of impotence 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 Call before you dig Good public service is more than just reliable lights he Pacific County (Wash.) Public Utility District’s decision to replace aging power poles in an extraordi- narily sensitive Chinook Indian cultural site is explainable in only one way: It’s how it’s always been done. Which is to say PUD management moves ahead with utter confidence in its own judgment, without adequate reference to nonutil- ity considerations. T In one way, this is under- standable. Considering the weather’s violence in a heavily forested region, the reliability of electrical service is com- mendable. PUD managers and crews are remarkably well paid by local standards, but most Paci¿c County residents don’t begrudge them the money. Few people have skills to run a util- ity or the bravery and fortitude it takes to maintain power in all hours and conditions. With full credit for all it does well, the PUD was clum- sy and tone deaf in its actions and subsequent explana- tions concerning the Chinook Middle Village site. PUD management knew the site contained human remains; its personnel were present when they were discovered, most recently finding some during a stalled 2011 effort to bury power lines. The site will soon formally become National Park Service prop- erty. The above-ground inter- pretive exhibits and walkways there were constructed fol- lowing delicate negotiations with Chinook descendants. All this is public record or can be learned with a phone call. Middle Village has been identified as the likely summer residence of Chief Comcomly, who greeted Lewis and Clark and went on to play a key roll in the fur trade. Though not a traditional cemetery for the Chinook, it in effect be- came one as their civilization collapsed with the arrival of European diseases. It is holy ground and a site of potent significance. That the U.S. government doesn’t currently say the Chinook meet every technical legal standard for of- ficial tribal status is immateri- al. They are our neighbors. We know their history, We know they exist. It isn’t “political correctness” to expect Pacific County PUD to exercise good manners in accordance with this knowledge. This is the latest strong evidence that when elected Pacific County PUD commis- sioners move to hire a new general manager upon the re- tirement of Doug Miller, they must include the public and expand their search beyond current staff. Yes, county res- idents want the lights to stay on. But they also expect all public employees to behave as public servants in the 21st cen- tury, making a thorough effort to include all stakeholders in making decisions. What shall we learn from Flint’s bad water? lint, Michigan, is a Rorschach test. The lessons people take away form the city’s polluted drinking water stem from their own perspectives. The New York Times examined emails from the governor’s of¿ce, sees massive indiffer- ence and notes that if these complaints came from a white, afÀuent community there would have been immediate remedy. The Wall Street Journal’s ed- itorial page sees a cascade of bad choices, beginning with a Flint’s fateful error. Matt Latimer, a speechwriter to President George W. Bush, is bafÀed at Republican presidential candidates’ silence (“Republicans ignore a poisoned city”). If this were a biblical para- ble, how would it be named? The heedless elders and the poi- soned children? Nothing is more basic to our lives than water and air — clean water and clean air. It is astounding that some industries and some politicians (doing F their bidding) believe they can degrade the de¿nition of clean water. Another recent parable involving dirty water was DuPont’s poisonous runoff into a West Virginia stream. That drew the legal action of a corpo- rate lawyer named Rob Bilott. Thanks to the Times headline writer, that biblical parable is “The lawyer who became DuPont’s worst nightmare.” In the upside-down politics of 2016, in which conservatives are anything but that, we who reside far from the power cen- ters — as did the people of Flint — must look out for our health and welfare. At the mouth of the Columbia River, we sort of learned that when former Gov. John Kitzhaber changed policy in order to wipe out a historical- ly legitimate industry. The lesson of Flint is that a community may no longer ex- pect government leaders and bureaucrats to protect the most basic elements of their health. By DAVID BROOKS New York Times News Service n 1936 George Orwell wrote a magnificent essay called Shooting an Elephant. Orwell had been working as a British police officer in Burma, en- forcing colonial rule. An ele- phant had gone “must,” bro- ken its chains, trampled some homes and killed a man. I As Orwell walked, gun in hand, toward the elephant, a crowd of more than 2,000 Burmese gathered behind him. They hated him, but it would