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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 23, 2016)
VIEWPOINTS Saturday, January 23, 2016 Quick takes By ANDREW GULLIFORD Writers on the Range So that’s why they were in town. Cool. I saw the aftermath sitting there. Wondered if someone forgot to open a vent when unloading it! — Kalista Schuster County guarantees EOTEC loan You would think that if the city of Hermiston and Umatilla County are going to cover the shortfall that we could make requirements that the work be done with all local contractors instead of out of Wash- ington. — Kalista Schuster Easy to pledge other people’s money. — Sharon Gaines Minimum wage Small businesses will go out of business, people will lose their jobs and the cost of living is going to increase everywhere. — Gina L Koskela How sad, to divide up the state like that. Oregon needs a $15 minimum wage and it needs it now. We must stand together! — Jack Davis 5aising the minimum wage signi¿cantly like this suggests it would wind up leaving a depressing number of lower level job employees jobless, as hours and help would be cut back to compensate. — Carrie Brooke Campbell-Turk Why are the lawmakers in Washington and Oregon so ignorant of reality? If they force business to raise the dollar per hour wage it will cause the business to go bank- rupt then everyone will be out of a job. — Diane Kincaid Fowler 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. Page 5A Justice in the West has a double standard Mythbusters bend tanker — Tisha Horton East Oregonian I n Boston over 200 years ago, a group of American patriots dressed and painted like Indians smashed crates and dumped tea into the city’s harbor. In today’s American West, protesters ride their ATVs into publicly owned canyons to protest federal restriction of motorized access, and more recently, grazing-fee opponents forcibly “occupy” the desks of wildlife biologists. In a different spirit of protest not so long ago, a young man quietly disrupted the sale of oil and gas leases to save two national parks from industrial development. For centuries, protesters committed to their causes have broken the law and changed the United States, sometimes for the better. But to earn a place in American history, I think protesters must be willing to accept their punishment. Justice must also be meted out evenly, and that has not been the case in the West. In May 2014, San Juan County Commissioner Phil Lyman and Monticello City Councilman Monte Wells encouraged owners of all-terrain vehicles to come to Blanding, Utah. They asked supporters to help them ride through Recapture Canyon, where locals had built an illegal trail through ancient archaeological sites. The Bureau of Land Management had closed the area to motorized use in 2007, in an effort to prevent motorized vehicles from doing more damage to cultural artifacts. Some years earlier, in 2008, college student Tim DeChristopher walked into a federal auction of oil and gas leases and took up wooden paddle #70. In an effort to halt drilling near the boundaries of Arches and Canyonlands national parks, he effectively rendered the sale moot by bidding $1.8 million for 14 leases that he never intended to purchase. For this act of civil disobedience, DeChristopher was convicted of a felony, sentenced to two years in prison, and ¿ned $10,000. The prosecutor said piously, “The rule of law is the bedrock of our civilized society, not acts of ‘civil disobedience’ committed in the name of the cause of the day.” Yet U.S. District Judge Dee Benson stated that if it were not for DeChristopher’s “continuing trail of statements” after the auction, in which he justi¿ed his actions, he might have plea-bargained and avoided prosecution. It is worth noting that the Obama administration eventually dismissed 87 of the 116 oil and gas leases in question, which had been offered by the Bush administration, citing the wilderness value of public land adjacent to two popular national parks. Nonetheless, the judge threw the book at DeChristopher, who served 21 months in a Colorado prison for his climate-change activism. He has since co-founded the environmental group Peaceful Uprising. A different judge in Utah showed a great deal more tolerance when ruling on the illegal ATV ride into Recapture Canyon. Lyman’s sentence: 10 days in a county jail in St. George, Utah, payment of a $1,000 ¿ne, and probation for three years. The two men were also ordered to pay $96,000, payable over several years, in restitution for damaging government property. Unhappy with his mild sentence, Lyman recently announced that he plans to appeal the judge’s verdict. Ten days in jail for Lyman, 21 months for DeChristopher. A $1,000 ¿ne for Lyman and $10,000 for DeChristopher. The bedrock of American law seems not to be all that solid in Utah’s red-rock canyon country. The same U.S. Attorney’s Of¿ce in Utah that