Following is a table of contents of the articles in the order they appear lower on this webpage, for the period January 1, 2008 through the present. To see full text of the actual articles, in chronological order, scroll down below the index.
January 16, 2008: Dick Rowland, President of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, notes the divisiveness and jurisdictional conflicts the Akaka bill would spawn, and then asks readers to sign an internet petition demanding the Hawaii legislature "let us vote" on whether we want Congress to pass the bill.
http://www.grassrootinstitute.org/GrassInReview/GrassInReview01-16-08.shtml
** Article also republished on January 17, 2008 in Hawaii Reporter (online) at
http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?7d345c39-eeb0-4114-b235-8d73b7866bfc
January 24, 2008:
Too Bad Obama Supports the Akaka Bill
The Akaka Bill is Unfair and Un-American
By Arthur Lemay (retired informatics executive and management consultant. He is a science graduate of Harvard, and writes extensively on scientific subjects. He was the systems architect for several world-wide information systems. In addition, he was president of several high-tech companies, both in computer services and manufacturing. His consulting clients included the U.S. Congress, several major banks in New York, venture capital firms in Silicon Valley and a major Japanese company.)
Hawaii Reporter, January 24, 2008
http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?eebf34c6-3af0-4017-8b00-6b45b019fb8e
January 28, 2008
Our Hawaii
By Eric Seabury (6th generation resident of Hawaii whose great-great-great grandfather became a naturalized subject of the Kingdom in 1860)
Hawaii Reporter, January 28, 2008
http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?ff4830d4-d4c5-4770-8691-839d9b368be0
January 30, 2008
The Native Hawaiian ‘Reservation’
By Jerry Coffee
Midweek (O'ahu, Hawai'i), January 30, 2008
http://www.midweek.com/content/columns/coffeebreak_article/the_native_hawaiian_reservation/
February 7, 2008
Akaka Bill Would Set Precedent for Break Up of Every State in the Nation
Letter to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (including links to his 2006 testimony presented live to the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs).
by H. William Burgess
Hawaii Reporter, February 7, 2008
http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?62a94585-cc2f-462f-a42c-8b05cbcd415b
February 7, 2008
State's Land Distribution to Office of Hawaiian Affairs: 'Killing Our State Through Death of 1,000 Cuts' (testimony to state Legislature describes the "big picture" how this land transfer fits into the Akaka bill).
by Kenneth R. Conklin
Hawaii Reporter, February 7, 2008
http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?5364350c-ae8e-401f-812a-211f27eef35a
February 28, 2008
Broken Rainbow: Hawaii's Racial Separatism Threatens America's Fundamental Principles
Hawaii Reporter, February 28, 2008
http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?f595a9fe-d954-4148-9b83-a85f86528a46
By Kenneth R. Conklin, Ph.D.
March 22, 2008
PRICE OF APOLOGY: CLINTON, OBAMA, AND THE HAWAIIAN QUID PRO QUO
by Andrew Walden
Pajamas Media, March 22, 2008
http://pajamasmedia.com/2008/03/price_of_apology_clinton_obama.php
April 15-16, 2008
Republic of Hawaii Was Recognized Worldwide as the Legitimate Government of These Islands
Photos of letters of recognition personally signed by 19 foreign rulers in 1894 discredit the apology resolution, undermine the Akaka bill, and confirm that the ceded lands belong to all Hawaii's people without racial distinction.
By Dr. Ken Conklin
** The most complete version of this essay was published in
Hawaii Reporter, April 16, 2008 at
http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?4692e83b-6924-469b-bd0a-13512024596f
** Other versions were published in
The Maui News, April 15, 2008 at
http://www.mauinews.com/page/category.detail/nav/18/Letters_to_the_Editor.html
and
The Garden Island News (Kaua'i), April 16, 2008 at
http://www.kauaiworld.com/articles/2008/04/16/opinion/edit02.txt
April 28, 2008
Hawaii Needs You
An open letter to the US left from the Hawaiian sovereignty movement.
["The Nation" magazine dated April 28, 2008 devoted major space to a series of articles about the history of Hawaii and the victimization of ethnic Hawaiians. An "open letter" opposing the Akaka bill was written by Hawaii's most famous secessionists.]
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080428/open_letter
May 1, 2008
Diversity in Hawaii -- Our tropical paradise is a racial tinderbox.
by Duncan Hengest
American Renaissance, May 2008, Vol. 19, No. 5, Cover story
A pdf file will probably be placed eventually in the magazine's archives at
http://www.amren.com
May 2, 2008
Media Downplay Hawaii Uprising, Back Hawaiian Apartheid Bill
By Matthew Vadum, Newsbusters blog
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/matthew-vadum/2008/05/02/media-downplay-hawaii-uprising-back-hawaiian-apartheid-bill
May 15, 2008
"The Aloha Spirit -- what it is, who possess it, and why it is important"
by Kenneth R. Conklin, Ph.D.
Hawaii Reporter online newspaper at
http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?bf4cc8fa-4e53-4086-a6fd-d20bfe35523e
May 16, 2008
Don’t Free Hawaii!
By James Dellinger and Phil Brand
Hawaii Reporter online newspaper
http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?6756b92e-2efd-4d51-b7c7-0b92d4258a92
May 18, 2008
Akaka Bill Pushed by Social Engineers Dividing Hawaii and America: George Will Got it Right
By H. William Burgess and Sandra Puanani Burgess
Hawaii Reporter online newspaper
http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?464780e6-930e-4384-8b86-d554b0a8bee1
June 13, 2008
Akaka Bill Would Wipe Out Over 200 Years of Integration in Hawaii and Replace it With Apartheid
by Jere Krischel, Senior Fellow, Grassroot Institute of Hawaii
Hawaii Reporter online newspaper
http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?be5695cc-dfb6-44f0-bf63-0c5701fe7784
June 16, 2008
Rights are Inherent for All People by Virtue of Their Humanity, Not By Virtue of Their Ancestry or Nationality
Open Letter to U.S. Senator Akaka Opposing the Akaka Bill
By Kaleihanamau Johnson
Hawaii Reporter online newspaper
http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?cb3ad702-347d-47f2-8eba-c34b02899875
June 23, 2008
Lies told on the U.S. Senate Floor by Senators Inouye and Dorgan Regarding the Akaka Bill
by Kenneth R. Conklin, Ph.D.
Hawaii Reporter online newspaper
http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?41199966-fce3-48c8-bd18-7c53630ffc55
August 31, 2008:
PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE JOHN MCCAIN
written reply to Honolulu Star-Bulletin request for a statement of his position on the Akaka bill
http://specials.starbulletin.com/john_mccain/we-ask-mccain-and-he-answers-on-issues-of-rail-hawaiians-oil/
September 30, 2008:
Trouble in Paradise
By Joseph Lawler
The American Spectator
http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=13963
December 1, 2008
One Consequence of a "Sorry" Congress; More to Come!
by William Perry Pendley
President and Chief Legal Officer
Mountain States Legal Foundation
Townhall.com
http://townhall.com/Columnists/WilliamPerryPendley/2008/12/01/one_consequence_of_a_sorry_congress;_more_to_come!
December 3, 2008
Hawaiian Sovereignty, Zionism, and Governor Lingle -- Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle's main motive for supporting the Akaka bill, OHA, race-based entitlements, and Kamehameha Schools' racially exclusionary admissions policy is her strong support for Zionism and her mistaken belief that the Hawaiian sovereignty movement is comparable to the struggle to establish and maintain a Jewish nation of Israel.
by Kenneth R. Conklin, Ph.D.
https://www.angelfire.com/bigfiles90/LingleZionismHawnSov.html
=================
FULL TEXT OF EACH ITEM, IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER
http://www.grassrootinstitute.org/GrassInReview/GrassInReview01-16-08.shtml
Grassroot Institute of Hawaii
Weekly Grass In Review, January 16, 2008
** Article also republished on January 17, 2008 in Hawaii Reporter (online) at
http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?7d345c39-eeb0-4114-b235-8d73b7866bfc
Nurturing the rights and responsibilities of the individual in a civil society.
We LUV Hawaii
A Message from Dick Rowland
The Akaka Bill would impose a "Native Hawaiian Governing Entity" (NHGE) on Hawaii in a major way and the rest of the USA in (perhaps) a minor way. What is to be formed is a new government that has nothing in it. Nothing. It is to be an empty government vessel inside of which is a sucking vacuum demanding people land, money, law, and power to fill it up.
Fuel for this vessel will be provided by lobbyists and government brokers anxious to influence and manage the creation of this new entity. Looming large among these power brokers will be the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Kamehameha Schools, Bishop Estate, Indian tribes and their casinos, and many other groups and organizations. Others, now unknown, will be crawling out of the woodwork chasing money and power.
Each Hawaii County will find it necessary to post full time monitors and lobbyists to watch over the committee which will be working out the details. So will Alexander & Bandwin, Castle & Cooke, Bank of Hawaii etc, etc. The Hawaii legislature will watch carefully and nervously. So will Moody's, Standard & Poor's, and the French owners of First Hawaiian Bank.
And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
It seems to us that our nation has no business whatsoever imposing this new government entity on our state without our expressed opinion by statewide vote of the people. That was done before we entered the US in 1959 and it should be done before the Akaka Bill becomes law.
Current proponents of the Akaka Bill cite the support of the Governor, State Senate and House and Hawaii 's national delegation as overpowering evidence that the people of Hawaii favor this new NHGE. We do not think so. We could be wrong, but so could they. Let's find out for sure.
We request the Hawaii Senate and House pass a resolution proclaiming that they withdraw earlier support of the Akaka Bill until it is voted upon by the citizens of Hawaii in a statewide referendum or plebiscite.
We want you to Let Us Vote
We are LUV - Hawaii
SPECIAL REQUEST TO ALL MEMBERS
Let Us Vote Hawaii
There is a new website upon which you can register your belief that there should or should not be a vote of Hawaii 's people before the Akaka Bill is passed. As presently written, it imposes a new and separate government on the state.
Click here to go to the site.
Just scroll down, put in basic information and click submit. Then get your family to do the same.
Then, think of at least five friends and ask them to express their opinion. There is a place to register comments. Please do so.
As the number of participants grows, we will publish results and share the facts with policymakers to include occasionally some comments (without of course identifying the author).
Please ask your friends to enroll family and friends.
And, for all, please do promptly. One of the things we are going to do is measure our networking efficiency by tracking website activity for the next 10 days. After that we will take further actions.
Please: DO IT NOW!
------------------------
http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?eebf34c6-3af0-4017-8b00-6b45b019fb8e
Hawaii Reporter, January 24, 2008
Too Bad Obama Supports the Akaka Bill
The Akaka Bill is Unfair and Un-American
By Arthur Lemay
I note that Barack Obama stated that, if he were elected President, he would vote the Akaka Bill into law. How unfortunate.
This bill is like the camel’s nose under the tent: it seems innocent, sounds innocent, but the devil is in the details. Although it is silent on the issue of property claims, it seems transparently obvious that the example of the Alaskan natives, the Oniedas (Ohio), the Mashpees (Massachusetts) and other native tribes who have gained hundreds of millions of dollars from the states and the U.S. government, that the objective of the Akaka Bill is to make possible similar claims for those who can claim Hawaiian ancestry.
So, where is the money to come from? On the mainland, the native peoples have claimed people’s homes, properties, and even whole counties. Litigation has frozen property sales in Mashpee since 1976, and, even though the claims nationally are largely unsuccessful, the settlements run in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Even after 30 years the Indians are still litigating in Mashpee and people whose homes have been passed down for generations cannot be sure they actually own them.
It is very obvious to me that the native Hawaiian minority is seeking a lifetime income for no work, based on some notion that they deserve it somehow. Under the Akaka Bill, the native Hawaiian would have more rights, more benefits, and would be a kind of aristocracy above the crowd of ordinary people who are not of native blood.
The French had a system like this before the Revolution. Special people had special rights, guaranteed incomes, titles, abusing the common people, until the tumbrels came out and took them to the Guillotines.
That is why our founding fathers set up a system where everyone is equal. Why does this imbecile Barack Obama not understand this? Why do the people of Hawaii not understand that it is their property and wealth which is at risk? Why does a native Hawaiian deserve more than a recent immigrant? We are all born equal, but evidently Sen. Akaka thinks otherwise.
The Akaka bill is unfair, un-American, and, if passed, will make Hawaii and Hawaiians into a despised elite minority like the Indian Casino millionaires who have manipulated the political system to become rich undeservingly and unfairly.
Why would anyone want to own property or a business where he is a second class citizen? The Akaka Bill has consequences far beyond any discussions I have seen so far, and if Hawaii’s politicians are to be believed, then a prudent man would sell everything he has in Hawaii and get out, that is, unless he was a native Hawaiian, and is happy to see his home gradually decline into the status of a third world country.
Arthur Lemay is a retired informatics executive and management consultant. He is a science graduate of Harvard, and writes extensively on scientific subjects. He was the systems architect for several world-wide information systems. In addition, he was president of several high-tech companies, both in computer services and manufacturing. His consulting clients included the U.S. Congress, several major banks in New York, venture capital firms in Silicon Valley and a major Japanese company. Lemay is an internationalist who spends almost 50 percent of his time travelling and living the European life style in Paris. Reach him at arthur@lemay.ws
------------------------
http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?ff4830d4-d4c5-4770-8691-839d9b368be0
Hawaii Reporter, January 28, 2008
Our Hawaii
By Eric Seabury
In my open letter to Office of Hawaiian Affairs Chair Haunani Apoliona, I wrote about her “low blow” tactic of using the race card in order to have a cartoon, which made fun of OHA policy, to be removed from the Hawaii Reporter Web site. [See "You Need to Get Over Yourself"] I also made a reference to native Hawaiians as “Hawaiian-Americans” and I received comments from certain people that my characterization was “hateful,” “racist” and “Eurocentric-Arrogance.” From my understanding and to the many Patriots who have served and are serving in our Armed Forces and have ethnic-Hawaiian blood, they refer to themselves as “Hawaiian-Americans.” An individual of, primarily, ethnic-Hawaiian blood and was born in our United States of America.
Also, I was accussed of being “hostile,” “bitter” and “jealous” in my letter to Ms. Apoliona. Was I hostile … Yes, I was. Was I bitter? Of what? That an organization such as OHA uses American tax dollars to fund their organization who’s ultimate goal is to create a separate, independent Hawaiian nation? Or that they, along with our state government and our four “public servants” on Capitol Hill, keep trying to push the unconstitutional Akaka bill through with erroneous information and without hearing the concerns from the people of Hawaii on how this will affect our future? Or that this organization really isn’t interested in helping Hawaiian-Americans make a better life for themselves, but that it’s really about job security for the OHA Chair and her employees and having the power and influence to dictate who gets what piece of land and for what purpose?
For the record, I am in no way jealous of those of Hawaiian ancestry, in any way, shape or form. I believe Kamehameha Schools should be for “Hawaiians only,” I believe that Hawaiian-Americans should receive the land that is guaranteed to them and that the Department of Hawaiian Homelands has been dragging its feet in giving it to them. My concerns are that OHA is endangering our way of life in Hawaii by separating family, friends and neighbors with “blood quantum.” Instead of dividing people, we should be united in making Hawaii a better place to live for all of us, not just for a select group. OHA's use of federal funds and placating to certain special interests will not solve the problems we face as a state.
From one person, I was told: "Unless you have koko (Hawaiian Blood), you are a haole; which means you are 'foreign' to these islands and based on the 'lawful' definition of your country's Constitution, you simply don't belong here. For you to say anymore regarding the islands and Hawaiians is Mahaoe. I welcome you to take your government (OHA as well) and yourself back to America."
I may not have "koko" but I was born and raised in Hawaii. I have roots and I have history in these islands. My family emigrated to Hawaii in 1855 from Portugal and was naturalized as a Hawaiian citizen in 1860. My great-great-great grandfather, Josè Silveira, was a friend of the royal family and was responsible for bringing the first Portuguese women to settle and marry in Hawaii. His wife was known as the "Saint of Honolulu." Why? I don't remember but I have an aunt who can provide that information. My ancestor even named his second son after Queen Liliuokalani's husband, John Dominis.
My great-great grandmother worked at Iolani Palace and served King David Kalakaua.
My other great-great-great grandfather was Mañuel Nuñez, the inventor of the ukulele and who taught the King and other subjects how to play it. The word "haole" does mean "foreigner," but I'm no foreigner. I may not have ethnic-Hawaiian blood but I do belong in Hawaii. My ancestors didn't go through Ellis Island.
For anyone to say that anyone else, who doesn't have Hawaiian blood, doesn't belong here displays the epitome of arrogance. Who has the right to tell me I don't have the right to be in Hawaii? Who has the right to tell my 16-year-old blonde-haired, blue-eyed nephew, who was also born and raised in Hawaii, that he doesn't have the right to be here or express his own opinions but my half-Hawaiian, 7-year-old niece does?
Regardless of who was born where and who has what type of ethnic blood, whether your ancestors emigrated to Hawaii in 1855, or your ancestors where the first Polynesian settlers from Tahiti long before pre-European contact or whether you just arrived here from the mainland two weeks ago, everyone has the right to be in Hawaii, especially if you’re willing to make a good life for yourself, provide for your family, be active in your community and respect the land you’re living on, nobody needs to get permission from any other group or any other individual. Everyone is Welcome!
Instead of demonizing our Nation and using it as the excuse for our problems, we should be joining together to find real solutions to those problems that plague our state. That plague is our current state government at the state Legislature. The real reason our children cannot get a quality education in our public schools is because of our state government; the real reason we cannot "make ends meet" and have to work from paycheck to paycheck with two jobs is because of our state government; the real reason people are living on beaches and public parks with no relief in sight is because of our state government; the reason Hawaiian-Americans cannot own land and make a prosperous life for themselves and be able to own their own business is because of our state government; and the reason so many of our brothers and sisters are leaving the islands for a better life on the mainland is because of our state government.
Misrepresentation from our public servants with corruption, pandering to special interest groups, overtaxation and overregulation over our lives and businesses is what keeps the Hawaiian man and woman down. Our state and county governments are to blame. They are the reason for the disenfranchisement of all people in Hawaii. So what are we going to do about it?!
Do we keep ourselves informed of what goes on at the state Legislature when they propose bills and pass laws in our name? Do we keep them accountable everytime they misuse our tax dollars to keep their union and special interest buddies rich? Do we keep our county government officials in line every time they overstep their constitutional duties and betray our trust? Are we involved? Are you involved?
So as far as, as one person had asked me, "what does my country's Constitution and Bill of Rights have to do with me and the Hawaiian-American?" is concerned … unless you were not born in these United States of America, it has everything to do with you, whether one agrees with it or not, whether one likes it or not. Turning your back and pretending you're not a U.S. citizen and not being involved in what our government is doing to us will not change anything, it will not solve our problems. Not being involved in what our government is doing to us today, in real life, will only continue to keep the Hawaiian man and woman oppressed.
Finally, the same person claimed, "Ua mau ke ea o ka aina i ka pono. The 'Hawaiian' people, not the haole's, are the life of the land. Mistreat and injure them and you are not perpetuating the land in righteousness, you destroy the 'land' we all now live on."
The “life” of the land is anyone who participates in working hard, maintaining the land, making a good life for their family, participating in their community and honors their culture and God, the Creator. It is ignorance, arrogance, narrow-mindedness, indifference and hate that will destroy the Land, and you don't have to be just a "haole" or an ethnic-Hawaiian to have any of those bad qualities. We are all human beings with a common purpose of taking care of our loved ones and taking care of our Hawaii. That desire is not reserved to just one ethnicity.
Eric J. Seabury is a resident of Kaneohe.
