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April 14, 1999
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your letter» to: Editor. Reader Response, P.Q. Box 3X 37, Portland. OR 9 7 2 0 8 .
(¡J lje ^ o r t l a n h
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Email: P diobservaaolxom
Demanding A Moratorium On
Police And Prisons
B y R on D aniels
Caving into the conservative tide
-which swept across the country over
the last tw o decades, ev en some
dem ocrats, including President W il­
liam Jefferson Clinton, began to ad­
vocate the m isguided policies w hich
have fueled the disastrous crisis o f
police brutality and m isconduct af­
flicting the Black com m unity and
com m unities o f color. Indeed, it was
C linton’s O mnibus C rim e Bill ot
1994 w hich provided the federal
funds for 100,000 more police offic­
ers to be deployed in local com m uni­
ties nationwide. It is im portant to
recall that President C linton initially
cam paigned on a pledge to provide
som e 60 billion in funds for an eco­
nomic stim ulus package" to rebuild
and repair roads, bridges and infra­
structure in urban areas. A s the cam ­
Deadline fo r all submitted materials:
Articles .Friday, 5:00 pm Ads: Monday, 12:00pm
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unless the client has purchased the com position o f such ad. © 1996 THE
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N ew York, NY, and The W est Coast Black Publishers Assoc iation • Serving
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T hank Y ou F or R eading T he P ortland O bserver
>r To The Editor:
“The Reality of Job Injury”
Senator Derfler's article on Febru­
ary 24,“W orkers' Compensation (WC)
R eform .. Reducing on the Job Injuries
and Deaths” shows a legislator’s lack o f
understanding o f the reality o f being
injured on-the-job in Oregon.
In citing $61,000 as a possible sig­
nificant ‘'aw ard'’ for losing a thumb and
a finger. Senator Derfler falls prey to the
idea o f an injured worker "winning"
something. Many people think o f work­
ers’ Compensation as a game where one
side wins and one side loses. Employers
cheat a little on job descriptions to save
money on premiums, doctors do a little
over-billing and insurance companies
delay and deny claims until the injured
worker accepts a nickel on the dollar.
Im agine trying to d n n k a glass o f
w ater or com bing your daughter’s
hair w ithout a thum b and a finger Is
that w orth $61,000?
Imagine having necessary surgery
for a job injury delayed because no
doctor will touch you until the billing
arrangements are made. Imagine then
losing your job because you had the
courage to file a claim when you were
Editorial Articles Do Not Necessarily
Reflect Or Represent The Views O f
(Cite )Jnrtlaui> ©baeruer
injured at work. Imagine then being
unemployed because o f your disability.
Imagine going into debt for years with
no offers o f retraining or "light duty”
work. Imagine facing years o f health
problems, depression, anger and being
ostracized by friends and coworkers.
Imagine getting back to work on your
own, in a new job that pays about 40%
less than yourpreinjuryjob. These aren’t
imaginations, these are the realities o f
being injured on-the-job.
$61,000 doesn ’ t begin to help with
w hat a m aim ed w orker requires to
resum e an active, healthy and pro­
ductive life.
A fter meeting with, and hearing
the stories o f m any injured workers.
I’ve learned that Oregon W orkers’
Com pensation serves the business
com m unity and the insurance indus­
try first and foremost. I have yet to
meet the injured worker who wouldn' t
trade their “ aw ard" for being w hole
again. This m ay be a political game
to some, but for m ost o f the injured
w orkers. Senator D erfler’s W orkers
Com pensation is a living nightm are
paign w om on, the figures for the
stimulus package were reduced from
60 billion to 30 billion, 15 billion and
finally to zero. H aving prom ised a
stim ulus package w hich was in tact
desperately needed to generate jobs
in urban America, once in office,
Clinton abandoned his prom ise in
favor o f debt control and deficit re­
duction — policies designed to have
an imm ediate im pact on the fortunes
o f those on Wall Street as opposed to
poor and w orking people.
In effect the rich and the super-
rich received debt control, deficit
reduction and tax incentives w hile
people o f color and poor and w ork­
ing people, those at the bottom o t the
social and econom ic ladder in this
society, received a “liberal dose o f
social control and containm ent in the
form o f more police, tougher sen-
Weapons
B y M arian W right E delman
In a recent paper written for a new
group. Business Leaders for Sensible
.
Priorities, Dr. Lawrence Korb, who
was an Assistant Secretary ofD efense
under Ronald Reagan, tells us that the
United States has spent over $2 tril­
lion on national security since the end
o f the Cold War. Korb estimates that
we could cut $40 billion a year from
our defense budget and still maintain
the m ost powerful military in the
world. Can you imagine the weapons
w e could buy for $40 billion? 1
can...w eapons agamst preventable
children’s diseases and hunger, against
poor education and substandard hous­
ing, and against violence and hope­
le ssn e s s in th e n e ig h b o rh o o d s,
schools, and homes o f this country.
B usiness Leaders for Sensible
Priorities is taking its case to the
people. W ith a 4-year, m ulti-m illion
dollar national issues marketing cam ­
paign, they are seeking to redefine
the national debate on federal spend­
ing priorities. The m em bership o f
this group includes businesses large
and sm all, m ade up o f hard-headed,
bottom -line businessm en who rec­
ognize that A m erica’s national secu­
rity depends on educating our chil­
dren, m aking our com m unities safe,
and providing health care for our
fam ilies in addition to keeping our
national defense strong. Companies
such as Ben & Jerry’s, W orking As­
sets, N ew m an’s ow n, banks, pub­
lishers, insurance com panies, food
m anufacturers, and pharmaceutical
c o m p an ie s, am ong o th ers, have
jo in ed w ith retired adm irals and gen­
erals in a cam paign to bring the truth
to you. the voting public, through
radio and television advertising, talk
shows, the Internet, and a nationwide
bus tour. They hope to visit with
unions, civic organizations, PTAs,
youth, business people, social ser­
vice advocates, and elected officials.
