OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, JULY 28, 2016
Web People vs. Wall People
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
Think small
City Council’s library decision
is underwhelming
here is a proverb, sometimes attributed to Goethe, that is
useful to big thinkers. “Whatever you can do or dream
you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in
it.”
The spirit of that admoni- exceptionally appropriate
tion has been alive in Astoria retort.
over the past 25 years. Big
Said Herzig: “It’s the
thinkers — in our public council’s responsibility to
and private sectors — have give the foundation a clear
accomplished transforma- directive, and we have
tive projects.
failed to do that,” he said,
The
Astoria
Public apologizing to the library
Library decision from the foundation. “It’s our fail-
City Council on Monday ure, not yours. And I do
night was small thinking. apologize.”
Actually, the decision was
There have been discus-
so muddled it is not clear sions among knowledge-
where we are going.
able, experienced hands,
The greatest disappoint- about how to raise $8 mil-
ment in the council’s discus- lion privately for the library,
sion was the failure to grasp and Price knows that. But
the potential of private fund- just as Herzig notes, fund-
raising. It was, after all, an raisers do not make “asks”
extraordinary gift from a or approach funders such as
former mayor that launched foundations and charitable
this exploration many years trusts until there is a deined
ago.
project.
When Councilor Cindy
Within the murky direc-
Price criticized the library tion the council has deliv-
foundation for not leading ered, there is room for elab-
on fundraising, Councilor oration, and for exceptional
Drew Herzig delivered an private fundraising. Just ask.
T
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
New York Times News Service
es, we’re having a national
election right now.
Y
Yes, there are two parties run-
ning. But no, they are not the two
parties that you think.
It’s not “Democrats” versus
“Republicans.” This election is really
between “Wall People” and “Web
People.”
The primary focus of Wall People
is inding a president who will turn off
the fan — the violent winds of change
that are now
buffeting every
family — in
their workplace,
where machines
are
threaten-
ing white-col-
lar and blue-col-
lar jobs; in their
neighborhoods,
where so many
more
immi-
Thomas L.
grants
of
differ-
Friedman
ent religions,
races and cultures are moving in; and
globally, where super-empowered
angry people are now killing innocents
with disturbing regularity. They want a
wall to stop it all.
Wall People’s desire to stop change
may be unrealistic, but, in fairness,
it’s not just about race and class. It is
also about a yearning for community
— about “home” in the deepest sense
— a feeling that the things that anchor
us in the world and provide meaning
are being swept away, and so they
are looking for someone to stop that
erosion.
Wall People have two candidates
catering to them: Donald Trump, who
boasts that he is “The Man” who can
stop the winds with a wall, and Ber-
nie Sanders, who promises to stop the
winds by ending our big global trade
deals and by taking down “The Man”
— the millionaires, billionaires and
big banks. I don’t see how the country
could afford either man’s plans, but
they have a simple gut appeal, and
there is overlap between them.
Web People instinctively under-
stand that Democrats and Republi-
cans both built their platforms largely
in response to the Industrial Revolu-
tion, the New Deal and the Cold War,
but that today, a 21st-century party
needs to build its platform in response
to the accelerations in technology,
globalization and climate change,
which are the forces transforming the
workplace, geopolitics and the very
planet.
As such, the instinct of Web Peo-
ple is to embrace the change in the
pace of change and focus on empow-
ering more people to be able to com-
pete and collaborate in a world with-
AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
AP Photo/Evan Vucci
Democratic presidential candidate
Hillary Clinton arrives to speak to
volunteers at a Democratic party or-
ganizing event at the Neighborhood
Theatre in Charlotte, N.C., Monday.
Republican presidential candidate
Donald Trump calls on a report-
er during a news conference at
Trump National Doral, Wednesday,
in Tampa, Fla.
Everything
rides on the
coalition
that Clinton
assembles.
“Socialism was the wrong answer for
the industrial age, so it sure isn’t the
right answer for the information age”
— she is tacking toward Wall People.
She is opposing things she helped to
negotiate, like the Paciic trade deal,
and offering more beneits from gov-
ernment but refraining from telling
people the hardest truth: that to be in
the middle class, just working hard
and playing by the rules doesn’t cut
it anymore. To have a lifelong job,
you need to be a lifelong learner, con-
stantly raising your game.
