TMT Work to Resume Says Ige!

[Guest]

'My goodness, there is so many better ways to spend a couple billion dollars than building a telescope.'

Well no, there isn't. I'm sorry. No offense intended.

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You can't fix Samsara.

[Guest]

Hotpe, great response. Your idea is the best yet, let's start by cleaning maunakea's summit first. Decommission the old outdated junk before adding new junk, as everything runs down hill from the summit. All my keiki in school get strait A's and lead their classes. They are young leaders wanting to make positive changes everyday. They don't believe in stealing, breaking promises, corruption, or lies. If you meet any of my kids hotpe, they will look you in the eye while shaking your hand with a smile.

P.S. We have just finished cleaning and discarding all rubbish, weeds, and other mosquito living places around our land. We have helped many neighbors recently as well do this. We would be happy to help others do these things if they need a hand. My boys like to work for a good cause and are saving money for college elsewhere.

[kalakoa]

so many better ways to spend a couple billion dollars than building a telescope

Yes. $1.4B would buy about 4 miles of light-rail.

[Lodestone]

quote:

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Originally posted by HereOnThePrimalEdge

What about the presence of garbage tossed all around the island? Doesn't that also diminish the sacred nature of the aina, not just in one location but everywhere?

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Exactly. The custom of dumping everything from broken refrigerators to dirty diapers to broken beer bottles along our Puna shoreline is the most baffling behavior I have encountered on the Island. It's very rare to see this on the mainland anymore. If it happens, it's usually done by rednecks, and the land polluted is rarely held sacred (or even remotely scenic) by anybody anymore. It's considered horrible manners.

Even us heathens who don't put much stock in "sacred" things appreciate the natural beauty of the island and would never consider dumping trash. It makes it hard to take "sacred land" talk seriously when such land is routinely treated like a toilet.

[kimo wires]

http://www.bronsonkaahui.com/2015/04/08/tmt/
Opposition to the TMT is based upon new age anti-science activism

I'm with this Hawaiian.

Quote from
Michael Kealoha Stevens :

