OPINION
6A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, JUNE 7, 2016
The madness of America
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
Washington Department of Ecology
Scattered and burned oil tank cars are pictured, Saturday, after a train de-
railed and burned near Mosier, Friday. Union Pacific Railroad says it had
recently inspected the section of track near Mosier, about 70 miles east
of Portland, and had been inspected at least six times since March 21.
This accident
won’t be the last
Northwest residents are at risk, but
have no authority with railroads
I
t is unsurprising that a train hauling Bakken crude oil from
North Dakota to West Coast reineries had an accident.
After last Friday’s derailment and explosion of such a train
in the small Columbia River Gorge town of Mosier, the only
uncertainty is whether lawmakers and regulators will inally
start to give the issue the level of attention it deserves.
Though only a small frac- It’s sort of self-regulation,”
tion as bad as it might have a Washington state oficial
been, the accident was plenty noted in 2014.
serious enough to warrant
The Mosier wreck only
reforms. Toxic clouds of conirms that rail companies
oily smoke fouled the sky operate as a law unto them-
as crude oil seeped into the selves, with minimal com-
ground — though thankfully munication and advance
not into the Columbia or planning with key state and
one of its tributaries. Mosier local oficials. Rural ire
residents were evacuated. departments along the oil-
Thousands of motorists were train routes lack much of the
inconvenienced. Emergency special foam needed to com-
responders were placed in bat intense petroleum ires.
harm’s way. The cost of the In Friday’s crash, the near-
response and cleanup will est source of lame retar-
easily be in the millions.
dant foam was Portland
This accident won’t be the International
Airport,
last. A minimum of 26 oil which needs the stocks for
trains have been involved in emergencies.
major ires or derailments in
Some Bakken crude ship-
the U.S. and Canada since ments are starting to be
2006. One of them cost 47 chemically treated to lower
lives.
the potential for explosion.
Our economy and way It’s clear that all must be.
of life still depend on petro- Obsolete rail tanker cars
leum — a fact of life we will must be phased out more
accommodate for the imme- quickly. Trains either must
diate future. The Mosier train be removed from the vital
wreck must, however, gener- Columbia River corridor,
ate thorough examination of where a single accident could
oil-train routing. Immediate spoil water quality and ish-
steps must be taken to eries, or else far more money
enhance their safety. This must be spent on emergency
will necessitate revamping preparedness.
an antiquated and unrespon-
As we irst editorialized in
sive bureaucracy.
July 2013: The essential bot-
As we began editorializing tom line for all these propos-
three years ago, outmoded als, and development of any
federal laws place rail com- kind, is to make sure that
panies largely beyond state costs and beneits are appro-
oversight. This system sets priately allocated. Spills
up an untenable relation- and other impacts must be
ship. Paciic Northwest res- planned for, insured against
idents are at risk. But they and there have to be enforce-
are unable to do much about able legal mechanisms to
it. The Federal Railway make sure expenses are
Administration has “a real borne by the companies, not
passive way of regulating. by taxpayers or downstream
They don’t have standards. neighbors.
By CHARLES M. BLOW
New York Times News Service
T
he candidacy of Donald
Trump, the fervor of those
who support it, and the ierce
opposition of those who don’t
is making America mad — both
angry and insane, as the dual
deinitions of the word implies.
One of the
most disturbing
displays of this
madness is the
violence Trump
has incited in
his supporters,
and the vio-
lent ways in
which opposi-
Charles
Blow
tion forces have
responded, like
the exchange we saw last week in
San Jose, California.
Both forms of violence are
unequivocally wrong, but speak to
a base level of hostility that hovers
around the man like the stench from
rotting lesh.
What is particularly disturbing is
to see anti-Trump forces lashing out
at Trump’s supporters, seemingly
provoked simply by a difference in
political position.
This cannot be. It’s self-defeating
and narrows the space between the
thing you despise and the thing you
become.
Listen, I understand how unset-
tling this man is for many.
I understand that he is elevating
and normalizing a particular stance
of racism and sexism that many view
as a spiritual attack, a kind of psy-
chic violence from which they can-
not escape.
