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CLF vol. 4, NO. 1 STAFF CoEditors Jim Blashfield Lenny Dee Peggy Lindquist David Milholland Design and Production Jim Blashfield Production Assistant David Milholland Proof Reader Walt Curtis Ad Production Peggy Lindquist Stan Sitnick Ad Sales JoLynn Amstutz Denny Chericone Lenny Dee Craig Karp Randy Shutt Pat Sumich Sandy Wallsmith Typesetting Jill Wilson Publisher’s Friend Thanks — Archetype Camerawork Publisher’s Friend Paul Diener Contributing Artists Jon Norris Henk Pander Mary Robben Isaac Shamsud-Din Contributing Photographers Mark Albanese Shunkichi Kikuchi Laurie Meeker David Milholland Jamahata Yosuke Consultant Craig Karp EDITORIAL In late winter, a small baby (4 lb. 4 oz.) was born in my home. My brother and his new wife came to Portland, on return from a sojourn in Panama, to have their child in a city noted for its home birthing facilities. Some two weeks before the due date, we were awakened CONTENTS ^A/elcome back Northwest Artists Workshop. After months without a home base, a new show curated by Cover, Jim Blashfield Spring Component, Michael Moran Seattle’s Roscoe Louie Gallery opens the Workshop’s refurbished digs at 522 NW 12th Ave. by an excited shout, “The waters have broken. ” Labor commenced immediately, and later that day I was summoned from work, to arrive just moments after Amanda’s emergence from the womb. In the euphoria, there was little room for concern about anything happening beyond that room. A brand-new baby in the house makes the future loom large. It turned out that she loves music, loves to dance, and as she grew, ounce at a time, we considered her chances of dancing on her own. At the moment, the road looks rocky, but hopeful. For in the face of official madness, the resourcefulness of Americans who care about the future is emerging. Despite years of steady buildup, the nuclear issue had been on the back burner since the early 1960s, until the Reagan troops trotted out the concept of a winable nuclear war. With that in the air, and most of Europe hastily mobilizing against the dire possibility, a group of local doctors brought the issue home to us. In publicizing their upcoming conference, the Portland Physicians for Nuclear Responsibility created a poster “Ground Zero: Portland,” which documents the potential effect of a nuclear drop at the center of our city. Radiating circles described zones of destruction caused by the initial impact of such a bombing. Several weeks after her birth, we planted a small flowering shrub in the side yard with Amanda’s placenta at its base, Laotian style. It lies well within the first circle of total destruction. Indeed everything in the urban core would be demolished, and we annihilated along with it. Seems unreasonable. Extraordinary. Unimaginable. Yet we have learned to live with this potential, to “love the bomb," because it was happening all around us, even despite us. And the elected representatives of this civilized nation have voted appropriations to escalate an arms race long beyond overkill, year after year. The unimaginable has been normalized. The good doctors have pointed the way. It’s clearly time to bow out of this insanity, to declare, as much of Europe has already done, our state and region a nuclear- free zone. And then we must work to make that a reality. Some individuals will choose to write to our elected officials; others to seek political office with that concern first and foremost; yet others will demonstrate, practice tax resistance and civil disobedience. But whatever the path, the important choice is making oneself heard, making sure such decisions are not made with your acquiescence. We're happy to be back with you this spring, the start of our fourth year in print. We’d like to remind you that our advertisers, here in record numbers, most of which are small businesses, make this venture possible. If you appreciate the CSQ, let them know. Better yet, support them. Have a good read. Rust Never Sleeps, David M ilholland................. Joe Uris, The Carrot Without the Stick, Peggy Lindquist............... Bye Bye Baja, Leanne Grabel............... Zagone and Fornara Chew the Fat..................... 4 5 8 13 Straight Ahead Mel Brown, Lynn Darroch. Killing Our Own, 17 Norman Solomon and Harvey Wasserman... 24 Gardens and computers, my street and my planet, politics and love, I’ll take it all!, Brice Lalonde, Penny A lle n ............. 29 Laurie Anderson: Bringing High Tech to the Masses, Barbara Bernstein.... Lynda Barry..................... El Salvador: First Person, Carolyn Forche...... The Application Please, Mark Sargent.......... Letters from Nepal, M a rjo rie .................. Thanks to: Derek Abrams Jeff Jacobs Tom Clark Ed Lanzner Doug Milholland John Wanberg Charlotte Uris Advertisers call: 222-6039 DM 36 36 38 41 44 The Clinton St. Quarterly is published free to the public by the Clinton St. Theatre, 2522 SE Clinton, Portland, OR 97202. Unless otherwise noted, all contents copyright © Clinton St. Quarterly. BABES ON El ENSIEL STOREFRONT PLAYS 4 NIGHTS A WEEK WITH TWO NORTHWEST PREMIERS BY INTERNATIONALLY FAMOUS PLAYWRIGHTS TRUE WEST, by Sam Shepard, is the latest work by this Pulitzer Prize winning playwright and continues his exploration of the promises and contradictions of the American Dream. The action centers on two brothers who meet accidentally in Mom's suburban Los Angeles kitchen while she is on vacation in Alaska. The resulting battle of opposing forces is a major comic encounter on the landscape of kitchen. TRUE WEST opens March 19th and plays Thursdays and Fridays at 8:00 through May 14th. THE REMOVALISTS is written by Australia's most successful stage and screenwriter, David Williamson. During the last decade he has produced twelve plays and eleven screenplays. GALLIPOLI is his most recent cinematic achievement. Brilliantly crafted, the play moves swiftly from black comedy to absurdism to the deadly serious. QV F \ THE REMOVALISTS opens April 3rd and plays Saturday evenings at 8:00 and Sundays at 7 :0 0 through the 16th of May. Photograph by Laurie Meeker Clinton St. Quarterly 3