I am kanaka oiwi. My genealogy descends from the Pili line of Maui and from the Keawe line of Hawai’i. I live on the Big Island. I see with great sadness the division between my brothers and sisters. Once again we fight each other. One side claims legitimacy from respect of their kupuna, and deigns to invoke, in their names, what they sincerely believe their kupuna would want them to do. The other side questions the presumption of the first side for claiming they know what the kupuna would actually have wanted, as if they had a special insight that is somehow unknowable by their equally Hawaiian brethren because of contamination with haole culture.
I don’t think there is any way to know what our kupuna thought, and I do know that the traditions being ‘protected’ by the opposition to the TMT have been skewed and wrenched and cherry-picked to the point that traditions that are not even Hawaiian at all are being touted over and over and over without any voices of reason telling them, “Hey, wait… that’s not what the Hawaiian tradition is at all!”
The fact that we have been oppressed, misled, taken advantage of, misused… all of that is uncontested. The heart that needs to cry out against the injustice beats in me, too…. makes my koko boil with rage. Makes me want to obtain restitution and restoration. makes me want to be in control of my own life. I understand these basic feelings shared by many Hawaiians.
I also agree with Bronson, that a romanticized longing for a fictionalized Hawai’i motivates many in the general population. I agree that the ali’i, from whom I descend, were not the benign ‘noble savages’ that paternalistic Colonials viewed with avarice and greed in their hearts, because they were controllable savages with commercially marketable goods and a primitive world view that was fundamentally different from a Western view, and therefore manipulatable. I know there was brutal treatment of makaainana and kauwe, and an unsubstantiable claim of descent from the gods. The ancients did indeed live under fear and suppression. Everything was not ‘aloha’.
I agree that the alarming swell in the ranks of TMT opponents stems directly from social networking, and the almost automatic, reflexive need for Hawaiians to feel united in a cause… and this has been carefully orchestrated by a hui that has lost every single suit, every single appeal, every single contested hearing, not just against TMT, but against Keck, and NASA, and Gemini, and Subaru, and UH Hilo, too. It is easy to reduce complex issues into simplified memes, and to make statements like, “They didn’t follow the conservation plan!”, and “They didn’t allow public comment!:” and “It will destroy your drinking water” And, “It is a desecration of our sacred land!”
None of these memes or tropes is true, but on Facebook it is so easy to click a ‘like’ button, or to post a selfie with a piece of cardboard that has “Protect the Mauna” scribbled on it with a sharpie. People will not check the facts, will not read the dry scientific EIR themselves… they look to the hui to provide them with hyperlinks to hui sponsored propaganda, and they believe, without any critical thinking or independent research involved whatsoever, the tropes they are fed by the hui.
I have read all of the suits, court summaries, EIRs, the conflicting statements from the Order of Kamehameha, the changed position of OHA, and the conservation and summit management plans. TMT bent over backwards to accommodate every single demand, and exceeded the demands. Only one demand remains unfulfilled, on on this the opposition refuses to budge… no construction at all, period.
I find it hard to understand, for example, why Wakea was never invoked prior to the current TMT protests, despite it being the exact same people involved in the previous contested cases. I research the traditions and I find that Wakea as a sky god is a Maori and Tahitian construct, not part of the Hawaiian tradition at all. Previously the cultural objections were all about harming Poliahu or poisoning the sacred waters of lake Waiau. These positioned gained zero traction. Taking on the post-contact revisions to the Kumulipo where ‘figuatively speaking’, Wakea and Papa gave birth to the islands was interpreted by Kamakau as classic Hawaiian riddling wordplay which no one would take seriously. The current opposition has made great headway exploiting this myth and mis-applying the Maori traditions. I read Malo, Kamakau, Fornander, Beckwith, Pukui, Cordy… when I cite these sources to my brethren in the opposition, they say that I don’t understand, or that I am not Hawaiian, or that I need to ask my ‘na’au’ in order to really understand.
What they are really saying to me is, that since my gut feeling, my na;au, doesn’t agree with their gut feeling (which they are either unable to articulate or unwilling to discuss), …that MY gut feeling is somehow ‘wrong’. I reject this condescending, faith-based position.
My ‘na’au’ tells me to search for the truth, not some sterilized romanticized version of pan-Polynesian truth, but the actual, objective truth. After carefully ruminating over this for years, and after exhaustive research of both camps… and after remaining silent… I am now ready to make my position known:

O Kealoha ko’u inoa. No Hawai’i mai au.
I support the TMT.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

let's start by cleaning maunakea's summit first... as everything runs down hill from the summit.

I'm glad your keiki are doing so well in school.
I just have one question. If I understand you correctly, in order to keep your children healthy and happy, you would set your priorities as:

#1 - Remove the existing and functioning telescopes, which continue to make new and groundbreaking discoveries in our universe

#2 - Pick up the objects that desecrate the aina and may cause the spread of dengue fever to our keiki across the island, affecting their attendance at school and future (schools could be closed if the fever becomes an epidemic)

Also, with the Hawaiian sovereignty vote currently in progress, don't we all wish to maintain our former status as a non-endemic dengue free zone, so that when the time comes to transfer land holdings to the new Hawaiian Nation/Kingdom, those areas will be dengue free?

[Justin]

Kimo Wires: Great stuff.

[knieft]

dakine:

But for now, if my detractors could just show even the slightest amount of intelligence and post an opposing view, a thought-out rebuttal to anything I write here, rather than just calling me names, I'll be amazed.

I suspect you hear the name calling louder than the rest, but it is not all there is. "Get these religious nuts off the mountain..." is not a direct name-calling to you, is it? Or maybe it is if you are one of the protestors on the 'mountain'. Dunno.

My goodness, there is so many better ways to spend a couple billion dollars than building a telescope. In better times, sure built the scopes, look at the stars, answer all those lofty questions. But gee to call all that important, to put it before dealing with real life threatening issues that are on our plate today, is vain. After all the origins of the universe aren't going anywhere we can look at them once the keiki are assured of a healthy and prosperous future.

