H. Doug Matsuoka's Open Salon Blog

Day 130 brings armed raid on Occupy Honolulu

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 04:03:10 -0400

[Occupy Honolulu, or DeOccupy Honolulu, as it is officially designated, began its encampment on November 5, 2011. Eight protesters were immediately arrested. Their trial will continue in early April. The existing encampment, although much smaller than its Zuccotti Park counterpart, has endured to this day. Occupy Honolulu has been subject to 10 property seizure raids, but both the encampment and public forum continue to this day, the 134th day of continuous occupation. I have been documenting much of their progress on my blog, The DougNote. This is the latest entry documenting the police raid of March 14, 2012.]

Ten armed police and City and County Parks and Maintenance crews under the direction of Wes Chun (Director of Honolulu Facilities Maintenance Department) conducted a seizure raid on Occupy Honolulu this morning at 3am. Police rousted sleepers and seized tents and personal belongings.

14:44 edited video from livestream:

Police raid Occupy Honolulu not because it is a homeless camp (because it's not one), or because it violates "Bill 54" (because it doesn't). Police raid Occupy Honolulu because of its political message, that the economic and political systems do not serve the people. The raids expose the police and City as hired thugs of the rich. The protection of law does not extend to the poor or those that advocate for a fair economic and political system.

Police seized literature and art from the encampment along with tents and personal possessions while Madori Rumpungworn recited the Kanawai Mamalahoe, the Law of the Splintered Paddle, which is incorporated into the State Constitution and guarantees that all who lie by the roadside be undisturbed.

The encampment is in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street and the Occupy Movement, and continues inspite of this attempt -- the 11th raid in the 130 continuous days of encampment.

H. Doug Matsuoka

Makiki, Honolulu

[Update 3/15/2012: Mahalo to D'Angelo McIntyre for this 5.5 minute clip from another POV]:

Video edited from 3 POV showing police and City crews seizing part of Occupy Honolulu's mobile encampment from private property during 2/15/2012 raid:

H. Doug Matsuoka

Makiki, Honolulu

(De)Occupy Honolulu and the illegal occupation of Hawaiʻi

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 01:01:12 -0500

[Cross-posted from the DougNote blog.]

The corner of Ward and Beretania fronting Thomas Square in the early morning of December 30, 2011, right after Honolulu Police cleared the encampment from the park area arresting two, and destroying what remained of the encampment.

It struck me as a no brainer when the suggestion came up that Occupy Honolulu should support Sovereign Sunday events commemorating the overthrow of Hawai'i and the beginning of the illegal military occupation of Hawai'i by the US. The Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) community has gathered at Iolani Palace on the Sunday nearest the January 17 anniversary for years, and it's right down the street from the Thomas Square encampment of Occupy Honolulu.

That the greed of the financial elite knows no bounds when it comes to the exploitation of people and places is a theme that has been emblazoned across the globe by the Occupy Movement. And it was as true here in HawaiÊ»i a century ago as it is on Wall Street today.

But then, not everyone is familiar with that day in 1893, when a group of rich, foreign "businessmen" with the help of a contingent of U.S. Marines began the illegal military occupation of Hawai‘i. I don't know if they teach it in school nowdays but they certainly didn't when I was going to school so many years ago. When I try relating it to friends from the continent (I'm not calling it the "mainland"), the story is so bizarre they think it's a weird science fiction fantasy or some kind of chemically induced delusion.

I also suspect many people here in Hawai'i may not be familiar with the history of the Occupy Wall Street movement or understand what the deal is with the "Occupy"-word, especially since the term has such a bad connotation here in Hawai'i.

So I decided to jot a brief history of both here. I don't expect this to be the definitive or final word on the subjects so please chime in with corrections and additions. And questions too.

From Wall Street to Ward Ave:

Aside from hurling the nation's economy off a cliff and kicking a lot of people in the ass, the Crash of 2008 exposed some pretty disgusting things about the government. Like who owned it. The Wall Street investment banks that had made so much loot during the bubble were bailed out with tax payer money to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. Those involved in enriching themselves at the expense of others were never prosecuted, even after the election of Barack Obama who promised transparency and accountability. To put it mildly, this pissed a lot of people off.

