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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (March 21, 2015)
VIEWPOINTS Saturday, March 21, 2015 By ALEX CARR JOHNSON Writers on the Range Statue decorations — Jennifer Bush If it was your ancestor would you still be amused? Have some respect. The statues were erected to honor these icons that made history at the world-renowned Pendleton Round-Up. Show the statues the well de- served respect they earned. — Etta Conner Apparently no one in Pendleton has a sense of humor? It’s done in good spirit — not to be malicious. They’re costumes, they’re taken down after a holiday. No one’s tagging it or causing permanent damage. — Alex C. Thompson My kids love seeing it decorated! They get a good giggle every time. — Chantell Reid People should leave the statues alone, First impression is it’s tacky and tasteless. — Stephenie Barkley It is vandalism and vandalism is illegal. This is defacement of public property. — W.d. Coe If offended then go take it off. I’m Native and I wore green decorations, lol! —Rhonda Scott Why not dress up the madam? She may enjoy it. — Flora Estrada-Urias One of the great lessons of the Twitter age is that much can be summed up in just a few words. Here are some of this week’s takes. Tweet yours @Tim_Trainor or email editor@eastoregonian. com, and keep them to 140 characters. T his past fall, my friend Lauren asked me to speak to an English class she teaches at a small alternative school in western Colorado. She was encouraging these juniors and seniors to write a personal manifesto, and after hearing that I had created one myself a few years ago, she thought I’d be a perfect guest lecturer. But here’s the thing: My manifesto challenges assumptions of sexuality and gender and what passes for normal, and Lauren and I live in a rural town that, rumor has it, once had the world record for the highest number of churches per capita. It’s the kind of place where some people mine coal while others grow hay, and a lot of people hunt elk and wear cowboy boots. I try not to stereotype people based on WKHLUDSSHDUDQFH,ZHDUÀDQQHODQGKDYHD big beard and wear cowboy boots, too. But I know this community, and large segments of it are conservative and overwhelmingly Republican. One of the most prominent signs as you enter town is actually a trailer spray-painted with “Frack Obama.” The class consisted of six stone-faced WHHQDJHER\VVRPHZHDULQJFDPRXÀDJH others cross-armed behind hoodies. I started the class with a writing prompt: “Why are you angry? All the reasons big and small — why are you angry? Make a list or not. Offer an explanation, or not. Why are you angry?” $IWHU¿YHPLQXWHVGXULQJZKLFKWKH\ wrote furiously, I then asked: “If you had total power — superhero power — choose one thing you are mad about and explain how you would change it, and why.” $IWHUDQRWKHU¿YHPLQXWHV,VWRSSHG them and said: “This is a frustrating task, I know. You and I know that we don’t live Trillion-dollar fraudsters B Page 5A A manifesto can set you free Quick takes There are much bigger problems in the world. It’s completely harmless. It’s a life- less object. I’m pretty sure the statue could care less. East Oregonian y now it’s a Republican in the Affordable Care Act? Actual Party Tradition: Every year spending is coming in well below the party produces a budget expectations, and the Congressional WKDWDOOHJHGO\VODVKHVGH¿FLWV %XGJHW2I¿FHKDVPDUNHGLWV forecast for the next decade down but which turns out to contain a by 20 percent. Remember the trillion-dollar “magic asterisk” — a jeering when President Barack line that promises huge spending Obama declared that he would cuts and/or revenue increases, FXWWKHGH¿FLWLQKDOIE\WKHHQG but without explaining where the Paul money is supposed to come from. Krugman RIKLV¿UVWWHUP":HOODVOXJJLVK economy delayed things, but only But the just-released budgets Comment E\D\HDU7KHGH¿FLWLQFDOHQGDU from the House and Senate 2013 was less than half its 2009 majorities break new ground. level, and it has continued to fall. Each contains not one but two trillion- 6RQRRXWUDJHRXV¿VFDOPHQGDFLW\LV dollar magic asterisks: one on spending, neither historically normal nor bipartisan. one on revenue. And that’s actually an It’s a modern Republican thing. And the understatement. If either budget were to question we should ask is why. become law, it would leave the federal One answer you sometimes hear is government several trillion dollars deeper that what Republicans really believe is in debt than claimed, and that’s just in the that tax cuts for the rich would generate ¿UVWGHFDGH a huge boom and a surge in revenue, but You might be tempted to shrug this WKH\¶UHDIUDLGWKDWWKHSXEOLFZRQ¶W¿QG off, since these budgets will not, in fact, such claims credible. So magic asterisks become law. Or you might say that this are really stand-ins for their