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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 4, 2016)
OPINION 4A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2016 Social Media: Destroyer or creator? 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 Leading by lawsuit is blunt instrument A pending lawsuit by an environmental group is the latest challenge to federal salmon and steelhead hatcheries on the Columbia River, a decades-old system that has also faced some congressional scrutiny in recent years. Although salmon propagation practices do merit ongoing re-exam- ination, defunding these Mitchell Act hatcheries would be a serious mistake. The Wild Fish rebuilding salmon popula- Conservancy, a small advo- WLRQV ZKLOH VXSSRUWLQJ ¿VK- cacy group based in Duvall, eries,” said Paul Lumley, Washington, argues the executive director of the federal agencies that provide Columbia River Inter-Tribal money for hatcheries haven’t Fish Commission. “Lawsuits coordinated their actions and like these could hurt salmon aren’t in compliance with recovery efforts and distract the Endangered Species us from the bigger picture of Act. According to the WFC, working together to reform federal hatcheries harm hatchery practices.” Liz Hamilton, executive “ESA-listed species and their critical habits through director of the Northwest ,QGXVWU\ a variety of mechanisms, 6SRUW¿VKLQJ LQFOXGLQJIDFLOLW\HIIHFWV¿VK Association, pointed out removal activities, genetic that killing hatchery funding and ecological interactions, would also mean loss of tens harvest and monitoring and of millions in funding for conservation and recovery. evaluation.” The state of Washington’s The federal hatcheries, along with others operated by separate move to designate the states, are mainly respon- some Columbia tributaries sible for maintaining salmon for wild steelhead also gener- runs now that the river ates some concern in river system is dammed. The result communities, but is a far of compromises hammered more deliberative plan than out between many parties, the wholesale withdrawal of including Columbia River funding WFC advocates for treaty tribes, hatcheries are federal hatcheries. 5H¿QHPHQWV LQ IHGHUDO a vital lifeline for the econo- mies of many communities. and state hatchery practices “Carefully managed should be encouraged. +RZHYHU ¿VKHULHV hatcheries play a crit- ical role in Columbia management by lawsuit is Basin salmon recovery by never a good idea. Wal-MartLV¿FNOH W hen it comes to Wal-Mart, beware what you wish for. Here is what is happening in some 100 towns across America. Bloomberg Business Week reports that when Wal-Mart closed more than 100 small stores, it left several small towns without a grocery. Why? Because Wal-Mart’s entry into their markets had already killed longtime local small grocers. In retail and other lines of business, it has become an article of faith that consumer loyalty has vanished. 6KRSSHUV DUH ¿FNOH DEDQ- doning long-established brands and stores for the faceless, anonymous market on the Internet. What those shoppers fail to realize when they yearn for a market- wrecker like Wal-Mart is that LWWRRFDQEHTXLWH¿FNOH Many Clatsop County shoppers itch for Wal-Mart to build its Warrenton store. And why not? It is econom- ically rational to seek low prices. And the day likely will arrive when the walls go up in Warrenton. Wal-Mart’s presence will put some Clatsop County businesses in jeopardy. At the same time, Wal-Mart will not be a community player. That is something that Wal-Mart shoppers fail to realize when they abandon locally owned busi- nesses in favor of the root- less cost-cutter. Wal-Mart is one of those multi-national businesses that lives every- where and nowhere. It has no loyalty and it will not help QXUWXUH WKH ORFDO QRQSUR¿W sector, which provides so much of Clatsop County’s quality of life. Newcomers to Astoria, Warrenton, Gearhart and Seaside value the individ- uality of our communi- ties. They like it that our places have not succumbed to the anonymity that has consumed so many cities and suburbs, and that includes the numbing effect that Wal-Mart has on local enterprise. By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN New York Times News Service O ver the last few years we’ve been treated to a number of “Facebook revolutions,” from the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street to the squares of Istanbul, Kiev and Hong Kong, all fueled by social media. But once the smoke cleared, most of these revolutions failed to build any sustainable new political order, in part because as so many voices got DPSOL¿HGFRQVHQVXVEXLOGLQJEHFDPH impossible. Question: Does it turn out that social media is better at breaking things than at making things? Last month an important voice answered this question Thomas L. with a big “yes.” Friedman That voice was Wael Ghonim, the Egyptian Google employee whose anonymous Facebook page helped to launch the Tahrir Square revolution in early 2011 that toppled President Hosni Mubarak — but then failed to give birth to a true democratic alternative. In December, Ghonim, who has since moved to Silicon Valley, posted a TED talk about what went wrong. It is worth watching and begins like this: “I once said, ‘If you want to liberate a society, all you need is the Internet.’ I was wrong. I said those words back in 2011, when a Facebook page I anon- ymously created helped spark the Egyptian revolution. The Arab Spring revealed social media’s greatest poten- tial, but it also exposed its greatest shortcomings. The same tool that united us to topple dictators eventually tore us apart.” In the early 2000s, Arabs were ÀRFNLQJWRWKH:HE*KRQLPH[SODLQHG “Thirsty for knowledge, for opportuni- ties, for connecting with the rest of the people around the globe, we escaped our frustrating political realities and lived a virtual, alternative life.” And then in June 2010, he noted, the “Internet changed my life forever. While browsing Facebook, I saw a photo ... of a tortured, dead body of a young Egyptian guy. His name was Khaled Said. Khaled was a 29-year-old Alexandrian who was killed by police. I saw myself in his picture. ... I anon- ymously created a Facebook page and called it ‘We Are All Khaled Said.’ In just three days, the page had over 100,000 people, fellow Egyptians who shared the same concern.” Soon Ghonim and his friends used Facebook to crowdsource ideas, and “the page became the most followed page in the Arab world. ... Social media was crucial for this campaign. It helped Tara Todras-Whitehill/AP Photo Egyptian Wael Ghonim, center, a Google Inc. marketing manager who was a key organizer of the online campaign that sparked the first pro- test, talks to the crowd in Tahrir Square, in Cairo, Egypt, Feb. 8, 2011. are now believed and a decentralized move- ment arise. It made people ‘We don’t spread among millions realize that they were of people.” Second, “We know not alone. And it made it tend to only communi- impossible for the regime how to cate with people that we to stop it.” agree with, and thanks Ghonim was even- deal with to social media, we can tually tracked down in unfollow and rumors.’ mute, Cairo by Egyptian secu- block everybody else. rity services, beaten and Third, online discus- then held incommuni- Wael Ghonim sions quickly descend cado for 11 days. But three into angry mobs. ... It’s days after he was freed, the millions of as if we forget that the people behind protesters his Facebook posts helped screens are actually real people and not to galvanize brought down Mubarak’s just avatars. regime. “And fourth, it became really hard Alas, the euphoria soon faded, said to change our opinions. Because of the Ghonim, because “we failed to build speed and brevity of social media, we consensus, and the political struggle led are forced to jump to conclusions and to intense polarization.” Social media, write sharp opinions in 140 charac- KHQRWHG³RQO\DPSOL¿HG´WKHSRODUL]D- ters about complex world affairs. And tion “by facilitating the spread of misin- once we do that, it lives forever on the formation, rumors, echo chambers and Internet.” hate speech. The environment was Fifth, and most crucial, he said, purely toxic. My online world became “today, our social media experiences D EDWWOHJURXQG ¿OOHG ZLWK WUROOV OLHV are designed in a way that favors hate speech.” broadcasting over engagements, posts Supporters of the army and the Isla- over discussions, shallow comments mists used social media to smear each over deep conversations. ... It’s as if other, while the democratic center, we agreed that we are here to talk at which Ghonim and so many others each other instead of talking with each occupied, was marginalized. Their other.” revolution was stolen by the Muslim Ghonim has not given up. He and a Brotherhood and, when it failed, by the few friends recently started a website, army, which then arrested many of the Parlio.com, to host intelligent, civil VHFXODU \RXWKV ZKR ¿UVW SRZHUHG WKH conversations about controversial and revolution. The army has its own Face- often heated issues, with the aim of book page to defend itself. narrowing gaps, not widening them. (I “It was a moment of defeat,” said participated in a debate on Parlio and Ghonim. “I stayed silent for more than found it engaging and substantive.) WZR\HDUVDQG,XVHGWKHWLPHWRUHÀHFW “Five years ago,” concluded on everything that happened.” Ghonim, “I said, ‘If you want to liberate Here is what he concluded about society, all you need is the Internet.’ social media today: “First, we don’t Today I believe if we want to liberate know how to deal with rumors. VRFLHW\ ZH ¿UVW QHHG WR OLEHUDWH WKH 5XPRUV WKDW FRQ¿UP SHRSOH¶V ELDVHV Internet.” Hillary Clinton’s dutiful election slog of a century. someone more liberal. At this point the Clin- Even so, Clinton appears tons are royalty, and royalty to have edged out Sanders sits at a remove from /DWH0RQGD\DVWKHXQ¿QLVKHGYRWH by mere decimal points. all else. Among Demo- count suggested the slimmest of victo- How to explain it? cratic caucusgoers most Perhaps with the sturdiest ries for Hillary Clinton, she stepped to DPLFURSKRQHÀDVKHGDQ2VFDUZRUWK\ truism of politics: Elections concerned about voting for smile of triumph and told supporters are about the future. And so a candidate who cared about people like them, 74 percent that she was “breathing a big sigh of much about Clinton screams the past. relief.” picked Sanders, while only A rally of hers that I 6KHZDVQ¶W6KHLVQ¶W$QGVKHGH¿- 22 percent chose Clinton. Frank attended in Iowa last week nitely shouldn’t be. (Martin O’Malley got the Bruni That’s not because what happened actually began with a high- remainder.) in Iowa — almost a tie between her and lights reel of Clinton through time, For caucusgoers acting primarily Bernie Sanders — substantially loosens including plenty of footage from the on the basis of who they deemed most her grip on the Democratic presidential 1990s. “honest and trustworthy,” 83 percent I understand why. The retrospective voted for Sanders, while just 10 percent nomination. Iowa was better terrain for Sanders than much of what lies ahead, underscored her extraordinary expe- voted for Clinton. That’s the toll of all and the dynamics that made her a rience. But nothing in her subsequent the attention to her emails, a topic that’s heavy favorite to be the nominee before speech looked forward as stirringly as not disappearing anytime soon. the state’s caucuses make her a heavy those images looked backward. She has a habit, whether addressing favorite still. a large group or a small one, of diving But Iowa demonstrated, yet again, so deeply into the weeds of a subject Iowa ZKDWDÀDZHGDQGWDUQLVKHGFDQGLGDWH that she doesn’t so much impress she is. And on the Republican side, the listeners as exhaust them. To her credit, demonstrated, caucuses augured the possibility of a she has educated herself more thor- retreat from the party’s craziness and oughly than other politicians. But she yet again, the rise of an adversary, Marco Rubio, somehow hasn’t learned to wear that what a flawed erudition lightly. who could give her trouble in a gener- al-election matchup. For months Democrats have been and tarnished She should have trounced Sanders. heartened by the absurdity with which Yes, he communicates authenticity Donald Trump infused the Republican candidate to an electorate ravenous for it and primary and by the prospect of him or has given potent voice to Americans’ Ted Cruz as the party’s nominee. But she is. economic angst. But little in his Senate his second-place showing could be his She’s forever stressing what she’s twilight, and Rubio’s strong third-place career suggests that he’d be able to turn put up with, what she’s survived. “I’ve ¿QLVKVXSSRUWVWKHVFHQDULRWKDWKH¶VWKH that oratory into remedy. He’s no gushing font of political been around a long time,” she said in one. charisma. He’s a 74-year-old, self-pro- Des Moines a week ago, answering — He poses a bigger threat to Clinton. claimed socialist who until fairly but not really — a young voter’s ques- He understands that she, like Jeb Bush, recently had minimal name recognition tion about the dearth of enthusiasm for LVDQDZNZDUG¿WIRUWKHQDWLRQDOPRRG her. “They throw all this stuff at me, and and he’d try to take advantage of that. outside of Vermont. President Barack Obama clearly I’m still standing.” He leans hard on his youth. He talks Bill Clinton may well garner about a new generation. prefers Clinton. And in a poll of Demo- crats showing up for the Iowa caucuses, applause, but every time he stumps for Clinton needs to persuade voters well over half said that they wanted her, it’s an implicit promise to revisit that as much as they’ve seen of her, she someone who would continue Obama’s yesterday, not to chart tomorrow. On can still lead them to a place they’ve agenda — which is the precise pledge Monday night, he and Chelsea stood not yet seen. She hasn’t succeeded, and that Clinton has been making over the with her as she spoke, and I was struck she slogs on from Iowa much as she last few weeks — while only about by the overwhelming familiarity of that did eight years ago: with more to prove one-third said that they preferred tableau. It has been with us for a quarter than to savor. By FRANK BRUNI New York Times News Service
