Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/263782
6A Daily News – Thursday, February 20, 2014 Greg Stevens, Publisher gstevens@redbluffdailynews.com Chip Thompson, Editor editor@redbluffdailynews.com Editorial policy The Daily News opinion is expressed in the editorial. The opinions expressed in columns, letters and cartoons are those of the authors and artists. Letter policy The Daily News welcomes let- ters from its readers on timely topics of public interest. All let- ters must be signed and pro- vide the writer's home street address and home phone num- ber. Anonymous letters, open letters to others, pen names and petition-style letters will not be allowed. Letters should be typed and cannot exceed two double-spaced pages or 500 words. When several letters address the same issue, a cross section of those submit- ted will be considered for publi- cation. Letters will be edited. Letters are published at the discretion of the editor. 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How to reach us Main office: 527-2151 Classified: 527-2151 Circulation: 527-2151 News tips: 527-2153 Sports: 527-2153 Obituaries: 527-2151 Photo: 527-2153 On the Web www.redbluffdailynews.com Fax Newsroom: 527-9251 Classified: 527-5774 Retail Adv.: 527-5774 Legal Adv.: 527-5774 Business Office: 527-3719 Address 545 Diamond Ave. Red Bluff, CA 96080, or P.O. Box 220 Red Bluff, CA 96080 Opinion WASHINGTON -- One hun- dred years ago this coming Aug. 4, the day Britain declared war on Germany, socialists in the German Reichstag voted for credits to finance the war. Marxists -- including Lenin, who that day was in what now is Poland -- were scandalized. Marx had preached that the pro- letariat has no fatherland, only a transnational class loyalty to proletarians everywhere. "In 1918," wrote Louis Fischer, Lenin's best biographer, "patri- otism and nationalism, born of the 'subjectivism' Lenin so dis- liked, were ideological crimes in Soviet Russia." These are history-shaping virtues in Ukraine today. Because the nation-state is the necessary framework for durable political liberty, nation- alism is a necessary, although insufficient, impulse sustaining liberty. Marx, whose prophesies were perversely predictive because they were almost invariably wrong, predicted the end of nationalism. Economic forces, he said, determine polit- ical, cultural and psychological realities. So capitalism, with its borders-leaping cosmopoli- tanism, would dilute to the point of disappearance all emo- tional attachments to nations. Ukraine's ferment is an emphat- ic, albeit redundant, refutation of Marxism. The political elites who cob- bled together the European Union hoped that the pooling of national sovereignties would extinguish the nationalism that, they think, ruined Europe's 20th century. They considered the resulting "democracy deficit" -- the transfer of national parlia- ments' prerogatives to Brussels bureaucrats -- a price well worth paying for tranquility. Now comes turbulent Ukraine, incandescent with nationalism and eager to pre- serve its sovereignty by a closer relation with the EU. Ukraine's president, Viktor Yanukovych, is resisting the popular desire for constitution- ally limited government, and for a national existence more independent of Russian Presi- dent Vladimir Putin's presence. Yanukovych wants to trade Ukraine's aspirations for Putin's billions. Russia is ruled by a little, strutting Mussolini -- the Duce, like Putin, enjoyed being pho- tographed with his chest bare and his biceps flexed. Putin is unreconciled to the "tragedy," as he calls it, of the Soviet Union's demise. It was within the Soviet apparatus of oppres- sion that he honed the skills by which he governs -- censorship, corruption, brutality, oppres- sion, assassination. Remember when President George W. Bush peered into Putin's eyes and got "a sense of his soul" as someone "very straightforward and trustwor- thy"? Remember when Putin fed the world the fable about rushing naked from his burning dacha -- the fire started when Putin was in a sauna -- before the rescue of his cherished cru- cifix that had belonged to his sainted mother? Ukrainians, whose hard history has immu- nized them against the folly of wishful thinking, see in Putin's ferret face the cold eyes of a prison warden. Ukraine, whose population (46 mil- lion) and size are approximately those of Spain, is a potential economic power. Rus- sia remains what the Soviet Union was, a third-world country with first-world mili- tary technologies. Its hunter-gatherer econo- my -- name a Russian consumer good other than vodka and caviar you might want -- is based on extraction industries (oil, gas, minerals). Putin's contempt for Barack Obama is palpable. Russia's robust support of Bashar al- Assad is one reason Assad has, according to the Obama admin- istration's director of intelli- gence, "strengthened" his posi- tion in the period since Obama said Assad should "step aside." Russia has been less than help- ful regarding U.S. attempts to halt Iran's nuclear weapons pro- gram. Where, exactly, has Obama's much advertised but never defined "reset" of rela- tions with Russia been fruitful? Yet Obama seems so fixated on it that he will not risk annoy- ing Putin by voicing full-throat- ed support for the Ukrainian protesters. Obama participated in waging seven months of war against Libya, a nation not threatening or otherwise impor- tant to the United States. Yet Joe Biden's Tuesday phone call to Yanukovych is, as of this writing, Obama's strongest response to the Ukraine crisis, which matters to the political trajectory of the European conti- nent. Europe, which