OP Closures

Do the tribes still get to do whatever they want?
Hopefully.

Most of the tribes that our federal government recognizes and made treaties with (not to mention those the government refuses to recognize but made treaties with at one point) are entitled to their accustomed fisheries.

Furthermore, it sure as hell wasn’t them that clearcut and developed the banks of rivers and streams, overhunted beavers, dredge mined, commercially overfished, channelized rivers, dump road water (with pollutants like heavy metals) straight into waterways, filled in estuaries, placed culverts, piped some spawning creeks underground, drained rivers dry, polluted watersheds, and myriad other things that have brought fish populations to their current state.
 
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If we can't stop them from selling fireworks during a red flag event with several local fires consuming houses I have little faith in them helping save fish runs.....

Agreed we have fully wronged them in the past, but they have zero interest in helping make a better future. Sorry for the rant, but the shit happening in the Gorge is tough to swallow.
 
Fireworks (at least around here) are purchased by local rednecks who live to blow shit up with little to no responsibility when it comes to wildfires! There could be a nation-wide ban on fireworks (which I see coming in the near future) and they still would manage to find something to explode and display. No market = no sales!
 
Fireworks (at least around here) are purchased by local rednecks who live to blow shit up with little to no responsibility when it comes to wildfires! There could be a nation-wide ban on fireworks (which I see coming in the near future) and they still would manage to find something to explode and display. No market = no sales!
Which nation are you thinking we should ban them from? The tribes are independent I believe
 
@Jake I think I could get more in your boat if the tribes actually lived the life. But they are westernized to the point of needing federal funding during disasters for dialysis patients (Landslide in WA a couple years back). If you have taken any Native American studies you’ll see the irony quickly.

Furthermore they utilize all western medicine, transportation, etc., to the point historically tribes would scoff at modern native culture. It’s a cherry picked method of keeping cultures alive, taking the easy parts and foregoing the hard.
 
@Jake I think I could get more in your boat if the tribes actually lived the life. But they are westernized to the point of needing federal funding during disasters for dialysis patients (Landslide in WA a couple years back). If you have taken any Native American studies you’ll see the irony quickly.

Furthermore they utilize all western medicine, transportation, etc., to the point historically tribes would scoff at modern native culture. It’s a cherry picked method of keeping cultures alive, taking the easy parts and foregoing the hard.
This is also what all cultures do, evolve. Take what is still useful and applicable and keep it, hold on to traditions as long as they can. That is not unique to the tribes.

What is unique to the tribes of the salish sea is a forced evolution of culture that our culture cant even fathom. They need the medicine, transportation, cash, etc... because our culture wiped out their ability to exist without it. That does not mean they should carte blanche go with our program, in fact it means quite the opposite. I have friends whose parents were born in long houses, and who were forced to learn what a calendar was, what an hour was, in their 30s. To tell that person that the fish were gone is not an idea they could have fathomed, and not one they should be held accountable for.
 
This is also what all cultures do, evolve. Take what is still useful and applicable and keep it, hold on to traditions as long as they can. That is not unique to the tribes.

What is unique to the tribes of the salish sea is a forced evolution of culture that our culture cant even fathom. They need the medicine, transportation, cash, etc... because our culture wiped out their ability to exist without it. That does not mean they should carte blanche go with our program, in fact it means quite the opposite. I have friends whose parents were born in long houses, and who were forced to learn what a calendar was, what an hour was, in their 30s. To tell that person that the fish were gone is not an idea they could have fathomed, and not one they should be held accountable for.
Good discussion. I’d say to a point but they concur life expectancy almost double of what it was, while also increasing family size both on par with modern western civ. Evolving with westernized life, and happily so. Slowly adapting in what might start as shunned but ends in enjoyment for many new cultural changes. To fishing, Europeans too once practiced these past-times but resources change.

Cultures merge and it’s obvious we have done so.

I’d also heavily argue that native Americans can still exist in todays society without “medicine, transportation, cash, etc.”

edit: I’d add my overall point would be to level the playing field for everybody because I’d argue Native Tribes enjoy many western programs. And not as a necessity. I’d push for a Morgan Freeman approach to all of America, including fishing rights.
 
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You want to use roads, everybody uses the roads. You want to use medicine, everybody uses medicine. You want first access to resources, no, everybody shares resources. You want to net, everybody nets. You think it’s bad that everybody can do it, nobody can do it.

Enough of this secluded nonsense that just bifurcates two groups forevermore. You can keep culture strong and well while sharing land, values, technologies etc.
 
To say the "first peoples" of North American wouldn't have adopted western lifestyles and technologies regardless of the presence of europeans landing on the continent is, well, racist. They are humans just like us. Admittedly it would have taken them longer to trash the place without the settler's help.
 
You want to use roads, everybody uses the roads. You want to use medicine, everybody uses medicine. You want first access to resources, no, everybody shares resources. You want to net, everybody nets. You think it’s bad that everybody can do it, nobody can do it.

Enough of this secluded nonsense that just bifurcates two groups forevermore. You can keep culture strong and well while sharing land, values, technologies etc.


That's the point made above though....what the tribes "want" really shouldn't be defined by the very people that took that choice away from them in the first place.

Neither you nor I are remotely qualified to determine what it is the tribes want. If these tribes want to live on their traditional land, free of modern diseases brought here by us, feeding themselves and their families in the ways they always did, well that just isn't an option. So of course they have blended into our society and are living in a way that makes it appear that they are as modern and happy as the rest of us. But are they? I couldn't say. But I do know that the option for these people to truly live as they want was one hundred percent removed from them so who are we to determine what they should want and how they should live?