be a diverting spec- tacle to see an elephant shot and they could use the meat. Orwell didn’t want to shoot the poor crea- ture, whose David “must,” or Brooks frenzied state, had passed and who was peace- fully eating grass. But he felt the pressure of the crowd behind him. They’d laugh at him if he didn’t kill the thing. “I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind,” Orwell wrote. And so he subjected the ani- mal to a long and agonizing death. In his essay nobody feels like they have any power. The locals, the imperial victims, sure didn’t. Orwell, the guy with the gun, didn’t feel like he had any. The im- perialists back in London were too far away. That’s sort of the way much of the world is today. As Anand Giridharadas writes in The Inter- national New York Times, “If any- thing unites America in this frac- tious moment it is a widespread sentiment that power is somewhere other than where you are.” The Republican establishment thinks the grass roots have the power but the grass roots think the reverse. The unions think the cor- porations have the power but the corporations think the startups do. Regulators think Wall Street has the power but Wall Street thinks the regulators do. The Pew Re- search Center asked Americans, George Orwell There’s no all-controlling Wizard of Oz to slay. “Would you say your side has been winning or losing more?” Six- ty-four percent of Americans, with majorities of both parties, believe their side has been losing more. These days people seem to un- derestimate their own power or suffer from what Giridharadas calls the “anxiety of impotence.” Sometimes when groups feel oppressed, they organize by com- ing up with concrete reform pro- posals to empower themselves. The Black Lives Matter movement is doing this. But in other cases the feeling of absolute powerlessness can cor- rupt absolutely. As psychological research has shown, many people who feel powerless come to feel unworthy, and become complic- it in their own oppression. Some exaggerate the weight and size of the obstacles in front of them. Some feel dehumanized, forsaken, doomed and guilty. Today we live in a world of iso- lation and atomization, where peo- ple distrust their own institutions. In such circumstances many peo- ple respond to powerlessness with pointless acts of self-destruction. In the Palestinian territories, for example, young people don’t orga- nize or work with their government to improve their prospects. They wander into Israel, try to stab a soldier or a pregnant woman and get shot or arrested — every single time. They throw away their lives for a pointless and usually botched moment of terrorism. In a different way, the Ameri- can election has been perverted by feelings of powerlessness. Americans are beset by com- plex, intractable problems that don’t have a clear villain: techno- logical change displaces workers; globalization and the rapid move- ment of people destabilize commu- nities; family structure dissolves; the political order in the Middle East teeters, the Chinese economy craters, inequality rises, the global order frays, etc. To address these problems we need big, responsible institutions (power centers) that can mobilize people, cobble together govern- ing majorities and enact plans of actions. In the U.S. context that means functioning political parties and a functioning Congress. Those institutions have been weakened of late. Parties have been rendered weak by both cam- paign finance laws and the Citi- zens United decision, which have cut off their funding streams and given power to polarized super-do- nors who work outside the party system. Congress has been weak- ened by polarization and disruptive members who don’t believe in leg- islating. Instead of shoring up these in- stitutions, many voters are inclined to make everything worse. Plagued by the anxiety of impotence many voters are drawn to leaders who pretend that our problems could be solved by defeating some villain. Donald Trump says stupid elites are the problem. Ted Cruz says it’s the Washington cartel. Bernie Sanders says it’s Wall Street. The fact is, for all the problems we may have with Wall Street or Washington, our biggest problems are systemic — the disruptions caused by technological progress and globalization, mass migra- tion, family breakdown and so on. There’s no all-controlling Wizard of Oz to slay. If we’re to have any hope of addressing big systemic problems we’ll have to repair big institutions and have functioning parties and a functioning Congress. We have to discard the anti-political, anti-in- stitutional mood that is prevalent and rebuild effective democratic power centers. This requires less atomization and more collective action, fewer strongmen but greater citizenship. It requires the craft of political architecture, not the demagogy of destruction. GOP gets Iran prisoner swap wrong Rouhani predicted 