local stuffs list: local stuffs

1. GREENTIPS - Is Bottled Water Better? (6/07)
2. Spirit of the Mahele
3. Pasifik Island Nations will be the first to go...
4. Seasonal ban on Deep 7 fish
5. Emailing: 10139
6. All-Stone Hindu Temple Rises in Kauai - comments
7. Democratic Party News Alert
8 Disappeared News - Is DHS still prioritizing family reunification over
child safety?
9. u.s. Social Forum - A little late, but quite informative!
10. The SECRET showing- Sunday 07/22 & discussion
11. Canoe will carry old values into the future
12. The War Against the Third World
13. Queen Liliuokalani Birthday Celebration - Civic Club Support
14. Maui vs. MECO: Palm oil proposal worries residents
15. Fruit and its marketing in Hawai'i
16. An article from The Honolulu Advertiser: Article: If Strykers leave,
Hawaii gets new unit
17. Army: Stryker brigade could be moved to Colorado avoid hurting Hawaii
18. HECO greenwashing unethical fuel business
19. DICTATOR-IN-CHIEF: Executive Order of 7/17/07 against anti-war
activities/activists
20. [Monica Benderman] Facing the Truth
21. Report: Stryker would cause harm
22. SEIU Healthcare Workers West Supports Single Payer
23. GWB, Africa & a New African American General
24. Online Hawaiian Language Class Open Enrollment
25. Army: Stryker brigade could be moved ... - comment
26. Colombian Journey - Oil, Genocide, and Resistance
27. Tree holds promise for future of biofuel
28. Army denies Hawaiians access to sacred sites
29. Earmarking the War Machine
30. News of Actions in Ireland
31. Wailea 670, What's in a name?
32. Luci Tapahonso - poem
33. Hawaii egg farmers pushed out of business
34. island growers fear change will hurt them - comment
35. Court Ruling
36. URGENT: Henoko protest leader injured in underwater attack.
37. Superferry

1. GREENTIPS - Is Bottled Water Better? (6/07)
Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 15:59:51 +0000 (GMT)
From: Greentips - Union of Concerned Scientists <greentips@ucsaction.org>

Is Bottled Water Better?
June 2007

Bottled water manufacturers’ marketing campaigns capitalize on
isolated instances of contaminated public drinking water supplies by
encouraging the perception that their products are purer and safer than
tap water. But the reality is that tap water is actually held to more
stringent quality standards than bottled water, and some brands of bottled
water are just tap water in disguise. What’s more, our increasing
consumption of bottled water-more than 22 gallons per U.S. citizen in 2004
according to the Earth Policy Institute-fuels an unsustainable industry
that takes a heavy toll on the environment.

Environmental Impact

Fossil fuel consumption. Approximately 1.5 million gallons of oil-enough
to run 100,000 cars for a whole year-are used to make plastic water
bottles, while transporting these bottles burns thousands more gallons of
oil. In addition, the burning of oil and other fossil fuels (which are
also used to generate the energy that powers the manufacturing process)
emits global warming pollution into the atmosphere.

Water consumption. The growth in bottled water production has increased
water extraction in areas near bottling plants, leading to water shortages
that affect nearby consumers and farmers. In addition to the millions of
gallons of water used in the plastic-making process, two gallons of water
are wasted in the purification process for every gallon that goes into the
bottles.

Waste. Only about 10 percent of water bottles are recycled, leaving the
rest in landfills where it takes thousands of years for the plastic to
decompose.

The Simple (and Cheaper) Solution

The next time you feel thirsty, forgo the bottle and turn to the tap.
You’ll not only lower your environmental impact but also save
money-bottled water can cost up to 10,000 times more per gallon than tap
water. And because the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s
standards for tap water are more stringent than the Food and Drug
Administration’s standards for bottled water, you’ll be
drinking water that is just as safe as, or safer than, bottled.

If, however, you don’t like the taste of your tap water or are
unsure of its quality, you can buy a filter pitcher or install an
inexpensive faucet filter to remove trace chemicals and bacteria. If you
will be away from home, fill a reusable bottle from your tap and refill it
along the way; travel bottles with built-in filters are also available.
Finally, limit your bottled water purchases for those times when
you’re traveling in countries where water quality is questionable.

