Oregon Strategist

Reinventing the Oregon Dream

Youth and the Republican Party: An American Recovery

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Republican Elephant and Democratic DonkeyParty warfare and polarization of ideologies may be significantly to blame for the finger-pointing and squabbling in Washington D.C. Open primaries, term limits, and policies that suspend Congressional pay if shutdowns occur are just some of the answers to questions of how we must reform the internal mechanisms of our government in order to get back on track for being a proud and confident nation.

Yet, these policies may be some time away from now until young leaders are put in power that are willing to limit their own power for long-term objectives. Until that time, we must ask serious questions about how all of us – Republicans, Democrats and Independents – can come together to help shape the new Republican Party and bring back a balance of power to the system to check the unprecedented spending and waste in our federal government.

Every dollar our government spends today is a dollar that young people will have to pay back in their future. This is inherently unfair and unjust. Entrenched leaders in Washington D.C. continue to waste the money of future generations for their own political short-term gain. Our interests, the interests of those in their thirties, twenties and younger – are not being represented.

Young people have an opportunity to take over the Republican Party here in Oregon – be you Democrat, Republican or Independent. We have the opportunity to shape the party for ourselves and take back what is our future to spend – not theirs.

And conservative and progressive values, the real kind that is (as opposed to the kind promoted by the media), may be the kind we younger generations can embrace. We know what it is like to be under the weight of massive educational debt, not to have the employment opportunities we were told would be waiting for us on the other side, and to find ourselves unable to fulfill our American Dreams.

Our current leaders have failed us. We must now take up the torch and lead with real principles. That is, with self-sacrifice, courage, and pride in a future America we can own and love.

Entitlements are wasting our money. Military ventures are wasting our money. Centralized corporate-sponsored federal programs are wasting our money. Congress is wasting our money. This is our future. We want this future to be green, healthy, productive, and local.

To get back in the game we must go to work. We must find work in any sector. If it means working in an area we perceive to be below our educational level, we must work. We must reject anything handed to us. Only then can we hold our heads high. And we must hold our heads high in order to lead.

We will bring jobs back from overseas. We will go to the ports, find out what China is shipping to us, and make those products here. We will make them better and less expensive. We will encourage entrepreneurs. We will educate. We will stockpile. Our future will be one of great influence.

We will put our money into credit unions and keep our organizations nimble, flexible and local – like Privateers. We will execute a trade surplus and pay down our deficit. And we will not be reckless with the future of our next wave of youth.

We will reform Congress. We will take only one term in any given political office and will condemn political entrenchment and the establishment. We will limit our salaries because what we do is a service to our Great Nation, not a pillage of our Great Nation. We will give back, we will pay the way forward, we will unite, we will overcome and we will live mightily on our principles, work and love.

Timothy Crawley, a native son of Oregon, is a candidate for the 2014 United States Senate seat for Oregon.

Our Veteran Homeless: A Caretaker’s Perspective

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Homeless VeteranJason Kersten is a former Army Ranger that served in the Gulf War during Operation Desert Storm and Desert Shield. I spoke with him on a park bench in Lownsdale Square about his work with the veteran homeless population in Oregon and Portland in particular. 
There are currently 1400 houseless veterans in Oregon. Jason’s life mission is now to help these veterans deal with their drug, alcohol and health issues. He has a passion for this work and a deep connection to the community-at-large.Jason knows the difficult and unstable life of being without a roof over his head. He was one of four Porlanders who inspired me on the last Sunday in September, to sleep under the Hawthorne Bridge to experience, for just a moment, the restless night of one without shelter.

Imagine for a moment what it is like to have to merely choose where to sleep. Will you choose to sleep near other houseless, or by yourself in isolation? Will you sleep facing a wall with your back exposed or facing outwards where other people know you are sleeping because they can see that your eyes are closed? Either position imbeds an extraordinary lack of security. Now imagine, a train, or car, or passerby waking you up every two hours. You have to walk around the block. Go back to sleep. Imagine trying to hold a steady job under these conditions.

Ibrahim Mubarak, one of the primary founders of Right 2 Dream in downtown Portland, at one point told me that if we focused on eliminating homelessness amongst our veterans we would reduce overall homelessness by 30%. This is an astounding number on its own but given that this particular type of homelessness is a product of our society and the future we have created for many of these individuals who served their county with honor and valour, this is a type of homelessness we are obligated to eliminate.
I saw many others sleeping on the street that last Sunday in September. There were immigrants, the mentally sick, young runaways, and drug addicts. These are the most vulnerable in our society. The way we treat them is a reflection of who we are as a society and the kinds of values we promote.
We have the wealth and the capability in our nation to lift eachother up. Wealth stratification is stretching our society apart at an unhealthy and degrading level. The term “paying our way forward” has picked up new momentum as so many of us are realizing that consuming for ourselves is not the type of world we want to create. We see a better world. A world where we are not so reliant upon the energy the government sells to us to consume. A world where we are not so reliant upon the industrial food complex – where we now may find trees next to sidewalks bearing fruit. A world where we decide that modesty is relevant and alive and experience is shared.
Our soldiers have been exposed to the atrocities of this world. Whether one agrees with the military’s purpose or not, our human empathy begs us to stand by them on their return. We must pay the way forward to bring our soldiers home. We must re-integrate them properly into our civilian communities and think hard, as we have with Syria, about the real cost involved in sending them away to begin with.