Petition: don’t appoint developer to control our public lands

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Another petition, this one to ask the Hawai’i Senate not to confirm the new governor’s pick for chair of the Department of Land and Natural Resources. This is a blatant example of the standard government “revolving door” of industry lobbyists and executives taking positions of power in the agencies meant to regulate those industries, then moving back to well-paying jobs in the industries they just served while in the government, then back to a regulatory agency…

After taking two minutes to sign the petition, please read Derrick Jensen’s “Time to dismantle the corporate state” and consider the scale of what we really need to do in response to our sham democracy. Signing petitions is a tiny start, but those in power routinely ignore the voice of the people. We need to step up our resistance.

Too often too many of us pretend we live in democracies, though most of us know that we actually live in democracy’s toxic mimic: something that has the form yet perverts the content of what it pretends to be.

I’ve asked thousands of people a simple question: Who, in their opinion, do governments take better care of — human beings or corporations? And most everyone laughs. It’s a stupid and obvious question. No one says human beings. When I ask whether these governments take better care of the real world — the source of all life — than they do the legal fictions of corporations, I’m often met with blank stares: such a notion is inconceivable to most people.

But for all our private understanding that we live in plutocracies (governments by, of, and for the wealthy), or more accurately, kleptocracies (governments which have as their primary organising principle theft — from the poor, from the land, from the future), we publicly speak and act as though we do live in democracies.

Petition against PGV night drilling

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Puna Pono Alliance has launched a petition asking the governor of the state and the mayor of the county to enforce the night-time drilling ban against PGV. We, the people, haven’t had much success so far with asking those in power to do the right thing. But please take a moment to sign this while keeping in mind that more serious resistance may be necessary.

Is Hawai’i an occupied state?

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The Nation recently published a fairly concise summary of the differences between, and controversy over, federal recognition vs full independence as routes to Hawaiian sovereignty. The article reports a surprising swell in support among Native Hawaiians for a complete break; until recently it was believed that most were willing to settle for the more paternalistic option of recognition by the US government without full autonomy.

The debate hinges on the illegal overthrow in 1893 of Queen Lili‘uokalani of the sovereign Hawaiian nation, and the subsequent illegal occupation by the US. Nothing has changed to make the occupation legal, so the growing independence movement is appealing to international law to help get the US out of Hawai’i.

Over the summer, the US Department of the Interior held a series of hearings inviting Native Hawaiians to comment on the formation of a federally recognized nation. The hearings confirmed what many Hawaiians already knew: opposing camps have formed in the debate over Hawaiian sovereignty. One side views federal recognition as a pragmatic alternative to the status quo. The other side, at first thought to be a marginal segment of the movement, seeks the full independence that Hawai‘i had in the nineteenth century. Surprisingly, after decades in which the federal recognition advocates represented the mainstream, the voices for full independence seized the spotlight. The overwhelming response at the hearings to the question of federal recognition was “a‘ole”: no.

[…]

At its root, the debate stems from divergent beliefs about law and power. Independence advocates view international law (and specifically the law of occupation) as safeguards against the continuation of an illegally constituted, and essentially occupying, government—the State of Hawai‘i. They call not for decolonization but deoccupation, as was done in the Baltic states (Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia) upon the breakup of the Soviet Union. Some federal recognition supporters are beneficiaries of Hawaiian “entitlements” such as the Federal Hawaiian Home Lands homesteading program; others are US military veterans who argue that the United States would never allow a withdrawal regardless of Hawai‘i’s legal status internationally. These views and the paths they imply appear to be mutually exclusive.

The whole article is worth reading for a crash course in Hawaiian history and contemporary resistance: Is Hawai‘i an Occupied State?

Deep Green Resistance supports the independence movement, and efforts by indigenous peoples everywhere to maintain or regain autonomy and control of their lands. Read our Indigenous Solidarity Guidelines to learn how members of settler culture can support indigenous on the front lines of social justice and environmental struggles.