for many centuries was a cockpit for many fighting faiths, is now politically vanilla. And as a military or diplomat- ic power, "Europe" remains more a geographical than a political term. Still, the pull of European political cul- ture has not lost its power. And if Europe's historical amnesia is not complete, it should hear echoes of 1848 and 1989 in the voices of Ukrainians today. The Soviet Union -- "one of modern history's pivotal experi- ments," in the weasel words of NBC's Olympics coverage -- existed for seven miserable decades. Ukraine's agony is a reverberation of the protracted process of cleaning up after the "experiment." So, this is per- haps the final episode of the Cold War. Does America's unusually loquacious 44th pres- ident remember how the words of the 40th -- "Tear down this wall!" -- helped to win it? George Will's email address is georgewill@washpost.com. The Cold War's final episode? Commentary N EWS D AILY RED BLUFF TEHAMA COUNTY T H E V O I C E O F T E H A M A C O U N T Y S I N C E 1 8 8 5 George F. Will STATE ASSEMBLYMAN — Dan Logue, 150 Amber Grove Drive, Ste. 154, Chico, CA 95928, 530-895-4217 STATE SENATOR — Jim Nielsen, 2635 Forest Ave., Ste. 110, Chico, CA 95928, (530) 879-7424, senator.nielsen@sen- ate.ca.gov GOVERNOR — Jerry Brown, State Capitol Bldg., Sacramento, CA 95814; (916) 445-2841; Fax (916) 558- 3160; E-mail: governor@gov- ernor.ca.gov. U.S. REPRESENTATIVE — Doug LaMalfa 506 Cannon House Office Building, Wash- ington, DC 20515, 202-225- 3076. U.S. SENATORS — Dianne Feinstein (D), One Post Street, Suite 2450, San Francisco, CA 94104; (415) 393-0707. Fax (415) 393- 0710. Barbara Boxer (D), 1700 Montgomery St., Suite 240, San Francisco, CA 94111; (510) 286-8537. Fax (202) 224-0454. Your officials Money wasted Editor: The headline in the Jan. 31 Daily News was "California State board to probe RBUHS teachers group." My breakdown of the article is; did the RBUHS teachers group and RBJUHS District Board ethically and fair- ly give Lisa Escobar the boot? To me, as a taxpayer, it is a waste of time and money and in my humble opinion they should have let her contract run out and not renew it. The way it is, Ms. Escobar gets a year's salary — $126,000 give or take — plus they hired Dr. Harrop at an undisclosed amount. But, what the heck, that's just a drop in the bucket compared to what the Board of Supes spend every week. Also, what will the probe cost? In the end none of this will fix or improve our educational system. Tehama County has adopted the Common Core State Stan- dards (CCSS) that are educa- tional standards that describe what students should know and be able to do in each subject in each grade. In California, the State Board of Education decides on the standards for all students, from kindergarten through high school. CCSS makes controversial changes in our educational system and by many educators, informed columnists and politicians it's a further dumbing down of Amer- ica. How sad the thought that there is still room at the bottom when just a couple or so decades ago this country was number one in the world K-12 and now there are reports that we are as low as 17. In Polson's 1/28/14 column, he put a footnote that his suspi- cion was confirmed the money the teachers union contributed to help elect three high school board members was paid back when the board fired Ms. Esco- bar. Board member Jack Hansen didn't take kindly to being blind-sided and came back swinging, accusing Polson of character assassination. I can understand Polson's suspicion and Hansen's defense but if union money had not been involved this conflict would not have happened. Michelle Carlson's column Feb. 1 "Expect More Tehama: Where will you find yourself amidst changing tides?" The first two sentences of her article says it all: "The world around us is changing. Education is chang- ing. In fact, large scale change has been occurring for quite some time now." Truer words were never spoken. Let me ask this about that; are the changes for the better? According to a 2009 report by the Cal- ifornia Faculty Associ- ation, California ranks 49th out of 50 states. Another ranking puts California at 47th place. Back in the 1950s and '60s California's educational system was rated in the top 10 nationwide. If that is so, may be in order to make progress we should regress and go back to the fifties. Tehama County is signed up for CCSS and who, why or how that decision was made is kind of a mystery. Having said that, to Ms. Escobar's credit, I often would get negative information about CCSS and forward it on to her and a couple of the other superintendents asking for an explanation. I was totally ignored by the men and only Ms. Escobar would respect my inquiries and respond to me, at least she has that much character. Les Wolfe, Red Bluff Deny huge pay raise for supes Editor: Adjusted for infla- tion a supes' $1,045 monthly salary in 1989 is $1,968 today or 87.9 percent total inflation, and not the $3.795 ballot propos- al. One hopes voters deny this huge salary increase. In addi- tion to the current salary, supes' also receive a $500 auto allowance, $100 for remote communications, and pension and health care subsidies from taxpayers. A typical private sector employee's retirement benefits are not inflation adjusted, and health care subsidies end upon retirement. Social Security adjustments are one-third the inflation experienced by retirees, even though the employee and employer have fully funded their Medicare and Social Security funds during the 45 year work career. Higher pay will not attract more capable supes'. Joseph Neff, Corning Your Turn