CANDIDATE JERRY RUST IN HIS EUGENE OFFICE. CSO: So monies for that first election came from what sources? Rust: A lot of tree-planting money ... it was mostly small money, $10 and $20 bills, although in the end we outspent each of our opponents. There was a lot of excitement, a feeling of “Let’s do something different,” an alternative to Republican and Democrat tired-old-politics. CSQ: You’ve been commissioner now for five years. Lane County has the state's second-largest metro population, so you have had a chance to cope with a lot of those problems. What kinds of things have you faced? Rust: I think that first we have to recognize that fiscal management is a front-burner issue. You’ve got to have a balanced budget, you’ve got to have a long-range fiscal plan, you’ve got to be moving towards reduction of expenditures wherever possible. Forex- ample, we’ve reduced our gasoline consumption by 25 percent in the last two years. We’ve cut back without hurting essential county services. When we’ve cut positions, we have had active programs for trying to bring these people into other openings. For the most part we’ve been successful. I also want to mention land-use planning. We’ve had a lot of factional- ization on this issue, a lot of controversy, but let me just say that I think about 95 percent of the problems are behind us. We’ve made peace with most land owners, we’ve zoned and planned the county fairly, we’re looking for a final date with LCDC sometime this summer to get our comprehensive plans finally adopted. I think land-use planning is working. However, I think that we need to provide a little more flexibility at the local level, we need to work a little more. by David Milholland RUST NEVER SLEEPS An interview with Gubernatorial candidate Jerry Rust erry Rust, currently serving his second term as Lane County Com- missioner, is running in the hotly contested Democratic primary race for Oregon’s governor. A founder of the Eugene-based tree-planting cooperative, the Hoedads, his five-year tenure as commissioner has been provocative and controversial, as he’s brought new-age politics into the county courthouse. if I could characterize what I’m going to be talking about in this S GOIOQ to OG 0G3CG and solar energy. Solar is the technology of peace, nuclear energy is the technology of war, and we’ve gone down that path long enough. ■ . CSO: Tell us how you got involved with the Hoedads? Rust: I came back from India fairly alienated ... Vietnam survivors weren’t the only ones that were alienated at that time, and my growth and experience in India has given me a perspective. I changed my party to Independent, I met my wife Sidney, and shortly after we had our first child, I went to work in the woods planting trees. After one year of that, working for a contractor making $3 an hour, I decided there must be a better way. If you’re going to plant trees, why not own a piece of the action and get the profits too. We formed what has become one of the most successful labor cooperatives in the country, and that’s the Hoedads. We wanted it democratic from the start, we wanted it worker-owned, we wanted the wealth to be shared amongst the people on the basis of participation. It’s become a multl-million-dollar corporation and is still doing extremely well, and has given birth to some seventeen other labor cooperatives. At the end of five years, I took a look at the political situation in Lane County. The Democrats and the Republicans had both nominated two tired-old-politics-as-usual people. I went in as an Independent and got the necessary signatures to get on the ballot, split the vote. I think I won with less than 40 percent of the vote. But the important part was that I was elected, and I stood for re-election, and won re-election. Rust in his Hoedad days. positively with our cities and counties to get these plans adopted. As far as some other achievements ... I established the office of appropriate technology ... we have re-established a farmers’ market ... I have fought long and hard for recycling. There is a lot of resistance to that concept. The old ways die slowly. But I think we have made a lot of people aware that there are alternatives. CSQ: Have you worked on coalition building in Lane County, and how would you do so in a state leadership role? Rust: I’ve made a promise to every group that I’ve gone into, and that is this: Let’s have a state network, and 4 Clinton St. Quarterly Photographs courtesy Jerry Rust
we will stay together, after this primary, win, lose or draw. If I am elected governor, we will have that network in place, (a) to keep me accountable; and (b) because putting somebody into office is only 10 percent of the battle .. . then comes the real fun. Most of what I am advocating is going to take years of struggle and legislative battles. The special interests are going to oppose most of my platform. It’s not going to be easy. So I have been into the senior community, the veterans’ community, the small business community, solar and energy activists, recyclers, women’s groups ... these are some of. the areas that I’ve been working with as I’ve tried to set up this network statewide. CSQ: I’d like to go to what I think is really the gut issue of this whole election. We’re in as tight a times as we’ve seen. How can the State of Oregon cope with this problem? It might be with us for a while. Rust: First of all, I think that the high interest rates are going to be with us for a while because of our trillion-dollar national debt. That means that the government keeps borrowing money, that means that there is tight money, that means that there are high interest rates. My program is to make Oregon insulated from federal fiscal policies as much as possible. We can create an independent kind of economy here in Oregon that naturally is integrated and relates to the rest of the national economy, but that strikes off on its own in very important ways. I want to establish a state commercial bank. I want the pension funds, the state accident insurance funds and the local investment pool monies, the state tax monies, not new tax monies but the ones that are already collected, I want those dollars to be rounded up and directed back to the communities in Oregon ... our small businesses, our small family farms, our minority community, depressed sectors of the economy. Not only are we now investing our own money out of the state, but the private sector is ripping the capital away by the millions; it’ll add up to billions. It’s not only in the State of Oregon, it’s the whole United States. It’s losing its capital. Our manufacturing base is moving out. I think the public has a right to be involved in directing that capital. I want to say that the State of North Dakota has had a state