Statesman Journal from Salem, Oregon • Page 41

Statesman-Journal, Salem, Sunday, May 29, 1983, 3E -opinion Computer gets a grip on a card list j. wesley sullivan personally with each customer through the gift-wrapping of the package. That was personal attention. Looking at my sanitized list of Christmas card names and addresses, I asked myself how personally responsible I have been for the depersonalization of our Christmas cards. We've never resorted to that bane of the Christmas season, the long, mimeographed "personal" letter.

In the pressure of the season, we've relied upon clever or attractive cards to convey the "personal" feeling rather than take the extra time to include a personal note. But now we have the time. Thanks to that slick and quick computerized list, we have extra hours to spend writing notes instead of scrawling addresses. So the computer is no evil deper-sonalizer after all. It, like other tools, is what we make it.

In this case it is an opportunity to make Christmas cards even more personal. What's more, that may actually happen if I love the idea in December as I do in May. J. Wesley Sullivan is chairman of the Stales-man-Journal editorial board. Our Christmas card list has been computerized.

I announce this in much the same way I might if I became the first person in the neighborhood to own a Mercedes-Benz or a swimming pool. I have yet to get a home computer, in that eternal race with those upwardly mobile Joneses, but at least we have our Christmas card list in computer storage. As I have envisioned it this accomplishment would immediately make me the center of animated conversation, explaining to the uninitiated what it means to be able to get an instantaneous listing of one's friends and relatives at the push of a few keystrokes. Actually, not all that many people seem to care. And I must confess certain misgivings about the whole process.

I hadn't counted on the fact that a person's Christmas card list is a highly personalized thing. And that feeding it to a computer can be a highly depersonalizing process. After all, what's the purpose of sending out Christmas cards anyway? Originally, I guess, it was to make personal contact with distant friends at a meaningful time of the year. If, in making it faster and more table mistakes, the scrawled writing? For one thing, the cards looked hand-done. I don't know about you, but I sort through my mail daily looking for hand-written envelopes.

They get my first attention. Occasionally I find myself lovingly opening a letter from some health spa or travel agency, but usually the hand-written envelopes or the ones with typing errors are from people about whom I care. What I want in a depersonalized world is personal attention, and I will grope around grateful for any sign of it, even if it is on the outside of an envelope. But personal attention is still in full-scale retreat, apparently abetted by the computer. I wrote a week or so ago about our frustrating experience buying a mattress and springs in a department store while the computer attempted to reconcile our purchase with its inventory.

The next week I received a letter from Albert Wiesendanger, retired Keep Oregon Green executive. Al grew up with my family in early-day Portland. He reminded me that in my youth department stores had floorwalkers whose job it was to greet customers and guide them to the waiting clerks who then dealt letters Sec. James Watt To the Editor: Secretary James Watt's utter disregard for the law is painfully apparent with his action in removing all conservationists and Democrats from the Bureau of Land Management Citizen Advisory Councils, This Watergate mentality of "the law be damned" in the name and pursuit of partisan politics must be condemned by all, regardless of political affiliation. How long can a system of government maintain the confidence of its people in the face of such callous disregard of the law? We saw the shambles that it made of our political system with Richard Nixon.

Are we being invited to repeat that experience? Finally, can we long respect a president who permits his cabinet members to engage in such actions? Is not the president responsible for the actions of those he allows to remain in power? President Reagan should have dismissed James Watt long before now. His failure to recognize this point is bound to have political repercussions. MICHAEL E. SWAIM Salem, Oregon Go Hungry weekend To the Editor: I would like to take this opportunity to personally congratulate the Statesman-Journal for excellent coverage of our Salem Area Youth Go Hungry weekend but also to say "Thank Heaven for 7-11" (the Southland Corp.) for its donation of soup and bread for our closing meal after fasting the weekend. We are grateful to all the locations What Marx did for human freedom Reorganizing state government is slow Anniversaries provoke ambiguous thoughts.

Such ambivalence is perhaps most sharply defined when we celebrate the birth or death of famous people who have directly or indirectly influenced our lives. We can get schmaltzy, for example, about George Washington or Abraham Lincoln even though we know they made serious mistakes; and we indulge ourselves in outrage about the likes of Aaron Burr despite their contributions to our culture. Nothing illustrates those responses quite as neatly as the response to the 100th anniversary of the death of Karl Marx. The people who wish Marx were truly dead are either ignoring or damning the man. Others humor him in ways that often distort unto caricature his ideas, values and achievements.

Broder Continued from Page 2E. has been the mobilization and expansion of a low- and-middle-income voter coalition, including increasing numbers of blacks and Hispanics. That is a strategy based on economic, social and educational issues, which are national in scope but have particular saliency in the South. It is not a strategy that pits the South against the North or labor against other elements of the Democratic coalition. The AFL-CIO not only supports this kind of vote mobilization effort, but consistently pushes the economic issues on which such a coalition rests.

