December 29, 2005
Your tax dollars at work

"Injustice of 1884 on state agenda for 2006"

In 1884, a vigilante mob of more than 100 men from Washington Territory rode into Canada, abducted a 14-year-old Indian boy and hanged him from a tree.
...
Now, more than a century later, Washington Lt. Gov. Brad Owen says there is convincing evidence the boy had nothing to do with killing the shopkeeper and was framed by the mob leaders. Owen is planning to ask the Legislature next month to pass a "healing" resolution acknowledging Louie Sam's innocence and decrying the lynching.
All the people involved in the incident are long gone so it's hard to determine at this point whether and how any injustice might have been done. But I guess I'd rather have the Legislature spend its time on vacuous "healing" resolutions, than, say, making wasteful appropriations.

Speaking of wasteful appropriations...

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at December 29, 2005 10:00 AM | Email This
Comments
1. Yep, too much time has passed. This is just an acadenmic exercise. It's harmless.

Posted by: Libertarian on December 29, 2005 10:28 AM
2. Everyone talks about "healing" these days. But, you know that there are very few "victims" in the country that need real healing when the "healers" of the legislature have to reach back more than 100 years to an obscure event. They do, however, succeed on the PC front, focusing on an indian.

If they want to do some healing, though, they should be thinking about male suicide and fatherless homes.

Posted by: BananaLand on December 29, 2005 10:29 AM
3. From the Article:
"The politics of the day was just more powerful than this incredible injustice," Owen said.

Has anything changed? Why can't the Queen Christine write a Letter to this tribe and apologize. Isn't that sufficient??? Why do we need to waste good taxpayers funds to "Research" this issue.

Why doesn't our Lt. Gov investigate the Incredible Injustice that KC Elections has imposed on Every Citizen of this STATE.


Posted by: Chris on December 29, 2005 10:30 AM
4. What would we all do without these self-appointed noticers and pointers out of injustice? They are so heroic. Yea right....nothing but a bunch of self aggrandizing phonies if you ask me.

Posted by: JDH on December 29, 2005 10:39 AM
5. I remember this bit of local history from highschool so many years ago. It was the belief that this was an innocent lynching even then. It's taken this long for healing legislation. I guess we can wait another 30 years for a healing resolution to our traffic woes. Nice to know these guys are on top of things and doing a great job of prioritizing. Hell, I just may get around to hemming the length of my Star Jeans and fixing the zipper on my Members Only jacket.

BananaLand-
Don't you know that fathers are bad?! They are not needed and the more of them them and white males in general that commit suicide the better. The plight of todays youth isn't about fatherless homes, it's about selfish bastards like you and I not spending enough money on public schools. Those union teachers can do a much better job shaping our children than we can. that's why they keep stripping dads of their rights.

Posted by: Jeffro on December 29, 2005 10:43 AM
6. Be sure to click on the second wasteful appropriations link.

Somebody please explain to me why the Lt. Governor - basically a glorified public relations position whose only real job is to oversee the Senate - would need:

A Public Information Officer
A Legislative and Community Liaison
An International Trade Specialist
An International Relations and Economic Development Coordinator AND
A Web and Publications Coordinator?

There are entire state agencies with less PR staff than this.

This looks to me to be nothing more than a dumping ground for newly created, overpaid positions for some former D staffers (and one legislator).

Posted by: jimg on December 29, 2005 11:20 AM
7. Notice that buying development rights from rural land owners is NOT on the agenda.

They will steal the land instead. "Saving Puget Sound is more important than the constitution," will be the battle cry.

People living and owning land in rural areas are an infection and Gregoire is the cure.

Posted by: Andy on December 29, 2005 11:25 AM
8. Maybe, just maybe, the next thing along with this thing will be a reparation bill for this boy or some smarta$$ lawyer suing the state on behalf of the descendents of the boy's immediate family for and a large sum verdict.

Brrrrr, I shudder to imagine this, but then, anything is possible in this liberal state.

Posted by: C. Oh on December 29, 2005 11:29 AM
9. Bananna- search DSHS's website on the grant money going to Marvin Charles. Then search on other recipients recieving the grant. It is very aligned with Gregoires/legislatures CSWG. Looking at Marvin Charles website- there is no indicator that he is doing anything other than paying his own bills with the grant money.