More Recent Articles

* "Bad for us poor folks"
* Why not open source voting machine software?
* Sewage problem at the State Capitol
* Maui representative serving two masters as member of Maui planning
committee and the legislature at the same time
* Lingle was first U.S. governor in history to veto a Safe Haven bill
________________________________________________________________________________

9. u.s. Social Forum - A little late, but quite informative!
Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 12:47:39 -0400 (EDT)
From: KahiwaL@cs.com

Coordinator Trip Report - Atlanta

This trip report covers the period of June 27 - July 2 as Mary Beth
Sullivan and I traveled to Atlanta, Georgia to attend the U.S. Social
Forum on behalf of the Global Network.

Mary Beth and I were encouraged to attend the first-ever U.S. Social Forum
(USSF) by WILPF and Global Network member Carol Urner from Oregon. Carol
invited Mary Beth and I to speak at two workshops she organized - one
called War in Space or Life on Earth and the other called A War Economy or
an Economy for Peace?

When we arrived in Atlanta on June 27 we were picked up at the airport by
old friends who are with the Buddhist order Nipponzan Myohoji and who
built a temple in the city nine years ago. Rev. Utsumi and Sr. Denise
Laffin took us downtown for the beginning of the march through the city
that was to kick off the USSF. The march had at least 5,000 people in it
(although the next day the newspaper reported only 1,000 were present) and
was an inspiring mix of Native Americans, Black, Hispanic, disabled and a
high percentage of young people. The nearly two-hour march went by the
Grady Memorial Hospital where we were met by a large delegation of
hospital workers chanting "Don't close Grady". Our friends told us the
hospital serves the poor and uninsured in Atlanta and is facing closure
because of financial problems. This was all the more real for us as we had
just seen Michael Moore's new move Sicko which is all about the ailing
health care system in the U.S.

More than 10,000 people attended the USSF and each day three workshop
sessions were held at various venues around the downtown area. Each
workshop slot had about 100 choices so it was difficult to decide from
among so many interesting topics. The first workshop I went to was called
They left us here to die and was a chilling testimony from four survivors
of the hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. One woman told us that more than
140,000 people in the city did not have the resources to be able to leave
before the storm hit. She shared how she decided to stay to help take care
of family members, several of whom died in the flood that followed. Most
of the workshop focused on the aftermath and they reported that today
white people are moving into black people's homes. The told the story
about one Bush administration representative having said that "We've been
wanting to get rid of public housing for years and now God has done it for
us." Rents and electric bills have tripled since the storm and people have
to "work three jobs and a hustle on the side" just to survive. One
presenter said because of the growing crime (largely due to unemployment)
the city is "militarizing for permanent martial law." The black residents
feel they are disposable people - marginalized, dehumanized, facing
genocide. Protests should have been held all across America when Bush let
the government ignore the people after the hurricane, they said. An
International Tribunal on Hurricanes Katrina &Rita is now being organized
for New Orleans on Aug 29-Sept 2.

There was much social justice activity at the forum as Black and Hispanic
community groups from Los Angeles to New York City brought community
people by the busloads. The growing economic disparity in America, with
the widening gap between rich and poor, is reflected in a tremendous surge
of organizing on these issues across the nation. Much emphasis is being
put on the growth of the prison population as there are now 2.5 million
people in jail in the U.S. While Black people in the U.S. are only 12% of
the total population, they represent 55% of those now in jail. No justice
- no peace was one chant I heard coming out of many of the workshop rooms.

At one of the workshops, where Mary Beth and I spoke, we had the privilege
of meeting several students from the University of Central Florida (UCF)
in Orlando. They reported on their efforts to organize on campus against
the militarization of the university as NASA and the aerospace industry
are increasing their control of the school. They recently held a student
walk-out and 300 students joined the event. Campus organizing against the
militarization of higher education is spreading across the country and in
recent times we have heard of student protests at places like University
of Oregon, University of Hawaii, University of California-Berkeley,
Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, and the University of New
Mexico. The so-called "Revolution in Military Affairs" is driving this
militarization of education as "high-tech" specialization takes over many
departments with funding from the weapons industry. Much of this is space
weapons related research and development.

