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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 10, 2016)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Saturday, September 10, 2016 Founded October 16, 1875 KATHRYN B. BROWN DANIEL WATTENBURGER Publisher Managing Editor JANNA HEIMGARTNER TIM TRAINOR Business Ofice Manager Opinion Page Editor EO MEDIA GROUP East Oregonian • The Daily Astorian • Capital Press • Hermiston Herald Blue Mountain Eagle • Wallowa County Chieftain • Chinook Observer • Coast River Business Journal Oregon Coast Today • Coast Weekend • Seaside Signal • Cannon Beach Gazette Eastern Oregon Real Estate Guide • Eastern Oregon Marketplace • Coast Marketplace OnlyAg.com • FarmSeller.com • Seaside-Sun.com • NorthwestOpinions.com • DiscoverOurCoast.com OUR VIEW From current event to history The tragic events of September horizon and America was no longer invincible. 11, 2001, happened 15 years ago. Even the peace-loving poet That means the event is now closer Leonard Cohen wrote and sang soon to the era of the Berlin Wall than to after the towers fell: “Did you go present day. crazy/or did you report/on that day/ 9/11 — the deining moment of they wounded New York?” today’s world order — is moving The legacy of September from a current event into the realm 11 — the destruction of history. That’s the of the Twin Towers, neighborhood of not Many the Pentagon crash just the USSR, but the Flight 93 — has assassinations of the have never and become muddled by the 1960s and the bombing fog of two wars, further of Pearl Harbor — forgotten of peace dates that now live 9/11, but disintegration in the Middle East, in infamy, but also textbooks and yellowed a growing the current refugee and an inability newspaper pages. number of crisis to stabilize the world. Many have never immediate sense forgotten 9/11, but a Americans Our of foreboding was growing number of never even right in tune. But time Americans never even has stripped us of the knew it. Current high knew it. seething anger, and school students were it has been replaced not alive when the instead by growing towers fell. They did not huddle in ofices or dorm rooms apathy and isolationism. There is no sense in mourning the or the Round-Up Grounds to watch passage of time. The hand-wringing the incomprehensible footage on required to do so is better spent on television. They did not call their the wash. wives and husbands, mothers and But we can study history in fathers and sons and daughters, order to avoid repeating the same to cry onto shoulders and through mistakes. The attacks exposed landline telephones. deep issures in the world that two They never knew the 3,000 people who were lost that day. They presidents have failed to heal, as have any number of world and did not watch the entire foundation of the world disappear in explosions religious leaders. As 9/11 becomes history, we have more to learn from and columns of dust. They did not our response — both as people and have the seething anger, the desire for vengeance, the foreboding sense as nations — than we do from the terrible events of that day. that a world of warfare was on the 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. 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. Send letters to 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com. OTHER VIEWS Time for a realignment T here’s a good chance many of Coalition of Restoration. you will be switching political The Republican Party is now a parties over the next 15 years. coalition of globalization-loving You may be a corporate executive business executives and globalization- who’s voted rock-solid Republican for hating white workers. That’s decades, but you may be a consistent untenable. At its molten core, the Republican Party has become the party Democrat by 2024. You may be an of the dispossessed, not the party of African-American community activist cosmopolitan business. The blunderers in Cleveland, but don’t be surprised if David you someday call the Republican Party Brooks at the Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable bet all their home. Comment chips on the GOP at the exact instant it The fact is that political parties can stopped being their party. swap constituencies in unexpected and Now imagine a Republican Party after dramatic ways. Over American history there’s Donald Trump, led by a younger candidate been a general pattern: a period of party without his bigotry and culture stability; then some new issue war tropes. That party will comes to the fore that divides begin to attract disaffected the country in new ways; old Sanders people who detest party coalitions fall apart and the Trans-Paciic Partnership new ones emerge. and possibly some minority African-Americans were voters highly suspicious of the once Republican, but the Great political elite. Depression brought economics The Democratic Party to the fore and FDR lured is a coalition of the upscale them the other way. New urban professionals who England professionals were make up the ruling class and once Republican, too, but less-afluent members of the rise of Barry Goldwater- minorities who feel betrayed Ronald Reagan Sun Belt by it. That’s untenable, too. At conservatism turned them its molten core the Democratic Democratic. Party is the party of the coastal We seem to be at one professional class, the 2016 of those transformational presidential ticket of Yale Law moments now. Something and Harvard Law. It’s possible bigger is afoot this year than that this year the Democrats the relative deiciencies of will carry every state that touches ocean. Trump and Clinton. Just as the Trump GOP is crushing the In the irst place, many of the existing Chamber GOP, the Clinton Democrats will partisan mentalities are dying out. This is the eventually repel the Sanders Democrats. last presidential election in which two baby Their economic interests are just different. boomers will be running against each other. Moreover, their levels of social trust are vastly In the years ahead, politics will no longer different. be deined by the hidden animosities