12/26/07 Civil War Compensation

The fact the governor of the state of Washington is pushing for $5.9 million a year to buy Columbia River water from Indian tribes for Northwest farmers got me to thinking&.. Why don't we compensate families who roots trace back to the Confederate South? Like the Native Americans the Southern' way of life was virtually destroyed during the Civil War. When Sherman's troops marched though confederate wilderness and farm land, they left a wake of desolation that forever displaced individuals who also held deep cultural convictions and connections to both indigenous animals and the land. The Civil War left a bitterness of a defeat that exists to this day, so where are the casinos? While my taxes will help to fund the millions to be paid to Indian tribes for water, (that in the end as a fellow American should be as much mine as theirs,) my friends father, a Japanese's American, has yet to receive a penny for the orchard he lost during his containment in WWII. Isn't it interesting though that today that man owns one of the most successful pear orchards in the state of Oregon! There is a lesson to be learned.