Another very interesting workshop that I attended was called The
Revolution will not be funded: Beyond the non-profit Industrial Complex.
This jam packed workshop had more than 200 mostly young people in it. It
was clear that many of them are trying to find a way to make a living
doing political work rather than working in the corporate mainstream. The
presenters, all young folks from groups like Incite! and Left Turn, talked
about the problems with finding foundation support these days. They
reported how grants allow little opportunity for political analysis, and
how competition between groups over funding takes precedence over
cooperation. The result is, at some level, the corporate takeover of the
left via non-profit funding as some groups shave the edges of their
program to be more "attractive" to funders. One organization told the
story of how the Ford Foundation retracted a grant because they refused to
change their position in support of the Palestinian people. Much time was
spent talking about new models for setting up groups. Several young people
reported they were moving away from full-time paid staff, using more
volunteers, paying all staff the same amount, sharing job responsibilities
evenly, and exploring other ways to collectively share power within their
organizations.

At a workshop called No Military Bases I found myself in very good company
as Leslie Cagan (UFPJ National Coordinator), Bal Pinguel (AFSC
Peacebuilding &Demilitarization Program Coordinator), Alfred Marder (U.S.
Peace Council), Medea Benjamin (Code Pink), John Lindsay-Poland,
(Fellowship of Reconciliation's Latin America Co-Coordinator), Jackie
Cabasso (Western States Legal Foundation), Col. Ann Wright (retired Army
and State Dept official) and Dennis Brutus (Poet and former South African
political prisoner) were all in the audience. We spent a great deal of
time talking about the need to get the U.S. anti-war movement to focus
more on the roles and consequences of military bases outside and inside
the U.S. An International Network for the Abolition of Foreign Military
Bases has been established (which the Global Network has joined) and we
talked about various strategies of expanded anti-bases work. One woman
from Japan reported on organizing in Okinawa to close a U.S. Marine base
that is now planning to expand its runway, while an organizer from Hawaii
told about resistance to U.S. bases there. I suggested that one thing we
could do was to build support for the Global Network's annual space
organizing conference and protest planned to be held in Omaha, Nebraska
next April 11-13, 2008. These events will focus on the U.S. Strategic
Command (StratCom) base that is now in charge of "full-spectrum global
strike" (staging offensive, preemptive attacks); combating weapons of mass
destruction; space and computer warfare; ballistic missile defense; and
surveillance and reconnaissance (the "warrantless wiretaps" conducted by
the National Security Agency.) There was much interest in participating in
this event and using it to help illuminate the growing role that U.S.
bases have in promoting empire.

It was a much better USSF than Mary Beth and I had ever expected. We both
agreed that we came away from the forum more aware of the massive amount
of organizing being done throughout the country by all kinds of people who
are working on issues of importance to us all.

One last key thing emerged at the forum. Nearly everyone recognized the
important of showing the connections between the various issues as a way
of expanding all of our efforts and increasing our collective
effectiveness. Thus those working on peace issues need to talk more about
how social justice issues are suffering due to growing cutbacks in human
needs funding as a result of expanding militarism. Virtually everyone was
on the same page as they recognized that "reforming" this broken system we
live under, that cares more about profits than people and the environment,
must be taken apart and rebuilt if we are to have a future on our Mother
planet.

None of us can change a broken system by ourselves. No one group, or
segment of the movement, can make the needed changes alone. We all need
each other, now more than ever. The way we work together must change just
as much as the politics in Washington must change. We must move forward
together, setting our egos and organizational funding needs aside, as we
look to build for needed change.

The conference theme was Another world is possible - another U.S. is
necessary. Let's work together to make it happen!

Bruce K. Gagnon
Coordinator
Global Network Against Weapons &Nuclear Power in Space
PO Box 652
Brunswick, ME 04011
(207) 443-9502
http://www.space4peace.org
globalnet@mindspring.com
http://space4peace.blogspot.com (our blog)
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~------------------------------

10. The SECRET showing- Sunday 07/22 & discussion
Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 08:29:49 -1000
From: tuamoree dibiase <dhirad@hotmail.com>

A special EVENT for you

INSPIRING MOVIE NIGHT
**Under the Stars**

A Special Showing of
"THE SECRET"
The Movie

Followed by FACILITATE GROUP DISCUSSION
by the Talented
Dr.Evelyne Raposo
& friends

@
Meditations Cafe
UNDER THE STARS
OPEN PATIO AND COZY CAFE
@ 1137 11th ave, in Kaimuki
(Second floor Behind Big City Diner
on top of the New York deli)
699-4540

Sunday July 22th
6:00 to 9:00pm
TIME FOR DINNER AND A MOVIE

*Doors open for dinner at 6:00pm-
Great Greek food
*Movie and Group Discussion 7:00 pm
$6 cover

Come join us in a transformative experience and be ready to
change your life.

