• Taro bill amended, not killed • Where’s the Aloha Airlines special session? • Here’s what letter writer thought • Taro bill amended, not killed The taro bill did not die from lack of support, it was amended by biotech
• Taro bill amended, not killed
• Where’s the Aloha Airlines special session?
• Here’s what letter writer thought
•
Taro bill amended, not killed
The taro bill did not die from lack of support, it was amended by biotech supporters and Rep. Clift Tsuji (Hilo), into a bill that was the opposite of what we want.
The original bill asked for a 10-year moratorium on creating and growing GMO taro. We simply asked for more time while protecting haloa and the taro farmers.
The amended bill proposed a five-year moratorium on GMO Hawaiian taro but it allowed GMO research on other taro varieties. It allowed Hawaiian taro to be genetically modified outside of the state, and it allowed GMO taro to be brought here and planted in Hawai‘i.
The amended bill included language that would protect all GMO plants.
It would prohibit our state and county from banning or restricting any GMOs.
This language excluded our county from applying our CZO, charter provision, permit condition, spraying restrictions or EIS to any GMO crops.
It would have prevented us from regulating the testing, handling, transportation, notification or even imposing of labeling laws.
Wow, how did our little bill get so fat?
This exact language, known as pre-emptive law, has turned up in 16 U.S. states. These states have lost the ability to impose county or state “home rules” regarding GMO testing. This language is a slap in the face to the county councils on every island.
We think there is a disproportionate amount of resources supporting irresponsible science and corporate profits. The Hawaiian people, farmers and the huge volunteer effort towards self-sustaining islands, deserve resources too. More than 7000 farmers, cultural practitioners, and consumers did not want GMO kalo. Who is looking out for us?
Jeri Di Pietro
Koloa
Where’s the Aloha Airlines special session?
I ask one simple question: Why was no “Special Session” of the Hawai‘i Legislature, or an “Emergency Session” of the Legislature called to keep afloat Aloha Airlines, a 61-year-old loyal transportation company with thousands of longstanding employees affected; whereby we all know a Special Session was called for a “large capacity ferry vessel company” not even yet in business, with mostly part-time employees with little if any benefits and a company evading at every opportunity its kuleana to the environment and generations to come?
Could it be that our present governor cares more about helping the neo-con investors of Superferry, and their positioning for private military contracts, and the use of the ferry for future strategic military use, than caring about the thousands of Aloha workers, their families and all the related business loss.
Where is the Special Session for Aloha, Lingle?
All the while feigning your sympathy for the workers. So much hypocrisy and lies surround you and the Superferry dealings. Impeachment is an honorable path here, though not on the table in this corrupt political system, mirroring the U.S. Congress and Bush/Cheney (And I used to be an avid Republican).
And Mayor Bryan Baptiste, honestly, I and so many people wished you would have stood up to Lingle on Superferry, as did the Maui mayor forbidding county employee use of the ferry. I didn’t understand your in-absentia style on this huge impact of an issue to us. May God bless all of us on this issue and our individual learnings.
John Cragg
Anahola
Here’s what letter writer thought
Regarding the letter to the editor stating that businesses are afraid unionized workers will cut into profits: This writer is correct as far as the government is concerned (“Power in the workplace,” Letters, April 15).
They want those profits to be taxed, and highly taxed at that. As to the businesses, they need the profits to stay in business which accounts for all of those jobs that union bosses want their share of the employees wages. Unions have routinely made the costs to the consumer higher and higher. Does this writer really think that the business owner will be willing to take a lower profit?
Of course not.
Does this writer expect the union to tell its member to work harder and smarter in order to help the business to make a respectable profit without raising the cost to the consumer?
I doubt it.
What this is really about is for the union bosses and members to be able to coerce the prospective members so that they will vote or sign up to be a union member. All one has to do is go to a meeting like the one regarding Wal-Mart expansion to see just how intimidating union members can be. Those meetings were very scary to proponents for the Wal-Mart expansion.
An example of just how bad the unions can be is shown by what they have done to American automakers.
The time for the need of unions is past. At one time they performed a needed service. That time is long gone. This can be seen in the falling membership and why the union bosses are trying so hard to force unionization on business; by having open balloting so that they can scare the wits out of those who don’t want to join a union.
A secret ballot is the only fair way to get a fair vote. Why does one think we use a secret ballot with government/political voting ?
Gordon Smith
Kapa‘a