That is why AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland gently rejected Jordan's contention, reminding Carter's former campaign manager that Carter had told labor in 1976 that he "could not have been elected without your endorsement and your support." Kirkland did it gently because that is the way he was reared. In Aiken, S.C.suh! David Broder is a syndicated columnist. who let us hold car washes on Saturday May 21 at their lots and to all of you for your love and concern not only for the youth of this community but for the needs of our World Vision project. MICHAEL DEVITO, president Youth Directors Fellowship Salem, Oregon State sales tax To the Editor: In reply to your May 12 article by Sue Hill concerning the Oregon House Revenue Committee vote not to terminate the sales tax proposals, I would like to know just who the sales tax advocates they are deceiving. They know; very well that the people of Oregon overwhelmingly oppose any sales tax except perhaps a voluntary one.

And how much of our tax dollars are they using up in attempting to ramrod a doomed sales tax bill through the legislative process? Just because other states have a sales tax with bureaucratic tentacles legally robbing the honest whi)e rewarding criminals who are masked in business suits, it certainly does not mean that Oregon should have one. Most Oregonians know that in order for a sales tax to work an army of state-subsidized auditors and accountants would have to be hired to watch virtually every business transaction to make sure every merchant surrendered his share of tax And guess who would pay for all these new auditors, accountants and collectors with their big, expensive computers? Why do you suppose certain congressmen really support all of those out-of-state lobbyists who want Oregon to have a state sales tax? GARY O. BRIGGS Corvallis, Oregon DOUl iarvey done to expand the prison system. The problem is to find a place to put a new prison. Few people want a state penitentiary in their area.

Proposals to change Eastern Oregon State Hospital into a prison and to build a jail at Wilsonville have -died in legislative infighting. The only good alternative is to put another prison in Salem, despite objections by Rep. Peter Courtney, D-Salem. The existing penitentiary could be expanded, although some penal authorities say it wouldoe dangerous to make it bigger. Gov.

Atiyeh's plan to reduce crime by locking up more criminals will die unless more jail beds can be obtained. The Legislature should ask some outside education expert to. study Oregon's school system. Such a study was made a couple of decades ago by D.T.C. Holy of Ohio State University.

His report led to educational improvement. The people of Oregon are entitled to know just how good their schools are. A federal report says that schools over the nation are not so good. Let us know if our school tax dollars are being spent Paul Harvey Jr. is a former Associated Press writer.

He lives In Salem. By now Rajneeshee residents of Antelope outnumber long-timers. They have elected a majority' of the Antelope City Council. This has, left the longtime residents hurt and angry. They feel that the character and heritage of Antelope have been lost and their lifestyles changed.

They still want the Rajneeshees to get out of Antelope. This sentiment is widely shared in Central Oregon. The Rajneeshees want to get out of Antelope as well. They want to be able to live and work in Rajneeshpuram. But the "cloud" of litigation may delay the move from Antelope for many years.

In this situation, the Rajneeshees cannot be expected to relinquish the only UGB available to them, the one in Antelope. The Legislature has the power to resolve this issue now. It could confirm the Incorporation of Rajneeshpuram and at the same time "save Antelope." The Rajneeshees have given assurances that they will then leave Antelope. The longtime residents would have their village returned along with their city government. The threat of violence would be reduced or eliminated In a area of Central Oregon.

The alternative to such a solution is obvious. There may be yeaijs of continuing litigation, years of ton-. frontation, anger, frustration and potential bloodshed. Now is the timfe for the Legislature to act. i EDITOR'S NOTE! The writer a professor of political eclence al Willamette Unlvtrsliy.

He hat been nudylng the Anielopa-ltaneesh haw far mar than year. efficient, the personal element is lost, it ends up like the "personalized" letter addressed to "Dear Wesley" which announces I am one of 10 million people who may have won a trip to Hawaii in a publishing house's latest contest. I must admit that as I looked down at the scores of perfectly inscribed names and addresses, each imprinted by the computer on its own gummed label, I felt I had just reduced our Christmas card list to one step above "occupant." That's ridiculous, of course. Why on earth should I object to efficiency and accuracy? Now that the names are loaded into computer storage, all it will take is an annual editing. Each year near the first of December the computer will produce another perfect set of gummed address labels.

What a contrast to our old Christmas card mailing list, scribbled over with corrections, erasures almost to the point of illegibility. Why should I have any nostalgia for the hours of typing or writing the addresses one by one, with the inevi william a. Williams There are four reasons why countless millions of people honor the centennial of Marx's death and thereby bear witness to his continuing presence among the living. First: Building on the foundations laid by Adam Smith and David Ri-cardo, the late 18th-century British philosopher kings of modern capitalism, Marx devised in the 1840s a strategy of intellectual inquiry for understanding how capitalism actually worked in practice, and for revealing its consequences in the lives of the vast majority of people. He divined the right questions to ask, uncovered the evidence that provided answers and developed a logic of analysis that integrated the facts into a coherent and internally consistent explanation.