See you there,
call 699-4540 for more info.
________________________________________________________________________________

11. Canoe will carry old values into the future
Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 11:34:07 -0700 (PDT)
From: Kekahuna Keaweiwi <kekahunakeaweiwi@yahoo.com>

Hi Lynette,

Interesting you came across this....10 years after my journey began. I had
a few of these experience which brought me out of ignorance and denial.
Little did I know, what I took to be simply "synchronicities" and a
"course change" in my life at the time, was in fact the beginning of a
"voyage" far deeper and greater than any canoe human hands could ever
construct.

What I have discovered and come to fully understand "to be".... is that
the "canoe",,,,the "real canoe" I have constructed and set-off on 10 years
ago, is the "canoe" that carry's my soul as I journey through this
life....and beyond.

This is the first time I read this.

As I look back in hindsight...along with all the accomplishments....and
especially the challenges (one being the canoe is not finished) and
unfinished business, the original people have all scattered to the wind.
For the most part because many of us couldn't/didn't see the true nature
of why we were brought together.

Speaking for myself....we all were given a chance to let of our ego and
truly embrace our spirit. Only a few of us saw this....and even fewer
accepted this gift. Most were so caught up in the glamor/glitter of
"Artist's" creative endeavor,,,whereupon the cultural and spiritual part
of our indentity was quit truthfully exploited and prostituted.

Since then...I now know who I am....where I come from....who I come from.
But most importantly....I know where I am going.

Thanks Lynette.....for reminding me of the simple, yet important things in
our lives.

Foster
------
Lcruz <palolo@hawaii.rr.com> wrote:

found this while doing a search for something else. eo, foster! lynette

CANOE WILL CARRY OLD VALUES INTO THE FUTURE

http://starbulletin.com/97/01/06/news/briefs.html
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

12. The War Against the Third World
From: "Yuny Parada" <yunyparada@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, July 20, 2007 7:11 AM

> Dear Friends,
>
> You can now watch my film
>
> "What I've Learned About U.S. Foreign Policy: The War Against The Third
> World" at Google Video - link below
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2417479552668018592&q=What+I%27ve+Le
arned+about+U.S.+Foreign+Policy&total=98&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&pli
ndex=0
>
> Frank Dorrel
> Publisher
> Addicted To War
> P.O. Box 3261
> Culver City, CA 90231-3261
> 310-838-8131
> fdorrel@addictedtowar.com
> fdorrel@sbcglobal.net www.addictedtowar.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------->

13. Queen Liliuokalani Birthday Celebration - Civic Club Support
From: "Marilyn Leimomi Khan" <khanm@hi808.net>
Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 08:48:31 -1000

September 2nd is the day! Mark your calendars!

The Event: The Association of Hawaiian Civic Clubs will be joining with
several other Hawaiian organizations in presenting the Queen Lili'uokalani
Birthday Celebration on Sunday, September 2nd, 10 am to 4 pm at the Iolani
Palace Grounds. Purpose is two-fold: 1) To celebrate the queen's
birthday; 2) To share with the public accurate information about the
history of Hawaii. A press release and poster information will be
released shortly. As soon as received, I will send to you for inclusion
in your newsletters. As attacks continue to mount against recognizing
native Hawaiians as an indigenous people with their own culture, it's
important that we unite to tell our story. Thus, would like to encourage
you to attend this event as a means of showing solidarity, sharing
information about our history and about the civic club mission and
achievements.

Bring family and friends. It will be a day of learning featuring
educational information and displays, all-day entertainment, and a special
multi-denominational Sunday service from 12 noon to 1 p.m,, representing
various churches from around the island. ^ÑIolani Palace will also be
open and provide free tours to kama^Ñaina during this event.