To her credit, though, she chose a
great running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine, a
Web Person with a soul.
My hope is that, for the good of
the country, Republican Web People
will, over time, join the Democratic
Party and tilt it into a compassion-
ate, center-left Web party for the 21st
century. That would be a party that
is sensitive to the needs of working
people, appreciative of the anchor-
ing power of healthy communities,
but committed to capitalism, free
markets and open trade as the vital
engines of growth for a modern soci-
ety and to providing every American
with the learning tools to realize their
potential.
I don’t see any chance of the GOP
becoming a center-right party again
soon. The Tea Party, Trump and Fox
News have made its base too angry
and disconnected from reality.
So everything rides on the coa-
lition that Clinton assembles. If
America is to thrive in the 21st cen-
tury, we desperately need a coalition
that can govern smartly in this era of
rapid change. Clinton has a chance to
break not only the glass ceiling for
women, but also the rigid walls that
have divided our two parties. If she
can pull that off, it will make being
the irst woman president the second
most important thing she does.
out walls. In particular, Web People
understand that in times of rapid
change, open systems are always
more lexible, resilient and propul-
sive; they offer the chance to feel and
respond irst to change. So Web Peo-
ple favor more trade expansion, along
the lines of the Trans-Paciic Partner-
ship, and more managed immigration
that attracts the most energetic and
smartest minds, and more vehicles for
lifelong learning.
Web People also understand that
while we want to prevent another
bout of recklessness on Wall Street,
we don’t want to choke off risk-tak-
ing, which is the engine of growth and
entrepreneurship.
Because the GOP was out of the
White House for the last eight years,
the party’s base and leadership are the
least understanding of the world in
which we’re living. That is why the
GOP fractured irst and why some
Republican Web People, particularly
from the business world, are either
sitting this election out or voting for
Hillary Clinton.
Having been secretary of state,
Clinton has been touching the world.
She knows America has to build
its future on a Web People’s plat-
form, which was irst articulated by
Bill Clinton and, to this day, is best
articulated by him. But Hillary has
not always shown the courage of her
own, or her husband’s, convictions.
So, rather than take on Wall People
in her party — and saying to Sanders,
It’s time for self
defense as ires come
Banking on delusions of chaos
T
he driest place in the U.S.
— that’s what the Paciic
Northwest is between now
and, typically, sometime in
September. Even here in this
normally damp coastal zone
where we measure seasonal
rainfall in feet rather than
inches, this means residents
need to manage property
with an eye to ire safety.
This was most vividly
demonstrated by a ire in
the dune grass last month
in Surfside, Washington, on
the Long Beach Peninsula.
Despite some grass main-
tenance, an out-of-control
campire came within feet
of destroying oceanfront
houses.
Dune grass is a type of fuel
that dries out and is ready to
burn after less than an hour
of wind. Beach pines also
are prone to rapid ignition.
Gorse, Scotch broom, wild
berry canes and many other
types of local vegetation
enhance ire danger.
Our Columbia River coun-
ties have many homes min-
gled among beach grass,
shore pines and rural forests.
These homes are closely sur-
rounded by increasingly dry
vegetation.
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Most of us appreciate
New York Times News Service
the trees and plants we live
with, and are loath to make
ast year there were 352 mur-
ders in New York City.
changes, but rural residents
This was a bit higher than the num-
need to examine their home-
ber in 2014, but far below the 2,245
steads in light of wildire murders that took place in 1990, the
danger.
city’s worst year.
To create a “ire-wise”
fact, as measured by the murder
landscape, you must remem- rate, In New
York is now basically as safe
ber that the primary goal is as it has ever been, going all the way
fuel reduction with zones of back to the 19th century.
National crime statistics, and num-
increasing safety nearest your bers for all violent crimes, paint an only
home. Local ire departments slightly less cheerful picture. And it’s
just a matter of numbers; our big
can provide full details, but not
cities look and feel far safer than they
at a minimum homeowners did a generation ago, because they are.
of a certain age always have the
should create a well-irrigated People
sense that America isn’t the country
area encircling their struc- they remember from their youth, and in
ture for at least 30 feet on this case they’re right — it has gotten
much better.
all sides, providing space for
How, then, was it even possible for
ire suppression equipment Donald Trump to give a speech accept-
the Republican nomination whose
in the event of an emergency. ing
central premise was that crime is run-
Plantings should be limited ning rampant, and that “I alone” can
to carefully spaced low-lam- bring the chaos under control?