That in and of itself is enough to honor the man, because it enabled later capitalist economists to understand their own system. Truth to tell, economists ever since have been measuring themselves against Marx. Second: Marx then proceeded, most famously in "Das Kapital" but more accessibly in his short essays such as "A Preface to a Critique of Political Economy," to explain that capitalism was an institutionalized system of power based on defining liberty in terms of economic freedom, and economic freedom in terms of the ownership of income-producing property. This meant that people who did not own such property were largely powerless to realize or exercise consequential freedom. They lacked the kind of power that counted in a capitalist system.

Third: As a man deeply committed to human freedom the fulfillment of one's potential Marx concluded that the capitalist system should therefore be replaced. guest opinion election, and gain elective control of the Antelope City Council? And why are they now willing to leave Antelope, lock, stock and barrel? The Rajneeshees first bought land in Antelope to solve a communications problem. Telephone links to their ranch were limited to one seven-party line. They purchased land to set up a trailer-based communications center in Antelope. Within three months of the Rajneeshees' arrival in Oregon, representatives of 1,000 Friends said their attorneys would fight any efforts to develop non-farm uses on the ranch.

These non-farm uses were primarily related to religious publications and their distribution, plus facilities for the housing and care of commune members. 1,000 Friends said they would also fight any efforts to incorporate the city of Rajneeshpuram, since such activity would violate their particular interpretation of land-use laws. The Rajneeshees were told that they would have to go to Antelope to build non-farm -related buildings and secure their needed facilities, housing and services. Only after 1,000 Friends took this position did the Rajneeshees begin substantial purchases of residences and additional lots In Antelope. But thepr also decided to seek the legal Even if we were to stop here, the greatness of Marx should be apparent.

By revealing the nature and dynamics and consequences of capitalism, he educated and aroused so many millions of people who lacked income-producing property that intelligent capitalists were forced to reform the system enough to prevent a revolution. In that way, if in no other, Marx improved the lives of the majority of humankind. But he did more. He insisted that there was a more equitable, more humane way to live, and he kept searching for a way to build that better system. Fourth: For a long time Marx argued the rather simplistic proposition that freedom could be achieved if the people without capital took control of the centralized system of income-producing property.

And there was a time in the United States, say between 1876 and 1896, when that approach just might have produced the equity and social justice that he thought. But Marx was a tough, rigorous thinker guided by humane values, and he came to realize that such a political strategy would not in truth change a system in which power was centralized and consolidated in the corporations and a national government. People educated, trained and conditioned to define freedom in terms of capitalist ideas and values property and marketplace success and power would manage any system for those purposes. Marx began to realize that the revolution had to be made in the minds and values of people before the system could be changed. He understood that if you do no more than replace a capitalist manager with a worker who desires to be a capitalist manager you will not change the system.

You will not make a revolution. A true revolution can be made only by people who have defined and are willing to honor a different hierarchy of values and institutions. incorporation of their own city, their preferred alternative from the beginning. The longtime residents of Antelope became concerned about the influx of Rajneeshees and their requests for building permits and licenses in the village. They feared an "invasion" which would alter their quiet settlement and bring about changes in their lifestyles.

This fear was behind the tactic of delays in granting Rajneeshee requests of the Antelope City Council. After many such delays, legal remedy was sought and the circuit court ordered the city council to issue outstanding permits. By January 1982, rallies were being held in several towns to "save Antelope." At one such rally the director and a staff attorney of 1,000 Friends participated. The theme of the rally was "Support Antelope." The same 1,000 who had told the Rajneeshees they would have to conduct their business activities in Antelope were now publicly supporting Antelope's residents against them. 1,000 Friends brought eight legal actions against the development and incorporation of Rajneeshpuram between October and April 1982.

They reasserted that the Rajneeshees must use Antelope and its urban growth boundary (UGB) in legal briefs submitted before the Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA) in January and February. One of their briefs states, "Suffi- Community welfare must replace individual aggrandizement: The moral and social character of the commonwealth must take precedence over the bank account of the individual. Finally, Marx came to sense the vital importance of decentralization. We must build our own communities to honor the values of the commonwealth. If we can muster our imagination and our will to do those things we will truly remove the centralized power of the government and the corporations from our backs.

In the end, Marx was a teacher, an inspiration, and a goad to make our own history. That is why so many millions of people throughout the world honor him on this anniversary. William Appleman Williams is professor of history at Oregon State University. about letters The Statesman-Journal welcomes letters from readers. Letters to the editor must give the writer's address and must be signed.