5 per- perfectly innocent, unjust- cent growth — versus the ly jailed hostages. contracting, indeed hem- Yes, and so what? orrhaging, economy in That’s just another way prenegotiation 2012 and ASHINGTON — Give of saying we have the rule of law, they don’t. It 2013. President Obama credit. doesn’t mean we aban- On Saturday, the Ira- His Iran nuclear deal may be di- don our hostages. Natan nian transport minister sastrous but the packaging was Sharansky was a prisoner announced the purchase of conscience who spent of 114 Airbuses from Eu- brilliant. eight years in the Gulag rope. This inaugurates a Charles The near-simultaneous prison- on totally phony charges. rush of deals binding Eu- Krauthammer er exchange was meant to distract He was exchanged for ropean companies to Iran, from last Saturday’s of¿cial imple- two real Soviet spies. Does anyone thoroughly undermining Obama’s mentation of the sanctions-lifting think we should have said no? pipedream of “snapback sanctions” The one valid criticism of the if Iran cheats. deal. Iranian swap is that we left one, Cash-rich, reconnected with And it did. The Republicans con- perhaps two, Americans behind and global banking and commerce, and centrated almost all their ¿re on the unaccounted for. True. But the swap facing an Arab world collapsed into itself was perfectly reasonable. And a miasma of raging civil wars, Iran swap sideshow. And in denouncing the swap, cleverly used by the administration has instantly become the dominant to create a heartwarm- power of the Middle East. Not to they were wrong. True, ing human interest worry, argued the administration. we should have made In a story to overshadow a The nuclear opening will temper the prisoner release a rotten diplomatic deal, Iranian adventurism and empower precondition for ne- stroke, just as the Alan Gross Iranian moderates. gotiations. But that pre-emptive conces- Iran shed release sweetened a The opposite is happening. And Cuba deal that gave the it’s not just the ostentatious, illegal sion was made long store away to the Cas- ballistic missile launches; not just ago (among many oth- almost tro brothers. ers, such as granting Iran’s president reacting to the most four The real story of puny retaliatory sanctions by or- Iran in advance the Jan. 16, 2016 dering his military to accelerate the right to enrich urani- decades Saturday, — “Implementation missile program; not just the video- um). The remaining question was getting of rogue- Day” of the Iran deal taped and broadcast humiliation of — was that it marks a seized U.S. sailors. our prisoners released state historic inÀection point before we gave away Look at what the mullahs are in the geopolitics of doing at home. Within hours of all our leverage upon status. the Middle East. In a “implementation,” the regime dis- implementation of the stroke, Iran shed al- quali¿ed 2,96 of roughly 3,000 nuclear accord. We did. Republicans say: We shouldn’t most four decades of rogue-state moderate candidates from even negotiate with terror states. But status and was declared a citizen of running in parliamentary elections we do and we should. How else do good standing of the international next month. And just to make sure you get hostages back? And yes, community, open to trade, invest- we got the point, the supreme leader of course negotiating encourages ment and diplomacy. This, with- reiterated that Iranian policy — ag- further hostage taking. But there is out giving up, or even promising gressively interventionist and im- always something to be gained by to change, its policy of subversion mutably anti-American — contin- kidnapping Americans. This swap and aggression. This, without hav- ues unchanged. does not affect that truth one way or ing forfeited its status as the world’s In 1938, the morning after Mu- greatest purveyor of terrorism. the other. nich, Europe woke up to Germany Overnight, it went not just from as the continent’s dominant power. And here, we didn’t give away much. The seven released Iranians, pariah to player but from pariah Last Sunday, the Middle East woke none of whom has blood on his to dominant regional power, Àush up to Iran as the regional hegemon, hands, were sanctions busters (and with $100 billion in unfrozen assets with a hand — often predominant a hacker), and sanctions are essen- and virtually free of international — in the future of Syria, Yemen, sanctions. The oil trade alone will Iraq, the Gulf Arab states and, in tially over now. The slate is clean. But how unfair, say the critics. pump tens of billions of dollars into time, in the very survival of Israel. We released prisoners duly convict- its economy. The day after Imple- And we’re arguing over an ed in a court of law. Iran released mentation Day, President Hassan asymmetric hostage swap. By CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER Washington Post Writers Group W
