Page 4A
OPINION
East Oregonian
Wednesday, July 27, 2016
OTHER VIEWS
Founded October 16, 1875
KATHRYN B. BROWN
DANIEL WATTENBURGER
Publisher
Managing Editor
JENNINE PERKINSON
TIM TRAINOR
Advertising Director
Opinion Page Editor
OUR VIEW
Who will maintain
the Park Service?
In the face of inexorable growth
in visitor count, the Park Service
is innovating. Koenen says that
Are America’s national parks
being loved to death? The watchdog Muir Woods near San Francisco
has created a new advance parking
group Public Employees for
reservation system to eliminate
Environmental Responsibility has
its chronic trafic congestion.
implicitly asked
Yellowstone is
the question for
working toward a
years. In its current
America’s
similar solution.
issue, the Christian
For all of its
system of
Science Monitor
phenomenal
growth
raises the question
national
parks
in
visitor
count,
our
explicitly.
system
of
national
The CSM’s
is chronically
parks remains a
report focuses on
underfunded.
haven for the nation.
the high visibility
The Western writer
crown jewels of
Terry Tempest
the park system –
Williams told the Monitor:
Yellowstone and Yosemite. Their
“Our national parks are
visitor counts are astounding.
breathing
spaces in a country that
Yellowstone received more than
is
increasingly
holding its breath.”
4 million visitors last year. Total
Williams
just
produced
a report on
visitor count at all parks in the
her
visit
to
a
dozen
Park
Service
system this year will be equivalent
sites – The Hour of Land: A
to the U.S. population.
The Monitor notes that America’s Personal Topography of America’s
National Parks.
system of national parks is
We cannot expect Congress to
“chronically underfunded.” In the
do
the right thing and give the Park
most visited parks, that shows in
Service
adequate funding. Thus the
trail systems and other facilities
system
will
have to use ingenuity to
that are deteriorating from deferred
maintain
its
quality.
maintenance.
Won’t be Congress
We must do more
to help foster kids
Oregon’s foster care system for
special needs and circumstances. All
children in the midst of family crises
in all, payments are not transparently
is in serious trouble. Oregon Public
unfair.
Broadcasting has been shining a bright
Some, and perhaps even most,
list at problems with foster care and
foster parents aren’t in it for the
inding situations that demand redress. money but welcome the chance to be
This is no new thing. OPB reported a savior to kids in need. So why do
“cracks in foster care” ive years ago.
fewer and fewer participate? In part,
But by almost any reckoning, things
our culture has changed.
have gotten worse.
Most modern
There are hundreds
families have
Oregon foster only one or two
fewer foster care beds
in Oregon this year
In such
parents receive children.
compared to last.
small settings,
a base rate of foster children
Children sometimes
have to spend nights
necessitate
$575 to $741 a can
in state ofices and
major changes
month per child, in “household
motel rooms, with
a couple of state
This
depending on chemistry.”
workers detailed to
means most
watch them.
the child’s age. contemporary
How did we get to
families won’t even
this point? First, there
contemplate joining
was an understandable nationwide
the foster care program.
switch away from state-run
Those who do may ind themselves
institutions for neglected, endangered
weighed down by bureaucracy that is
and abandoned children, toward what viewed as essential in today’s abuse-
was viewed as a more benign system
conscious and litigious society.
of housing children in family homes
It’s becoming clear in Oregon and
where foster parents received state
throughout the U.S. that we must
compensation in return for providing a develop and fund alternatives to
semblance of home life.
traditional foster care. The Oregon
Oregon foster parents receive a
Department of Human Services and
base rate of $575 to $741 a month
the Legislature must confront this
per child, depending on the child’s
issue head on. We must do a better job
age. There is signiicant additional
of caring for children who are having
compensation to help deal with
the worst time in their lives.
Hillary, this is why
Democrats are still struggling
P
HILADELPHIA — Dear Hillary,
probably going to have to talk as
adeptly about threats to personal dignity
Donald Trump has presented
you with an amazing opportunity
as you do about day care. You’re
to become a world historical igure!
probably going to have to talk bluntly
If you crush him in this election, you
about the American civic religion.
could create a new Democratic majority
You’re going to have to show you
and reduce the GOP to an ever-
understand the way members of your
declining rump of ethnic nationalism.
class have slighted people who are less
On the other hand, if you fail to beat
educated and less cosmopolitan.
David
Trump, you will go down as America’s
Second, you’re going to have to
Brooks
ight
the Sanders tide, which on Day
most hapless political loser and be
Comment
1 of this convention was astoundingly
viliied forever for enabling an era of
strong. Many Democrats have
American Putinism.
grown hostile to capitalism. Sixty percent of
No pressure! Have fun in Philadelphia!
