Bill Bertrand, in a letter to the Forum June 28 (“Things have changed”), claims that I said, “Most people on Kaua’i exhibit a complacent subservience coupled with an inborn inferiority complex.” I did not say “Most people …” However, I
Bill Bertrand, in a letter to the Forum June 28 (“Things have changed”), claims
that I said, “Most people on Kaua’i exhibit a complacent subservience
coupled with an inborn inferiority complex.” I did not say “Most
people …” However, I did say “Kaua’i’s electorate majority,”
which is not the same thing as “most people.” One does not
necessarily need to run for public office in the United States to learn the
difference, but it doesn’t hurt to do so.
Bertrand says, “Buy the
Kaua’i Electric…use the $9 million a year that KE was sending to Citizens’
(Utilities Inc.) stockholders on the mainland per year.” Were I smart
enough to form a co-op, I would say “Right on, brother! You got it!”
Add it u: 50 years of guaranteed profits to the Investor? We own already.
Period. Even more, they owe us Kaua’i average citizen ratepayers. They already
got their money’s worth and more. The sweat of two and three Kaua’i generations
has long since paid them off, even if most us are too ignorant, too poorly led
to acknowledge that fact.
It is not that Kauaians owe $200 million, two
generations of electric rates fixed to satisfy speculative financial pursuits
which they claim to be their
right as divined by the U.S. Constitution.
Just because we have a government of the corporations, by the corporations and
for the corporations does not excuse the individual of responsibility to
exercise her or his freedom to express outrage toward perceived greed and
injustice. However, when one is of corporations (plantations), one is seldom
inclined to jeopardize one’s position by perceiving much beyond the immediate
bounty afforded one through one’s own plantation—justly, reasonably or
otherwise.
With this Kaua’i Island Utility Cooperative deal, perhaps we are
at the beginning of something like a shark frenzy, with some people trying to
lead us to believe that if we appease the first shark, then the other sharks
(GTE/Bell, Nextel and other telecommunications investors, luxury hotel
investors, numerous speculative real estate ventures, the U.S. Department of
Defense et al, with the blessings of labor unions and financial
institutions—all with plans for Kaua’i ) will forget what they are here
for.
“plantations” (aka banks), the Pacific Missile Firing Range
“plantation,” the tour boat, tour bus, tour helicopter “plantations,” and the
luxury resorts/airlines/rental cars “plantations,” in addition to the
employment “plantations” of the state of Hawaii, Kaua’i County and their
associated government employee unions/retirement/health systems.
Citizens’
Telecommunications, of New England (New England being the major center for 19th
century colonialism), is a renamed company in the process of reinventing
itself, sucking the lifeblood from Kaua’i to the end. Small thanks to Kaua’i
aloha might go without mention, except for the likelihood that Citizens’ VIP
stockholders could be on Kaua’i to celebrate closure (aka, trickle down) with
Mayor Kusaka entertaining on behalf of Kaua’i (present and future) ratepayers,
KE, KIUC and the wonders of divine capitalism.
* No. 1: Ever-higher body
counts (aka “visitor”).
* No. 2: Ever-greater dollar extraction
from each visitor.
* No. 3: Ever greater average-joe investment/debiture
on behalf of asphalt/concreted, wired, plumbed and policed public systems of
technology to serve a diminishing base of average folks, an increasing base of
connected folks.
Bertrand closes by quoting Margaret Thatcher:
“`Consensus politics is the process of trying to satisfy people who have
many opinions, few thoughts, no facts and an unshakable belief in their own
importance.'” I say people should have an unshakable belief in their own
importance.
What alternative would either Bertrand or Thatcher suggest?
Thatcherism, i.e. public officials, are entitled to believe they are important,
whereas the nameless multitude are delusional when they feel entitled to such a
belief?
Does the average U.S. citizen have access to “facts” as
do many members/payrollees of the average citizen’s government? When the only
“facts” in one’s possession are those which have passed through an
ideologically-correct sieve of federally licensed, taxed/subsidized
‘communications’ conglomerates, from whence would sound opinions or thoughts
originate? On what foundation rests Bertrand’s/Thatcher’s apparent belief that
viable opinions/thoughts could/should exist independent of facts?
GREG
GOODWIN
Hanalei