Oppose geothermal night-time drilling January 19

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What: Puna Geothermal Venture (PGV) community meeting
When: January 19, @ 6:30pm.
Where: Pahoa High School Cafeteria.
Why: PGV plans to drill without following the county ordinance that prohibits drilling between 7 PM and 7 AM

The county representatives for Puna are looking out for geothermal interests at the expense of community health. Following is an email alert from Bob Petricci of Puna Pono Alliance:

Geothermal Update

Drilling Alert

PGV has joined forces with Puna Council reps Greggor Illigan and Danny Paleka to actively campaign against the night time drilling ban we enacted to protect our community from PGV’s previous impacts due to 20 years of poor drilling practices.

Specifically, Paleka and Illigan support PGV’s stated intention to drill 24/7 in violation of the night time drilling ban.

Several major accidents and missteps at the PGV power plant last year resulted in harm to our community again, and both DOH and EPA cited PGV last year for numerous violations of their permits.

In discounting and essentially disregarding what this community has endured at the hands of PGV, both council members Illigan and Paleka have said publicly they support PGV intention to drill at night regardless of the law. That of course is in direct conflict with the communities best interest. These council reps are doing this with no legal experience to speak of and without even bothering to ask for a legal opinion from the Corporation Council. They instead are relying on a special interest (PGV) to interpret the law. This is an example of how bad government works to the detriment of the community, we should shine a light on this type of improper behavior by our our elected officials. In this case corporate interest have clearly been put ahead of the public interest by these 2 elected officials to benefit a special interest at expense of our community.

I went to Danny’s office to talk to him about this and ask for a copy of corp council’s opinion, he told me he never talked to them. He then promised to do so promptly, but don’t hold your breath. We will probably have to do that as well.

I also spoke with Council member Aaron Chung (an attorney), who told me he disagrees with Paleka, Illigan, and PGV. In fact he agrees with PPA and the community – the law applies to PGV as written. He based his opinion as do we on reading the law and the permit requirements that “PGV obey that law and all county laws.

In my opinion it is dangerous and unfortunate that Illigan and Paleka appear to be playing fast and loose with the best interest of our Puna community to benefit a special interest (PGV). I see no valid reason for them to fight for PGV against the community on this law. It is a sad commentary on the state of our county government.

Puna Pono Alliance needs your support now, this is our chance, let PGV know how you feel about the planned drilling now – before it starts.

Background

On January 19, next Monday, Puna Geothermal Venture is holding a community meeting. At that meeting they will be discussing upcoming drilling, currently scheduled from late January until March. During that drilling, PGV does not plan to comply with a county ordinance that requires drilling activity to stop between 7 PM and 7 AM.

This intended action is an insult to the community and to those who must bear the personal cost of PGV actions. If you live close to PGV, we ask that you come to the meeting in a show of solidarity in which we say you must stop placing community families second. If you live elsewhere we ask that you show your support for our neighbors that are being sacrificed to corporate convenience.

Thank you again for your past support in helping us defend our neighborhood from industrialization. We passed a law, now we need to let them know we intend to see the law enforced.

PPA Noise Committee

As you may have heard, PGV is planning to begin drilling a new well on January 25 and they say they expect it to go on for 3 months. The last time they drilled a well, it went on for 5 1/2 months and it made life miserable for people near the plant.

Despite a Hawaii County ordinance which bans nighttime drilling from 7 pm to 7 am, passed by the Hawaii County Council in response to PGV’s last drill , PGV says they will drill day and night because–they say–the ordinance does not apply to them.

We need the help of those that live close to the plant because if we don’t step up, PGV will continue to drill day and night–and they drill new wells every few years.

Paul Kuykendall and Suzanne Wakelin are working to document the noise and its impact on neighbors to force the county and state to address it as a health and quality of life issue.

The good news is that we live in an age where we can capture data via crowd-sourcing that will build our case with some very cool, high tech tools. We are going to use NoiseTube to collect and collate data using mobile phones which we can later analyze and show on google maps to quantify the noise impact.

To learn more about NoiseTube, please read this short Scientific American article

Or visit the NoiseTube webpage for more information:

We need your help to be successful. Please support us by doing the following:

1. Email lists@punapono.com with your phone number and consent to receive email updates on this project.

2. Please meet us at HAAS this Tuesday January 20 at 3:30 pm (before the usual Puna Pono Meeting) for a 30 minute training on how to use the crowdsourcing App

Please be prompt because we will only have 30 minutes.

