• America’s death wish • No room on the short bus America’s death wish My Cousin Tommy Sabella, a NYC fireman, died 10 years ago going back up into one of the Twin Towers to save more people. Since those
• America’s death wish • No room on the short bus
America’s death wish
My Cousin Tommy Sabella, a NYC fireman, died 10 years ago going back up into one of the Twin Towers to save more people. Since those nearly 3000 people died that day, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Obama and the U.S. government/military/corporate empire have killed untold hundreds of thousands more and have brought the human race to the brink of irreversible catastrophe.
Right here on the west side of beautiful Kaua‘i, we have our own major war-making laboratory, called the Pacific Missile Range Facility. It is here, in the occupied Nation of Hawai‘i, that Aegis missiles will be tested and then deployed in Guam, Jeju Island (South Korea) and Okinawa. As we speak, the ongoing valiant protests of those native people go the way of the Native Americans, the African slaves, the Hawaiians, the Marshall Islanders, etc. America’s quest for world domination continues to crush everyone and everything in its path to control the world’s resources and beyond.
The U.S. military is way beyond aggressive overkill and could easily defend itself from within its own borders. Senator Inouye, the King of Congressional military pork barrel procurements, would have us believe that this latest addition to the Death Star is for defensive purposes. Yet, the Aegis bases will be in the front yard of China, Russia and North Korea, and any other country we wish to attack in that part of the world. Looking in the not-too-distant future, those missiles and others will be able to conduct nuclear wars, and wars in the outer reaches of space itself, as soon as we find an enemy up there to fight or something of value to plunder. This has been brought to you and me initially by Ronald Reagan’s Star Wars fantasy in the 1980s, by George Bush’s insane pre-emptive wars and presently by Obama and Inouye and the war profiteers. You and I are paying for it all and we have all that blood on our hands.
To make matters even more unreal, the keys to the candy store were officially handed over on a silver platter to Inouye and the military brass by an official Hawaiian Kupuna lunamaka‘ainana, who claimed to be seeking balance (“Aegis coming ashore at PMRF,” TGI, Aug. 8). If you want to see some balance, check out Ed Coll’s live video footage of the Feb. 24,1993, protest against the initial Star Wars launch, in which 19 Hawaiians and non-Hawaiians were arrested for defending the ‘aina and the ‘iwi Kupuna under the Nohili Dunes launch site. Two days later, two more were arrested. I was in the first group. There were many more non-violent protesters outside the gates in support, who did not get arrested. We were led by the distinguished and peaceful Rev. Kaleo Patterson (www.archive.org/details/goodneighbor).
The point of those protests was that all of us were willing to put our bodies and our lives on the line to stand up for the ancestors, for the ‘aina and against the military occupation and desecration of the sacred dunes. Now, in 2011, the gathering looks different. In the latest act of Hawaiian submission to the military-industrial complex, Kanaka Maoli have sold us all down the river with a great big target on our backs. Kupuna Kaohi said that her ho‘okupu offering “showed a clear melding of PMRF into the landscape of Kaua‘i” and “the cosmos with it’s countless stars.”
If you care enough to get involved with trying to end this local and global nightmare, please go to october2011.org/welcome. Beginning Oct. 6, there will be an occupation of Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C., to end the wars, bring the troops home, cut military spending and to address six other humanitarian goals. Oct. 1 through Oct. 8 will be Keep Space for Peace week. Info is available at www.space4peace.org/actions/ksfpw11.htm.
Mr. Reagan must be rolling over in his grave with unbridled joy. Eighteen years after the first launch, he finally has everything he would have wanted, a clear and officially sanctioned path to world domination and the control of outer space. Is it just my imagination or are a lot of people making a lot of really bad decisions these days about our future as a species? It’s time for some serious soul searching for everyone, but especially for those who’d rather watch it all on TV or not face the truth at all.
Martin Luther King said: “The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men. If we are to go forward, we must go back and rediscover those precious values, that all reality hinges on moral foundations and that all reality has spiritual control. We live together as rational human beings or die together as fools.”
I am a veteran for peace, in solidarity and resistance to all the wars and other human atrocities.
Fred Dente, Kapa‘a
No room on the short bus
I’m a student who goes to KCC and this letter is regarding the county bus system.
First of all, I’m glad that Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr. made it free for students to ride the bus to KCC; however, I find it frustrating to take the 400 from Kapa‘a to Lihu‘e when the bus is too small to accommodate all the riders at that hour.
I ride the bus starting from Kapa‘a, while the bus itself comes all the way from the Northshore. By the time it gets to the Kapa‘a Skate Park, there are hardly any places to sit down on the bus.
While riding the bus to school today around 8:20 a.m., at one point there were at least 15 people standing in the aisle from the back of the bus all the way to the front, blocking the only door and the only entrance (besides the handicap door).
Every seat was taken and I was fortunate enough to find a place to sit down; however, I still felt like I was compressed inside a refrigerated can of sardines — not to mention a big man who was standing in the aisle with his belly next to my face.
By the end of the trip, 15 people (including me) all got off at KCC, which is the last stop the 400 makes. My point is this: We need bigger buses to accommodate the busier hours in the week for the Northbound students and for the car-less folk who want to catch a connection or do their business in Lihu‘e.
Joe Turner, Kapa‘a
