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Page A4
October 31. 2007
O pinion
Opinion articles do not
necessarily reflect or represent the
views o f The Portland Observer
A Great Nation, Poisoned by War
Paying a heavy price
for oil and empire
il ti
focusing n on
these vulnerable
The full-page Army ad in the minority parents, recruiters are
NAACP magazine reads, ‘’You nowadays even trolling home
made them strong. W ell make less shelters, their lures baited
them Army Strong.” Besides with offers of $20,(XX) to leave
uv
by
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W illiam A. Í C ' í ollins
VA, n i i i A
H
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f r v 'iic in o
Jilnrtlanb (fllhsvrvwrEstablished 1970
USPS 959-680
4 7 4 7 NE Martin Luther King, Jr. Bivd., Portland, OR 97211
Charles H. Washington
ichael Leighton
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O f f ic e M anager : Sharon Sperry
R eporter : Raym ond Rendlem an
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“home.”
Further, enlistment standards
have been lowered for intellec
tual capacity, emotional stabil
ity, and criminal record. These
are our own homegrown mer
cenaries, sifted largely from
among the poor.
And while such troops may
sound expensive to muster,
they're a bargain com pared
with the real live mercenaries
we hire for Iraq and A fghani
stan. American civilians over
there get paid like generals,
and foreign workers command
princely sums compared to the
s c ra b b ly farm s or b ru ta l
sweatshops back home. Like
the Romans and British be
fore us, our imperial military
has become totally dependent
on
p riv a te
w o rk e rs .
Halliburton and Blackwater
are the new Hessians.
L ocally a heroic-looking
young man has just returned
from early boot camp to start
his senior year in high school.
He wants to give something
“back” to his country. His dad's
not worried. After all, he sur
vived war in his native El Salva
dor. His son probably will sur
Smoke around your children and
they could inhale
equal to 102 packs
of cigarettes
by age 5.
vive too. Maybe. Battlefield care
is surely outstanding now, and
only 3,800 troops have actually
died at the front. Unfortunately,
we don't keep such close tabs
on the wounded. Too depress
ing.
If we did publish true figures
of the emotionally maimed or
the economically disabled, it
might discourage some of our
potential cannon fodder from
Expo. An impromptu peace
dem onstration ensued, where
the vets discovered that the
recruiters were not soldiers at
all, but civilians looking m ili
tary. Such is our shortage of
troops.
For Iraqis, of course, the war
is infinitely worse. Wedon'teven
count their casualties. We just
assume that everyone we kill is
an al-Qaida “suspect.” Iraqi
This poisonous oppressing
o f another country is quietly
doing its insidious work on
our souls.
enlisting. That in turn could un
dermine the $700 million we
spend each year on recruiters
and the $583 million for adver
tising and promotion.
But even recruiting has now
gone mercenary. At the Vet
erans for Peace convention in
St. Louis this summer, a group
o f Iraq vets stum bled upon an
army recruiting team at the
adjacent A frican A m erican
tagon and the Veterans Ad
m inistration for data on who
will be returning in need of
care. U n fo rtu n a te ly , such
recordkeeping conflicts with
a W hite H ouse p o lic y of
downplaying the wounded, so
as not to sap enthusiasm for
the battle.
And now, verifying what we
already knew in our hearts, Alan
Greenspan, of all people, has
confirmed that the war is actu
ally just about oil. No kidding.
Good thing our potential high
school recruits don’t read the
financial pages. They might be
gin to wonder just what it is
they’re giving “back” to their
country.
This poisonous oppressing of
anothercountryisquietly doing
its insidious work on our souls.
W e’re becoming hardened to
dead and dying foreign civilians,
hom eless refugees, M uslim
bashing, and destroyed cultures.
Such forsaking of conscience is
a heavy price for a little more oil
and empire.
wounded are simply assumed to
die of their injuries in the privacy
of their own battered homes.
This is probably not a bad guess,
since we have contrived to de
molish their hospitals and water
purification plants, and to chase
their doctors abroad.
O ur own wounded remain
William A. Collins is a
nearly as uncounted. G over form er state representative
nors and veterans officials and a form er mayor o f
continually plead with the Pen Norwalk, Conn.