insisted on making an example out of DeChristopher to “deter others from entering a path of criminal behavior” issued only a slap on the wrist for an armed ATV invasion on public land that challenged The anxieties of impotence I percent of Americans, with n 1936 George Orwell wrote majorities of both parties, a magni¿cent essay called believe their side has been “Shooting an Elephant.” losing more. Orwell had been working as a These days people seem British police of¿cer in Burma, to underestimate their own enforcing colonial rule. An power or suffer from what elephant had gone “must,” Giridharadas calls the “anxiety broken its chains, trampled of impotence.” some homes and killed a man. David Sometimes when groups As Orwell walked, gun in Brooks feel oppressed, they organize hand, toward the elephant, a Comment by coming up with crowd of more than 2,000 concrete reform proposals Burmese gathered behind to empower themselves. him. They hated him, but The Black Lives Matter it would be a diverting movement is doing this. spectacle to see an elephant But in other cases shot and they could use the the feeling of absolute meat. Orwell didn’t want powerlessness can to shoot the poor creature, corrupt absolutely. As whose “must,” or frenzied psychological research state, had passed and who has shown, many people was peacefully eating who feel powerless come to feel grass. But he felt the pressure of the crowd behind him. They’d laugh at him unworthy, and become complicit in their own oppression. Some exaggerate if he didn’t kill the thing. “I was only an absurd puppet pushed the weight and size of the obstacles in front of them. Some feel dehumanized, to and fro by the will of those yellow forsaken, doomed and guilty. faces behind,” Orwell wrote. And so Today we live in a world of isolation he subjected the animal to a long and and atomization, where people agonizing death. distrust their own institutions. In such In his essay nobody feels like circumstances many people respond they have any power. The locals, the to powerlessness with pointless acts of imperial victims, sure didn’t. Orwell, self-destruction. the guy with the gun, didn’t feel like In the Palestinian territories, for he had any. The imperialists back in example, young people don’t organize London were too far away. or work with their government to That’s sort of the way much of the improve their prospects. They wander world is today. As Anand Giridharadas into Israel, try to stab a soldier or writes in The International New York a pregnant woman and get shot or Times, “If anything unites America in this fractious moment it is a widespread arrested — every single time. They throw away their lives for a pointless sentiment that power is somewhere and usually botched moment of other than where you are.” terrorism. The Republican establishment In a different way, the American thinks the grass roots have the power election has been perverted by feelings but the grass roots think the reverse. The unions think the corporations have of powerlessness. Americans are beset by complex, intractable problems that the power but the corporations think don’t have a clear villain: technological the startups do. Regulators think Wall change displaces workers; globalization Street has the power but Wall Street and the rapid movement of people thinks the regulators do. The Pew destabilize communities; family Research Center asked Americans, structure dissolves; the political order “Would you say your side has been in the Middle East teeters, the Chinese winning or losing more?” Sixty-four Nobody feels like they have any power. economy craters, inequality rises, the global order frays, etc. To address these problems we need big, responsible institutions (power centers) that can mobilize people, cobble together governing majorities and enact plans of actions. In the U.S. context that means functioning political parties and a functioning Congress. Those institutions have been weakened of late. Parties have been rendered weak by both campaign ¿nance laws and the Citizens United decision, which have cut off their funding streams and given power to polarized super-donors who work outside the party system. Congress has been weakened by polarization and disruptive members who don’t believe in legislating. Instead of shoring up these institutions, many voters are inclined to make everything worse. Plagued by the anxiety of impotence many voters are drawn to leaders who pretend that our problems could be solved by defeating some villain. Donald Trump says stupid elites are the problem. Ted Cruz says it’s the Washington cartel. Bernie Sanders says it’s Wall Street. The fact is, for all the problems we may have with Wall Street or Washington, our biggest problems are systemic — the disruptions caused by technological progress and globalization, mass migration, family breakdown and so on. There’s no all-controlling