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stevenamick's comments:
on The Role of Protesting
My wife and I participated Saturday in the rally on the capitol steps in Salem to support collective bargaining and other vital rights that are being attacked in Wisconsin and everywhere else in America.
The throng we joined numbered at least 1,000 -- if not twice as many, or more. We were proud to be there in solidarity with them, and with the tens or perhaps hundreds of thousands who rallied in more than 60 American cities, including the capitals of all 50 states.
Not since the 1960s and '70s, when activists took to the streets and eliminated legally sanctioned racism, won tremendous gains in the gender- and gay-rights struggles, and ended the Vietnam War, have I witnessed such fervor in our nation's streets.
Yes, I believe that after decades of wishful thinking, inattention and apathy U.S. citizens who cherish democracy have been inspired by events in the Middle East and North Africa to take direct and effective action here at home.
Crooks, tryrants, monarchs, greedheads, autocrats, thugs, plutocrats, oligarchs, sociopaths, despots, gangsters, dictators, corporatists and fascists of all stripes are fundamentally the same all over the world -- as is the power of the human spirit and its unstoppable striving for peace, freedom, justice, equality and hope.
Taking to the streets, plazas, parks and capitol steps to demonstrate unshakable resolve and to insist on change is winning in North Africa and the Middle East. It will win here in America, too.
During Saturday's rally in Salem, as we shouted our collective opposition to Scott Walker and those of his ilk who would trample the American Dream, destroy our middle class and force our poor to choose between starving or begging for scraps from the garbage cans of the filthy rich, one of our brothers held aloft a hand-made sign that said it best: "Walk like an Egyptian!"
posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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on The Biomass Question
"Biomass conversion" is weasel-speak for "garbage burning."
posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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on High Speed Momentum
I like high-speed trains, but I'm sick of our public treasuries being treated like piggy banks for private profiteers.
If we, the people, buy a transportation system, we must own it. If we own it, our workers ought to build and run it.
With jobs and paychecks they can purchase goods and services in their communities, creatiing and sustaining more employment and generating tax revenues to support public amenities -- like high-speed trains -- for the common good.
posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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on Capital People
Julie -- I appreciate Think Out Loud's interest in these very important issues and look forward to TOL's further coverage of the current legislative session in Salem.
You might be interested to know that there's another vital, but so far little-noted, environmental issue wending its way through committees in the House and Senate right now.
No fewer than five bills have been introduced this session to fast-track routing/permitting/siting/building Liquefied Natural Gas-related pipelines, like the proposed Palomar Pipeline that would rip through hundreds of miles of public and private farms and forest lands, including clear-cutting and bulldozing a 47-mile-long, freeway-wide swath through Mt. Hood National Forest.
These bills, which are each similar to one another, (some have slight variations,) are attempts to accomplish what big-money LNG backers and the politicians they bankroll failed to do in the last legislative session, with HB 3058.
That bill would have allowed wetland removal-and-fill permits for pipeline projects on private lands to be granted to applicants other than the landowners or their agents -- without the landowner's consent and even against the landowner's expressed wishes.
HB 3058 was blocked by citizen activists, environmentalist organizations (e.g., Columbia RiverKeepr, BARK, the Sierra Club, etc.,) individual landowners and property rights groups. Part of that battle involved controversy over two anti-LNG protesters (a friend and me) who picketed in front of a state representative's house -- apparently the first time anyone had done that in Oregon.
The resulting flap (Dave Hunt, the Speaker of the House, was so furious he reportedly threatened to block all environmental bills then being considered in the House,) split opinion among the anti-LNG forces. Some applauded the action and others condemned it, but it boosted awareness of the LNG fight and focused the glare of publicity on it (Ted Sickinger, for one, wrote about it in The Oregonian,) and helped block both the proposed Bradwood Landing LNG terminal on the Columbia River and HB 3058.
Now, however, the LNG shills are back -- this time with a strategy (those multiple bills, enactment of any of them could accomplish their aim,) that makes it difficult for opponents to track, testify against and defeat them. It's like being afoot in a bumper-car rink; it's tough to dodge 'em all.
We haven't given up, though. Some of us aren't young, (my picketing pal and I are both grandparents in our sixties,) but we're nimble.
posted 2 years, 4 months ago
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on Live from Salem
Yesterday I attended a hearing before the Oregon Legislature's House Judiciary Committee on several bills that are intended to gut Oregon's land-use laws.
Radical right-wing ideologues on that committee -- including a so-called "Democrat," Mike Schaufler, a self-serving contractor, are pushing for their adoption.
One of these abominations would require that if a citizen appealed a land-use decision to Oregon's Land Use Board of Appeals, and a money-grubbing developer prevailed, the poor schlub who dared object to a developer's land-raping would be forced to pay the winner's attorney fees. And these creeps often hire gangs of lawyers.
Another of these bills would limit who could take a land-use case to LUBA in the first place. This piece of legislative garbage would bar anyone who does not own land immediately adjacent to, or very near, the property at issue in the case case from having "standing" -- the right to appeal.
