Southern Oregon Progressives – A Report

Climate Change, passive Words for Man-made Extinction
 
Smoke! for all those who doubt using great brains by small minds wrecks havoc; making this connection is necessary. Climate change has upset the water. Water is melting, flooding or disappearing. Our greatest brains have been co-opted by lesser minds obsessed with immediate profit, to the detriment of the earth and all its inhabitants. If we stopped all carbon emissions today we will still have floods and drought, ice will still melt, conditions will still get worse, until the stored energy is spent. We are nowhere near stopping or letting our stored energy expend itself. We aren’t even near consensus that man-made activity is causing this ratcheting up of climate disasters, which also means we are not planning for what this denial is bringing. We are unprepared for the very future our thoughtlessness is creating.
AND YET…there are so many people in our valley creating events and diligently working for a better outcome. Here are a few of our past local events:
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August 14: Indivisible Flash Repeal and Replace Walden Rally at Rogue Valley Country Club. Jessica Sage spoke concisely and pointedly about Walden’s complicity in the Trump agenda.  Thank you Dasja Dolan for providing link
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August 16: Indivisible Social Hour at the Common Block Brewing Company, next to The Commons, Medford. Dasja Dolan took some sweet pics to share.
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Aug 20: Grassroots Event at Emigrant Lake. The day was Smokey! In spite of the haze Sarah Spansail, Colette Pare’-Miller  and James Barber did a spectacular job of welcoming all of us. James Barber of Our Revolution Lane County is also running for commissioner in that county. The JCD LGBTQ Caucus was  represented by Liz James. and Ethan Reeser.  Andy Seles chair of ORSO spoke, as did Julie Caldwell who recounted her experiences at the People’s Summit. Community Alliance was represented by Jesse Sharpe, HCAO/Healthcare Caucus was championed by Lauri HoaglandJulian Bell, candidate for governor spoke and Alan Journet of SOCAN had a say. Rebecca Pearson of Unite Oregon and Autumn Chadbourne of Central Point School Board also spoke. Music was by Carson Barry and Liam. 
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Aug 21:  The moon blocked out the sun in the morning and Alan Deboer held a town hall that evening.  About a dozen people attended the Phoenix High School Auditorium. Very comfortable seats with nice acoustics. Alan’s first point was in regards to the smoke. He stated that the Feds told the state to stop fighting the fires. That a helicopter pilot told him he was within an hour of putting one out when he was called off. Lee Lull queried him on his no vote for HB 2391. He said he voted no because he knew it would pass. I guess in his job that’s how you do?   A question was raised about the ever increasing numbers of special needs children and the impact on an already stretched school system. Alan believes class sizes should be smaller. Another woman asked him to support HR 2645 Prescription Drop Boxes paid for by the pharmaceutical companies, DeBoer said behind the scenes the pharmaceuticals were not supportive. Estelle Voeller brought up SB 990, a bill to allow towns to have their own nuclear reactors, which was stopped in the House Environment Committee. It was also sent to the Senate Business and Transportation committee where DeBoer voted for it. The impetus is to circumvent the 1980 Citizen Initiative Moratorium; and thus the safety regulations contained within, one of which is a mandate for a permanent storage solution to nuclear waste before more waste is created. Another is changing from a state wide vote to a local vote. This is a link to find out about small modular nuclear reactors:
 (I left the meeting feeling Alan was stuck in place and the reason he can’t get anything done is due to the inefficient, over-regulated quagmire of government and there is nothing he can do to change that. Maybe he’s in the wrong job?)
Estelle suggested this link for when the chambers are in session for those interested in Oregon legislation:   https://olis.leg.state.or.us /
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Aug 26:  New Energy from Sunlight in a Challenging Climate seminar with speaker Wayne Taylor Ph.D. (Anne Taylor‘s cousin). The event was sponsored by Citizen’s Climate Lobby, Medford-Ashland Chapter.  Anne thought the Carbon Fee Dividend plan has some merit and suggests checking it out at:   citizensclimatelobby.org/cha pters/OR_Southern_Oregon/ 
Rebecca Cross thought Wayne covered the facts about our planet’s destruction thoroughly, as well as options to counteract this travesty. She’s planning on joining the Ashland Chapter of the Citizen’s Climate Lobby.
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Aug 26: Heartbreak and Ecocide, a dramatic reading of Jefferson Parson’s new play at the Bellview Grange. Proceeds donated to Our Children’s Trust
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Aug 31: Unite Oregon and S.O. Healthy co-sponsored the movie Unnatural Causes. Amanda Sing Bans, Michelle Glass and Rebecca Pearson did a marvelous job at creating an entertaining and invaluable experience. The popcorn and gummy treats were perfect for a movie night, but I had to say no to the luscious cookies. The movie highlighted the correlation between economics and health in ways I never thought of before. Also the experiment with monkeys on the effects of stress, cortisol levels and atherosclerosis was surprising, to say the least. There are many excerpts of this movie on Youtube. I highly recommend seeing them.
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https://5calls.org submitted by Dasja Dolan an easy way to be involved without leaving home. The site is great! Lots of topics and discussions on them plus who to call, the number, a script and a place to put the results.
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For the real lowdown about climate try NASA; they know about this stuff!
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Dasja Dolan, activist and pictorial reporter has a wonderful site full of great pics. Give it a look.  http://www.dasjadolan.com/Eve nts/Political-events
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Seven Endless Wars have not made us safer-only poorer, and is one of the reasons why we can’t take care of our people; the young, the old, the debilitated.
The choice is clear, we either Empire Build abroad or Build Our Nation here at home. Do we hold the young, old and debilitated in esteem or resentment? Choose your goals and work toward them.  Vote for those that work with you.
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Andy Seles, chair of Our Revolution Southern Oregon (ORSO), asks for your signature on the attached NAFTA petition. I concur that these are corporate take-over rules. These rules let corporations sue governments for breaking the rules the corporations wrote! Corporate rules have more weight than laws.  Do not let our corporate-shill politicians give away our sovereignty. Sign.
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DeBoer Report:  Alan sent his tax plan. I forwarded it to John Tyler, retired attorney, for his perusal.  Next we will have a meeting to discuss the plan. The plan is brief, very little detail, so there will be plenty of room for discussion..