belief in the is what all politicians do. But it isn’t. The magic of supply-side economics, a belief PRGHUQ*23¶VUDZ¿VFDOGLVKRQHVW\LV that remains intact even though proponents something new in American politics. And that’s telling us something important about in that doctrine have been wrong about everything for decades. what has happened to half of our political But I’m partial to a more cynical spectrum. explanation. Think about what these So, about those budgets: Both claim budgets would do if you ignore the drastic reductions in federal spending. P\VWHULRXVWULOOLRQVLQXQVSHFL¿HGVSHQGLQJ Some of those spending reductions are cuts and revenue enhancements. What VSHFL¿HG7KHUHZRXOGEHVDYDJHFXWV you’re left with is huge transfers of income in food stamps, similarly savage cuts from the poor and the working class, in Medicaid over and above reversing ZKRZRXOGVHHVHYHUHEHQH¿WFXWVWRWKH the recent expansion, and an end to rich, who would see big tax cuts. And the Obamacare’s health insurance subsidies. simplest way to understand these budgets Rough estimates suggest that either plan is surely to suppose that they are intended would roughly double the number of to do what they would, in fact, actually do: Americans without health insurance. But both also claim more than a trillion dollars make the rich richer and ordinary families in further cuts to mandatory spending, poorer. which would almost surely have to come But this is, of course, not a policy out of Medicare or Social Security. What direction the public would support if it form would these further cuts take? We get were clearly explained. So the budgets no hint. must be sold as courageous efforts to It’s very important to realize that this HOLPLQDWHGH¿FLWVDQGSD\GRZQGHEW isn’t normal political behavior. The George — which means that they must include W. Bush administration was no slouch trillions in imaginary, unexplained savings. when it came to deceptive presentation Look, I know that it’s hard to keep up of tax plans, but it was never this blatant. WKHRXWUDJHDIWHUVRPDQ\\HDUVRI¿VFDO And the Obama administration has fraudulence. But please try. We’re looking EHHQUHPDUNDEO\VFUXSXORXVLQLWV¿VFDO at an enormous, destructive con job, and pronouncements. you should be very, very angry. OK, I can already hear the snickering, Ŷ but it’s the simple truth. Remember all the Paul Krugman joined The New York ridicule heaped on the spending projections Times in 1999. in a world where we have total power. We never will. So what’s the point of thinking about the ‘if’? It seems pointless to even contemplate. “But even though we will never be superheroes,” I went on, “we still have power to change the world. You can transform your anger into something that can convince people to make the change you wish to see. Convincing isn’t enough, though. You must also inspire people, too. “That is your manifesto.” We spent the next 15 minutes talking about two manifestos, with one being the collective works of Subcomandante Marcos, the public voice for the Zapatista indigenous rights movement of southern Mexico. For the last 20 years, Marcos has been informing the larger global audience about the struggles of the Zapatistas and the reasons why they continue to insist on autonomy from the Mexican government. The Zapatistas offer many lessons for largely peaceful social change movements, but Marcos, in particular, offers an example of someone writing from a place of immense anger in an elegant and even entertaining way. He convinces and inspires people who live far away as well as people already part of the Zapatista movement. The second manifesto I offered as an example was Larry Kramer’s “1,112 and Counting.” Kramer was a gay man living in New York City during the height of the AIDS epidemic. He saw his friends and family die all around him, while the city, state and nation did nothing to halt the deaths. He transformed his anger into a biting critique published in a publication called the New York Native on March 14, 1983. It helped inspire the gay community WRRUJDQL]HDQG¿JKWEDFNDJDLQVWWKH disease and a medical and political establishment that wasn’t taking action fast enough. With a few minutes OHIWRIFODVV,¿QDOO\WROG the high school boys why I was angry. As an “out” gay man, I was angry that people claimed gay people were “unnatural.” I stood at the center of the room and read my manifesto, “How to queer ecology,” to the class. It talked about same-sex pair-bonded geese and WKHÀXLGVH[XDOEHKDYLRU of dolphins. And it also described how natural it feels for me to love another man. Despite being out for the last 12 years, and married for the last two, it’s still just a little bit terrifying to say these things out loud. At the end of the hour, I thanked them for letting me join them for the day. That’s when Lauren and the boys began clapping. They clapped! And so, here’s another