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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 24, 2016)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Saturday, September 24, 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 The Monsanto-Bayer merger and ‘Big Ag’ by American farmers who have Monsanto has agreed to a $57 adopted the technology. billion cash offer from Bayer, That seems unlikely, given the German pharmaceutical and Bayer is paying $57 billion for a chemical company. If shareholders company that is the leader in ag and regulators approve, the merger will form a giant international seed biotechnology. It’s not spending that and farm services money to kill GMO company. Without The enormity of agriculture. biotechnology and We expect a patents from thorough vetting the deal requires the here and in Europe. adopted varieties, a thoughtful The sheer enormity Monsanto’s assorted of the deal requires seed companies review for a thoughtful review wouldn’t be worth for possible antitrust possible antitrust the price. issues. • The merger issues. Beyond the will raise prices for legitimate legal farmers because concerns raised by there will be one the deal, supporters and critics have provider instead of two. The isn’t attached every conceivable meme a lot of overlap in the product line, to the potential consequences of the so it’s hard to see why prices would merger. Here are a few: necessarily increase. There will be • “Big Ag” is getting bigger. just as many companies selling seed Obviously. The Bayer-Monsanto with traits under Monsanto’s patents deal comes as state-owned as there are today. ChemChina is taking over Syngenta Bayer’s LibertyLink pesticides and Dow and DuPont are merging. and resistant seed are available for It’s a legitimate concern. farmers who run into problems with These are big companies with big glyphosate resistance. We would market shares. As these companies expect more seed developed with consolidate and get bigger, farms in traits that complement the Bayer the developed world that are their product line. Depending on what customers are consolidating and other traits are stacked on top, it getting bigger. could get pricey. While bigger isn’t necessarily Farmers will have to decide for better, it is not necessarily worse. themselves if the cost is offset by the It’s the natural product of evolution. beneits. But so is the rise of small companies • The merged company will take with bigger, better ideas. over the marijuana seed business. • Bayer, a big company with This is our favorite. lots of pull in Europe, could make Pot industry observers say both GMO crops more acceptable to companies have long eyed the legal EU countries. Fearful critics and marijuana market. Combine Bayer’s hopeful supporters have both loated pharma connections and Monsanto’s this possibility. proclivity for patent-protected It seems unlikely. Bayer has its genetically modiied seeds and you supporters in ag circles, but large get “Big Pot.” companies aren’t always popular in Reefer madness or viable business Europe. model? Only time will answer these • Because Bayer is a big and other questions raised by the European company operating merger. in countries that reject GMOs, We suggest stakeholders make it will move away from genetic an objective judgment after hearing engineering. This is a fear expressed from the regulators. 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. 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 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com. OTHER VIEWS The Clinton calendar H illary Clinton made a very In the 21st century, politics pertinent comment this week: operates around a different axis. “‘Why aren’t I 50 points It’s not left/right, big government/ ahead?’ you might ask.” small government. It’s openness and Indeed we might! dynamism versus closedness and Clinton is running against a man security. It’s between those who see whose approval ratings are under 40 opportunity and excitement in the percent and his disapproval rating emerging globalized, multiethnic meritocracy against those who see their is the highest of any candidate in David American history. Only 38 percent Brooks lives and communities threatened by it. In the 21st century, the parties are of Americans think Donald Trump Comment amassing different coalitions. People is even qualiied to be president, are dividing along human capital according to a Quinnipiac survey. lines, with the college educated locking to Trump has practically no campaign to speak of while Clinton has a very professional the Democrats and the non-college educated whites locking to the GOP. Democrats one. Clinton is swamping Trump on the do great in America’s 100 most crowded airwaves. Estimates vary by source, but counties, but they struggle in the 3,000 less according to Advertising Age, $145 million crowded ones. has been spent on pro-Clinton TV and radio Clintonworld is a decades-old interlocking ads while only $4 million has been spent on network of donors and friends that hasn’t pro-Trump ads. quite caught up to these fundamental shifts. Meanwhile, the Trump scandals blow That’s because Clintonworld, in the Hillary through like hurricanes in the tropics at iteration, is often defensive, distrusting and peak season. Thanks to reporting by The oriented around avoiding errors. In each of her Washington Post, we’ve learned that the national campaigns, Clinton has run against Trump Foundation makes Trump University in-touch-with-the-times men who were more look like a model of moral rectitude. charismatic and generated more passion Donations Trump raised through that than she did. She’s always been the duller, foundation went to pay his company’s legal unfashionable foil. bills and to buy two portraits of himself. Her donor base and fundraising style is out Every week he manages to stain his of another era. Obama and Sanders tapped character a deeper shade of black. Trump has into the energized populist base, but Clinton illed the culture with lies for the past many has Barbra Streisand, Cher and a cast of Wall decades, but all those lies must bow down in Street plutocrats. Her campaign proposals reverence before the epic, galactic, gravity- sidestep the cutting issues that have driven reversing lies he just told about the birther Trump, Sanders, Brexit and the other key nonsense. movements of modern politics. Her ideas for And still he is within 2 or 3 points of reducing poverty are ine, but they are circa Clinton nationally and leading in a bunch of Ed Muskie: more public works jobs, housing the key swing states. In Ohio by 5. In Iowa tax credits, more money for Head Start. by 6. In Florida by 1. When you look at the Her out-of-time style costs her big with secondary questions in the polls, Trump is millennials. If she loses this election it will doing miserably, but in the top-line “Who are be because younger voters just don’t relate you going to vote for?” question, he’s