...Why Disenrolling Tribes Like The Pechanga Tribal Council are UNETHICAL

People have asked me why I use the term unethical in my blog’s banner. Here’s the reasons why.

Recall the five fundamental principles of ethics:

1. Do No Harm - Pechanga has failed miserably in this area. Not only have they caused financial harm to many of their tribal members, stripping them of their per capita, they have left them unprotected in the area of health care. They also have violated the Tribal Constitution and illegally have kept many rightful members out, via a moratorium.

2. Make Things Better - Well, Pechanga started well, with a plan to lift all it’s people from poverty. Many of us weren’t in poverty, but did benefit from the casino. After all, our families’ ancestors were original Pechanga Temecula people. But then, came the moratorium, which kept rightful members OUT and followed that with disenrollments, which made things worse.

3. Respect Others – Pechanga touted elders like Lawrence Madariaga, Paulina Hunter’s great-grandson with rewards like plaques for their service, but then left them out in the cold by kicking them from the tribal rolls and then saying, “go get a job” to 80 year olds. They disregarded their most vaunted elder, Antonio Ashman’s sworn testimony that he knew Paulina Hunter when he was a young man in the 1880’s

4. Be Fair – We will be detailing the unfairness of the tribal council, the disenrollment committee and the CPP, but there was no fairness. The Tribal Enrollment committee did not allow us to question our accusers, did not tell us what was missing in our paperwork, forced us to have red ribbon certified paperwork of over 400 pages and yet accepted a letter of hearsay from an imprisoned child molester as more factual, that the results of their own study.

5. Be Loving – How loving is it to eliminate old people, children, infirm from the tribe? To take away their voting rights, elder care, and educational assistance. The tribal council should have taken their task of looking after the individual tribal members welfare. They did not.

Also, recall that ethical responsibilities apply not just to how we treat others but to how we treat ourselves, too. Although ethics is fundamentally a guard against self-obsession, it is right and good to treat ourselves with respect, fairness, and compassion and to avoid causing ourselves harm. Now, the actions of the CPP are causing harm to the tribe and the tribe is paying the public relations price for what they have done, and that price is already $60 million or more.

Exercise your moral outrage and avoid Pechanga.