of the We don’t normally think that politics is Vietnam era, by the sexual revolution/culture divided along trust lines. But this year we’re war issues of the 1970s. seeing huge chasms depending upon how Future candidates will not be nostalgic much trust you feel toward your neighbors for some white America of ancient memory and your national institutions. Disaffected or the union-heavy labor markets of the low-trust millennials see things differently 1950s. They’re not going to be ired up by the than the Hollywood, tech, media and “paradise lost” hot buttons that excite the old academic professionals who actually run the guys who watch Fox News. party. Politics is catching up to social reality. This sort of divide is being replicated all The crucial social divide today is between around the world. The distinctly American those who feel the core trends of the global, information-age economy as tailwinds at their feature is race. If the Republicans can drop the racial wedges — which admittedly may backs and those who feel them as headwinds be a big ask — and become more the party in their face. designed to succor those who are disaffected That is to say, the most important social from the globalizing information age, then it divide today is between a well-educated might win over some minority voters, and the America that is marked by economic existing party alignments will unravel in short openness, traditional family structures, high order. social capital and high trust in institutions, Polls suggest the Democrats will win and a less-educated America that is marked among college-educated voters. Republicans by economic insecurity, anarchic family will win among whites without a college structures, fraying community bonds, and a degree. pervasive sense of betrayal and distrust. The social, mental and emotional gap These two groups live in entirely different between those two groups is getting wider and universes. Right now each party has a foot wider. That’s the future of American politics. in each universe, but those coalitions won’t Republicans are town. Democrats are gown. last. Before too long the politics will break Could get ugly. down into openness versus closedness, ■ dynamism versus stability, what Ronald David Brooks became a New York Times Brownstein of The Atlantic described in 2012 Op-Ed columnist in September 2003. as the Coalition of Transformation versus the Something bigger is afoot this year than the relative deiciencies of presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. YOUR VIEWS Pendleton’s costly irehall Contributed photo Can Pendleton residents ill potholes for tax credits? For the past nine months there has been a depression (5 feet by 3 feet by 8 inches deep) at the corner of Court Avenue and 23rd Street in Pendleton (Safeway/Wal-Mart area). I know my high taxes go for various studies, but you would think some might go to downtown streets. My question is: If I pay for illing this, can I subtract if from my taxes? John Borgerson Pendleton The new ire house is now up to $10 million. Our city council and ire chief are ine with this — are you ? Not two months ago the ire chief Mike Ciraulo was against the ire station being at the old St. Anthony’s due to response time. Now the chief can’t stop spending. Oh, he forgot to mention the extra bay area for the new vintage ire truck to look at. People’s worst fears will come true when an emergency happens and no one shows up, or at least 30 seconds late, I should say. If your child is choking, or a loved one is having a heart attack, or maybe it’s just your house burning down, don’t worry — we will have a new ire house with all new equipment. You just need to be patient because for only $10 million you will have to wait longer for emergency services. If that don’t sound right to you it is because it’s not. When seconds count, comfort and luxury are more important than response time, it seems ... I won’t even get into the inancial burden that will be solely put on the backs of taxpayers again. A modest irehouse in a secure location is the only way to be safe and not gouge the taxpayers. They will build a new ire station no matter what; it will be nice no matter what. They will get new equipment no matter what. If built at the right location, with a design more itting for Pendleton, and knowing when and how to buy new equipment, a new ire station would have better response time and also cut the price tag in half. To anyone who has been put in an emergency situation or has needed the emergency services, you know what a yes vote for this new ire house will mean for Pendleton. For those of you who have not been in a emergency situation, do you really want to ind out how long 30 seconds really is? This is one city project where you will get less for more. Chris Hallos Pendleton Awash in money and success, brighter times are ahead A rescue program for the Parks Department playgrounds is taking shape. From a totally unreliable source deep within city hall comes this startling revelation: With the successful completion of the Main Street statue program, it’s rumored that the current president of the Arts Commission will be asked by the new administration to assume command of the Parks Commission. Evidently, with the Arts Commission being lush with cash, rumor has it that they have turned their attention to a repair and maintenance program for the clock in the tower at the Umatilla County Courthouse, allowing the county to divert more resources to the city of Hermiston in support of the EOTEC center and the construction of the new rodeo arena. In another prudent move, an espresso bar will be added to the new ire station and all personnel will receive barista training to supplement the cooking skills that iremen are famous for. You’d appreciate this move if you had to wrestle an oversized emergency vehicle around that rather small Starbucks parking lot! On another front, it looks like the UAV program is starting to bear fruit, and the street lights on Main Street have inally been repaired just in time for Round-Up. Brighter times ahead! Rick Rohde Pendleton
