Salem-News.com Op Ed articles Page 30

Op Ed: Lacking Communication
Legislative Consensus
Killed by Confrontations

Oregon Political-Cult Protocol Prevents Essential Action.

(SALEM) - Confrontation kills communications, ends cooperation, and reduces consensus to complete frustration.

Close examination of the Federalist Papers and other prime materials in our earliest records for the birth of this democracy clearly shows the Founding Fathers understood that clear, open, good-faith/based communication was the single most essential prerequisite for democratic discussion.

They had their cults and cabals, it is surely true; but rise above the risible fray they surely did, too.

Op Ed: `Tell It True`
My Mother Taught Me:
Readers Will Believe

Voters Demand Vision, Leadership, Integrity: Bradbury

(SALEM) - `Voters everywhere are media-savvy and spin-weary. They`ve had enough of puppet-master consultants and mudslinging ads.` That`s Oregon`s Secretary of State `telling it true` -- straight to you.

That`s what my mother taught me, too. She was my sharpest critic in earliest days as a news-reporter, in Maine. Yankees are tough-minded; even then they welcomed any propagandizing politician by `total immersion`. `Drown `em rapidly and repeatedly in facts and figures`, was the Maine-way.

That`s very demanding for any newbie-reporter receiving rough-and-ready early experience: `Telling it true` was the only way, for readers ready with rapid rebuttals.

Bradbury continues: `Voters are looking for candidates who will tell them the truth, who will take tough stands...

Op-Ed: Moving Pictures, a New Challenge to an Old Medium

(SALEM) - In the winter of '88, I was brought into the world of television news. Almost twenty years later, having worked for many television stations, and even being the recipient of numerous broadcast journalism awards, I still find myself learning new techniques and styles and I still see the work improving even if in very subtle ways.

Before becoming a TV news photographer, most people attend a college with specialty journalism courses covering the dynamics of creating a hard-hitting television news story, including all of the in`s and out's of the complex art of video photography.

Op Ed: Starving Education
Demands Rapid Rescue
To Save A Generation

Party-Cults Offer ONLY Futility of Fight-Back.

(SALEM) - Always liked breakfast pancakes from mix, adding only water --the demanded solvent-- to traditional ingredients. Makes fine-tasting, nutritious results without fail. A little dry, but edible.

Op-Ed: Prevarication NOW
May Prove Potent
Political-Death Provider

(SALEM) - `Double-speak` is definitely not new in Oregon politics.

It`s been `chosen language` in Oregon for too long, to offset twenty years of political-cult confrontation-consequences now causing collapse in civil, educational, social and emergency programs statewide.

Every day, in every way, Oregon media report radical reverses arriving in reality for every part of `the social contract`.

Op Ed: It`s YOUR Tax Payment:
Clearly NOT Cash Meant
For Corporate `Accounting`

(SALEM) - `Some things are so very simple,` my mother taught me, `you should never have any problem keeping them straight.` I`ll bet some of the same came from your mother, too.

One of the first situations she worked on --very hard-- was `someone else`s cash.`

IF you carry away their dollars to be paid to somebody, you make `double d....ed-sure` the dollars `get where you said you were taking them.` That`s what she said --repeatedly.

Op-Ed: Bush`s Plan to Help Fight Meth is Hogwash

In February, the Bush/Cheney team released its proposed budget for the 2007 fiscal year, which cut more than $1.1 billion from core local law enforcement programs, eliminating any chance of helping the meth problem, is anyone still buying this?

(SALEM) - Ask any Oregon cop who works a drug beat how much the federal government has been helping them out in the last few years in their fight against meth. There have been some grants, but instead of helping, the administration has stripped away the funding from local police and that is the last thing they need.

Until recently, the administration paid little heed to the growing meth epidemic that for too long, has grown by the minute.

The Bush administration`s reductions in law enforcement funding sits badly with Oregon State Police Superintendent Ronald C. Ruecker, who visited Washington D.C. in March 2006 with 100 other police chiefs from around the nation to protest the cuts.

Op Ed:
Take the Money and Run Tests
Oregon`s Courage,
Conscience, Convictions

“Kicker�-Confrontation Can Kill or Cure State’s Future.

(SALEM) - `Take the money and run` is a sorry film featuring Woody Allen, whose misadventures are so tragic they become comic. It`s a peculiarly revealing reflection from the realities of the world today.

Are we in Oregon about to live out the same kind of revealing --and, some will insist, revolting-- reality?

Some still see the state`s future in the same distorting light that the Allen epic denotes, via ostensible old `political principles.`

All the components --and the characters are surely there and determined to perform -- precisely as in the damaged past, if so allowed.

The same misadventure-pieces are right at hand: `The Kicker` is, of course, the chief character. Will it conquer all else in the Oregon conscience?

Will parents settle for small-dollars, abandoning any hope of permanent and proper educational advantages for those future Oregonians already here?

Repeal or Near-Repeal of the Estate Tax Would Substantially Harm Charitable Giving

Bringing home the old adage... the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

(SILVERTON) - Repealing the federal estate tax, or substantially cutting the top estate tax rate, would negatively affect charitable giving, harming vital services in Oregon that rely upon voluntary contributions, including health care, health research, higher education, and human services.

Op Ed:
Oregonians Threatened
By Bush-Slashed Benefits
While Saxton Equivocates

Bush-Cuts Beat State Policy Into Weapon vs Oregonians

(SALEM) - Inevitably state programs are now subject to slashed national funding, camouflaged as `educational advance` and `national security`.
This continuing Bush-political-cult manipulation forces them into malign failures to fill essential needs.

The latest slasheroo targets workers caught in the precarious economy, forced into Oregon welfare programs --often distressed parents with children, desperately seeking a bridge back to `normality.`

New Federal rules require 50 percent of adults receiving state checks to have a job or be preparing for one --after October 1st.
By Legislatively-determined program definition and plan, only 16 percent in Oregon will satisfy this new requirement.

Oregon faces a precarious dilemma placing would-be Oregon Governors in the first painful issue-bind of this divisive campaign.