VIEWPOINTS
Saturday, July 16, 2016
Quick takes
Pokémon Go takes hold
At least it gets them off the couch. But
when I was that age I walked all over town
because I was checking on job applications.
— Scott Hernandez
They will need jobs when their parents
get the bill for the data next month.
— Jason Primmer
I think it’s fabulous! I live in Colorado
and went out with my 19-year-old daughter
today to the Riverwalk. There were people
and families of all ages out playing this.
— Kristy Sandidge-Fargher
I’m waiting for someone to get shot — it
can be dangerous I’ve seen people going
through others yards and trying to get into
back yards. You never know if it’s going to
be a tweaker or game player.
— Jason Edward Gruening
Loose animals cause havoc
We need legit animal control. This issue
is bad in Umatilla, too. I see the same dogs
running around town every day for months
on end. You can’t catch them because
they’re afraid of you. You’re afraid they will
bite if you feed them. Then they wind up
getting hit by cars or worse because people
just don’t care.
— OJ Rumilus
This has been a problem in this area for
years. About time to take care of it. They are
running in packs north of town.
— Lysa Watkins
Conversation is wrong. Yes police are
there to help but whether it is predators or
“predators” you need to be aware of your
surrounding and have a way to protect you
and your kids.
— Eric Meakins
Pendleton downtown
Let’s concentrate on getting business to
ill empty storefronts irst and have business
employees park and walk so customers can
shop.
— Patty DeGrofft
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.
East Oregonian
Page 5A
Gun safety is our responsibility
W
By Gun Owners for Responsible Ownership
e are Oregonians. We are life-long
gun owners, hunters and military
veterans. Recently we came
together around a common belief that there
are sensible ways to reduce gun violence
and protect the rights of law-abiding gun
owners. We grew up using guns for hunting,
personal protection, recreation and as part
of our military service. And like many
Oregonians, we have been wounded by the
blast of gun violence in our families and
communities.
We enter the conversation about gun
violence and gun safety knowing that we
don’t have all the answers. Yet, we know
we need to help lead the conversation
about how best to balance responsible
gun ownership with rational, legal
protections from gun violence. Without
this critical balance,
the policy debate will
again be deined by the
extremes of “more guns
everywhere” against
“no guns anywhere.”
In Oregon we’ve seen
what happens when
the “pendulum swing”
is allowed to deine
the outcome: two
diametrically opposed
factions lead to irrational
decisions.
That’s where we come
in and that’s why we
write this column. We
want your help. It is our
belief that if responsible
gun owners and veterans don’t lead the
way, our family members will not be safe in
shopping malls, theaters and bars. And our
loved ones, many of them our most honored
veterans of war, will continue to take their
own lives.
We want to create solutions outside
the polarized extremes of the gun debate.
Again, we don’t have all the answers. But
we know we want a new American sense
of individual and community responsibility.
I am responsible for my guns and for the
safety of my family and my community. I
must take responsibility to report and stop
the radicalized or the mentally ill before
they kill. I am responsible for the gun left
on the table or under the car seat before a
child picks it up.
Contributed photo
Authors Tom O’Conner, Jenna Yuille, Lou Jaffe, Robert Yuille and Paul Kemp
We want a new America where gun
owners demonstrate personal responsibility
and respect for our
fellow citizens And
new rational laws like
Oregon’s requirement
of background checks
for every gun purchase.
We don’t support the
current politics of giving
the beneit of the doubt
for gun ownership to
people on a terrorist
watch list. We do
support responsible gun
ownership and use.
As hunters and gun
owners we believe that
the continued stance
of “no new gun laws
ever and more guns
everywhere and anywhere” is the wrong
answer and is a crumbling defense. It does
not make sense. It is not supported by the
American public.
We believe that holding that position
threatens the rights of responsible gun
ownership. As one mass killing follows
another, and politicians are frozen in
the headlights of politics of the past,
the pendulum will swing far outside of
rational and effective actions. Our rights to
responsible gun ownership are threatened
by the polarization and inaction.
Gun violence is an every-day reality in
Oregon. Our Board of Directors includes
men and women that lost family members
in the 2012 Clackamas Town Center
shooting. That gun, a Stag-15, was stolen
If responsible
gun owners and
veterans don’t
lead the way, our
family members
will not be safe
in shopping
malls, theaters
and bars.
by the gunman from a friend who left it
unlocked and loaded with a full 30 round
ammunition magazine.
Most gun owners are responsible and
safe. Oregon is leading the way to ilter out
those that aren’t by requiring a background
check each time a gun is sold. Oregon gun
owners, hunters and veterans now can help
break the logjam of the gun debate with
informed and responsible leadership.