The sorry truth seems to be that blocking the construction of TMT will do _nothing_ to assure the keiki a healthy and prosperous future, either. A classic red herring.

Bringing up how you believe other countries' and other people's money should be spent is also kinda irrelevant to whether the protestors are generally more or less reasonable than the average, more or less subject to "groupthink", exhibit more or less religious zealotry than others, or "nutty".

I previously posted that "haoles go home" seems a legitimate sentiment and not one that offends me really. Worse would be never to hear that sentiment though it remained in many minds. Calling the protestors religious nuts is in the same league of thought, at least to me.

Or what? Is it just a means to bolster your own ego? Make you feel better? Superior? Stoke your vanity along with Tom's?

I would ask the same of the protestors. Is this an exercise designed to make them feel better? Do they need to feel better because of events before they were born, or for other reasons?

And beside, locally, imo, it is far more important to heal the wounds that were caused by the overthrow and subsequent behavior of the dominant society since, towards the Hawaiian people. If not for us, then for our children and grandchildren. So that they may learn, and perpetuate, a better way to live with all the differences between people. So that they may have a chance to be freed of the arrogance and vanity that is so prevalent in our society today.

From certain POV's the protestors come across as arrogant, abusive, and vain. And yet I appreciate that you feel bad about certain aspects of Hawaiian history to the exclusion of other aspects--and that you are not alone in feeling so (though can't really follow the train of thought that leaves you oppressed or wounded).

But once, again, I can not, for the life of me, understand what you think preventing the TMT has to do with the integrity of future generations. One might cynically view the TMT protests as teaching the keiki BY EXAMPLE about the same arrogance and vanity you say you are trying to eradicate.

If preventing TMT construction somehow healed your wounds and somehow magically ended the whole entitlement by history/heredity thing, I would be somewhat persuaded. But if there is a non-zero chance that you're wounded/oppressed feelings are something of your own making then it could be that 100 TMT constructions could be blocked and nothing about that feeling would change.

Its like when I point out how vain I think TomK is, how he strokes his vanity, and how mean spirited he is to those he disagrees with, it drives him nuts.

And the reverse is just as true. When someone points out how vain and mean the protestors are, with or without "naughty" name-calling words, it seems to drive them (or at least their sympathizers here) to frustration to a degree.

I am always amazed how some may want others to behave in a certain way but go about it by insulting them and still expect compliance.

Do you see that your words could have been written by the other side about the protestors! They want others (from around the world) to behave in a certain way (not build TMT) but go about it by the insulting, arrogant, vain act of blockading the TMT--and go further, saying there will be no compromise whatsoever. They think that their "interpretation is right, whereas the others...that have opposing views are wrong? You do realize that wars are fought over such arrogance, don't you?"

When instead of acting like some barnyard rooster will it be fashionable to be kind and considerate, respectful, of those with opposing views?

Do you see that the protestors are as guilty of this as much, perhaps even more, as the pro-TMT folks? Every time I have tried to point this out, the reply is always about how its understandable because of the injustices. That, yeah, trying to stop the TMT doesn't really have that much to do with the OHA and DNLR corruption or the keiki's future, but so what because "now is the time" or the Hawaiian culture is a thing of breath and humanity or something similarly fuzzy.

I will repeat myself from a previous post. Not that I expect an answer, but just so you can't say you just get called names and no one engages in discussion...

Kirt, repeated from another thread: "It may be that being a US citizen in 2015 is among the best opportunity situations in the world, in spite of all the US troubles and woes. Again, I don't get who or what you think is holding them back from reaching their [people with certain great grandparents] full potential?"

Cheers,
Kirt

[PaulW]

"And, since I'm rambling on about all things Mauna Kea, has any one heard of or seen the new pit crater that just opened up on it's southern flank? Now that's cool! And to think of how rare (for Mauna Kea) and close to the point of conflict it is, that's some real chicken skin kine stuff."

Sounds to me like you're one of the religious nuts that is smearing their feces on the mountain.

By the way, the world has never been more prosperous, sorry if that's news to you. And you know how it got that way? Science.

[PunaMauka2]

Well said, Knieft.