Photo from Occupy Wall Street's "2011, Year in Revolt"

Occupy Wall Street began on September 17, 2011, with the occupation of Liberty Square (aka Zuccotti Park). I first heard about it in various tweets and mentions in the internet info-stream. I remember wishing them luck but since I didn't see or hear anything about it in "The News" I thought it must have been over. Not at all. The really weird thing was while the group was encamped and engaged in rallies and marches in the middle of the financial district in the financial capitol of America, the mainstream media had seen fit to ignore it. But news started spreading even without mainstream media coverage.

In the words of the Occupy Wall Street website, "The movement is inspired by popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, and aims to fight back against the richest 1% of people that are writing the rules of an unfair global economy that is foreclosing on our future."

The references to Egypt and Tunisia are to a couple of the major players in what is now called the "Arab Spring," the series of mass demonstrations, protests, and encampments that erupted in the Middle East in early 2011 that resulted in sweeping changes in government and the surprising ouster of seemingly well established despots. Those actions were an inspiration to many around the world.

So what is Occupy Wall Street protesting? As the "Declaration of the Occupation of New York City" puts it,

"We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments."

They follow with a long list of specifics and urge others to join in creating encampments and making these facts well known. They point out that the top 1% wealthiest people possess 40% - 50% of the wealth and control government and completely corrupt the democratic process.

From the October 15, 2011, march through Waikiki in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street

On October 15, demonstrators staged rallies in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street in 900 cities around the world including Honolulu, where a large group marched through Waikiki on a beautiful and sunny day from Magic Island Park to Kapiolani Park where all gathered round the Ghandi statue. By that date, many cities had their own encampments, usually using the word "Occupy" followed by the name of the city. I followed the #Occupy hashtags on Twitter and was amazed and encouraged by the widespread support of the movement. The Occupy movement started doing some pretty mind boggling things. Occupy Oakland called for a general strike and thousands of people came together to close down the Port of Oakland on November 3. A national action on December 12 was even more widespread.

[Click for YouTube of November 5, 2011 arrests of Occupy Honolulu protesters]

It was only a matter of time before a Honolulu branch formed. After a variety of protest actions, the Honolulu encampment began on November 5, 2011, at the historic Thomas Square near downtown Honolulu. After the park "closing time" of 10 pm, Honolulu Police confronted Occupy Honolulu but the protesters invoked the First Amendment guarantee of free speech and the KaÂÂÂÂÂÂnaÂÂÂÂÂÂwai MaÂÂÂÂÂÂmalahoe, the Law of the Splintered Paddle (which is incorporated into the State of Hawai'i Constitution), and held their ground. Eight protesters were arrested that night and an encampment continued on the wide sidewalk area the police identified as being outside the boundaries of the park.

Early on, even before the group began an actual encampment, the use of the word "Occupy" came up. In solidarity with Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) groups who maintain that Hawai'i is subject to a continuing illegal occupation by the US military, the group changed its name to "DeOccupy Honolulu" which would be indicated in writing (as in their website address, DeOccupyHonolulu.org) or with "Occupy" crossed out. The website declares Occupy Honolulu to be, "From the occupied aÂÂÂÂÂÂina of Hawai'i in solidarity with the people of occupied lands worldwide, with Occupy Wall St. and the international Occupy movement." The representational conventions are inconsistently applied, and the encampment and movement both continue to be referred to as "Occupy Honolulu."

No aloha for APEC from Occupy Honolulu

Beginning November 7, 2011, Occupy Honolulu participated in the week of protests surrounding the international meeting of APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation), that international group of One-Percenters that gathers every year to make plans on how to best exploit the region's people and resources.

Laulani Teale's Pu'uhonua (place of refuge) protesting the treatment of the houseless and indigenous people during the APEC invasion of Honolulu. Shown here at 5am after members from the Moana Nui conference and Occupy Honolulu helped carry the structure on a 5 hour circumnavigation of Kapiolani Park. (Click here for a Flickr set narrative of the KanaÂwai Mamalahoe protest encampment.)