Being responsible and safe requires
that we all securely and safely store every
irearm when not in use. Gun safes, cabinets
and locks all help to ensure that children
and others don’t create another tragedy.
Using trigger and cable locks and storing
ammunition separately are important and
responsible safety steps. We support the
dealers and manufacturers that promote
these safety requirements. Our organization
is providing free gun locks as part of our
discussions around the state.
It’s up to us to create and demonstrate
a new standard of individual vigilance
and responsibility. We believe that with
commitment and dedication we can chart
a new conversation about protecting our
ability to use our irearms and protecting
our people in America. It’s not one or the
other. We hope you will join us. Please visit
our website, www.responsibleownership.
org, to learn more or contact us at info@
responsibleownership.org to get involved.
■
This op-ed was written by Tom
O’Conner, Jenna Yuille, Lou Jaffe, Robert
Yuille and Paul Kemp. They are gun
owners, veterans, and victims of gun
violence, or all of the above in many cases.
It’s long past time to free
a man unjustly imprisoned
By MIKE BAUGHMAN
Writers on the Range
S
o much time has passed that many
Americans have forgotten, if they ever
knew, what happened to an American
Indian named Leonard Peltier, who has
spent more than 40 years conined in
various federal penitentiaries. This summer,
a group of his family
members and friends are
traveling the country in an
attempt to salvage what
remains of his life, and to
remind us all that no statute
of limitations pertains to
the application of justice.
Peltier’s ordeal began
when two FBI agents,
Ron Williams and Jack
Coler, were shot to death
on South Dakota’s Pine
Ridge Reservation in 1975.
No one familiar with the
details of the case believes
that Leonard committed
the murders, and Peter
Matthiessen explored this
miscarriage of justice in his 1983 book “In
the Spirit of Crazy Horse.” Dee Brown,
author of “Bury My Heart at Wounded
Knee,” called Matthiessen’s book “the
irst solidly documented account of the
U.S. government’s renewed assault upon
American Indians that began in the 1970s.”
The plain truth is that with two FBI
agents shot dead on an Indian reservation,
the government needed a conviction. At
Peltier’s trial before an all-white jury,
prosecutors used false testimony against
him, some of it obtained through torture.
One particularly repugnant example:
The FBI produced afidavits by a woman
named Mabel Poor Bear, who said she
was Leonard’s girlfriend and claimed to
have seen him shoot Williams and Coler at
close range. But Poor Bear had never met
Leonard, didn’t even know what he looked
like, and was proved to have been nowhere
near the scene of the murders. When she
tried to recant her testimony, claiming that
the FBI had threatened to take her child
away if she didn’t sign the afidavit, the
judge refused to hear her testimony.
Amnesty International classiies
Leonard as a political prisoner. Some
of his other defenders include Nelson
Mandela, the Dalai Lama, Archbishop
Desmond Tutu, and Robert Cantuar, a
former archbishop of Canterbury. Michael
Apted produced an acclaimed documentary
ilm exploring the case, Incident at Oglala,
which was narrated by Robert Redford.
Despite the FBI’s fraudulent evidence
and perjured testimony, Peltier remains in
federal prison. He went in as a 31-year-old
and is now 71. He has been transferred
often, from Leavenworth, Kansas, to
Terre Haute, Indiana, to Lewisburg,
Pennsylvania, to Canaan, Pennsylvania,
back to Lewisburg, and inally to Florida.
Everywhere he’s been, inmates have
jumped and beaten him, likely with the
collusion of guards. Now he is going
blind from diabetes, suffers from kidney
failure and is susceptible to strokes. Ed
Little Crow, a Lakota living in Oregon,
says that all Peltier wants “is a chance to
see his family and work on old cars. If
that digniied black man who’s president
doesn’t pardon him, he’ll die in prison.
This is his last chance.”
When Peltier
was sentenced, the
applicable law stated
that an inmate with a
good record should,
after 30 years, be
released. His record
was good, but, instead
of freedom, his parole
board gave him another
15-year sentence.
His next hearing is
scheduled for 2024.
Before his second
term ended, President
Bill Clinton, under
pressure from Hawaii
Sen. Daniel Inouye
and billionaire
philanthropist David Geffen, among others,
was expected to grant executive clemency.
But after several hundred FBI agents, along
with the dead agents’ family members,
demonstrated outside the White House,
Clinton on his last day in ofice pardoned
a inancier named Marc Rich instead.
Rich had been indicted for tax evasion and
illegal oil deals, including a purchase of
$200 million worth of oil from Ayatollah
Khomeini’s Iran while 53 Americans were
being held hostage there, and selling oil
to the apartheid regime in South Africa
despite a U.N. embargo. Geffen called
Rich’s pardon “a sign of corrupted values.”