This would prevent many individuals and organizations who care about Oregon's land-use laws from using them to help preserve our state's quality of life.
During Tuesday's hearing, opponents of these bills -- including extremely articulate spokespeople for 1000 Friends of Oregon and the League of Women Voters -- vastly outnumbered the handful of backers of the proposed legislation who showed up. Yet the land-rapers and their shills were met with deference and favoritism.
It was shocking and dismaying to hear the lies and invective the greedheads' stooges on the committee heaped upon the dedicated citizen activists who work diligently as environmental watchdogs and allies of ordinary Oregonians whose only interest in opposing land-use abuses is preserving their own, their neighbors' and Oregon's liveability.
Please, EVERYONE: Do what you can to block this assault on Oregon's proudest achievement: our pioneering land-use laws. Write Governor Kitzhaber. Tell him that if any of these horrible bills is approved by the legislature, you want him to veto it. This attack on our state and all of us who love it must be blocked.
posted 2 years, 4 months ago
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on Question Time
John:
Several spectacularly stupid schemes to foist liquefied natural gas onto Oregon -- to the detriment of our health, safety, property rights and environment -- remain in the works, despite broad-based and determined opposition.
Individual citizen activists and environmentalist and property-rights organizations successfully blocked one such plot, the now moribund Bradwood Landing LNG Terminal proposal. But two other LNG terminals are proposed: at Coos Bay and at the Skipanon site on the Columbia River at Warrenton; and, like the corpses in Night of the Living Dead, Bradwood Landing and its associated Palomar Pipeline could lurch from their graves.
The Skipanon LNG site -- just like Bradwood Landing -- is linked to Palomar, a huge and explosively dangerous steel pipeline that would be hundreds of miles long, most of it above ground. Erecting and maintaining this high-pressure gas pipe would require clearcuttting and bulldozing a freeway-wide swath through 47 miles of the Mt Hood National Forest, including old-growth timber, threatened and endangered species habitat and some of the finest recreational areas and most beautiful scenery on Earth.
Burning petrofuels like gas contributes to the global climate crisis and continues our nation's dependence on, and kowtowing to, foreign governments and greedy corporations that supply them. The enormous amount of energy required to liquefy, ship, regasify, store and pipe petrogas enlarges its carbon footprint by 30 to 40 percent while boosting its cost to consumers and further enriching the world's worst parasites, the petroprofiteers.
If we choose to elect you again as our governor, what would you do to protect Oregon and its citizens from the curse of LNG?
posted 2 years, 7 months ago
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on Philosophy of Taxes & Spending
Raising taxes must be on the table, but not at the expense of small businesses, wage-earners, pensioners and the poor.
Garnering adequate government revenue to support programs and projects for the common good by boosting taxes on the megarich and giant corporations gets my vote.
Let's restore the funding our public agencies need to function for the people, not the plutocrats.
Let's reverse our current tax structure's absurd wealth-transfer scheme -- taking from the poor and people of modest means and giving to the rich -- that's devastating our environment, endangering our democracy and destroying our middle class.
As Warren Buffet said: "There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning."
Let's fight back.
We can turn the tide by working for progressive, not regressive, taxes.
posted 2 years, 7 months ago
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on The Viability of LNG
Foisting liquefied natural gas off on Oregon, with its inherent environmental damage and its danger of destruction and death, is a spectacularly stupid scheme.
LNG is not needed in Oregon, it has a 30 to 40 percent greater carbon footprint than domestic natural gas. It is expensive, toxic and explosive. Bringing it here would be a huge mistake.
Through a combination of organized opposition and individual actions, we managed to block the Bradwood Landing boondoggle. But there's no place for complacency in this fight.
Two more LNG terminals/regasification plants and hundreds of miles of large-diameter high-pressure pipelines are still planned. These pipes would move the regassified LNG from the coast, across our state and over the Cascade Range to connect with an existing north/south pipeline to California, where it would be sold to further enrich Enron-type investors at our expense.
The proposed Palomar Pipeline is a particular abomination. In addition to ripping through hundreds of miles of farms, vineyards and other private propeties, it would require a freeway-wide swath of right of way be clearcut and bulldozed through the Mt. Hood National Forest. This raw wound would be absolutely devastating to stands of old-growth timber, threatened- and endangered-wildlife and some of the most scenic and recreationally valuable public land in the world.
We MUST prevent Palomar and save Mt. Hood! We MUST prevent these petropirates from plundering our state -- and WE WILL!!!
posted 3 years, 1 month ago
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on Controlling LNG
Oregon does not need liquefied natural gas, and neither does America. This is just another Russian Mafia/Enron/banksters-style rip-off -- not only of ratepayers, but of the Earth's biosphere. What are you going to do to STOP it -- not just make sure all the i's ar dotted and the t's are crossed? Is Ted going to man up, or just play more pattycake games with the petropigs?
posted 3 years, 3 months ago
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on Vortex I
My good friend Lee makes an important point that many people miss now, and many missed at the time of Vortex I and the Vietnam war: being anti-war is not the same as being pro-peace.