Furthermore, the election cycle
promises at least ive more months
of this, until Election Day, and even
more if by some tragic twist of fate
Trump is actually elected.
And, if elected, the threat could
move from the rhetoric to the real,
wreaking havoc on millions of lives.
I understand the frightful,
mind-numbing, hair-raising disbelief
that can descend when one realizes
that this is indeed plausible.
Recent polls have only added to
this anxiety as some have shown an
increasingly tight race between him
and Hillary Clinton, the likely Dem-
ocratic nominee; some even have him
beating her.
(Now of course, these polls must
be taken with a grain of salt. Trump
and Clinton are in different phases of
the ight: Trump is the presumptive
Republican nominee with no remain-
ing opponents and with Republicans
AP Photo/Noah Berger
Protesters against Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump
climb on a car outside a Trump campaign rally on Thursday, in San Jose,
Calif. A group of protesters attacked Trump supporters who were leaving
the candidate’s rally in San Jose on Thursday night. A dozen or more
people were punched, at least one person was pelted with an egg and
Trump hats grabbed from supporters were set on fire on the ground.
coalescing around his candidacy;
In a democracy, the vote is the
Clinton is still in a heated contest voice. The best way to reduce the
with Bernie Sanders, who has given threat Trump poses is to register
no indication of giving up.)
and motivate people who share your
I understand that Trump represents view of the threat.
a clear and present danger, and hav-
It is easy to look at the throngs
ing a passionate response that encom- who support and exalt this man
passes rage and fear is reasonable.
and be discouraged, but don’t be. It
It is understandable to want to is easy to look at Republicans like
make one’s displeasure known.
Paul Ryan abandoning their princi-
But there is a line one dares not ples and selling their souls to fall in
cross, and that is the one of respond- line behind this man and be discour-
ing to violent rhetoric with violent aged, but don’t be. It is easy to see
actions.
the media fail miserably to counter
As I have said before, the Rev. Dr. Trump and his surrogates’ Gish-gal-
Martin Luther King Jr. said it best lop and be discouraged, but don’t be.
in his 1967 book Where Do We Go
These are the moments in which
From Here: Chaos or
the nation’s mettle
Community?, and he is
— and ideals — are
In a
worthy of quoting here
tested. I have a fun-
at length:
damental
that
democracy, although belief
“The
ultimate
America
weakness of violence the vote is was born and grew
is that it is a descend-
by violence and racial
the voice. subjugation, that
ing spiral, begetting
the very thing it seeks
although it has often
to destroy. Instead of diminishing stumbled and even regressed, that
evil, it multiplies it. Through vio- its ultimate bearing is toward the
lence you may murder the liar, but better.
you cannot murder the lie, nor estab-
Folks must be reminded that
lish the truth. Through violence you one demagogue cannot lead to a
may murder the hater, but you do not detour or a dismantling. There is an
murder hate. In fact, violence merely elevated plane of truth that loats
increases hate. So it goes. Returning a mile above Trump’s trough of
violence for violence multiplies vio- putrescence.
lence, adding deeper darkness to a
Trump and his millions of min-
night already devoid of stars. Dark- ions have replaced what they call
ness cannot drive out darkness; only “political correctness” with “ambi-
light can do that. Hate cannot drive ent viciousness.”
out hate: only love can do that.”
This won’t “make America great
You may feel activated by the again,” because the “again” they
cause of righteousness, but violence imagine harkens back to America’s
is most often a poor instrument for darkness. We are the new America
its implementation. Indeed, violence — more diverse, more inclusive,
corrodes righteousness. It robs it of its more than our ancestors could ever
essence.
have imagined.
The best way to direct passions is
Don’t invalidate that by allow-
not only with the bullhorn, but also at ing yourselves to be baited into
the ballot box.
brutishness
Hillary Clinton’s really good day
By GAIL COLLINS
New York Times News Service
H
illary Clinton made a great
speech last week. Not what
we were expecting, which was just
a sturdy slog through the summer.
Even though it was a policy
address on national security that cen-
tered on the listing of six points, it was
a super performance.
The bottom line was that Amer-
ica can choose her, or give the nuclear
codes to a guy no sane person would
put in charge of policing a parking lot.
