Oregon Strategist

Reinventing the Oregon Dream

Monsanto Thunder, Merkley Blunder

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MonsantoPresident Obama signed into law H.R. 5973, the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act on March 26, 2013. The nationwide controversy that followed its passage was the result of section 733, the “Farmer Assurance Provision” that was notoriously nicknamed the “Monsanto Protection Act”, that included a rider added by the House of Representatives and passed by the Senate.

Oregon Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley, a member of the Appropriations Committee, voted for this bill and played a significant role in its passage. He attempted to cover his tracks by leading its repeal. When the repeal was blocked, he made an excuse that Republicans were to blame – a false excuse that continues to drive the wedge of divisiveness between the parties and fuels the lack of productivity in our nation’s capitol.

The rider, introduced by those in Washington D.C. with deep connections to the massive genetically modified seed corporation Monsanto, expands executive powers by allowing the U.S. Department of Agriculture the ability to override judicial proceedings invoked to protect the health and safety of American citizens. Furthermore, the rider grants growers of genetically modified seeds, the ability to continue to market and sell, fruits and vegetables that are potentially poisonous to our society.

First, Senator Merkley should have known of the rider. Back in December 2012, his fellow Oregonian House Representative Peter DeFazio authored a “Dear Colleague” letter opposing the Monsanto biotech rider.

Second, and furthermore, as a member of the Appropriations Committee, Senator Merkley should have had every legislative aid on his staff scouring the bill for suspicious language. Instead, the Senator, in failing to repeal the rider, drummed up the excuse that the Act was a “must-pass bill under tight time constraints.” He further explains in his statement to the President that the bill escaped the U.S. Senate “with no debate.” As a member of the Appropriations Committee, a debate should not be necessary for him to be aware of these riders.

As if excuses were not enough, he blames the GOP for blocking the repeal while ignoring the fact that fifty-one (51) democrats in the Senate voted for the Monsanto Protection Act as opposed to twenty (20) republicans – this was a bill favored by his party. Only one (1) democrat voted against the bill.

Attention to detail is certainly a necessary quality of a member of Congress. Accountability for mistakes is another such quality. Senator Merkley’s democratic colleague, Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) owned up to her role in H.R. 5973’s passage by making a public apology.

Partisan politics are to blame for the Sequester and much of the other government inaction plaguing the current system – not one particular party. We must seek to elect senators and representatives who are capable and willing to work with all members of Congress – not just those amongst their party ranks. These types of candidates are those trained to identify conflict and mediate towards a positive outcome.

Senator Merkley stands for reelection in 2014. His reliance on Oregon’s shade of “blue” is misplaced and unfounded. More folks now than ever are willing to cross their traditional party platform to vote for candidates who are conscientious, progressive, and balanced.

Josephine County: The Governing Conundrum

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Josephine County Sheriff's officer -- Photo courtesy Josephine County

Josephine County Sheriff’s officer — Photo courtesy Josephine County

Last week residents of Josephine County, Oregon rejected a levy that would increase property taxes in order to provide more funding for an increasingly resource-starved Sheriff’s Department. The voting results sparked conversation nationwide  regarding local, state and federal governing entities and their role in administering the duties of the state. The issue took a particularly emotional turn as news organizations focused in on a sexual assault committed against a woman who had called 911 last August but was unable to reach any authority

for lack of funding. Politicians at all levels offered their responses.

Josephine County, a mountainous and wildly beautiful swathe of land located in Southwestern Oregon is seventy (70) percent owned by the federal government as Oregon and California Revested Grantlands (O&C Lands). Cuts in federal subsidies (such as those provided under the Secure Rural Schools Act) resulting from the sequester is one reason for the County’s under-resourced Sheriff’s Department. United States Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) has proposed that sequestered funds be payed immediately through an amendment to the Farm Bill. At the state level, Governor John Kitzhaber is considering legislation to declare a public safety emergency in counties similarly affected by these federal cuts.

