Events

Th, Jun 30, 2011, 9:30 a.m. - Land Use Commission hearing for approval of Ho'opili residential project, permanently destroying prime agricultural land. At State Office Building on Beretania St., across from St. Andrew's Cathedral.

Sa, Jul 23, 2011, 11 a.m.-12 noon - Waialua Public Library, 67-068 Kealohanui St., Waialua (Oahu north shore). Lorrin Pang, M.D., on risks of our mono crop diets & present agricultural methods in Hawaii. More info.

Quotes

If our economy of freedom fails to distribute wealth as ably as it has created it, the road to dictatorship will be open to any man who can persuasively promise security to all; and a martial government, under whatever charming phrases, will engulf the democratic world.

Will & Ariel Durant, The Lessons of History, pp. 79-80.

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A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within. The essential causes of Rome's decline lay in her people, her morals, her class struggle, her failing trade, her bureaucratic despotism, her stifling taxes, her consuming wars.

Will Durant, historian, on why Rome fell

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I know you won’t believe me, but the highest form of Human Excellence is to question oneself and others

Socrates, who was sentenced to death by drinking hemlock by an Athenian court

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I am the governor. I'm not your pal.

Hawaii governor Neil Abercrombie, in a soundbite that has reverberated around the state.

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Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.

Ronald Reagan Click for audio

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In a war, while one side may ultimately be able to claim victory, both sides lose.

Anonymous

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We are not going to war over a bunch of dead [American] sailors.

Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, ordering Admiral Lawrence Geis to recall Sixth Fleet aircraft that were on their way to drive off Israeli military forces who were attempting to murder the entire crew of the minimally armed surveillance ship USS Liberty in the Mediterranean Sea during the 1967 Six-Day War.

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America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.

John Quincy Adams (1767 - 1848), 6th President of the United States

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A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.

George Bernard Shaw

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Send an email, make a call, write a letter. We [Hawaii state legislators] need to know what you think and the system works much better if you are involved.

Hawaii state representative Karl Rhoads, District 28 (Palama, Downtown, Chinatown, Sheridan)

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I'd rather be in jail in America than free anywhere else.

Former communist & Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver shortly after he voluntarily returned to the U.S. as a prisoner from seven years as a free man, but an exile, abroad

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Educate and inform the whole mass of the people. . . . They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.

Thomas Jefferson

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NY Times Writes Misinformed Editorial on Sou Brothers

Submitted by HPI on Wed, 10/06/2010 - 01:08

Alec and Mike Sou, owners of Aloun Farms, have been vilified in the press and by the public. But to read the following New York Times editorial, the Hawaii public consists of a bunch of brain-dead amoral cretins who don't give a damn about the suffering of incredibly abused immigrant farm workers right in their midst.

The writer is obviously misinformed and brings discredit to the credibility of The New York Times with his editorial. First of all, he's convicted the brothers before their trial. Secondly, he doesn't know that the Sou brothers have been subject to almost universal condemnation here locally. Many of the brothers' comparatively few previous supporters seem to have lost their nerve or their convictions in the face of strong and numerous moral condemnations and haven't been heard from in months.

There's more that can be said on Downes' cluelessness, but more on that later.

See what you think after reading the editorial.
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The New York Times

by Lawrence Downes

September 20, 2010

In an Ugly Human-Trafficking Case, Hawaii Forgets Itself

This is a story of two farmers, Laotian immigrant brothers who grow vegetables in Hawaii. People love their onions, melons, Asian cabbage, herbs and sweet corn, and their Halloween pumpkin patch is a popular field trip for schoolchildren all over Oahu. They count local politicians and community leaders among their many friends, and run a charitable foundation.

Though they are relative newcomers, their adopted home is a state that honors its agricultural history, where most longtime locals are descendants of immigrant plantation workers. The brothers fit right in.

Read more . . . Then when you're done, read the response below. It was sent to the NY Times, which didn't publish it.

Links:

Response to New York Times Editorial on Human Trafficking [HPI]

Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent (book) [Amazon.com]

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NY Times Writes Misinformed Editorial on Sou Brothers

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