bank for 60 years; it’s been extremely effective, saved a lot of small farms. It has returned a profit to the State of North Dakota for every year except for four in that 60-year span. CSQ: Would the state bank be willing to lend to any business in the state? Is Teledyne Wah Chang going to get a loan from such a state bank? Rust: All I’m saying is that we ought to direct capital in line with social policies. Naturally I’m talking about solar energy, recycling projects, renewable energy, bringing Rodale out here and setting up a Rodale West, for the Willamette Valley. I’m talking about those kinds of policies, because naturally that’s where I want to see the capital go. But you get on board the train and, by a democratic, decision-making process, you decide where it’s going to go. As far as new industry, I would like us to be the renewable energy capital of the United States. We have the potential, both human and in our natural resources. The Alternative Energy Development Commission, enacted by the legislature in 1979, found that we had almost four million kilowatts, or 4,000.megawatts of energy; that’s four Trojan’s worth, that could be immediately developed. This report has been shelved by the Atiyeh Administration, and instead, we have continued to go deeper into debt behind the WPPSS fiasco. The sales of that energy would be worth about a billion dollars a year. We could export that, on a short-term basis, out of the state. CSQ: Well, what is this? Rust: This is small hydro, without damming up anymore wild and scenic rivers, geothermal, methane, chips, slash, wind, conservation and solar. CSQ: At the same time, however, that the federal government has (Continued on page 6) An interview with the candidate For Portland City Council Joe Uris is running for position number two on the City Council, a seat to which Mildred Schwab has been appointed once and elected twice. This is Uris’s first try for public office but not his inauguration into politics. Shortly after coming to Portland in 1958 to attend Reed College, by Peggy Lindquist he became involved in the civil rights and peace movements. He was a Joe Uris outside his Portland home. highly visible anti-war activist during the '60s and was elected student body president of Portland State University in 1966. Since then he has received a Masters degree in Sociology and a doctorate in Urban Studies from PSU. He has worked as a social worker, college teacher and writer. “I’ve always wanted to be a writer and I’ve always been interested in politics — those two are constants in my life. I’m interested in what I call the situation of human beings and the possibilities. I guess I’m asking for a politics of the possible in a period of time when everybody’s talking about how anything good is impossible.” CSQ: Why are you running for office now? Uris: Because American politics are taking a turn to-everything I don’t believe in. They have become more and more plastic and electronic, less sincere, more fascistic, less concerned about human beings and human values, more angry and rejecting of hope, and have turned toward scapegoating. On the national and international level we’re starting to blame everybody but ourselves for our problems, and we’re going to be making demands of our citizens that they take responsibility for things they can’t be responsible for. Blaming the victims is not the answer to the problems of poverty and crime and sickness. CSQ: Why is a City Council seat a good place to launch a new political program? Uris: Anyplace is a good place to launch it. That’s really the answer. I believe, though, that for us to evolve a new American system, which has to be both democratic and concerned, we have to establish it at the lowest common denominator of the society. In Portland, in Oregon, the lowest common denominator, in terms of meaningful politics, is city politics. I’ve lived here, this is my home, and this is the logical place for me to begin. I’m not playing an ambitious game, I don’t see myself as someone who is going to be moving up through the political process. There are some central concerns that involve people in the city, that are remediable in this city. And they are tied to national and international issues, and state issues, and I want to make those ties clear, but at the same time, I want to work on the local level to deal with them. In that those who have the aggressive, the creative, the intellectual and the physical skills can really flourish. What I see is that our system is socialism for the rich, and capitalism for the poor. If anything, it ought to be the opposite. CSQ: The story we are hearing now is that there are not the resources for that sort of system. Uris: That’s nonsense. The fact of the matter is that 5 percent of this world’s population holds, depending on whose figure you use, anywhere from a third to a half of the world’s resources. Either we’re going to share on some level, or we’ll all probably go down in flames. I don’t think that there’s any problem with working out rational solutions. It doesn’t mean a curtailment of individual freedoms or destruction of the motive of selfinterest, which is, after all, part of human nature. I think they all can coexist. But there has to be some humanity, some civility and just generally, some more enlightened concern for each other. You know, this is a much more selfish time than a few years ago. There are certain economic forces that have compelled people to that selfish view, but those forces aren’t inevitable. It isn’t inevitable, for example, that we all have to go into n economic depression, that we have to go to war. But I think that unless sensible people start taking political responsibility, it’s quite likely that's what’s going to happen. CSQ: How would you change deci- (Continued on next page) I don’t want to do away with free enterprise, destroy individual initiative, end property rights, I don’t want to destroy the family, break up the home, I don’t want to hurt the business community. I guess I'm asking for a politics of the possible in a period of time when everybody’s talking about how anything good is impossible. the long term, I want to see a politics and a social system that offers the carrot without the stick. And I think we can do that. CSQ: What do you mean by that? Uris: Well, in America we have become so dominated by the pressures of our industrial and post-industrial development, that we automatically assume the only reason why people will work for a living, the only reason people will strive, is that they are afraid of starving. That’s kind of the bottom line of Reaganomics. I don’t think that’s true. One of the main reasons why human beings do things is because they get bored, because they’re curious creatures and they have ideas and ambitions they want to carry out. I believe, in our society, that we can afford a structure that makes it possible for the least fortunate of us to survive at the same time Photograph by David Milholland Clinton St. Quarterly 5
