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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 12, 2016)
VIEWPOINTS Saturday, November 12, 2016 Quick takes Umatilla County celebrates Veterans Day This is what rural communities are about, while others are protesting! So proud. — Rechelle Aylett Day Proud of East Oregonian coverage of such events as these and less about the silly protesters looking for attention! — Kevin Bailey Hunting guide poached trophy mule deer He should have lost his hunting rights forever. Poaching for food is one thing. Trophy poaching is crap. — Shirley Westfall Port of Morrow project nixed Hallelujah! — Nora Zimmerman Here is another example of an opportu- nity lost. Let’s cripple the U.S. in regards to exports until we are dependent on other countries to survive. Here is an idea, let’s come to a compromise and offer Native Americans a quota of the jobs at the new terminal. Just an idea. Canada has already taken advantage of this in Bellingham. — Kyle Thomas Uncertain marijuana industry under Trump presidency He believes in state rights, and individual freedom. The industry will be OK. He also said he supports medical pot 100 percent. Relax, and give him a chance. — Logan Wood He supports states’ rights and he is a businessman, I don’t think he will squash those kinds of funds for state budgets. — Katie Sargent One of the great lessons of the Twitter age is that much can be summed up in just a few words. Here are some of this week’s takes. Tweet yours @Tim_Trainor or email editor@eastoregonian. com, and keep them to 140 characters. East Oregonian Page 5A What you don’t know about Standing Rock By PAUL VANDEVELDER Writers on the Range W hat writers like me don’t know about the world outweighs what we do know by a ratio of 100-1, at best. We get away with reporting the news as if we know something because, as Mark Twain noted, we do the legwork, we interview the colorful suspects, and we buy ink by the barrel. Then comes a sudden, confounding event like the Dakota Access Pipeline controversy at the Hunkpapa Sioux’s Standing Rock Reservation in south-central North Dakota. Encampments made up of members of hundreds of Indian nations and environmental organizations are protesting a proposed pipeline that will transport dinosaur juice from the Bakken oil fields near the Canadian border to refineries and ports in Illinois. In North Dakota alone, the pipeline will cross the Missouri River and nine of its major tributaries, as well as treaty-protected land belonging to the Hunkpapa Sioux. The “water protectors” have increased by the day since August, at the confluence of the Missouri and Cannonball rivers. As the weeks turned into months, the “prayer camp” residents have become more resolutely entrenched, reminding journalists, local law enforcement officials and regional politicians from governors on down that when it comes to all things Indian, our best efforts to understand are not good enough. It is no secret that the oil pipeline was routed across former Indian land in order to avoid contaminating the water supply of white-dominated communities. But most Americans lack a clear understanding of tribal sovereignty, the federal trust doctrine, or reserved rights treaties with Native nations. In fact, most of us are astonishingly ignorant about our own government. The Intercollegiate Studies Institute, a conservative group founded five decades ago to measure civic literacy in American society, has demonstrated this by giving regular citizens the same exam immigrants take when they apply for American citizenship. Last year, when 2,500 college Trump tapped into rising anger D onald Trump arrived on the A Hillary Clinton air of entitlement political scene as citizen did not help her cause. frustration over government What are chances that Trump reached a boiling point. It’s as though and members of Congress will once taxpayer anger hit a certain try to address the economic vise point, Trump stepped in to offer his that middle class Americans find services. I haven’t been able to tell themselves in? Will President Trump if the disappearance of the middle try to help his struggling countrymen class really worries him or if he just who helped elect him? I hope so Mike recognizes an opportunity for fame Forrester because members of the House and and fortune when he sees one. Senate — especially Republicans Comment For years, the economic screws — have failed to support efforts to have been tightening on the lower help jobs and the economy. Members and middle income groups in this country. of Congress benefit from lavish campaign Pay has stagnated. Families work two, contributions, and corporate lobbyists spend three, four jobs and still can’t stay afloat. lots of time sidling up to the legislators. Businesses have moved Seems to me the jobs to other countries. $64 question in all Corporate tax lawyers this is who bears the have figured out how to main responsibility for excuse U.S. companies governing when the from paying income taxes. President-elect shuns Despite efforts to policymaking and working increase availability with