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OPINION
East Oregonian
Wednesday, July 26, 2017
Founded October 16, 1875
KATHRYN B. BROWN
Publisher
DANIEL WATTENBURGER
Managing Editor
TIM TRAINOR
Opinion Page Editor
MARISSA WILLIAMS
Regional Advertising Director
MARCY ROSENBERG
Circulation Manager
JANNA HEIMGARTNER
Business Office Manager
MIKE JENSEN
Production Manager
OUR VIEW
Grocers right to be
concerned about tax
Grocers are going on the
The association’s action comes
as public employee unions pursue
offensive long before a predicted
tax battle begins, and it’s probably a placing a corporate sales tax on the
ballot in 2018, a pared-down version
good thing.
of the ill-conceived Measure 97
Last week the The Northwest
gross receipts tax defeated in 2016.
Grocery Association filed the
Grocers were a major opponent of
paperwork to petition for a ballot
Measure 97.
measure in 2018
Under the
to constitutionally
Food is a
proposed measure,
bar taxes on food.
food industry
The initiative would
necessity and the
would continue to
prohibit taxes at every
point of food sales,
shouldn’t be pay corporate income
tax, and the sales
from production,
taxed.
of other household
processing, wholesale
goods and pet food
and retail, with the
still would be subject
exception of meals
to taxes, The campaign will need
served at restaurants. It would
to collect 117,578 signatures by
not include alcoholic beverages,
July 2018 to win a place on the
marijuana products or tobacco
general election ballot the following
products.
November.
According to the initiative’s
Joe Gilliam, the association’s
language, it would go beyond just
president, said the initiative’s intent
banning a sales tax — it would
is “just protecting people’s access
prohibit “a gross receipts tax,
commercial activity tax, value-added to food and only food for human
consumption.”
tax, excise tax, privilege tax, and
Gilliam is right, food is a
any other similar tax on the sale of
necessity and shouldn’t be taxed.
groceries.”
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.
OTHER VIEWS
Misogyny alive in media,
Republican opposition
A better headline from your
legislature were up to the task,
he said he was just looking for
recent editorial entitled “Two
people with “big ol’ brains.”
men enter, one tax plan leaves”
Rep. McLane’s unabashed
(Page A4, July 12) would have
sexism is shameful and beneath
been “Step aside, ladies, and let
the leadership position he holds.
the men take over.”
The fact is, strong women
Whether the unnamed
leaders in Oregon are
authors realize it or not, your
responsible for the great strides
editorial is the perfect example
Jillian
of the kind of misogyny that is
Schoene our state has taken in the past
several years. They are some of
still rampant in Oregon politics,
Comment
our best problem solvers, some
despite our state’s reputation for
of our boldest leaders, and role
having strong women leaders.
models who I am proud to hold up to
The not-so-subtle message of your
editorial is that the women in leadership Oregon’s young people.
To me, this is a call to action: We
— Gov. Kate Brown, House Speaker
desperately need greater diversity in
Tina Kotek, House Majority Leader
Oregon’s newsrooms — and in our state
Jennifer Williamson, Senate Majority
Capitol. We need more women, people
Leader Ginny Burdick — should step
of color, LGBTQ people, working
away quietly and give their seat at the
class people, young people, and other
table to a man.
historically silenced and powerless
This is sexist belittling, pure and
groups to make their voices heard both
simple. It’s not far removed from
as news writers and news makers.
the head-patting insults delivered by
Together, we can build a future
opponents of women’s suffrage, who
where sexist comments like the ones
believed that only men were mentally
made by Rep. McLane and the East
capable of making important decisions
Oregonian editorial board are fewer
at the ballot. It’s 2017, and we’re
and farther between. A future where
still dealing with this nonsense from
hard-working women are recognized
politicians, pundits, and unfortunately
for their leadership rather than ignored,
the news media.
undermined — and asked to leave the
We’ve heard exactly this same thing
room. A future where the people in
from Republican leaders in recent
positions of power are as diverse as our
days. House Republican Leader Mike
beautiful, growing state.
McLane announced a list of legislators
■
he thinks should take over revenue
Jillian Schoene, of Portland, is
reform — and they were all men.
executive director of Emerge Oregon,
When a reporter from The
which works to train and encourage
Oregonian called him out for implying
Democratic women to run for office.
that none of the women in the
OTHER VIEWS
How cool works today
I
f you grew up in the 20th century,
In an interview, I asked Dinerstein
there’s a decent chance you wanted
if cool was dead. He said that cool
to be like Miles Davis, Billie
may not be dead, but it is rare. You can
Holiday, Humphrey Bogart, Albert
see cool figures like Kendrick Lamar
Camus, Audrey Hepburn, James Dean
and Lorde, but it’s hard to think of any
or Jimi Hendrix. In their own ways,
contemporary cool movie icons in the
these people defined cool.
manner of Bogart and Dean. Perhaps
The cool person is stoical,
Robert Downey Jr. could have become
emotionally controlled, never eager
one, Dinerstein said, but these days
David
or needy, but instead mysterious,
Brooks Hollywood pushes actors into the
detached and self-possessed. The
blockbuster mainstream.
