You may remember I once ran a post, "Why I'm a Democrat" and tried to get people to say "why" in a couple sentences. No conductors in that endeavor, for sure. There are a whole bunch of issues we need to learn from each other on, well...a natural tension provokes thought if it gets past diatribes.

Friday, July 25, 2008

You see I heard that we were going to be presented with a new and original composition. So I entered the tent – disturbingly plastered with KGW, KATU and Oregonian adverts - I took my chair and the piece began. But, it soon became clear this wasn’t anything new or original. Just a re-arrangement of the familiar lyrics about putting people in cages and how safe we’ll all be when there’s a cop on every corner and in everyone’s head. Now I just want to get that sour old tune out of my head.

Dunka.. free-4-now

Day #3: no reply yet on my “Drug question” to Jeff Merkley. The Oregonian’s phony 2004 “Unnecessary Epidemic” series, please read Willamette Week’s 2006 cover story, Meth Madness

Posted by: Chris Lowe | Jul 25, 2008 10:11:33 AM

Floyd,

Did you actually send your letter to Jeff Merkley? Just curious.

Chris, Yes I did. Counting the days... 3 Floyd

Floyd,

Perhaps you needed to attend more rehearsals before you sat down to play.

Look, one can argue against compromise, but our country was founded on a set of compromises. Not all of them were good in the retrospective of history (allowing slavery to exist for example). But who knows where we would have ended up without those compromises.

We endeavor to form "a more perfect union". Sometimes discord pushes that endeavor, but more often harmony prevails in playing the progressive tune that captivates the general audience.

Posted by: RichW | Jul 25, 2008 11:31:25 AM

Floyd,

Perhaps you needed to attend more rehearsals before you sat down to play.

Look, one can argue against compromise,

Snip…

Dear RichW

Actually I’m just a member of the audience. So far Mr. Merkley is singing the same old War on Drugs tunes that we’ve all heard before.

I am not against reasonable compromises that make change possible under our system. However, if there’s nothing on the table we cannot even begin to compromise.

Merkley has made it clear he has no grasp of the facts. I expect more from someone calling himself a progressive and aspiring to such a high office as a US Senator.

I hope Mr. Merkley will reconsider his current position and I’d be glad to help him do so. First though he’ll need to reply to my “Drug question”

Floyd

"Actually I’m just a member of the audience."

Sorry, I though you were posting as one of the band. My error.

"Merkley has made it clear he has no grasp of the facts. I expect more from someone calling himself a progressive and aspiring to such a high office as a US Senator."

But in reality, just like the election of the POTUS, its either the R or the D. Merkley wasn't my first choice either but he is now my only choice.

Posted by: Lee Coleman | Jul 25, 2008 5:10:13 PM

Staying in the tent while playing a dissonant tune.

[snip…]

Fortunately, we will soon have an attorney general who will combine law enforcement with meth drug treatment and rehab. He realizes full well that it costs far more and is less effective to imprison people than to go the rehab route. There's little reason to object to Merkley on the WoD issue.

Dear Lee,

Thank you for your reply. With all due respect I have to disagree, based on what I read at JeffMerkley.com. Remember too, the AG is an enforcer, not a policy maker (at least that’s the way it’s supposed to work). Perhaps I’ll change my mind after I consider Mr. Merkley’s reply to my “Drug question” which was sent 4 days ago and for which I eagerly await. And please be advised forced “drug treatment” sans any criminal or violent behaviors is also unfair, a waste of time, resources and neglects two central issues: 1) our individual right to produce, trade and use drugs and 2) regulating the drug market itself. It’s this last item, regulating, where we can get rid of most of the crime and violence associated with the buying, selling and transporting of drugs, where we get much better control over distribution to minors, and take the profits away from the street dealers, gangs, cartels and terrorists.

There is more information available at various links I’ve posted here.

Keep on rolling… Floyd

Well, it is interesting to find out what some people think.

