Sick Day XXIX
I am sick of outside influences. You know how we have been taught how the white man came to America, robbed and raped the Indian's land, introduced them to foods they shouldn’t eat, alcohol they had no enzymes to process and brought them diseases they had no resistance to? Then there are missionaries that screwed up cultures all over the planet along with constant imperialist colonization.
People seem to think what they think is best, regardless of the indigenous culture that existed before their arrival. I once lived in a wonderful little town and had a remarkably perfect childhood there, but within my first 33 years there so many people moved there with each new arrival erasing some of the history and quaintness. It got to the point where my home town was no longer there and there was no reason to stay.
When I started blogging here over three years ago I used this place as a soapbox for my vision of what I thought would be best for this community. After the first two years it finally dawned on me that I had no business telling people how things should be here. I haven’t earned that right nor had I paid my dues to the point where my opinion actually matters here. I don’t have any ancestors here. None of my relatives occupy graves nor have their ashes been scattered here.
Some would be of the opinion that if you live here and pay your taxes your opinions matters as much as those who were born here. I don’t feel tenure to the land and the culture of its people is a matter of residency; it isn’t. It all has to do with earned mutual respect.
I look around and see all the people that are causing a stink about LNG and the Commissioners and I realize that very few of them are from here. The people that were born here see all the outsiders as puking ass clowns. These outsiders have given no consideration or respect to the desires of the life-long residents that had a vision for this area. They had a vision long before the invaders left the towns where they lived to come here.
We all wonder what it would be like to give the continent back to the Indians. It’s a nice fantasy but you can’t get that Genie back in the bottle. There has been too much destruction to the land and the culture that existed in balance over a century ago. However, it’s not too late to start showing some respect for those with ancestors that built this area making it possible for us to live the wonderful lives we live here. Have some respect and honor their visions of prosperity. So far they have shown much tolerance for the outsiders, and all you’ve shown them is cultural ignorance and insensitivity.
posted by The Guy Who Writes This at 4:00 AM
36 Comments:
This comment has been removed by the author.
Tough one. Civic duty & responsibility vs. the risk of offending the original inhabitants of the area and their vision. Don’t find that to be a problem in a city the size of the one I live in.
Puking ass clowns.... hee hee hee! I come from a long line of (not literal) gypsies with no real "ancestral" lands to call our own. We came from everywhere and scattered to the four winds. On the plus side, we don't seem to make much of an impact for either good or ill no matter where we land. As a clan we steer clear of politicking and tend to be rather insular. I suggest we are the walk-on extras in the great movie of life.
Great perspective!! They are a disrespectful little group aren't they? Combined with the daily idiot paper they get to create bad feelings and chaos. Thanks for writing this piece.
I have similar thoughts being in Vermont. So many people move here and want to live in the "country" but then they want to have their lattes and have the road paved and plowed deep into the country. Similar to what it was in NJ, outsiders come to get away from it, however in the long run they just recreate it. Might as well pave over America and call it Wall-Martica, and then every one can have the same cultural identity from coast to coast.
You sure hit that nail on the head.
When do the come-heres get the right to be critical? I'm just wondering because I can't go anywhere without being one due to the way I grew up. Are we just supposed to keep our mouths shut regardless of the circumstances because we aren't indigenous people?
When traveling to foreign countries it is respectful to assimilate. To not judge. To not criticize and constantly point out how things could be done better. Get to know the place, the people, the culture.
Nothing is wrong with change, change is sometimes needed and can be a great thing.... I think some of the responders in this thread are trying to say they are not too terribly fond of people moving here and trying to change things TOO fast without the assimilation period, without respect for the local people and culture. Try it our way for awhile and see if it works for you.
I for one love that people love it here, many visit once and they are hooked and can't wait to move to the area. But please be respectful - get to know the area as those already here know it before you start pontificating about how things can be better, making global "we" statements and claiming to speak for all citizens around you. You might find that you come to appreciate the 'local way.'
Goddamn California poodle puffing fucksticks need to go back to where they came from.
I've been here sixty years and the past ten years of this over the top gentrification is a very disturbing thing to experience. I am a very tolerant, polite and kind person to everyone in the real world, but I am one caustic aggressive son of a bitch in my anonymous expressions regarding these spoiled whining self entitled assholes who are flouncing in here to make our lives miserable. God, I yearn for the days of old around here-when Labor Day rolled by, the squids were back in school, the tourists gone and the great Indian Summer weather--it was heaven, it really was. Now the goddamn tourists have MOVED here and I just can't keep silent on the web about it
It's too bad the State of Oregon took the "Stay the f out" sign down. Worse they replaced it with "If you are a bleeding heart liberal nutcase, Astoria welcomes you"
Can't wait for the tide to go back out.
