Your editorial writer (Oct 28) says he remembers all the demos and marches in downtown Portland that ended in trouble and bloodshed (I don’t), but has forgotten what the marches and the demos were about. I haven’t.

They were about nuclear bomb testing that put strontium-90 in our kids’ milk. They were about a misguided war in Viet Nam. They were about civil rights for black people. They were about women’s rights and gay rights. They were about a misguided invasion of Iraq. This one’s about a misguided economic policy combined with a misguided war in Afghanistan.

We stopped testing bombs. We got out of Viet Nam. Civil rights for blacks, women, and gays have moved towards equality. We’re getting out of Iraq. Maybe we’ll get a wiser economic policy and get out of Afghanistan and your editorial writer can forget why there was ever a tent city in downtown Portland.

Ursula K. Le Guin
NW Portland