I find the analogy interesting on several levels, which I won't go into here - but I can't resist responding to the thread about alcohol and other drug treatment.

I have directed four alcohol and other drug treatment programs. I was in attendance at the first White House Conference for a Drug Free America, I was on the Executive Board of the California Alcohol Recovery Home Association, I have been a member of several other associations, and I have written and published some articles in the field. So, I'm just a little familiar with the issues of treatment.

While addiction is a disease related to genetic weakness, it is also a by-product of various social policies. Our government sets polices, and has laws and regulations that directly affect the population at large in terms of being or not being supportive of families and individuals. Individuals without hope, facing unemployment, homelessness, a lack of health care and a host of other problems tend to engage in self destructive acts, including alcohol and drug use. Depending upon the substance, addiction follows either slowly or very rapidly.

To truly reduce our societies problems with alcohol and other drug addiction, we certainly need more treatment and less use of prisons and jails. But we also have to address the underlying social issues that are a direct result of our governmental polies. Included in these policies are:

The Federal Reserve maintaining static unemployment in the range of 4 to 5% on the U3 measure, when the actual unemployment rate is 10.5% on the U6 measure.

The lack of Federal work to resolve the health insurance crisis in this Country that bankrupts hundreds of thousands, and literally kills others.

The lack of work from the Federal level to address the causes of poverty that include a lack of support for families, a lack of support and funding for a quality education system, and other needed social services.

And ... the mortgage crisis (lack of enforcement of rules for lenders), etc. etc. etc.

-- Now I ask the simple question. In the broader context of a social support network that will prevent hopelessness which is the real gateway into addiction, who will do the better job? Merkley or Smith? No question there, Merkley.

Which gets me back to my analogy. FLOYD - you have one note in this band and you are blowing real hard. If you want it to work, you have to play with others. One man against the world has never worked, and never will. You need allies. You need friends. And as long as you continue to play your one note loudly, you will drive others away.

I"m not going to address the utter idiocy in your last comment. Merkley will be as bad as Smith when it comes to dealing with the social support network, just in a different way. We need look no further than how he left low-income children without health insurance this last session after the M50 fiasco BECAUSE his political agenda (and it was his office who played a leadership role in that.) That is vintage Merkley careerism, and it is why we have failed this election season as a state.

Instead, I'm going to repost which BO editors either refused to post when it got caught by the spam filter, or where just too lazy to check from their spam filter:

Actually, what the Party suffers from most are weak thinkers, apparently with even weaker set of values, who use childish and irrelevant metaphors to make an incredibly empty points. Either the Democratic Party stands and fights for a set of morally uplifting values, which includes the most acid criticism possible of those who would claim to defend those values but don't, or we don't deserve to hold power. Just like the Republican Party does not deserve to hold power now because it has become a party that stands for corrupt and sociopathic values.

Your empty argument is representative of a hopelessly immature and possibly pathological character that has made the state and national Democratic Party every bit as dysfunctional as the Republican Party (which is not to say they have the same dysfunctions, so don't be an intellectually dishonest jerk and misrepresent the point.) Frankly, I have no problem confronting losers like you who don't have any apparent ability to focus on defending our values, or grandstand than by whining at any type of Democratic or progressive function I attend.

Our Party is better off if either people like you who insist on dragging the Party down with your banality (1) are made unwelcome, or the state and country are better off if those who would stand for quality values are motivated to form their own Party by being asked to leave a failed political movement. And so far, I've never been asked to leave or not invited back.

Finally, you ignorant (2), pompous (3) jackhole, you have apparently never heard of a whole tradition of discordant music from John Cage (4) to pretty much the whole genre of what actually is called Noise Music (5). It is some of the most sophisticated and influential music in modern human history.