Well there you have it. It all comes down to respect and the ability to assimilate, which the red shirts haven't tried to do. Sure they may be nice people in their own groups, but their behavior has become much worse over the last two years. They have turned it into a "Them Vs Us" community.
Beth, Cities rely on the constant change and influx to keep it all up to date, but small towns like this lose their character.
Rich,again it has to do with honoring tradition and being mindful and respectful and bringing something to the community, rather than imposing ones will upon the community.
In conclusion, I am delighted that so many life long locals shared their impressions in their comments on this post. I hope the red shirts read them and consider what has been stated.
g said...
It's too bad the State of Oregon took the "Stay the f out" sign down.
Ah yes, back in the days of Big Tom..it was good
Beth said...
Civic duty & responsibility vs. the risk of offending the original inhabitants of the area and their vision.
What's this now? Is it anyone's idea that civic duty & responsibility is to descend on small blue collar communties en masse, drive the price of real estate skyward over the fact that they sold their places in southern California at a big price then run up here with their retirement accounts and profits to become "artists" in our fishing and logging towns-then inform us they don't like fishing, logging, or anything new that might be of economic benefit to the inhabitants and land owners-no, they think because they move in here that they should decide who does what and if the locals don't like it well, tough shit. Gentrification sucks. They think our traditional ways of doing things don't agree with them and that just because they have it made that everyone should just fall in line and be their servants, work in their shops, be an "artist" make their hamburgers and pump their gas. They think because they've "discovered" some place that it should soley be their little wilderness park and quaint community in their vision.
I for one have had it with these jerks and their so called civic duty and responsibility. Now I know what those folks in Boulder CO. were bitching about years ago when the Los Angelenos discovered Boulder driving the locals out or into economic distress(unless you catered to them), same with Bend OR. There is nothing worse than a bunch of entitled yuppie scum who get older. Nothing.
Whoa! Anon, right on!
Well thanks, Pam...
just tellin' it like it is, Baby.
I hope to goddamn hell that we can raise some home grown awareness to enlighten those pompous grubby little asstards like Aurebach, Price, Reuter, Rocka, Marquisl, Don West. And if there is one word I am sick of hearing/reading that I would like struck forever from the English language that would be the word "sustainable"
So if someone moves here they are supposed to keep their head down and mouth shut. Hmmmm. So much for our free country and the first amendment. If you are so worried about the damn "red shirts" then perhaps the natives should get their own shirts and speak their minds instead of trashing others. No matter where you are from you have the right to be politically active and exercise your first amendment right. We all pay property taxes and and are citizens of this county. Things change learn how to deal with it.
Anon after Louis commenter - So that's why you moved here? To exercise your right to the first amendment?
I thought for a minute you might be against everything I'm for and have been working toward since I was born here 43 years ago.
I guess it's kinda like having a new neighbor move in and they bring 50 piece of shit cars with them and stack them next to your fence.
Now have fun with your political activities and get your piece of shit cars away from my fence.
Shirt worn, mind spoken.
Anon above g, Yes you have all sorts of rights. You can disrupt count commission meetings. You can bus in demonstrators from other counties. You can have your flunky Forrester print all your lies, he's just making up the news these days any way. You can put measures in the ballot and change their meaning and function after the votes are cast. You can try to recall commissioners for doing their sworn duty to uphold land use and zoning laws. These are all your rights, but it doesn't mean that you aren't being looked at by the life long residents as total assholes.
Basically what you are doing is distributing pox infected political blankets to the community. So tell me, when you kill the spirits of the life long residents will you be changing the name of the county to California County. Sure you can start your institutes and associations that sound like you want to change society and save the planet. Give yourself a nice title and have a board of directors. While you are at it give yourself a pat on the back for ruining a local culture that was getting along just fine until you got here. Douche bag!
Anonymous said...
So if someone moves here they are supposed to keep their head down and mouth shut. Hmmmm. So much for our free country and the first amendment...
Excuse me? Maybe you should go back and read some of that stuff again. I did- a couple of times-and didn't see one word that referenced the constitution and the rights guaranteed therein. It was about gentrification and entitlement of those pissbrained douchebags who show up here ( just a few of them-not all) and think they and their goddamn opinions and lifestyles take precedence over anything else. When someone calls you on it, your ego and self centeredness demands you flip into the victim role, that you are discrimainated against abd its a legal or constitutional crime that. A punk like you couldn't be more self absorbed even if you were made out of equal parts of paper towels and water. Am I getting through to you? Do you understand? Nobody ever said you couldn't speak or have opinions, we just wish you awful people would go the hell away. And take Aurebach, Price, Don West, Marquis, Robert Stang, Larry Taylor, Ted Thomas, Lori Durheim, Scott Reuter(though to Scott's credit he has lowered his profile and tone-his wife probably told him behave or else) and that goofy woman who works with that shitstained fluff monkey Don West at Jake's motel. There's more than them too, but just typing those names makes me sick to my stomach. Now, you had your say, and you can say more, no one is going to impede your right to free speech or restrict you in any other way and if you think so, well goddamnit, sue me. This isn't a federal case, this is a case of flaming egotistical assclowns such as yourself and all mentioned above of being just too self important for simple people who have lived here for generations and have had it up to their eyeballs with you creeps
I was born here in 1941, so this is where I'm coming from. Thanks to this Guy for putting all this into words we have all been thinking.
You want us to get our own shirts? I'll tell you we used to wear carharts around here before all you out of towners started messing with our fishing industry and logging and milling. Move next to a fish plant and complain about the smell. Move into Astoria and complain about the smell and noise of the plywood mill. Complain about logging. Complain about gill netting and fishing. As you were making things nicer for you many of us have been put out of work. We depended on the woods and the river to feed our families and you dogooders took it all away so you can live in a park. You've been screwing us and every time I see the paper I see you are still screwing us. Thanks neighbors.
Hank in Astoria
Isn't it the American way to move into a place where you are not wanted, take over and force our will on the inhabitants. Seems that is what our nation has done business the for the last couple of centuries.
Oh, and to quote Guy, "After the first two years it finally dawned on me that I had no business telling people how things should be here. I haven’t earned that right nor had I paid my dues to the point where my opinion actually matters here." But isn't that what you are doing with this post? Telling everyone how it should be?
Last time I checked the trees nor the fish solely belong to those who have dead relatives in the ground. They belong to all. In addition the LNG projects affect more than Clatsop County, they affect the entire pacific northwest if not the entire country.
I have every right to live here and say what I want and do what I want. I am not a second class citizen because my grandfather's grandfather didn't live here.
There are good manners and bad manners. There are good neighbors and bad neighbors. Hank summed it up pretty well. If you have all this energy to change things, why didn't you change things where you lived before this? Is it because people here are easier to push around and be bullied? The sad thing is that your behavior only invites more like you to come here. You are an invasive species and a blight to our community.
...In addition the LNG projects affect more than Clatsop County, they affect the entire pacific northwest if not the entire country.
Horseshit You don't know a goddamn thing about Clatsop County or the Northwest. You're just peddling the same old hyberboelic crap that has been spoonfed you by your "ilk".
How does one get through to these morons anyway?
Anonymous said...
Last time I checked the trees nor the fish solely belong to those who have dead relatives in the ground.
Hey, you idiotic clown. Maybe you better "check" again on those trees. They belong to whoever owns the ground on which they stand. It's your misguided sense of an outsider's entitlement that leads you to believe that if you see a huge forested expanse that it belongs to "you". And if you think you own the fish that I, or anyone I know and fish around, caught, well, you are more than welcome come and try to get them.
Anonymous said...I have every right to live here and say what I want and do what I want.
You are excerising your "right" to be an idiot is what your doing. Nobody has the right to do whatever they want. You can say so, you can think so, but then you're obviously just kind of moron who beleives everything you spew is gospel. Yeah, you can say what you want because you're a liar and damn proud of it.
No I don't believe that everythiing I say is gospel. I just have the right to my opinion and to express it. Just as you have your right to tell me that I have no rights.
It seems as if the "locals" take to name calling whenever anyone expresses an opinion different than yours. You know nothing about me. You simply shout insults and tell me that I am a liar. I will keep expressing my opinion when ever I choose and where ever I choose.
Didn't our forefathers settled in the new world, because they were treated like second class citizens. Seems as if that is what is happening here.
Anonymous said...
No I don't believe that everythiing I say is gospel. I just have the right to my opinion and to express it. Just as you have your right to tell me that I have no rights.
Again, no one has said or even vaguely suggested you have "no rights" You certainly have a right to express your opinion, no matter how wrong and out of touch with reality it is. Quit playing the victim in this. We're trying to tell you how it really is here and how people feel about this aging entitled yuppiefication of our area, cultural and econmomic situation. You people move in here and think because you have money, don't have to work or consider yourself an "artist", or whatever the hell you are, and that your life is comfortable that you have all the answers, well, I'm here to tell you that you don't.
Anonymous said...
It seems as if the "locals" take to name calling whenever anyone expresses an opinion different than yours. You know nothing about me. You simply shout insults and tell me that I am a liar. I will keep expressing my opinion when ever I choose and where ever I choose.
If the shoe fits, wear it.
