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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (April 18, 2018)
Page 4A East Oregonian Wednesday, April 18, 2018 KATHRYN B. BROWN Publisher DANIEL WATTENBURGER Managing Editor TIM TRAINOR Opinion Page Editor Founded October 16, 1875 OUR VIEW Will ‘new’ NAFTA be better for ag than before? Donald Trump says the United States is close to reaching a deal with Canada and Mexico on changes to the North American Free Trade Agreement, but there’s no word yet if the new and presumably improved pact will benefit U.S. farmers and ranchers. There was plenty of opposition to the North American Free Trade Agreement even before it went into effect in 1994. The treaty was negotiated under President George H.W. Bush’s administration and became an issue in his 1992 re-election campaign. Independent candidate Ross Perot famously remarked that if NAFTA was ratified, American workers would hear a “giant sucking sound” of their jobs going south to Mexico. Labor unions agreed. But to their chagrin, President Bill Clinton supported NAFTA and signed it once ratified. Some blame NAFTA for destroying U.S. manufacturing jobs. Trump picked up on that riff as part of his campaign opposition to what he termed “unfair” trade deals. Last year the president threatened to pull out of the pact unless Canada and Mexico renegotiated. Agriculture has a big stake in NAFTA. Since the pact took effect, ag exports to Canada and Mexico have increased from $8.9 billion to more than $38 billion. But not everyone is completely satisfied. Local wheat growers, for example, say the pact has opened up the Mexican market, increasing exports by 400 percent. At the same time, they have a beef with Canada. Canadian wheat sold at an elevator in the U.S. is rated the same as if it were produced here. But U.S. wheat delivered to an elevator in Canada is rated as feed wheat and priced accordingly. There’s no incentive for U.S. farmers to take wheat to Canada, but Canadian farmers are on an equal footing with U.S. producers when they sell here. Local dairies take issue with Canada, too. U.S. and Mexican dairy groups have a common interest in pressing for better treatment when products go north. Producers of seasonal fruits and vegetables say Mexican growers who can produce crops year round can flood the U.S. with cheaper product. They want new rules that will make it easier for them to file anti-dumping complaints. Have any of these issues been addressed? No one really knows. Some Trump critics say the administration, despite the president’s bluster, is striking a more conciliatory tone in order to close the deal and claim victory. They note that Trump had harsh words for a trade pact with South Korea, but terms agreed to so far are not dramatically different. They also say having entered into an escalating trade tiff with China, an opponent that can match his rhetoric, he can’t afford to have NAFTA in the loss column. Whether true or not, maybe a deal that more or less maintains the status quo is for the best. American farmers can’t afford to lose NAFTA. OTHER VIEWS The blindness of social wealth B YOUR VIEWS Inconceivable doesn’t mean what Hansell thinks it does I take issue with state Senator Bill Hansell’s potshot at Governor Kate Brown in “A tale of Princess/Governor Kate in OregonMyOregon” on two counts: First, it showed more disrespect than I naively expect our taxes to support in a public servant. Second, Sen. Hansell chose as his rhetorical vehicle a treasured fairy tale “The Princess Bride,” to lodge his complaint against a governor and legislature from the opposing party. “Inconceivable,” writes Mr. Hansell. I don’t think that word means what he thinks it means. To summarize the scene in question, Vizzini is a Sicilian mercenary hired by Prince Humperdinck (heir to the Florin crown) to kidnap Buttercup and stage a “false flag” operation, place blame on Florin’s sworn enemy Guilder, and trigger a war. Buttercup — aka Princess Bride — inconceivably escapes but only to a second plot to kill her. She isn’t exactly signing self-serving decrees concocted by royal courtiers (I suspect Mr. Hansell couldn’t resist calling the governor a princess). Sen. Hansell’s analogy might have been reduced to a single sentence: It’s unfair being in the minority party. Meanwhile uphill, a perfectly fine fairy tale was playing out in the Castle of Trump. Donald I, with great fanfare, had signed into law a bill drafted and passed with scant deliberation by, yes, his majority party. This law would balloon the national debt to pay for tax cuts promising meager aid for small-scale merchants to justify further enrichment of the nobility already in the process of purchasing government. Despite royal mathematicians’ doubts, the king promised all a happy ending. Downhill, territorial governors were wringing hands over the effects of this law on their subjects. Many commoners sided with the King’s court, perfectly content to believe in his magic fairy dust over budget analysts’ less rosy predictions. It would appear Sen. Hansell might prefer spinning tortured parables to actual problem-solving (like spending time instead on a bipartisan solution to PERS, a true budgetary puzzle). He’s hardly the first politician to engage in petty political Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board. Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not necessarily that of the East Oregonian. posturing. But senator, in the future, when you want to poke fun at the governor, beware the perils of irony. If you are partial to moral lessons in your grandchildren’s bedtime stories, consider something less ambitious. “The Emperor’s New Clothes” comes to mind. Bill Grigsby La Grande Vote for Rob Collins for Circuit Court position I am writing to urge you to vote for Rob Collins for Circuit Court judge. I’ve known Rob for more than 40 years and have had the opportunity to work with him of a professional level during that time. Rob has the knowledge and temperament it takes to be a fair and impartial judge. Because of his successful private law practice, I have no doubt that Rob would make a smooth transition to the bench and it is vital to the residents of Umatilla County that this position be filled by someone who can hit the ground running — and Rob Collins is that person. Please