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http://www.midweek.com/content/columns/coffeebreak_article/the_native_hawaiian_reservation/
Midweek (O'ahu, Hawai'i), January 30, 2008
The Native Hawaiian ‘Reservation’
By Jerry Coffee
** Note by website editor Ken Conklin: Jerry Coffee was a Viet Nam prisoner of war side by side with Senator John McCain for several years]
All across the northern U.S., from Washington, Montana and the Dakotas to Minnesota, Michigan and New York, Indian tribes increasingly flex their muscles, aided by steroid injections from the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA).
Over the years, Native American bureaucrats have stealthily infiltrated the BIA to the point of rubber-stamp approval of most self-serving initiatives from the nation’s Indian tribes, which then go to Congress for enabling legislation. This has been facilitated by generous tribal campaign donations to key congressional and state legislative leaders; donations which - by the way - coming from Indian tribes are exempt from the usual campaign donation limits.
Some tribes have redrawn historical tribal boundaries to claim homestead properties of non-native Americans who have lived on them for generations. Such claims frequently find favorable endorsements by the BIA and, successful or not, land titles are frozen until resolution can be litigated. In any case, the property owners are out thousands of dollars in legal fees. Appropriate governmental intervention has been historically slow.
A more insidious tactic is “reservation shopping,” whereby a tribal council identifies a perfect site - not necessarily even near the actual reservation - for a commercial enterprise, most commonly a gambling casino, but it could be a shopping center, a theme park or a truck stop. The council then applies for “reservation status,” gets a rubber-stamp approval by the BIA and summary approval by Congress. From this point, the tribe’s plans for the property require no approval by the Department of the Interior, no approval by the governor or the state Legislature, and no input from the surrounding community. According to U.S. Rep. Brian Baird, D. Wash., “The deck is so stacked against the local community ... when the approving agency is acting in a quasi advocacy role.”
Some citizens in the Northwest who fight such blatant property encroachment characterize tribal sacred ground as anyplace on an interstate highway with an interchange near a metropolitan center.
Keep in mind that “tribal sovereignty” makes a tribe a coequal to the United States government above the state government. Once a property is added to the tribal “trust,” it becomes a part of the reservation, technically immune from state zoning laws, state and federal taxes, campaign spending laws, environmental laws (no EISs) and, if the tribe chooses, immune from local law enforcement. Any products like cigarettes, gasoline or - in Hawaii, anything with GET - sold on reservation land are tax-free and can therefore undercut competing enterprises on adjacent non-reservation land.
All of the above is actually happening on the Mainland.
It should not be lost on the people of Hawaii that this is the model proposed by Sen. Dan Akaka in the “Akaka Bill” - that Native Hawaiians deserve the same rights as Native Americans. Although he is quick to point out the bill itself does not detail any of the above provisions, but only provides a “framework” for negotiations between the state and a “Hawaiian governing entity.” This can mean anything from formally establishing OHA as the interim “Tribal Council” to the ultimate secession of Hawaii from the United States - “something for my grandchildren to decide,” as Akaka puts it - leaving the secession door wide open.
Only a month or so ago there was some controversy over the plans for a Hawaiian Homelands parcel in Kapolei as to whether development of the parcel should be subject to state/county planning or zoning laws.
We have just seen the long-overdue (and what most consider fair) settlement of revenues and land to OHA from Hawaii’s ceded lands. Should the Akaka Bill pass, it’s fair to say the 209 acres (in three parcels) included in this recent settlement plus the existing Hawaiian home-lands would constitute the beginning of the “Native Hawaiian tribal reservation.”
And even if OHA (backed up by the BIA and U.S. Department of the Interior) and the state Legislature could “negotiate” a future relationship as coequals, which they won’t be, OHA will have enough ceded land revenue to spread around the Legislature - unrestricted - to make the HGEA look like beginners. We can be sure OHA will get its way.
But, hey, I guess that’s what the senator has in mind!
Is that what you have in mind?
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http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?62a94585-cc2f-462f-a42c-8b05cbcd415b
Hawaii Reporter, February 7, 2008
Akaka Bill Would Set Precedent for Break Up of Every State in the Nation
Letter to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights
By H. William Burgess
Editor's note: This letter was sent Feb. 4, 2008, to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Director Kenneth L. Marcus and Regional Coordinating Chief Chris Byrnes, regarding the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act of 2007, known as the Akaka bill.
Thank you for requesting my input. In my opinion, the gravest threat now facing the civil rights of the people of Hawaii, and the people of the United States, is the Akaka bill, currently pending in Congress as S. 310/H.R. 505, Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act of 2007.
This bill would create a privileged class consisting of anyone with at least one ancestor indigenous to the lands now part of the United States; and it would sponsor the creation of a separate sovereign government in Hawaii of, by and for persons with an ancestor indigenous to Hawaii. The bill does not require that new government to be subject to the full reach of the U.S. Constitution or the civil rights laws of the United States or the State of Hawaii; and it authorizes negotiations for the breakup and giveaway to that new government of some unspecified amount of Hawaii’s land, natural resources, governmental power and civil and criminal jurisdiction.
Imagine the consequences if Congress could authorize the breakup and give away of some or all of a state! What would become of the ”indestructible union composed of indestructible states” envisioned by the Constitution?
This bill would radically change existing Indian law by permitting recognition of tribal status based on blood alone. It thus would establish a precedent for the breakup of every state, and ultimately, of the United States itself.
Attached with further information about the dangers of this foolish bill is a copy of my testimony of May 3, 2007 to the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs -- see
https://www.angelfire.com/planet/big60/BurgessUSSenateIndianAffairsCom050307.pdf
and my response of May 17, 2007 to questions by Vice Chairman Craig Thomas -- see
https://www.angelfire.com/planet/big60/BurgessReplyComQs051708.pdf
Mahalo to the chairman and members and staff of the USCCR for standing firm to protect the equal protection of the laws for each and every citizen of the United States. If I may be of further assistance please call.
H. William Burgess is a Hawaii attorney and a member of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission's Hawaii committee. Reach him at
hwburgess@hawaii.rr.com
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http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?5364350c-ae8e-401f-812a-211f27eef35a
Hawaii Reporter, February 7, 2008
State's Land Distribution to Office of Hawaiian Affairs: 'Killing Our State Through Death of 1,000 Cuts'
By Kenneth R. Conklin
Aloha kakou
One small step for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, one giant leap toward racial apartheid in Hawaii. That summarizes SB 2733 -- legislation now pending in the Hawaii State Senate that threatens to slice off another piece of Hawaii, slowly killing our state through the death of 1,000 cuts.
That's the big picture regarding the ceded lands (or distribution of royal crown lands) agreement between Gov. Linda Lingle on behalf of the state and the state Office of Hawaiian Affairs, which SB 2733 seeks to enact into law:
THE BIG PICTURE
Since 1978 the government of Hawaii has been facilitating the development an "Evil Empire" of racially separate governmental and private institutions exclusively for ethnic Hawaiians.
The Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) was founded on three pillars of racial separatism: Only ethnic Hawaiians could vote for OHA trustees; only ethnic Hawaiians could run for OHA trustee; and only ethnic Hawaiians could receive benefits from OHA.
The first pillar was knocked down by the U.S. Supreme Court in Rice v. Cayetano. The second pillar was knocked down by the U.S. District Court in Honolulu and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Arakaki v. State of Hawaii. But the third pillar remains standing despite substantively correct lawsuits dismissed on technicalities.
In response to those lawsuits, the Akaka bill has been continuously re-introduced in Congress for nearly eight years, with zealous support from our Governor, Attorney General, and nearly every member of our Legislature. The Akaka bill seeks to authorize creation of a racially exclusionary government for all persons worldwide who have a drop of Hawaiian native blood -- that is the sole requirement for membership. The bill would authorize transfer of land, money, and jurisdictional authority to the phony Akaka tribe.
The whole concept of a racially exclusionary government is evil. And unlike any of the real Indian tribes which include a small number of people in a restricted and usually remote area of land, this one would legally segregate 20 percent of the entire population of a state, and perhaps 50 percent of the state's lands; thus deserving the label "apartheid." Hawaii's Evil Empire of racially exclusionary institutions has grown so powerful that hardly any public officials will dare to stand up against it.
The multiracial, multicultural society of Hawaii has hardly any voice in government to advocate for unity and equality; because the wealthy, powerful institutions of the Evil Empire have silenced their voice through the expenditure of untold millions of dollars in lobbying, advertising, school curriculum, and outright intimidation. Who hasn't seen expensive, racist Kau Inoa commercials beamed into their living rooms at least 200 times, or newspaper ads "explaining" the Akaka bill?
In case the Akaka bill does not get enacted, OHA created "Plan B" to expand anyway. The idea is to get our compliant governor and Legislature, plus the counties and private groups, to transfer land, money, and jurisdictional authority directly to OHA -- a plan already being implemented.
On Oahu the County of Honolulu used tax dollars plus money from several environmental groups to purchase the entire Waimea Valley. OHA made only a small contribution, but was given the deed to the entire valley.
In Waokele O Puna on Hawaii Island, OHA again contributed only a small portion of the purchase price but ended up with the deed to the entire parcel of 40 square miles.
Bills are now pending in the Legislature that would create racially stacked commissions to manage Haiku Valley and Makua Valley, with OHA having seats on those boards, and including a provision for outright transfer of the entire valley to OHA.
OHA keeps asking for money to build its new headquarters, which would become the national capitol of the new Akaka tribal nation (until Iolani Palace which taxpayers renovated is handed over). Now comes the state of Hawaii ready to give away $200 million of public land and money to OHA through SB2733.
If the Akaka bill passes (which our governor, attorney general and Legislature are working hard to accomplish), then the leadership of the new Akaka tribe will negotiate with the state of Hawaii for enormous amounts of land, money, and jurisdictional authority -- and who will stand up to protect the rights of the general public? Why should the state of Hawaii give away anything at this time, in the face of future negotiations where more will be demanded? Would a business owner give away part of something even before he enters negotiations where his opponent is demanding all of it?
The time is now to begin protecting all Hawaii's people against wealthy, powerful, greedy race-based institutions seeking to grab as much as they can at the expense of everyone else. Hawaii is experiencing the death of 1,000 cuts. Waimea Valley and Waokele O Puna were two of those cuts. SB2733 would take another cut out of the state of Hawaii, continuing the erosion of our tax base. To stop death by 1,000 cuts there must come a time when the knife is brushed aside before it can cut again.
CEDED LANDS AND REVENUES
It is historically, legally, and morally wrong to allocate government land, or revenues from land, for exclusive use by a racial group. Neither Kingdom law, nor the Organic Act for annexation, nor the Statehood Admissions Act, contemplated or required the creation of OHA.
The Constitutional amendment that created OHA in 1978 was passed by the smallest number of yes votes among all the amendments coming out of the Constitutional Convention; and the amendment creating OHA would have been defeated except that blank votes were counted as yes votes at that time, contrary to the way we count blank votes today. The decision to set aside 20 percent of ceded land revenue for OHA in 1978 was an arbitrary and capricious enactment of an ordinary law. It is not part of our Constitution -- the Legislature can and should repeal the 20 percent law at any time.
The public lands of Hawaii, including the ceded lands, belong to all the people of Hawaii without racial distinction. During the Kingdom, following the Mahele, the government lands were held by the government on behalf of all the people, just as now. The Crown lands also became government property by act of the Kingdom Legislature, gladly signed by the King, to issue government bonds to pay a mortgage lien on the Crown Lands the King had incurred to pay the King's personal (gambling) debts.
Thereafter the government owned the Crown Lands, while income from the Crown Lands was set aside to maintain the office of head of government in his official capacity but not as his private property. Thus, when the monarchy ended, the Crown lands and government lands were indistinguishable, all held by government as public lands to benefit all the people without regard to race -- both then and now.
The Statehood Act of 1959 does not require setting aside any ceded land income specifically for any racial group. It identified 5 purposes for the use of ceded land revenues, and explicitly said that part or all of the revenue could be used for any one or more of those 5 purposes.
When 100 percent of ceded land revenues was sent to the public schools from 1959 to 1979, the result was that 26 percent of ceded land revenues were thereby used for the betterment of Native Hawaiians, without need for racial separatist designation, simply because 26 percent of the children were of that racial group. Wasn't that a wonderful idea? Why not do that again? It must also be noted that the section 5(f) language identifying "betterment of native Hawaiians" as one purpose for spending ceded land revenues explicitly defined "native Hawaiians" as that term was used in the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act of 1920, which required 50 percent native blood quantum.
Therefore neither OHA, nor the anticipated Akaka tribe, is a proper receptacle for ceded land revenue, since OHA beneficiaries and Akaka tribe members are defined as needing only to have a single drop of the magic blood.
On Jan. 20 in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Jon Van Dyke wrote: "The revenue generated from these lands to be used for five named purposes ... ."
However, there was no requirement to spend one dime on any particular one of those purposes. Van Dyke laments "During the next two decades, however, the state failed to allocate any of the revenue specifically for this purpose [betterment of native Hawaiians], devoting almost all of it to public education. To address this failure ..."
As I explained above, Native Hawaiians received 26 percent of the ceded land revenues without any need for racist set-asides.
Furthermore, it was not a failure to send the money to the public schools, who now get zero money from the ceded lands because 20 percent of gross revenue sent to OHA exceeds 100 percent of net income after allowing for capital improvements and operating expenses for which we all pay.
$450 MILLION IS ENOUGH FOR OHA
OHA already has about $450 million. Most of that money has been sucked out of Hawaii's economy and sent to New York for stock market investments. OHA occasionally makes small grants to its "beneficiaries" but very little money reaches the makaainana (little people). It's time to stop feeding the beast. Repeal the law sending 20 percent of ceded land revenues to OHA. You can repeal that law tomorrow by a simple majority vote.
In the past OHA has sued the state of Hawaii (can a hand sue its arm?) for past-due "rent" "owed" for the 20 percent share of revenue. Does anybody think that won't happen again? This "settlement" guarantees $15.1 million annual payments toward the 20 percent share going forward, but OHA will again claim more is owed and will file more lawsuits. Stop this craziness. Repeal the 20 percent law.
UPCOMING EXPIRATION OF LEASES ALONG BANYAN DRIVE IN HILO
One specific objection to SB2733 concerns the giveaway of lands along Banyan Drive in Hilo which are currently leased to the companies which built extremely valuable privately owned hotels.
A few years from now those land leases will expire. OHA will then become the owner of the hotels, without paying one penny to the builders and current owners.
OHA could choose to knock down the hotels to honor the fact that the lands are "sacred" to Native Hawaiians. Does anyone doubt there are moolelo (stories) about the gods or the chiefs frolicking on the beach there, or having heiau, fishponds, or taro patches there? Aren't ancient bones buried there?
OHA could choose to continue hotel operations reaping tremendous income from the hotels it will own.
OHA could choose to convert the hotels into condominiums which OHA could then sell leasehold for another cycle of years until it confiscates them yet again.
These scenarios are not at all far-fetched. One need only look at the town of Kailua, Oahu, where Kaneohe Ranch's lease on the land under the Kailuan condominium came to an end on December 31, 2007. The landowner refused to sell the land to the condominium owners, preferring instead to let the leases end. The condo owners now have lost their entire investment and have nowhere to call home.
The state of Hawaii as owner of the Banyan Drive land would treat the hotel owners fairly when their leases expire. But OHA is ruthless and the hotel owners had better prepare for financial disaster if SB 2733 passes.
'''Kenneth R. Conklin, Ph.D. is the author of "Hawaiian Apartheid -- Racial Separatism and Ethnic Nationalism in the Aloha State" available at all Hawaii libraries and at
http://tinyurl.com/2a9fqa
To find out more about SB 2733, log onto SB 2733
http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/session2008/hearingnotices/AHW-WTL-JDL_02-09-08_.htm
To submit testimony, write to COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE AND HAWAIIAN AFFAIRS Sen. Jill N. Tokuda, Chair and Sen. J. Kalani English, Vice Chair; COMMITTEE ON WATER AND LAND, Sen. Clayton Hee, Chair and Sen. Russell S. Kokubun, Vice Chair; COMMITTEE ON JUDICIARY AND LABOR, Senator Brian T. Taniguchi, Chair and Sen. Clayton Hee, Vice Chair CONCERNING: SB 2733 RELATING TO THE PUBLIC TRUST LANDS SETTLEMENT by Saturday, Feb. 9, 2008. Send testimony to all senators at mailto:sens@capitol.hawaii.gov
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http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?f595a9fe-d954-4148-9b83-a85f86528a46
Hawaii Reporter, February 28, 2008
Broken Rainbow: Hawaii's Racial Separatism Threatens America's Fundamental Principles
By Kenneth R. Conklin, Ph.D.
Among the 50 states, Hawaii is the most diverse. All ethnic groups are minorities. Intermarriage is commonplace. All races live, work, play and pray side by side. But despite the Aloha Spirit, institutional racism has become entrenched in Hawaii, causing huge problems. Hawaii is rapidly building a bridge to the Nineteenth Century.
Hawaii has "affirmative action" on steroids. The favorite racial group is the 20% who have at least one drop of Hawaiian native blood. Two state government agencies serve "Native Hawaiians" exclusively.
The state's largest private landowner is Kamehameha Schools, with assets of $8 billion to $15 billion, serving only ethnic Hawaiians. It recently paid $7 million "hush" money to settle a desegregation lawsuit just hours before the U.S. Supreme Court would probably have taken the case.
The State of Hawaii Office of Hawaiian Affairs openly boasts there are more than 160 federally funded programs exclusively for ethnic Hawaiians.
Nearly every politician supports Hawaii's apartheid system because federal megabucks flow throughout the economy. Wealthy racial separatist institutions (government and private) are so powerful that is extremely rare for a politician to dare to defy them.
How did so many unconstitutional programs get established? Hawaii is the only state both of whose Senators served for decades on the Indian Affairs Committee -- although Hawaii has no Indian tribes.
When bills passed through that committee providing housing, healthcare, or education to genuine Indian tribes, Senators Daniel Inouye and Daniel Akaka quietly inserted "and Native Hawaiians."
Civil rights lawsuits have recently attacked "Hawaiians"-only programs. That's why a bill was introduced in Congress eight years ago to arbitrarily declare ethnic Hawaiians an Indian tribe, giving immunity against 14th Amendment challenges.
The "Akaka bill" passed the U.S. House in 2007 with every Democrat voting yes. Its Senate clone, S.310, awaits floor action whenever Majority Leader Harry Reid calls it up. Two years ago every Democrat Senator supported it.
Ethnic Hawaiians are nothing like an Indian tribe. That's why S.310 relies on a dangerous new theory of the Constitution that Congress has power to single out any group of so-called "indigenous" people and create a tribal government for them out of thin air.
If that theory were enacted, get ready for thousands more new tribes composed of the vast majority of Indians not currently eligible to join one. Also get ready for a "tribe" consisting of all Americans of Mexican ancestry, since they have a drop of Aztec or Mayan "indigenous" blood. Their activists already demand a "Nation of Aztlan" comprising the states that formerly were part of Mexico.
Once the Akaka tribe is created, S.310 empowers its leaders to negotiate with state and federal governments for money, land, and jurisdictional authority. Agreements between leaders need approval only from the tribal council and state legislature, requiring neither a vote of tribal members nor a state ballot question. Sweetheart deals will give away massive state resources without voter approval.
No other state has 20 percent of its people being "Native American," let alone 20 percent eligible to join a single tribe laying claim to half the state's land.
To envision the proportional impact of such apartheid on Hawaii, imagine 60 million African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans combined being lumped together, electing a tribal council, and negotiating against the U.S. government and all states for money and ethnic homelands with laws different from nearby communities.