Rust interview bailed totally out of solar. Rust: I understand that. And I’m suggesting that we don’t need the federal government anymore, to bring this on, because the federal government isn’t going to help us anyway. And, anyone who looks to the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) for an answer is barking up a tree. We will establish a pool of power that is separate from the Bonneville nuclear debt, which is going to take our energy costs just as high as any in the country by the end of this decade. I think it’s time to get out of My program is to make Oregon Insulated from federal fiscal policies as much as possible. We can create an independent kind of economy here in Oregon that naturally is integrated and relates to the rest of the national economy, but that strikes off on its own in very important ways. '< A ' 'v s A z \ s £> c s-s' the way, because those dinosaurs are going to fall anyway. Just producing the energy is only half the problem. The other half is creating the manufacturing industry, the computer industry, the photovoltaics ... we are going to have photo-voltaics on everybody’s roof within ten years. We’re going to have them manufactured in Eugene and Portland and Medford, and they’re going to be installed by little energy corporations. We’re going to see a day soon when we’re going to unplug from the big utilities. I want to create a Pacific Rim solar economy, renewable economy. I want us all together ... Japan, China, Korea ... in an integrated solar economy. Instead of exporting coal to Korea, so that it’s going to rain on us, acid rain, as soon as the wind comes our way, I think we should be sending them solar technology, and every home and business in Korea could be totally outfitted. And I’m convinced the barriers to solar power are not technological. They are financial and political. And that’s where I think the State of Oregon can step in here, invoke its powers, and put the State of Oregon in the power business, by loaning monies through the 11-D initiative that I helped sponsor this summer. CSQ: 11-D has been around a long time. Tell us about its history and how you mean to apply it. (Ed. note: 11-D, an amendment to the constitution, empowers the State of Oregon to raise and spend monies to develop electric generating facilities.) Rust: Well, it was put into the constitution, pre-Bonneville, by the farmers and grangers of this state, who wanted the natural resources to be developed for the benefit of the public, and not for the private monopolies. It was never implemented because the monopolies control the legislature, or have manipulated the process. It’s lain dormant in our constitution for 50 years, though it’s just as valid today as it was then. Now for people who are in privately served areas, I just have one question: Do you think it’s right that PP&L, which owns 10 percent of WPPSS 4 and 5, put that debt on the innocent ratepayers of that service area, or do you think the stockpayers ought to eat that debt themselves? There’s only one way to shed that debt, and that is to form a new Public Utility District (PUD) and let the stockholders have the bad debt. CSQ: In any buyout procedure, however, that very cost is going to be toted right on. Rust: It simply is not part of the ratepayers’ responsibility. The ratepayers can buy the transmission lines, and whatever generating facility they want, when they form their PUD. They don’t have to buy a dry hole with the deal. There’s no precedent for that. There’s no law requiring that. You buy out and start anew. I’ve seen light bulbs popping all over the state when I’ve said this. CSQ: Distinguish between yourself and Mr. Kulongoski. Tell me your perception of who he is and who he represents. Rust: He’s been an active politician in this state. He has close ties to organized labor. He’s clearly not in favor of the state bank. He has made a statement that new PUDs are not the issue, because it is now not public vs. private; they’re all corrupt, and it’s time the ratepayers got hostile to their utilities. And I’m not totally unsympathetic to that view, but I think after you say, “Let’s get hostile,” now you say, “Let’s get mobile; let’s talk about where the answers lie.” And I have taken a clear position with respect to public power. CSQ: Tell us about your links to labor. Rust: First of all, let’s understand where I’m coming out of. I’ve come out of a cooperative movement. I believe in worker-ownership wherever feasible and practical and wherever the workers want to do.it, wherever they can raise the capital to go it. So that’s my thrust. But I have been very close to organized labor. I have an extremely good record where organized labor is concerned. Now, I’ve crossed them on a couple of major items lately. One was on the garbage burner, which organized labor supported down the line, and Kulongoski supported down the line. I testified before him and his committee that this was a dioxinspewing mistake. But in general, I’ve fought for the right of people to organize. I consider myself a friend of labor. CSQ: Two or three words about our current governor. Rust: Status quo, lack of leadership, he’s out of touch with reality. He has maintained that there is a light in the tunnel, just like Reagan. He’s tied to Reaganomics. He’s at the opposite end of the political spectrum from myself. I’ve met him personally and he is a nice guy, but so what. I know a lot of nice guys. I think he’s too tied to the past. I don’t believe that he even realizes the severity of this depression we’re in in this state. Now the proposed garbage-burning plant here in Oregon City symbolizes Governor Atiyeh’s energy policy. Here a good idea, local government cooperating with industry to produce an economic benefit, has been so twisted that a serious health hazard will be inflicted on the people of this area, and a debt-ridden boondoggle will be the likely