Should issues such as public safety be left to the local population when their self-determination results in choosing not to fund such services? On a different but connected issue, should the federal government be managing the lands of the county at all or, for that matter, providing subsidies to the local population to support the local bureaucracy? While these questions are difficult to answer, an even tougher issue for those such as Commissioner Simon Hare who advocate solely for local control is voter turnout in the county. Only fifty (50) percent of registered voters took action in the special election on May 21st that included the proposed levy – hardly a showing of democratic support against the tax. The levy itself lost by less than 600 votes.

Oregon residents should not be left to fund Josephine County’s policing practices. Josephine citizens’ voice, however unrepresentative, must be recognized and local politicians like Simon Hare should practice their preaching by rejecting such federal and state funding (something easier said than done but within their prerogative) and, rather, focusing on increasing voter awareness and turnout. Dependence on subsidies and emergency measures hurts everyone.

As for the federal government exercising control over much of the county, Reps. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.) and Greg Walden (R-Ore.) are gathering support for a bill that would alleviate some of the gridlock on logging in the area by putting certain previously logged areas in trust to the state for harvesting. The federal government, however, is uniquely situated to help mediate the use and protection of environmental resources given the cross-border effects of logging runoff, erosion, air quality and habitat destruction. We have witnessed how local practices of an industry (i.e. logging) can operate at the expense of other industries (i.e. salmon) where eco-systems are more organically inter-connected than the bright-line boundaries of local, state and federal territories. Managing the resources, businesses, and environmental organizations requires a neutral practitioner. So, while DeFazio, Schrader, and Walden are well-intentioned in their efforts to confer control over land-management to state authorities, they should not relinquish their position of being able to provide appropriate protections for more vulnerable parties.

Victory for Democracy: The Death of the Fluoride Measure in Portland

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water-or-fluoridePortland voters voted against adding fuorosilicic acid to their water supply, despite overwhelming odds, and continue to maintain their status as the largest city without fluoridated water. Pro-fluoride advocates marked the day as a defeat for public health. Anti-fluoride advocates rejoiced (for the fourth time since 1956) in the freedom of choice.

The 61 percent of citizens voting down the measure included the Pacific Green Party, the Oregon Progressive Party, the Organic Consumers Association, the Oregon Association of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, and the Cascade Policy Institute – strange bedfellows indeed [link].

Assuming fluoride is not harmful to the human body there is no excuse – not even the fact that fluoride is proven to prevent tooth decay – for mandatorily medicating a population. Vaccines used to prevent communicable diseases are not even mandatory by law but, rather, are required by state law only if one chooses to take advantage of state resources such as public education. Public health prevention should be tempered through policies that are not invasive to the individual body. Mass medication of this type straddles an Orwellian line the Portland citizenry has firmly rejected.

Healthy Kids, Healthy Portland and the pro-fluoride campaign, outraised their opponents 3-1 and still came up short at the end of the day, demonstrating democracy, at a local level, is alive and well in Portland. The government shared the support of fluoridating the city’s water supply, a move that would align Portland with the majority of large communities in the United States and would have a centralizing effect in consolidating power under agencies such as the Center for Disease Control. Keeping itself relevant is a primary reason for the government’s support of the measure. However, relevancy at the expense of additives to the water supply, a public resource, is a high price to pay.

Currently, Portland schools, through ViDA (Vision, Dental, and Audiometric screening program), offer a daily fluoride tablet program that provides fluoride upon request to students and their families at no cost. This program respects the choice that families should have in providing their children a substance that is harmful if ingested in certain amounts. Actions such as these are within the government’s prerogative of response to so-called dental epidemics as is education about proper health and dental care and providing students healthy, non-sugary vending and meal options at schools.

Truth be told, there are a multitude of options at the government’s disposal to address tooth decay that would preserve choice and could be much more cost effective than building a five million dollar facility with an annual operating budget in the hundreds of thousands. Switzerland uses fluoridated salt, thus preserving citizens’ choice by having non-fluoridated salt available. In Japan, a country that does not fluoridate its water, public health advertisements have normalized tooth-brushing after every meal such that students, teachers, and those in the workplace may be seen brushing their teeth in public and school restrooms around mealtimes.