Of course, nobody should be sur-
mability plants.
prised to see Trump conidently assert-
More plants are appropri- ing things that are latly untrue, since
does that all the time — and never
ate outside this zone, but still he
corrects his falsehoods. Indeed, the big
should be kept low and tidy. speech repeated some of those golden
Selectively prune and thin oldies, like the claim that America is
the world’s most highly taxed country
all plants and remove highly (when we are actually near the bottom
among advanced economies).
lammable vegetation.
until now the false claims have
Now is the time to practice been But about
things ordinary voters can’t
some self-defensive vegeta- check against their own experience.
Most people don’t have any sense of
tion management.
Editorials that appear on this page are written by
Publisher Steve Forrester and Matt Winters, editor of the
Chinook Observer and Coast River Business Journal, or staff
members from the EO Media Group’s sister newspapers.
L
how their taxes compare with those
paid by Europeans or Canadians, let
alone how many jobs have been dis-
placed by Chinese competition. But
58 million tourists visited New York
last year; tens of millions more visited
other major cities; and of course many
of us live in or near those cities, and
ining a return to the (partly
see them every day. And
imagined) days of male
while there are, as there
breadwinners and stay-at-
always were, bad neighbor-
hoods and occasional vio-
home wives.
lent incidents, it’s hard to
Not incidentally, Mike
see how anyone who walks
Pence, Trump’s running
around with open eyes
mate, used to fulminate
could believe in the blood-
about the damage done by
soaked dystopian vision
working mothers, not to
Trump laid out.
mention penning an out-
Yet there’s no question
raged
attack on Disney in
Paul
that many voters — includ-
1999
for
featuring a mar-
Krugman
ing, almost surely, a
tially minded heroine in
majority of white men
its movie “Mulan.”
Our big
— will indeed buy into
But what are the
that vision. Why?
consequences
these
cities look changes in the of social
One answer is that,
according to Gallup, and feel far order? Back when
Americans always seem
crime was rising, con-
safer than servatives insistently
to believe that crime is
increasing, even when it
a connection to
they did a drew
is in fact dropping rap-
social change — that
idly. Part of this may be generation was what the whole
the wording of the ques-
early ’90s fuss over
tion: People may have
“family values” was
ago,
a vague, headline-fu-
about. Loose the bonds
because
eled sense that crime is
of traditional soci-
up this year even while
ety, and chaos would
they are. follow.
being aware that it’s
much lower than it used
Then a funny thing
to be. There may also be some ver- happened: Crime plunged instead
sion of the “bad things are happening of continuing to rise. Other indica-
somewhere else” syndrome we see in tors also improved dramatically —
consumer surveys, where people are for example, the teen birthrate has
far more positive about their personal fallen 60 percent since 1991. Instead
situation than they are about the econ- of societal collapse, we’ve seen what
omy as a whole.
amounts to a mass outbreak of societal
Again, however, it’s one thing to health. The truth is that we don’t know
have a shaky grasp on crime statistics, exactly why. Hypotheses range from
but something quite different to accept the changing age distribution of the
a nightmare vision of America that population to reduced lead poisoning;
conlicts so drastically with everyday but in any case, the predicted apoca-
experience. So what’s going on?
lypse notably failed to arrive.
Well, I do have a hypothe-
The point, however, is that in the
sis, namely, that Trump supporters minds of those disturbed by social
really do feel, with some reason, that change, chaos in the streets was sup-
the social order they knew is com- posed to follow, and they are all too
ing apart. It’s not just race, where the willing to believe that it did, in the
country has become both more diverse teeth of the evidence.
The question now is how many
and less racist (even if it still has a long
way to go). It’s also about gender roles such people, people determined to live
— when Trump talks about making in a nightmare of their own imagining,
America great again, you can be sure there really are. I guess we’ll ind out
that many of his supporters are imag- in November.