other political groups. of medical insurance, Members of Congress affordable health care will need to be super-alert remains a goal for many on both domestic issues families. and foreign affairs. A college education is Especially foreign affairs, a doorway to the middle because our presidents class for many, but sharply have wide authority on rising tuition fees intervene. their own to negotiate and sign international Democrats took Trump lightly until this agreements and commit troops around the election. He has no interest in policymaking globe. and admits it. He tosses off random Maybe Trump will be able to attract comments about letting Asian countries smart, experienced people to his staff, equip themselves with nuclear weapons or maybe not. Someone in the Trump and about the easiness of improving border organization got the candidate to sound and security. The press and electronic news look more presidential in the last several media have done some reporting on the weeks. I would vote for those figures to stay U.S. income gap among groups but not with Trump and help him. in an urgent way. Filing for bankruptcy Americans have been asked a lot why and refusing to pay contractors are part of they picked Trump as a nominee. They did Trump’s way of life. not; Trump picked the Republican party No wonder the Clinton group suffered to join, maybe figuring Mrs. Clinton was from overconfidence — such as not vulnerable. campaigning in Wisconsin with its history So what will Trump do in office, and to of liberal politics. And some analysts feel what extent will he keep the middle class in that many Latino and black voters refused to mind as he makes decisions? He has fooled tell pollsters whom they favored because of lots of people so far. Here’s one voter who Trump’s flaky reputation. suspects the Trump administration will be Big surprise on Nov. 8 and Clinton failed chaotic and would like Trump to take the job to help herself on key points. When the seriously and surprise us. Clintons offered themselves on the stump, ■ they did so as a couple who had taken Mike Forrester is a former editor of the advantage of their fame to become wealthy. East Oregonian. He lives in Pendleton. For years, the economic screws have been tightening on the lower and middle income Americans. graduates and elected politicians took that exam, 1,700 of them flunked! The average grade among those who failed was 49 percent. The ones that fared the worst, with a grade average of 44 percent, were elected politicians. It’s high time for a crash course in federalism and representative democracy. Before we allow Standing Rock to erupt into Wounded Knee III, all of us would do well to pause and ponder 10 important lessons that we should have learned in basic civics classes. The first fact is especially pertinent to the current situation: 1. Usufructory rights, the right of tribes to hunt, gather and fish in their “usual and accustomed places,” is coupled in treaties with reserved rights, which are guaranteed in perpetuity to Indian nations by the United States government. These rights protect a tribe’s ability to sustain the lives of its citizens with food, clean water, air, and natural resources, and to practice traditional religious customs, cultural practices and ceremonies without interference from non-Natives. 2. The Louisiana Purchase recognized Indian Nations as the owners of all the French territory west of the Mississippi. In that “purchase,” the federal government acquired the right to use the rivers for commerce and to extend the nation’s boundary to the Rocky Mountains — nothing more than that. 3. Treaties were made with Indian Nations in order to acquire public domain for white citizens as they pushed the American frontier west across the continent. These compacts and covenants are protected by Article VI, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution as “the supreme law of the land.” 4. As “domestically dependent nations,” in the words of Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall, Indian Nations enjoy the full rights and benefits of any sovereign government. 5. Federalism incorporates a trustee- guarantor relationship between the federal government and the Indian Nations in the U.S. Constitution (the trust doctrine) that obligates the federal government to safeguard treaties, reserved rights and usufructory rights. 6. Treaties with Indian Nations constitute the granting of rights from the tribes to the federal government, not the other way around. 7. Every one of the 500-plus treaty councils in the 18th and 19th centuries was convened at the request of the federal government, not the tribes. 8. Because the federal government requested treaty councils with the Indians, the U.S. Supreme Court has also ruled that the resulting treaties must be interpreted in the manner in which the Indians would have understood their terms and conditions at the time they were negotiated. 9. In most jurisdictional challenges, tribal sovereignty trumps state sovereignty. 