I believe DSHS is using the money for kickbacks/hush money to certain members of the CSWG. Having read the notes for the CSWG, they are focusing all attention on children from the 33% tax bracket and are ignoring everything to do with people near poverty level.

The CSWG has also diregarded all input from the 150-200 parents who showed up to testify at their hearings.

Posted by: Andy on December 29, 2005 11:39 AM
10. Speaking of reparations, I'm still waiting for mine. I descend from Americans who donated all their wealth, which was considerable, to the Civil War, on the side of the north. Several of them died in that war to free the slaves. Their descendents inherited nothing. So where's my reparation?

Posted by: katomar on December 29, 2005 11:43 AM
11. Unfortunately, with historical situations like this one, the actual facts of the event are colored by today's perceptions and political misconceptions.
Reading the Times article, it looks like the legislature is going to be using an author who is trying to sell a book about this issue as its primary source? Not exactly someone who has an unbiased historical view. The author also alleges that two Americans did the killing which may or may not have been the case. But since this is a quasi-judicial issue, shouldn't those two men (who are dead) have some form of legal representation to defend their innocence before their names are tarnished in the history books and by the state legislature. I know no one really cares about local history, especially when it's 100 years old, but things like this do matter to some people.

In the end, the official wringing of hands for past faults is a waste of time and not at all conducive to living in today's world.
We can demand all kinds of apologies. Why not demand that the Shoshoni Indian tribe apologize for wiping out 18 members of the Ward emigrant party on the Oregon trail in Idaho in 1854?
Or we can demand the Nisqually and Klickitat pay reparations for the massacre of a family of settlers on Brannon's Prairie on the White (now Green) River in Auburn and also for attacking and burning down half of Seattle in 1855.
Isaac Ebey, a homesteader on Whidbey Island, was beheaded by a party of Haida Indians from Canada. If the State of Washington wants to ask forgiveness for what a party of ne'er-do-wells did to a 14-year old accused murderer, perhaps we should be demanding similar apologies for the cold-hearted murder of Ebey, who also happened to be a member of the territorial legislature and was a customs collector.

I can cite all kinds of cases where one group of people was not nice to another group of people. And in Washington state, that abuse wasn't solely white vs. native.

The point being is that the legislature shouldn't waste their time with this nonsense; especially when very few of them have the historical insight to know what the history of our state is and why it happened.

Posted by: Reporterward on December 29, 2005 01:45 PM
12. I think it's better to let them waste time on apologies and that sort of thing to keep them from wrong-headed laws like the new estate tax that they passed during the last session, as an emergency measure no less!

There are many, many people who look at that new estate tax and say "I'm out of here!" I know of retired professsionals & executives, widows and others who have decided that the new estate tax is confiscatory & have moved to states where there is no or less estate tax.

Another example of unintended consequences?

Posted by: Clean House on December 29, 2005 07:02 PM
13. Interesting perspective Reporterward. You might just be on to something.

Usually these sort of lawsuits are aimed at a bringing a big payday, not righting some wrong. The best indicator is a quick glance at who has the deepest pockets.....Now that I think about it....those injuns have been doing well at the gaming tables lately ;'}

Posted by: alphabet soup on December 29, 2005 07:04 PM
14. I CAN SEE IT NOW... A "HEALING" PARK WITH A STATUE OF LOUIE SAM WITH A FOUNTAIN, RIGHT NEXT TO THE PEACE PORTAL AT THE BOARDER. THEN WE CAN FIND SOME OF SAM'S LIVING REALITIVES AND GIVE THEM A FEW MILLION OF OUR TAX BUCKS.

I'M FEELING "HEALED" JUST THINKING ABOUT IT.

Posted by: TACOMA PHLASH on December 29, 2005 09:17 PM
15. yep--I love this "reparation mentality"

ok--fair is fair--let's go back to MY ancestors in E Europe--well, they--as frikkin peasants--were probably overrun by countless thousands of invaders--so--how do we sort this all out for MY payment?!!

anybody with any sense sees the futility of trying to right all the worlds's cumulative wrongs in one generation?!

MOVE ON--LEARN real LESSONS & try to be good--starting NOW--that's all--remember history, but don't try to fix all ills with silly efforts;

Posted by: Jimmie-howya-doin on December 29, 2005 11:02 PM
16. I always get a good laugh from conservative Bush klowns when they complain about a potentially miniscule appropriation like this one - yet the Shark Kult routinely ignores the massive amount of tax dollars their Dear Leader flushes down the toilet in Iraq each day. Record federal spending, record deficits and record trade deficits? No problem if you're a "movement" conservative.

Plus, the Sound Politics crowd seems to have some kind of weird blind spot for lynchings. I wonder why?

Posted by: TomDelayIsToast on December 29, 2005 11:13 PM
17. I always get a good laugh from conservative Bush klowns when they complain about a potentially miniscule appropriation like this one - yet the Shark Kult routinely ignores the massive amount of tax dollars their Dear Leader flushes down the toilet in Iraq each day. Record federal spending, record deficits and record trade deficits? No problem if you're a "movement" conservative.

Plus, the Sound Politics crowd seems to have some kind of weird blind spot for lynchings. I wonder why?

Posted by: TomDelayIsToast on December 29, 2005 11:13 PM
18. And I always thought that the Democratic party was supposed to be "progressive," and "moving on" past all this old stuff. It seems, from this kind of stuff, that they are actually arch-conservatives! Who'da thunk?
And then you get DeMORONcrats like the previous poster, TomDelayIsToast, who begins by parroting talking points and trying to change the subject, and then ends up with a sneering racist ad hominem attack. My, what a nice, thoughtful, progressive, and tolerant member of the world government! The donkeys should be proud to have him as a representative.

Posted by: Pseduotsuga on December 30, 2005 12:18 AM
19. The reason why we have some wierd blind spot towards lynchings is because most of the ones committing the lynchings happened to be and vote for Democrats.
So when are we getting an apology from your side political aisle?

Posted by: Reporterward on December 30, 2005 12:50 AM
20. -The reason why we have some wierd blind spot towards lynchings is because most of the ones committing the lynchings happened to be and vote for Democrats.-

Reporterward: that statement would have been relevant up until about 1968. Then the GOP undertook the Southern Strategy, and picked up where their Democrat bretheren of 40+ years ago left off.

Better luck being a little more current next time.

Posted by: NotHardToArgueWithSheep on December 30, 2005 01:16 AM
21. I still find it fascinating that the die-hard Republicans and conservatives (are their any real ones left?) who feed off this blog completely ignore the fiscal train wreck their national leadership has wrought upon this country.

So, we are all supposed to think Shark's "your tax dollars at work" (in case you didn't notice, not a single dime is being spent on the issue) is really relevant, while the GAO uncovers a new batch of millions and billions unaccounted for in Iraq spending?

Come on, guys. If you want to at least TRY to gain some modicum of credibility - or let the casual reader think you are actual conservatives - at least MENTION the outrageous amount of waste and fraud involved in Bush's Iraq adventure.

Oh, I forgot....right wingers are only good at PRETENDING they are driven by values.

Posted by: NotHardToArgueWithSheep on December 30, 2005 01:29 AM
22. Better luck trying to stay on the topic of this post...which was about apologizing for an incident that is 120 years old.
Keep your bizarre anti-Bush/pro-AIF rhetoric to yourself or until the appropriate post comes up.
And I still don't hear you apologizing for the year's of racial injustice perpetrated against blacks, Native Americans, Chinese and Japanese by the Democrat party.
Since that's what the topic of this particular post was afterall wasn't it? Feeling race guilt for something that happened a century ago committed by people who are now all dead?

Posted by: Reporterward on December 30, 2005 05:58 AM
23. NHTAWS...Funny you mention Sheep, since apparently they make up the majority of your social life. PETA called and wondered if you would be open to using protection because there is already an over population of unwanted Democrats. The Grange called, Your High Top Rubber Boot order came in along with your copy of "The Progressive Shepard". Your in luck, it's the annual dating issue.

Posted by: Farmer John on December 30, 2005 08:57 AM
24. Seems like this issue should be before the Federal government.... in 1884 we were only a territory.

Posted by: SouthernRoots on December 30, 2005 04:27 PM
25. I propose a new fellowship of law, a new department and chair at all universities--

more laywers needed for my proposed D.O.G.C.R.A.P. Program

(Doctor Of Generous Caring Reparations And Payments)

Posted by: Jimmie-howya-doin on December 30, 2005 10:10 PM
26. Good to see your posts at SP again jimmie!

Welcome back ;'}

Posted by: alphabet soup on December 31, 2005 10:22 AM
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