The members of this huge "tribe" also remain citizens of the U.S. and of their states, sitting on both sides of negotiations and making campaign contributions not limited by federal or state law.
What are the worst racial separatist problems already facing Hawaii?
OHA has begun "Plan B" to implement the Akaka bill and establish its own Hawaiian government even if the federal legislation never passes.
The Hawaii State Legislature seems eager to pass some truly outrageous OHA bills in the name of "protecting Hawaiian culture" or "paying our overdue debts." Some of these Include:
* Giving OHA ownership of several valuable parcels of land, including Hilo's waterfront where numerous large hotels have only a few years left on their land leases.
* Giving OHA management and eventual ownership of a huge portion of a suburban residential valley for a "cultural preserve." (OHA was previously given the entire valley containing Waimea Falls park, plus 40 square miles of forrest on Hawaii Island).
* Declaring that all naturally occurring plants and animals on public and private land now belong to the state; no small samples can be taken for biological research without government permits; the permitting authority must have a guaranteed majority of ethnic Hawaiians; and a large portion of revenues generated from commercial applications of biological research must be given to OHA as payment for "indigenous intellectual property rights."
* The state Supreme Court ruled January 31, 2008, that the state cannot sell any "ceded lands" (about 95% of government lands) until such time as "claims" by ethnic Hawaiians can be resolved, based on a misguided 1993 U.S. apology to the Hawaiians pushed by U.S. Senator Inouye under false pretenses.
The only way to stop this dangerous trend is if the U.S. Senate defeats the Akaka Bill; if the state holds a Constitutional Convention before 2010 and the Concon delegates vote to curb OHA's power, implement government reforms including legalizing referendum and initiative as well as recall so elected officials who betray the public trust can be removed from office.
-- Dr. Conklin is a retired professor of philosophy. He recently published "Hawaiian Apartheid: Racial Separatism and ethnic Nationalism in the Aloha State" (302 pages) available through Amazon.com, portions available free at
http://tinyurl.com/2a9fqa
REFERENCES
"Hawaiian Apartheid: Racial Separatism and Ethnic Nationalism in the Aloha State" 302 pages, paperback. Chapter 1, detailed table of contents, and link to publisher's online bookstore:
http://tinyurl.com/2a9fqa
WHY ALL AMERICA SHOULD OPPOSE THE HAWAIIAN GOVERNMENT REORGANIZATION BILL, ALSO KNOWN AS THE AKAKA BILL, S.310 and H.R.
505 http://tinyurl.com/yhhz7o
Office of Hawaiian Affairs -- Watching the Moves It Makes to Expand the Evil Empire
http://tinyurl.com/wv59r
OHA/Lingle 2008 legislation for $200 Million settlement of so-called back rent for ceded lands
http://tinyurl.com/yudtty
Hawaii Supreme Court ruled on January 31, 2008 that the State of Hawaii cannot sell any ceded lands until it resolves the claims of ethnic Hawaiians based on the apology resolution of 1993.
http://tinyurl.com/25orxd
Ceded Lands Belong to All the People of Hawai'i; There Should Be No Racial Allocation of Ceded Lands or Their Revenues
http://tinyurl.com/356xy
Text of bill in 2008 Legislature converting Haiku Valley (Oahu) into a cultural preserve to be managed by a commission with a guaranteed majority of ethnic Hawaiians, under control of OHA, and automatic transfer of ownership to a future "Native Hawaiian" nation recognized through the Akaka bill.
http://tinyurl.com/yo9r64
Compiled testimony on the bill
http://tinyurl.com/23d6js
and
http://tinyurl.com/ywl6bw
Hawaii Bioprospecting -- Hearings by the Temporary Advisory Committee on Bioprospecting (late 2007), and testimony by Ken Conklin
http://tinyurl.com/yud9gw
Indigenous Intellectual Property Rights -- The General Theory, and Why It Does Not Apply in Hawaii
http://tinyurl.com/2b77k
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March 22, 2008
PRICE OF APOLOGY: CLINTON, OBAMA, AND THE HAWAIIAN QUID PRO QUO
by Andrew Walden
Pajamas Media, March 22, 2008
http://pajamasmedia.com/2008/03/price_of_apology_clinton_obama.php
PRICE OF APOLOGY: CLINTON, OBAMA, AND THE HAWAIIAN QUID PRO QUO
Dancing for dollars
The bill to create a Hawaiian Indian reservation is a financial boondoggle, writes Andrew Walden. But state bigwigs hope contributions will persuade Obama or Clinton to sign it if elected.
by Andrew Walden
With Tony Rezko on trial, the national media is beginning to skim the surface of the dirty deals paving the rapid ascent of Democratic presidential frontrunner Barack Obama. But Chicago, Syria, and Iraq are not the only places to look. There is also a $9-billion story in Hawaii and in spite of Obama’s recent 3-1 victory in the Hawaii Democratic caucuses, both Obama and Clinton are still clawing for the prize.
Obama’s Hawaii supporters sought to leverage the limited contribution pool of their small state by latching on early. Calling Obama “Hawaii’s third senator”, they began raising early money for a presidential bid as soon as Obama won his Illinois Senate seat in 2004. But of course they want something in return. At the top of their agenda in discussions with Obama in December 2004 was the multi-billion-dollar tropical land and money grab which would be made possible by passage of the so-called Akaka Bill.
Congress is now considering another “Apology Resolution” — for American Indians. The degree to which the Hawaiian Apology Resolution and the fight for the Akaka Bill have distorted the presidential race should be a sharp warning against passage. The Indian Apology Resolution is amended to S 1200 by Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS). The House version is contained in House Joint Resolution 68 being pushed by Rep. Dan Boren (D-OK).
The Akaka Bill (Senate Bill 310 and House Bill 505) would create a Hawaiian Indian reservation. Its backers claim they are righting historical wrongs done to Hawaiians. Its opponents claim the Akaka Bill is racially discriminatory. Both groups miss the point. A more accurate assessment comes from the Akaka Bill’s chief proponent in the House of Representatives, Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Honolulu). Abercrombie explained to the House Committee on Natural Resources on May 2, 2007, “The bottom line here is that this is a bill about the control of assets. This is about land, this is about money, and this is about who has the administrative authority and responsibility over it.”
The bill in different forms has passed the House several times since 2000 — most recently on October 24, 2007. It is now again before the Senate after coming up four votes short in 2006.
Contrary to popular opinion, Indian reservations have a history in Hawaii. An Oct. 12, 1999, article in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin describes the 1995 efforts by corrupt trustees controlling America’s largest charitable trust — Kamehameha Schools/Bishop Estate (KSBE) — to evade state and federal oversight. And not without reason: trustees’ salaries were over $1 million per year. KSBE money, along with trustees’ personal funds, had been invested in a pornographic website. Spending on the Kamehameha School was being cut. One trustee was running rampant in the school, micromanaging teachers and administrators. The trustees’ self-dealing and their investments with Goldman Sachs — at the time headed by current New Jersey Democratic Governor John Corzine — had brought losses of $264 million in 1994 alone. Investigators were starting to ask questions. Hawaiians were beginning to protest. The trustees’ plan? Get the IRS and the state attorney general off their backs by moving KSBE’s legal domicile to an Indian reservation.
The Star-Bulletin on October 12, 1999, explains:
Verner Liipfert, whose local office was at the time headed by former Gov. John Waihee, identified the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation as the top relocation prospect.[…]
Gregg Bourland, chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux tribal council … said there is good reason for an entity like the Bishop Estate to make inquiries about changing its domicile to the South Dakota reservation.
[…]
Since the 1800s, the Cheyenne River Sioux have had a government-to-government relationship with the United States, which allows them to operate their own police force, court system, and legislative functions.
It would be politically impossible to remove KSBE — the estate of Hawaiian Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop — from Hawaii. Nothing ever came of the effort and it remains a little-noted footnote in recent Hawaii history. By 1999 state and IRS investigations and protests by native Hawaiians forced the removal of all five trustees. The affair became known as “Broken Trust” and is the topic of a Hawaii best-selling book of the same name.
Within a few months of the trustees’ ouster, the first version of the Akaka Bill was introduced into the U.S. House and Senate. Sen. Akaka, who introduced his namesake bill in the U.S. Senate, had for years been a low-key defender of the corrupt trustees. Rep. Abercrombie, who introduced the House version of the Akaka Bill, had been a close associate of disgraced KSBE trustee Dickie Wong. If the trustees could not move KSBE to an Indian reservation, they were going to build an Indian reservation around themselves.
When Obama was a longshot, his valuable early-money Hawaii support came from a group of Democrat politicos including Waihee cronies, officers of Hawaiian Electric — a company deeply interconnected with KSBE — Abercrombie, failed Democrat congressional candidate Brian Schatz, and all coordinated by Andy Winer, former chief of Senator Daniel Akaka’s 2006 campaign.
Their effort closely parallels the high-risk/high-reward gamble Waihee took as an early-money backer of Bill Clinton’s successful 1992 bid for the White House. But the “old boys” have all their bases covered. Although Waihee cronies are prominent among Obama backers, Waihee himself is still loyal to Clinton, as is Hawaii’s senior senator Daniel Inouye (D). Hawaii’s other two representatives, Senator Akaka and Rep. Mazie Hirono (D-rural Hawaii), are remaining neutral until the dust clears.
As told in the 1997 PBS Frontline special “The Fixers,” the story of Clinton’s Hawaii early-money support begins in the late 1980s and early 1990s with poor Hawaiian farmers’ leasehold homes being bulldozed and cattle being slaughtered as Honolulu police stand by with fraudulent eviction notices. The evictions made way for the Maunawili Valley Oahu golf course funded by Japanese investors overflowing with yen at the top of Japan’s bubble economy.
The Maunawili Valley deal was the beginning of a long run for Waihee “fixers” Gene and Nora Lum. They bought support for the project in the Hawaii state legislature with $50,000 in contributions. Governor Waihee’s 1985 signature on the Lums’ bill declaring golf courses to be a legitimate use of agricultural land raised the value of the Maunawili property by about $43 million overnight.
Within a few years the Lums were recruited by Ron Brown — later named Clinton’s commerce secretary — to spearhead efforts to raise Clinton donations from Asian sources. Their gamble on Clinton’s candidacy even as the Maunawili evictions were ongoing in 1990 and 1991 raised thousands from Waihee associates.
PBS’ “The Fixers” ends with President Clinton in 1996, ten days after winning his second presidential term, stopping in Honolulu on his way to Asia and insisting on playing a full 18 holes of golf with Waihee in the pouring rain on the Maunawili Valley course where it all started.
The Lums ended up in prison in 1997, but backing Clinton paid off handsomely for Waihee and his cronies. Clinton in 1993 signed the so-called “Apology Resolution,” which fixes a single government-dictated interpretation of history and formally admits a U.S. role in the 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom. It also apologizes for the overthrow, thus implicitly placing Hawaii statehood in question and making the U.S. liable to native Hawaiians — or more accurately, to those who claim to represent them.
The Apology Resolution, in 1993 dishonestly pitched to Congress by Senator Daniel Inouye as “a simple resolution of apology,” has over the years provided the justification for politically motivated intimidation by gangs of thugs and for connected Hawaii political operators to capture ownership of tens of thousands of acres and rake in millions operating lucrative state and federally funded programs, and even private companies pretending to benefit native Hawaiians by claiming to address what Congress and President Clinton had admitted were past wrongs.
One deal alone, Sandwich Isles Communications, got $500 million in federal funds to provide nearly useless fiber optic connections to tens of thousands of Hawaiian Homelands residential lots — most of which are undeveloped. Costs are estimated at $278,000 per utilized connection.
The Hawaii state legislature is now considering handing over even more valuable shoreline acreage to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) this session. Meanwhile, rising real estate costs are driving native Hawaiian families to live in tents on the beach. Last year ten thousand locals left Hawaii for opportunity on the mainland. About half of native Hawaiians are gone from the state. One might ask just what does it take to drive people out of Hawaii? At a recent OHA public hearing in Hilo, protesters gave a partial answer by shouting and carrying signs demanding: “OHA stop stealing from Hawaiians.”
But Sandwich Isles is small potatoes compared with the operations potentially enabled under a highly sovereign Hawaiian tribal government with government-to-government relations modeled on those of the Cheyenne River Sioux Indian Reservation. Not only could such a government shield trustees of KSBE from state and federal oversight, but it could also end up owning anywhere from 10% to 40% of Hawaii’s highly valuable real estate under the formulas being discussed.
The Apology Resolution is the cornerstone of the case for the Akaka Bill, despite Sen. Akaka’s floor statement during the 1993 debate: “Are Native Hawaiians Native Americans? This resolution has nothing to do with that.” In fact the record of the very short 1993 Senate debate contains a point-by-point litany of denials from Akaka and Inouye of almost everything which has since come to pass.
Just as the Apology Resolution was the return favor given to Hawaii Democrats by Clinton for their early-money support, Hawaii early-money supporters of Obama are hoping that a President Obama would be quick to repay the support they gave him when he was a long shot by signing the Akaka Bill. Obama has pledged to sign the Akaka Bill in order to “establish a federally recognized government-to-government relationship with the United States.”
What the trustees need is an indebted president — and Obama is their man. Meanwhile, what Hawaii needs is a brigade of lean and hungry federal prosecutors, a multi-pronged civil rights investigation by the Department of Justice, and prison space to house much of the state’s political and economic elite for the next 10-20 years.
Let us hope that Congress has learned its lesson.
Andrew Walden is Editor of the Hawai`i Free Press in Hilo, HI and may be reached at andrewwalden@email.com.
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Republic of Hawaii Was Recognized Worldwide as the Legitimate Government of These Islands
Photos of letters of recognition personally signed by 19 foreign rulers in 1894 discredit the apology resolution, undermine the Akaka bill, and confirm that the ceded lands belong to all Hawaii's people without racial distinction.
By Dr. Ken Conklin
** The most complete version of this essay was published in
Hawaii Reporter, April 16, 2008 at
http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?4692e83b-6924-469b-bd0a-13512024596f
** Other versions were published in
The Maui News, April 15, 2008 at
http://www.mauinews.com/page/category.detail/nav/18/Letters_to_the_Editor.html
and
The Garden Island News (Kaua'i), April 16, 2008 at
http://www.kauaiworld.com/articles/2008/04/16/opinion/edit02.txt
Do historical facts matter in current debates about the apology resolution, Akaka bill, and ceded lands?
At least nineteen nations sent formal letters to President Sanford B. Dole granting full-fledged (de jure) diplomatic recognition to the Republic as the legitimate government of Hawaii. These were not the tentative de facto recognitions given by local consuls in Honolulu in January 1893 to the temporary Provisional Government.
These letters in late 1894 were sent from national capitols in Europe, Asia, North America, and South America, welcoming the permanent government of the Republic of Hawaii into the family of nations.
The letters were personally signed by Queen Victoria, President Grover Cleveland, Tsar Alexander III, two princes on behalf of Emperor Kuangsu (China), President Casimir Perier (France), King Don Alfonso XIII and Queen Dona Maria Christina (Spain), President Porfirio Diaz (Mexico), and 12 others.
Photographs of the letters, including some English translations, can be seen at
https://www.angelfire.com/big11a/RepublicLettersRecog.html
Historical significance and implications for statehood, Akaka bill, and ceded lands; are provided at http://tinyurl.com/2pxqgz along with a detailed example of the Hawaiian sovereignty lie that such letters do not exist.
The Kingdom of Hawaii also recognized the Republic in the same way as those other nineteen nations. Ex-queen Liliuokalani personally signed a five-page letter of abdication, and a one-page oath of loyalty to the Republic of Hawaii, on January 24, 1895; in consultation with and witnessed by her personal attorney and former cabinet members she had appointed. Photographs on the same webpage. Among other things, Liliuokalani says:
"I hereby do fully and unequivocally admit and declare that the Government of the Republic of Hawaii is the only lawful Government of the Hawaiian Islands ... I hereby declare to [everyone] that I consider them as bound in duty and honor henceforth to support and sustain the Government of the Republic of Hawaii."
Consensus among nations determined what was "international law" in 1893-1898. No nation ever protested the Hawaiian revolution of 1893 nor the annexation of 1898. No nation ever refused to do business with the Provisional Government, Republic of Hawaii, or United States as having sovereignty in Hawaii.
Every local consul in Honolulu in January 1893 gave immediate de facto recognition to the Provisional Government. At least 19 nations sent formal letters of de jure recognition from their head of state to Republic of Hawaii President Sanford B. Dole.
So what?
Thanks to recognition the Republic had standing under international law to offer treaties, including a treaty of annexation to the United States. The Republic had the right to make a deal ceding the public lands of Hawaii in exchange for payment of Hawaii's national debt. Never again can Hawaiian secessionists say that the Republic of Hawaii was illegal, had only de facto recognition, or was merely a U.S. puppet regime.
By never protesting the overthrow and by recognizing the successor Republic, those nations condoned the revolution of 1893 as legal, thus disdrediting the 1993 apology resolution which referred to "the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy."
The Akaka bill is undermined because it relies on the apology resolution and repeatedly cites it. Discrediting the apology resolution also eliminates the primary reason given by the Hawaii Supreme Court for prohibiting the State of Hawaii from selling any ceded lands without first reaching a "settlement" with a racial group.
The time has come for Hawaii politicians to stop playing with the fires of racial separatism and ethnic nationalism. Let's boldly make policy decisions based on facts: the revolution that overthrew the monarchy was a good thing condoned as legitimate by the international community; Hawaii is rightfully a state of the United States; the ceded lands belong to all Hawaii's people without racial distinction; the unity and equality of Hawaii's people are worth defending and nurturing.
Dr. Ken Conklin is a retired professor of philosophy. He recently published "Hawaiian Apartheid: Racial Separatism and ethnic Nationalism in the Aloha State" (302 pages) available through Amazon.com, portions available free at http://tinyurl.com/2a9fqa . Dr. Conklin offers this essay "in grateful tribute to the Honorable Sanford B. Dole, President of the Republic of Hawaii, born at Punahou on April 23, 1844, to whom the letters of diplomatic recognition were addressed.
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"The Nation" magazine dated April 28, 2008 devoted major space to a series of articles about the history of Hawaii and the victimization of ethnic Hawaiians. The following "open letter" opposing the Akaka bill was written by Hawaii's most famous secessionists.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080428/open_letter
Hawaii Needs You
An open letter to the US left from the Hawaiian sovereignty movement.
The confluence of two forces--a massive military expansion in Hawai'i and Congressional legislation that will stymie the Kanaka Maoli [Native Hawaiian] sovereignty movement--will expand and consolidate the use of Hawai'i for US empire. We are calling on the US left to join our movement opposing these threats and to add our quest for independence as a plank of the broad US left strategy for a nonimperialist America. If you support peace and justice for the United States and the world, please support demilitarization and independence for Hawai'i.
Since 1893, the United States has malformed Hawai'i into the command and control center for US imperialism in Oceania and Asia. From the hills of the Ewa district of O'ahu, the US Pacific Command--the largest of the unified military commands--directs troops and hardware throughout literally half the planet. Since the late nineteenth century, the US military has multiplied in our islands, taking 150,000 acres for its use, including one-quarter of the metropolitan island of O'ahu. Moreover, the National Security Administration is building a new surveillance facility nearby, not far from where urban assault brigades, called Strykers, will train for deployment throughout the world. The US Navy is also increasing training over the entire archipelago, including populated areas and the fragile northwestern whale sanctuary. This militarized occupation has a long history. Ke Awalau o Pu'uloa--known now as Pearl Harbor--became one of the very first overseas bases, along with Guantánamo, around the time of the Spanish-American War. We still hold much in common with prerevolution Cuba--a sugar plantation economy and status as the playground for the rich of North America.