Democrats are friendly to socialism, according
To end up on the right side of this equation
to a poll by OnMessage Inc.
you’re probably going to
and the American Action
have to resist three natural
Network.
tendencies, two of them your
Of course, this is general
party’s and one your own.
election suicide. If you want
First, you’re going to
a perfect way to turn off
have to ight your party’s
suburban service economy
materialistic mind-set.
ofice park workers who will
This is 2016, not 1992.
decide this election, then
Over the past few years,
the Bernie Sanders route is
economic and social anxiety
it! The economic nostalgia
has metastasized into
of the left is as futile as the
something spiritual and
demographic nostalgia of the
existential.
right.
Americans are no longer
Somehow you’re going
conident in their national
to have to come up with
project. They no longer
an updated muscular
trust their institutions or
Clintonism. For 30 years
have faith in their common
your name has stood for a Democratic
destiny. This is a crisis of national purpose. It’s
governing style that is internationalist in foreign
about personal identity and the basic health
affairs, socially moderate and pro-global
of communal life. Americans’ anger and
pessimism are more fundamental than anything integration (while softening its edges). That
open, optimistic approach has to be combined
that can be explained by GDP statistics.
with a more aggressive and radical effort to
Many Democrats have trouble thinking
help people compete in the new economy.
in these terms. When asked to explain any
Third, you’re going to have to answer hatred
complex phenomenon, they instinctively
with love. Your tendency so far in your career
reduce it to a materialist cause. If there’s
has been to answer hostility with distrust, and
terrorism there must be lack of economic
secretiveness.
opportunity. If marriage is declining it must be
You’ve ended up projecting coldness but
because of joblessness.
also weakness and hurt. People who build
This materialistic mind-set means that
emotional walls amid conlict do so out of fear,
many Democrats are perpetually surprised by
events that involve cultural threats and national not strength.
Along the way you’ve made yourself
identity. Why don’t working-class Kansans
phenomenally unpopular. The polls show that
vote for us? We offer them more programs.
you are now just as distrusted by the American
Why did the Brits leave the EU? It’s against
people as Donald Trump is.
their economic interest.
The conident move is to break out of the
The mind-set is also reductionist. There’s a
tendency to break national problems into small, emotional bunker with vulnerability. The sign
of strength is to answer the “Lock Her Up”
interest-group-size chunks and then deliver
enmity with a conident honest account of
pandering policy promises.
what it feels like to be you — embroiled in
Look at your website. As Oren Cass points
the political combat, encased in this global
out in The City Journal, every demographic
celebrity role, but maintaining authenticity in a
or interest group gets its own pander. If you’re
world that conspires against it.
a horse lover, the Clinton campaign vows
Imagine if you displayed honest self-
to crack down on “horse soring, in which
appraisal and even moments of remorse. You’d
chemicals or other inhumane methods are
have the world rooting for you, not against you.
applied to horses’ limbs to exaggerate their
This convention is about resetting
gait.”
relationships: establishing trust between you
If Democrats wage that kind of niche-
and voters, restoring optimism that we can
targeted campaign this year they will lose.
thrive in the modern economy, redeining a
Voters are worried that the whole society is
soul satisfying faith in the American project.
falling apart. If Democrats think a crisis of
■
national identity can be addressed with targeted
David Brooks became a New York Times
tax credits they are living in a different century.
To stand a chance, Secretary Clinton, you’re Op-Ed columnist in September 2003.
Americans no
longer trust their
institutions or
have faith in
their common
destiny. This is a
crisis of national
purpose.
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.
YOUR VIEWS
BMCC pool needs time,
money to be saved
Finding a way to keep the Blue
Mountain Community College pool
open would do many things.
First, it would keep both Pendleton
and Hermiston High School swim teams
alive. Second, it would allow BMCC to
offer water-based classes to its students
(scuba prep, swimming, and even aqua
jogging classes for the elderly) Third,
the Pendleton Swim Association does
wonders for the children and families
that take part in club lessons and
activities.
PSA instructors teach children
the basics of water survival and
individual strokes — freestyle, butterly,
breaststroke and backstroke.
Not only does PSA instruct kids about
how to swim, but we teach them how to
be independent and work within a team.
Saving this pool — or even possibly
building a new one — would mean a
great deal to this community and some
of its clubs. Please, give it thought.
Furthermore, if the college board
can notify the baseball program (a
program restricted to the college’s
baseball players) and give them close to
18 months to raise funds to keep their
program intact, then giving a program
that is open to the public with much
more use only three months to raise
close to $2 million hardly seems fair.
Dylan Clemons
Pendleton Swim Association instructor
and former Pendleton High swimmer,
Pendleton
LETTERS POLICY
The East Oregonian welcomes original letters of 400 words or less on public issues and public policies for publication in the newspaper and on our website. The newspaper
reserves the right to withhold letters that address concerns about individual services and products or letters that infringe on the rights of private citizens. Submitted letters must
be signed by the author and include the city of residence and a daytime phone number. The phone number will not be published. Unsigned letters will not be published. Send
letters to Managing Editor Daniel Wattenburger, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com.