Musings: Dustin's Dirty Deeds

Gosh, The Garden Island actually did some investigating and came up with a scoop: mayoral candidate Dustin Barca declared bankruptcy to avoid a $2 million judgment for cutting a guy's face in a bar brawl.

Unfortunately, Dustin confirms his immaturity and low morals by refusing to take any responsibility for the attack. He's chock full of excuses: he was never charged, it was an “unfortunate incident,” people are trying to make him “look bad,” everybody wants to focus on his thuggish past “when there is so much to work for in our future.”

And then he tells a giant, crybaby whopper: his bankruptcy was due to “a 22-year-old kid with $70,000 in hospital bills for appendicitis and dehydration” — not a judgment won by Patrick Gray, the guy who required 40 sutures after Dustin beaned him with a cocktail glass. 

Mmmm, then how come Dustin's bankruptcy papers claim $2,023,034 in liabilities, including just $23,000 for medical bills and $2 million in an unsecured claim to Gray?

For a guy who claims to be on a mission from God, he sure talks a lot of shit.

Which brings us to this statement, which proves just how ignorant Dustin is:

Economic sustainability is tourism.

Huh? What, exactly, is sustainable about tourism, either environmentally or economically?

You have 8 million people flying, via carbon-producing airlines, to the Islands each year. Then they cruise around in rental cars and tour buses, producing more emissions. They all must eat, requiring the state to import tons of food, and they're meanwhile consuming fresh water for their showers and toilets. They're using electricity generated primarily by imported fossil fuels, producing sewage the Islands are ill-equipped to treat and generating mountains of rubbish for over-taxed landfills. They're staying in hotels that consume lots of natural resources or vacation rentals that impact neighborhoods. Their accommodations and golf courses are heavily treated with pesticides to keep them bug-free and beautiful.

Virtually everything they require — aside from the waning “aloha spirit” — is imported. In return, they produce nothing of value, though they do spend money. However, a lot of that cash leaves the state and goes to corporations based elsewhere. So how is that any more sustainable than the seed companies Dustin rails against? Why isn't he demanding an EIS on tourism and its impacts?

I loved this:

“People will do anything to smear your name,” Barca said.

You mean like all those nasty, unfounded social media attacks you and your “red-shirt” pals engaged in against Mayor Carvalho and biotech employees, Dustin? The ones that are still being leveled against folks on Maui, where your anti-GMO campaign is now focused?

Yeah, that's how Dustin and the “red-shirts” and the “fistees” roll. And he and Councilman Gary Hooser can't claim they're not complicit. Shoots,they're participating in today's rally on behalf of the SHAKA movement, which has engaged in hate speech, death threats, criminal property damage and vandalism throughout Maui and Molokai.

I keep waiting for all the good people in the movement, the decent folk who still support Gary and Dustin, to say something —anything — against the ugliness. How can you support candidates who condone such actions? Doesn't it bother you guys enough to speak up? 

But so far, just crickets…. 

Meanwhile, that master manipulator of social media, Center for Food Safety, is ironically participating in a “teach-in” on “Techno-Utopianism and the Fate of the Earth”in New York City this weekend. Andrew Kimbrell, the same guy who joined Vandana Shiva in rallying Kauai folks to kick out the seed companies, is giving two talks: The End of Market Capitalism? and Genetic Redesign of Human Beings.

Koohan Paik — remember her from the Kauai Superferry days? — is in charge of “technology” for the event. Ironically, her hubby, Jerry Mander, will be speaking on Questions We Should Have Asked About Technology.

You mean like why it's OK for you guys to use it for propaganda and deception, but everyone else is suspect?

Good old Vandana is on the program, too, collecting her big speaking fee:

So let's see, if Hawaii Seed/GMO-Free Kauai brought Vandana here twice, via business class, with hotels and entourage, that's like a cool $100,000 they plunked down just for that particular piece of propaganda. And you thought this was a poor little David vs Goliath grassroots movement!

Sucka!

Or to quote old Dustin hisself:

WAKE UP HAWAII !! WE ARE BEING PLAYED FOR FOOLS AT ALL LEVELS!!

Would somebody please give the guy a mirror?