result. Unlike the WPPSS plants, we haven’t spent any money yet, we haven’t capitalized this venture. Now when people realize that this is like the WPPSS plants, this is a mini- WPPSS in the making, financially it’s a boondoggle, and it’s going to create severe public health problems, not only for this metropolitan area, but for the rest of the state as well. The wind blows down the Willamette Valley often, and we’re all going to be breathing this dioxin. Yes, it will produce some electricity. But at what cost? Would you want to produce energy if you knew you were going to harm future generations and cause genetic mutations because of the deadly poison that would be spewed into the atmosphere? We don’t need power produced in that fashion. CSQ: The entire solid waste problem is two or three years from being a glaring disaster here. What other solution do you have for solid waste at this point? Rust: I believe we need to have waste management and waste reduction programs. And this means not only recycling and source separation, but it means actually getting at the packaging industry. The Oregon Bottle Bill had a great and pioneering effect on reducing container kinds of refuse. Similarly, we should be limiting plastic containers, the other kinds of containers which end up in our landfills. Particularly plastic ... plastic is the one that causes this dioxin, as far as I can tell, and the other problems. One other thing. Atiyeh suggests we will bring the defense industry, the war industry, to Oregon, as one of the ways that we’ll bail out this state. I’m going to make this a big issue in this campaign, because one of the things that is wrecking the State of Oregon and the entire country; in fact, the whole world, is this arms race. This trillion-dollar national debt didn’t get there overnight. The reason it got there is because of our military buildup, and the Reagan Administration’s military buildup, and now Governor Atiyeh wants us to cash in on our quote fair share unquote of that military buildup. To me this is morally wrong; it needs to be repudiated by the people of this state. He gave a press conference last year bragging about sixteen new jobs down in that air force base out of Klamath Falls, which shows how desperate our governor is for some PR. Uris interview sion making in the various parts of city government? Uris: Generally, I think we need a City Council that’s elected by districts. Also, it’s absurd to put all your cards in the hands of the mayor, who can pull away and give bureaus at will. Look at the incredible betrayals that went down when Frank Ivancie yanked the police bureau away from Charles Jordan. And he did it for purely political reasons, I think. That was a very unfortunate thing, and we’re still feeling the effects of it, particularly in neighborhoods like Irvington and Albina, where a lot of poor people are suffering and see themselves as living in an occupied city. Another example is the Portland Development Commission. In the late 1950s, the PDC was created to deal with urban blight. But whole ethnic communities were destroyed. The lifestyle, the traditions, the morality of those communities were altered, absolutely, irrevocably. Such projects sometimes are necessary, but generally, they’re not. In recent years PDC has been more reluctant to enter into such projects. Yet, we still see the same kind of mistakes being made when monies are available. Look at i the Emanuel Hospital project. The black community has been moved in this town four or five times in its history, constantly at the whim of the power structure. And then, on top of that, you have some projects which are well intentioned, but really are not responsive. For example, because federal bucks were available, and because Union Avenue is a blighted area,, we created this project which was supposed to humanize Union Avenue. Well, anyone who lives around here knows that what’s happened is that the community has been split in half by Union Avenue now, much like Barbur Boulevard split Lair Hill/Corbett. And it was simply a project that, for all the improved community input and so on, from the very beginning was not really responsive nor carefully analytical of the needs of the community. CSQ: How should that process happen?, Uris: You need a Portland Development Commission whose members are elected, ideally by district, but certainly by the city as a whole. So that what we have now is a political process, where the mayor chooses his Sixteen new jobs in the war industry, and he holds a press conference. I say hogwash. CSQ: One more question. Do you believe it’s the role of the governor of this state, ora candidate for governor, to talk about international issues, be they El Salvador, South Africa, or whatever, and how do you stand on any one of these? Rust: I think if you look at what’s happening to our national and our state’s economy ... we’re tied into this national and international military picture. That is why we have this balance of payments problem. That is why we have high interest rates, and so it’s not only affecting us as a potential nuclear disaster, a war, a holocaust ... it’s immediately affecting our economy. When the American people realize that, and I think they are starting to realize that, that it’s a guns-and-butter type of issue, then we’re going to have to put an end to this arms race. I think it’s very appropriate for this subject to be spoken to in this governor’s campaign. I think what’s happening in El Salvador is a tragedy in the making; it’s another Vietnam in the making, there’s no question about it; and like John Donne said, anyone’s death diminishes me, because we’re all involved. We’ve got to recognize the responsibility. I think the governor of the state is in a key position with respect to these issues. If I could characterize what I’m going to be talking about in this campaign, it’s going to be peace and solar energy. They’re just linked right together. Solar is the technology of peace, nuclear energy is the technology of war, and we’ve gone down that path long enough. • buddies or the people he owes things to and they, in turn, owe things to other business corporations. Instead, what you need is people who owe things to the public, that are beholden to specific constituencies. I think that would be a hell of an improvement. Also, I think that you need to structure into the use of Housing and Community Development monies, still stronger neighborhood