We have suffered from the effects of being the pawn for US wars on the world. Our family members languish from strange diseases brought by military toxins in our water and soil. Our economy is a foreign-run modern plantation serving multinational shareholders and decorated generals. We salute a foreign flag, and the education system instructs us to yearn for a distant continent called the Mainland. Tourists imbibe in sunny Waīkikī, while the beaches in the native-inhabited regions are littered with chemical munitions.
But amid our suffering, we have survived. Our tenacity and resilience have historical roots: in 1897, 95 percent of the Kanaka Maoli population signed petitions that helped to defeat a treaty to forcibly annex Hawai'i to the United States.
The last forty years have seen remarkable change for our people, through the advancement of a grassroots struggle against the political occupation and mental colonization of our homeland. We have been successful in several campaigns: in stopping the bombing of Kaho'olawe Island and Makua Valley, in revitalizing the Hawaiian language and culture in our schools and families, in returning to our indigenous spiritual practices and in making Hawaiian sovereignty a dinner-table topic and an actual possibility. These hard-fought wins are successes in the movement for self-determination and also a threat to America's use of Hawai'i as the purveyor of its empire.
It is against this backdrop that the Akaka bill (the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act) is being discussed in the halls of Congress. Named for US Senator Daniel Akaka, the bill is being promoted by Hawai'i's corporate and political elite as a vehicle for racial justice. Yet the bill would turn back one of the most important victories of the last four decades--the rise of Hawaiian self-determination, including independence, as a political possibility--replacing it with the extinguishment of our historic claims to land and sovereignty.
Our conundrum puts us squarely in opposition to the middle ground of American politics, which has arrived at a consensus that Hawai'i will remain a military colony of the United States. Democratic Senator Daniel Inouye is a major purveyor of pork barrel spending for military appropriations and defense contractors. All three presidential contenders have signaled their support for the Akaka bill. And while the far right wing of the Republican Party opposes the Akaka bill, both major parties have no quarrel over the continuance of the empire's use of our homeland.
In light of this American consensus on Hawai'i, we turn to our nearest political allies, US progressive movements, and seek your solidarity for our independence because it is congruent and essential to your hope for a better world. Please join us in opposing the Akaka bill and the militarization of Hawai'i, and please support Hawai'i's independence as part of your vision for a more humane United States and a more just world.
Ikaika Hussey, convenor, Movement for Aloha No ka Aina (MANA)
Terrilee Keko'olani, Ohana Koa/Nuclear-Free and Independent Pacific
Noelani Goodyear-Kaopua, assistant professor of political
science, University of Hawaii, Manoa
Jon Osorio, director, Center for Hawaiian Studies, University of Hawaii, Manoa
Kekuni Blaisdell, convenor, Ka Pakaukau
Andre Perez, Hui Pu
Kelii "Skippy" Ioane, Hui Pu
Kai'opua Fyfe, director, The Koani Foundation
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American Renaissance, May 2008, Vol. 19, No. 5
The magazine's webpage is
http://www.amren.com
At this time the following article is not available on the magazine's webpage archive, but apparently will be made available a few months later. The white supremacist orientation of this essay is regrettable; but there is much valuable content despite that shortcoming.
C O V E R S T O R Y
Diversity in Hawaii
Our tropical paradise is a racial tinderbox.
by Duncan Hengest
Barack Obama is today the most prominent former resident of the state of Hawaii. His ability to appeal to voters of all races—especially to whites who want to be able to congratulate themselves on their willingness to vote for a black—has highlighted the popular conception of Hawaii as a tropical multi-racial paradise. And, indeed, on the surface, things seem calm on the green, balmy archipelago, which received 7.5 million visitors in 2006. But all is not well. Hawaii is a tinderbox, with a population different from the rest of the country. It is the only state that has never had a white majority, and it has a powerful Asian political class that never loses sight of its ethnic interests. At the same time, Native Hawaiians are more restless than ever, and many support an increasingly truculent sovereignty movement.
Rejected Many Times
In August 1959, President Eisenhower admitted Hawaii as the 50th state. From the White House, he proclaimed, “We know that she is ready to do her part to make this Union a stronger Nation.” Americans had rejected Hawaiian statehood many times before, but this time Ike was right on the political money. His contemporaries had a soft spot for the sunny Pacific islands, and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, like the fall of the Alamo, had been immortalized in the nation’s memory.
It's not all for show.
It had taken a long fight to get Hawaii into the Union. The territory first applied for statehood in 1903, but was rejected, because Congress did not want a majority non-white state. Over the years, Congress repeatedly rejected its applications for the same reason. Lyndon Johnson, who became Senate majority leader in 1954, blocked admission because he was afraid Hawaiian congressmen would vote to end segregation. He agreed to admission in 1959 only because Alaska had already come in earlier that year with a solid white majority.
Hawaii, therefore, had the second-longest wait of any state between application and admission: 56 years. Only New Mexico had a longer wait—62 years—and did not get in until the 1910 census showed it had a white majority.
What was an obstacle to statehood is now, of course, an official source of pride. As the City of Honolulu’s website claims, “One of the greatest assets of the City and County of Honolulu is the ethnic, cultural, and social diversity of its population. The City and County of Honolulu takes great pride in this diversity . …”
According to the census, in 2006, whites were 25 percent of the population, Hawaiian Natives and Pacific Islanders were 22 percent, while the largest group was Asians at 42 percent (blacks are 3 percent and Hispanics are 8 percent). It was, of course, whites who brought the Asians.
Hawaii is the only state that has never had a white majority, and it has a powerful Asian political class that never loses sight of its ethnic interests.
When Calvinist missionaries first arrived in Hawaii it was a Polynesian kingdom. After converting most of the population, the missionaries stayed on as the governing elite and grew rich through real estate, shipping, and agriculture. Sugar planters imported Asians to work the cane fields, dramatically changing the islands’ population. Congress passed a sugar tariff that left Hawaii out of the fold, and in 1893 the planters organized a coup, and overthrew the monarchy. Hawaii was a nominally independent republic for five years until the United States annexed it as a territory in 1898.
Even by 1920, the great racialist writer Lothrop Stoddard could see that Asians were in the ascendency. As he wrote in The Rising Tide of Color: “These Asiatics arrived as agricultural laborers to work on the plantations. But they did not stay there. Saving their wages, they pushed vigorously into all the middle walks of life. The Hawaiian fisherman and the American artisan or shopkeeper were alike ousted by ruthless undercutting.” He went on to warn that “the Americans are being literally encysted as a small and dwindling aristocracy.”
The aristocracy has continued to dwindle. Since statehood, all but one of Hawaii’s senators have been Asian. Today, Governor Linda Lingle and long-time congressman Neil Abercrombie are two rare white faces in an otherwise Asian—largely Japanese—political class. Asians are considered the model minority, but they have caused problems in the past and could do so in the future.
After the attack on Pearl Harbor, a Japanese Zero pilot crash-landed on the island of Niihau, where several resident Japanese rallied to his defense and killed a Native Hawaiian before they were overpowered. Although the Japanese on Hawaii were not relocated, the islands were under martial law throughout the war for fear of Japanese disloyalty and spying.
Pearl Harbor: Some Hawaiians were rooting for the Japanese.
Ever since the state joined the Union, Hawaii’s Asian lawmakers have followed the liberal line on race. The 1964 Civil Rights Act—a disaster for whites—was held up by filibustering Southern senators until a bi-partisan coalition led by Sen. Everett Dirksen of Illinois and Hawaii’s two Asian senators, Hiram Fong and Daniel Inouye, gathered the 60 votes necessary for cloture. The result was exactly what Lyndon Johnson had feared in 1954.
Daniel Inouye was decorated for combat in Italy during the Second World War, but his Japanese ethnic interests remain strong. He supported his fellow Japanese-American, Congressman Norman Mineta of California, in the push to compensate the Japanese relocated during the war. This successful raid on the Treasury has been the precedent for everyone else who is claiming damages for the white man’s alleged past crimes. And Sen. Inouye is still not satisfied. His proposed S381 would draw up plans to compensate Japanese from Latin America who were either interned during the war or deported to Axis countries. Japanese-Peruvians, for example, who were in the US illegally and were pitched out could conceivably have a claim on us. Sen. Inouye has the strong support of his fellow senator from Hawaii, Daniel Akaka, who is of Chinese origin.
Daniel Inouye.
The two Hawaii senators also sponsored “the Apology Resolution,” passed by Congress on the 100th anniversary of the 1893 coup, in which the federal government offered “an apology to Native Hawaiians on behalf of the United States for the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii.” Based on very suspect historical grounds, the bill passed the Senate after just one hour of debate with only five senators present. Three of the five spoke against the bill, with only Senators Akaka and Inouye in favor. There was no debate at all on the floor of the House.
Even at the time, some people saw that the apology would unleash Native Hawaiian nationalism. When President Clinton signed it—apologies were his specialty—Sen. Slade Gorton of Washington likened it to Serbian nationalist propaganda before Yugoslavia’s civil war. He feared that the pattern of resentments and appeasement that led to violence in Yugoslavia was being repeated, and warned that “this resolution is a signpost pointing toward that dark and bitter road.”
Road to Insurgency?
He was prescient. The independence movement has taken some ugly turns, as it sinks roots into an increasingly sharp native sense of alienation from the white man’s civilization. Although their own ancestors brought in Yankee missionaries, today’s Hawaiians are returning to traditional Polynesian gods. This has strange consequences. Hawaii should be the state with the cheapest energy because volcanic activity on the larger islands would be a good source for geothermal power. The volcanoes remain underdeveloped because of the resistance of Native Hawaiians who fear power stations will bother the goddess Pele. In the summer of 2007, Pele worshipers celebrated an anti-geothermal victory after stopping development in Puna, on the big island of Hawaii. Hawaii may be the only place on earth where geothermal energy is sacrificed to religion.
Daniel Akaka.
There are other cultural clashes. Most whites think sharks are a dangerous nuisance, but early Hawaiians worshiped, cared for, and protected sharks as ’aumakua, or ancestral gods, while others depended on them as a source of food and tools. There are other sharp disagreements, since ancient Hawaiian beliefs can be dredged up to oppose just about anything whites take for granted: telescopes, taro plant research, ferry services, etc.
All of these conflicts feed the independence movement, which has added a kind of guerrilla theater to its mix of pressure tactics. At the 2006 Statehood Day ceremony, for example, protesters heckled speakers at the Iolani Palace in Honolulu, calling for secession and restoration of the monarchy. The police kept their distance, and tensions mounted. A few politicians continued with the ceremony, but the band walked off early.
One of the protesters was clearly high. When a female reporter asked him about his dilated pupils, he explained, “I can smoke ice if I want to. I belong to the Kingdom of Hawaii.” He then dropped his pants and exposed himself to the reporter and several children.
Trouble in More Paradises
Anyone who thinks tropical islands are immune to racial strife should consider Fiji. The island suffers from a simmering race war that has pitted the native Fijians against Indians the British imported in the 19th century to work in the fields. There are striking parallels between Hawaii and Fiji. Both have flags that sport the Union Jack. Both are tourist havens. Both have extensive agricultural industries specializing in tropical produce. Both native cultures came to Christianity in the 19th century, though there are some holdouts from the old faiths. Both islands fell to Anglo-Saxon governments. Both sets of foreign rulers planted the seeds for grief by importing a class of thrifty foreigners to work the plantations.
Britain stopped playing umpire between Fijians and Indians in 1970, when it granted the country independence, and serious political trouble soon followed. Indians, who are a 38 percent minority, control much of the economy, but Fijians control the army. Fiji has had four coups in the last 20 years, most recently in December 2006. All were due to ethnic tension. Many of the best-educated Indians think they have no future in Fiji and have emigrated.
Before multiculturalists try to argue that the real root of the problem is Anglo-Saxon “racism,” they should look to New Caledonia, which is an overseas French territory. Natives, known as Kanaks, are estimated to be 45 percent of the population, whites at 35 percent, with the rest a mix of Asians and Pacific Islanders. There has long been tension between whites and Kanaks—sometimes violent—and the demographic balance is so politically charged that no ethnic population data have been released since 1996. Violence came to a head in 1988, and an agreement 10 years later provided for a referendum on independence to be held in 2014.
There is racial tension wherever there are races; palm trees, beaches, and sunshine are no antidote.
Some would say Hawaii is already on the road to insurgency. The Hawaiian Sovereignty Movement has its own flag, its own legal foundation, its own religious interpretations of the “Promised Land,” as well as Internet-based propaganda (see Hawaii-nation.org). In 2006, the University of Hawaii at Hilo surveyed Hawaiian natives and reached disquieting conclusions: “While fewer than 6 percent thought violence was justifiable in pursuit of sovereignty, over 53 percent expressed the belief that it was inevitable. Of interest is the finding that less than one fourth of the sample reported that they think that the desire to gain sovereignty will not result in violence in the future.”
Congressional apologies only encourage extremism, and the federal government continues unwittingly to aid insurgency. The State of Hawaii Office of Hawaiian Affairs, one of two state agencies that serve only Native Hawaiians, openly boasts there are more than 160 federally funded programs exclusively for natives. How were those programs established? For decades, Daniel Inouye and Daniel Akaka served on the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. These were curious appointments, since there are no Indian tribes on Hawaii. Whenever bills came before the committee for special favors for Indians—housing, welfare, education, medicine—the two senators from Hawaii quietly added “and Native Hawaiians” to the bill.
Multi-culturalism gives Native Hawaiians the moral authority to agitate for independence, and permits no reply from whites or the federal or state governments. Lawmakers wrapped up in the cult of white guilt are about to recognize a separate Native Hawaiian government that would be able to organize and direct subversive action. To this end, Sen. Akaka is hard at work on the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act of 2007, the House version of which has already passed.
Supporters claim that a Native Hawaiian government would be no different from the tribal councils that run casinos on New England reservations. They are far off the mark. New England’s Indian tribes were smashed centuries ago, while Hawaiians are building towards a full-fledged separatist movement.
Many whites fail to realize it, but many Native Hawaiians hate them. On Oahu, the town of Waimanalo is becoming a no-go area. As the Los Angeles Times noted in 2005, “ ‘Haole [white man], go home!’ and variations of whites-aren’t-welcome are occasionally shouted from front porches as a reminder that this isn’t Waikiki. It’s a different world. Locals rule here.”
Locals rule in more and more areas, though mainlanders who go only to the tourist spots would never know it. Many Americans got their first inkling of anti-white hostility only when MTV reported that when the musician Jewel lived in Hawaii for a few months as a child she was beaten up every day because she was white. Whites can live in peace in Hawaii if they attend private schools and live in secluded suburbs. One Hawaiian white told me that “you really can’t go to the public schools. The schools really just teach a gangster mentality.”
Schools have a tradition called “Kill Haole Day,” which means beating up whites on the last day of school. In 1999, when the state legislature considered hate-crimes legislation, the law was nearly derailed because of Kill Haole Day. Legislators noted that it was a long-standing tradition in some schools, and that unless it were completely eliminated, tough hate-crimes legislation could make the state liable for attacks on whites. The bill was gutted.
Beaten up for being white.
A particularly nasty attack in 2006 was linked to Kill Haole Day. Non-white students from Keaau High School on the big island skipped class to attack students at the Waters of Life Public Charter School in Hilo. First they broke into the Girl Scout office and attacked a manager. Then they broke off a door and invaded a classroom where Waters of Life students were taking the Hawaii State Assessment exam. The Keaau students punched teachers and students, knocking them to the ground. A victim later wrote, “We were vulnerable and defenseless against such an unthinkable, senseless, brutal assault. We are in shock. We are scared. We were terrorized.”
In February 2007, a family of Native Hawaiians beat an Army sergeant and his wife unconscious in front of their three-year-old daughter after a fender-bender in a parking lot. The man’s windpipe was crushed, and he went into convulsions. In January of this year, on the big island, men described as “Pacific Islanders” beat up nine white campers in a beach park and told them to get off the island. In all these cases, the Hawaiian police either moved slowly or didn’t get involved at all.
It is a serious matter when a large part of the population of a state is not of the founding stock, and where leaders are claiming territorial sovereignty. Wars of insurgency are fought by slowly expanding areas that are outside government control. What Bernard Fall wrote about Vietnam in 1965 is a description of a classic insurgency: “Saigon was deliberately encircled and cut off from the hinterland with a ‘wall’ of dead village chiefs.” This is by no means the case in Hawaii, but no other state has the same potential. The time will come when pro-statehood Native Hawaiian politicians—already rare—will have to watch their backs.
Friend or foe?
Insurgency is the most common form of war—and the most bitter. Insurgencies don’t end with a neat treaty; their fires are beaten down to embers that can alight in the future. The British have had trouble in Ireland for nearly 700 years.
A Hawaiian insurgency could certainly be contained. The state is still packed with soldiers and Marines, as well as the Pacific Fleet. Even if the state and local police were overwhelmed, troops could quickly restore order. The feds should have a plan for this, and Hawaii should not be on the base-closure list.
At the same time, Hawaii should under no circumstances be allowed to accept a substantial number of refugees—especially Asians—who could spark a crisis. Lebanon’s civil war began when thousands of Palestinians were dumped in the area, overwhelming the social structure.
Independence?
Some whites would argue that Hawaii should be shucked off and given independence, along with largely non-white Guam and Puerto Rico, but there are several arguments against this. First, Hawaii has great strategic value. During the War in the Pacific, it was the front line for half of 1942, and Hawaii remains a key link in America’s outer defenses. It is a power-projection platform that supports American interests in the Pacific and Far East, and it has radar stations, sonar networks, and radio listening posts that endlessly search the Pacific for hostile activity.
America has three major rivals in the Pacific: the Japanese, the Russians, and the Chinese. Today, relations with Russia and Japan are peaceful, but there is potential for a clash with China. Hawaii will be an important part of any American military effort if there is conflict in the Far East (though the presence of large numbers of highly intelligent and potentially hostile Asians could complicate a major campaign). A small, weak, Asian-run, independent Hawaii could even align itself with China.
A successful Hawaiian independence effort could also bring out copycats in the Southwest, where immigration has been stoking separatist sentiment for years.
If the United States intends to keep Hawaii, there should be a major effort to settle the state with North American whites. Whatever policies we pursue, the entire national conversation about Hawaii needs to change. The anti-white slant that colors the Federal Government’s outlook is supplying, cartridge by cartridge, the ammunition for a future fire fight. It is high time we thought about how to turn Hawaii away from that “dark and bitter road” Sen. Gorton foresaw for it in 1993.
Duncan Hengest is a military contractor who learned that Hawaii is not paradise when two Haoles who lived there told him about their experiences.
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http://newsbusters.org/blogs/matthew-vadum/2008/05/02/media-downplay-hawaii-uprising-back-hawaiian-apartheid-bill
Newsbusters blog, May 2, 2008
Media Downplay Hawaii Uprising, Back Hawaiian Apartheid Bill
By Matthew Vadum
A real-life secessionist movement seizes a historic American landmark and major media outlets treat the uprising as a curiosity of mere passing interest. Meanwhile, that same media gives a thumbs-up to a seditious, balkanizing plan for Aloha State apartheid.
AP's Mark Niesse reported yesterday, "Native Hawaiian sovereignty advocates" who are members of the group known as the Hawaiian Kingdom Government occupied the grounds of the palace of Hawaii's final monarch, Queen Lili`uokalani. "Hawaiian activists have long used the palace as the site for protests of what they call the United States' occupation of the islands, but never before had they physically taken control," wrote Niesse.
