Rebuilding the Kingdom of Hawaii ! !

Here's a great article I found about the efforts of some folks to regain Hawaiian soverignty! http://www.rense.com/general67/hawaii.htm
Check it out now, I don't know how long it will be in Rense.com's archives.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110007117

[ Edited by: tropicalguy 2005-08-18 02:06 ]

Tough call.
On one hand, it could be very liberating for the true Hawai'ians left.
On the other hand it could be devastating. Wherever the void of US government is left something will fill it... most likely something worse.

I always hated the thought of Ni'ihau being like a reservation island.
Maybe put one island at a time under Hawai'ian authority starting with Kauai and ending up with Oahu.

What Would Jab Do?

On 2005-08-18 10:23, pablus wrote:

I always hated the thought of Ni'ihau being like a reservation island.
Maybe put one island at a time under Hawai'ian authority starting with Kauai and ending up with Oahu.

Actually, while I am always curious as to how a private entity can own an entire island, particularly the size of Ni'ihau, I am relieved that there is at least one place in Hawaii which is still home to true Hawaiians (although the conditions do seem very spartan).

Instead of returning the islands back, I would rather the federal government give back or buy (at current market prices, of course) the land back and let the Office of Hawaiian Affairs administer the land.

The WSJ should be ashamed of itslef for uttering such falsehoods, including this:

"The U.S. remained strictly neutral. It provided neither arms, nor economic assistance, nor diplomatic support to a band of Hawaiian insurgents"

This statement is more accurate:

The U.S. had indeed indicated that it would support a revolution by the annexationists, and would give them diplomatic recognition if they could gain control of important government buildings and of Honolulu in general. U.S. Minister Stevens may have given diplomatic recognition prematurely, before full control was established. But when revolutions take place, nations favorable to them often give speedy, even premature recognition, while nations opposed often delay giving recognition (for example, U.S. refusal to recognize the Communist revolutions in China and in Cuba).

The landing of 162 U.S. troops at a crucial time was indeed intended to show U.S. support for the overthrow. The U.S. has apologized for its role in the overthrow.

On January 19 and 20, only two or three days after the revolution, the Daily Pacific Commercial Advertiser newspaper printed the official letters of recognition of the Provisional Government given by the local ambassadors or consuls of the following nations: Austro-Hungary, Belgium, Chile, China, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Sweden, United States.

The Republic of Hawai'i continued to hold power during the entire four-year term of U.S. President Grover Cleveland, who came into office shortly after the monarchy was overthrown. Cleveland had befriended the ex-queen and had encouraged the annexationists to reinstate the queen to the throne. Cleveland made a well-known, lengthy statement deploring the U.S. role in supporting the overthrow, and withdrew from the Senate a treaty of annexation that had been supported by the previous president. But the Provisional Government and the Republic kept control despite President Cleveland's opposition to them.

http://www.angelfire.com/hi2/hawaiiansovereignty/overthrow.html

This is frankly against my better judgement, and I suspect, maybe even hope (!), that a third party will come in and remind us to quit the politics, but your phrase:
**
home to true Hawaiians
**
strikes me as proto-fascistic. I live in a region where the "big city" nearby is Las Vegas. One of the many pleasures of visiting LV is the large presence of people from Hawaii there, working, thriving, settling down, having their own "Hawaiian" newspapers, etc. Should they be shunned and urged to go back home, for they are not "truly" of the desert southwest? Should we all go back to our "true" geographic origins and build foxholes around them? One of the great revolutionary ideas of the last few centuries is that sovereignty resides in the individual, not a "volk" or a hereditary monarch whose shadow you were forbidden to tread on, for fear of instantaneous bludgeoning. It is a great irony of our age that many now, standing on this pedastal of this great human accomplishment, choose to look back longingly towards tribalism. How 'bout we not go there again?

BTW, I won't post in this thread again, and would like to offer my very best to christiki295, clearly a thoughtful individual who has my respect for caring about these matters, for they are important. Peace!

I meant this as a "PS" to the previous -- sorry. Citing Cleveland doesn't really seem to strengthen your hand here, as this rather bizarre one-termer "took over" the Philippines and instituted the policy of colonizing it, on the basis of his claim that God told him to "Christianize" it (he was apparently unaware that filipinos were already a predominantly Christian people). So, the fact that he had a personal affinity for the ex-monarch of Hawaii and this influenced his statements with regard to Hawaii is an interesting historical fact, but I don't really think it bolsters your case all that much. Cleveland just isn't all that compelling a source.