and individual processes so that the opportunities of individuals to speak are properly safeguarded. And that those funds should be channeled into small and diverse corporate development, rather than hunting up corporations like Wacker, which is a German corporation. In order to get Wacker, we hurt a lot of locally based firms. I think that what we need to do is have as many small firms as we can. Now, I’m not saying, for example, that we should hurt the Port of Portland — I think that would be stupid. I think trade is a very healthy thing; we need to encourage it. But we also need to be aware of the indigenous, relatively politically powerless small businessmen, who take it on the chin every time we make major decisions in planning or in urban development. Those people need to be protected more thoroughly. And I think that if you have elected officials, who are beholden to the whole community, you’re going to get a little more protection. CSQ: In the same vein, let’s talk about the police review process. Uris: First of all, you don’t have any real civilian review process in the city. Right now, it’s being proposed and there probably will be a very mild and weak citizen review procedure of police complaints. But I think that you need a fully empowered, preferably elected, body who oversees police behavior and police activities. Police policies set by the city council should be much more strongly directive. The police department should not be seen as a para-military bureaucracy. I think that’s nonsense. The police are fundamentally people who are here to serve the public, and they should be people of the public; they should live in the communities in which they are serving. I don’t think it’s constitutional to make them come out of Irvington if they work there, but I think it is perfectly legal to require all new, or future, officers to come out of Port- (Continued on next page) 6 Clinton St. Quarterly
land rather than out of the suburbs. It’s important that we have respect for the police, that they be fair and even- handed, and that they particularly be concerned with crimes in which there are victims rather than crimes in which there are no victims. In order for that to happen, those policemen have to be sensitive. Right now, Portland police perceive Albina as a terrible area to work. “I’ve talked with those guys — they’re scared. They say, “Those people over there” — that’s their euphemism for black people — “Those people over there carry guns. You don’t know what it’s like. We find guns much more of the time.” Then you look at the statistics and you discover they find guns in Lents, they find guns in Buckman — the fact of the matter is, you’ve got a lot of desperate people, and they’ve got guns — it has nothing to do with their color; it has to do with their poverty and their desperation, and the macho image that we present for people in our society. But the police see it in very racial terms. The police department has never really spent enough hours in minority training for its officers. So, inevitably, the police see themselves as going into a dangerous, enemy-infested area, the neighborhood sees the police as a conquering army, and you get no cooperation, no hope, no help and no real respect. CSQ: The possum incident presented an opportunity for something to be worked out between the community and the police. It was a crisis situation, but the City Council could have intervened and out of that could have come better communication and better understanding. What actually happened was just the opposite — largely due to Frank Ivancie. How would you like to have seen that situation handled? Uris: First of all, I think the officers’ rights were not adequately protected. Due process, the protection of the law, has to be accorded to everybody: policemen, community members, whatever. And that kind of jeopardized the whole matter. Second of all, I think that a lot of Portlanders really are, they don’t mean to be perhaps, but they are racist — they don’t understand the feeling of black people. If you’re not born in the Southern tradition that says a possum is a warning from the Klan, then you don’t understand its significance. It’s just sort of a nasty joke to you. But it’s no joke to those black people, not at all. Also, there has to be a real understanding of the frustrations the police face. They see the Burger Barn, which is a 24-hour restaurant, as a place where bad guys hang out. Well now, a 24-hour restaurant serving a community which is relatively poor is going to have some people in it that are not going to be the most reputable people on earth. What do you expect? But the policemen, with so little training, have no appreciation of that, no empathy for what’s going on. The City Council should have, first of all, immediately begun to undertake an investigation of the problem, less in terms of what legal violations had taken place, but rather, an attempt to ameliorate the anger of the community. It would have been really nice if the Chief of Police could have said, “We, as policemen, are ashamed of what has happened. We want to make sure that this doesn’t happen again. We are going to make sure of that in all sorts of ways.” And then, outline some things. Those two officers should have been severely reprimanded and should have been fined a significant sum of money. They should have been made to do a little extra community work, instead of regular policing, in that community — an experience of a humbling sort, if you will. And then I think it should have been let go; I think the officers might have learned a lesson; it could have been dropped. But that would have taken consistent leadership on the part of the council. It would have taken an end to the kind of bickering that goes on in the council. Everybody’s always looking for a little political advantage on that council. And consequently they aren’t looking, in the long run, to the public good. If I had been on the council at the time, I would have insisted on a much more thorough investigation of the police department as a whole in terms of its racism. I have heard citizen complaints that are incredible, many of which, when I checked them out, appear to be true. But a climate of hysteria develops when the City’s elected officials don’t take leadership in making people trust the police. If I were a policeman today, after that incident, I’d be more afraid to work in Albina, because I’d know that people would