AHCC Support Needed: The AHCC will have an informational tent. All civic
clubs are invited to provide information about your club, such as
brochures, and also any displays of achievements in the community. I know
a lot of you have done great work in your community. Now is the time to
share that great work. Please advise our Community Relations Chair,
Mahealani Cypher of your plans for participation, that is, in our tent,
since we want to assure sufficient room for everyone. E-mail:
ddecosta@honolulu.gov

Also, we will need some help to staff the Iolani parking lot. If at least
50% of the clubs could provide at least one to two persons, we'll have
this task covered. We need six persons to cover each two-hour segment.
Here are suggested times for covering the parking lot. Could you advise
me of volunteers who wish to sign up by August 17th?

7:00 - 9:00 a.m.
9:00 - 11:00 a.m.
11:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
1:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.

Mahalo,

Leimomi
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

14. Maui vs. MECO: Palm oil proposal worries residents
Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 22:09:07 -1000
From: "Maui Tomorrow" <aina@maui-tomorrow.org>

> http://www.haleakalatimes.com/news/story2589.aspx
> Haleakala Times
> July 17, 2007
> Maui vs. MECO: Palm oil proposal worries residents
>
> "150 fires from palm oil harvests have been spotted in Indonesia over
> the past three days," Lance Holter nearly yelled at the presenters at a
> July 2 biofuel meeting. Holter, the president of the Sierra Club Hawaii
> chapter, was the first of many to lash out at Hawaiian Electric's plans
> to import palm oil for a proposed biodiesel plant on Maui.
>
> The meeting brought over 100 people to a packed lecture hall at Maui
> Community College. It was the last of four that HECO held across the
> state to gain public input on its plan. If the utility gets approval, it
> will build one of the largest biodiesel production facilities in the
> U.S. on Maui Electric's Waena Site. Karl Stahlkopf and mediator Robbie
> Alm represented the company.
>
> Stahlkopf and fellow speaker Ralph Cavanagh highlighted Hawaii's lousy
> energy situation. "I don't think any of us is satisfied burning 73
> million gallons of petroleum diesel in Maui every year," said Cavanagh.
> Hawaii depends more heavily on imported fossil fuel than any other state
> (percentage-wise, of course), and HECO's oil price has risen 171 percent
> in the past 10 years. The representatives said that while biofuel
> imports may not offer an ideal long-term solution, they will at least
> help out a little for the time being.
>
> Currently, demand for palm oil as a "green" alternative to petroleum
> causes numerous environmental and cultural offenses around the world.
> The incineration of rainforests in places like Indonesia releases far
> more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than use of resulting fuel crops
> prevents. The methods in which sources of palm oil and other crops
> harvest their product make biofuels a greater contributor to global
> warming than fossil fuels.
>
> HECO and its partner company on the project, BlueEarth Biofuels, expect
> to avoid these offenses. Among other things, they will not import from
> areas deforested after 2005. Said Holter, "That's like saying the mafia
> before 2005 was okay, but after 2005 is evil." A legal issue could throw
> another wrench into the companies' intentions. Earlier this year the
> state legislature granted $59 million in Special Revenue Bonds to the
> project. HECO's policy actually violates the terms of this agreement,
> which prohibit it from incorporating any deforested areas at all.
>
> HECO has collaborated with the Natural Resources Defense Council, a
> national environmental group, to draw up sustainability guidelines for
> the import of palm oil. Cavanagh and Debbie Hammel spoke on behalf of
> the NRDC at the meeting.
>
> The guidelines, said Hammel, will "raise the bar and send a marketplace
> signal," helping reform the overall market for palm oil. In addition to
> HECO's deforestation policy, the criteria require an "undisputed title
> to the land" and prohibit the use of fire to clear new areas.
>
> But dissenters say HECO and BlueEarth's sustainability guarantee means
> nothing. Even if Hawaii makes sure its palm oil has had little
> environmental or cultural impact, it will still contribute to the global
> demand for the product, and so indirectly cause further destruction.
> Holter said Hawaii is in danger of becoming "a pariah to the rest of
> world." Since late June, over 5,000 people in 28 countries have sent
> letters to Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle to oppose her support of the
> project.
>
> Hammel responded that they believe their sustainable model will catch on
> and spread to the rest of the market, thus amending grievances in the
> long run. Cavanagh said that the inadequacy of importing palm oil only
> reinforces the importance of bringing biofuel production to Maui's
> agriculture. HECO will use its share of the refinery's profits to incite
> local farmers to grow fuel crops, and to research the most appropriate
> method for doing so. Stahlkopf says the approach is "part of a broader
> strategy to revitalize the agricultural industry." HECO and BlueEarth
> want to save Hawaii's foundering agriculture by putting the state's
> fallow land (estimated at 140,000 acres) to biofuel-harvesting use.
>
> But space is an issue. BlueEarth's website refers to use of foreign oil
> as "Temporary," but the new biodiesel plant will always require some
> amount of imports. Even at minimum operation capacity, the refinery will
> gulp more feedstock than could be feasibly grown on Hawaii. Money was
> also a concern at the meeting. The price of palm oil has doubled in the
> past year as global demand for the crop has increased. Some worry that
> ratepayers will feel the squeeze once HECO starts paying for it in bulk.
>
> Kelly King is the marketing executive of Pacific Biodiesel, a local
