Representing

Back in 1997 I was lucky enough to do an exchange program to Ecuador. A by-product of that was having to learn about some South American history while there and in my Spanish classes. Interestingly, I continued to take Spanish upon returning for one final term at the University of Oregon, not wanting to lose my grasp of the language. The last language professor I ever had was Chilean. More importantly, she was a Chilean refuge, having fled the country with her family in the early 1970's when Augusto Pinochet ousted the democratically elected Salvador Allende in a military coup that was backed by the CIA.
Until then, I'd never quite understood why the CIA was viewed with so much suspicion by many Americans, despite being a part of our government and presumably advancing our causes and beliefs. I've read that the CIA supported (though how much support isn't clear) Pinochet out of a fear that under Allende Chile would become another Cuba. Ironic then that Pinochet would become a notorious dictator under whose regime thousands of dissidents and political opponents would be murdered, tortured, and disappear. Not ironic or unexpected is that people would come to be so critical of the CIA after being involved in something so ugly, and according to my old professor, devastating.
I've thought about this a lot over the last few days. Democratic governments are supposed to represent the will of the people, and when you start dealing with cases like the CIA-Chilean Coup of 1973, one has to wonder if we are being accurately represented. I'm sure somebody might know more about this than me and could present a compelling argument to justify what happened. But right now I've not sure anybody could convince me.
One of the main reasons I've reflected on this is because while having lunch recently with a Tribal member and spouse the conversation of this year's Oregon Governor's race came up. I told them we would be meeting with several candidates over the next few weeks who are seeking the Tribe's support, both Democrats and Republicans, and they asked me if they could be allowed to sit in. I wasn't sure because nobody has ever expressed an interest. But then again, how many really know?
Several months ago one of my posts about supporting the Chinook recognition drew some comments. In the past we've received a few comments about our decision to pour money into the 2006 Governor's race. The issue that seems to be a real lightning rod is our strategy to oppose the Cascade Locks casino, which of course puts us at odds with the Warm Springs Tribe, and has even drawn criticism from several of our early Council members who feel we are hurting a tribe who helped us get restored. The problem of course in all of it is that while we have heard from Tribal members expressing discontent, the numbers have been small. But I still can't help but wonder if we need to re-evaluate how we make these decisions, or if we need to keep making them at all.
One thing I've learned is that there are costs to getting involved. Monetarily we've spent millions on our off-reservation strategy. Some would make arguments we've thwarted competition that would have cost us even more. Others have pointed out the collateral damage that is hard to fix a cost to, like souring relationships with other tribes and elected officials.
Economically, times are tough enough to where I think our ability to have influence is not what it was several years ago, and realistically money plays a huge role in creating that influence. Also, the issues are getting cloudier. A candidate, be it Senatorial or Gubernatorial, might line up with the Tribe on one issue but be an opponent on the next. One might oppose off-reservation gaming on moral grounds, which is fine for us, but oppose environmental stances, which isn't fine with us.
This much is true: I'd be darn curious to know where many of our members stand on some of these issues. Thankfully, we don't have anything resembling the CIA. But that doesn't mean we won't make a decision which years later could come back to haunt us.