Pacific Business News reported that the "protesters" surrounded the Iolani Palace in Honolulu, chained palace gates, posted no-trespassing signs, and told "palace officials that the palace is their rightful seat of government." The PBN story noted that "Only those with Hawaiian blood, as well as news media, were initially allowed onto palace grounds."
The Honolulu Advertiser reported that the "sovereignty group" claimed its actions were "not a protest or demonstration but a reoccupying of its legitimate seat of government." CNN called the occupiers simply a "group of native Hawaiians."
Are members of groups like the Hawaiian Kingdom Government serious insurgents or fringe-element kooks who are best ignored? Only time will tell, but one thing is for certain: a Hawaiian segregation bill will only make things worse, guaranteeing more such occupations and perhaps future violence.
Many mainstream media outlets have treated the pro-segregation, pro-secession bill, sponsored by Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii), that would create a new government for "Native Hawaiians" in Hawaii, as just another bill. A sunny piece called "Freshman senators hold key to Native Hawaiian bill's hopes," appearing in The Hill, a Capitol Hill newspaper focused on Congress, noted cheerfully that "the bill has a fighting chance."
Both Honolulu papers, the Advertiser and the Star-Bulletin have editorialized in favor it.
Der Stürmer The New York Times salivated over the bill (which Akaka keeps reintroducing with each new Congress). In an editorial called "A Chance for Justice in Hawaii," the NYT says fears about the bill are all hype:
The bill's central aim is protecting money and resources - inoculating programs for Native Hawaiians from race-based legal challenges. It is based on the entirely defensible conviction that Native Hawaiians - who make up 20 percent of the state's population but are disproportionately poor, sick, homeless and incarcerated - have a distinct identity and deserve the same rights as tribal governments on the mainland. The Akaka bill does not supersede the Constitution or permit Zimbabwe-style land grabs. It explicitly forbids casinos, a touchy subject in Hawaii. Any changes a Hawaiian government seeks would have to be negotiated with state or federal authorities. As has always been the case on those eight little islands, everyone will have to find a way to get along.Of course, to find out what's really in the bill it's necessary to read George Will. Will scathingly criticized the legislation and pointed out that Akaka doesn't even deny the bill could set the stage for Hawaii to exit the Union. Will wrote:
Today, the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act, when accurately described, is opposed by a large majority of Hawaiians and supported by only a bare majority of the approximately 240,000 Native Hawaiians in the state. The legislation, sponsored by Sen. Daniel Akaka, is a genuflection by "progressives," mostly Democrats, to "diversity" and "multiculturalism." It would foment racial disharmony by creating a permanent caste entitled to its own government -- the Native Hawaiian Governing Entity -- within the United States. The NHGE presumably would be exempt, as Indian tribes are, from the Constitution's First, Fifth and 14th amendments. It would, Akaka says, negotiate with the state of Hawaii and the United States concerning "lands, natural resources, assets, criminal and civil jurisdiction, and historical grievances." Reparations? We shall see. Independence -- secession? "That could be," Akaka, 83, has said, depending on "my grandchildren and great-grandchildren."
Predictably, Akaka himself denounced Will for writing the op-ed, calling the factually accurate column "disgusting." Will had noted in the column that the racial purity panel the bill creates will determine who is a Native Hawaiian and therefore eligible to receive any entitlements or programs created by the new office.
My guess is Will got Akaka's goat when at the top of the op-ed he inserted this entirely appropriate quotation that associates the bill with Nazism:
"I decide who is a Jew around here." -- Hermann Goering in 1934, when told that a favorite Munich art dealer was Jewish.
But I digress.
Just about anybody who's anybody in the Hawaiian establishment supports this bill, including Hawaii's Republican Gov. Linda Lingle, who has visited Washington, D.C., repeatedly to lobby federal lawmakers. The Republican In Name Only (RINO) governor has been pushing for the legislation for years.
Passed in the fall of 2007 by the U.S. House of Representatives, the proposed Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act of 2007 (a companion bill to Akaka's legislation), introduced by U.S. Representative Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii), could be taken up by the Senate as soon as this month. According to www.nativehawaiians.com, the measure is endorsed by: the Mexican American Legal Defense Education Fund (MALDEF); the National Council of La Raza; the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC); and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Congressional horse-trading has allowed Akaka-Abercrombie supporters to win the support of several Republican lawmakers. Four of the Senate bill's nine cosponsors are Republicans: Norm Coleman (Minnesota), Gordon Smith (Oregon), and both Alaska senators, Ted Stevens and Lisa Murkowski. Among the House bill's seven cosponsors are two Republicans: Tom Cole (Oklahoma), and Don Young (Alaska).
Senator John Kyl (R-Arizona) is the Senate's foremost opponent of the legislation. He calls it a "recipe for permanent racial conflict ... motivated by a desire to immunize government preferences for Native Hawaiians from constitutional scrutiny." Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tennessee) said the legislation "is about sovereignty. It is about race. We are taking a step toward being a United Nations and not the United States."
Contrary to an article in The Nation, the GOP presumptive presidential candidate, Senator John McCain of Arizona, does not support the bill (though in 2005 he did send out confusing signals about it). Democratic Senators Hillary Clinton and Honolulu-born Barack Obama both support it.It should also surprise no one that Hawaii's Kamehameha Schools, arguably the most powerful private entity in Hawaii, wants to safeguard its privileges and racially discriminatory admissions policy by supporting the measure the Akaka bill.
For more on the Akaka bill, the racial separatism of the Kamehameha Schools, and accusations of abuse of power that surround the Schools, read "Racial Separatism in the Aloha State: The Bishop Estate Trust and Hawaii's Kamehameha Schools," by Phil Brand, James Dellinger, and Karl Crow, which Capital Research Center (my employer) just published.
(crossposted at Capital Research Center's blog)
—Matthew Vadum is Editor of Organization Trends and Foundation Watch at the Capital Research Center.
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May 15, 2008
"The Aloha Spirit -- what it is, who possess it, and why it is important"
by Kenneth R. Conklin, Ph.D.
Hawaii Reporter online newspaper at
http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?bf4cc8fa-4e53-4086-a6fd-d20bfe35523e
DEDICATION
The following essay is a ho'okupu -- offering -- to my adopted homeland. In 1982 I first came as a tourist and felt like I was coming home. Additional trips confirmed that feeling. In 1992 I moved to Hawaii permanently because I could not bear to leave again. As I reached out to embrace Hawaii, Hawaii reached back to embrace me. Hanai is something mutual -- both sides give and both sides receive. Over the years I have come to understand more clearly and deeply what at first was only an intense but vague feeling. Perhaps others can be helped to clarify their own spiritual journey as I describe mine.
WHAT IS THE ALOHA SPIRIT?
Everyone knows that "aloha" can mean hello, goodbye, or love; depending on the situation.
Some who speak Hawaiian know that "aloha" derives from "alo" and "ha" and refers to the face-to-face sharing of breath in the "honi" (nose-to-nose greeting common in ancient times).
Metaphorically "aloha" has a much deeper meaning. It refers to the mutual experiencing (alo) of each other's spirit or soul (ha). An ultimate example was the customary practice when life was ending for a family patriarch or the kahuna of a school of knowledge. He would summon his successor to come near, and would pass his wisdom to his successor with his dying breath, the "ha."
In the Hawaiian creation legend, Haloa is the name of the first child of the gods who was stillborn and from whose burial grew mankind's elder brother, the taro plant. The same name, Haloa, was also given to the next child of the gods -- the primordial ancestor from whom all kanaka (persons) are descended. Haloa is also the name of the tradewinds -- the constant breeze created by the "long breath" (haloa) of the exhaling ancestor who continuously bestows his cleansing spirit and wisdom upon all things here. Hawaii is indeed a magical, sacred place.
The Aloha Spirit was not always extended to commoners in ancient times. Human sacrifice had been practiced for many centuries until the old religion was abolished in 1819. There was a rigid caste system. Chiefs were regarded as direct descendants of the gods and ranked in a hierarchy according to their sacred bloodlines. Commoners could be put to death for failing to bow down, for eating chiefly foods, or for stepping on a chief's shadow. Although the old religion officially ended in 1819, the social caste system remained in place with huge differences in rights and privileges between chiefs and commoners.
In that context was produced one of the most beautiful and powerful written expressions of the Aloha Spirit. It is found in the first sentence of the first systematic law of the Kingdom of Hawaii. King Kauikeaouli Kamehameha III (advised by missionary William Richards) voluntarily gave up his absolute power and officially recognized that chiefs, commoners, and people of all races share fundamental rights. Here was a King whose right to dictatorial authority was earned by the conquests of his father, but whose heart was infused by his love of God and by compassion for his people, enlightened by awareness of democratic principles brought to him by newcomers.
The Declaration of the Rights of Man was proclaimed by Kauikeaouli Kamehameha III in 1839, and became the preamble of the first Constitution which he proclaimed in 1840. Although some call this "Hawaii's Magna Carta," the political history is very different. The English document was extracted by force from a despotic king under pressure from land barons (a "Bayonet Constitution", one might say), while the Hawaiian document was given freely as an act of benevolence.
The first sentence, known as the "kokokahi" sentence, says this in Hawaiian: "Ua hana mai ke Akua i na lahuikanaka a pau i ke koko hookahi, e noho like lakou ma ka honua nei me ke kuikahi, a me ka pomaikai." In English, it can be translated into modern usage as follows: "God hath made of one blood all races of people to dwell on this Earth in unity and blessedness." What a beautiful and eloquently expressed concept!
The Declaration of the Rights of Man then goes on to enumerate some of the fundamental rights given to all humans by God. The Constitution of 1840, with the Declaration as its preamble, sets forth the structure of a government based on laws, including a Legislature whose lower house is elected by the people. The House of Nobles and House of Representatives met and deliberated together, ali'i (chiefs) and maka'ainana (commoners) sitting and discussing side by side -- an astonishing implementation of the kokokahi concept that chiefs and commoners share fundamental God-given rights as a consequence of being human. As time went by there were an increasing number of Caucasians among both the Nobles and the Representatives -- again, an astonishing implementation of the kokokahi concept that all races are of one blood, at a time when slavery was practiced in the Southern United States and many other nations.
The Aloha Spirit has also found its way into our modern law books. The Aloha Spirit Law is found in §5-7.5 of the Hawaii Revised Statutes, which says in part: "Aloha means mutual regard and affection and extends warmth in caring with no obligation in return. Aloha is the essence of relationships in which each person is important to every other person for collective existence. Aloha means to hear what is not said, to see what cannot be seen and to know the unknowable. In exercising their power on behalf of the people and in fulfillment of their responsibilities, obligations and service to the people, the legislature, governor, lieutenant governor, executive officers of each department, the chief justice, associate justices, and judges of the appellate, circuit, and district courts may contemplate and reside with the life force and give consideration to The Aloha Spirit."
The greatest attack on the Aloha Spirit is the ongoing attempt to divide Hawaii's people by creating a racial separatist government through the Akaka bill (H.R.505 and S.310 in the 110th Congress). That effort has been poisoning race relations since July 2000. From January 17, 2004 to now thousands of racist advertisements printed in newspapers, and beamed into our living rooms on radio and television, have been paid for with money from the state treasury. These commercials are filled with propaganda claiming that people with a drop of Hawaiian native blood have special spiritual and mental powers not possessed by others; that they are entitled to special rights on account of their bloodline; and that they should sign up on a racial registry expected to become the charter membership of a forthcoming racially exclusionary government. For transcripts and analyses of several of these commercials, see
http://tinyurl.com/22ekaa
.
This entire concept is poisonous. It is an absolute violation of the kokokahi sentence from 1839: "God hath made of one blood all races of people to dwell on this Earth in unity and blessedness."
A bumper sticker often seen in Hawaii says "No Hawaiians, no aloha." That slogan captures an attitude often expressed in newspaper columns, classrooms, and casual conversations -- an attitude that "aloha" is the property of a racial group -- that the only people who can fully exemplify the Aloha Spirit, or who even have a right to discuss it, are those who have a drop of the magic blood. But no. That leads toward racial supremacy and fascism. It violates what the kokokahi sentence clearly says. Its pernicious falseness becomes clear when we understand that the Aloha Spirit is a part of the Cosmic Spirit which infuses all people in all times and places. If there were somehow a terrible disease which attacks the Hawaiian genome and kills every person possessing a drop of Hawaiian native blood, the Aloha Spirit would nevertheless remain fully alive. Anyone who says "No Hawaiians, no aloha" is clearly proving that he is out of touch with his own indwelling spirit.
Sometimes we say "Aloha!" as a quick and simple greeting, or a routine way of answering the telephone, not knowing who might be calling. In the same way, people in some Asian cultures greet each other with a perfunctory bow, or a "wai" (pressing the palms of one's hands together in front of the chin while bowing slightly). But such a perfunctory greeting is an echo of a much more profound act of respect in which we acknowledge the presence of God (the Buddha-nature) inside the person we greet, and we solemnly pledge to listen to both what is spoken and what is unspoken.
"Aloha Airlines" has gone bankrupt, but the Aloha Spirit continues paying huge dividends. A ship called the "Pride of Aloha" is leaving Hawaii and changing its name; but the true Aloha Spirit sails on and is a source of great pride for all Hawaii's people. The word "aloha" can evoke deep meanings and profound reverence, even though it is often overused and trivialized for commercial application. Perhaps it's like sex, which can be used for mere recreational pleasure, pornography, or even prostitution; but which can also be a vehicle for experiencing a sacred beauty and intimacy too profound for words.
Aloha ke Akua. The Aloha Spirit is another name for God. It is the immanence of a transcendent Cosmic Spirit, infinitely powerful, present at the core of every person, place, and thing. It unifies us, makes us fundamentally equal as beings of infinite value, and calls upon us to treat each other and our environment with reverence, respect, and compassion. The Aloha Spirit is the alpha and omega of creation. It is the origin from which all life force is derived, and the destiny toward which evolution strives. It is the "Pure Land" of Buddhist theology, manifesting itself through the Dharma of scientific fact and intellectual conceptualization.
At the risk of saying too many words, and being overly "intellectualized", let me offer some religious/philosophical metaphors. Everyone has his own way of interpreting things through his particular life experiences. Since I have an academic background, these are some of the metaphors I find useful. But every one of them is incomplete and, of necessity, inaccurate. There is simply no way to describe the indescribable. And yet ... let me give some approximations. Anyone who wants to stop reading now will not miss anything essential. Thank you for bearing with me thus far.
THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY
Each religion has its own metaphors for the spiritual concepts comprising a universal core of wisdom. My parents forced me to attend a Christian (Lutheran) church, including two years of Saturday morning classes leading to a "confirmation" ceremony. Thereafter I studied theology and philosophy on my own and then in college. I was especially inspired by Plato, Plotinus, Augustine; and the mysticism of the modern Catholic theologians Jacques Maritain and Teilhard de Chardin; and the novels of Hermann Hesse. Although I have long ago "outgrown" the Christianity of my youth, its metaphors still inspire me and help me explain things.
The doctrine of the Trinity says there is one God manifested in three persons, which St. Patrick illustrated as being like the clover which has three leaves. God the Father is the Creator, all-powerful and all-knowing, transcendent beyond human knowability. God the Son is Jesus Christ, born in human form but without original sin, who came into our world to teach, and who suffered and died as a human sacrifice to expunge our sins. Then there's the Holy Spirit, often portrayed as a white dove with an olive branch in its beak. The Holy Spirit does not usually get much attention, but should. The Holy Spirit is God in all His Power and Glory, bestowing the Grace of understanding and wisdom upon all who open their hearts.
The Aloha Spirit is the local Hawaii name for the Holy Spirit of the Christian Trinity.
PLATO'S DOCTRINES OF THE FORMS AND THE TWO WORLDS
The Greek philosopher Plato distinguished between two worlds. The world of the Forms is above and beyond this world of appearances. The Forms are the Absolute Truths, the same for all people in all times and places. The Form of the Good reigns supreme, like the Godhead of the Christian trinity. It is manifested in the three Forms of Goodness (moral), Truth (intellectual), and Beauty (aesthetic); which of course reverberate with each other.
We are born into this material world of appearances, which is like a cave where we are chained (by ignorance) to the floor and able to look only at the shadows dancing on the wall. We mistakenly believe the shadows are real. But a few lucky individuals have weak chains. They are able to break their chains, stand up, and walk toward the light. Eventually they can go outside the cave. They are attracted by the Form of Beauty, which leads them to turn their whole selves around (con-version) to discover the Form of Truth and gaze directly upon the sun (the supreme Form of the Good) and achieve en-lighten-ment. They realize that the sun is the source of light, and is casting the shadows on the wall of the cave. The Form of Goodness is inherent in Truth and Beauty, thereby causing the liberated souls to feel compassion for their fellow humans still chained to the floor of the cave. Thus they return to the cave, where some of their colleagues reject their teachings but others break free and struggle upward toward enlightenment.
Everything in this world of appearances is a shadow, or pale imitation, of the World of the Forms. We are born with a knowledge of the Forms buried in our soul; and the events of daily life can evoke memories of them. For example nobody has ever seen a triangle, because a true triangle is made of line segments which have zero thickness and are perfectly straight. The objects which we call triangular call forth a reminder of the absolute concept of "triangle." The Socratic method of teaching by asking questions can be successful because the questions evoke memories of things we know from before birth, but have forgotten. The title of a poem by William Wordsworth clearly conveys this idea: "Ode to Intimations of Immortality From Recollections of Early Childhood." Plato's dialog "Phaedrus" explains that human love is merely a pale reflection of the absolute form of Love. The rare moments when we feel love most deeply occur when our manipulation of bodies and thoughts transport us "out of body," allowing us to momentarily experience absolute Love which is always present but seldom apprehended.
The Aloha Spirit is the local Hawaii name for Plato's Form of Goodness. It is the source of compassion, morality, and the desire to give freely without expectation of return.
THE PRINCIPLE OF INEFFABILITY
Words and deeds take place in the world of appearances; but Truth belongs to the world of the Forms. Therefore it is impossible to prove what is True by anything we say or do. It is even impossible to completely or accurately express or tell anything that is True. This fact is called the "principle of ineffability." The best we can do is to use metaphors or signs which point the way. Even mathematical or scientific "proof" is merely a bunch of clues laid out heuristically in a sequence that points the way toward a concept which lies beyond them.
If you try to tell a dog where to find a bone, the dog will only look quizzical. If you point, the dog will watch your finger but probably won't look where you're pointing. If you jab your finger repeatedly in the right direction and shout, the dog will merely start barking and might playfully bite your finger. Or, to use a different metaphor, "You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink."
The principle of ineffability says we can know things but we can never tell what we know no matter how hard we try. The best we can do is lay out a trail of bread crumbs or point the way; and then we must rely upon the person seeing those clues to follow them and to assemble their meaning for himself. Although Truth can never be told, the universe is constantly teaching it to us. See Kenneth R. Conklin, "Knowledge, Proof, and Ineffability in Teaching," EDUCATIONAL THEORY, XXIV, 1 (Winter, 1974), pp. 61-67; available at
http://tinyurl.com/4k7vyh
.
See also Kenneth R. Conklin, "Wholes and Parts in Teaching," THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOURNAL, LXXIV, 3 (December, 1973), pp. 165-171; available at
http://tinyurl.com/4uh7f7
.
The Aloha Spirit can never be defined or accurately described. There are ways we can express it and help others learn about it, but in the end it's up to each individual to discover it. There is hope for all of us -- Haloa is constantly whispering in our ear -- God's Grace is freely available to all who open their hearts to receive it.