It's real easy to say that it's 2023 and these people clearly enjoy the benefits of modern society, but the simple fact is that wasn't their choice so I certainly am not going to blame them for making the best of it.

I suppose the only really fair option would be to give the tribes a choice: Either simply forgo any benefits given to them as tribal members and become fully welcomed members of modern society, or give them back their traditional land and allow them to live in the manner they see fit while receiving no help or advantages from modern society. However, we all know the second option isn't available as there is no way we as a society would be willing to let that happen.
 
However, we all know the second option isn't available as there is no way we as a society would be willing to let that happen.
Nor would they, again noting to my first example of needing emergency federal funding for dialysis patients.

To clarify what I mean by enjoyments, those are luxuries of modern society like vehicles, healthcare etc. And to clarify that further you might not be happy with the car/motorcycle/[historically] bike you ride, but it sure beats the alternatives.
 
I do think about what Pink said in relation to thousands of years of past-time and culture. That’s where I understand it needs to be preserved to some extent.

To be honest I have wanted to have this very discussion with an elder of the Nisqually or Squaxin for years. I need to do it.
 
Hopefully.

Most of the tribes that our federal government recognizes and made treaties with (not to mention those the government refuses to recognize but made treaties with at one point) are entitled to their accustomed fisheries.

Furthermore, it sure as hell wasn’t them that clearcut and developed the banks of rivers and streams, overhunted beavers, dredge mined, commercially overfished, channelized rivers, dump road water (with pollutants like heavy metals) straight into waterways, filled in estuaries, placed culverts, piped some spawning creeks underground, drained rivers dry, polluted watersheds, and myriad other things that have brought fish populations to their current state.
Thank you for your input. Its clear you care deeply about it.
 
Thank you for your input. Its clear you care deeply about it.
While we may disagree on some things, I do agree that the closure sucks. I’m just not of the mind to be jealous that some other folks get to fish when I don’t—especially a sovereign nation that has been guaranteed fishing rights different from my own.

I don’t necessarily think every member of any group is blameless, though. As a teen we lived near the Little Boston Rez and they were always dumping huge piles carcasses and/or unprocessed fish on the corner of our dirt road and the main road.

Happy to buy you a beverage sometime, or chase fish with you if you’d like. I’m sure there’s more we agree with on than not.
 
While we may disagree on some things, I do agree that the closure sucks. I’m just not of the mind to be jealous that some other folks get to fish when I don’t—especially a sovereign nation that has been guaranteed fishing rights different from my own.

I don’t necessarily think every member of any group is blameless, though. As a teen we lived near the Little Boston Rez and they were always dumping huge piles carcasses and/or unprocessed fish on the corner of our dirt road and the main road.

Happy to buy you a beverage sometime, or chase fish with you if you’d like. I’m sure there’s more we agree with on than not.
Wait buddy. Im so sorry but i think this a huge miscommunication promise none of my posts here have intended to make some sort of opinion known. I dont have an opinion on it at all. My question was very basic and simple and sorry if it appeared like a loaded question When i read your post i did think it was a bit direct LOL but i just figured it was hot outside and you didnt jabe AC or something so didnt think much of it. I am very cautious now whem i put an actual opinion out. They usually come with disclaimers now.

Since covid i turned the news off and no longer pay attention to political or socia issues as it triggers severe anxiety and the knowledge of current events never really did anything productive for me so if there is a recent developed issue with the tribes and state i wouldnt know. So sorry man.
 
Wait buddy. Im so sorry but i think this a huge miscommunication promise none of my posts here have intended to make some sort of opinion known. I dont have an opinion on it at all. My question was very basic and simple and sorry if it appeared like a loaded question When i read your post i did think it was a bit direct LOL but i just figured it was hot outside and you didnt jabe AC or something so didnt think much of it. I am very cautious now whem i put an actual opinion out. They usually come with disclaimers now.

Since covid i turned the news off and no longer pay attention to political or socia issues as it triggers severe anxiety and the knowledge of current events never really did anything productive for me so if there is a recent developed issue with the tribes and state i wouldnt know. So sorry man.
Dude, no worries. I didn’t take offense and I don’t know anything about your personal opinions about things other than some things about fishing. I was basically just saying we (you, me, anyone) may (or may not) disagree on this or other things but I’m sure we’ve got more in common than not and regardless I’d be happy to share a drink, a stretch of water, or a boat with you anytime.

I can see how my post could be taken as cranky. Didn’t mean to be, but I can see it. I’m really not saying this is yours or anyone else’s view in this thread, but I just don’t agree with the oft-expressed “Tribes bad! Tribes get to why don’t I? Damn Judge Boldt!” sentiment. I think it’s all far more nuanced than that. I guess what I was trying to express is this:

I think the tribes are sovereign nations of people who continue to be screwed over in a lot of ways and while I don’t subscribe to the idea that everyone in every tribe, or even every tribe, is a good “steward of the land”, not that they need my approval but I‘m all for them responsibly exercising the rights they have been granted/earned/fought for/bargained for/have left.

If I don’t get to fish the Sol Duc, et al, anymore then it sucks but I’m not against others who have a right to continue doing so. Maybe the closure will lead to my kids being able to fish the OP someday like I did when I was a kid. Maybe it won’t, but something’s got to change and maybe this is a part of that.
 
Divad,

You have brought up dialysis treatments and federal funding for them.

Several years ago the Feds decided that the Gov. would help pay for treatments due to the very high costs. One 4 hour treatment costs $5000 and a person generally needs 3 a .week. Do the math. Thats $60,000 per month. Medicare or medicade picks up the bulk of that fee.

All citizens are entitled to this program.

You are just putting out smoke.
 
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