The voting results marked the defeat of a measure that threatened Portlanders’ choice, unique cultural status, and clean water supply. Despite five commissioners and nearly every major city newspaper advocating for the Measure and despite being out-funded, Portlanders spoke with the loudest voice. No matter which way one falls in the fluoride debate, the defeat of Measure 26-151 is a victory for the city’s democratic process.

The Accountability of Banks

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imagesDodd-Frank and the Too-Big-To-Fail regulations of the Great Recession have done nothing to curb the growth and expansiveness of multinational banking institutions here in the United States. Our politicians’ actions in Washington D.C. have failed to address the heart of the issue in the big-banking world: accountability. Corporate behemoths such as JP Morgan Chase have shamelessly lobbied Congress for the kind of downside protection that affords key members in the banking echelons not only the notorious golden parachutes that reward failure of duty, but also the kind of criminal immunity that Attorney General Eric Holder has referred to as “Too Big to Jail.”  Crony capitalism of this form is the result of a lack in accountability.

The facts show that these obese banks game the system. They have found creative ways around the Volker Rule, legislation that banned the high-risk practice of proprietary trading. The reason they can and do game the system is because their size divests them of accountability to the customers they are supposed to be serving. Indeed, one large bank is known to refer to its customers as “muppets”. As drone attacks make fighting a war more impersonal, and thus, easier to rationalize, so do the actions of institutions that, because of their size, have created positions so specialized as to blur employees’ vision of their broader action and the morality behind such action. The right hand knows no longer what the left hand is doing.

The regulations the federal government has responded with have created the façade that our Congress is acting to curb the growth of these banks. Higher capital requirements, seemingly sensible to reduce risk, are a mere short-run band aid for a problem with no end in sight. Long-run, high-stakes betting, not covered by Volcker remains a virus in the banking system. As often happens when government policies lay down a blanket for reform, the little guys are squeezed out by higher costs in operations. Smaller banks find it more difficult to survive.

Should we not be rewarding accountability and deterring its obsolescence? Small banks (as well as businesses) focus on cutting costs and reducing waste as much if not more than their larger counterparts. Their efficiency is a product of a drive in quality. They are held accountable because clients are not “muppets” but rather the lifeblood of the institution. The clients live next door and form an integral and valued part of the system that generates their profits.

In 1904, Amadeo Giannini founded the Bank of Italy in San Francisco where he provided services to the immigrant communities of the city. He is great not because of his resulting progeny now known as Bank of America, but because his actions, at the most local level, served to ease the painful effects of San Francisco’s 1906 earthquake. Giannini was a banker accountable to his society. His motivation did not lie in the obfuscated derivatives of today’s Wall Street, but in the life of his neighbors who needed his help.

Accountability should be the overall aim of a society, not only for a recovering economy but also for one that wants to achieve sustainable growth, smoother business cycles, and higher quality products.

Higher Education: The American Dream

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Image Courtesy of: fwdnation.com

Image Courtesy of: fwdnation.com

Only one quarter of Americans believe they are living the American Dream. The American Dream is the essence and tranquility of freedom to pursue one’s happiness. We are each endowed with the talent and ability to pursue this happiness and we are further blessed to live in a country that values the education of its citizens such that we fund each and every individual’s access to this primary asset. Until the end of twelfth grade.

For more than a half century, we have been sold the idea that education must come in the form of a box that is packaged and shipped. We only understand its essence and tranquility from the format of our forebears and thus we continue on a path towards degree after degree to ripen ourselves for the moment we will become truly capable of providing this earth a service worthy of our being. However, as the top 1 percent’s income has risen over 11 percent while the bottom 99 percent’s income has fallen .4 percent during this recession we continue to find undergraduate and graduate education ever more unattainable.