Wizard of Oz to slay. If we’re to have any hope of addressing big systemic problems we’ll have to repair big institutions and have functioning parties and a functioning Congress. We have to discard the anti-political, anti-institutional mood that is prevalent and rebuild effective democratic power centers. This requires less atomization and more collective action, fewer strongmen but greater citizenship. It requires the craft of political architecture, not the demagogy of destruction. Ŷ David Brooks, New York Times federal authority. Yet how can raising a wooden bidder’s paddle be called a felony while breaking a closure order to drive over archaeological sites be considered a misdemeanor? Now we have an armed takeover of a wildlife refuge near Burns, Oregon. When asked about legal charges against the occupiers, retired Oregon U.S. Attorney Kris Olson said she thought anti- terrorism laws had been broken. “I’m also thinking of laws such as the ones prohibiting theft and destruction of federal property,” Olson continued. “There may be several federal ¿rearms statutes that would apply, depending on the nature and permitting of the weapons brought across state lines and the intent in transporting them. Conspiracy may also tie these acts and defendants together.” Olson is saying that these actions merit serious federal charges with potentially serious consequences. Yet in the past, men wearing cowboy hats and waving guns around have not been prosecuted nearly as severely as environmentalists. That may prove true in the near future, too, depending on what happens once the Oregon standoff ends. Disagreements over the use of publicly owned land in the West seem to be constant, and passionate protesters will continue to challenge federal rules. That is every American’s constitutional right, but let’s have justice, too. Ŷ Andrew Gulliford is a contributor to Writers on the Range, an opinion service of High Country News. He is a professor of history and Environmental Studies at Fort Lewis College and can be reached at gulliford_a@fortlewis.edu. For centuries, protesters committed to their causes have broken the law and changed the United States, sometimes for the better. Governor’s minimum wage compromise a step forward The (Medford) Mail-Tribune G ov. Kate Brown’s proposed minimum wage increase has already generated opposition from both sides of the issue, which might mean it has an outside chance of passing. That’s undoubtedly Brown’s intention. Whether she and majority Democratic leaders can push it through remains to be seen, and the debate could have large implications for the November election. Brown’s proposal would set two separate minimums, one for the Portland area and one for the rest of the state. Outside Portland, the minimum wage would go from the present $9.25 an hour — already second highest in the nation — to $10.25 an hour next January, then gradually increase to a high of $13.50 an hour in 2022, after which it would be indexed to inÀation, as is the existing minimum. Portland’s wage would go to $11.79 in 2017 and rise to $15.52 over six years. One incentive for enacting a higher minimum this session is to head off planned initiative campaigns on the November ballot, one of which would set a statewide $15-an-hour minimum starting in 2019. The other, backed by labor unions, would set the wage at $13.50 and repeal a state-imposed ban on higher local wages. Opponents of Brown’s plan, including Republican legislators and business groups including the restaurant industry, argue the move would cost jobs, especially in restaurants. The lobbying group Oregon Restaurant and Lodging Association said the proposal would mean the loss of 55,000 jobs statewide. In Seattle, which started phasing in $15 minimum last year, initial ¿gures suggested there might be a slight dip in the number of restaurant jobs, but nowhere near the thousands suggested by the Oregon restaurant group. Overall, the jobless rate in the Seattle area is at its lowest level since 2008. The restaurant group supports an offset for tipped employees, even under Oregon’s existing minimum wage. That’s something to consider with this proposal, even if it’s obvious most tipped employees are hardly getting rich. Putting more money in the pockets of minimum wage workers gives them greater buying power, which supports the economy, too. And a sizable percentage of minimum- wage workers are adults, not teenagers living at home. Still, advocates for raising the wage were hardly overjoyed at Brown’s plan, which falls short of what they are aiming for. If the Legislature rejects Brown’s proposal and fails to pass a bill, the issue is almost certain to wind up in voters’ hands in November. Opponents on both sides should consider what that means: Perhaps an even higher minimum wage, or perhaps no increase at all. We suspect Brown’s compromise would look better to the losing side at that point.
