Stolen Kingdom, Stolen Paradise

Hawaii was a sovereign nation, whose ruler was deposed at gunpoint, whose lands were taken hostage and never returned.  

And now the refusal to make right this theft under the terms of established contracts and agreements makes the damages so astronomical that the loss of these lands may become permanent.

But this is the real slap in the face; it royally p*sses me off:

"It's like the grandmother of all affirmative actions. OHA ... gives away public resources explicitly based on race," says H. William Burgess, a retired Honolulu attorney and key opponent of ceded lands settlements. Considering that the Supreme Court has already ruled against native Hawaiians rights in a previous case, Mr. Burgess believes that his challenge could dismantle the payout targeted for native Hawaiians.

Pure and utter bullsh*t.  This isn’t a race issue, about providing equity to minorities who are otherwise obstructed.

It’s about theft and making reparation to the victims.  If the native Hawaiians were to repossess the ceded lands due to breach of contract, who would squeal about “affirmative action”?  (In spite of the benefits provided by OHA, the Hawaiians are not a wealthy minority in power in the islands; what is the real advantage to them in the long run?)

Worse, there are now so many non-native Hawaiians who feel as Burgess does that a vote for secession would not be successful.  How will the Hawaiians ever get reparation?

I can understand very well how the Iraqis feel about the U.S. on their soil.  It’s happened before, when American business men felt their needs for valuable real estate overrode the interests of the indigenous residents.  The land was stolen, and now the loss may never be made right. 

More than 100 years since it became a territory, more than 40 years since it became a state, this theft remains an insult to the Hawaiians.

Watch the oil and the oil-rich land in Iraq.  The same thing could happen.

At least during Hawaii’s regime change there was no CNN, no embedded journalists, no Shock-and-Awe.

Thank the Hawaiian gods for little favors.

11:03:42 AM    comment []

RantsCounterRants: Something’s fishy…

Notice anything fishy about the documents found today that allegedly substantiate a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda?

Why would anyone use a mess of correction fluid to obscure names when a stout permanent black marker would do a far better and more permanent job?

Why would anyone use correction fluid, which can be readily scraped off with a fingernail, coin, paper clip, you name it?

Sure.  Try that one on me, everything else has been stretched to the limit of the imagination.  I worked for a number of years as an administrative assistant; I know that one can easily make out on thin paper from the reverse side what’s been masked out with correction fluid, let alone that the masking can be easily flaked away.

Hey, maybe Saddam had a cousin in the correction fluid business…or Saddam exterminated all the workers at the only permanent marker company in Iraq.

Right.

12:09:55 AM    comment []