And it drove the presumptive
Republican nominee nuts.
“After what she said about me today
in her phony speech, that was a phony
speech, that was a Donald Trump hit
job,” he howled to a rally in Califor-
nia. “I will say this! Hillary Clinton has
to go to jail, OK? She has to go to jail
— has to go! That was a phony hit job!
She’s guilty as hell!”
It was a little less controlled than
Trump’s Twitter response: “Bad per-
formance by Crooked Hillary Clinton!
Reading poorly from the telepromter!
She doesn’t even look presidential!”
But equally deep.
On Thursday, Clinton strode out
after a rendition of “Stars and Stripes
Forever,” which was a nice change
after months and months and months
of Katy Perry’s greatest hits. “Roar”
seemed like a good idea when Clin-
ton irst opened her campaign, but then
she got all those complaints about how
she was doing too much roaring. About
boring details. She managed to become
a candidate who was simultaneously
criticized for yelling and for putting
people to sleep.
But that was before. On Thursday,
standing in front of enough American
lags to make it seem like Banner Day
on the Home Shopping Network, Clin-
ton took on Trump’s history when it
came to foreign affairs. She was clear
and forceful and occasionally funny.
bizarre rants, personal feuds
“He says he has foreign
policy experience because he
and outright lies.”
ran the Miss Universe pag-
She then proceeded to
eant in Russia,” she sniped.
go into, um, details. Like his
Her friends have moaned
enthusiasm for a trade war,
forever that her sense of
and lirtation with the idea
humor doesn’t come across
of defaulting on the national
on stage. This week it
debt. Speaking to voters
emerged. And Trump did
who sometimes reject Dem-
say the thing about Miss
ocrats as lacking in patrio-
Universe.
tism, she asked, in effect,
Gail
Good as the speech was, it
what they were doing hang-
Collins
can’t be the end of the
ing around with a guy
conversation. While
who says America
Clinton’s experience Clinton was isn’t great.
as secretary of state
There’s no reason
clear and
is certainly a plus, her
this should stop with
longtime hawkishness forceful and foreign affairs. If Clin-
should be a minus. She
ton could do the same
needs to tell the coun- occasionally thing on the domes-
try what she’s learned
tic front, she could
funny.
about the limits to U.S.
pulverize Trump on
power, and if she isn’t
his insane tax plan,
forced to during this campaign, that’ll his wildly erratic positions on health
be one more thing we can hold against care and his complete absence of any
Donald Trump forever.
thoughts whatsoever about educa-
But you could see why this particu- tion. In the process, she could unroll
lar speech, which was really one large an agenda of her own that’s smart
thought about her Republican oppo- and responsible, but also large and
nent, was not going to be the venue exciting.
where she parsed over her own record.
Hillary Clinton is about to become
Making the case against Trump as a the irst woman ever to win a major
wildly dangerous threat to U.S. security party nomination for president, but the
is both easy and hard. It’s easy because getting there hasn’t been a whole lot
he’s said so many crazy things and hard of fun. Polls keep showing that vot-
because he’s usually also said the exact ers don’t like her. Sensible Americans
opposite.
worry that voters are shrugging off
A Washington Post fact-check on what should be career-shattering details
Clinton’s claim that Trump said “more about Trump’s background, like the fact
countries should have nuclear weapons, that he ran a sleazy continuing-educa-
including Saudi Arabia,” referred to an tion school that wheedled senior citi-
exchange with Anderson Cooper on zens out of their savings.
CNN that went in part like this:
He’s diverting, and a lot of peo-
Cooper: Saudi Arabia, nuclear ple seem prepared to look past almost
weapons?
anything for some entertainment and
Trump: Saudi Arabia, absolutely.
all-purpose anger. Clinton will never be
Cooper: You would be ine with as much fun to talk about.
But she’s always been a learner, and
them having nuclear weapons?
Trump: No, not nuclear weapons. ... this week suggests that after all these
“Donald Trump’s ideas aren’t just years, she can still become a better pub-
different — they are dangerously inco- lic speaker. Even if she doesn’t, she did
herent,” Clinton said. “They’re not a great job of reminding everyone that
even really ideas — just a series of there are more important things.