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There are progressive versions of all religions out there. Reform Jews vs Orthodox, Unitarians vs Christian, Protestant vs. Catholic, etc....all flocking to America to escape religious persecution. A follower of modern Kapu isn'the going to club you to death in this integrated culture.
In the Western World you get thrown in jail and die a slow death for offenses against the new Western Ali'i. Things aren't that different, just who is in charge. Having had the entitlement already knocked out of me by children of Hawaii (including other races) in school and having bloodied a few myself, I personally have no fearful fantasies such as yours. My relatives have been born and died here. I sweat and toil for the preservation of native species. I will be kamaaina when my ashes swirl atop Mauna Kea and I do not fear Hawaiians. They fight fair.
Kapu is a religion, it is law, it has defined land division. It is a complex system and saying it was abolished in 1819 or whenever is cherry picking from a Western standpoint representing who holds land rights. The customs of Kapu are alive and kicking in contemporary Hawaiian culture. Try talk story with locals outside your professional and political circles. You may get occasional stink eye but it shouldn't kill you.
Hi Mark D, hold firm, we need new voices.... ignore what you can.., sass back hard when you cant  It is territorial and strategic with some of these guys, to drown you out. The rules of polite discourse apply only when in an exchange with the like minded who unfortunately get driven off. Don'the puss out. Some of these guys cant get off their high makamaka, it would cause them to go into withdrawl. Lol!
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"I am a TMT proponent..."
Care to elaborate?
I hope they are planning great celebrations for the 200th anniversary of Hawaiians freeing themselves from slavery.
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Paul W, assuming you are asking in earnest, there should be room for all on the Mountain of God but entitlement isn't going to get anyone there faster. Bulldozing a half mile road from the summit to the northwest plateau before all the t's were crossed and i's were dotted was a big mistake.I keep saying that TMT is their own worst PR. Marginalizing Hawaiian culture is creating bad blood. Minimizing the need for Hawaiian oversight is also going to drag this fight on into perpetuity. TMT is in a race against time because the budget overages at this point must be obscene. They have stated that there is a mountaintop in Chile with a place setting for them. They may want to consider that if they are in a hurry.
My key advice to TMT officials is a) patience (Dont worry Hawaii,some other megastructure is probably looming on the horizon.) and b) stop expecting Hawaiians to adjust to the needs of the scientific community first. Adust expectations to put the rights of natives first.
They need to be cultivating good will within a community that values face to face exchange in which they have only made promises from a safe distance at meetings they arrange in formal settings. Go to the people with some actual local advocates, ambassadors and see if deadlocks loosen. Break bread. Kealoha Pisciotta could have been that person had the resident astronomers in the 90's respected her family traditions. It'seems so sad the arrogance of a few has created such roadblocks.
TMT is seen as a giant multinational corporate bully, not as a group of dreamers. On this forum, the employees who check in regularly express an air of supremacy over all the ignorant foolish, natives. Stop that immediately. You are no longer in your Swiss boarding school. This is the real world where a multiplicity of views and faiths are duking it out.
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So, you're not against the telescope, just the people who want to build it? That's a healthy viewpoint.
Railing against foreigners is very distasteful. By the way, are you Hawaiian? Just wondering, I've noticed
that non-Hawaiians seem to want to speak on behalf of native Hawaiians an awful lot.
Are you saying some sort of compromise is possible? How can that be if some (including yourself) say "Kapu!"?
What would this compromise look like? What can be done to get this telescope built?
PS The alternative site is on the Canary Islands and they seem to be thrilled at the prospect.
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Canary Islands. Perfect. Are you white? Is that why you are making assumptions about being White? In any event Hawaiians Traditionalists are woefully underrepresented or misrepresented on this site. If you want to start a separate thread about what people can and cannot say based on race, have at it. That should go well.
With genetic dirt testing being an actuality, (read above news articles) they should be able to clear the way for TMT to be built in a hundred years
It's been lovely but a dead Ohia just fell in the driveway. If only convincing people who already have their minds made up was as simple as cutting up a tree. Thanks Rob for a solid discussion.
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Your response is my answer. I thought so.
So, what compromise is possible if now every bit of dirt in the world (according to your misunderstanding of the news) is kapu?
ETA: Good luck with the tree! Just pretend it was educated in a Swiss boarding school.
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what compromise is possible if now every bit of dirt in the world (according to your misunderstanding of the news) is kapu?
Oh look, we're back to this.
From what I can tell, "kapu" is selective. Mauna Kea? Kapu. New bigger Safeway? Not kapu. Ka'u coastline? Kapu. Welfare checks? Not kapu.
"All or nothing" may be an extreme view, but can we just pick something and move on? The endless arguments about who should be allowed to build what, where, and why are getting really tiring, and "we as a species" can't afford to waste that kind of time.
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With genetic dirt testing being an actuality
ohiagrrl,
You might want to read more about genetic testing in soil, I don't think it's what you think it is. The process is extremely site specific as dna breaks down over time.
Also, dna does not just derive from dead bodies and bones. If you go in for a dna sample they generally swab saliva from your mouth. They don't take a bone sample. Humans have probably spit, dripped blood, urinated, defecated and more without dying almost everywhere on this planet over the last 200,000 years. Your argument is that if dna is discovered in a soil sample, that location is a sacred, kapu burial site. How would you determine that? What if someone just had a cold and blew their nose there? Do you have a way to determine the difference, or is nose blowing kapu too, just to be on the safe side?
On the fifth day - the scientists who studied the rivers - were forbidden to speak - or to study the rivers. -Jane Hirshfield's poem on creation
"I'm at that stage in life where I stay out of discussions. Even if you say 1+1=5, you're right - have fun." - Keanu Reeves
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spit, dripped blood, urinated, defecated
Hawaiian DNA on Mauna Kea could very well be from the "protectors" with enough blood quanta...
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"Are you white?"
What difference does skin color make?
Ohiagrrl wrote:
"Canary Islands. Perfect. Are you white? Is that why you are making assumptions about being White? In any event Hawaiians Traditionalists are woefully underrepresented or misrepresented on this site. If you want to start a separate thread about what people can and cannot say based on race, have at it. That should go well."
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