When Laulani Teale's small KanaÂwai Mamalahoe protest encampment in Waikiki came under constant Police threat, Occupy Honolulu lent support every night at the "park closing time." On the last night of the encampment, Honolulu Police arbitrarily decided that the entire area including the sidewalk and roads all the way to the ocean was within the "park." Threatened with arrest, the encampment with the help of Occupy Honolulu and members of the Moana Nui conference picked up the Puuhonua and walked it around Kapiolani Park for five hours. When the "park" reopened at 5am, the structure was returned to its original location.

[Click for Youtube video of Makana performing at Occupy Honolulu]

Local musician Makana had been scheduled to sing during a private dinner at APEC where President Obama would be in attendance. He wrote the song, "We Are The Many," in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement and sang it for the guests -- who didn't seem to catch on. He did drop by the Occupy Honolulu encampment and sang it there to a more appreciative audience.

The Honolulu Police Department's magical ability to change park boundaries at their convenience has served them well in the quest to harass people using parks and sidewalks as public forums. On December 29, Honolulu Police put blots of paint on the sidewalk indicating what they claimed was the new boundary of Thomas Square. These blots of paint encompassed the sidewalk area making the Occupy Honolulu encampment fall within the newly defined park area.

At "park closing time" of 10 pm, Honolulu Police arrived threatening to arrest any person and seize any property remaining within the park after closing time. The encampment featured very well organized sheltered meeting areas and an informational kiosk so immediate disassembly and removal of the larger structures was impossible. Since most of the constituents of the encampment are not homeless and were in fact at home during the raid, much property could not be removed and was seized by the authorities after they had been cut into pieces small enough to fit on the wrecking crews' trucks.

The encampment itself had been a model of communal living, with protocols for the protection and well-being of the participants. The police found no drugs, no weapons, no illegal materials of any kind, and certainly no filth or feces or that kind of thing. There was a quiet generator that had been providing power for computers and lighting, and bookshelves stocked with donated volumes that had the beginnings of a great library.

The actual tents for those remaining were moved to the sidewalk area directly by the roadside under the protection of the KanaÂwai Mamalahoe, the Law of the Splintered Paddle, and remain there to the time of this writing.

(De)Occupy Honolulu maintains a public forum in the area where the encampment once stood. The tables, chairs, and bookshelves are moved out of the area at the 10 pm park closing time, and brought back into the area in the morning.

The Illegal Occupation of Hawai'i:

I'm hoping that since people are more familiar with the illegal occupation of Hawai'i I can be more brief in my summary here. This wasn't taught in school when I went so many years ago, and I assume that it is now part of the curriculum. I present a short narrative for the benefit of the unfamiliar.

Some people react to the story of the Overthrow as though it were some utterly fantastic tale. It seems to them so wildly improbable that any nation or group of people could be so blatant in their thievery and so brutal. But as recent events and the Occupy Movement point out, there is no limit to the greed and voracity of the financial elites who would stop at nothing to enrich themselves at the expense of others.

1776 & Captain Cook:

I mention Captain Cook because I find it ironic that his Third Voyage to the South Seas began on July 12, 1776, only a few days after certain North American colonies declared their independence from England. By the time of the declaration, they had already been at war for some time, and were a treasonous bunch of criminals under the laws of their own country.

Captain James Cook may not have been the first western navigator to land in Hawai'i, but he definitely was the first to put it accurately on a map. He had on board an exorbitantly expensive piece of technology: the Kendall 1, the very first reliable marine chronometer. This allowed longitude to be determined with accuracy for the first time in history, and that allowed the islands in the Pacific to be placed on a map with great accuracy. It was an important achievement for a maritime empire that already had colonies on the in Asia, Africa, and the Americas.

1820 Now let us pray:

Once Hawai'i was on a map, it wasn't long before Christian missionaries made the journey. I don't want to sound anti-Christian but the pattern here was the same as many other places where holy men act as advance shock troops to disarm the indigenous population. The first missionaries arrived in 1820. Foreigner's voracity for all things Hawaiian, especially the land, spawned the Great Mahele of 1847, where Kamehameha III divided the land in Hawai'i among the chiefs. (The private form of land tenure and conveyance isn't a part of traditional Hawaiian culture. It's actually not a part of most cultures.) But these separately owned parcels meant that land could also be "conveyed" to others.

1847 The Mahele:

A photo of the Mahele Book. You can actually download a pdf of the entire book at this page (click)

In 1850, the Kuleana Act allowed commoners to apply for ownership of lands that they had traditionally worked. There was a catch: The applicants had to read the notice in the local English language newspaper and then had to have the funds to pay for surveys, registration, and various paper work. Not surprisingly, those who had worked the land for generations soon found themselves evicted by new owners.

One of the most profitable uses of the land by the foreigners was to grow sugar cane, which started displacing food crops. The foreigners could sell their sugar at a profit at the same time forcing more of the population out of the subsistence economy into the commodity economy which they controlled. Control the land, control the economy, control the people.

1887 The Bayonet Constitution:

The Bayonet Constitution of 1887, so called because it was signed by King David Kalakaua under threat of violence by an armed militia of haole businessmen, stripped the right to vote from most Hawaiians and Asians, while giving it to haole businessmen. Read this from Article 59 of that constitution describing who can vote and tell me if I'm engaging in hyperbole:

First: That he shall have resided in the country not less than three years, and in the district in which he offers to vote, not less than three months immediately preceding the election at which he offers to vote;

Second: That he shall own and be possessed, in his own right, of taxable property in this country of the value of not less than three thousand dollars over and above all encumbrances, or shall have actually received an income of not less than six hundred dollars during the year next preceding his registration for such election;

Third: That he shall be able to read and comprehend an ordinary newspaper printed in either the Hawaiian, English or some European language:

Fourth: That he shall have taken an oath to support the Constitution and laws, such oath to be administered by any person authorized to administer oaths, or by an Inspector of Elections;

You can read the whole document at the Hawai'i Nation site.

The Overthrow of January 17, 1893:

Lorrin A. Thurston, the Christian missionaries' grandson from Hell

Still with me? The author of the Bayonet Constitution and chief perpetrator of these crimes against Humanity, Lorrin A. Thurston (grandson of two of the first Christian missionaries), decided to take things even further. Since Hawai'i was an independent and sovereign nation, the sugar grown here was subject to a tariff by its primary customer, the US. If Hawai'i were annexed, that tariff would be dropped and the sugar planters would stand to make shit-loads more money. That was reason enough for Thurston and his associates to stage an armed assault on the Queen's palace. With the safety of American residents here as a pretext, Thurston enlisted the help of an American gunboat (the USS Boston) and a contingent of Marines to surround Iolani Palace and take Queen Lili'uokalani prisoner.

In a formal document, Queen Lili'uokalani wrote that she yielded to the superior force of the United States of America under protest and until such time as the US, "upon facts being presented to it, undo the action of its representatives and reinstate me in the authority which I claim as the Constitutional Sovereign of the Hawaiian Islands." In the meantime, Thurston installed Sanford Dole as the governor of the "provisional government."

This utterly criminal act of armed theft by "businessmen" was indeed too much for President Cleveland to stomach. President Cleveland directed Congress to set about restoring the sovereignty of Hawai'i. But that government is controlled by Big Money was as true then as it is now. Giving back Hawai'i wasn't in the interest of the Annexationists. When McKinley replaced Cleveland on the throne -- I mean as president -- annexation efforts continued.

To make a long story much shorter than it should be, from this point know that a few years later Hawai'i was annexed over massive protest and opposition. And, in 1959, Hawai'i was declared the 50th American State. This extremely abbreviated history takes the straightest line through history from Captain Cook to the Overthrow and skips over all sorts of things in the process -- empires in collision (England, America, Spain, Japan) -- etc. Maybe someone can point us to a good full-featured history or histories? The point here is to highlight the significance of that day, January 17, 1893, as the tragic culmination of greed and perfidy.

So this is what I'm thinking:

Across the street from Occupy Honolulu, the former mansion of Anna Rice Cooke

Ironically, across the street from Occupy Honolulu's encampment stands the Honolulu Academy of Arts. The building itself was once the lavish mansion of Anna Rice Cooke, wife of Charles Montague Cooke of Castle & Cooke, one of the early "Big Five" foreign land owners that profited so much from the aforementioned criminal acts. Charles Montague Cooke was also the president of C. Brewer, yet another of the Big Five.

To me, it is completely consistent for Occupy Honolulu to join with Hawaiian Sovereignty groups in protesting the Overthrow of Hawai'i and its continuing illegal occupation. Same enemy, same deal. Since Occupy Honolulu's constituents are predominantly non-Kanaka Maoli, traditional adversarial relationships would have to be bridged. This can be part of an ongoing process uniting the 99% of us who come from diverse races and places to make a better world for all of us.

Humbly offered,

H. Doug Matsuoka

9 January 2012

Makiki

Competing GMO corporations sit at the same table in Hawaii

Wed, 7 Dec 2011 03:12:35 -0500

While reviewing the testimony submitted in opposition to the mandatory labeling of GMO (Genetically Modified Organism) products in Honolulu City Council Resolution 11-339, I wasn’t surprised to see lobbyists for huge chemical corporations like Monsanto and Syngenta.

I’m new at this and not familiar with the “players” so when I saw the name of the Hawaii Crop Improvement Association, I decided to take a look and find out what they were about. In their testimony in opposition to GMO labeling, they describe themselves as “a nonprofit trade association representing the seed industry in Hawaii.” How cool, right?

Wrong! I tried to find out more about them by researching their officers and directors. Here’s a breakdown:

Position / Name / From

President / Fred Perlak / Monsanto (Hawaii Lobbyist)

Vice President / Laurie Goodwin / Syngenta Hawaii

Treasurer / John Anderson / (anyone have info?)

Secretary / Alika Napier / DuPont subsidiary Pioneer Hi-Bred

Director / David Gilliland / Mycogen Seeds (sells Monsanto "Roundup Ready" seeds)

Director / Cindy Goldstein / DuPont subsidiary Pioneer Hi-Bred (Hawaii Lobbyist)

Director / Adolph Helm / Dow Agro-Science

Director / Kirby Kester / BASF Plant Science

Director / Steve Lupkes / BASF Plant Science

Director / Mark Phillipson / Syngenta Seeds

Director / Mark Stoutemeyer / DuPont subsidiary Pioneer Hi-Bred

Director / Alan Takemoto / Monsanto (Hawaii Lobbyist)

The corporations represented listed in alphabetical order:

BASF

Dow

DuPont

Monsanto

Syngenta

What we have is a who’s who of multinational GMO corporations. As much as they try to represent themselves as “agricultural” companies, note that all of them are primarily chemical companies with a major portion of their sales in poisons such as herbicides and fungicides.

Wiki says, “Some of Syngenta's main competitors are: Monsanto, BASF, Dow AgroSciences, Bayer CropScience and DuPont.” Hey wait, all these competitors are sitting at the same table here in Hawaii. Isn’t that illegal? It seems to me it should be, but what do I know.

Here’s my thinking: Corporations that make and sell poisons are going to develop crops that increase the sale of those poisons.

GMO HAS GOT TO GO! Support mandatory GMO labeling in Resolution 11-339! Submit testimony and I'll see you on December 7, at Honolulu Hale!

H. Doug Matsuoka

Makiki, Honolulu

5 December 2011

If you need more information or haven’t yet submitted testimony, I’ve gathered some links in a previous DougNote blog entry: Let the people speak!

To my 7 billion closest friends

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 05:10:28 -0400

The headlines tell me that the human population will hit 7 billion any day now so I thought I’d take a moment to say hello and, yay I’m happy for the company!

But I’m sad that so many of us are having such a hard time. And by hard time I’m talking about extreme poverty to the point of starving to death. Not to get overly techno about this, but the way I’m thinking about this is by using this image: if every human were a streaming-media node feeding data into a network, even taking into account all the alleluias and birthday parties, sex, drugs and rock n roll, the aggregated data stream would be dominated by pain and misery.