Comment
cool person is gracefully competent
The big difference, he continued,
at something, but doesn’t need the
is technological. Fans viewed Miles
world’s applause to know his worth. That’s
Davis from afar. He was mysterious. Today
because the cool person has found his or her
because of social media, everybody is close
own unique and authentic way of living with
up, present 24/7, familiar and un-iconic.
nonchalant intensity.
That makes a huge difference in how public
In his entertaining book “The Origins of
personalities are received.
Cool in Postwar America,” Tulane historian
I started to look around to see if there
Joel Dinerstein traces the diverse sources of
might be another contemporary ethos that has
this style — from the West African concept of replaced the cool ethos. You could say the
“itutu,” which means mystic
hipster ethos you find in,
coolness, to the British stiff
say, Brooklyn qualifies. But
upper lip mentality. Jazz
that strikes me as less of a
musicians, especially people
cultural movement and more
like Lester Young, brought
of a consumer aesthetic.
these influences together
A better candidate is the
into what we now call the
“woke” ethos. The modern
cool style. Jazz influenced
concept of woke began,
the film noir directors,
as far as anybody can tell,
and then carried cool over
with a 2008 song by Erykah
to France, where it was
Badu. The woke mentality
embraced by existentialists like Camus.
became prominent in 2012 and 2013 with the
Dinerstein shows that cool isn’t just a style, Trayvon Martin case and the rise of Black
it’s an “embodied philosophy” that is anchored Lives Matter. Embrace it or not, BLM is the
in a specific generational circumstance.
most complete social movement in America
Cool was first of all a form of resistance
today, as a communal, intellectual, moral and
and rebellion, a rejection of the innocence,
political force.
optimism and consumer cheeriness that
The woke mentality has since been
marked the mainstream postwar experience.
embraced on the populist right, by the
It emerged specifically within African-
conservative “normals” who are disgusted
American culture, among people who had to
with what they see as the thorough
withstand the humiliations of racism without
corruption of the Republican and Democratic
losing their temper, and who didn’t see any
establishments. See Kurt Schlichter’s
way to change their political situation. Cool
Townhall essay “We Must Elect Senator
culture in that context said, you can beat me
Kid Rock” as an example of right-wing
but I am not beaten, you can oppress me but
wokedness.
you can’t own me.
To be woke is to be radically aware and
It became a way of indicting society even
justifiably paranoid. It is to be cognizant of the
if you were powerless, a way of showing your rot pervading the power structures. The woke
untrammeled dignity. It was then embraced
manner shares cool’s rebel posture, but it is the
by all those who felt powerless, whether
opposite of cool in certain respects.
they were dissident intellectuals or random
Cool was politically detached, but being a
teenagers.
social activist is required for being woke. Cool
Cool had other social meanings. It was
was individualistic, but woke is nationalistic
a way of showing you weren’t playing the
and collectivist. Cool was emotionally
whole Horatio Alger game; you weren’t a
reserved; woke is angry, passionate and
smarmy career climber. It was a way to assert
indignant. Cool was morally ambiguous; woke
the value of the individual in response to failed seeks to establish a clear marker for what is
collectivisms — to communism and fascism,
unacceptable.
to organized religion. The cool person is
Culture is the collective response to the
guided by his or her own autonomous values,
core problems of the times. Today’s general
often on the outskirts of society.
disgust with institutions is producing a new
To be cool was to be a moral realist.
style of collective action. It remains to be seen
The cruelties of the wars had exposed the
how substantive, rigorous and effective this
simplistic wholesomeness of good and evil
new collective action will be.
middle-class morality. A character like Rick
■
Blaine in “Casablanca” is trying to live by his
David Brooks became a New York Times
own honor code in an absurd moral world.
Op-Ed columnist in 2003.
Cool isn’t just
a style, it’s an
“embodied
philosophy.”
YOUR VIEWS
GOP must find own ideas
about taxes, health care
Once again, as has taken place
on so many occasions over the past
70-plus years, our federal Congress
and chief executive have managed to
spin their wheels madly in the quest
to “solve” this country’s health care
problems — only to end up producing
yet another miserable “bust.”
Republican Senator Mitch
McConnell and President Donald
Trump, who appeared fairly confident
of their ability to completely
annihilate the ACA when Trump
assumed office last January, stand
revealed now as politicians who in the
end could not keep a very important
promise. Despite their efforts,
“Obamacare” still stands in spite of its
imperfections.
While ineptness and legislative
clumsiness certainly played a
role in foiling the Republicans’
anti-Obamacare plans, a much more
important reason for McConnell’s
and Trump’s humiliating letdown was
simply the immensely unappealing
nature of their alleged “alternative”
to the ACA. Congressional Budget
Office (CBO) estimates forecast that
the GOP’s anti-Obamacare crusade
would produce a massive increase in
the number of health care paupers.
Conversely, Obamacare remains
predicated on the notion that tens of
millions of additional patients will
stream into the health care system.
This naturally has great appeal to
doctors, HMOs, pharmaceutical
interests and hospitals.
If the health care system can be
likened to a store, then Obamacare
is akin to a store that’s packed
with customers while the GOP’s
rival establishment stands bare of
significant numbers of buyers.
Trump and the congressional GOP
may have more luck “reforming” the
tax system and initiating a meaningful
public works program, but this will
only occur if the Republicans decide
to discipline themselves and truly
function as a political party with
sophisticated ideas.
Frank W. Goheen
Vancouver, Wash.
LETTERS POLICY
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