And by the way, Lee: In the long run, Mao personally, like all of us, just ended up dead but only after immorally causing a lot more to proceed him (6). The result of his "pragmatic" politics was genetic damage in the political culture of China that eventually matured into the modern fascist state that is the wet dream of a lot of pro-corporate Republicans and go-along-to-along Democrats --- but who incessantly whine about "harmony" out of their own cowardice and self-interest --- who have taken control of our Party and corrupted our values. As somebody who I'm certain is quite to the left of most of you clueless BO twits, I have no problem saying anyone who cites Mao's fascist political theories as a guide has no place in the Democratic Party.

Kari, this metaphor is at least as stupid and meaningless as the big tent. BO is rapidly becoming an outlet for immature and ill-informed, decidely unprogressive viewpoints that the DPO needs to distance itself from as far as possible.

(See links in next post so this will get by the brain-damaged spam filter.)

Since the spam filter is so brain-damaged, it blocks responses that have more than a certain number of embedded or explicit links, and since people here seem to cry incessantly like grade schoolers about pointed but fair statements about the quality of the character people demonstrate I thought it appropriate to point people to a dictionary. Use it, learn it, and I for one don't care if you don't like the fact people get the aggressive criticism in response to their own statements that they deserve. No one is trying to convince you of anything, you are being publicly rebuked, not persuaded.

Unfortunately, the BO proprietors don't seem to green light things caught by the filter, so you're out of luck when it comes to the links I would have included to save you time and effort.

I have directed four alcohol and other drug treatment programs. I was in attendance at the first White House Conference for a Drug Free America, I was on the Executive Board of the California Alcohol Recovery Home Association, I have been a member of several other associations, and I have written and published some articles in the field. So, I'm just a little familiar with the issues of treatment

By the way, if length of one's resume was most important, unfortunately the current administration would have to be judged an outstanding success because they have managed along the way to resurrect and enlist every failed right-wing politician from the last three decades. What matters is how success is defined and outcomes.

That is where Merkley's record is one that raises serious questions, and is not one of substantial success. So don't play the dishonest trick of making assertions about what Merkley would or wouldn't be without reference to relevant aspects of the record of both his votes and the more questionable behind the scenes politics he plays for his own selfish reasons.

Well, a three post troll. I'm glad I don't have to put up with the hate and vile that comes from Gabriel everyday.

Gabriel writes, "So don't play the dishonest trick of making assertions about what Merkley would or wouldn't be without reference to relevant aspects of the record of both his votes and the more questionable behind the scenes politics he plays for his own selfish reasons."

This post was not about Merkley's record, rather the analogy I posted for consideration. So, "dishonest trick" is more than a stretch. But since you brought it up -

The 2007 Legislature, under the leadership on the House side by Speaker Jeff Merkley, accomplished --

Access for an additional 3,200 3 & 4 year olds to Head Start. An 18% increase in K-12 education. Funding for 28 capital projects at Oregon's Universities, and Community Colleges ($285 million) in addition to increased funding to the Universities ($868 million) and community colleges ($500 million). Increased State funding of college financial aid by 80% All Oregonians without drug coverage became eligible for discounts up to 60% with the bulk purchasing plan. Provided assistance to rural health care providers. Provided funding for two new facilities to replace the State Hospital.

And my list goes on. I'll not bore the readers of Blue Oregon with the list, as most know much of it anyway, but the summary list I have has 51 specific items passed (not considered, passed) by the Oregon Legislature last session that ALL contribute to the social fabric of our State, and in that sense ALL work to get at the root causes of hopelessness, which is the gateway to addiction.

So, if you want to judge people by their record go for it.

On Smith's side, I'll just mention one very narror thing out of many, many. Smith co-sponsored legislation that gave corporations the right to write off on their US Taxes the construction cost of factories overseas. This is a minor point in the whole picture of how the Republicants have taken part in and encouraged out sourcing of jobs away from the United States. In the last few years, over 70,000 Oregon jobs have been out sourced - with Smith's encouragement.

