Yet more MOTIVATIONS!

Take a look around and you will see that the Certified Federal Surveyors Program (CFEDS)is supposed to be self funded. Self Funded? No budget from the great white father? Cut off? For real? Why would they do that? Why would the great white father create a program in the federal government that isn't funded? What gives? Come on now, you can't create a school traffic warning sign without some sort of maintenance fee in this country. Why would you create a program and "hope" it grows up on its own?

1. Instead of enriching the program, instead of empowering tribes to become self sufficient, instead of teaching them how to fish, you drain their checkbook paying for each and every fish. Instead of putting funding into training tribal surveyors so that tribes can become self sufficient in at least one more area, you take TPA funds away from tribes across the board, and you pay those TPA funds into overpriced surveys on a piece-meal basis. Tribal Priority Allocations were meant in their infancy in the 1970s to pursue Indian self-determination by offering ways to set [TRIBAL] priorities and allocate funds for those activities they [TRIBES] wanted to fund, in consultation with BIA. BIA was supposed to give TRIBAL PRIORITY ALLOCATION FUNDS to tribes by funding TRIBALLY OPERATED ACTIVITIES or through SERVICES PROVIDED BY BIA as well as some of Bureau of Indian Affairs' management and administrative costs, according to A 1998 GAO report. The consultation went out the window. I know two years ago that when a regional BLM surveyor-type was made aware of the elected officials who would now be conducting boundary surveys, he said "I wasn't aware of that." And now apparently, neither is anybody else aware of the problem (the results) built into the Certified Federal Surveyor Program. Does the Certified Federal Surveyor program meet the test of being a TRIBALLY OPERATED ACTIVITY or a SERVICE PROVIDED BY THE BIA? Afraid not. Somebody at the Office of Special Trustee has made a horrible case for this program which will take a serious link out of the Indian Self Determination which Tribal Priority Allocations was supposed to create.

2. Instead of doing it outright, in front of GOD AND EVERYBODY, you make it sophisticated, covert, and you make believers of even the smartest people that it is in the best interest of the Indian population, when in reality it isn't. I really feel sorry for my friends at the Certified Federal Surveyor Program. I hope and I do pray that their eyes are opened to the sophisticated effects that are at work here. Remember it isn't the rules we care about in Indian Country. It's the RESULTS that we're concerned about. Do my friends, the Certified Federal Surveyor Program Coordinators really know what we're talking about here? Do they really know how they're being used to facilitate this egregious infraction against Indian Self -Determination? Why else would they willingly participate unless they didn't know? Why else would otherwise very intelligent, professionals so willingly participate? Why else would they cash the checks from the Tribal Priority Allocation funds like a Federal Spendthrift instead of advocating for these funds to be turned around and sent back to the Tribal Priority Allocation Fund coffers where some really advantageous work can be done?

3. Could it be because, the Certified Federal Surveyor program is now supposed to be SELF FUNDED? Could it be because the reputation as a manager, is on the line for a Certified Federal Surveyor Program Coordinator and staff? Could it be because they really put one over on him and his staff when they gave him about $400,000 dollars to start it up, and then "sell" the program to every state licensed surveyor who is at this moment clamoring to get in the class to "pad their resume?" Could it be because the Certified Federal Surveyor Program Coordinators on the ground level really aren't as experienced as they thought they were? Like maybe they didn't realize that the funds that went into starting this program now provides "the customers to raid the cash register?" Believe it- now the funds have been shifted through the Office of Special Trustee into paying for outrageous surveys. We pay now in some cases $15,000 dollars per survey and get what? Instead of providing funding at say $45,000 -$60,000 per surveyor per year to have them in-house in the tribes, or at BLM. Then if they screw things up, we have some accountability. As it stands now, we take away their contract and point and say "bad surveyor!" In a normal situation that would be sufficient. But in a Fiduciary Trust Model under the ownership of the Office of Special Trustee, it reaks of irresponsibility, and under-handedness, and a general lack of ethical fortitude.

We look for motivators to constantly evaluate how well we work for the "common good." Or do we? It isn't an easy thing to admit we've been hoodwinked. It isn't easy unless we think we have backing, unless we think we have support...when in reality we really do already have that support, that backing, when we withdraw from something less than honest (in a fiduciary trust model). All that support, all that backing will come from all those people we are supposed to remember we are supporting. When we really do come out in their corner, we find that they're there like they've always been: waiting for us to fight for them.

I'd shake the hand of somebody like that. I think the TRUE MOTIVATION is there for a whole "helluva lotta dem dere Indians" to shake the hand of someone who champions our cause, because then the results, the negative results, the disastrous results, would have one less protagonist.

Socrates would be proud.