> company devoted to renewable energy on a smaller scale. For the past 11
> years, Pacific Biodiesel has transformed discarded restaurant cooking
> oil from a landfill-clogger into an energy source for both
> transportation and electricity production. Says King of palm oil
> imports, "How is that better for us than petroleum? Once again we're not
> growing it, it's not our resource. We're making a huge investment
> assuming that this feedstock will always be available."
>
> Hawaii gets 90 percent of its food supply from elsewhere, and would only
> last a few days were access to the rest of the world abruptly cut off.
> Some want to focus on turning local available regions over to small,
> family-owned farms instead of energy sustainability. King shares this
> view: "Regardless of how much available ag land there is, we need some
> plan for greater food sustainability. We need more than four or five
> days."
>
> Robbie Alm said that Hawaiian Electric's biofuel plan has "no shipping
> risks" because boats that bring in palm oil will simply take the place
> of those that presently arrive with petroleum. One audience member later
> said that transportation will be an issue because trucks will have to
> haul materials from the harbor to the plant and back again, where HECO
> will ship a portion of the plant's biodiesel to the Big Island.
>
> Several audience members pushed for an Environmental Impact Statement
> (EIS). The representatives said they'd look into it but guaranteed
> nothing, even after former county environmental coordinator Rob Parsons
> read aloud the state law that requires one for oil refineries. Four days
> after the meeting, Stahlkopf said they still hadn't addressed the issue,
> but assured that they "will stay with all applicable laws."
>
> Stahlkopf also said that the plant will technically not be an oil
> refinery because "This is really a chemical process rather than
> distilling." An FAQ page on BlueEarth's website refers to the plant as a
> refinery four times before coming to an answer at the bottom that says
> it is not one, but rather a "transesterification facility."
>
> Bonnie Bonse, President of GMO-Free Maui, asked whether the prospective
> biofuel crops will likely be genetically modified to yield more oil. And
> others raised questions about the practicality of large-scale fuel crops
> on an island with limited water.
>
> Gary Elster of Kihei had more general reservations. "We are about to
> find out whether something that hasn't been studied but built first is
> going to cause us harm on this island," he said. "What about the unique
> concept of studying whether these crops can be grown here and feasibly
> before we build a plant rather than after?" The crowd applauded.
>
> Bonse agrees that HECO's plan appears troublingly incomplete. "There
> were so many issues that were just not clear, so many gaping holes," she
> says. "We don't need to just jump to a solution that's still fairly
> new."
>
> Kat Brady of environmental group Life of the Land calls the plan
> "half-baked. I don't get why they're presenting this proposal that they
> haven't thought through. I'd be embarrassed."
>
> Many worry about the lack of experience of all involved. BlueEarth
> BioFuels has never built a biodiesel plant, much less one of the largest
> ever. The NRDC doesn't have a base in Hawaii, and is opposed on this
> issue by numerous state environmental and indigenous groups. Henry
> Curtis, also of Life of the Land, says the NRDC "has no experience in
> Indonesia nor biofuel certification." HECO itself has never incorporated
> biofuels other than through King's company.
>
> Brady takes issue with HECO's strategy of putting palm oil sources on an
> improvement timetable. An industry organization called the Roundtable
> for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) recently released 39 requirements for
> appropriate harvesting of the crop. Foreign growers that HECO hires will
> at first only have to comply with a fraction of them, later being made
> to set up a system to meet the RSPO standard within a few years. "It
> just baffles me," said Brady at the meeting, pointing to issues not
> covered in the meantime such as child labor.
>
> Jeff Parker, a local orchid farmer, cited widespread governmental
> corruption in regions that Hawaii will import its oil from. He asked why
> Hawaiian Electric would even consider doing business with Indonesia or
> Malaysia, where the drive for profit might obstruct HECO's ability to
> determine whether its guidelines will be followed. Hammel said the whole
> point of their sustainability guidelines will be to help remedy the
> effects of that corruption. HECO plans to hire an independent auditor
> that will follow feedstock all the way from plantations in foreign
> countries to Maui shores, to assure that we are obtaining the "correct"
> palm oil.
>
> Parker's reservations run deeper. "I think there's something fishy with
> the BlueEarth proposal," he says. "When I heard that the Governor would
> be signing $59 million in Special Revenue Bonds for this group that has
> no track record, I had to wonder what really is going on here." Sylvia
> Hoffmeyer of GMO-Free Maui says, "It's great that they have these kind
> of meetings, but how will it impact anything? I think it's a done deal
> just like the Superferry was." BlueEarth had no representative present.
> Its lack of experience coupled with its take of half the plant's profits
> has some wondering.
>
> Bonnie Bonse says in hindsight, the elephant in the room on July 2 was
> the issue of how to get people to habitually use less power in the first
> place. "What about educating people to get off their spoiled platform?"
> she says. "I wish I'd brought it up." Amid criticism, the
> representatives said they too are not totally satisfied with this course
> of action. "There
>
> is no single magical answer to fossil fuel," said Cavanagh. "We're
> balancing a really bad status quo and we want to know if we can make it
> better."
>
> Jacob Meade
____________________________________________________________________________