be even more angry at me, though no black person in the city, I’m sure, was surprised at what happened. CSQ: How are you going to go against Mildred Schwab? Uris: Anyone who has had any experience dealing with the city council if I were a policeman today, after the possum Incident, I'd be more afraid to work in Albina, because rd know that people would be even more angry at me, though no black person in the city, rm sure, was surprised at what happened. has seen the games that get played there, and Mildred is one of the major players. Her pattern in voting is very simple. She asks hard questions, sometimes actually humiliating and badgering people, which looks good to some people, but she usually knows the answers, in advance, to the questions she’s asking. And she comes on like a very stern grandmotherly figure. Then she lifts her finger carefully, first dampens it, and sees which way the council is really going to go, and then votes with the majority. And that’s a characteristic of a good politician, in American politics — not a principled position, but a good political position. There are enough people around who have been humiliated — there’s a groundswell of interest in changing that position. Furthermore, it’s what — ten years? That’s a hell of a long time to be in a position like that. I think that she’s out of touch. CSQ: I think that if people know you in Portland, they know you from Portland State and your radical student we are not going to allow the abortion issue to be won by a bunch of menopausal men, who have as much right to speak on women’s problems as a giraffe to speak on the rights of penguins. politics days. Are you going to have to work to achieve another image? Uris: I don’t want to achieve another image. I would say I’m a progressive. As I say, the carrot without the stick — that’s my politics. I don’t want to do away with free enterprise, destroy individual initiative, end property rights, I don’t want to destroy the family, break up the home, I don’t want to hurt the business community. I’m sure that a lot of my constituency is people who were student youth, very enraged over Vietnam, and civil rights issues and so forth, in the late sixties and early seventies. Well, they’ve grown up along with me — we’ve all matured a lot. And I think they’re probably a majority of the voters here. I’m sort of proud of what we did. I think we saved this country a lot of grief by hastening public awareness of the horrors of Vietnam — I wish we had done more. And I think we’ve made the lives of minority people a hell of a lot better by pushing for civil rights. I have no regrets on any of those scores. Most people are aware that those things were good things — that issues like childcare, decent available health care, aren’t fly-by- night issues and people are going to be responsive to them right now, particularly when you have a government in Washington, D.C., that somehow has fantasized, because Jimmy Carter was voted against, that they have a mandate to bring in some kind of corporate fascism in this country. I don’t think most Americans are swallowing that right now. I don’t think they’re going to allow a war in El Salvador or to allow this kind of starvation economy to continue much longer, and their Social Security, which they’ve earned through their work, to be eroded. I don’t think they’re going to allow their health care programs to disappear, or allow women to be forced into a barefoot-and-pregnant posture. We as a people are not going to allow the abortion issue to be won by a bunch of menopausal men, who have about as much right to speak on the issue of women’s problems as would a giraffe to speak on the issue of the rights of penguins. CSQ: Mildred Schwab is a woman, and I think that makes her harder to beat. Uris: It certainly does. Today, thinking people are conscious of the longterm discrimination that women have had to endure. And that makes almost any woman — or any man, for that matter, who’s conscious of feminism — very sensitive to the question of a female or a male candidate. But, if she doesn’t represent the interests of women, the mere fact that she is female is irrelevant. You know, my gender is what I was born with. I’m a feminist. I don’t think that Mildred Schwab will get up in front of an audience and say, as I can say with absolute truthfulness, that I will introduce into the City Council a memorial resolution supporting the ERA, and a memorial resolution supporting the right of women to have or not have children as they wish, that I will work very hard to have good childcare programs in Portland, over some other programs, that I think that equality and affirmative action for all minorities and women are absolutely imperative if we’re going to have social justice. See, I can get up and say those things, and I don’t think she can do that, because I think she’s afraid of losing constituency. But I need the constituency of people who are aware of some of the problems in our society. There’s this old saying that you never will lose money underestimating the intelligence of the American public. I think it’s bullshit. I think the fact of the matter is that if you give people intelligent choices, they respond intelligently. CSQ: Let’s talk about your campaign. You don't have a lot of bucks. Uris: No, I have no money. Well, actually by the time this goes to press, I may have a bunch of money. I have raised $600 in a week, which is not a lot, but it’s pretty amazing. And we’re calling people asking for money. We’re asking for small contributions, because I don’t expect the big donors to be giving money. CSQ: What else? You talked about a door-to-door campaign. Uris: I’m going to go door-to-door in the neighborhoods where I think I will have my strongest support. We are giving some coffees. We are talking to crowds of people. I’m going to all the political events I can. I see this as an activity of spontaneity, grace and thoughtfulness. I actually think that I can win, which may be a psychosis from which I will recover only on May 18, but I think it’s possible. It really depends on whether the kind of people that care, will care enough to get out there and work for me and vote for me. I don’t have thousands of dollars to spend on posters and lawn signs and billboards and television and radio time. I prefer my opponent to waste her money on stuff like that. I figure that if I’m going to win it at all, I’m going to win it because people will get to know who I am, they’ll get to know what I’m interested in doing, and they’ll find in that a potential for unity, which will improve the economic, the social, the political, the artistic and the job climates in Portland. And, whether I win or lose, we will have made people like Mildred Schwab, who have a lot of power, very conscious of the fact that their power doesn’t rest as easily as they think on their heads, very aware that they are the servants, not the masters, of the people. And that, in and of itself, will be a hell of a political accomplishment. Particularly in this time in history. 