quote:
Originally posted by TomK
"And to be clear.. I agree Tom, you are right from your side, and I am right from mine."
I don't understand. From my side, I'm posting verifiable information. From your side, you are spinning things so much that they turn into outright lies.
TomK, let me try to explain it to you... glinda and the activist faction are not obliged to provide any actual facts, or even acknowledge verifiable facts or reality in general. They manufacture their preferred reality and supporting "facts" as required: as long as that reality and those "facts" are believed by some number of the credulous public and credulous media, they are "winning" the argument. As glinda acknowledges, TMT is a pawn and is irrelevant in this battle - and the battle isn't about "religion" or "sacredness" of the mountain, or even sovereignty. glinda, perhaps unintentionally, revealed what the battle is about: "...are people who you do not respect". It's really about bullying someone who (the activists feel) hasn't shown them adequate respect. Those of us in the science community, the university, or any other organization that is perceived to have had some measure of accomplishment, or financial success, or political power, (in their view) have to be taken down a few pegs. Our success, to them, is a measure of their failure.
It is a pretty deeply ingrained and widely recognized antagonism toward anyone who has been successful. I've heard it referred to by the local folk as the a'ama crab syndrome: based, allegedly, on the propensity of those crabs, when thrown together in a bucket, inevitably attempt to climb out. They often fail to do so because, as the uppermost crab reaches the bucket lip, he is latched onto by the lower crabs in the bucket and pulled back down. (if I can't be successful, no one else can be either...)
One would hope that Hawaii's leadership would have the gumption to be able to manage this issue - but that hope is increasingly dim. Success with stopping the TMT will only lead to new activism, loss of more opportunities for all, and progressive deterioration in the island's and the state's economy; further deterioration in the quality of the schools and the university; and further out-migration of Hawaii's children for opportunities elsewhere. But that's okay for the activists - as long as no one else is successful, they have achieved their objective.