HOW TO TEACH TRUTH: IMMANUEL KANT, EXISTENTIALISM, ZEN
The philosopher Immanuel Kant used the word "noumena" as an approximate equivalent to Plato's world of the Forms, and "phenomena" as the equivalent of Plato's world of appearances. He said that the noumena are unreachable through the phenomena (God is transcendent) but the phenomena are expressions of the noumena (God is immanent) and can be used as clues to foster discovery. The two best vehicles for using phenomena to point toward noumena are moral choice and artistic expression.
Thus the Existentialist philosophers explore the choices we make, even in the face of ignorance, despair, and inevitable death; and they celebrate the crises that force us to choose.
Zen teaching techniques help the mind leap the chasm between phenomena and noumena. Think hard: what is the sound of one hand clapping? If you think hard enough, the time will come when you are no longer able to think; and then -- VOILA! and you hear it. If you have a coat, I will give you one; but if you have no coat I will take it away from you. The most valuable part of a wheel is the hole at its center. See Kenneth R. Conklin, "Nothing" at
http://tinyurl.com/a6jqo
.
Aloha means to hear what is not said, to see what cannot be seen and to know the unknowable. Although the Aloha Spirit cannot be seen in its pure form or defined, we can display it and lead others to grasp it by the choices we make and by our creative products.
FINAL NOTE REGARDING THE KOKOKAHI SENTENCE
"Ua hana mai ke Akua i na lahuikanaka a pau i ke koko hookahi, e noho like lakou ma ka honua nei me ke kuikahi, a me ka pomaikai." In modern English: "God hath made of one blood all races of people to dwell on this Earth in unity and blessedness." A popular translation in earlier times used the phrase "all nations of men to dwell upon the face of the Earth ..." instead of "all races of people to dwell on the Earth..." But today we say "people" instead of only "men." And we recognize that the specific word for "nation" or "government" is "aupuni" whereas "lahui" and especially "lahuikanaka" has a broader meaning of "race" or "tribe."
Historically it's unclear whether the kokokahi sentence was first written by missionary William Richards and then adopted by the King, or whether the King produced it on his own. It's also unclear whether the sentence was first written in English and then translated into Hawaiian, or written in Hawaiian and then translated into English. Much of the wording comes from the Bible, Acts 17:26: "And [God] hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth ..." In any case, the King gets full credit for proclaiming kokokahi as official policy, thereby voluntarily giving up absolute power through an act manifesting the Aloha Spirit.
There is a neighborhood named "Kokokahi" along Kaneohe Bay Drive, running from the mountain to the sea, and a YWCA named "Kokokahi" on the oceanfront there. This neighborhood was named and developed by Dr. Theodore Richards, a descendant of American missionary William Richards, who had advised King Kauikeaouli Kamehameha III on the kokokahi sentence. When the large parcel of land was broken into individual house lots for sale, Dr. Richards imposed a racial quota system and screened the buyers to ensure that people of all races would be living side by side, hopefully in unity and blessedness. And so it remains today. The street name "Likeke" in that neighborhood is the Hawaiianized version of "Richards"; likewise the Likeke dining hall at Kawaiaha'o Church. And of course there's Richards Street with runs alongside 'Iolani Palace.
As the proverb says: "I ka 'olelo no ke ola" -- in language there is life. Words have power. And so the kokokahi sentence, resulting from the collaboration between King Kauikeaouli Kamehameha III and Rev. William Richards, has inspired generations of Hawaiians, both those with native blood and those without, and has helped us understand something about this powerful living being known as the Aloha Spirit.
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May 16, 2008
Don’t Free Hawaii!
By James Dellinger and Phil Brand
Hawaii Reporter online newspaper
http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?6756b92e-2efd-4d51-b7c7-0b92d4258a92
Jeremiah Wright has some company in the Aloha State. The former pastor and mentor to Barack Obama recently proclaimed that America is really two peoples, one black, one white. In Hawaii, U.S. Senator Daniel Akaka (D) has been pushing a proposal that would needlessly cleave his state’s residents into two legally distinct populations: Native Hawaiian and non-Native.
Senator Akaka’s pro-segregation bill, which would also fan secessionist flames in America’s youngest state, is as foolish and regressive as the racially charged rhetoric of Rev. Wright. Yet while many denounce Wright’s race-tinged religious extremism, the House version of the Akaka measure sailed through the U.S. House of Representatives last fall by a landslide, and the Senate is likely to vote on the legislation before Memorial Day.
The proposed Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act would confer upon Native Hawaiians a tribal status like that afforded to American Indian tribes. But that idea doesn’t square with Hawaiian cultural reality. The Aloha State has been a cultural melting pot for generations — the 2000 U.S. census found the most multiracial state in the country — and has no indigenous tribal tradition. Unlike recognized Native American tribes in the other 49 states, the Akaka bill does not require Native Hawaiians to meet any of the seven criteria that federal law mandates for tribal recognition, such as being a geographically, culturally separate, and distinct community with an established and long-standing government.
Instead, the bill defines Native Hawaiians as descendents of the “indigenous, native people” who occupied the islands and exercised sovereignty there prior to the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893. The bill doesn’t address the status of the thousands of descendants of other ethnicities that settled in Hawaii when it was a kingdom and were full citizens of that realm.
To sort out who is and is not a Native Hawaiian, the bill creates a nine-member board with “expertise in the determination of Native Hawaiian ancestry and lineal descendancy.” Those with at least one drop of Native blood, as determined by the board, will then be considered members of the tribe and be eligible to create their own government — a “Native Hawaiian Governing Entity.” They would also become beneficiaries of any entitlements or programs designated for Native Hawaiians. Based on census data, the Akaka bill would apply to about 400,000 people; 240,000 on the islands (20 percent of Hawaii’s current residents), and 140,000 Native Hawaiians living on the mainland.
Supporters of the bill argue that it will 1) benefit poor and struggling Native Hawaiians and 2) soothe racial bitterness by rectifying past injustices. Senator Akaka introduced his bill on the Senate floor saying it “seeks to build upon the foundation of reconciliation. It provides a structured process to bring together the people of Hawaii, along a path of healing.” But it’s not at all clear that Native Hawaiians need government-sponsored healing. Unlike Native Indians, the U.S. government did not persecute Native Hawaiians. There was no Trail of Tears or Bataan Death March in the 50th state. Hawaiians were justifiably excited about becoming Americans, voting 2-1 to join the Union in 1949.
The alleged wrongs to which Akaka refers are grounded in the 1993 “Apology Resolution,” signed into law by President Clinton, The resolution claimed falsely that the U.S. helped to overthrow Hawaii’s final queen in 1893. It also claimed, in the face of mountains of historical evidence to the contrary, that the Kingdom of Hawaii had a racially exclusive government that was responsible to Native Hawaiians alone.
Nor is it obvious that Native Hawaiians are in such dire shape that they need action of this magnitude. Many, particularly on the mainland, are doing just fine as is. The 2005 American Community Survey for California found that Native Hawaiians living in California enjoy a higher average income than Californians as a whole.
Columnist George Will predicts the bill will mobilize what he calls the “ethnic grievance industry.” Indeed, there’s evidence that, not yet passed, the bill is already stirring up ethnic resentment: Ethnic separatists staged a recent take-over of a historic Honolulu landmark that made headlines in the 48 contiguous states recently.
Akaka’s gripes rest on a legal fiction foisted on America by a coalition of bleeding heart liberals, multi-culturalist do-gooders, and by the grievance industry. Multi-culturalist groups who favor ethnic balkanization are pressing Akaka’s bill, according to a website established by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs to promote the bill. The legislation is endorsed by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF); the National Council of La Raza; the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC); and NAACP.
The bill has found numerous powerful supporters. It’s private backers include the politically connected Kamehameha Schools system, the wealthiest secondary institution in the U.S. and arguably the most powerful private entity in Hawaii, which wants to safeguard its endangered discriminatory privileges by supporting the measure. The School has already shelled out a $7 million settlement in a lawsuit over their policy of giving preference to Native Hawaiians, so it’s no surprise they’d also support the Akaka bill, which would grant legitimacy to the School’s racially charged admissions system.
In Congress, the bill’s advocates have succeeded in garnering bipartisan support. Its advocates have horse-traded their way into the favor of several Republican lawmakers, some of whom have large Native American constituencies at home. Four Republican senators have even gone as far as cosponsoring the measure: Norm Coleman (Minnesota), Gordon Smith (Oregon), and both Alaska senators, Ted Stevens and Lisa Murkowski. Among the House bill’s seven cosponsors are two Republicans: Tom Cole (Oklahoma), and Don Young (Alaska). The bill is also supported by both Democratic presidential candidates.
As for this claim that the bill will bring people together? Nonsense. The bill is as poisonous as Jeremiah Wright’s belief that the education gap between blacks and whites can be bridged by racial double standards in student discipline, curriculum or expectations. And it’s as ludicrous as Rev. Wright’s assertion that all black people worship one way while all white people worship another. America is far from perfect, but it’s inarguably made substantial progress towards racial harmony. Legislation which seeks to redress grievances by pitting one person’s ancestors against another’s is, if anything, a step backwards.
Trying to mesh this kind of sovereignty with American citizenship reveals some ugly inconsistencies. How can one be an American citizen but not have to follow the U.S. Constitution? The same schism led Congress in 1968 to pass the Indian Civil Rights Act, which requires tribal constitutions to include similar constitutional protections found in the bill of Rights. The Act sought to extend very widely accepted constitutional norms like free speech, due process, and equal protection, to tribal territory.
But over time, tribal sovereignty has trumped the constitutionally guaranteed individual rights that the Act was created to preserve. In Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez (1978), the Supreme Court affirmed a Navajo tribal decision denying membership to children whose mother, but not father, was a tribe member. Under a tribal law, members must have both a father and a mother who are tribe members. And in 2006, a Cherokee court ruled in Lucy Allen v. Cherokee Nation Tribal Council that tribe membership must be open to descendants of slaves held by the Cherokee prior to the outbreak of the Civil War. These so-called “Freedmen” had been registered as tribe members during the assimilationist period of the early 20th century and were often living side by side on tribal land. Following the controversial 2006 decision, the entire Cherokee tribe membership voted the Freedmen out of the tribe, leaving them second-class citizens on their own land.
In February, the Akaka bill was approved by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. It can be brought forward for a vote by the full Senate whenever Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says so. But doing is hardly a step toward racial harmony. Substantial opposition to the bill exists: One poll indicates Hawaiians oppose the bill by 2-1. And in 1998, the state of Hawaii’s own brief from the U.S. Supreme Court case of Rice v. Cayetano expressed the government’s belief that, “The Tribal concept simply has no place in the context of Hawaiian history.”
That the bill has come this far only shows how timid many Americans are when the ethnic-grievance crowd peddles its racialist theories. It’s clearly a dangerous precedent: Could ethnic activists in the American Southwest argue that they too deserve tribal status? What about ethnic Cajun or Creole peoples in Louisiana, who trace their roots in the Mississippi Delta to the exodus from French Nova Scotia before the Louisiana Purchase? Legislators have a constitutional duty to protect the individual equality of all Americans on the basis of their citizenship alone. Passing different laws for different races has never promoted harmony and reconciliation, and, if the racially charged debate over Akaka is any indication, never will.
James Dellinger and Phil Brand are analysts at the Capital Research Center (CRC), a Washington, D.C., think tank. The opinions stated in this commentary belong to Dellinger and Brand, who are co-authors of “Racial Separatism in the Aloha State: The Bishop Estate Trust and Hawaii’s Kamehameha Schools,” which appears in the May 2008 issue of Foundation Watch, a CRC publication.
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http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?464780e6-930e-4384-8b86-d554b0a8bee1
Hawaii Reporter, May 18, 2008
Akaka Bill Pushed by Social Engineers Dividing Hawaii and America: George Will Got it Right
By H. William Burgess and Sandra Puanani Burgess
With the Akaka bill expected to reach the Senate soon, perhaps with little advance notice, review of George Will’s warning about the bill’s dangers to Hawaii and to America is particularly in order.
For three days late last year (Friday through Sunday, 11/30/07 - 12/02/07) both Honolulu dailies piled news, editorials and commentaries taking offense that George Will, (“Social Engineers in Paradise,” Washington Post 11/30)[1] would compare the Akaka bill’s proposed bloodline-based nationality (Native Hawaiian) with the Nazis’ bloodline-based nationality (Aryan).[2]
In fact, the Akaka bill’s anti-American premise, which is also anti-Haole, anti-Asian and indeed anti-anyone who immigrated to Hawaii after 1778 (and anti-their descendants forever), springs from the same roots as Nazi Germany’s anti-Semitism (aroused in the 1930’s by National Socialists in the name of supremacy for indigenous Germans).
The Akaka bill promoters make no bones about it: The whole idea of the bill is to protect existing special status and entitlements for Native Hawaiians that won’t survive strict scrutiny under the Constitution. To accomplish this dubious goal, the Akaka bill would sponsor creation by Native Hawaiians-only of a new government “of the Native Hawaiian people” that is immune from the Equal Protection clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. Without those bothersome restrictions, the new Native Hawaiian Governing Entity would be free to favor some and deprive other persons of “life, liberty or property, without due process of law” or the “equal protection of the laws.” What is that but a plan to give racial supremacy to Native Hawaiians?
George Will’s reference to “social engineers” goes back to The Law, Frederic Bastiat’s classic blueprint for a just society first published in 1850. Through the ages, Bastiat showed, social and political philosophers have viewed the multitude of humanity as passive matter, waiting to be molded and shaped, arranged and moved about according to the design of an intellectually superior elite.
Bastiat’s thesis, still clear and valid today, is that life, liberty and the faculty to pursue happiness and acquire property do not exist because men have made laws. Men hold those rights as a gift from God; and it is the function of a just government to protect the free exercise of those rights.
Self preservation and self-development are common aspirations among all people. But, there is also another tendency common to all people. When they can, they wish to live and prosper at the expense of others, to satisfy their desires with the least possible pain.[3] Law is generally made by one man or class of men and, since law cannot operate without the sanction of a dominating force, this force must be entrusted to those who make the laws. That force combined with that tendency and the arrogance of the social engineers, explains the almost universal perversion of the law, to destroy in varying degrees among the rest of the people, their independence by slavery, their liberty by oppression, and their property by plunder.
“The annals of history bear witness to the truth of it: the incessant wars, mass migrations, religious persecutions, universal slavery, dishonesty in commerce, and monopolies. This fatal desire has its origin in the very nature of man --- in that primitive, universal, and insuppressible instinct that impels him to satisfy his desires with the least possible pain.”[4]
Bastiat viewed the United States, more than any other country in the world, as keeping law within its proper domain. The Constitution of the United States separates the powers of the three branches of government and guarantees equal protection of the laws for the life, liberty and property of every person.
The Akaka bill does not require those checks and balances in the makeup of the proposed Native Hawaiian government. That would defeat the whole purpose of the bill, which is to protect special status and entitlements based on racial ancestry. This ensures that the new government, if it ever becomes a reality, would empower the arrogant mentality of the social engineers[5] and be destructive of the ends of individual liberty and equal protection for every person subject to its jurisdiction, even for those of Native Hawaiian ancestry.
Native Hawaiians who favor the Akaka bill would be wise to heed Bastiat’s advice. The greatest threat to individual liberty is government.[6] They would be prudent to remember that under the Kapu system in pre-contact Hawaii, high rank held the rule and possessed the land title and commoners were subject and landless.[7]
Just as under the Kapu system of old, the brute force of the proposed new government could be turned against them. It could take the life, liberty and property of any individual subject to its jurisdiction, even the life, liberty and property of individual Native Hawaiians. The current examples of Indian tribes ousting members who dare criticize tribal leadership suggest this is not an idle concern.
It is time the national media and decision makers in D.C. and the public, including especially Native Hawaiians themselves, see the Akaka bill for what it is: The first step toward a Congressionally-sponsored totalitarian government. George Will got it exactly right.
And, to those D.C. decision makers, note well, it may be your or your constituents’ government; nothing in the bill prevents the entity from controlling areas where non-Hawaiians go, or having governmental authority over non-Hawaiians in its territory or over roads, public transit, water, gas, electric or telephone lines crossing its territory or doing business or competing with its citizens or with the entity itself. Note also the precedent the bill would establish for the Aztlan movement to liberate the Southwest, and incipient separatist movements and lust for tribal casinos by descendants of persons indigenous to other states.
George Will’s “Social Engineers In Paradise” is a keeper. It should be posted on the refrigerator door or bathroom mirror to be re-read every time the Akaka bill is mentioned.
H. William Burgess is an attorney. He and his wife Sandra Puanani Burgess, who is a local girl of Chinese, Filipina and Hawaiian ancestry, advocate Aloha for All and challenge the constitutionality of special status, privilege or entitlements for Native Hawaiians or any other group of people based merely on race. Reach them at mailto:hwburgess@hawaii.rr.com
[1] See http://www.coastalhawaii.com/Akaka_Bill.htm
[2] They are not impartial on the issue. Both dailies regularly publish advertising for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs that spends big public land trust dollars to promote itself, Kau Inoa and the Akaka bill. (Kau Inoa To Build A Nation, “for all Hawaiians who wish to participate in the raising of our nation to officially register their names …. open to all indigenous Hawaiians, no matter what your age or where you live.”)
[3] Id. at 5.
[4] Id. at 5 and 6.
[5] Id. at xvii
[6] Id. at iv
[7] Kirch, On the Road of the Winds, Univ. of California Press, 2000 at 248 & 249.
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http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?be5695cc-dfb6-44f0-bf63-0c5701fe7784
Hawaii Reporter, June 13, 2008
Akaka Bill Would Wipe Out Over 200 Years of Integration in Hawaii and Replace it With Apartheid
Open letter to U.S. Senator Akaka
By Jere Krischel
I strongly implore you to vote against the upcoming Akaka Bill. As a native of the Hawaiian islands with ancestry going back over 100 years, who is a product of the multi-cultural and multi-racial melting pot of Hawaii, I beg you not to separate my people by blood.
Although the Akaka Bill supporters wish you to believe that there was once a native Hawaiian only Kingdom, and that it was usurped by the United States unfairly, this action could not be farther from the truth. The Kingdom of Hawaii was created by a multi-ethnic team, including Kamehameha the Great, his son-in-law and former British sailor John Young, botanist Spaniard Don Marin, and a host of others. The first constitution of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1840 nobly declared that all people were “of one blood.”
It enshrined civil rights over 100 years before the United States’ civil rights movement led by Dr. King. And the only participation the United States had during the 1893 Hawaiian Revolution was the landing of 162 peacekeepers who remained strictly neutral in the conflict.
The Akaka Bill promises to separate the people of my homeland by race, when today they are intermixed as thoroughly as any population has ever been. The Akaka Bill promises to elevate one set of cousins over another, pitting brother against brother. And the Akaka Bill promises to allow a tiny native Hawaiian elite to define and decide who is allowed in their new government, and who is not.
Much like the current Cherokee Freedmen debacle where an ethnic Cherokee elite is trying to disenfranchise other tribal members solely on race, the Akaka Bill gives no constitutional guarantees to those who may be placed under this new native Hawaiian government. These new Akaka Tribe leaders will have the power to decide who is and who is not native Hawaiian enough to be in their tribe, regardless of how much native Hawaiian ancestry they may have. Other Native American tribes already suffer from this kind of despotism, and the Akaka Bill promises to bring that to Hawaii.
Ethnic nationalism is never moral, and it pains me to see good senators misled by native Hawaiian victimhood activists, who would undo over 200 years of integration in Hawaii and replace it with apartheid.
Please, vote no on the Akaka Bill, and withdraw your sponsorship for this bill, which promises to be so painful to my people.