It is my filter to judge candidates by what they do to our State and our Country in the context of hopefulness or hopelessness. I have never put together, "Steve's voter record for hopefulness", but I'd hazard a guess that Merkley is at a less than perfect 90+% and Smith is at around 10%. No one person will ever have a perfect voting record, no matter how you measure them, unless you are measuring yourself.

Gabriel, you are just riduculous.

Gabriel: We must forget this "values" thing and instead mimic our Republican cousins. They, after all, are winners, and that is what we should want for ourselves. Our party may be weak, childish, corrupt and sociopathic, as you claim, but it is our party, and therefore better.

Dear Steve,

You wrote, “While addiction is a disease related to genetic weakness…”

Where did you get that? Please elaborate.

At any rate let me be clear, my political focus isn’t so much on the addiction issue - even though it directly relates – but rather to push on the need for ending yet another unnecessary and endless “war,” i.e. WoD. There is certainly room for debate on how to go about that, although it isn’t going to take place unless we elect leaders who agree on the overall objective and stop promoting more of the same. Hence I have a big problem with Merkley and want to change his mind so I can also support him in good conscience.

With all due respect I have to reject your characterization that I’m “One man against the world,” I am certainly not alone in my views, nor do I think it unreasonable to express them in a manner consistent with our democratic tradition. Also, I don’t think my views “will drive others away.” Can you present an example of that actually happening?

What I do think will drive people away is the perception that Merkley isn’t authentic, that he’s more interested in himself than his state and country, that he’s riding Obama’s coat tails.

To be continued… I hope. Floyd

Ps: Steve, you don’t have to shout my name in caps, I’m right here.

Bucknum, some of those expenditures were supported by some Republicans. Some of those measures because they are good for business, and some because they are just plain populist. And you are the one who brought up Merkley.

I originally criticized your dumb metaphor and the juvenile attack on informed Democrats it represents. Your evasive response just highlights the emptiness of your criticism: The question is not whether some of the actions you propagandistically attribute to Democratic leadership (and which, again, were supported by enough Republicans for other reasons that may in fact be the real reasons some Democrats supported them) represent a defense against factually supported criticisms of those in our Party who have failed to defend our values as Democrats so they --- not us --- will gain more power that they will primarily use for their own benefit.

The real question is just how little accomplishment this list actually represents, and how much more quality Democrats would have actually accomplished if they didn't have dishonest hacks like you out there attacking Democrats who say it's time to hold self-serving, arrogant, ineffectual Democratic leaders every bit as accountable as we should be holding Republicans, rather than publicly focusing your critical abilities, impotent as they are, on the Democrat leaders who actually accomplished quite little in the 2007 and 2008 session by any genuine standard of accomplishment.

You're an utterly ignorable apologist for failure. Part of the evidence of that are the choices the E-board made in June, and will be re-visiting in September, that are going to result in cuts to education (particularly in higher-ed) and other social services that in the end will be disproportionately felt by people who aren't privileged as either higher direct costs or reduced services. That is happening because the legislative leadership failed to seriously fight for and provide actual, sustainable funding for some of the very programs you cited that they mainly passed for the political PR value, even though we and they knew what to expect in the 2008-2009 economy.

I also draw specific attention to your dishonest tactic of criticizing Smith for specific legislative actions while whining it is somehow illegitimate for us to criticize Merkley for his legislative actions, even though you brought him up and made assertions of what he offers as justification for slamming those of us Democrats who know from his record he offers very little.

Beyond that, much of the predation by Republicans at the Federal level and in Oregon over the last 10 years or so was because feckless, incompetent Democrats were enablers. I don't think there is anything more hopeless than:

1) Democrats like Wyden, who supported and defended a vote to put Roberts on the Supreme Court, and who only seems to find his progressive voice when progressives shine a spotlight on his generally pro-corporate record. Or his general support for Smith as a fellow member of the elite Senate club until he found that position untenable. (I don't support Merkley because he's bad for our Party, and even I found Wyden's position to be unacceptable, if vintage Wyden.)

2) Every Democrat in the Oregon delegation who has said "impeachment is not an option" Many of us attended citizen meetings last year where Wyden, DeFazio, the others railed petulantly against their own base on this.

3) A Democrat governor who supported both wars and was the chair of Merkley's campaign, even as Merkley criticized another Democrat --- Novick --- for calling Democrats to account (far too politely for my tastes) who have consistently failed to defend Democratic values. Or a governor, with the support of Democratic leadership including Merkley, who continues to say his only health care plan for children (he has none at all for adults) is spitefully making low-income people shoulder a larger part of the burden for their children through a tobacco tax, rather than fight for other sources of funding that reflect genuine Democratic values, in a naked attempt to pander to an elitist, self-centered faction of the Democratic Party.

4) Democrats, apparently like you, who advocate doing nothing principled to win elections, but instead just cowardly sitting back and riding the public's apparent rejection of Republicans rather than proving we deserve election and power. The polls show the country is still closely divided and this is just as cynical a ploy as those used by Republicans to game the winner-take-all nature of our system by winning a few points here and there to tip the balance. It is not leadership.

So Bucknum, if you actually believe the BS you're putting out, peddle it to some other gullible fools. You may not have intended to be a transparent hack apologist for a faction of cynical Democrats, but you sure have shown yourself to be that. If it is the case that was not your intent, you might want to sit back and think real hard where you went so completely wrong by criticizing Democrats who are demanding better of those who would purport to represent us and our values.

Floyd - I put your name in caps so it would stand out, being in the middle of a response. I'm not shouting at you.

Addiction is well established as a disease. Do I keep at my fingertips a reference for that? No, I changed careers a while back, so the reference books at my desk are now Marshall & Swift's Residential Cost Handbook, and the Dictionary of Real Estate Appraisal. As I recall the literature, alcohol addiction is related to a liver function found in a minority of pepole, which can be developed by frequent use of alcohol by the rest (e.g. some are born alcoholics, and some earn the status). Drug addiction physiology varies by drug type, but lots of drugs are addictive - variance in addiction rates and time frame are found apparently based upon individual physiology, specifically in the metabolic process - which brings us back to liver functions for many drugs.

Look it up, its all there in the literature. Try using your library's Credo system or similar research oriented tool.

Floyd, others may share your views, but your behavior is that of "one man against the world" in that you have taken unilateral actions and are not apparently involving others, organizing, or taking collective actions.

As for Merkley, whether he is genuine or not, etc. -- I have met him four times, the last being breakfast today. As I drove over to the Apple Peddler Restaurant here in Prineville this morning for his meeting, I spotted him walking. From the west end of Prineville where he attended the 8:00 AM service at Our Savior's Lutheran Church, he walked to the eastern end to the restaurant, about 1.5 miles, "for the exercise". In doing so he saw the entire "strip" of Prineville, and I can't say that other politicans would have taken the time, had the interest or desire to literally put their feet down and see my town like that. At breakfast, he was responsive, receptive, let us know what he stood for, and heard our concerns. Like Wyden, he promised to visit each of Oregon's Counties each year.

I really don't understand where this stuff about Merkley being somehow inauthentic is coming from. Maybe he relates to rural people like us better, having spend much of his childhood in Roseburg, than he does to the urban folk - I just don't know where this stuff about authentisity comes from.

From a rural perspective, he clearly understood timber and water issues, weed issues, green issues that relate directly to Central Oregon, and has a good sense about what we need to make our local economy run.

Lee - I know its not a minor point in the way you state it, I meant minor in the context of so much worse than just that one. Smith's support until recently of the Iraq war, Smith's support of all the ways Corporations are privatizing profit but socializing risk, etc., etc. are where the one point of writing off the cost of building factories overseas become minor - there is just so much that is worse.

