Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Tuesday, January 19, 2016 ‘I have a dream’ This is the conclusion of the sSeech deliYered Ey the 5eY 0artin /uther .ing -r on the steSs of the /incoln 0emorial in :ashington '& $ug 8 1 say to you today, my friends, WKDWLQVSLWHRIWKHGLI¿FXOWLHV and frustrations of the moment I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal.” I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor’s lips are presently dripping with the words of I LQWHUSRVLWLRQDQGQXOOL¿FDWLRQZLOO be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plains and the crooked places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all ÀHVKVKDOOVHWLWWRJHWKHU This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day. This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning: My country, ’tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty, Of thee I sing: Land where my fathers died, Land of the pilgrims’ pride, From every mountain-side Let freedom ring. And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania! Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado! Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California! But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia! Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee! Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring. When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God almighty, we are free at last!” OTHER VIEWS Crackpots in cowboy hats, and Congress M Years of no growth Founded October 16, 1875 KATHRYN B. BROWN DANIEL WATTENBURGER Publisher Managing Editor JENNINE PERKINSON TIM TRAINOR Advertising Director Opinion Page Editor OUR VIEW should be an alarm Residents of Harney County have of the land is controlled by the been described as the hostages of the federal government, those policy changes, along with stricter grazing armed protesters who took over the restrictions, increased regulation Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and the ever-present threat of Jan. 2. environmental lawsuits that attend By most accounts the protesters, any dealing with government largely out-of-state agitators, agencies have huge impacts. have harassed and generally run “It’s continued roughshod rules and over the local regulations that community for County Judge everything three weeks and Steven Grasty said do to make it more have worn out their welcome. the job losses in the GLI¿FXOWWRPDNH a living, to But the community have pay your bills, government land educate your management led to a general kids, pay your policies that at feeling of despair. mortgage and least partially lead a good life,” underpin the (They) can no retired rancher protest have longer depend Bill Wilber said. constrained the County Judge Harney County on the natural Steven Grasty economy for 40 years. resources jobs that said the job losses the community Once upon once sustained the in have led to a a time, Harney general feeling County’s county. of despair. His economy was friends, neighbors strong. Thirty-one and their families can no longer percent of the jobs, 768 in all, were depend on the natural resource jobs in the wood products industry. But since 1978, that number has dropped that once sustained the county. Many of those jobs have been to 6, according to a recent report IURPWKH2UHJRQ2I¿FHRI(FRQRPLF replaced by lower -paying service sector jobs supporting tourists and Analysis. the large contingent of government And while the rest of the state workers who manage the public increased jobs 74 percent since lands. the late 1970s, the number of jobs Government employment now in Harney County dropped by 10 accounts for 40 percent of the percent. Since 1980, when the jobs in the county. Those jobs are population was 8,314 and the job welcomed, and are vital to the losses began, the county has lost community. In many cases, those nearly 1,200 people. “Relative to the late 1970s — just employees are long time residents with deep local ties. before the state went into the severe Still, there is a sense that early ’80s recession and timber industry restructuring — the number something has been lost. “We believe the wealth of a nation of jobs today in Harney County is is based on its natural resources,” 10 percent below back then,” Josh Grasty said. “We’ve lost access Lehner, the analyst who prepared to natural resources, in particular, the report, said. “Clearly, that is a really long time with essentially no timber.” growth.” The partner that once encouraged A lot of things have changed these enterprises has grown distant since the 1970s. The timber industry and unresponsive. has restructured, and there’s more Sooner or later the protesters will automation in the mills. So, not all of decamp the refuge and life in Harney the wood product job losses can be County will return to normal. attributed to federal logging policies. But there and in a hundred places But community leaders and across the West, they will wait for residents say that in a county the federal government to loosen its where more than 70 percent grip. Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board of Publisher Kathryn Brown, Managing Editor Daniel Wattenburger, and Opinion Page Editor Tim Trainor. Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not necessarily that of the East Oregonian. whites kicked them off. This week ost of the ranchers I know the Paiutes told the Bundy gang to are decent folks, men and go away, and said they looked to the women of a few well-chosen federal government as protectors of words, slow to rouse, distrustful of their cultural artifacts. a show horse on four legs or two. “It just rubs me in the wrong way And then there’s the armed gang who that we have a bunch of misinformed seized an Oregon bird sanctuary — people in here,” said Charlotte Y’all Qaeda, as the twittersphere has dubbed them. Timothy Rodrique, the tribal chairwoman. “They’re not the original owners.” The leader, Ammon Bundy, is the Egan It’s beyond the historical literacy son of Cliven Bundy, the deadbeat Comment of the anti-public-lands crowd rancher and Fox News hero who to understand that. But they do still owes more than $1 million in understand the greater stakes. “The idea is unpaid grazing fees. The elder Bundy says power,” said Ryan Payne, another one of the he doesn’t recognize the government. The occupiers in Oregon. “Land is power.” younger Bundy recognized it enough to get Let’s talk about that power. The media DIHGHUDOORDQJXDUDQWHHIRUKLVÀHHWUHSDLU shorthand for this staged event is an outdated business in the rugged sprawl of Phoenix. stereotype of a Sagebrush Rebellion. In Ammon Bundy says God drove him to truth, an overwhelming EUHDNLQWRWKHRI¿FHVRIDQ majority of Westerners agency that works on behalf enjoy their public lands of pileated woodpeckers, for all the things that the yellow warblers and other federal government protects avian wonders. Bundy’s for them — recreation, not leaving, he says, until wildlife, history, open land that we own — that is, space, clean water. every American citizen — The 47 million bird is taken from us and given watchers in this country to some unnamed private spend $40 billion a year entity. to follow creatures whose Yes, it’s comical — lives are dependent on white privilege mixed federal wildlife refuges. with a “Hee Haw” parody. Imagine if a bunch The only thing Bundy and of birders, lathered in his fellow burglars have sunscreen, their heads accomplished thus far is FRYHUHGLQÀRSS\KDWV to leave behind enough — Charlotte Rodrique, took over a federal facility evidence for prosecutors Paiute Tribe chairwoman to protest the innumerable WR¿OHQXPHURXVFULPLQDO predations of wildlife charges against them. habitat by cattle ranchers. But this Gang That Can’t Birders generate 660,000 jobs, through Protest Straight is not far removed from a trips and retail sales, according to the Fish better-dressed crowd in Congress pushing and Wildlife Service. By contrast, grazing for radical change in the nation’s public land allotments on federal public land number a endowment. The locked-and-loaded crazies bit more than 20,000. For those ranchers, the in the Oregon high desert are using the same language as Republican legislators who want deal is a steal — about 90 percent cheaper than the market rate on private land in 16 to take away an American birthright. Western states. We subsidize the ranchers, On Wednesday, leading Republicans while a majority of our public land users in Washington expressed sympathy for generate hundreds of thousands of jobs, and the ideas behind the criminal takeover. never threaten to kill a forest ranger. “You have a frustration that they feel the That’s why only a handful of ranchers federal government is not listening to them anymore,” said Representative Raúl Labrador — Cliven Bundy being the best-known culprit — refuse to pay what most others do. of Idaho, a Tea Party favorite. But why, then, the push to privatize our great The goal of Labrador and other far-right open spaces? It goes back to power. politicians from the West is similar to the Teddy Roosevelt framed the struggle in demands of the Bundy gang. Earlier this year terms of the people against the exploiters. a group led by Representative Rob Bishop, It was Roosevelt who created the wildlife the Utah Republican who is chairman of refuge in Oregon, angering white squatters. the House Natural Resources Committee, The Supreme Court twice upheld the right of announced plans to “develop a legislative the government to protect the high desert. framework for transferring public land to The extremists, in Congress and the snows local ownership and control.” of Oregon, want to return to a 19th century %LVKRSVDLGKHZDQWHGWR¿QGDZD\ world where blunt force — against Indians, “to return these lands back to their rightful wildlife, the public good — prevails. It’s a owners.” It’s the identical language used fantasy, costumed in western wear, except by the militants. “We have research teams ¿QGLQJRXWZKRWKLVODQGZDVWDNHQIURPDQG that the guns are real. Ŷ who it needs to be sent back to,” said one of Timothy Egan worked for 18 years as a the occupiers, Jon Rizheimer writer for The 1ew