Not the Kind of Thing Defend Oregon Would Send Out

This is too awesome not to post. From our friend Steve Novick:

One of the most important things you can do this election year is tell everyone you know to Vote No on Bill Sizemore’s Measure 64. A bizarrely technical measure – it’s a sort of attack on the use of a form of direct deposit by public employees – it would have the effect of making it much more difficult for union members to advocate for education and health care, more difficult for organizations like the Food Bank to advocate for social justice, and more difficult for the unions to fight Bill Sizemore’s other measures.

It’s important for you to know that the public employee unions are our first line of defense against devastating Sizemore initiatives like Measure 59, which would gut public services to give tax cuts to the wealthy. A lot of us understand that Sizemore’s measures are bad, and do our part – but the truth is that most progressives tend to focus our resources on candidate campaigns (thanks again for your help on mine!), and it doesn’t occur to us that we need money and manpower for the initiatives, too. It is no exaggeration to say that if it were not for the public employee unions, Bill Sizemore would have burned the state to the ground long ago. He knows that. That’s why he wants to cripple their ability to fight him.

If you’re a Lord of the Rings fan, think of Oregon as the Shire and the unions as the Dunedain. They don’t get a lot of credit. But as Aragorn said to Boromir at the Council of Elrond:

"Peace and freedom, do you say? The North would have known them little but for us. Fear would have destroyed them. But when dark things come from the houseless hills, or creep from sunless woods, they fly from us. What roads would any dare tread, what safety would there be in quiet lands, or in the homes of simple men at night, if the Dunedain were asleep, or were all gone into the grave?

And yet less thanks have we than you. Travelers scowl at us, and countrymen give us scornful names. 'Strider' I am to one fat man who lives within a day’s march of foes that would freeze his heart, or lay his little town in ruin, if he were not guarded ceaselessly."

The fact is that every Oregonian lives under the shadow of foes like Sizemore and his backers, like Loren Parks the Nevada sexual hypnotist and Dick Wendt of Jeld-Wen. They would lay our little state in ruin, if it were not guarded ceaselessly – by our friends in organized labor. Don’t let Sizemore drive the Dunedain into the grave.

Vote No on 64, and make sure all your friends do, too.