thing about writing your manifesto: If you can muster the courage to look into the face of your anger and own it, and if you can then transform that anger into a story that can move other people, you will have found your voice, and you will know what you need to do. Ŷ Alex Carr Johnson is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a column service of High Country News. He is a freelance writer in western Colorado. If you can muster the courage to look into the face of your anger and own it, you will have found your voice and what you need to do. The zero-sum moment N ational elections take place ¿WWKH]HURVXPFRQWRXUVRIWKH ZLWKLQDVSHFL¿FJOREDO moment. Progressives emphasize moment. In the 1990s, compassion less and redistribution there was a presumption that we more. Conservatives emphasize were living in an age of rapid entrepreneurial dynamism less and progress. Democracy was spreading. the threat of government elites more. Tyranny was receding. Asia was Electorates get a little uglier when booming. The European Union was faith in progress declines. Voters David EXLOGLQJ&RQÀLFWLQWKH0LGGOH across the spectrum get more cynical Brooks and distrustful. They are quicker to East was lessening. The world was Comment cumulatively heading toward greater perceive threats from The Other. pluralism, individualism, prosperity It’s rare to have major and freedom. realignments at a moment like this. Today it’s harder to have faith in Everybody is hunkered down and risk rapid progress. Democracy is receding. averse. Voters in this battened-down frame Autocrats like Vladimir Putin of Russia are of mind are willing to elect familiar faces marching. The European project is decaying. (better the devil you know). The Israeli, Economies are struggling. Reactionary American and European electorates have forces like the Islamic State and Iran are been remarkably stable over the past decade. winning. The Middle East is deteriorating. In Israel, for example, the overall vote that In this climate, the tone and focus of went to right-wing parties was stable from politics changes. Politics is less about win- this election to last; it’s just that the Likud win situations and more about zero-sum Party grabbed a big share of the nationalist situations. electorate. It is less about reforms that will improve Still, you do see some shifts. Extreme all lives and more about unadorned struggles parties rise, especially the ones that repel for power. Who will control the ground in supposed interlopers and oppose elite global places like Ukraine and Syria? Will Iran projects. We’re seeing that across the globe get the bomb? Will the White House or with the Tea Party, UKIP in Britain, National Congress grab power over treaties and Front on the right in France and Syriza on immigration policy? the left in Greece. At these moments, tough guys do well. Extreme parties rarely take power, Cooperative skills are less valued while EXWWKH\GRLQÀXHQFHSROLWLFVEHFDXVH confrontational skills are more valued. mainstream politicians have to co-opt them. Benjamin Netanyahu wins re-election in 0DLQVWUHDPSROLWLFLDQVKDYHWR¿JKWWZR Israel. The pugnacious Nicolas Sarkozy, of IURQWZDUVWKHRI¿FLDORQHDJDLQVWWKHLU all people, is staging a comeback in France. LGHRORJLFDORSSRQHQWVDQGWKHXQRI¿FLDORQH Putin is in his element. to silence, co-opt and crush the extremists on Barack Obama started out as a hope- their own side. and-change idealist, but he has had to This is what Netanyahu did in Israel. WRXJKHQWR¿WWKHWLPHV$QJHOD0HUNHOLV He didn’t literally renounce the idea of a the paradigmatic leader of the age: shrewd, two-state solution forevermore. He just said unemotional, nonidealistic, austere and that it would be too dangerous in the near interested in power. As John Kornblum, term as long as Islamist-style radicalism is the former U.S. ambassador to Germany, on the march. (A defensible proposition.) told George Packer of The New Yorker: “If Still, these comments and the ones on Israeli you cross her you end up dead. ... There’s a Arabs were blatant panders. He took Knesset whole list of alpha males who thought they seats away from parties to his right by would get her out of the way, and they’re all becoming more like them. now in other walks of life.” In general, the power of the cultural In these moments, right-leaning parties moment shapes the candidates. But tend to do well and have a stronger story occasionally there is a leader who can turn a to tell on national security. They speak negative popular mood into a positive one. the language of nationalism and cultural FDR and Reagan did this. But you have to cohesion. People who are economically be very, very good. insecure (and more likely to lean left) drop Ŷ out of the political process. David Brooks became a New York Times Both parties, though, change shape to Op-Ed columnist in September 2003.
