----- Original Message -----
From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com>
> Weirdly, Liza Featherstone, on a little tour of the northwest to
> promote her book, Students Against Sweatshops, told me yesterday that
> the campus Republicans at the very conservative Western Oregon
> University (located in a dry county, filled with would-be cops and
> soldiers) have organized a debate on capitalism. As a system, pro or
> con. This is not an activist campus. So why are they doing this? Is
> there something in the air that makes them nervous?
>
> Doug
==============
The West Coast has the youngest subsections of what is, still, one of the youngest countries of the world [225+ years] and so people aren't quite as set in their ideological ways. Plenty of opportunities for troublemakers. After living-working in DC for too many years, moving out West was a breath of fresh air in more ways than one. Of course, you don't have to scratch too far below the surface to find the Wild West with all it's lunacies, but folks out here are nowhere near as dogmatic and adversarial as East Coast culture. The beer is better too!
Ian