"Sustainable Economy"

How about stop being the worlds aggressor, ie through preditory loans via the world bank, stop invading countries which do not threaten us. (Iraq), and run a police action in Afghanistan instead of a war. (ie just enough troops to keep the Taliban busy.)

Oh and "president speaks with forked tongue." applies here, but that should be no surprise to a writer who follows Native American issues.

"I, like every parent, wants the promise of a better life for my children."

Insofar as your children, as tribal members, enjoy exemptions from the responsibilities and financial burdens "mine" labor under (your's, for instance, are exempt from the newly enacted requirement to purchase health insurance or face a fine), you should feel pretty good about your children's chances for a better life. They look to enjoy a free ride at the expense of others.

People like BlueLight have had, literally, generations in which to learn the real story of the Indians and white men in America. There's not much point in going over it one more time, slowly, and hoping BlueLight gets a clue.

Instead, I marvel at a person who (anonymously) takes pleasure in being a public racist. I'm guessing BlueLight has a small group of acquaintances who gather regularly to mutter about "welfare queens" and other figments of their imaginations, all tending towards the same conclusion- that in a better world, they would be the ones in charge.

As if.

So, serial_catowner, rationalize for us, then, why members of indian tribes should be exempt from the requirement everyone else must labor under: to either purchase health insurance or face a fine from the federal government.

Most of the people in the US will not have to "purchase health insurance or face a fine" because they already have health insurance. I imagine the Indians already have a health service- possibly named Indian Health Service- that may meet the requirements of the act.

But mainly I'm not even worried about it. I've never seen the Indians get a 'free ride' from the white government so worrying about that would make as much sense as packing the car in such a way that I would be safe if gravity failed.

As for why they should be exempt, it has to do with treaties and contracts that were made with the Indians, and honored by the Indians but not by the white man. If the government would pay the Indians the approximately $500 billion of Indian money that the government took, and subsequently 'lost', that would go a long way towards clearing up who owes who for what.

How do you come up with 500 Billion?

"As for why they should be exempt, it has to do with treaties and contracts that were made with the Indians, and honored by the Indians but not by the white man."

Nice vague, vapid talking points ("if gravity failed") but totally unsupported by evidence. So clarify. Please cite for us an example of where the "white man" has broken provisions of the Treaty of Point Elliot
(http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&File;_Id=2629). One could make a case that it is the indians that have broken provisions of that treaty (how about the one to exclude ardent spirits from reservations?), but - please - educate us on exactly where the "white man" has done so.

It is real simple: any law that does not apply equally to everyone is unjust. Period. And all your self-loathing, white-guilt cannot justify applying laws unequally based on a person's race. To the extent that that is what you are doing, serial_catowner, I will turn your charge on you: you are, in fact, the racist here and I trust anyone reading with a modicum of objectivity will see that.

Sorry, catowner, that link doesn't work. Here is a better one for the treaty of Point Elliot (from our own Governor's Office of Indian Affairs!).

http://www.goia.wa.gov/Treaties/Treaties/pointelliot.htm

So, let's see now, Mark posts a piece about sustainability, and BlueLight comments that Indians are getting a free ride.

According to BlueLight, the Indians and anyone who defends them are racists. Yup, that's some mighty high-powered thinking you got going there, BlueLight.

As for the $500 billion, you need to research the history of the Indian Trust Funds, which became highly visible in the mid-90s and continue in contention today. I would do it for you, but I've read other comments of yours and don't think you're really sincere.

And you have nothing to back up your assertions that the "white man" has broken treaty? Even after I provided you links to the very document? And you deride the power of MY thinking?

BTW... I didn't say anyone who "defends" indians are racists. I said anyone who supports the unequal application of laws based on race are racists. That includes you. And, frequently - like you - they are also intellectual cowards: scared to look, critically, at their dogmas; unable to engage in honest debate.

Wow, not sincere. I'm offended. Try not to let those feelings overwhelm me.

Lets me throw a little grass roots info your way. In 1995, I logged a forest service piece near Big Lake, below White Pass. The next ridge to the south was the Yakama rez. Fee simple Indian land and timber. I was told, and correct me if I'm wrong, that the guv built the homes on the rez, bought the logging eqip for the tribe, including trucks that ran on untaxed fuel and free licensing. Don't know about employment taxes, but I don't think they pay state taxes (they are their own nation?)

We (white loggers)paid top dollar for forest service stumpage, bought our own equip (with interest), paid for our own land and houses, pay all the insurances, taxes, licenses and everything else.

Is this situation correct and reasonable?

I could respond with some 'insider baseball' about how Indian tidelands, fishing rights, and timber were stolen in Mason County and then we could all accuse each other of not knowing much. Whoopee.

What I will say is that when the government 'built homes' for the Indians, it undoubtedly did so with Indian funds. The royalties and payments for Indian land were (supposedly) collected by the government and spent for the tribes by the government.

But not all the money (supposedly) collected by the government was spent or released to the tribes- as much as $500 billion by some reckonings.

As for the taxes and licensing, much of this revolves around the sovereign nation status of the tribes, and some of it is just built into state law, like the fuel tax exemption for farming equipment. I stopped believing all the griping I heard in the workplace a long time ago.

As for whether the situation is 'correct and reasonable', it seems to have worked well for white people, in terms of material goods.