On my last trip to South Dakota, I
visited the Pine Ridge Reservation. In the
town of Pine Ridge, I talked to the man
I’d come to see and then drove north to
Wounded Knee, where I spent the long
afternoon alone. There was a pleasantly
cool north wind and a clear blue sky. I
walked and thought. This quiet place
was where, in 1890, the U.S. 7th Cavalry
surrounded an encampment of Lakotas,
and for no justiiable reason opened ire.
By some estimates, as many as 300 Indian
men, women and children were slaughtered
by the time the iring inally stopped. To
make a foul deed even worse, at least 20
of the soldiers who participated in this
senseless massacre were awarded the
Medal of Honor.
There’s nothing anyone can ever do
about what happened at Wounded Knee.
But, though very belatedly, something can
still be done about Leonard Peltier. I hope
President Obama sets this man free.
■
Mike Baughman is a contributor to
Writers on the Range, the opinion service
of High Country News. He is a writer in
Ashland.
The plain truth
is that with
two FBI agents
shot dead
on an Indian
reservation,
the government
needed a
conviction.
Many Republicans steer clear of convention
Lancaster (Pa.) Newspapers
F
ree food. Slapping backs and kissing
babies. Open bar. What politician would
miss that, on purpose, no less?
That’s what political conventions are, or at
least what they have been, in modern history.
They tend to generate very little actual
news, beyond who is speaking and anything
controversial or bizarre that might be said.
Conventions are an opportunity to see and be
seen. Usually.
But Republicans will soon convene in
Cleveland for their national convention,
and many members of the GOP will avoid
the Quicken Loans Arena as if it’s under
quarantine for measles.
Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP
nominee for president, promises a “celebrity-
heavy” convention. Former basketball coach
Bob Knight is a “maybe.” OK. Boxing
promoter Don King and his hair, both of
whom live in Cleveland, plan to attend. It
looked for a while like New England Patriots’
quarterback Tom Brady would show, but
now it looks like he’s not coming. You can
guess what might have happened. Someone
in Tom’s inner circle, maybe a wise old uncle,
pulled him aside. The uncle put a hand irmly
on Tom’s shoulder, looked Tom in the eye,
and whispered, “Tommy, my boy, you might
want to sit this one out.”
“Why?”
“Do I really need to spell it out?”
“But I like him.”
“Yeah, well, let me put it this way. Letting
the air out of a few footballs versus the
Hindenburg. Capeesh?”
In addition to Brady, a quick glance at
the RSVPs shows that among those who
checked “I decline” or “I’m sorting my sock
drawer that week” are Ohio’s Republican
Gov. John Kasich; Mitt Romney, the GOP’s
last nominee for president; former Presidents
George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush;
and U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania,
among others.
House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will, it
appears, be at the convention. Former House
Speaker Newt Gingrich, who has been
mentioned as a possible running mate for
Trump, will also be there.
There’s no doubt this is unusual but
political scientists seem to think it’s because
no one wants to be spotted at the scene if the
convention turns into a disaster.
Following your nominee around, with
broom and dustpan in hand, trying to clean up
mess after mess, gets old. First you clean up,
then you sidestep the mess, then you avoid
the area altogether.
It should also be noted that only one of
three local delegates has committed to voting
for Trump at the convention.
When you have people like Matt Borges,
the Ohio Republican Party chairman, saying
things about his nominee and the convention
such as, “He’s going to have to bring all his
skills to bear to make this work,” as he told
The Associated Press, there’s a disconnect
somewhere. That’s not the kind of the thing
party leaders typically say about their own
candidate at a convention. Clearly, many
Republicans are trying to distance themselves
from Trump.
The mind does boggle at what Trump can
or will do to make this convention work for
him and the GOP without it turning into the
total protest-illed freak show that some have
predicted. Delegates are split. Demonstrations
are planned. Corporate sponsors have bailed.
There’s one person and one person only
who has the opportunity to turn potential
chaos into something productive, and that is
the nominee himself. If Trump has one last
chance to galvanize the party and, at the same
time, look like the president of the United
States, this is it.
Trump has been urged by GOP leaders to
transition, which is political-speak for “start
acting presidential, or we’ll lose big.” But,
in Trump’s mind, he must be thinking, “I’ve
gotten this far being myself. I’ve won the
nomination for president for crying out loud.
Why should I change now?”
Perhaps, when the presumptive nominee
stands on the stage in Cleveland and sees
who’s not in the audience, he’ll have his
answer.