15. Fruit and its marketing in Hawai'i
>From: ken <ken@mycoffee.net>
>Sent: Friday, July 20, 2007 11:31:52 AM
>
>The USDA statistics tell us that in 1960, 100% of the produce consumed
in Hawaii was grown in Hawaii. Today it's 20%. No one can say how much of
this is due to population increase and how much is due to the lack of or
cost of land for farming and lack of farmers. Labor is as much of an issue
as anything. The is a conference here in Oct. on food security and
sustainability with an eye on making this island self sufficient by 2050.
There is a phenomenal amount of waste here with fruit. Not only the guavas
and mac nuts that oscar mentioned but mangos and about 3 million pounds of
avocados a year, a million pounds more than consumed in the entire state.
So why do we still import 2 million pounds? Bob Dylan once said "money
doesn't talk, it swears".

This is not novel to Hawaii, particularly with avocados. While in South
Florida a year ago we drove around the avocado areas with trees dropping
fruit left and right. Then taken to Robert is Here fruit stand where the
first thing I noticed was a pile hass from Calif. for sale.

My feeling is how we sell and market our rare fruit is essential to the
future of sustainable farming. If we can't make farming profitable, no one
will want to do it. It's a slow uphill battle to get consumers educated to
the wide variety of something like avocados or bananas. Once people learn
and taste some of the more obscure things we grow, they so want to buy
them, at a premium.

Oscar mentioned mac nuts. It's cheaper to buy Costa Rican mac nuts landed
in Hawaii than to hire labor to pick my own nuts. Thai and Taiwan lychee
wholesale in Honolulu for $1.00 a pound. It cost 1.80 for Hawaiian growers
to produce a pound of lychee. Last year it was $1.68 in Florida. With
Avocados, the largest wholesaler in Hawaii sells imported Hass for 1.45 a
pound which the largest Big Island chain sells for 3.99 a pound. They also
locally grown for $1.49 which the same retailer sells for 2.49 Look at the
difference in the price spread. The growers for the most part are afraid
to increase the price for fear of not being able to sell since the
wholesalers say they will not pay more. There are still many battles to
fight.

ken

On 7/20/07 9:46 PM, "rarefruit@yahoogroups.com" rarefruit@yahoogroups.com>
wrote:

2a. Re: hawaii and us economy
Posted by: "kahiwal@cs.com" kahiwal@cs.com clarencec_hi
Date: Fri Jul 20, 2007 12:51 am ((PDT))

In a message dated 7/19/2007 5:41:12 PM Hawaiian Standard Time,
rarefruit@yahoogroups.com writes: Oscar wrote:

If they are not totally impoverished and can grow their own food, go
fishing, etc., then they eat really well.