10. David Archambault II, the tribal chairman of the Hunkpapa Sioux Nation, has as much legal standing at the United Nations and in international courts of law as any American president. Legally, Indian tribes are powerful entities. In the matter of the Standing Rock Sioux vs. the Dakota Access Pipeline, I have little doubt that the tribe will prevail. The law of the land is on their side. Pipeline permits issued to oil companies by the Army Corps of Engineers do not trump the federal government’s fiduciary responsibility to the tribes. Claims to the contrary by politicians are so much nonsense. For far too long, this, our “nation of laws, not of men” (in the words of John Adams) has acted with lawlessness and reckless abandon with its solemn responsibilities to the Indian Nations. As the culture-war rhetoric simmers with caustic venom on the Northern Plains, the results of the civics survey mentioned earlier are sobering. Is it not disquieting to learn that 70 percent of us lack a rudimentary understanding of the basic principles of federalism? At what point do we cease to be a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, and become a nation of the blind leading the blind? ■ Paul VanDevelder is a contributor to High Country News. He is a writer in Portland. Democratic Oregon has become a political backwater n the weeks following the final As expected, the state supported presidential debate, Democrats Hillary Clinton. Our two senators and the media made quite a stir are both in the minority and in over the fact Donald Trump refused the House of Representatives, all to specify whether or not he would but Rep. Walden are also on the accept the outcome of the election. sidelines. At the national level, As they pointed out, it would be a those in charge certainly aren’t blow to the Democratic process if going to be on speed dial with our he did otherwise. George governor. Our legislature, which has First of all, the clamor is moot Murdock also successfully managed to buck because it is quite clear he is the national trend, is the majority Comment accepting the outcome. What is also in Oregon, but won’t get much clear is the expectation represented traction outside our borders and will a double standard that applied to Trump have plenty of challenges at home after the but apparently not to the liberals who were voters refused to send them on a spending convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt spree. they were going to lay claim to the White Senator Wyden campaigned on the idea House. Oregon is different. He couldn’t be more As the East Oregonian noted in its accurate. Sometimes, however, different editorial on Thursday morning, Barack has its limitations as well as its unique Obama’s election made many Americans character. feel scared, forgotten, confused, and angry. OregonLive reported on Wednesday Probably more so after he reminded his there is growing movement in Portland detractors of the spoils that come with to secede from the union in the wake of election. But that being said, a search of Trump’s election. That’s not necessarily a the internet failed to produce widespread bad idea if Eastern Oregon has the option reports of marches, protests, flag burning, of staying behind. We have a home on university unrest, threats of secession, the Oregon coast and it would be more reports of celebrities fleeing the country, glamorous if visiting there represented or all the other outbursts that are mostly international travel. making it clear to the Trump supporters The reasoning behind the secession why they wanted change. No, while effort is a statement that Oregonian values the election of Barack Obama was not are no longer those held by the rest of the universally popular, it was accepted as United States. I would encourage those the country has always accepted the petitioners to study polling results from Democratic process. A large base of the rural Oregon and see the difference. I Trump support came from people who would also encourage them to study a map want to go to work. One can assume a large of this state and see the tiny portion that did number of the protesters are people who are not agree with the rest of the United States. More than 75 percent of Oregon’s counties afraid they might have to. did not follow Portland’s lead. Like many Americans, I voted for It is time for the Clinton supporters to Donald Trump primarily because there was accept the outcome of the election and time absolutely no way I could vote for Hillary for the media to be reminded their task is to Clinton. After the underside of the Clinton report the news, not create it. support group is beginning to show itself Like many others, I wonder where the for what it really is through its reaction country is headed. And, like many others, to the election and repudiation of the any hope we might have did not include Democratic process, I am more convinced than ever this country did not need more of continuing in the same direction. ■ the same. George Murdock is a Umatilla County I’m only saddened that Oregon Commissioner and former publisher of the has fundamentally become a political East Oregonian. backwater. We aren’t relevant nationally. I