Jere Krischel is native and indigenous to the Hawaiian Islands, without direct pre-1778 ancestry. He is also a Senior Fellow with the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, born and raised in Hawaii and currently living in California with his wife and two young children. Reach him via email at: jere@krischel.org
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http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?cb3ad702-347d-47f2-8eba-c34b02899875
Hawaii Reporter, June 16, 2008
Rights are Inherent for All People by Virtue of Their Humanity, Not By Virtue of Their Ancestry or Nationality
Open Letter to U.S. Senator Akaka Opposing the Akaka Bill
By Kaleihanamau Johnson
I am a Hawaiian American and I oppose the Akaka Bill, and while I do not tout the Bible, Jesus Christ said it best when he said that no man can have two masters. The insistence of our senators and representatives that Hawaiians need federal recognition is a misconception. Recognition will be for the governing entity as quasi-sovereign. Native Hawaiians who will fall under the jurisdiction of a Hawaiian government with tribal status will lose recognition as citizens having equal protection under the law; their rights will no longer be recognized by the federal government as declared in the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. As it stands, the Federal government recognizes Native Hawaiians.
The federal government does not recognize Native American Indians and Native Alaskans, who are enrolled tribal members, as individuals. It is the tribal governments with all the land, power, and wealth who are federally recognized as the sovereigns. Enrolled tribal members fall under tribal government jurisdiction and ambiguous tribal laws. As an example, thousands of Native American Indians have been disenrolled from their tribes and evicted from tribal lands. Those people will never have their day in court.
The Akaka Bill proposes that Hawaiians will fall under a federal policy, which imitates Federal Indian Policy. Federal Indian Policy promotes tribalism and protects tribal governments - not individual American Indian citizens. American Indian citizens are at the mercy of their tribes. The Akaka bill purports to restore rights somehow perceived to have been lost by Native Hawaiians. The individual rights of all subjects regardless of race were recognized under the first constitution of the Hawaiian Kingdom and that did not change after the Overthrow, Annexation, and Statehood to the present.
Thoreau wrote in Civil Disobedience “That government is best which governs least.” Adding another layer of government will only intrude in people’s lives. Rights are inherent for all people by virtue of their humanity, not by virtue of their ancestry or nationality. The Bill of Rights does not grant rights; it clearly states what actions the United States government cannot take and was written to protect the rights of all the people. What the Akaka bill proposes would infringe upon people’s rights including those whom it pretends to benefit.
Kaleihanamau Johnson is a resident of Aiea, Hawaii
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http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?41199966-fce3-48c8-bd18-7c53630ffc55
Hawaii Reporter online newspaper, June 23, 2008
Lies told on the U.S. Senate Floor by Senators Inouye and Dorgan Regarding the Akaka Bill
by Kenneth R. Conklin, Ph.D.
The Akaka bill may soon be debated in the U.S. Senate. That's why this is a good time to remind everyone about some flat-out lies told by Senators Dan Inouye (D, HI) and Byron Dorgan (D, ND) on the floor of the Senate on June 7, 2006 during debate on the cloture motion for the Akaka bill.
The complete transcript of the entire Akaka-bill debate (about 300 pages covering about 5 hours of floor time) can be found at
http://tinyurl.com/k299m
Senator Dorgan said: (Congressional Record page S5557): "I will give a little bit of the history as vice chairman of the Committee on Indian Affairs. [He is now Chairman because the Democrats have the majority] ... January 16, 1893 - that is a long, long time ago“- the United States Minister John Stevens, who served, then, as Ambassador to the court of Queen Liliuokalani, directed a marine company onboard the USS Boston to arrest and detain the queen.
This is the queen that served the indigenous people in Hawaii. She was arrested. She was placed under arrest for 9 months at the palace."
Senator Inouye said: (Congressional Record, page S5570): "I think it is about time that we reach out and correct the wrong that was committed in 1893. Yes, at that time the representative of the people of the United States directed a marine company on an American ship to land and take over the government. They imprisoned our queen. No crime had been committed.
When the new government took over and turned itself over to the government of the United States and said, Please take us in, the President of the United States was President Cleveland at that time. He sent his envoy to Hawaii to look over the case. When he learned that the takeover had been illegal, he said this was an un-American act and we will not take over. The queen is free."
These Senators are probably honorable gentlemen. They wouldn't knowingly tell lies on the Senate floor. Would they? The same falsehoods are being taught to thousands of children in Hawaii's schools, and to college students. They are "urban legends" repeated so often that the general public comes to believe them.
These falsehoods are so widely accepted as fact that two Senators felt comfortable asserting them on the floor of the U.S. Senate as justification for a controversial bill. Only God can see into the hearts of Inouye and Dorgan to know whether they were merely ignorant or were knowingly telling lies. But either way, their colleagues in the Senate should not rely on anything they say about Hawaiian history.
Mark Twain said, "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." The falsehoods of Inouye and Dorgan were quick to tell; the truth will require more careful explanation.
What really happened in 1893?
The USS Boston had just returned to Honolulu from a training cruise to a different island. When the ship left on the cruise things had seemed politically stable; but when the ship arrived back in port the situation was frightening. The Queen had used bribery and intimidation to ram through some very controversial bills (distillery, lottery, and opium licensing bills) in the closing days of the legislature and then dismissed it.
Immediately thereafter she announced that she would unilaterally proclaim a new Constitution giving herself near-dictatorial powers. According to some sources her new Constitution would also take away voting rights from everyone except ethnic Hawaiians (After the revolution she destroyed all copies of her proposed Constitution so nobody could find out).
The Queen's personally appointed cabinet refused to endorse her new Constitution. Some of them ran out of the Palace in fear for their lives when she threatened them. Ethnic Hawaiians assembled on the Palace grounds expecting to hear a new Constitution being proclaimed; and instead the Queen told them to go home because some obstacles had arisen.
There were rumors that there would soon be riots and arson – several times in recent years there had been riots due to political instability, which had necessitated the landing of British and American sailors to restore order on those occasions.
A group of 1500 local men, including several hundred who belonged to an armed militia, was known to be planning a revolution. Mass meetings had already been going on for several days after the Queen tried to proclaim her new Constitution, so there was no secret that a revolution was underway.
The American diplomat, Minister Stevens, had gone on the USS Boston's training cruise, taking his family along. When the ship headed back to Honolulu Stevens' daughter stayed behind on another island to do some sightseeing. She was killed in an accident there, which Minister Stevens learned about just before the revolution, possibly affecting his judgment and concentration.
Now American residents pleaded with him to send sailors ashore as peacekeepers to protect American lives and property and to prevent rioting and arson. There were also citizens of other nations who were residents and business owners in Honolulu.
Some of them, including European diplomats, begged Minister Stevens for help, pointing out that the USS Boston was the only foreign ship in port with men who had rifles and military training. The revolutionaries were mostly Caucasian, so Europeans and Americans living in Honolulu were fearful that violence might be directed against Caucasians in general.
At Minister Stevens' request the ship's captain sent ashore 162 armed sailors on January 16, 1893, two days after the mass meetings and one day before the local militia took over buildings and issued their proclamation. The sailors were under orders to remain strictly neutral in the political conflict.
Some royalists imagined the sailors were landed to support the Crown -- that had happened 19 years previously when Kalakaua defeated Emma and Emma's supporters rioted. Some revolutionists imagined the sailors had come ashore to assist them.
The sailors marched past the Palace and the Government Building (Aliiolani Hale) on the way toward a suburban area (Waialae) where they hoped to spend the night. As they passed the Palace they respectfully dipped their flags in salute to the Queen.
When it turned out they had no place to spend the night, their officers made arrangements for them to sleep in a building (Arion Hall) located down a side street a block away from the Palace, with no direct view of the Palace or the Government Building. They went there that evening and remained in the building, or inside its fence.
The following day, January 17, the local militia finally completed its revolution by taking over the Government Building, where many armaments had been stored by the Queen's forces. The militia issued a proclamation abrogating the monarchy and announcing a Provisional Government.
Shortly thereafter the militia took over other buildings and disarmed the Royal Guard. The militia had zero assistance or supplies from the U.S. peacekeepers. The local militia arrested the Queen and escorted her to her private residence a block from the Palace. The Provisional Government then assigned members of the ex-queen's own (former) Royal Guard to protect her from harm, and paid the Guards' salaries.
Nobody touched the Queen or her property at her private home. There was some vandalism at Iolani Palace, and eventually the new government sold its furnishings. But vandalism is normal when revolutions overthrow a monarchy.
Also, the Palace and its contents were the property of the nation, not the personal property of the head of state; so whatever government was in power had the right to dispose of Palace contents.
One reason for the revolution was to put an end to the lavish lifestyle of a corrupt monarchy. The Queen was treated with extreme politeness and gentleness, especially when compared against what happened to the French and Russian royals when those countries had revolutions.
Throughout the revolution the U.S. peacekeepers remained strictly neutral. They never took over any buildings. They never surrounded the Palace or the Government Building. They never arrested the Queen. They never patrolled the streets. The armed revolutionary local militia easily maintained order, partly because they were strong and well trained, and partly because the Queen's forces were weak and had surrendered without a fight.
She wrote a letter saying she was surrendering temporarily to the superior forces of the U.S. until such time as the U.S. government would hear her case and restore her power. But she had that letter delivered to the revolutionary Provisional Government, not to the U.S. diplomat; indicating she knew the local Provisional Government was in charge and not the U.S.
She probably intended her letter of surrender, being addressed only to the U.S. and claiming it was only a temporary surrender, as a ruse. Being a clever politician she probably hoped a powerful distant nation whose incoming President was her personal friend would undo her loss to the local militia who had actually defeated her.
The U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, whose chairman was Senator John T. Morgan (D, AL), spent January and February of 1894 investigating the U.S. role in the Hawaiian revolution. They took testimony under oath, in open session, with cross examination. The committee's official 808-page report, known as the Morgan Report, provides documentation for the facts above. See
http://morganreport.org
Senator Dorgan was entirely wrong when he said "United States Minister John Stevens ... directed a marine company onboard the USS Boston to arrest and detain the queen." If that claim were true it would be a basis for blaming the U.S. for overthrowing the Hawaiian monarchy and demanding reparations. But it was false. The local militia of Hawaiian residents did all the heavy lifting of the revolution.
Senator Dorgan then continued with another sentence that contains a bit of truth but placed in the wrong time frame and falsely blaming the U.S. and Minister Stevens for what happened. Senator Dorgan says: "She was arrested. She was placed under arrest for 9 months at the palace."
The ex-queen was indeed arrested and held at the Palace - but not in 1893, not in connection with the overthrow of the monarchy, and certainly not by the U.S. peacekeepers. In January 1895 - two years after the revolution!
Robert Wilcox, a half-Hawaiian racial demagogue, attempted an armed counter-revolution which failed. Guns and bombs were found buried in the flower bed of the ex-queen's private home at Washington Place, where she also had signed commissions appointing cabinet ministers and department heads for her anticipated new government.
She was convicted of conspiracy in that treason. She did not spend 9 months under arrest in the Palace, as Senator Dorgan said; she spent only January 16 to September 6, 1895 -- seven and one half months. She had been sentenced to 5 years at hard labor and a $10,000 fine; but served only a few months in a huge Palace room with full-time maidservant.
Her "hard labor" consisted of composing songs and sewing a quilt with monarchist political slogans and symbols. Later her friend, Republic of Hawaii President Sanford B. Dole, gave her a full pardon and allowed her to travel to Washington D.C. where she showed her gratitude by lobbying the Senate against Dole's most cherished dream of annexation.
Senator Dorgan also made a very misleading statement which ironically contained the truth about why Liliuokalani was overthrown. Dorgan said "This is the queen that served the indigenous people in Hawaii." Yes indeed!
But her job as Queen was to serve all the people in her multiracial nation. Saying that she was Queen only of "the indigenous people" (i.e., ethnic Hawaiians) is what must be said to justify passing a racially exclusionary "Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization" bill. But the fact that she saw herself as serving "the indigenous people" exclusively or primarily is what caused her to be overthrown by those whom she was dis-serving.
Senator Inouye told similar falsehoods and also wrongly consolidated the events of 1893 with the events of 1895. Inouye was totally wrong when he said "... the representative of the people of the United States directed a marine company on an American ship to land and take over the government." Inouye was totally wrong when he said "They imprisoned our queen." If Inouye is referring to 1895 when Liliuokalani was imprisoned at the Palace, he was totally wrong when he said "No crime had been committed." - "Liliuokalani had indeed committed the crime of conspiracy in a violent counter-revolution in which men were killed. She allowed guns and bombs to be hidden in the flower bed of her private home, for which she was placed on trial, convicted, and sentenced to prison.
Inouye was also totally wrong to say the ex-queen's imprisonment was at the hands of the United States. The U.S. did not imprison her in the Palace in the 1893 revolution - it was the local militia which arrested her and escorted her to her private home where her former Royal Guard was paid by the Provisional Government to protect her against possible assassination. By 1895, when the ex-queen was indeed imprisoned, the U.S. peacekeepers were long gone from Hawaii“- Grover Cleveland's hatchet man (Blount) had removed the few remaining peacekeepers on April 1, 1893. Those who arrested and jailed her in 1895 were officers of the Republic of Hawaii.
Following his incorrect statements about the imprisonment of 1895, Inouye then returns to 1893 to the period of several months after the revolution, showing that Inouye thinks 1895 and 1893 were all intermingled and all to be blamed on the U.S. Talking about the Provisional Government's offer of a treaty of annexation immediately after the revolution, Inouye says "When the new government took over and turned itself over to the government of the United States and said, Please take us in, the President of the United States was President Cleveland at that time. He sent his envoy to Hawaii to look over the case. When he learned that the takeover had been illegal, he said this was an un-American act and we will not take over. The queen is free." But of course by the time President Cleveland issued his message to Congress it was December 18, 1893, 11 months after the revolution. Grover Cleveland never proclaimed "The queen is free" because the Queen had never been under his authority for him to set her free! She had not even been imprisoned yet!
It is inexcusable for U.S. Senators to assert such falsehoods in a high-stakes debate, especially when they have many researchers and staff members who had been preparing these speeches for a long time. It's equally inexcusable for schools and colleges to be teaching such falsehoods in their textbooks and lesson plans when reputable scholars could easily be contacted for fact-checking.
In 1993 the U.S. Congress passed, and President Clinton signed, the apology resolution. This was a resolution of sentiment to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy. The resolution is filled with historical falsehoods and distortions similar to the ones uttered by Senators Dorgan and Inouye. It would require a book to describe and document the errors. The beginnings of such a discrediting of the apology resolution can be found in Chapter 10 of Thurston Twigg- Smith's book "Hawaiian Sovereignty: Do the Facts Matter?" which can be downloaded in its entirety, free of charge, at
http://www.hawaiimatters.com/
Another useful analysis is found in a monograph by constitutional law expert Bruce Fein, "Hawaii Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand" which was reprinted in three installments in the Congressional Record of June 14, 15, and 16, 2005.
http://tinyurl.com/ajz9s
A very interesting repudiation of the apology resolution is found in an article in the Wall Street Journal of August 16, 2005, at
http://tinyurl.com/exdg3
Slade Gorton and Hank Brown, two former Senators who had fought against the apology resolution in 1993, published "E Pluribus Unum? Not in Hawaii." They reminded a nationwide audience about some of the historical falsehoods and alerted readers to the fact that the apology resolution is being abused to support the Akaka bill. In 1993 Gorton and Brown had warned their Senate colleagues that the apology resolution would be used to demand race-based government handouts and to support a secessionist movement. Senator Inouye had promised his colleagues, on the floor of the Senate, that the resolution would never be used in any such way. Now 12 years later Senators Gorton and Brown were saying "See, we told you so."
In his short story "The Man Upstairs" P.G. Wodehouse wrote: "It is a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them." The way the apology resolution is being used today makes it abundantly clear that Wodehouse was right. The resolution should be repealed.
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August 31, 2008: PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE JOHN MCCAIN
http://specials.starbulletin.com/john_mccain/we-ask-mccain-and-he-answers-on-issues-of-rail-hawaiians-oil/
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Sunday August 31, 2008
[** Special pullout section on the Presidential candidacy of John McCain]
We ask McCain, and he answers on issues of rail, Hawaiians, oil
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Star-Bulletin submitted several questions to presidential candidates Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Barack Obama, D-Ill. McCain’s replies were returned Aug. 15. The Obama campaign did not respond.
[** Excerpt consisting of the entire portion focused on the Akaka bill.]
Q: Proponents of the Akaka Bill see the measure as overdue federal recognition of the rights of native Hawaiians to form their own government. Opponents see it as a “Balkanization” of America. Please explain your views on the bill.
A: I recognize the importance of preserving both Hawaii’s indigenous culture and its unique island culture. Hawaii is the most diverse place on earth, and I honor the extraordinary blend of races and cultures that have made the state such a special place. The Akaka Bill would compromise that special blend of peoples and cultures by creating a race-based separate nation that would differentiate treatment for the inhabitants of Hawaii based on blood type. The Hawaiian government has never been a race-based government, as a kingdom, a constitutional monarchy, a republic or a territory. I believe it would be a violation of King Kamehameha’s principles that — “All men are of one blood” — to divide Hawaii and Hawaiian families along racial lines. I believe the Akaka Bill would be bad for the economy of Hawaii, all the people of Hawaii and for indigenous Hawaiians. Dividing people by race inevitably leads to racial discrimination and conflict. I am committed to helping those of every race who need assistance, and deeply committed to federal programs that preserve Hawaiian culture and identity for the benefit of all.
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http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=13963
American Spectator, September 30, 2008
Trouble in Paradise
By Joseph Lawler
In 1993, Dennis "Bumpy" Kanahele, a Native Hawaiian ex-convict, blocked off the Makapuu Beach on Oahu to traffic until the governor gave him a 45-acre parcel of land on which to found an ethnic Hawaiian entity. To people in the continental U.S., the appeasement of Bumpy is outrageous. Sen. Daniel Akaka of Hawaii, however, has a plan to help people like Bumpy that should anger them even more.
Bumpy's separatist movement has some traction among the 20 percent of Hawaii residents who are ethnically Hawaiian. August 16 of this year marked the 49th anniversary of Hawaiian statehood, but there was no celebration in Hawaii. Instead, a group of separatist ethnic Hawaiians broke into Iolani Palace, the traditional seat of the Hawaiian monarch, in protest of Hawaii's membership in the U.S.
Sen. Akaka hopes to mollify the sovereignty movement while maintaining U.S. statehood. He has proposed a bill that would establish a race-based Native Hawaiian government within Hawaii, with powers and rights similar to those of autonomous Native American tribes. A House version of the "Akaka Bill," sponsored by Hawaii Rep. Neil Abercrombie, also of Hawaii, passed last October. The bill works under the assumption (codified in the spurious 1993 Apology Resolution signed by President Bill Clinton) that the U.S. wrested control of the islands from an ethnic Hawaiian nation in 1893, and is in Hawaii as an occupying force today.
The Akaka Bill would allow the Native Hawaiian government to negotiate with the U.S. government as a foreign entity. It would set up a council staffed by Native Hawaiians who would determine the constitution of their native government as well as the criteria for citizenship -- most likely a "one-drop" rule whereby anyone with any ethnic Hawaiian blood is eligible. The bill would limit some votes -- impacting everyone in the state -- to ethnic Hawaiians.
The new government would also supervise the transfer of wrongfully taken lands and resources to ethnic Hawaiians. The transfers would likely include state and federal lands as well as the Kamehameha School system, an ethnic-Hawaiians-only school system bequeathed by Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop -- and the largest landowner on the Hawaiian Islands, boasting an endowment of over $9 billion.