join me in voting for Rob Collins as Umatilla County Circuit Court judge. Dennis Hunt Pendleton Vote Jake Cambier for Pendleton city council Vote for Jake Cambier for Pendleton City Council at-large position. Jake has been a Pendleton resident since 1978. He practiced medicine and raised a family. He is very involved in the community and served as a school board member. He serves as a Rotarian and remains active in our community. He is very qualified for the city council position. Jake will look at council issues with an open mind, listen to anyone who expresses concerns and will make logical decisions based on the best information available. Pendleton’s future will be well served with Jake Cambier as a city councilor. Thank you for your support. Bruce and Margaret Gianotti Pendleton undergird many of our other ob Hall was a rancher. In 1936, in the midst of the problems. More Americans are Depression, he was suffering socially poor. And yet it is very hard from a cancer that was eating for the socially wealthy to even the flesh on the side of his face. see this fact. It is the very nature of His ranch had dwindled to nearly loneliness and social isolation to be nothing, and weeks after bankers invisible. We talk as if the lonely took the last of his livestock, Hall don’t exist. died, leaving his family deeply in David I was really struck by this last debt. Brooks week, when Mark Zuckerberg His sons pleaded with anybody Comment came through Washington. Most they could find to make a loan of the questions he faced at the and save the family ranch. No one congressional hearings and most would do it. Finally, in desperation, they of the analysis in the press were about went to their neighbor, Buzz Newton, who Facebook’s failure to protect privacy. That’s was known for his miserliness, and asked the sort of thing that may be uppermost him to co-sign a loan. “I always thought on your mind if you are socially wealthy, so much of your dad; he was the most if, like most successful politicians and generous man I have known,” Newton analysts, you live within a thick web answered. “Yes, I’ll co-sign the note.” of connection and feel as if your social Bob Hall’s grandson, also named Robert schedule is too full. Hall, drew out the lesson in his book “This But the big issue surrounding Facebook Land of Strangers,” noting: “The truth is, is not privacy. It’s that Facebook and other relationships are the most valuable and social media companies are feeding this value-creating resource of any society. epidemic of loneliness and social isolation. They are our lifelines to survive, grow and It’s not only that heavy social media users thrive.” are sadder. It’s not only that online life There’s a mountain of evidence seems to heighten painful comparisons and suggesting that the quality of our both inflate and threaten the ego. It’s that relationships has been in steady decline heavy internet users are much less likely to for decades. In the 1980s, 20 percent of have contact with their proximate neighbors Americans said they were often lonely. to exchange favors and extend care. There’s Now it’s 40 percent. Suicide rates are now something big happening to the social at a 30-year high. Depression rates have structure of neighborhoods. increased tenfold since 1960, which is not British anthropologist Robin Dunbar only a result of greater reporting. Most observes that human societies exist on children born to mothers under 30 are born three levels: the clan (your family and close outside marriage. There’s been a steady friends), the village (your local community) 30-year decline in Americans’ satisfaction and the tribe (your larger group). In with the peer-to-peer relationships at work. America today you would say that the Former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy clans have polarized, the villages have summarized his experience as a doctor in been decimated and the tribes have become an article in September in The Harvard weaponized. Business Review: “During my years caring That is, some highly educated families for patients, the most common pathology I have helicopter parents while less fortunate saw was not heart disease or diabetes; it was families have absent parents. The middle loneliness.” ring cross-class associations of town and Patients came to see him partly because neighborhood have fallen apart. People they were lonely, partly because loneliness try to compensate for the lack of intimate made them sick. Weak social connections connection by placing their moral and have health effects similar to smoking 15 emotional longings on their political, ethnic cigarettes a day, and a greater negative and other tribes, turning them viciously on effect than obesity, he said. each other. Over the past five years, such trends The mass migration to online life is not have abruptly gotten worse. In 2012, 5.9 the only force driving these trends, but percent of young people suffered from severe mental health issues. By 2015 it was it is a big one. Such big subjects didn’t come up in the Zuckerberg hearings 8.2 percent. because socially wealthy and socially poor Last year, Jean Twenge wrote a much- people experience Facebook differently discussed article for The Atlantic, “Have and perceive reality and social problems Smartphones Destroyed a Generation,” differently. It’s hard to quantify and charting the accelerating social collapse. communicate the decline in quality of Teenagers are suddenly less likely to date, relationships. But it is nonetheless true that less likely to leave the home without their many of us who are socially wealthy don’t parents, more likely to put off the activities really know how the other half lives. of adulthood. They are spending more ■ time alone with their digital screens, and David Brooks became a New York Times the greater the screen time, the greater the unhappiness. Eighth-graders who are heavy Op-Ed columnist in 2003. He has been a senior editor at The Weekly Standard, users of social media are 27 percent more a contributing editor at Newsweek and likely to be depressed. I summarize all this because loneliness the Atlantic Monthly, and is currently a and social isolation are the problem that commentator on PBS. 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. 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.