doing to her and lock to Gary Johnson instead. It decently. also leads to a weird imbalance in the national What is going on here? Tyler Cowen recently gathered some of the debate. We have an emerging global system, with more interesting theories on his blog Marginal relatively open trade, immigration, multilateral Revolution: America is not ready for a female institutions and ethnic diversity. The critics president. The Democrats have a lot of policy of that system are screaming at full roar. The proposals, but the Republicans are running on champions of that system — and Hillary big ideas. A more diverse country is a more Clinton is naturally one — are off in another fractious and polarized country, and over the world. past few weeks white Republicans have been There is a strong case to be made for coming home to their candidate. an open world order, and a huge majority I see some truth in those theories, coalition to be built in support of it. But she is especially the last one. But my single disengaged. explanation would be this: Clintonworld is a Don’t get me wrong. I still think she’ll eke semi-closed system that operates according to out a win. I just hope her administration is less its own calendar. Donald Trump is egregious, fogyish than her campaign. but at least he’s living in the 21st century, as ■ was Bernie Sanders. Clintonworld operates David Brooks became a New York Times according to its own time-space continuum Op-Ed columnist in September 2003. that is slightly akilter from our own. YOUR VIEWS Legislating anti-rural policies from Portland If the liberal elite of Portland have been looking for a poster boy, Rep. Earl Blumenauer appears to be an outstanding candidate for that dubious title. Just a week after Blumenauer wrote a letter to President Obama in support of turning much of Malheur County into a national monument and virtually destroying the county economically, he decided to propose legislation regarding the trapping of predators. These are interesting pieces of critical policy for someone who could care less about Rural Oregon and would be better off minding his own business. Blumenauer has long been a no-show at anything that doesn’t encompass the Portland city limits. One wonders if he attended the block party earlier this summer sponsored in Portland’s Pearl District by Keen Footwear and the Oregon Natural Desert Association in support of the Monument designation. The event included free beer, music and food trucks. Ironically, 400 miles away in Malheur County that very same night, volunteer ire ighters were braving smoke and high winds to protect the Owyhee Canyonlands, just as they have for generations. Said one of the ireighters: “that was our block party and it pretty well portrays this whole issue.” Opponents of the designation, which would tie up half of one of the nation’s largest counties, say they don’t need yet another level of federal oversight. As has been pointed out in the last two weeks, Rep. Blumenauer is leading the charge when it comes to widening Oregon’s rural-urban divide. The economy of Rural Oregon has not kept pace with the more populated parts of our state and we need support, understanding and policies that enhance our future. Oregon’s current political agenda is sadly lacking in that department. Now that he has taken a sudden interest in helping protect the predators who cost Oregon farmers and ranchers a fortune in losses each year while inlicting great pain and injury on their victims, one wonders what comes next. Hopefully it will be something that actually has an impact on the district he was elected to represent rather than dabbling in the lives of people about whom he could care less. George Murdock Umatilla County Commissioner Pendleton PERS is an air-tight contract signed with state employees I am a third-generation ireighter with about 20 years left to serve before I retire. I follow in the footsteps of my grandfather and great-grandfather who showed me the importance of public service and of keeping my word. I do my best to live up to their legacy every day as I work to protect my community here in Umatilla County. Unfortunately, some politicians in Salem want the state to pay their obligation to retired ireighters. Instead they want to take money from my retirement to pay the state’s debt. This rolls back the beneits I was promised when I was hired. It is also an unfair Ponzi scheme that allows state leadership to dodge responsibility. My family would take a double hit because my wife is teacher. These attacks affect more than ireighters. Teacher pensions, public nurse pensions, all public employee pensions would be reduced. If these proposals were to pass, our only hope will be the Oregon Supreme Court would once again tell the politicians in Salem that they can’t go back on their word. They cannot reduce the beneits we were promised when we were hired. It is unfortunate that after two lengthy and costly lawsuits that lesson wasn’t already learned. Matt Fisher Hermiston Mandatory minimum sentencing equals higher taxes I am responding to a New York Times op-ed entitled “Jailing old folks makes no sense.” In my state of Oregon the death of 11 prisoners and the loss of six nurses so far in 2016 in just one of our 14 prisons is alarming. These medical shortages are having a great impact on all, especially the seniors, primarily the ones 75-85 years of age. Much of this mandatory minimum sentencing is due to Measure 11, passed in 1994 by public ballot. Our state representatives and legislators need to realize that many of these seniors are non-violent, not a risk, irst-time alleged offenders. The mandatory minimum sentences can end up being equivalent of a death sentence — NOT the purpose of Measure 11. The access to adequate medical care is compromised by the shortage of medical staff and inmate overcrowding due to excessive sentences. The overwhelming cost to taxpayers to facilitate the medical needs is astronomical. The lock-up of older, non-violent prisoners not only does nothing to reduce crime but is expensive and inhumane. Handcufing, waist chains and ankle chains on 75- to 80-year-old non-violent prisoners while in a hospital critical care unit and/or wheelchair, attached to monitors and with a guard in the room, would seem unnecessary at best and overkill at worst. More and more aging inmates are becoming seriously ill and dying in prison. Prisons are not equipped to be nursing homes! There is a 0-1 percent chance of recidivism in these older folks, much lower than that of the younger prison population there for the irst time. An immediate irst step would be for parole boards to give more weight to prison transformation. The long time lock-up of those who pose no security threat is an inexcusable waste of taxpayers’ money, human potential and loss of life. Release of these seniors is the most sensible and humane way to relieve the cost, overcrowding and inadequate stafing. Merrie Lee Cummings Engstrom Portland