You'd be surprised what we know about you. You'd also be more surprised about what you don't know about you. I mean, Jesus Tits, you come on here and start blathering how the trees and fish "belong to everyone", where did you dream that up? I used to have a fair amount of timber land and those trees belonged to us, not some idiot who moves in here from California and tries to tell me they belong to everyone. Don't even get me started on fishing. You don't know jack diddly shit about that, just like you don't know jack about whatever else you're dithering on about. You think just because you say it that it must be true? So, when you say LNG/Bradwood is going to negatively affect "not only Clatsop County, but the Pacific Northwest and the nation", where in the hell is your point of reference coming from? You immediately assume upon arrival that the trees and fish belong to you when the stark raving historical fact is they don't. Now you expect anyone to believe you have some firm grasp and knowledge of something that hasn't even happened yet? How can you think that? You are either crazy, on dope and probably both. Do you understand?
Oh, and this:
Anonymous said...
Didn't our forefathers settled in the new world, because they were treated like second class citizens. Seems as if that is what is happening here.
There you go playing the poor poor woe is me discriminated against ethnic role. A role you are not entitled to at all. You are a middle to upper class white person, probably middle aged and of means-probably sold your home in southern California for a big price and ran up here and got screwed on some old dump and for that you feel smug, landed and entitled to tell everyone what to do, yet you are whining and moaning that you're being treated like some recently arrived foriegn national without a penny to their name. Look, whoever you are. My people came here in the mid 19th century because where they were coming from had no future for them, they came here with zip zilch nada and built good lives and fortunes by hard work, luck and smartsl. Don't insult me or make yourself look even more foolish by trying to play the poor immigrant card, you spoiled ignorant little jackass.
Anonymous said...
No I don't believe that everythiing I say is gospel.
So, you conciously admit that you lie and are comfortable with it? You just admitted that some of what you say is untrue, yet you say it anyway. Thank you.
Once again Fremmen you call me names when you know nothing about me. I am a life-long Oregonian. I have never lived in Cali and I am not upper middle class. You are wrong on all counts. I am from a family of blue collar workers, several generations of Oregonians. I have lived in Clatsop County for 25+ years. So please, if you are going to attack me please get your facts straight.
Why should anyone believe you when you've already admitted that what you say isn't true? Perhaps with all the comments posted by Anonymous, create a little name for yourself so we can tell you from the other Anons.
I think you're confused or fibbing again, but if you're are an Oregonian it's time for you to start acting like one.
When did I admit to fibbing? I don't believe I did so.
Maybe you all can relate to this Beatles quote. “And in the end, the love we take will be equal to the love we make.”
This goes for respect as well. I think the locals have shown great amounts of respect for the new comers, but the new comers have been extremely disrespectful and as indicated by the responses here it is obvious there is a backlash.
Everyone wants to live in a community where it is safe to live and raise a family where the schools are good. We want the police, public safety and teachers to be well compensated to attract the best candidates for these positions for making this a great and safe place to live. The short sightedness of keeping out an industry with a great safety record that will provide much needed revenue to fund our well being is astounding to me.
How can you move here and try to deny these things to a community that has always put the best foot forward in earnest in hopes for an opportunity such as this that comes around once in a generation? I say suck it up and stand down.
I do admit that there are a few loud mouthed, disrespectful california transplants. However, there is no need to stereotype all of those who weren't raised here.
Guy, how can you demand for respect for the locals when I come here and express my opinon and then I am called a liar, a flaming egotistical assclowns, and a punk. Nobody here knows me yet there was no hesitation to insult me when I expressed an opinon that was different than yours.
Did the californians drive up the price of real estate? Perhaps. Are some of them rude and ill-mannered. Yes. But the bottom line is I am respectful of my neighbors, newbies and long-time residents, even if we don't agree on every issue. We all have the right to live where ever we want and to voice our opinions. Some just more graceful about it than others.
Anonymous said...
When did I admit to fibbing? I don't believe I did so.
Anonymous said...
"No I don't believe that everythiing I say is gospel."
Yes, I did write "No I don't believe that everythiing I say is gospel". What I have been offering here is my opinion.
Definition of Gospel from the Merriam Webster Dictionay: "something accepted or promoted as infallible truth or as a guiding principle or doctrine"
Merriam Webster definition of opinion: "view, judgment, or appraisal formed in the mind about a particular matter"
Well then, when you made this statement
Anonymous said...
the LNG projects affect more than Clatsop County, they affect the entire pacific northwest if not the entire country.
The reader assumes it is statement you want them to accept as fact, yet you expect us to take it as such without any qualification at all. And when you say "affect", am I correct in assuming that affect is negative? I mean, natural gas is marketed as a utility. You know what a utility is, don't you? Don't you think it's a little overboard and disegenous making a statement like that? Convince me the entire country is gonna somehow suffer, let alone how Clatsop County is going to suffer and maybe I will jump sides and agree with you, but so far all you've done is present the trite old "we're all gonna suffer" because of one high tech tank farmk, some ships and a measly little pipeline-all that kind'a stuff has been in use for as long as I remember and I know I'm not suffering from it, but you tell me I am and it will get worse? How so?
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