Salem-News.com Op Ed articles Page 31

Op-Ed:
Corporate Remediation
Key to ANY Oregon Future

Oregon's Tax-Avoidance Debacle Must End

(SALEM) - If ever there was a political-issue certainty, we now face one in Oregon, absolutely and irrevocably.

Op-Ed: Mannix:
Political Name
Becoming `Nix`

Second-Shot for Top Spot Effectively Blocked by Effrontery.

(SALEM) - `Effrontery: Shameless or impudent boldness; barefaced audacity`; p.455, Random House Unabridged --`the big one.`
In a politician that can be either very good --or very bad-- surely depending on circumstance and social surround.

For Kevin Mannix, considered by many to be Oregon`s most-persistent `Political Man` as one-time chairman of the GOP-side, and now two-timer;
seeking the top-spot in Oregon, the Governor`s working-spot, that final moment of make-or-break may be looming closer and more inevitably every day, despite any desperate money-measures still possible.

POGO:
Proven As Potent
Political Prognosticator

Mood, Manner, Methods Across Nation Reflect Profound Lesson.

(SALEM) - `We have met the enemy -- and he is us`. So states Pogo, simple but satisfying and solid resident of `the Swamp`, often exchanging striking common-sense with other characters there.

Walt Kelly, working with pen and brush, was the reporter recording what has become widely-known --and now-recognized as profound-- prognostication presenting reality re political issues.

His `comic strip` often dealt devastatingly with political and social issues, winning the ultimate strip-award --the Reuben-- in 1951.

Op-Ed: Special-Session `Aspirin` Far Too Weak, Too Late

Burning Fevers Felt By Parents Now Threaten Regular Session.

(SALEM) - Oregon`s desperate state-budget illness now demands rational dollars, most citizens now agree.
This situation recalls a personal near-tragedy, familiar to many parents.

Education succumbed first.
Similar serious system-infections will surely follow.
They will surface in new budget-balancing failures.
Full dollar-dealing illumination will death-deal some longtime Legislators -- and many other political reputations, too.

Internet: History As It Happens Beats Textbook Teachings

Greatest Contemporary Value For YOU: Experience NOW !!

(SALEM) - One of the world`s leading historians, Pulitzer Prize-winner Daniel J. Boorstin, is famous for his favorite theme that most Americans miss the momentous meanings of events through which they live.

`Too much, too many, too fast, too complex`, he rightly contends regarding the unavoidable `communications surround` today -- and most of us would agree, while worried about the consequences we now recognize we cannot know contemporaneously.

`Daily` Duty: Community Service Constitutionallly Demanded

First Amendment Firmly Guides Journalist Efforts.

(SALEM) - Ever since the Federalist Papers surely shaped the famed American Revolution, the purpose and duty of every American newspaper is undeniably clear to all concerned:

Community service is not only unavoidable for any commercial success, but is the demanded responsibility for every daily newspaper; fully protected, thus permitted to publish in-and-for our democracy.

The Founding Fathers added the now-famed First Amendment to solemnize that situation clearly by Constitutional-connection.

Op-Ed: Public Legal-Oath Can Settle Norquist Question Impacts

Thirty-Year Cabal May Have Shaped Oregon Education and Services.

(SALEM) - Ever since Far Right billionaires set out to install a new political climate protecting their selfish interests during the Reagan era, there`s been an extremely well-funded cabal shaping and manipulating social services in our democracy for their own interests -- across the entire nation.

One of the extremely active areas of malign influence may well have been widely operated in Oregon -- driven by `campaign contributions` either awarded or withheld.

Experienced observers cite consequences of continuing failures for funding education from K-12 through graduate school as a prime example of the damage, long blamed only on routine political disagreement...

Oregonians Pay More Than Their Share Because Corporations Pay Less

Oregonians are paying more than their share of taxes this tax day because corporations are paying less, according to a new analysis of long-term changes in Oregon income and property taxes, released today by the Oregon Center for Public Policy (OCPP).

(SILVERTON) - `This tax day, Oregonians are victims of the Great Corporate Tax Shift,` said Michael Leachman, policy analyst at the OCPP.

The study finds that in the next budget cycle (2007-09) corporations operating in Oregon will pay just 4.5 percent of all state income taxes, leaving the other 95.5 percent to personal income taxpayers, including many small businesses. In the mid-1970s, corporations paid 18.5 percent of state income taxes.

`Multi-state corporations are the main beneficiaries of the decline in the corporate income tax,` said Leachman. `These companies reap 87 percent of the taxable corporate profits in Oregon...."

`Test-Time` Will Tell Tale On Oregon Futures

(SALEM) - This time, for sure, it is the presumably-adult Legislators who face the inevitable `testing situation` so provocative of student fears throughout the educational process.

This time, for sure, it is the past-learnings they should have achieved, literally decades-ago, that will tell the tale; this time, for full attention of voters rightly angered by years of neglect; to sue for Constitutional rights to decent and decisive education for their children -- and for oncoming generations,too.

This time, too, we will see whether `it takes one to work with one` --since Susan Castillo, the Oregon Superintendent of Education, will surely play a key role `this time`.

Op-Ed Anti-Immigration Movement a Smokescreen Against Bigger Problems

(SALEM) - A small boy attending the immigration rally at the state capitol Sunday, held up a sign that simply said, `Please don`t separate me from my family- Jordan.` Honestly, I am appalled that the U.S. government and its citizens could place somebody like Jordan in a position like that. It goes against the grain of everything that is moral and right.

It is my Christian faith that tells me kids should not be separated from their parents, that`s something the Nazi`s did. But here we are in the modern world, where we are supposed to advance as a species, and many of the immigrant bashers are claiming to be Christians too. That puzzles me, Christ loved everyone and he wanted people to help others and love them, not keep them banished.