3. If you can, please download the free app to your mobile phone by following the link below. It has instructions on how to download to an Iphone and an Android phone. If you do it before the training, we can show you how to use it.

4. Please share this email with friends and neighbors who could be negatively affected by the drilling noise.

If you want to help us stop PGV from illegally drilling at night, we need help this Monday,

If you want to connect with PPA, please come to the 4 o’clock meeting this Tuesday at HAAS School.

Documentary to protect Mauna Kea: “Why the Mountain”

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Mauna Kea is under threat by planned construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope. Though Hawaiians and non-Hawaiian allies successfully disrupted the TMT groundbreaking ceremony, the fight isn’t over yet.

The award-winning Hawaiian filmmakers Anne Keala Kelly and Mary Alice Kaʻiulani Milham are teaming up to create a documentary in protection of Mauna Kea. They are holding a fundraiser to allow production and mass distribution of a film to galvanize opposition to the destructive and desecrating TMT project. Time is short to stop this industrial expansion, and your contribution is crucial – whether a direct monetary donation or helping by spreading the word.

Our goal is to produce a beautiful, powerful and evocative film to help people everywhere understand why Mauna Kea is sacred to Hawaiians, a fragile ecosystem that needs protection, and portrayed as indispensable to the astronomy industry.

“Why The Mountain” will be a 30-minute documentary film that explores why Hawaiians and environmentalists oppose the Thirty-Meter Telescope (TMT), and why the astronomy industry is determined to construct this 18 ½ – story building on Mauna Kea.

[…]

Environmentalists argue that because the largest fresh water aquifer for Hawaiʻi Island is on Mauna Kea, the potential for irreversible harm is too high a price to pay.

They say erecting a football-stadium-sized structure, and its accompanying 5,000-gallon container for hazardous chemical waste, is an unnecessary risk. Given the toxic chemicals in use by the existing 13 telescopes on the summit, the TMT only increases the threat to the watershed and endangered and threatened species’ habitats.

Follow the progress of the film project at the Why the Mountain? Facebook page.

New geothermal well planned, with typical lies

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Puna Geothermal Venture (PGV), operator of the geothermal plant in lower Puna on Hawai’i island, plans to start drilling a new well as early as January 2015.

The existing five wells have mysteriously dropped in electricity generation from 38 to 30 megawatts. The last well PGV drilled two years ago, at great expense to the sleep and health of neighbors, has never come online as it failed to find sufficient heat. In the past few years, the plant has released potentially deadly hydrogen sulfide on multiple occasions, with ongoing refusal by PGV or civil defense to put proper monitoring equipment and systems into place to protect nearby residents.

Yet PGV wants to drill a new well, and is trotting out obfuscations, vague promises, and lies familiar to anyone who’s been following the fight over the years. PGV has promised effective noise mitigation measures for decades, but never delivered.

The community fought hard to pass a county noise ordinance two years ago to ban 24 hours a day of disruptive and health-damaging drilling. PGV claims the ordinance doesn’t apply to it, and that it is dangerous to stop drilling once it has begun. Yet when the community suggested it shouldn’t start drilling if it can’t guarantee safe shut-down in emergencies such as hurricanes, power outages, or lava flows, PGV claimed those situations are totally safe. (One of the dangerous gas releases occurred recently during Hurricane Iselle – and PGV was just operating the plant, not trying to drill a new well.)

The geothermal exploitation is also a direct violation of the religion of traditional Hawaiian Pele practitioners, who oppose drilling into and stealing energy from the goddess.

Nonviolent civil disobedience was suggested at the Punaweb Forum to block any new drilling until PGV agrees to abide by the noise ordinance. Deep Green Resistance Hawai’i fully supports such an action. PGV, and corporations in general, have proven themselves indifferent to community concerns, responsive only to force (nonviolent or violent). It is insufficient, as nearby resident Paul Kuykendall put it, to “[hope] that PGV will honor not only the county law but also the impact to the community and not drill at night.”

We will report if plans unfold for direct action, so comment here if you’re interested, and subscribe to email updates in the sidebar to the right.

