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.