The younger folks of our society seem to be keen as to these facts and are pursuing routes less cumbersome on budgets. These days, a student might go to a community college for two years and transfer to graduate a full-fledged Gator, Long-Horn, or Sage-Hen. Trade schools are becoming more common endeavors as the younger generation realizes the debt, both in money and time, that undergraduate and graduate degrees entail. Organizations such as The Oregon Idea are promoting a forty percent graduation rate from community colleges by 2025. Student debt is born by a lifetime of indentured servitude and an inability to file for bankruptcy when the system these students have materially relied upon does not provide adequate compensation for repayment of their debt to society. Unpaid student debt is passed on to the next generation because these loans are backed by the government.

Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts issued her first piece of legislation that would allow students to take out student loans at the same rate that large banks pay to borrow from the federal government – roughly .75 percent. Senator Warren’s work towards the achievement of equality in this nation should be commended. At the least, her legislation points out an absurdity to prove crony capitalism is convincingly alive and, at most, her legislation will pave the way towards phasing out a policy that has encumbered our nation’s future.

Tuition is skyrocketing. Students are carving alternative educational paths. Yet degrees still hold society’s political clout. Phasing out the $40,000 per year undergraduate education has already begun as companies like Intel are treating free online educational degrees as substitute equivalency. Again, the winners have been the banks who need not worry about students failing to make payments as loans are backed by the federal government. Our government providing assistance for the $40,000 per year education system will only prolong the status quo. This is yet another incidence of our government bailing out banks at the expense of our future. The foremost was in 2008.

Our Senators and Congress men and women must act as conduits of power, not possessors of power. Relinquishing the promise of backing private banks on educational loans must occur. Such a backing is a Ponsi scheme that serves no purpose other than to defraud our future. For once let us give a gift to our future rather than perform a theft. We must pay for what we are able to in the present.

Taking the Lead on Water

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Image by www.oregonlive.com

Image by www.oregonlive.com

When it comes to water, Portland should be the leader, not the follower. Oregon is renowned for its mountain waters that melt from clean winter snows off of the peaks of the Cascades. Now, the largest city in the state is set to vote in a special election on May 21 whether it will add fluorosilicic acid to its public waters. Portland is the largest city in the United States that does not fluoridate its public drinking water.

Nick Fish, Commissioner for Public Works, who played a significant role in advocating for fluoridation in Portland, has made clear his stance on the issue. His August 16, 2012 statement declared that cities save an estimated $38 in dental costs for every $1 toward the public fluoridation process. This seems to cry far from the truth where public schools already provide fluoridation treatments for their students and countless topical fluoride products may be found at any local store.

During a time when water and sewer rates are increasing drastically, despite across-the-board city budget cuts outlined just days ago, it is an exercise in wonder to find Portland’s commissioners touting the construction of a $5 million facility [Portland Water Bureau] with a $575,000 per annul operating and chemical cost. Especially considering there are so many less expensive and more targeted approaches to preventive periodontal care.

Furthermore, the city has paid scant attention to fluorosilicic acid’s effects on the environment. The Sierra Club has urged voters against the passage of adding fluoride to Portland’s public waters because of negative effects on salmon and aquatic life [Sierra Club Opposes Portland Water Fluoridation Measure 26-151]. Would adding more of this acid contribute to the already rapid acidification occurring on our oceans’ surfaces (a 30% increase since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution [Arctic Ocean ‘acidifying rapidly’].

Consumer choice and the ethical considerations of mass medication are strong arguments in favor of rejecting the Commissioner Fish’s proposal to fluoridate Portland’s public waters. There are currently no federal laws requiring vaccination [CDC State Vaccination Requirements] of children (however, many states require such vaccination before enrolling at public schools). Why should a citizen be forced to choose between buying bottled water and subjecting their children to ingestion of a chemical intended for topical use only? The proposal restricts our choice and is unethical to the extent that it is an attempt to mass medicate a population. We don’t even make such requirements of our vaccines.

Portland may be the largest city in the United States not to fluoridate its water. However, entire countries have banned the practice of fluoridating their public water altogether. Japan, the world’s third largest economy, ceased fluoridating its water in the early 70s, as did Sweden. Finland, Germany, and Czechoslovakia stopped the practice in the 90s. Their ministers have cited all of the above arguments for imposing fluoridated water on their populations.

