Letters in the Editor's Mailbag.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Story from the heartland

Here's a story from back in the heartland that readers might have missed. Heartland? More like cardiac arrest.

Galesburg is a town of 34,000 in the west-central part of Illinois. I went to college for a couple of years in the 1940s in Monmouth, a few miles south of Galesburg. The latter was a smaller town then as the home of Knox College, my school's bitter rival.

Today, however, Galesburg is the home of Maytag's refrigerator factory. It opened in 1950 and employs 1,600 people whose average wage is $15 an hour, according to a story in The New York Times. That's a pretty nice pay scale, but it's going to change. In 2004, Maytag will close the factory and move it to Mexico where the pay scale will be $2 an hour.

Since 1994, when the company began talk of pulling out, it has been wooed with millions in state grants and loans, including $3 million from the town itself. There's not even any indication that the factory is unprofitable, just that it can cut labor costs and make more by moving to Mexico. It's a "long-time competitive strategy" by Maytag.

Thanks to the North American Free Trade Agreement and corporate greed, the country has seen 2 million factory jobs lost in the past two years. Well, the giant corporations concede, there's certainly some "human cost" to this way of doing business. But heck, the day Maytag announced the closure, its stock shot up 6 percent on Wall Street.

So when does it "trickle down"? It's the economy, stupid, as someone once said.

DONALD STANLEY Eugene

Resist budgetary extortion

Well, well. The Register-Guard is on a mission! How else might one interpret the seemingly daily assaults against those of us Oregonians who want our state to be fiscally responsible? And now it seems we must put up with a series of biased articles about the fire and brimstone that is certain to occur if we don't pass Measure 28. Outrageous!

I've sent several letters to the Mailbag suggesting our new governor follow in the footsteps of counterparts such as Govs. John Engler, William Weld, George Pataki, Christie Whitman and others by not only refusing to raise taxes, but by actually cutting them and by using fiscal crisis as an opportunity for reforms. With a state so evenly divided between tax-and-spend liberals and people who want fiscal responsibility to prevail, our new governor will need all the help he can get, especially if he wants to get re-elected.

Our state has been wasting tens of millions of dollars each year on failed programs and wasted staff time, and all our old and new governors can say is, "We need more or we'll cut police services and jails and the courts and education!" Sounds like extortion to me. It hasn't happened as threatened in the past, and with just a bit of creative thinking, it won't happen this time either.

We in the private sector - especially those of us living on fixed incomes - must trim our budgets when times are tough, and there's no reason the state of Oregon shouldn't have to do the same thing.

When your ballot comes in January, vote no on Measure 28! Force the politicians to come up with innovative solutions! I, for one, stand ready to offer suggestions on how to do just that, if the governor has the moxie to call on me.

CLIFF HARVEY Florence

Big boys mess up

Lamarr Anderson (letters, Dec. 26) snappily cautions The Register-Guard's editors to stick with local issues they know something about and to let the "big boys" in Washington handle international affairs.

On Sept. 11, 2001, the Bush administration (the ultimate big boys) declared war on terrorism all over the globe, then went on to include Iraq and North Korea in a mythical axis of evil. Iran was mentioned also as less than lovable; all of them became targets of U.S. wrath.

Look where the big boys have got us now. The terrorists, including al-Qaeda under a very much alive Osama bin Laden, are re-emerging and threatening further catastrophic harm. Iraq is threatening devastation if attacked, North Korea has junked a 1994 nuclear containment agreement, and Iran supposedly is building a nuclear weapon. The world is an explosive mess.

There is a trite but appropriate adage that "fools rush in where angels fear to tread."

Big boys? Humbug!

QUENTIN COOPER Myrtle Point

Preserve public debate

Lamarr Anderson (letters, Dec. 26) suggests that The Register-Guard's editors refrain from commenting on national security and defense matters. He questions their "experience" on these issues (without giving his own qualifications to pass such judgment).

It is deeply troubling to see such lack of understanding of the importance of public debate and the role of the press in a free society. He says to leave these matters to "the big boys." The issue is not whether we trust the president and his advisers, or whether they are right or wrong. The issue is preservation of public debate on all issues, especially war, peace and national security (as well as local and federal budgets, taxes, etc.).

For lack of "experience," should we stifle debate by The Oregonian, The New York Times and candidates for U.S. Congress and the presidency, or just you and me? Leaving it to the "big boys" is an abdication of personal and public responsibility for the welfare of the United States and for preservation of our Constitution.

WIN LIEPE Eugene

CAPTION(S):

The Register-Guard welcomes letters on topics of general interest. Our length limit is 250 words; all letters are subject to condensation. Writers are limited to one letter per calendar month. Because of the volume of mail, not all letters can be printed. Letters must be signed with the writer's full name. An address and daytime telephone number are needed for verification purposes; this information will not be published or released. Mail letters to Mailbag, P.O. Box 10188, Eugene, OR 97440-2188 Fax: [phone] E-mail: [e-mail]