We did have that little problem that what the white man was doing was unsustainable, decimating the fisheries, poisoning the rivers, and cutting the last of the old-growth timber, all to be replaced by import warehouses on former farmland so we could strengthen China's economy- all part of our 'get poor slowly' plan which has seen wages stagnant or even dropping since 1970.

Hopefully, we're now beginning to understand we have only one earth- we're not going to be loading up the Conestoga wagon for another trek to a different planet if we ruin this one. In that context, the federal court rulings forcing the state and federal governments to obey the terms of the treaties came just in time.

As for that Indian Health Service... $4 Billion in the Affordable Care Act. Guess who's paying? How's that "sovereignty" working?

So you must be in favor of more government to manage our 'sick' economy, ruined by those dastardly private market capitalist robber barons of late and today?

How would you have that happen?

You are against cutting old growth. Are you in favor of cutting second growth?

Well, actually, it was Teddy Roosevelt who was "in favor of more government to manage our 'sick' economy, ruined by those dastardly private market capitalist robber barons of late and today?"

Sustainable harvest is the name of the game out here in Mason County. I personally like it, because the trees are prettiest when they're 5-10 years old. That state has over 40,000 acres on the Tahuya Peninsula alone. The way the state ended up owning so much land was that gyppo loggers clearcut the land in the 30s and then walked away, leaving the county to foreclose on the land for back taxes.

So I guess that's one way the government becomes more involved after what we discretely call "market failures".

Interesting you should mention Tahuya. I was just there for the first time at Camp Lyle McLeod, where my wife is director of a girl scout affiliated community camp. Noticed state leaving significant volumes of mature trees which must be a strategy to create late succession old growth like forests.

That's one reason state forests only return about 2 per cent to their trusts while privates return about 17 per cent to their shareholders.

Another significant reason is the law requiring public timber to be sold to domestic processors which results in very low prices. The law was passed at a time when we were exporting huge volumes. Now there are many less domestic sawmills swimming in cheap logs while the state sells prime timber into this market.

Oh well, it's only money and we have plenty of that, right?

Well, my personal view is that the forests should be managed as a sustainable industry, not as a cash cow. Some of the forests should take a deliberately long view of producing high-grade lumber or serving other functions, such as shading salmon streams.

I just learned recently that there is an entire oak forest back east dedicated solely to providing large oak timbers for U.S.S. Constitution when they are needed. Churches in England and Europe did the same thing in the middle ages- they would establish forests to provide the large timbers that would be needed 100 years in the future for maintenance and repairs.

We have one of those domestic mills in Shelton. I think the general feeling here is that any revenue shortfall for the state is balanced by the improved revenues for the community.

What I find to be absurd s that we grow, cut, and mill the timber here, and then send it out, while local residents buy houses made in a factory in Arkansas and brought here by truck. Something wrong with that picture.

"sustainable" is applied in many ways. Note title of this piece.

When you vote constantly for school levies that are always there, don't you ever wonder why? The states founders set aside a section (624 acres) in every township for education support. Why is so little money generated? I don't have exact statistics (research is boring) but when we built Cedarcrest High School in the Snoqualmie Valley in the '90's, a 16 million dollar project, school construction fund only contributed $250,000.

This evidence suggests mismanagement. It's not a question of sustainable or cash cow. It should be properly managed for sustained yield and maximum returns.

You don't leave mature timber out in the middle of clear-cuts. I am not opposed to over-story and under-story thinnings. I do these as a matter of practice. I also do mini clear-cuts inside of thinnings for age and specie diversity. The landowner decides.

Well, the first real mismanagement I saw reported in the paper in my life was a meeting of the Bellevue School Board- and it was reported deadpan, as though it were perfectly natural for Mr. Gilleland to insist on costlier oil furnaces for new schools because he sold the oil. But, strange to say, Bellevue High was at the time probably the best public high school in the state, thank heavens, because I needed the best teachers that could be found. Those of us who wanted to got the first year of college in our last year in high school.

Out here, I don't worry too much about that. School levies are hashed out in our local paper, and we all know the parents are helping as much as they can, in the classroom, with activities, and trying to keep the old buildings working. More often than not, the levies pass.

As for the forests, I see them as part of the regional economy. When the economy was much smaller, and the forests were much larger, they played a different role than they do now. IMHO, no matter what we do with the forests, they won't ever provide all the money needed for schools. It's not a change I wanted to see happen, but it did happen.

Then, we have learned much more about the other roles played by the forest in addition to wood provider. All things considered, I'm inclined to ease back on the throttle a little and see how this situation develops.

In fact, one of the most important things to me would be a moratorium on suburban lawns. It just p**ses me off how many people will cut the timber and put in a lawn when they could choose from any number of houses that already have lawns if a lawn is what they want.

My dad wasn't much of a talker, but he did remind me once in a while- "Don't sweat the little stuff".

I believe that we should do our part as a citizen of our country.This will be the best thing to do.The Tea Party thing has been a hot topic for a while now, however whether it really is an accomplishment will be determined within the November 2010 election cycle. Candidates allied with or expressed members of the Tea Party bloc are gaining steam. Another Tea Party preferred just won a Republican Primary election and will run for the upcoming Senate election for an open seat from Delaware. Christine O'Donnell was chosen over previous Delaware Governor Michael Castle, also a longtime member of the House of Representatives. Individuals that are inflexible and unrealistic about the way things work are often not trustworthy. That is why even senior Republicans believe the Tea Party isn't really worth the effort.

cats, listen to logger.