As the proposal is set for a vote, citizens should consider not whether they believe there are health benefits or not to adding fluoride to our water but whether these benefits can be achieved through measured and responsible administration that respects the realm of parents and respects citizens’ consent. Citizens should consider Portland leading the way.

Old Growth, New Voice

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Why do we pay the highest taxes to a government that is furthest away from our homes and communities yet our local governments are struggling to keep our neighborhood pools afloat, our parks enriched, and our kids learning? Is it possible to temper our lust for creating institutions based primarily on a growth model akin to a pyramid scheme?

Both Republicans and Democrats cannot deny their involvement in making servants, if not slaves, out of the future generations of our country either because of nearly bankrupt social programs or because of international ventures gone awry. The parties have succumbed to the pressures inherent in gaining popular favor and retention of power. Representatives and senators are compelled by each imminent election to bring home as much pork as they can carve out from the carcass of our appropriations bills, in essence, stabilizing their influence and legitimizing their role to the voters back home.

Private enterprise, in an economy of scale, can operate in a parallel fashion. Companies such as Monsanto lobby Washington to secure last minute riders in Congressional bills that serve to make lawful their pillage of the average American while barricading their fiefdoms. Wall Street banks have largely been able to navigate around the financial regulations following the 2008 crash and have grown to such girth as to make any indictments of their executives too risky for the economy to endure. We even have seen our educational institutions focused on gaining as much market share as possible rather than perfecting the market share they own.

Grow. Grow. Grow. When the size of an institution begins to compromise the accountability they owe to those closest to home, that is when it is time to stop growing and time to start fine-tuning. Nike, Incorporated has provided tremendous services to Oregon. However, the capacity the company wields in forcing emergency sessions by the executive and legislative branches certainly conjures criticism on subversion of the democracy we are trying to achieve for our state. Accountability builds trust and is at the heart of any community. Crony capitalism and the desire to grow at all costs undermine the integrity of the bonds between us citizens.

When we buy from the behemoths, we are buying an empty homogenate. Changing the way we think about success in our institutions and ourselves is at the heart of reform. Buying local at every opportunity and making personal, individualized investments in the small businesses and non-profits of our state create a unique and vibrant community with healthy competition.

We, as voters and conscientious citizens, must reward politicians who act as conduits of power: not bankers of power. They must be rewarded for coordinating with community leaders in the locale. They must focus on perfecting the basics of government rather than seeking new program upon new program for their list of accomplishments. Local governments have an opportunity to take the reigns and lead their communities towards shaping their desired futures by holding the People’s voice upon the highest of pedestals.

A Bold Earth Day

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Portland celebrated Earth Day with high volunteer turnout as the Johnson Creek Watershed Council (“JCWC”) tilled the soil, putting down Ash tree, native grasses and shrub roots at the mouth of the creek where it meets the Willamette River. The JCWC has been a forerunner for salmon restoration efforts in the Portland region and has served as a premier example in Oregon for the transformative effect of volunteerism and local compassion for habitat renewal, sustainability, and species co-existence particularly in an urban environment.

This Earth Day weekend provides Oregonians a special opportunity to reflect on our vision for the state’s rivers and tributaries – perhaps our most precious resource here in the Northwest. Oregon’s waters have irrigated our farms, brought energy to our homes and businesses, and have made possible the transportation of goods across the state. The times, however, are largely different from those when the first federal levees rose out of the waters of the Columbia River by the Public Works Administration and President Roosevelt’s New Deal during the 1930s.

Over the previous five to ten years, much effort has been made to remove four obsolete dams on the lower Snake River: Ice Harbor, Lower Monumental, Little Goose, and Lower Granite. Their removal could bring such potential benefits as new nature tourism and fishing, outweighing the costs of dredging backed-up silt and dam maintenance. However, these dams remain standing today. And our fish populations continue to bear the impact.