According to Ken Conklin, a retired schoolteacher who was a plaintiff in a case against OHA -- the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, a major advocate of such land transfers -- the main backers of the bill are "huge, powerful, racially exclusive institutions like Kamehameha Schools, the OHA, and the Department of Hawaiian Homelands. There are over 160 federally funded racially exclusive programs, all of which are unconstitutional."
Of these institutions, OHA is the biggest. It was created in 1978 to administer the land ceded to native Hawaiians after Hawaii became a state in 1959. Since then it has overstepped its mandate, redirecting billions of dollars from public spending to ethnic Hawaiians, fostering a system of cronyism under the guise of multiculturalism.
This system was threatened when in 2000 the Supreme Court, in Rice vs. Cayetano, decided against OHA, forcing OHA to allow non-ethnic Hawaiians on its board. The Akaka Bill would ensure that OHA and other such programs would never be at the mercy of the law again.
IN ORDER TO KEEP the handouts coming, the originators of the bill aren't afraid to inject racialism into Hawaii's famously harmonious multiculturalism. Furthermore, the bill's premise -- that the U.S. is a foreign force oppressing a marginalized ethnic group -- is shaky.
Jamie Story, president of the Grassroot Institute, a Hawaii-based public policy center, thinks so. She told TAS, "The Kingdom of Hawaii was never purely native Hawaiian." Rather, "it was created by a multi-racial coalition and finally unified in 1810, and the United States remained completely neutral throughout the Hawaiian Revolution of 1893."
Nor are native Hawaiians a tribe. "Assigning all native Hawaiians to a single tribe would be similar to combining the Navajo, Cherokee, Sioux and Crow tribes into a single governing entity," Story noted. The Native Hawaiians wouldn't have anything in common with the tribes of Native Americans recognized by Congress. They would share the same corrupt basis as casino tribes, without any of the legitimacy.
Instead of restoring a usurped nation, Story says, the bill is "an unapologetic attempt to undo the holdings of the Supreme Court of the United States."
The Akaka Bill's effects would devastate Hawaii: it would shatter the racial harmony of the most diverse state, and would flout the ideals of the Constitution. It would make a mockery of property rights, both public and private, while laying the groundwork for secession.
The fallout would not be limited to the Hawaiian Islands. The bill's passage would assert that "Congress has the authority to single out any indigenous people and to help them create a government," warned Conklin.
That would set a dangerous precedent for the mainland U.S. Conklin gave as an example the MEChA movement, a group of ethnic Chicanos who claim that most of the American Southwest was stolen from them in the Mexican-American War -- and whose case may be more legitimate than the Native Hawaiians'.
THAT DIRE SCENARIO may be tested soon. Although the Akaka Bill likely won't reach a vote in the Senate before the new president is installed, it came perilously close to passing in 2006, falling just four votes short of a final vote. A large Democratic majority in the Senate could easily pass the bill. Republican opposition, unfortunately, could waver -- the Republican governor of Hawaii, Linda Lingle, endorsed the bill for no apparent reason, which earned her the "Dunce of the Week" from Forbes.
John McCain has stated that he opposes the Akaka Bill and would likely veto it. Barack Obama, however, often called "Hawaii's third Senator," benefited from early funding from Hawaiian sovereignty groups and pledged in January to support the Akaka Bill's passage.
Joseph Lawler is the Collegiate Network Fellow at The American Spectator.
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December 1, 2008
William Perry Pendley
President and Chief Legal Officer
Mountain States Legal Foundation
One Consequence of a "Sorry" Congress; More to Come!
http://townhall.com/Columnists/WilliamPerryPendley/2008/12/01/one_consequence_of_a_sorry_congress;_more_to_come!
Townhall.com, Monday, December 01, 2008
In 1993, Congress adopted an "Apology Resolution" expressing regret to "Native Hawaiians" for the federal government's role in ending the Hawaiian monarchy. There was one problem: nearly every paragraph was either false or misleading, including one stating that "Native Hawaiians" were targets of any American mischief—in fact, since creation of the Hawaii Kingdom in 1810, there never was a race-based government. More significantly: why was Congress apologizing for ending a monarchy and moving toward republican government? As U.S. Senator Hank Brown (R-CO) put it: "We ought to be clear that we are not here apologizing for democracy or the concept of private property."
Senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI) said his only purposes were "to educate . . . the American public on events [and] provide for reconciliation between the United States and the native Hawaiian people." Senator Slade Gorton (R-WA) was dubious. What were the bill's "ramifications," he asked, other than "divid[ing] the citizens of [] Hawaii . . . into two distinct groups, Native Hawaiians and all other citizens." "[I]s this," continued Gorton, "some form of claim, some form of different [] treatment for those who can trace a single ancestor back to 1778 in Hawaii . . . ?" No, responded Inouye; Native Hawaiians' objective was "simple:" "we believe that our country is big enough and great enough to recognize wrong and admit it."
Turns out, Gorton was right; Inouye was wrong. Armed with Congress's Apology, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA), which receives a portion of the income from state lands to benefit Native Hawaiians, challenged Hawaii's affordable housing authority's plan to use a 500-acre parcel in West Maui. By state law, OHA would receive 20 percent of the land's value, nearly $6 million. OHA refused the check; instead, it demanded a disclaimer on the deed that the conveyance did not waive or diminish Native Hawaiians' claims to the land.
In December 2001, a trial court rejected OHA's claim that the Apology Resolution bars Hawaii from selling its lands. In January 2008, Hawaii's Supreme Court reversed, holding that the Resolution prohibits the State from selling, exchanging, or transferring 1.2 million acres of State land—almost all of the State's land and nearly one-third of Hawaii—until it reaches a political settlement on the "unrelinquished [land] claims" of Native Hawaiians. On October 1, 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court granted Hawaii's petition for review.
Given the schizophrenic nature of the State of Hawaii—it includes land management agencies and the OHA—the question presented the Court asks only if Congress's "symbolic resolution strips Hawaii of its sovereign authority" to dispose of land until it makes a deal with Native Hawaiians. When oral arguments occur early next year, however, the elephant in the courtroom will be the question asked by Senator Gorton, answered by the Supreme Court in 2000, and on the minds of most Americans with the swearing in of the first African-American and Hawaiian-born president.
The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. called the Declaration of Independence, an unpaid "promissory note" to all Americans. In fact, it was not until 1995 that the Court ruled 5-4, in Justice Scalia's words, "In the eyes of government, we are just one race here. It is American." Five years, later, in Rice v. Cayetano, by 7-2, the Court struck down Hawaii's law that only "Native Hawaiians" could elect OHA trustees; the Constitution bars such classifications, held the Court, rejecting the argument that Native Hawaiians are akin to American Indian tribes.
When the Court rules this time, it must speak with one voice, for pending is a bill by Senator Daniel Akaka (D-HI) that circumvents Rice and converts "Native Hawaiians" into a political entity, which allows them to constitute a government, determine its members, and demand a government-to-government relationship with Hawaii and the United States. Thus, what Congress did by accident with its Apology, it will do on purpose with the Akaka bill.
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December 3, 2008
Kenneth R. Conklin, Ph.D.
Hawaiian Sovereignty, Zionism, and Governor Lingle -- Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle's main motive for supporting the Akaka bill, OHA, race-based entitlements, and Kamehameha Schools' racially exclusionary admissions policy is her strong support for Zionism and her mistaken belief that the Hawaiian sovereignty movement is comparable to the struggle to establish and maintain a Jewish nation of Israel.
https://www.angelfire.com/bigfiles90/LingleZionismHawnSov.html
** Following is an informal version of the essay. A more detailed version, with links to supporting documents and webpages, can be found at
https://www.angelfire.com/bigfiles90/LingleZionismHawnSovDetailed.html
Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle has repeatedly and zealously done everything she can to support race-based political power for ethnic Hawaiians (Akaka bill); and she has consistently supported government and private institutions providing racially exclusionary benefits to them (OHA, Kamehameha Schools, Papa Ola Lokahi, Alu Like, etc.). I have always wondered why. When asked about it, she says simply "Hawaiians should decide for themselves whether to create their own government." (But what about the rights of the rest of Hawaii's people?) or "I made a promise when campaigning for Governor and I am keeping my word." (But she has broken other promises, so why not this one?) Her answers are superficial, and always left me wondering what is actually motivating her.
But then a letter to editor from two Kamehameha School graduates opened my eyes. They said Lingle had spoken with the Kamehameha alumni group during the 2002 campaign, explaining that as a Jew she sees the ethnic Hawaiian pursuit of sovereignty in the same way she sees the historical drive to create and sustain the nation of Israel. The letter writers made it very clear that this was not merely their interpretation, it was what Lingle had actually said.
This essay will do the following: Quote what the Kamehameha alumni said candidate Lingle had told them; Provide evidence that Lingle is indeed strongly motivated by her commitment to Zionism; Explain a few similarities and differences between support for Israel vs. support for Hawaiian sovereignty; Explain why Governor Lingle is misguided in equating those two things. In any case it is inappropriate for the Governor of a state to use her own religious views as the primary basis for shaping the most important public policy issue we face, and also inappropriate to support establishment of a race-based government in Hawaii whose most zealous supporters use their own religion as their primary basis for asserting a right to create a race-based government.
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A letter to editor that appeared in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin of November 29, 2008 and also in the Honolulu Advertiser of December 1, provided valuable information about Linda Lingle's religious motivation for supporting Hawaiian sovereignty. Bob and Paulette Moore, Kamehameha Schools '53/'52, were writing to complain about Lingle's support for the State of Hawaii's appeal of a ceded lands decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Moores said Lingle had promised in 2002 to support ethnic Hawaiians, but in supporting the state's current appeal "Lingle now dances a different jig. ... See how Lingle easily bends, how she gracefully spins, how she cleverly twists. She shames herself. Auwe."
Here's the most important part of the letter, showing Lingle's true motives for her 6-year history as a Hawaiian sovereignty activist:
"In 2002 when Linda Lingle first aspired to governorship, she met with the I Mua group to stress her inherent kinship with Hawaiian causes. Lingle made clear the unique value that the Israel homeland represents to world Jewry, with bindings of history, culture, ancestry and genealogy, a profound relationship beyond simple geography or real estate. She articulated clearly her parallel appreciation of the singular reverence that the aina invokes in kanaka maoli, whence is imbedded their connections of culture, religion, common beliefs, customs and mores."
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It's easy to prove that Linda Lingle herself is a strong supporter of Zionism -- political sovereignty in Israel for Jews as a racial/religious group. Not all Jews are Zionists. There is great diversity among Jews regarding how strongly they support Israel, and the extent to which they believe U.S. foreign policy should be shaped primarily by our alliance with Israel. Governor Lingle apparently puts Zionism at the top of her international concerns. But more importantly for her as Governor of Hawaii and for us as citizens, her commitment to Zionism leads her to support race-based political sovereignty for ethnic Hawaiians because she believes the two are closely similar. Some writers for Israeli newspapers and American Zionist groups apparently also see such a similarity.
Three days after Lingle won the election in 2002, the Hadassah organization proudly published a news release saying "She is Hawaii’s first woman governor, its first Jewish governor – and the only chief executive of a state to become a life member of Hadassah at her own initiative." Hadassah describes itself this way: "the Women's Zionist Organization of America is the largest women's, largest Zionist, and largest Jewish membership organization in the United States."
An article was published in Haaretz, a major newspaper in Israel, noting with pride that Lingle is Jewish, and that she is the first female head of government in Hawaii since Liliuokalani. The title of the newspaper article was: "Hawaii's Jewish Queen." The lengthy article included the following: "Throughout the campaign, she spoke about Israel, which she has never visited ... but she told reporters that she gave money every week to plant trees in Israel. She has also talked about how Israel is a safe haven where Jews can go in times of trouble and how support for Israel is imperative. ... She was vague about everything having to do with separation of church and state ... Some of Lingle's supporters see her as a modern reincarnation of the islands' last queen, Liliuokalani. ... Today, 110 years after the queen's abdication and nine years after the American apology, some perceive Lingle's election as amending a historic injustice and like to think of the governor-elect as stepping into the deposed queen's shoes."
Governor Lingle fulfilled a lifelong dream by making her first trip to Israel in May 2004. The Jewish Journal of May 13 reported: "Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle is stopping in Los Angeles this week before embarking on a six-day trip to Israel. ... Lingle, a Jewish Republican, accepted the Golda Meir Award at a State of Israel Bonds luncheon on Thursday at the Four Seasons ..."
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The Jewish religion says that God made a covenant with Abraham whereby God gave the promised land of Israel to the descendants of Abraham through Isaac (i.e., the Jews) in return for Abraham's promise to require Jews to obey the Ten Commandments and other special laws. Thus Jews have an absolute God-given right to control the government of Israel, its land, laws, and population -- not only a right, but a responsibility to God to be good stewards of what God has entrusted to them.
The Hawaiian religion is not based on a covenant but on a family relationship where the gods, the ethnic Hawaiians, and the Hawaiian islands are all members of a family bound together by genealogy. According to Kumulipo (the creation legend) the gods mated and gave birth to the Hawaiian islands as living beings filled with mana (spiritual power). Later the gods mated and gave birth to a human boy Haloa. Hawaiian sovereignty activists say Haloa is the primordial ancestor from whom all ethnic Hawaiians are descended (a more generous view is that Haloa is the ancestor of all human beings, like the Biblical Adam). Therefore, say the Hawaiian activists, there is a genealogical relationship in which anyone with a drop of Hawaiian blood is a child of the gods and a (younger) brother to the Hawaiian islands in a way that nobody else can ever be who lacks a drop of the magic blood. Therefore, according to this religion, ethnic Hawaiians are entitled by birth to exercise race-based political authority over all the lands and waters of Hawaii. It's a family kuleana (right and responsibility) in which the elder brother (Hawaiian islands) supervises, protects, inspires, and feeds the younger brother (ethnic Hawaiians), while the younger brother obeys commands and performs duties to ensure the happiness and productivity of the older brother. "He ali'i ka 'aina, he kauwa ke kanaka" -- Land is the chief, people are its humble servants.
The relationship between ethnic Hawaiians and the lands of Hawaii is actually stronger than the relationship between Israel and the Jews, according to their respective religious theories. The Hawaiian relationship between people and land is hard-wired through genealogy and can never be severed. But the Jewish relationship to Israel is part of a covenant with God which means that God can kick the Jews out of Israel if they fail to perform their duties under the covenant (which has happened several times historically).
On November 10, 1975 the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 3379 by a vote of 72 to 35 (with 32 abstentions) declaring that "Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination." Sixteen years later, on December 16, 1991, the U.N. General Assembly passed a new resolution by a vote of 111 to 25 (with 13 abstentions) rescinding the previous resolution, as a way of encouraging Israel to negotiate for peace with its neighbors. "Zionism is racism" is a controversy which continues today.
Whatever anyone might think about Zionism, it's much more clear that both main branches of the Hawaiian sovereignty movement are proposals for racism in Hawaii.
The Akaka bill says everyone with a single drop of Hawaiian native blood is eligible to join the tribe, and nobody without that blood can join. In the case of Kamehameha School admission, we saw that Hawaiian activists refused to acknowledge that Brayden Mohica Cummings was eligible even though his mother had been hanai (adopted) to a Hawaiian family. Thus, being Hawaiian is entirely about race and not about religion or cultural practices. By contrast, most denominations of Judaism allow people with no Jewish ancestry to convert to Judaism, whereupon the nation of Israel recognizes them as Jews with a right to go to Israel and become citizens with full voting rights the moment they step off the plane.
Proposals for an independent nation of Hawaii which include a constitution have rigged the voting system to guarantee that the head of government, a majority in the legislature, and all judges must be ethnic Hawaiian; and certain topics are for ethnic Hawaiians alone to decide (foreign policy, immigration, land use). By contrast, Israel allows all citizens, including Palestinian Muslim Arabs, to vote and hold office (although Israel vigorously encourages immigration of Jews from throughout the world and adjustment of its borders to ensure a Jewish majority). Even those Hawaiian independence activists who propose a seemingly democratic multiracial Hawaii with full voting rights nevertheless subscribe to a theory that international law requires special rights for "indigenous" people (i.e., racial supremacy for ethnic Hawaiians). An example of such a nation is Fiji, where several military coups in recent years have overthrown democratically elected governments in order to protect racial supremacy by law for ethnic Fijians over ethnic Indians.
Hawaiian activists draw upon the language of racial victimhood to portray themselves as needing sovereignty. Jews have repeatedly suffered outrageous discrimination and actual genocide, most notably during World War 2. Following that war, a world filled with well-deserved guilt felt it necessary to make amends by carving out a portion of Palestine to create a nation of Israel in its ancient ancestral homeland, where Jews from around the world could go to feel safe. Hawaiian activists abuse the word "genocide" to describe the large number of Hawaiian natives who died from diseases inadvertently and unintentionally brought to Hawaii by explorers and immigrants, hoping to make Caucasians and Asians feel that Hawaiians need their own government. With the collapse of ancient Israel and Judea, a population diaspora scattered probably more than 95% of Jews far and wide throughout the world under threat of slaughter if they tried to remain. Hawaiian activists now abuse the word "diaspora" to describe the fact that 40% of ethnic Hawaiians have freely chosen to live in the other 49 states where economic opportunity and lack of race-based government handouts spur them to achieve higher incomes and better health than the average for their state of residence.
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It's unfortunate that Governor Lingle does not grasp the fundamental differences between the justifications for a race-based nation of Israel (which many people will disagree with anyway), vs. the lack of justification for either the race-based Akaka bill or the ethnic nationalist independent nation of Hawaii.
Although ethnic Hawaiians are a 20% minority in their own ancestral homeland, they live, work, play, and pray alongside everyone else and achieve all levels, including the highest, in income, politics, business and professional occupations -- unlike the Jews in Europe, America, and even Palestine during previous centuries of oppression.
Hawaiian activists actually claim that they enjoy special advantages not available to other ethnic groups in Hawaii, because ethnic Hawaiians are living in their ancestral homeland where they are in touch with their ancestral spirits and also can perceive spiritual messages in the sea and sky which others who lack a drop of the magic blood are oblivious to. Here's what Hawaiian "cultural practitioner" Butch Helemano said in his TV commercial for the Kau Inoa racial registry: "Well basically, you know, being Hawaiian allows me to look at the world with a different perspective than others that aren't. In other words we can look at the sea and look at it as a place of sacredness and look at the sky as a place that we hear and look for messages so don't forget who we are and your culture cuz that's the most important thing here as a Native Hawaiian."
One good way to view Hawaiian sovereignty is to put it in the same category with other sovereignty movements proposing to balkanize and break apart the United States along racial lines. An organization called MEChA is active in several Western states, proposing a Nation of Aztlan for all the territory that was formerly part of Mexico and populated by people with at least one drop of Aztec or Mayan blood. The Nation of New Africa proposes that at least five Southern states should become the homeland for America's people having at least one drop of African blood, including huge amounts of land and money as reparations for slavery. Another way to view Hawaiian sovereignty is to put it in the same category with other nations primarily defined by religion; for example the Islamic Republic of Iran, or the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Governor Lingle, a Jew, feels a bond with the nation of Israel. She strongly supports Zionism -- the belief that the Jewish race/religion is entitled to have a nation for itself where Jews can feel safe and can choose their own national destiny. She mistakenly believes the Hawaiian sovereignty movement has the same justifications as Zionism. But the U.S. Constitution prohibits the government from establishing a religion. Governor Lingle should not use her own zeal for Zionism as a motive for pushing the establishment of a race-based government under the Akaka bill. And she should not use her power as Governor to support the establishment of a government based on a religious theory that sees ethnic Hawaiians as entitled to racial supremacy on account of their genetic relationship with their gods and with the Hawaiian islands.
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