Fighting is fighting, no matter how righteous the battle, and making love is not making war.
Although there is a difference, there is no need to insist that only one way is correct or even that one is better than the other. Opposing what is wrong and showing what is right are both honorable. To effect profound social/political change, both may be required, but not necessarily of the same person.
Lee knows this. A philospher and artist, he opts not merely to emphasize, but to embody positivism and peace.
I respect his choice and admire his work to make the world a peaceful and more beautiful place. I also see a need to actively oppose wars and, in fact, do so, myself. Note, however, that while some anti-war activists might denigrate Lee for his way, he does not deride us for ours.
posted 3 years, 4 months ago
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on Animal Assistance
I really like dogs and often enjoy meeting new ones in parks and other public places -- out of doors.
I do NOT appreciate running into strange dogs in stores and other places of business, especially restaurants and supermarkets, which seems increasingly to be the case.
Aside from obvious issues of safety and sanitation , (I know, YOUR pet won't relieve itself in the produce department or bite my toddler granddaughter, but someone else's might,) there are concerns about allergies and/or phobias some people suffer.
And consider this: If dogs are allowed everywhere, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is recognized as a serious enough illness to be grounds for some people to have service or therapy dogs, for example, what accomodation is there for someone who has PTSD as the result of witnessing or suffering a near-fatal dog attack? Must that person stay out of all stores and other places of business for fear of encountering a bad-tempered pit bull or German shepherd? Or one of each, getting into a fight?
I recognize that service dogs for people with serious disabilities like blindness are vital, and occasionally seeing one in The Home Depot (where dogs seem to outnumber even the hordes of overly helpful employees these days) is inevitable. But it should be uncommon, and pets and companion animals should be prohibited. Therapy animals? Where does it end? A Presa Canario for someone who's lonely? And why limit them to dogs? How about a python?
I leave it to lawmakers and health-care professionals to determine who qualifies to employ a service or therapy dog, but I believe the number of such canine assistants needs to be strictly regulated. It should be restricted to those that are truly needed, professionally trained, properly socialized and specially licensed.
The license tag or emblem should be distinct and highly visible. That would help prevent intrusive questioning of the dog's owner. At the same time it would assure people who are afraid of dogs that at least those that are licensed have been bred, raised, trained and tested according to rigorous standards of competence and behavior, and examined to determine those standards have been met.
posted 3 years, 5 months ago
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on RX: Health Care by Christmas?
The bogus "health care reform" bill that is emerging from the Senate's Democratic Party Caucus, if enacted into law, would force millions of Americans to buy insurance from the same corporations whose profit-gouging and bloated CEO payouts caused America's crisis in health-care coverage in the first place.
This is like using police to line up Christmas shoppers outside an alley with a gang of thugs in it so they can be mugged -- and threatening to fine or jail them if they get out of line.
To make this horrible situation worse, not only would the insurance gangsters get millions more guaranteed victims, if the victims themselves can't pay, we -- the citizens and taxpayers of the United States -- will have our pocket (the U.S. Treasury) picked to make sure the crooks get their loot.
On top of all that, there's no public option; no early Medicare buy-in; no cap on insurance costs (not even for those of our fellow citizens with pre-existing medical conditions) and no method for insuring that everyone in our nation will receive the health care that he or she needs, without worrying that illness or injury will throw them into bankruptcy.
Howard Dean is right. It's time to start over and get it right.
Fixing the health insurance crisis should be simple: extend Medicare to everyone.
posted 3 years, 5 months ago
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on Guilty but Insane Due to PTSD
This is a terribly sad, difficult and complicated case -- a genuine tragedy. As a citizen, a former crime reporter and a veteran, I would not dream of second-guessing the jury or the outcome of the trial. I feel for everyone involved; and we are ALL involved.
The more fine, upstanding young men and women who otherwise would never willingly harm another human being are subjected to the intense pressures of military indoctrination required to turn them into killers, sent to kill, ordered to kill and put into situations in which they do kill, the more murder, suicide and other violence we will see after they return home. Some crack; none escapes unharmed.
That is just one of many reasons we must make absolutely certain that war is our last resort, to be employed ONLY for defense and ONLY after every other means of resolving conflict has failed -- not as simply another political wrench in any administration's toolbox.
Post-traumatic stress disorder -- the mental and emotional damage known in previous wars as battle fatigue, shell shock or combat neurosis -- is an inevitable result of sending ordinary human beings into the terror, slaughter and soul-shattering hell that is war. Like physical injury or death, it is an appalling cost to pay. We must be willing to bear that cost -- or ask others to bear it -- ONLY when we have no other choice.
What goes around, comes around. To enjoy peace in America, we must be peacemongers everywhere.
posted 3 years, 6 months ago
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on Athletic Diversity
Why limit this bill to race? How many women athletic directors and football coaches are there? Shouldn't that inequity be addressed, as well?
posted 4 years ago
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on December Ideas
Steven Amick
stevenamick@hotmail.com
posted 4 years, 6 months ago
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