Volunteer to be a part of democracy
Coral Snell’s letter to the editor urged students to get involved and register to vote (“Students need to get involved,” ODE, March 13). This is especially important with so many ballot initiatives for November that will affect a person’s future, such as Health Care For All Oregon’s proposal to get rid of the middleman and self-insure everyone in Oregon for health and dental care according to their ability to pay.
Another important ballot initiative is campaign finance reform, which will ban corporate contributions and regulate organizational expenditures in candidate contests. People will then have a voice.
Volunteers for these initiatives offer you the opportunity to participate in government and also have voter registration forms. A few minutes of your time can change your future, and a few hours volunteering can give you a real feeling for our participatory democracy.
Ruth Duemler
Eugene
Backing Israel is backing oppression
Every year, 3 billion of your tax dollars go to fund Israel’s war machine. Is it any surprise that our leadership has few harsh words for Israel’s current oppression and terrorism of Palestinian civilians?
We are quick to deem the suicide bombers terrorists, while supplying the Israelis with increased artillery weapons that have been used for decades to overtake Palestinian land. And we are surprised that the despair of the Palestinians leads to suicide bombing.
In past editorials, it is obvious that we, as a nation, are afraid to call an oppressor an oppressor when we may be deemed anti-Semitic. It is time we realized that a bully is a bully; that Sharon’s oppression of the Palestinians — because he has the power and the backing of the United States — is similar to the oppression experienced by the Jews in the not-so-distant past.
The issue here is not whose oppression is worse. The issue is that oppression, in any form, is wrong.
By continuing to back the Israelis while they terrorize innocent civilians, we aid and abet oppression and terrorism. Look up the definition — it is that simple.
For more information on the conflict and ways to help, contact International Solidarity or write to your senators and representatives.
Matthew Nelson
post-baccalaureate student
Credit card companies are the real evil
On more than one occasion, both Iran and Iraq have called America “The Great Satan.” Sometimes you have to wonder. Case in point, consider the following.
Friday, Jan. 25, in the Riverside, Calif., Press-Enterprise newspaper: “Credit card vendors deluging students with credit card offers.”
What could be more contemptible than corporations luring young people into indebtedness? There are cases where students have taken their own lives after realizing the extent of their debt. Is anyone concerned? If they are, they’re keeping very quiet about it.
I’ll take it a bit further.
What about the absolute greed in its purest form that credit card companies engage in daily, charging interest rates which go beyond 25 percent? Think about it. Some charge as much as 28.9 percent! I see it as nothing less than legal loan-sharking.
These are deplorable things and should not be allowed. But why aren’t universities, the colleges, our leaders and our churches coming forward and speaking out in a united voice against it? By their very silence, their unconcern is deafening.
And then, as every year before, the politicians have raided the Social Security’s trust fund — cleaning it out for the war machine now feeding so voraciously. Mouth those words over to yourselves: Trust fund.
When trust is a law — a federal law — and misused and bent and ignored, it is not merely wrong, it is a national disgrace.
B.G. Noe
Hemet, Calif.