I agree w ith the group’s Director
o f C onstituency G roup Relations
V irginia W itt when she says that we
must m ake certain "that every dollar
spent on defending our country is
sp en t w isely . In to d a y ’s global
econom y, every dollar spent to edu­
cate American children and give them
the skills they need to lead our nation
in the next century is a dollar in­
vested in keeping A m erica strong
and safe for the future.”
This unique joining o f American
business leaders, who understand
w hat it takes to run a profitable busi­
ness and the foolishness o f waste,
with retired soldiers, officers, and
senior m ilitary advisers, who know
w hat is needed to m aintain a strong
national defense and take care ofour
troops, has com e together to m ake
case not only to the Congress
l their
------------
and the policy m akers who spend our
. ■ 1 A. tax J-11«—
, I*..*
national
dollars,
but nlo/v
also fzv to irx_
in ­
form you - the public — w hen and
w here w e are failing as a nation.
A nation is no better, no stronger,
and no more honorable and moral
than its people. Remember, it is our
money the Pentagon is spending. And
it is our children who are facing the
new millenium, tar too many still not
imm unized against preventable dis­
ease and suffering from easily-cur-
able earaches and toothaches their
uninsured working parents cannot af­
ford to treat. It is our children w ho are
skipping meals and becoming hom e­
less in greater and greater numbers
tencing, the death penalty and the
prison-jail industrial com plex. In re­
ality the m oderate-centralist "new
D em ocrat" policies o f Bill C linton,
w hich w ere calculated to steal the
law and order issue from the R epub­
licans, contributed to the stagnation
and underdevelopm ent in the ghet­
tos, barrios and reservations. These
policies helped to spaw n conditions
for the elicit econom y o f drugs, w ith
its attendant violence and fratricide,
to explode w ithin our com m unities.
These policies coupled with the com ­
plicity o f the Central Intelligence
A gency (C IA ) in the im port o f crack
cocaine into inner-city urban areas
had a disastrous im pact on com m u­
nities o f color.
Havingcreatedtheproblem through
political opportunism, misguided poli­
cies and the outright abandonment o f
communities o f color, the "W ar on
Drugs" and aggressive policing meth­
ods became an integral part o f the plan
to control and contain our communi­
ties. Our communities were compelled
to suffer“dreams deferred” while gov­
ernment policies aided the bosses and
bankers on Wall Street to accumulate
obscene levels o f wealth. In this sce­
nario legions ofour young people were
destined to becom e the hum an fodder
for the prison-jail industrial com ­
plex. O ur challenge, as we fight for
police reform and accountability, is
to attack the root causes o t the crises
afflicting our com m unity. We must
not only insist on new and more
hum an paradigm s o f policing, we
m ust dem and a m oratorium on the
deploym ent o f m ore police in our
com m unities and an end to the con­
struction o f more prisons’
because ofthe new welfare legislation
passed by the Congress we elected
and signed into law by the President
we elected. It is our children who are
hom e alone or in poor-quality day
care w e can barely afford because
quality, affordable child care is out ot
reach for too many w orking families.
It is ourchildren who are not prepared
to learn and succeed w hen they enter
schools staffed by teachers and prin­
ciples who expect them to fail, and
shrug when low expectations are ful­
filled. And it is our children who are
not safe in our schools, or on our
streets, or in our homes.
It’s up to us - each one o f us - to
stand for children and m ake our
voices heard. It’s tim e to say N O to
any more $600 toilet seats and $8,000
door hinges on the P entagon’s shop­
ping lists. It's tim e to say YES to our
children and to our future.
To find out when the Business Lead­
ers for Sensible Priorities bus tour is
coming near your town, you can call
them at 202-543-1604 or visit them at
virginia^ businessleaders.org. and to
find out what you can do today for
children and to help realign our na­
tional spending priorities, call Stand
For Children at 1-800-643-4032 or
visit their Website, www.stand.org and
theChildren's Defense Fund's Website
at www.childrensdefense.org. Stand
with us on June 1,1999. in your com­
munity to make sure every child is
ready for school and ready to learn.
Yes! Its your time! You couldn't
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American Family Mutual Insurance.
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L atter To The Editor:
T he M u ltnom ah C ounty ju ro rs
w ho recen tly retu rn ed a punitive
dam age verdict against Phillip M or­
ris reach ed th eir decisio n after very
ca refu lly w eig h in g the evidence
presen ted d u rin g the m onth-long
trial. C ritics o f the v erd ic t should
acquaint them selv es w ith som e o f
the evid ence, as describ ed in m any
n ew spaper accounts. T his c o u ra ­
geous d ecisio n by tw elve ordinary
citizen s, rep resen tin g the co llec­
tive w isdom ju d g m en t o f o u r co m ­
m unity, dem onstrates that o u r civil
ju stic e system is the greatest m eans
ev er d evised for b ringing about
p o sitiv e social ch an g e in the face
o f co rp o rate refu sal to accept re­
sponsibility.
As for the am ount o f punitive
dam ages assessed, 60% o f which
must by law go to O regon Crime
V ictim s A ssistance Fund, the jury
heard evidence that Phillip M orris’
dom estic tobacco business alone has
a net worth o f $17 billion. The
am ount assessed by the jury is less
than 14 o f 1% o f this value, which is
equivalent to imposing a fine o f about
$80 on someone who has $ 17,000.
Sincerely,
Todd Bradley
All Your Protection Under One Roof.
American Family
SSfÄÄSfÄStiF’ia»
Mutual insurance Company and its Substd.anes, Mad.son, Wl 53783-0001 wwwamfam.com