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No Surprise on South wick Vote
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Smith always sides with Bush on judges
TOBACCO
ANO EDUCATION
PROGRAM
Paid for by the Oregon Department of Human Services
by
J eff M erkley
THE
SPINA COLUMN
An ongoing series of questions and answers about Amenca’s natural healing profession
Dr. Billy R. Flowers
Part 10. Fatigue: A cure for people sick
and tired of being of being sick and tired.
: I seem to be tired a lot lately.
Does that mean I need iron?
Q
A : The most common reason
/ » p a t i e n t s come intoouroffice
is because of some type of pain.
But many of these people are also
suffering from fatigue. Fatigue
that makes the eyes hum slows
down the healing process and
makes you wonder why you don't
feel as well as you used to. Obvi
ously, there can be many causes
of fatigue. Diet is certainly one of
them. It’s a subject w e’d be happy
to discuss with you in detail.
Another cause, however is often
stress. Many of you have prob
ably heard of the “Fight Or Flight” rested, telling us they just had
syndrom e. W hen the body is their best night’s sleep in ages. If
stressed, it responds with a com you think the stress of everyday
bat-ready posture. In analyzing life might be wearing you down
many such patients’ x-rays, we find and preventing your body from
the head angled forward and the warding off illnesses, call usfor an
back arched in this highly-stressed appointment. Or if there are any
position. AfterChiropractic adjust other questions you might have
ment, this condition is often vastly about your health, just call us at
improved. Patients come back well- the phone number below.
Flowers' Chiropractic Office
2124 NE Hancock,
Portland Oregon 97212
Phone: (5 0 3 ) 287-5504
It isn’t surprising
that Gordon Smith has
given the thumbs-up to
another one of Bush’s
judicial nominees.
S m ith's vote last
week to confirm Judge
Leslie Southwick to the
Fifth Circuit Court of
Appeals is very trou
bling because of Southwick’s
history on the Mississippi Court
of Appeals, routinely deciding
against plaintiffs in cases in
volving racial discrimination, in
jured workers, and consumers.
Southwick has built his judi
cial career on denying justice to
workers and minorities. His de
cisions include one reinstating a
white employee who was fired
for using a vulgar racial epithet
in reference to a black co
worker. He also joined a court
opinion which found that a
m other’s sexual orientation
alone was grounds for denying
her custody of her children.
When the President packs
the bench with judges like
Southwick, he pits
the g o v ern m en t
ag a in st the very
people it should be
serving.
Gordon Smith has
voted in favor of ev
ery c o n tro v ersial
nominee to the fed
eral bench that Bush
has offered during his term in
office. They include J. Leon
Holmes, U.S. District Court for
the Eastern District of Arkan
sas who as past president of
Arkansas Right to Life wrote
that “concern for rape victims is
a red herring because concep
tions from rape occur with the
same frequency as snowfall in
Miami.”
He voted fo r C h arles
Pickering to the Fifth Circuit
C o u rt o f A p p eals.
Like
Southwick, Pickering also had a
very checkered past on civil-
rig h ts issu es. He fav o red
strengthening Mississippi’s laws
against interracial m arriage,
appealed for leniency i n a cross
burning case, and personally
o p p o sed the D em ocratic
P a rty ’s
in te g ra tio n
of
Mississippi’s national conven
tion delegation.
Smith backed Bush on the
nomination of Miguel Estrada to
D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals
and William Pryor to the I Ith
C ircu it C ourt o f A ppeals.
Estrada had a long history of
opposition to worker’s rights,
civil rights and the environment;
and Pryor called the Voting
Rights Act an “affront to feder
alism,” opposing a provision that
protects minority-voting rights.
Like 90 percent of the votes
he casts in D.C., Smith is in
lockstep with President Bush,
but way out of step with the
people he represents. He had a
chance to take a stand for fair
treatm ent of all Americans.
Instead, he stood up for the kind
of divisive politics that is tearing
America apart.
Jeff Merkley is the Oregon
Speaker of the House and a
Democratic candidate for the
U.S. Senate seat held hy Re
publican Gordon Smith.