A chasm stands between what we, as those who live and are sustained by the river, desire for our future and the removal, not merely of dams, but of outdated ideas. New ideas must take shape that meet our energy demands but that leave our rivers flowing more like rivers and less like a gauntlet for fish. As we learn to become less energy dependent and, likewise, as energy is created at a more local level and stored in a more efficient manner, perhaps our need to dam their flow will wane. In the meantime, politicians, elected and appointed officials, and administrators must take bold steps, perhaps even overturning unpopular international treaties regulating flood control, in order to realize our vision for a renewable and sustainable Oregon.

Today, Oregonians are uniting behind the salmon and wild fish populations that are crucial not only for the full expression of our rivers and streams but also for the future generations of our state. Our uniting begins and ends with the time we volunteer restoring these waters. Our uniting begins and ends in local efforts such as those of the Clackamas County Democrats, who, last Thursday, voted to endorse a different kind of levy (Measure 26-152) that would be used to enhance the renewal and restorative efforts of organizations like the JCWC.

To paraphrase from David James Duncan’s inspiring keynote address to the “Extinction Stops Here” rally in 2006, we’ll give up fighting for the salmon’s birth rivers and safe passage to the sea on the same day we see a wild salmon give up migrating. And we all know that they will never give up.

Local Plight, Federal Bite: Portland Community Budget Forum 4-11-2013

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Local Plight, Federal Bite: Portland Community Budget Forum 4-11-2013

The City of Portland held its Community Budget Forum yesterday evening with Mayor Charlie Hales, Commissioner Nick Fish, Commissioner Dan Saltzman, and Commissioner Amanda Fritz presiding.

Educational, homeless and environmental groups dominated the floor and commenting session in the packed conference center at Montgomery Park. Audience members chanted “No More Cuts” as students implored the City Council to preserve funding for SUN Community Schools and the Multnomah Youth Commission. Hacienda CDC and Portland’s Clark Center also made a splash alongside supporters of the Buckman community pool.

Portland is a beautiful city, due in large part to the efforts of organizations like Friends of Trees (which stands to have 50% of its public funding cut from its budget and, of which, Mayor Charlie Hayes is on the board). The tranquility of the upper Willamette and the pace and lifestyle in Multnomah is creating an influx of folks from out-of-state, seeking a better existence and community. Portland is a growing community, and despite high unemployment figures, it is shaping itself into a formidable small business and incubator environment. Now is not the time to sell the future short.

Difficult economic times has required city, county and state governments as well as the federal government to make difficult decisions as to the programs that will continue to receive funding and those that will experience cuts or obsolescence. In these times, citizens should be thinking about the structure and relationship of these entities to one another and to the citizenry.

Healthy skepticism of government is only possible where such skepticism is impactful. The power and dominance of Washington D.C. override any such expressions and mute the voices that were so abundant at yesterday’s gathering. The fiscal cliff and sequestration are perhaps among the first signs of a dismantling of this industrial political complex, however, our state’s leaders in Washington D.C. need to begin the process of giving power back to their localities and citizenry – or face their own obsolescence.

Yesterday, Mayor Hales and the Commissioners physically heard their citizens’ outcries. Direct democracy of this kind does not exist at the faceless level of federal governance. Democracy at this level is a derivative of popular support.

The conversation surrounding local budgets should be one of the highest priorities for an Oregon politician in Washington D.C. Their concern for local budgets should coincide with the removal of our troops from foreign soil, the cleanup of antiquated federal infrastructure that has compromised our waterways and forests, and the protection of the principals of our Constitution for all citizens, regardless of color, creed or orientation.

Under the above circumstances, the conversation at yesterday’s Community Budget Forum would have sounded radically different. Folks would have been discussing further ways to collaborate and integrate. Instead, the health and well being of youth, women, minorities, the homeless and vulnerable are being jeopardized by the City’s cuts. Changing this outcome requires Oregon politicians in Washington D.C. to make the short-term sacrifices of power necessary for long-term care of our cities and state.