Friday, November 16, 2012

Musings: Incessant Conflict

The sun was slow and shy about showing itself this morning, having climbed through a puffball pile up only to get trapped in a swirl of fast-moving gray clouds that hopefully will bring a little more rain — the poor grazing animals are hungry for fresh grass — and then clear in time to reveal the Leonid meteor shower, which peaks between midnight and Saturday's dawn.

Kauai opponents of the Public Land Development Corp. (PLDC) have been up in arms ever since Mayor Bernard Carvalho revealed that he seeks amendments to that very bad law, rather than its full repeal, as the Council has proposed.

They'll be staging a sit-in/sing-in outside the mayor's office between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. today in hopes of pressuring him into changing his stance. Some students from Kanuikapono are also planning to attend and share their chants and manao.

While Bernard is a minor player in this issue — the battle is going to be fought at the state Legislature, so the heat should be turned up high on Kouchi, Kawakami, Tokioka and Morikawa, all of whom breezed back into office, despite supporting the bill — it never hurts to hold the mayor's feet to the fire. 

Because you know he's being lobbied heavily by the developers and construction industry that helped finance his 2010 election. We're talking $5,000 from the Ironworkers Local 625, $4,000 from the Hawaii Operating Engineers Industry, $4,000 from the Plumbers & Pipefitters PAC, two grand each from the Hawaii Laborers and Masons PACs, $1,800 from the ILWU, $2,000 from the IBEW, $2,000 from the Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers PAC, $1,300 from the Carpenters and Joiners union and $4,000 from A&B.


As I sat through Tuesday night's meeting on Pierre Omidyar's development plans for the Hanalei River ridge, and listened to the Planning Commission meeting on the Kealia “ag subdivision,” I was reminded anew of the intense distrust and cynicism that people have for the land use process. They already feel shut out, overridden, blown off, ignored. Is it any surprise that the PLDC is seen as a total nose-thumbing, a way to ace out all that pesky public participation once and for all?

Meanwhile, even the Star-Advertiser came out with an editorial saying the PLDC should wait to adopt its rules until after the Legislature convenes. It's a bold stance for that paper, considering that PLDC Board member Duane Kurisu is a director of Oahu Publications, which publishes the Honolulu Star-Advertiser and Midweek.

And I was thinking, how clever, to create a five-member PLDC Board that is essentially immune to political pressure and totally unaccountable to the public, seeing as how it is comprised entirely of bureaucrats and a man who embodies big business. Conflict just slides off them like bacon grease on a hot skillet, because really, why would they give a shit what the people think?

In international news, the U.S. is blaming Hamas for the conflict in Gaza —

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters Thursday: "There is no justification for the violence that Hamas and other terrorist organizations are employing against the people of Israel."

 — while conveniently forgetting the incredible violence we have employed against the people of Iraq and Afghanistan — and continue to wage with our drone attacks in Pakistan.

Meanwhile, a chilling report from Reuters outlines how the war in Afghanistan is creating “a generation of people mentally damaged by their exposure to incessant conflict.”

Psychologists working there [Kabul hospital] say children who have known nothing but fighting since the U.S.-led overthrow of the Taliban government more than a decade ago are especially vulnerable.

"The generation born after 2001 when the international community entered Afghanistan might be 10, 11 year olds now, and I've been seeing 11 year olds and 10 year olds nowadays who are presenting with so many mental health problems: nightmares, depression, anxiety, incontinence," said Mohammad Zaman Rajabi, clinical psychology advisor at the hospital.

The fear of suicide bomb attacks, roadside bombs, and the overall level of violence in Afghanistan - of which civilians bear the brunt, with the number killed rising in 2011 for the fifth straight year to more than 3,000, according to the United Nations - can lead to anxiety, panic and obsession.

"The physical aspects of war (last) for a limited time, but the psychological aspects of the war extend for many years. Day by day the mental health problems caused by the war are increasing," said consultant psychiatrist Said Najib Jawed.

Just as socially damaging is the risk of a generation for whom violence has become the norm.

"One of the examples I always give is that when you talk to an Afghan boy, you can easily get into a physical fight because they just wait for it, they don't know any other ways of dealing with a problem than fighting," Rajabi said.

"All these things will lead to a generation of people who are not very healthy mentally, and this will affect everything in the country: education, relationships, families, generally the development of the country."

Ah, yes. War. The gift that keeps on giving.

28 comments:

  1. Yes! I just love that smell of perpetual war in the morning!

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  2. You do if you own stock in defense contractor companies.

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  3. Perpetual war is a devastating and depressing by-product of our modern era and can be lain completely at the feet of the American war machine, because Allah knows that the peoples of Iraq and Afghanistan knew nothing but peace and tranquility before the reign of George W. Bu--- . . .

    What was that? You mean the peoples of those countries and tribal regions engaged in conflict amongst one another before America stepped in? Oh my! And you mean neither Americans nor Israelis plant the IEDs that regularly and indiscriminately blow their own countrymen to bits? And that this goes back generations, even before the US funded the mujahadeen against the Soviets in a proxy war? Gosh, how complicated and very sad! And that the US became involved in these affairs through allying with countries to defend free market exchange of goods and resources as well as the promotion of freedom and western ideals? And that our allies and our own civilian populations rather than our military forces were shamefully attacked multiple times? While we prosecute as publicly and fairly as possible any war crimes engaged in by our forces and put in place constrictive rules of engagement to prevent the deplorable but unfortunately very real collateral damage that results from fighting an enemy which hides within a civilian population solely to bind us up in public opinion. You don't say!

    Me thinks you are somewhat selective in your placement of blame regarding the intricacies of war. Very sad for all, but not exactly something we jumped into just for shits and giggles, Joan.