And it doesn’t make me feel any better that some of you are living high on the hog because you one percenters are causing so much of the suffering in the first place. Okay, that’s my own political bias showing through and this is supposed to be a cheerful note to all of us and I got off on kind of a downer note so forget I wrote any of this.

Anyway, on the bright side, I note that the human population a few tens of thousands of years ago was down to 600 or so breeding adults and we almost got completely wiped. From that point it took forty or fifty thousand years to the year 1800 to reach the first billion, then only 200 years to get to seven billion. We rock!

Some people – mostly uptight people with mortgages and 401K’s – take a dim view of so many of us competing for their houses and retirement accounts. They do the arithmetic of taking all known assets and resources and dividing that by 7 billion. They end up with a much thinner piece of the pie than they started out with. These folk would generally like it if a few billion of us would kindly step off the planet, or at least make do with a much thinner slice of the pie. Needless to say these guys are not into the humans-as-streaming-media-nodes concept, and they don’t really want to plug into the cool music of aggregated humanity etcetera.

But they overlook something very hopeful. The Earth will soon accommodate 7 billion of the most intelligent beings in the known Universe. Man, talk about cognitive surplus! The thing we’ve got to work on first is how to work on this together.

This is a technological question, but also more a political one, if you get what I’m saying. I’m not going to go off on a rant about that here, but give it some thought as you spend your day. A lot of the people in possession of wealth and power have attained all that by discouraging the idea that we’re all in it together.

So you might have to think in secret. But you can be thinking about ways for all humans to hook into the big data stream and work together while pretending to watch Fox News or whatever. It's a very secret, underground thing I’m talking about, and trust me, I’m in on it so I’m not turning you in. But don’t be smiling when you come up with a bright idea because that’s a sure sign of subversive activity.

I wish we could all pitch in so we could get something when the 7 billionth human is born. Wouldn’t it be great to show up at the door with a truck load of Huggies and big old Cadillac for mom? If we all pitched in just one cent, that would come out to $70 million! That's almost as much as some lower level CEOs make in a whole year! And more than an adequate slice of the pie for the rest of us.

So Happy Birthday, whoever, whenever, and wherever you may be!

H. Doug Matsuoka

27 October 2011

The secret to the Coen brothersʻ True Grit revealed

Tue, 6 Sep 2011 05:09:55 -0400

I am happy to say that I was finally persuaded to watch this movie by all the good reviews on the internet. I was not disappointed. Among many other things, I found the initially puzzling use of language and the featured thespians mastery of the acting arts more than sufficient to justify the high score I must finally give it. So fascinating was this work that I conducted my own investigation to determine the various principles or "rules" that lent such a peculiar yet distinctive air to it. It did not take me long to discover these principles for I have a talent in this direction in the way some people have for summing and spelling. But I do not boast of my own gifts in this direction, for movie analysis is not everything.

In the first place, the language used was not one to take kindly to the use of contraction. Nary a single apostrophe was used in place of a letter throughout the entire epic regardless of the speaker's station or virtue. We do not have to assume that this drama's makers believe that people of the era and location did not use contractions in their every day speech. Instead the actress Hailee Steinfeld gives the secret away in her own capable portrayal of the 14-year-old Mattie Ross. Not only have 14-year-olds always used contractions in their speech, they have also always had a tendency to move about when speaking, or when engaged in any activity during their waking hours. But Steinfeld's Mattie Ross calmly remains still as a middle aged spinster when delivering her demands and pronouncements.

And that is it exactly. The novel True Grit was expertly written by Charles Portis in the first person from Mattie Ross's point of view. Not the 14-year-old Mattie Ross, but the middle aged Mattie Ross; the very proper, very strong, Mattie Ross, survivor and possessor of true grit. And in fact, every one in this memoir speaks out of Mattie's mouth. So we have a tale populated by characters speaking and acting in varying degrees like middle aged Mattie Ross's and that stunt may as well have been invented by the Coen brothers such is their gift for strange stunts.

Anyway, that is the secret to the style of the movie, and revealing it is my contribution here. I did not think it necessary to present a synopsis of the story since that is available in various degrees of accuracy and skill in the many other reviews posted on the internet.