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/ t has been 11 years exact- ly ... one decade plus one ... since I lost my virginity through rape within the first few hours of a spring vacation in Baja, California. It has been two years since a relationship that was straining to last forever, exploded after four years and died. He said it was because I actually hated him all along. Because I hated men. Because of Baja. I said, “Eek.” One year ago I became infatuated with a member of the highly disciplined literary intelligentsia. He was utterly convinced that the only way to keep wild, let alone terrorized, psyches intact was through cathartic writing. “Write about Baja!” he implored. “Only then shall you be released!’’ I thought: Why is he talking to me? Did I have a terrorized psyche? Nine months ago I began writing about my night in Baja. Perhaps the 10- year-old terror ... the terror that had controlled my life for four hours more completely by far than anyone or anything ever has ... the terror that was instantaneously stuffed into an IGNORE FOR NOW file in the e fficie n t blocking system of my brain ... perhaps that terror was actually powering the movement of the keys. Perhaps that terror had organically matured and already been quietly released. Or perhaps that terror still sits within ... rotted and runny. All I really know is that terror was ... and I felt it. So ... atrocities may simply be too large for the human imagination to grasp, but having lived one, I’ve got to try. So here I grasp.... yr t was spring break from college, 1971. Carol, John, and I were going off this year ... south of the border ... down Mexico Way. I’d known Carol since the first week of school, two and a half years before, and we’d both known John for a year and a half. Carol was a pale, softJar tAie Aaman ima^enatton to “yttrocitie&- are serr/^A/. too Az/yo i/uys, or erccuAO tAem cottA ner- O O O A . .. spoken, and extremely active friend whom I had lured through my darkness and sparks. She was yellow ... sun-yellow ... and she shone. But Carol was somehow pitless, like the part of California from which she hailed ... the southern section ... no clouds and no shading. John was little, warm, and wonderful. John was one of the empathetic souls whose hearts live as strongly for friends as for self. Perhaps more so, which may have been the cause of his loneliness. His heart overwhelmed you. His warmth intimidated you. And his stomach was always churning as he walked the thin edge just this side of despair. Then there was me. Nineteen years old, smalltown, and starving ... for something bigger, smarter, and not so damn flat. I had tasted my first bit of sophistication at a great western university, and it had moved me ... right into chaotic confusion. The first person I met as a college student was a depressive. She coped with the perplexing independence of life away from home by wallowing. And even though I don’t think I even knew what depression was ... smalltowns rarely acknowledge psychology ... I copied her. And my confusion, henceforth, had a name. Comely coedness hadn’t fit. Radical politicality hadn’t fit. But gloom. Gloom was easy. We hated ... and we made fun. It fit well. So, the three of us were off ... the shy ones ... going south of the border in our borrowed van with our borrowed tape deck, King Crimson tapes, ice chest filled with sugared and sugar-free sodas, marijuana well hidden, bunson burners, car-sick pills.... We left late in the afternoon from Carol’s mother’s house in San Diego. We crossed the border with no trouble and drove about 60 miles into Baja before deciding to stop for the night on a small beach. Darkness was approaching. We pulled in, turned on the cassette deck, laid out our sleeping bags, smoked a joint, started a small fire, and relaxed, watching the waves fluoresce, turning shades of red as the hot sun set. The pitiful ramshackle poverty we had passed was but a fleeting wound. It was ugly, but we were strictly on vacation. Our political dedication was flimsy. Suddenly something made me turn around.. -.away from the stunning beauty of the waves sparkling within this Mexican sunset. There was a movement in the brush behind us. I saw two male figures wearing full-face black masks, walking over the small hills. They were screaming, “Viva Zapata!” I saw a longbarreled rifle and a golden-and- ruby-jewelled sabre. They pointed their weapons at us lying prostrate and screamed, “Don’t move!” Bam! There was a major movement in my mind. Everything changed. Instantaneous terror. I was jacked right into high speed. Stay rational. Stay rational. But those weapons. The terror. My body immediately began convulsing ... subtly ... incessantly. My body grabbed the terror and housed it, leaving my mind comparatively free to devise plans ... for my survival. And my mind searched efficiently like a supercharged, finely tuned motor. And this search pulled my life more tightly by far than anyone or anything ever has ... for four hours. The two teenage bandidos bound, gagged, and blindfolded the three of us and shoved us into the back of the van. Thev drove off, stopping 20 minutes later, at a house. One went in, then came out. We drove on. We soon stopped again. Somewhere. A dark stretch of beach. They took off our gags and blindfolds. One hustled John away. The other got out our sleeping bags and set up two camps. John was gone. I heard Spanish chatter. I heard John angry and pleading. Stop it. Stop it, you motherfuckers. Just stop it. John. John. I was with John. I knew they were taking him off to his death. I thought I heard gunshots. I thought they got John. I couldn’t believe it. My mind switched into a higher gear, and my body switched into a more convulsive 8 Clinton St. Quarterly Drawing by Mary Robben
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