07-15-2015, 10:48 AM
quote:
Originally posted by opihikao
HOTPE states:
The TMT went through a 7 year permitting process, during which time everyone had an opportunity to make their concerns known.
Yes they did, however, several thousands (61,000 on last petition, as an example) feel they are, again, not being heard. Some have been fighting telescopes on Mauna Kea for decades, not just TMT for seven years.
Typical government shoving aside the people who dare to question them, for the "greater good". Unfortunately, as Richard Ha calls us, "the rubber slippa folk" have gained little to date, while the "chosen few" gained plenty.
At this point, it (TMT) is a done deal, road is open, let the chips fall where they may. Akua be with us all.
JMO.
The 61,000 signatures on that petition included many people on the mainland and in other countries who were recruited to sign through social media. I personally several know people on the mainland who signed without having any idea what the issues were. So that petition just muddied the waters in terms of understanding who supports what.
I am someone who is generally on the side of native peoples rights in these sorts of conflicts, I am also a big supporter of science that tries to increase our understanding of the universe we are a tiny part of. When this whole controversy started I was fence straddling, with a lean toward the No TMT side, but as I've studied the issues and the process I've come to the conclusion that the issue of Mauna Kea and the TMT is really just a convenient tool for a wide variety of people to latch onto to make their positions heard on the issues of sovereignty, crown lands, and the overthrow. There are valid points to be made about those issues, but there has been so much lying from the Anti side about the processes and materials used by the telescopes and so much really ugly anti-anyone who is not Hawaiian rhetoric that I am now pretty firmly on the side of the TMT supporters.
I have seen people here on Punaweb who I used to respect use the "go back to where you came from" card, I know Native Hawaiians and long time locals who support the TMT who have been threatened into silence on this issue, and I have heard too many young people spouting anti-science, anti-progress dogma they do not understand, that they learned up on that mountain.
There was real harm done to the Hawaiian people since Captain Cook stumbled upon Hawaii, some deliberate, some accidental, and some done by the Hawaiian rulers with the best of intentions (the Mahele and selling off the Sandalwood) but very little of that will be solved by not building the TMT after they went through all the legally required processes. Changing the rules of that game now will prevent anyone from making meaningful investments in Hawaii for a very long time, and the children of Hawaii need jobs and industry that are not just more minimum wage service jobs in the tourism industry. No one is going to bring those kinds of jobs here in a globally competitive market if they cannot count on agreements being kept and contracts followed.
The TMT people invested 7 years and untold dollars into this project, now the "protectors" are saying that is not enough, while being very unclear about what they do want. I do not remember all these people flooding the hearings about the TMT over the last 7 years, instead they wait until the trucks are rolling, and then they stand up and claim no one was listening to them?
edited for typo