Film Series – Mauna Kea: Temple Under Siege with Guest Speakers

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Announcement from KAHEA, the Hawaiian-Environmental Alliance:

“MAUNA KEA: TEMPLE UNDER SIEGE”
Wai’anae Film Series
May 1, Friday (5-8:30pm)
Kamehameha Schools Community Learning Center at Nānākuli
89-101 Farrington Hwy., Wai’anae, HI 96792

What is the real issue?
What scientific purpose does it serve?
When science intersects with cultural practices, how do we cross over? …crash, yield, pull over, rubber neck, bull doze, or plod?

FEATURED FILM: MAUNA KEA: TEMPLE UNDER SIEGE

5:00pm – Heavy Pupus (while they last)
5:30pm – Introductions and films
6:30pm – Guest speaker(s)
7:15pm – Small group discussions
8:30pm – “Take a Stand” activity

FEATURED GUEST SPEAKERS:
Marti Townsend, Esq., Represented plaintiff in contested case hearing
Daron Ching, M.D., Cultural Practitioner
Genai Keli’ikuli, Hawaiian Educator

THIS EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Consider bringing a mess kit – fork, napkin, plate – to mālama ‘āina!

Please RSVP at: waianaefilmseries@gmail.com

 

Cosponsors:
AiKea, DMZ Hawai’i/Aloha ‘Āina, Hawai’i Peace and Justice, KAHEA: The Hawaiian-Environmental Alliance, MANA: Movement for Aloha No Ka ‘Āina, and the Wai’anae Environmental Justice Working Group Planning Committee: Pua Ford, Maimun Yusuf, Lucy Gay, Summer Miles, Ileana Ruelas, Mona Diaz-Malasig

Food provided by: Maimun Yusuf, ‘Ai Pōhaku & Kahumana Organic Farm & Cafe

Interview with Anne Keala Kelly on the appropriation of Hawaiian culture

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Owen Lloyd of the Deep Green Resistance News Service recently interviewed Hawaiian activist and filmmaker Anne Keala Kelly on traditional practices such as the lū‘au, hula, and giving of lei. They explore how the dominant colonizer culture has appropriated and corrupted those traditions, in part to sell a tourism industry, and as part of the larger assimilation and undermining of Hawaiians.

Lloyd ends by asking the crucial question:

‬What advice do you have for non-Hawaiians wishing to stand with Kānaka‭ ‬ʻŌiwi against cultural appropriation and colonialism more generally‭?

Kelly:‭ ‬Great question‭! ‬And I want to say upfront that we are dealing with a settler-colonial situation in Hawaiʻi,‭ ‬but it’s a prolonged,‭ ‬belligerent occupation under international law because we are a nation state whose citizens never consented to becoming American.‭ ‬Hawaiians,‭ ‬in fact,‭ ‬were very clear in their opposition to being annexed to the U.S.‭ ‬That’s why there was never a treaty of annexation and that’s why what the U.S.‭ ‬has done instead is conduct what may actually be the longest running occupation of a nation state in history.‭ For Americans that’s a tough statement because they’re comfortable lumping us in with what was done to the natives on the continent– they’re okay with the narrative of us as tragic and past. They can talk about the occupation of Palestine, but Hawaiʻi? That implies present tense possibility.

An important interview for anyone wanting to understand the relationship between the occupying settler culture and Hawaiian culture, or how cultural appropriation works in general. Read the entire interview at Consuming Hawaiʻi: Anne Keala Kelly on the Appropriation of Hawaiian Culture.

Investigative journalist on Hawai’i’s GMO war

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Jon Rappoport, a free-lance investigative journalist, has written numerous posts recently about GMOs, labeling vs banning, and the recent passing and subsequent overturning of laws in Hawai’i to ban GMOs and their attendant poisons. He provides some good insights into the corruption in the political and judicial systems, and even with big NGOs supposedly looking out for the health of humans and our landbases. The main angle he’s missing is CELDF style laws, which not only block unwanted industry or pollution from a locale, but explicitly state that the local protections supersede the rights of corporations or the State or Federal laws written by those corporate interests.

You can see all of Rappoport’s posts on GMOs or read some specific posts: