Stardate 20020921.1612

(On Screen): One of those cases where we can't really go back in time to create "justice" is the issue of Native Americans here in the west. Depending on your point of view, they were either the earliest colonists of the continent, or the last displaced peoples, but regardless of which it is, there's no question that in the 19th century they got a raw deal. The real question is what we in the 21st century can really do about it.

I find myself having mixed feelings about some of the demands that the Tribes are making. Some of them I fully support. When a Federal Judge in the NW ordered that half the salmon harvest in the Columbia River be reserved for the Tribes, because of a Federal treaty, I was fully supportive. When the Tribes here in California worked to pass a ballot measure here in California last year to order the government of California to stop trying to impede the casinos, I spent a lot of time trying to find out just how the Tribes wanted me to vote.

On the other hand, I think some of what's being demanded is absurd. We have to have balance. It is perhaps arguable that the only truly just solution would be to turn back the clock to 1805 and forbid anyone not descended from one of the Tribes to live west of the Mississippi river, but as a practical matter, that's simply not going to happen, so it's foolish to talk about it.

I guess it's the engineer in me; I'm not interested in ideal solutions because if they exist at all they usually can't be implemented. I'm looking for things which may be less than ideal but will definitely succeed and actually be worth doing.

So when archeologists found a truly ancient human skeleton in the NW and wanted to study it, representatives of some of the natives up there went to court to try to forbid it under certain federal laws which forbid desecration of Indian burial sites. They claimed that the skeleton was an Indian (after all, who else could it be?). And I was very happy when the judge ultimately denied their request and will let the scientists study the skeleton. (They've already done some study of "Kennewick Man" and part of why some of the Indians up there want it reburied is because the things learned so far are not to their liking. Archeological information notwithstanding, some of the Indians in the NW claim that they've always been there. Problem is that Kennewick Man doesn't appear to be related to the Tribes now present, which is part of why he's so interesting.)

And here in California, some of the Tribes are also making some demands I also think are absurd. One tribe wants to have veto power over any construction done within 20 miles of its reservation. Not just within the reservation, mind; outside it, too. The theory is preservation of holy sites, yet again.

But "holy site" doesn't mean quite the same thing to the Indians as it does to most of us. They consider entire mountain ranges to be holy; it's not like we're talking about an area the size of one city block, such as in a place like the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

But business groups and property rights advocates say such a law could deal a major blow to the state’s economy, stalling hundreds of development plans across California. The state Senate’s own study projects that the bill could cost millions of dollars a year in lost revenues.

"It doesn’t have any provision in it for compensating for the taking of a property interest," said Chuck Jeannes of Glamis Gold Ltd.

The Glamis Gold Co. says it’s already dumped $15 million into a desert mining site now claimed by the Quechan Tribe. Jeannes said the tribe considers everything from Los Angeles to the Arizona border and up to Las Vegas sacred.

"We simply can’t set aside all of the land in the California desert," he said.

The two sides fought over the proposed bill as it made its way through the legislature, and now expect a long court battle over its fate.

"We don’t understand why people don’t understand it," said Chief Mike Jackson, chairman of the Quechan Tribe. "This is to save our sacred sites, our history, our culture. It’s not a bill to stop economic development but to protect sacred sites."

I don't know whether Jeannes' claim about that zone is true, but if it is then it includes some interesting areas which the State of California doesn't have the ability to shut down, like Edwards Air Force Base and Fort Irwin (site of the National Training Center). Those are federal land.

Irrespective of any claim of justice, as a practical matter the kind of power that the Tribes are asking for isn't practical. It isn't quite to the point of moving 40 million non-Natives out of California, but it isn't any more achievable. Who is to say whether something is a "holy site"? What kind of practical proof would be required? How does one tell whether one particular featureless stretch of desert is one and another is not? And if the claim of the mining company executive is actually true, and the Indians actually think everything is a holy site, then where exactly are we supposed to build?

I always worry about people who make demands based solely on justice without any consideration of practicality. Impossible justice does no one any good; it's always better to be practical.

I guess I'm just too much the engineer. Giving the Indians salmon and letting them run casinos was completely reasonable. Letting them shut down development in large part