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  4. Did you say "war crimes"? Did you mean Bush/Cheney/Rice/Rumsfeld? Did you mean WMD? Did you mean bringing demcocracy to those poor backward peoples sitting on oodles of oil? Did you mean Neo-cons? I thought so.

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  5. War overseas, war on the working class and Hawaiian culture.

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  6. 2:25, ummmmm, no that's not what I meant. Probably because, outside of the tinfoil-hat crowd, there were no demonstrated and/or charged war-crimes there. I mean the instances in which soldiers exceeded their orders and values to cause indiscriminate harm. You might LIKE for there to be war-crimes charges against the leaders of the invasion, and history will eventually agree or disagree with you, but until they are charged with more than you disliking what happened, no one can prosecute, hence no war-crime. I don't necessarily agree that the Iraq invasion was well-timed or absolutely required, nor that it was at all times carried out with a lily-white spirit of justice, but that is a completely different topic than laying all the blame for "perpetual war and its adverse affect on a generation" at the feet of the US.

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  7. Nobody is laying alll the blame on the US but we can certainly take responsibility for our own part and do something about it. Like get the hell out and quit being the world's #1 supplier of arms.

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  8. I cannot disagree there.

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  9. We invaded a country without provocation. We bombed civilians. We shot civilians. We toppled a bloody dictator, true, but he was holding that fractured country together. We unleashed years of pent up sectarian conflicts without a real plan except to give 'em democracy. Remember all the bullshit that we were spoon fed leading up to the war? And the fucking media with the theme music and all that other pump up the crowd let's get 'em gang jingoism.

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  10. At a certain point, one must realize that Joan and the majority of writers here are insane. Muslims are responsible for the vast majority of terrorism in the world. And have been since the introduction of this cult. According to Joan, every one in the world is entitled to their own country. Except Jews. Jews who have terrorized by Muslims for 1500 years. Thanks Joan. We know where you really stand now. With savages.

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  11. "Thanks Joan. We know where you really stand now. With savages."

    You just figured that out? Have you not been watching her behavior in the election? She is a savage.

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  12. "Muslims are responsible for the vast majority of terrorism in the world."

    Yeah, that Iraqi invasion with the missiles and the bombs blowing up innocent people wasn't terrorism. I mean, it would be if it was a Muslim country shooting off the missiles and dropping the bombs, but since they were the target, no biggie. Fucking retards.

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  13. Jews can have their own country. The problem is they keep expanding it because they don't want Palestinians to have a country. Don't blame everything on Muslims. Wasn't it Christians who carried out the Holocaust?

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  14. Savage??? WTF r u talking about???

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  15. Speaking of Christians......

    Who walks the talk? Killing Muslims or Jews (Holocaust) is not. Pedophile priests? Oxymoron? How about the Inquisition.......do witches float?

    A "Christian country....US?" killing innocent women and children looking for the bad guys?

    We should quit calling ourselves a Christian country because are NOT Christ-like in our walk.

    Dr Shibai

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  16. War is good because did you notice they aren't like us?

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  17. 9/11 attacks killed 2,753 civilians. US invasion of Iraq killed at least 100,000 civilians.


    Who are the terrorists and the savages?

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  18. @7:44 AM:

    So we subjucate and kill because they aren't like us? That's what "christians" said when they committed genocide against native americans and Kanaka Maoli who they viewed as savages. Easy to be blantly racist here when hiding undecover.

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  19. Has everyone heard that Shay and Jake is planning to destroy criminal records in the OPA for the next few weeks. This is out of control! Madness! Both should be arrested and all who support her actions!

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  20. Thatʻs bullshit.
    Stop this shit already.

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  21. Call Beth Tokioka to get answers if Kauai's DPA's were ordered to turn in their badges and to not to come in to work in the OPA for the next two weekends.

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  22. If anyone has info they wish to share with the FBI they can do so at the following link.

    https://tips.fbi.gov/

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  23. "Joan stands with savages?" Define savages? Brown people? Thought so.

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  24. Just curious so I looked:
    One Nation One Law 50
    male
    Location: Hawaii : United States

    Interests: I am opposed to government treating citizens differently on the basis of their race or how long their ancestors may have lived somewhere. I oppose the Akaka bill and all its various permutations. I believe that for any government to be legitimate it must have the consent of the governed.

    Alright! That means you agree to Hawaiian Nationhood and return of the Hawaiian government, right?

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  25. Glad you put "christians" in quotes up there. This is absolutely right. Though many have worn the mantle of Christianity to give authority to their hate and grabs at power, the very act of doing so gives lie to their claims, just as it does with Islam and other labels some choose to pervert. The fact that you conflate Christian with nazis and hatemongers is a sad consequence of history. The fact that you fail to recognize the distinction and work to purge it from your diatribes is altogether more depressing, though, because it reveals the racism and intolerance in your own thoughts that you blithely acuse others of. Let go of the hate, the stereotypes and the labels and call evil what it is. Don't drag down those who do try to follow Christ's teachings with convenient debris from the past.

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  26. In response to: November 18, 2012 8:47 AM

    "Alright! That means you agree to Hawaiian Nationhood and return of the Hawaiian government, right?"

    I am absolutely opposed to any restoration of any kind of monarchy.

    I am probably in opposition to any independent Hawaiian nation as I am happy with the rights and protections granted by the Bill of rights and the US Constitution. I say probably because I would need to see the details of any proposal.

    The consent of the governed deals with the issue of how would we get to any new arrangement from where we are now.

    I would be happy to live with the results of a plebiscite on the issue. Try to force something on me and I will resist in kind.

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