Activist starts fast for social services.

Byline: David Steves The Register-Guard

SALEM - Count Peg Morton as one in a cadre of Eugene activists whose local acts of protest reflect their global concerns about peace, justice and harmony in how people treat each other and the Earth.

She has protested over worldwide oppression of the poor and the U.S. military's role in training soldiers from right-wing regimes in Central America.

On Monday, Morton launched a peace vigil and fast focused on concerns much closer to home: the state's budget crunch and the loss of services for elderly, disabled, poor and ill Oregonians.

"I am torn apart," the 72-year-old said. "I just can't believe people in the state of Oregon will allow this to happen."

Surrounded by about 15 supporters from Eugene, Springfield and Salem, Morton kicked off what she said will be a weeklong, round-the-clock vigil on the state Capitol's front steps. She will consume only juice, vegetable broth and water.

With reporters on hand, Morton and several others took turns decrying the impact of Oregon's revenue slide on those who have come to rely on the government for drugs to stabilize their mental illnesses, treatment for their physical ailments and cash assistance for their nutritional needs, among other things.

After they held hands to sing and pray, Morton's supporters slowly bid her farewell. Salem peace activist Michele Darr plans to join Morton in fasting and keeping vigil among life-size human cutouts and cardboard tombstones, meant to symbolize Oregonians harmed because of reduced human services.

Morton said she hoped her effort would turn Oregon activists' attention from big-picture global concerns to those at play in the state.

Dan Goldrich, one such activist, traveled to the Capitol from his Eugene home after reading an e-mail Sunday night informing him of Morton's fast and vigil. Goldrich, a retired University of Oregon professor, said his years as a peace activist have focused on human rights in Central America.

But now he's worried more about what's happening to people in his own community after hearing news accounts and word-of-mouth accounts of reductions in basic human services and suicides by mentally ill patients attributed to the loss of state-furnished drug therapy.

"Usually it's Nicaraguans you think of who are being killed," he said. "Now it's Oregonians."

Morton has fasted in the past few years to draw attention to causes.

About 2 1/2 years ago, she held a two-week fast and vigil at the Federal Building in Eugene, protesting the Army School of the Americas.

Last fall, on the one-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, she fasted for five days in the name of ending human suffering. In November, she traveled to Fort Benning to fast during a second protest of the Army school.

But these weren't the first of Morton's protests. As a young mother and homemaker, Morton took part in anti-Vietnam War vigils every Saturday, fasting during the mid-day meal.

"I was bringing up my children, so it was very fatiguing," said Morton, who lived in southern Illinois at the time.

Morton retired as a mental health care professional in Illinois before moving to Eugene in 1989. As a follower of the Quaker faith, she said fasting has been important to her on multiple levels.

"Fasting is a spiritual discovery and a physical and nonviolent political action," she said.

But she acknowledged a less philosophical element of her undertaking: creating political pressure on lawmakers to put enough additional revenue into the next budget to prevent the continuation or deepening of cuts.

And that's something that won't result from just two people sitting in lawn chairs with protest signs, as she and Darr plan to do.

"It won't be effective," Morton said, "unless others join in."