They must include street address or post office box number (not for publication, but for verification). Copies of letters to other individuals or publications will not be published. Writers are limited to one letter a month. In order to publish more letters to the editor and to print them in a timely fashion, letters should not exceed 150 words. Longer letters may be published at our option, condensed or returned to the writer for condensation.

Lettters should be sent to Letters to the Editor, Statesman-Journal, P.O. Box 13009, Salem, Ore. 97309-1036. Additional rules governing letters may be obtained upon request. cient land has been set aside in the urban growth boundaries of (several more distant Wasco County cities were listed and) Antelope to meet urban growth needs." Moreover, the brief continued, "Antelope is committed to providing essential facilities and services and Antelope is committed to encouraging housing inside its urban growth boundary." Further, the 1,000 Friends' brief argued, "There is no substantial evidence in the record that existing urban areas are at capacity.

Antelope, too, has policies authorizing new housing and the extension of public facilities and sewers Respondents (the Rajneeshees) may not rely on the 'hostility' of Antelope residents to excuse residing there. Antelope, like all other Oregon cities, must comply with Goal 10's anti-exclusionary requirements." Finally, they stated, "Consequently, nonfarm uses (like a printing plant or recording studio) should locate in Antelope, consistent with the County Comprehensive Plan. If Antelope is too small to accommodate all such uses, it should expand its UGB." In a decision born of desperation, the city council authorized an election to disincorporate the village, thus effectively giving up its UGB so that Rajneeshees could not obtain needed services there. The Rajneeshees saw disincorporation as a threat to their existence. If 1,000 Friends should, at some level of litigation appeal, reverse the Incorpor-tlon ojRajneeshpuram and if Ante Reorganization of the Oregon state government was a favorite subject among politicians about 20 years ago.

There was an elaborate plan to get rid of scores of boards and commissions. It didn't get very far, but a start was made by creating the Executive Department and Human Resources, Transportation and Commerce agencies. Much remains to be done. Reorganization saves money and is more The Legislature, despite the need to cut the state budget, isn't doing anything about it and won't. One old idea is to set up a Public Safety Department by consolidating 1 police and military activities.

Another proposal is to set up a Depart- ment of Natural Resources to include forestry, fish and game and water resources. It is too late for anything to be done at the current session, but the Legislature could begin by having an interim study of all ideas to make the state government more efficient. Under reorganization we would have a cabinet form of government with the governor directly responsible for all state government agencies. Under the present system the governor sometimes can't be held responsible for actions by a commission. So wipe out most of these commissions, which are little entities that do as they please.

The confounding problem is that there will be efforts to create more boards and commissions. It now looks as if nothing will be lope were no longer a city, the Raj-neesh experiment would be doomed. Enough Rajneeshees had settled in Antelope by the April IS election to vote down disincorporation. This helped generate an amazing series of rumors that the "Red People" planned to "take over" all of Wasco and Jefferson counties, and even the state of Oregon. Tension accelerated, and violence became such a real possibility that the Jefferson County district attorney requested that mediators from the Community Relations Service of the U.S.

Justice Department hold meetings with all concerned parties to help resolve the Antelope situation. Staff members from 1,000 Friends participated in several meetings during the spring of 1982. Though 1,000 Friends had recommended the Rajneesh presence In Antelope, their staff members met with long-time Antelopians to formulate a proposal that would get the Rajneeshees out of Antelope. This proposal stipulated that the Rajneeshees were not to get their own city. They were not to be permitted to have the urban-type services they needed on their own land.

Moreover, the proposal stated, "Use of Antelope for Rajneesh nonfarm activities is also unacceptable. The historic small town character of the town would be destroyed." 1,000 Friends thus tried to orchestrate the ultimate Catch-22, Their proposal was rejected. Both Antelopians and Rajneeshees became victims of the Legislative action asked in Antelope-Rajneesh impasse By TED SHAY On May 17 the Rajneeshees made an important proposal to resolve the increasingly volatile situation in Central Oregon. To leave Antelope the Rajneeshees seek legislative action to remove the "legal cloud" over their city of Rajneeshpuram, offering to see that all Rajneeshees resign from Antelope's city government, move out of the town, and -hJ place all their property there for sale. The "cloud" refers to the re- "1 peated steps VJ5 taken Dy Friends of Ore- 8n to und the i icgai siaius ui I Rajneeshpu- ted shay ram's incorporation.

Since 1,000 Friends' litigation could tie up this issue for years, the situation could also continue for years. The problem could be solved by simple legislative action on an amendment to HB 2295 which would confirm that Rajneeshpuram is a legally incorporated city. What are the facts about the emotional Antelope-Rajneesh situation? Have the Rajneeshees "taken over" Antelope? Are the long-time Antelo-pians their Why did the Rajneeshees buy property there when they own a ranch 18 miles away? Why did a number of Rajneeshees move to Antelope, defeat last fair's disincorporate.