OK, now I really am off this thread, for it does get kind of political, let's face it. History - politics - etc. -- thin lines divide them, don't they...

Good grief people! I only thought it was an interesting article! no need to get all worked up about it!

On 2005-08-18 19:10, tropicalguy wrote:
I meant this as a "PS" to the previous -- sorry. Citing Cleveland doesn't really seem to strengthen your hand here, as this rather bizarre one-termer "took over" the Philippines and instituted the policy of colonizing it, on the basis of his claim that God told him to "Christianize" it (he was apparently unaware that filipinos were already a predominantly Christian people).

The "Christianize" quote comes from William McKinley, who "won" the Spanish American War one year after taking over from Grover Cleveland:

I walked the floor of the White House night after night until midnight; and I am not ashamed to tell you, gentlemen, that I went down on my knees and prayed Almighty God for light and guidance more than one night. And one night late it came to me this way—I don't know how it was, but it came: That we could not give them back to Spain—that would be cowardly and dishonorable; that we could not turn them over to France or Germany—our commercial rivals in the Orient—that would be bad business and discreditable; that we could not leave them to themselves—they were unfit for self-government—and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain's was; and that there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and Christianize them, and by God's grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow-men for whom Christ also died.

(italics are mine)
The Phillipines was (and still is) a predominantly Catholic nation, and Papists were often looked down on as just one step above Paganism. But the Christianizing of the Fillipinos & sublimation of their Malay-Latino culture were a secondary consideration, listed below keeping them out of the hands of the French & Germans, and this speech was delivered to a group of Methodist Ministers & Missionaries and was probably tailored to their expectations.

So, the fact that he had a personal affinity for the ex-monarch of Hawaii and this influenced his statements with regard to Hawaii is an interesting historical fact, but I don't really think it bolsters your case all that much. Cleveland just isn't all that compelling a source.

OK, now I really am off this thread, for it does get kind of political, let's face it. History - politics - etc. -- thin lines divide them, don't they...

It was more than a personal affinity, he opposed everything about the annexation, and he kept it from coming about until he left office. From Wikipedia:

In 1893, Cleveland appointed former Congressman James Henderson Blount as the Minister to Hawaii to investigate the unauthorized invasion of the Kingdom of Hawaii by U.S. Marines, which resulted in the fake revolution (aka "overthrow") against the government of Queen Liliuokalani by sugar planters and American businessmen. On December 18, 1893, Cleveland made an address to Congress reporting on the findings of Commissioner Blount in which he called the invasion an "act of war, committed with the participation of a diplomatic representative of the United States and without authority of Congress," called for the restoration of the government of Liliuokalani, and withdrew from the Senate the treaty of annexation of Hawaii, which was not submitted again for the remainder of his term.

[/History Wonk] :)

Well done. I stand corrected on a number of counts regarding history. That stuff is important, and I fumbled the ball big time there, I acknowlege. There still remains the question of what is to be done going forward, though, and the answer does not necessarily lie in notions of collective, historical grievance and guilt. I kind of think many of the points in the WSJ editorial stand on their merits without going into the contentious historical arguments. As I read it, I kind of thought, "Hmm, I bet that's very much subject to dispute, and why go there anyway?"

Aloha Tropicalguy,

Your issue regarding "True Hawaiians" is well taken.

Hawiians now, just like many groups, have undergone changes from over the generations. For example, it does a disservice too exclude the other nationalities from being "true Hawaiians," even though at some point there ancestors were from the Philipines, etc.

(The same point is made about me - I consider myself American, not even so much African-American, as I have no idea where, or which nation, on the Ivory Coast my ancestors came from and "African" is not really a political affiliation, like "Mexican" or "French" - its not like we refer to people as "Latin-American" or "Euro-American.")

I digress.
Regarding "true Hawaiians," maybe I should have used the phrase "native blood Hawiians?" However, that has "blue-blood class connotations."

Maybe I should have omitted the issue entirely, as it quickly becomes a quagmire.