Manipulation Run Amok

A Supreme Court Justice dies and now the Republicans are insisting that President Obama doesn’t have the right to nominate a replacement. Sigh. The Oregon Senate is debating an environmental bill that has the Republicans’ panties in a wad. I hate that expression, but it perfectly describes what’s happening. One would think that the conservative approach would be to protect the environment, but not so much. Oregon’s Republican State Senators apparently didn’t bother to show up for the session today, effectively bringing business to a halt. I read that it was within the Senate’s purview to have the Oregon State Police go out and round them up and bring their passive-aggressive asses back to work, but Senate President Peter Courtney decided against that. I wonder, would a paddy wagon have been involved? Lights and sirens? SWAT? That would have been spectacular, to say the least.

I’ve grown weary of passive-aggressive manipulation by people who prefer advancing their own agenda over fulfilling their responsibilities. At this juncture, we have a Democrat-led Senate in Oregon. It is what it is. You don’t take your ball and go home when you don’t like the odds. They’re acting like babies, not the elected legislators they are. This isn’t statesmen-like. This shows no dignity.

Instead, we have guilt trips and no-shows in lieu of scholarly debate. Awesome. It’s bad enough that this nonsense has been going on daily in Congress for years now. That affects everyone at one point or another. But to see it happen here in Oregon, along with all the other oddities we’ve been witness to lately, is unsettling. Besides, it seems juvenile and mean.  These bozos deserve to lose their jobs for this childish, manipulative game they’re playing.

Oregon is a really cool place to live, no matter where you live in the state. People are nice, the food is great, Portland is weird and has a really nice airport, the High Desert is fabulous, and unless you’ve been there you have no idea how totally awesome the Oregon Coast is. The best time, other than any time, is during a huge winter storm, which typically coincides with our yearly vacation. There’s nothing like it. We stayed in Seaside last December and we experienced a magnificent storm, hands down the best part of the trip.

I was born in California, moved to Alaska at four, and then Oregon where I’ve spent most of my life. When I was in college, I attended several schools, finally settling on and graduating from Portland State University in 1978. It was at one end of downtown, and for part of that time, I lived only a short walk away from campus and I loved living in the city. It had wonderful little shops and restaurants tucked away here and there, and the bus system was great. I was attracted to the college’s diversity. It seemed like everyone went to PSU. I shared office space with the Chicano Student Union before they got an office of their own next to the Black Student Union, the Gay Student Union, the Christian Scientists (not a student union), and the Socialist Worker’s Party (student union implied). It was a long hallway-like room and we all had separate desks. I liked everyone, but anarchist witch that I was, I was drawn primarily to the Socialists. Fun times. Seriously. I spent most of my last term there at a pub near campus and had my highest single term GPA ever. They served wine in adorable little individual wine bottles. Of course, I was only twenty at the time, but one learns to blend in when beginning college at sixteen.

I remember hearing about a couple of young guys named Ron Wyden and Earl Blumenauer. It was clear back then that they would have an impact on Oregon politics. Our people work hard for Oregon in Congress. Our state legislators typically do the same. Let’s hope today was just an anomaly and not a trend because that’s not who we are here in Oregon. We stick around. We work hard. We listen to each other. What we don’t do is manipulate and stop the process.

And if you can’t do that, resign.

 

Check out the article from the Oregonian on our wayward legislators..