Klamath Resident Sets the Record Straight
By Connie Stringer, PeaceWorker
September 02 2001

Extremist Views Dominate

Special interest groups, corporate politicians and paranoid conspiracy theorists view efforts to move the Klamath Basin’s eco-system back toward long-range viability as an attack on their personal freedoms. Various Wise Use, property rights, 10th amendment and far right groups have dug in, dominating negotiations and their solutions with the federal government and local people here, blocking all other groups who should have input into this situation. Groups such as Freedom Bound International (www.americansovereign.com), Frontiers of Freedom (www.ff.org/about/mission.html), Bear’sPlace (www.bearsplace.com/), J.J. Johnson Enterprises, Inc. (connections with the Militia of Montana and other militia groups), Sierra Times (www.sierratimes.com), 10th amendment people www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.Article?article_id_3245), Defenders of Property Rights (www.defendersproprights.org/), and American Land Rights Association (www.landrights.org/index.htm) to name a few. The list of extremist groups involving themselves continues to expand.

First in line of these “threatened rights” is their perceived freedom to take what they want for themselves with little regard for the consequences of their actions. Many have distorted facts, used scare tactics and intimidation and called in outsiders to conjure up the “Nightmare of Waco” with but one goal in mind: amend or dismember the Endangered Species Act. Yet if we look at the facts, we learn something different. For example, in July, Klamath’s unemployment rate was only slightly higher than last year’s and also reflects a net gain of jobs in the retail and service sectors. The economy is not devastated, but is growing in different ways.

Shameful Spin Doctoring

Taking a drive out to the "devastated farms,” one would expect to find parched fields, but instead one sees hateful signs in green fields, epitomized by one proudly declaring, “Share the Water.” Yet driving further south one sadly encounters a dead and dying, dried up wildlife refuge with no sign of protest, and no offer to share the water here. It is ironic that the ones demanding and hoarding water at the expense of everything else were the very ones to start protesting when asked to share. Apparently the word “share” has been redefined and taken on a much different meaning in this crisis.

Meanwhile, individuals calling themselves “freedom fighters” have engaged in their latest protest supporting farmers, a truck convoy coming out of Montana, Nevada and Southern California calling itself the “Trail of Tears.” I am not Native American, but find it very offensive that the people leading the protests would have the gall to make such an analogy. It is an unfortunate comment on the compassion, — or lack of compassion — shown by these protesters in their choice of “Trail of Tears” which, with such shameful lack of sensitivity, downplays the original tragedy of white people “herding” Indians from their lands. The irony is that in this new “Trail of Tears,” it is still the Native Americans who are being victimized. The original Trail of Tears was designed to take Indian farmland because white people wanted it, and had the power to take it. The cause of this Trail of Tears is a drought. This time, the government is offering to “pay” for farmland. But like the last Trail of Tears, white people are all too willing to take from and scapegoat Native Americans.

At the headgates encampment, the site of vandalism, paranoia and prayers, one of our local law enforcement officers — in full law enforcement attire — made a speech that included threats of “bloody and violent” attacks against anyone that stands in the way of their agenda. At the same time, one sees protest signs expressing the farmers’ distress, “No Water, No Barley, No Beer.”

Aid Snubbed

A disturbing sidebar of the “Klamath Basin Water Crisis" can be seen in the amount of compassionate aid from around the state being poured into the community only to be snubbed and unclaimed by the very farmers claiming economic devastation for the Basin when considering that less than 5% of Basin economy is derived from agriculture. While the current water shortage definitely hurts some, it is but one of many bombshells hitting farmers. NAFTA and GATT have created a global market and competition. Evidence of this global market’s effect was seen last year as growers plowed potatoes back into the ground because they could not get a good price.

The Klamath Basin is not a nation of its own catering to but a few. It is, instead, a diverse community that needs to unite and work together for a truly sustainable future for all. It is a community whose citizens will benefit by asking its leaders to stop pitting one side against the other when crisis rears its ugly head, but to instead exhibit leadership aimed toward setting the stage for “conflict resolution” and negotiations that can truly benefit all factions, and all their great grand children, down that long road called the future.

In order to save the Klamath Basin we need to build our future here to be inclusive for all those whom live here, as well as, all others affected by this Basin’s actions.

Connie Stringer is a resident of Klamath Falls and a member of the board the Rural Organizing Project, a group promoting progressive work in rural areas of Oregon. You can contact ROP through its director, Kelley Weigel , at Rural Organizing Project, P.O. Box 1350, Scappoose, OR 97056; (503)543-8417; kelley@rop.org.

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, and as defined under the provisions of "fair use", any copyrighted material herein is distributed without profit or payment for non-profit research and for educational use by our membership.

It’s The Drought
By Connie Stringer, K-Falls Herald and News Letter To the Editor
April 24, 2001

Scapegoating is a hostile social - psychological discrediting routine by which people move blame and responsibility away from themselves and towards a target person or group.

It is also a practice by which angry feelings and feelings of hostility may be projected, via inappropriate accusation, towards others. Scapegoating has a wide range of focus: from "approved" enemies of very large groups of people down to the scapegoating of individuals by other individuals. Distortion is always a feature.

This is done by the displacement of responsibility and blame to another who serves as a target for blame both for the scapegoater and his supporters. Scapegoating frees the perpetrator from some self-dissatisfaction and provides some narcissistic gratification to him. It enables the self-righteous discharge of aggression. On another view, scapegoaters are insecure people driven to raise their own status by lowering the status of their target

. This is a drought year, scapegoating is non-productive. Work and think responsibly, educate yourself about our watershed, work to preserve all of our futures.

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, and as defined under the provisions of "fair use", any copyrighted material herein is distributed without profit or payment for non-profit research and for educational use by our membership.