Peter DeFazio writes to The Register-Guard’s publisher
Dear Tony Baker:
A union contract is a guarantee. It ensures fair play. It gives both partners a voice. It codifies the labor management relationship so that problems are solved in an atmosphere of trust and confidence. A union contract is a guarantee that both sides will do their best.
The Register-Guard has a long history of doing its best for the community. But your reputation as a good citizen is at risk as this labor dispute continues month after month. I urge you to return to the bargaining table in good faith with the Eugene Newspaper Guild to negotiate a fair contract.
This struggle is now two years old, but there is still time to settle your differences and make this a win-win for everyone — the union, management and the community. It’s what we expect.

Peter DeFazio

Fourth District


U.S. House of Representatives


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The real “Flag Folly” is the “Stars and Stripes”
I did not know until this morning that “Blind Patriotism 101” was offered at the University. But from the editorial “Flag Folly” (ODE, May 1), someone has evidently taken the course.
I was appalled to read this editorial, written by a University student, which is so blatantly ignorant of the oppression that the beloved “Stars and Stripes” has stood for. The flag flew above armies that forced Native Americans to move from their homelands to reservations and a government that called for Japanese-Americans to be rounded up and kept in internment camps during World War II.
Most important is that the flag was a symbol of a country that allowed slavery for a hundred years before the formation of the Confederate States of America. Thomas Jefferson and George Washington were slave owners, and I don’t hear an uproar about their profiles being on coins.
This editorial falls under the standard clichŽ of the pot calling the kettle black. America is just as guilty, if not more, of everything of which Pat Payne accuses the Confederacy, and nobody is complaining about the “Stars and Stripes.”
Overcoming racial tensions and hatred is going to take a lot more effort than simply redesigning a flag, so why are people wasting their time on this issue? Come on people, we go to a liberal arts university, shouldn’t we be trying to uncover the truths our society wants to keep hidden from us, rather than deflecting any guilt by accusing others?

Katy Reiber

senior


history