I really don't understand where this stuff about Merkley being somehow inauthentic is coming from. Maybe he relates to rural people like us better, having spend much of his childhood in Roseburg

Uh, you aren't very informed are you? Despite Merkley playing fast and loose with his background during the campaign to make himself sound provincial, his own website refers to an Oregonian article which says "Life started humbly enough for Merkley. The son of a millwright, Merkley grew up in a working-class neighborhood in outer Southeast Portland." During the primary campaign his website said his family moved from Roseburg to Portland around the time he entered grade school.

So Merkley is hardly grew up "rural people". At least Merkley dropped that affectation in the primary when it was pointed out to his campaign that he didn't grow up country. In fact, he comes across as the Princeton-educated elitist with a sense of entitlement to power whenever I have seen him challenged by informed people about his opportunistic approach to working-class issues (and that's putting it politely), rather than fawned over by hangers-on like you. Let us not forgot his disgusting, sleazy criticisms of Novick for articulating the criticisms many rank-and-file Democrats have of the corrupt, self-serving Democratic leadership who also happened to have financed his campaign. I think that makes him pretty inauthenticate, although I can think of a few more accurate, pejoratives that apply even more.

You sound like a good example of another pathology in our society: You are literate and skilled with language, and you play to people who are easily fooled by that skill, but you evidence a lack of critical thinking that most notably includes making assertions that are easily refuted by well known facts on the record. Don't we know an administration and political movement that behaves that way?

Re: "Addiction is well established as a disease."

Homosexuality also was "well established as a disease", and not too long ago. The medicalization of behavioral patterns is far too prevalent in our culture. It leads to pharmaceutical and other types of "solutions" that enrich the professional/managerial class, but that fail to adequately help those who are suffering. It also "treats" conditions that don't necessariy need treatment.

Harry, Harry, Harry .....

You obviously could use a little research time.

Treatment for addiction can involve some use of drugs as a transition, under medical supervision, but most (over 90%) treatment for addiction involves self-help groups such as AA and NA. In those groups, "a drug is a drug is a drug" and the further use of drugs is considered a relapse, the goal being to remain clean and sober of all drugs.

And when did this become a discussion about addiction? Really, all you one-note guys need to find yourselves another home.

Steve, Steve, Steve...

You may need some reading lessons.

My comment was directed at the medicalization of behavior patterns - that's what I said. Medicalization refers to the tendency to see psychological problems as physical diseases.

Sorry about your inability to tolerate conversational changes. I know it can be tough to have that disease, but maybe you can find a prescription for it.

Harry, Harry, Harry

Now, now - I read just fine. What makes you think addiction is a psychological problem? Where is your research and proof?

It is very well established that addiction is a physiological problem and therefore primarily a medical problem. Saying that it is psychological (e.g. "medicalized") is like questioning which gender has babies. Sure the male gender has its role, just as the psychological aspects do play out in addiction, but when you get down to brass tacks, it's always the female gender that does the business and addiction is a physiological problem.

You seem to have an odd agenda. I can't grasp why you'd even want to argue about this. If you deny basic facts about human physiology, do you also argue about the roundness or flatness of the earth, global warming, which direction the sun rises and sets, and whether the stars are actually angels? Or is this more a philosophical question for you, like how many angels can fit on the head of a pin? What gives?

Steve, Steve, Steve.....

I apologize. I was wrong when I said, "You may need some reading lessons." What I should have said is, "You definitely need some reading lessons."

The obsessive-minded have a great deal of trouble with the conception of social science as a fluid and fungible institution.

As I said above, homosexuality was "well established as a disease" when I attended graduate school. The fact that many or even most social scientists may now consider addictions or other states of consciousness as reducible to physiology does not make it true. Science requires skepticism.

Besides, what I was responding to was not the conception of addiction as physiology per se, but rather to the tendency of those with elite educations in our culture to presume that behavioral patterns in general can be reduced to physiology, and that they then can be medicalized. As I recall, this is a fallacy of logical positivism. I recommend the work of Andre Kukla for a more sophisticated discussion of these issues.

That you "can't grasp why [I'd] even want to argue" about my "odd agenda" is obvious.