A Radio Town hall conversation. Aired live on 1600AM.
This Thursday, Aug. 30th. 6:30-8pm. FREE.
Town hall conversation with community members and panelists. Representatives of different perspectives on current federal forest policies and impact on communities will be present. Discussion will be surrounding the resolution supporting permanent funding of secure rural school legislations (SRS). Brian Shaw will MC!
THEN… After-party hosted by The Lane Co. Bus Project.
A causal get together will take place at Oak Street Speakeasy. (corner of Broadway and Oak St. Eugene) Begins right after town hall.
The Daily Show gives it’s take on the history of funding wars in the Middle East and how every attempt to balance and solve the problems with arms just makes it worse.
We’ve already explored these issues HERE and HERE, but this video will at least make you laugh to avoid the sadness.
I think it has come to the point where humor is the only way to deliver these realizations to keep us all from punching ourselves in the head.
Some have challenged that if I didn’t like my experience at the recent town hall meeting in Eugene, could I do better? Who knows? I sure appreciate that DeFazio had the guts to stand in front his people, angry and all. For a different model of public process, see a recent column in the Eugene Weekly. Steve McQuiddy discusses how our local County Commissioners invited public participation in local government and brought forth what the author called a sighting of the “rare bird of democracy”.
One night this July, I saw one of the rarest birds in America today. It landed in the early evening in south Eugene, not far from the Amazon swimming pool. A crowd gathered as it scratched the ground for food, found enough to keep it going through the night, and then moved on to search for sustenance in another part of the county.
It was the bird of democracy, and it was beautiful.
I admit I wasn’t expecting such a display. Like others, I came out of curiosity to the first stop of the five-meeting Lane County Board of Commissioners 2007 Listening Tour, billed as a community forum where “County Commissioners want your input, thoughts and ideas to help shape the future of Lane County Government.
I attended the this event as well, and left feeling for the first time in months that our county might have positive public process leading to improved government services, support, and community in Lane County.
So, I’m a process person — I’d accept a lot of decisions if I knew the process was just and fair. How can we shore up public support of civic life here in Lane County and in Oregon?
Iran must be attacked. The main reason it must be attacked is that it shares THREE of the four letters with Iraq — and if you want to get serious, it is the FIRST three letters. This non-coincidence means jupiter is in the seventh house and cheney aligns with mars (the war god not the bar).
Back to Cheney. If i were cheney, an embarrassment to a nation, how could I get a country with no interest in attacking Iran to attack Iran. Having an anti-mandate and impeachment fervor would make this hard. I would probably start with showing that we are trying diplomacy, at the same time doing things like declaring their revolutionary guard a terrorist organization. Coincidentally four days ago, the administration announced just that this — though not widely enough reported. That should trigger some type of response from Iran’s main military organization which would illicit them to “punch” us. Again coincidentally the claim of a future punch came yesterday. And if they do something, the administration has blanket power to retaliate based on the global war on terror.
Will they need a Gulf-of-Tonkin-type permission or is the war-on-terror card good enough?
I just came back from the last of three Defazio town halls in Lane County . He walked to the front of the packed house (lined with anti-war signs) at the EWEB Community Room in Eugene without introduction and began his prepared remarks.
He was quickly interrupted by several extremely frustrated people, demanding an end to the war, impeachment of the President (and Vice President) and a few hits on Alberto Gonzalez. My neighbor was so aggravated by Pete’s (seeming) impotence to change the Bush administration’s international policies (and warrant-less wiretapping) he was literally shaking with anger. Of course, being next to him, I was doomed to an hour of holding my hand up desperately waiting my turn to ask about why the federal government consistently stands in Oregon’s way of real health care reform (Medicare, for one).
This is no way to move our community forward. The emotions were high, but there was no dialogue. No one actually learned from DeFazio or from each other, and Pete didn’t facilitate the meeting to prevent outbursts and individuals hogging air time. He also had no structure to the meeting, which means that there was no way of ensuring that several topics were covered.
So, as a local activist and a policy nerd, I get all wonky when a change to federal policy translates into better (or, lately, worse) circumstances for our community. Like how revisions to Medicaid now require applicants to provide an original birth certificate, a barrier that has excluded at least 1000 Oregon citizens from health coverage who would have received it prior to this law.
I don’t enjoy yelling, particularly not when it fails to achieve a meaningful end. Defazio sponsors much of the good federal policy out there, and pointed out it is the Senate that has slowed or killed many bills the House has passed. But excuses would not satisfy this beast!
Seriously, I hope Pete and the rest of our legislators at all levels learn to promote dialogue rather than permit chaos (there are many facilitation strategies that could have made this a more satisfying experience for everyone) — even the most just cause doesn’t give us the right to take up more social space then our neighbors in a public forum. And I expect a man as smart as Peter DeFazio (a counselor, no less) to know how to get his constituents to remember we are all neighbors.
But I forgave my neighbor for his outburst – he looked like he just needed validation that he wasn’t crazy, and maybe a hug.
This post from Mike on LaneBus.org about the US planning to sell $20 billion in arms to Saudi Arabia, really got me thinking (and depressed). How will spreading more ways of killing people help increase the peace? It made me remember a speech given by Dwight Eisenhower in 1953 called “CHANCE FOR PEACE”. Amazing that well over 50 years ago one of our leaders had the right idea. It is too bad very few leaders have learned or listened to that message since. Even in 1953 his words still apply today:
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.This world in arms is not spending money alone.
It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.
It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.
It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.
It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.
We pay for a single fighter with a half million bushels of wheat.
We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.
This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense.
Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
…aspire to this: the lifting, from the backs and from the hearts of men, of their burden of arms and of fears, so that they may find before them a golden age of freedom and of peace.
GET ON THE BUS…..with US this SUNday!
Join us for a chill BBQ at one happening pad.
Find out more about the Oregon Bus Project, meet the LaneBus steering team, and let us grill you up some goodies! Hell, we’ll even let you bring a friend or two!
WHEN: Sunday, August 19th, 2007 @ 6pm WHERE: Mark’s House! (1 of our rock’n steering members). Eugene, Oregon.