Hawai'i island has it a lot better than an island like O'ahu - where the
population is unwieldly, our (Hawai'i) available lands certainly not
presently being efficiently used.

However, if given enough of a headstart, what is now vacant land can be
converted to productive farming land - we could probably get to a good
level of self-sufficiency eventually. But it'll take time to convert from
what is now - to that of full productivity.

While some food is indeed wasted now - if the entire island population had
to rely on these comparatively small food supplies - there wouldn't be
sufficient food for all. However, if the vacant lands are converted to
growing food, with time, like in Cuba, a high degree of self-sufficiency
could definitely result.

And, as Oscar claims - we'd all be in a lot better health.

ku
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~==========================================

16. An article from The Honolulu Advertiser: Article: If Strykers leave,
Hawaii gets new unit
From: DMZ-Hawaii@yahoogroups.com on behalf of summer
Sent: Sat 7/21/2007 2:45 PM

This article from HonoluluAdvertiser.com has been sent to you by summer
summer's e-mail: kaimalia@yahoo.com
Article: http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2007/Jul/21/ln/hawaii707210351.html

If the Army is forced to move the Stryker brigade out of Hawai'i in late
2008 or early 2009 because of an environmental lawsuit, another brigade -
either airborne or infantry - would replace it here, a newly-released
study states.

The 595-page draft environmental impact statement put together by the Army
considers returning the Stryker unit to Hawai'i after an upcoming
deployment to Iraq, or permanently basing it at Fort Richardson in Alaska
or Fort Carson in Colorado.

If Colorado or Alaska is chosen, Hawai'i would get a slightly smaller
unit, the Army said. The Stryker brigade has about 4,000 soldiers, 328 of
the eight-wheeled armored vehicles and about 600 other vehicles.

The Army is weighing its options after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals in San Francisco ruled in October that the Army had not fully
complied with federal environmental law and did not adequately analyze
alternative locations outside Hawai'i for the Stryker brigade.

Public comment is being sought on the environmental draft, which does not
specify a preferred location. Instead, the draft states that the proposed
action is to home-station permanently the Stryker brigade "in a location
that meets national security and defense policy guidance," provides for
training and a "high quality of life" for soldiers and their families, and
facilitates the rapid deployment of the unit worldwide.

The examination, when finished, will give Army senior leadership a "hard
look" at environmental impacts associated with selecting a home station,
the draft said.

Three Hawaiian groups - 'Ilio'ulaokalani Coalition, Na 'Imi Pono and
Kipuka - filed a lawsuit in 2004 charging that the $1.5 billion Stryker
project would damage Native Hawaiian cultural sites and harm endangered
species and their habitats.

William Aila Jr., a Wai'anae resident and plaintiff with Na 'Imi Pono,
said from an environmental standpoint, the infantry brigade combat teams
from the other states would have less of a footprint.

DIFFERENT TRAINING

If the Army does decide to move the Hawai'i Strykers, the 4/25th Airborne
from Alaska, or the 4/4 brigade combat team from Colorado, would replace
it here. Both units have 3,438 soldiers.

"These infantry brigade combat teams now have different components and
different training requirements, so we'd have to see what those
requirements are before I could say that we'd prefer that over the
Stryker," Aila said.

The draft states that there are significant impacts for soil erosion in
Hawai'i and Colorado, and significant but mitigatable to less than
significant impacts for Alaska. Cultural resources impacts are significant
in all three locations.

The Stryker brigade and its 28 construction projects have been dogged by
legal challenges since the Army released what it thought would be its
final environmental impact statement on the unit in 2004.

The brigade transformed the 2nd brigade at Schofield Barracks, which was a
light infantry unit, to Stryker use.

IRAQ DEPLOYMENT

Stryker soldiers are scheduled to deploy to Iraq in November. The unit is
expected to leave soon for California for several weeks of gunnery
exercise in the desert and will be going through final training at the
National Training Center Sept. 10 to 28.

Convoys to Pearl Harbor for shipment to California will begin on Monday
and take place over coming weeks. The Strykers will be shipped to Kuwait
from the West Coast.

At the end of the deployment, they will be shipped to the base the Army
selects, either in Hawai'i, Colorado or Alaska.

Written comments on the draft report may be sent to Public Affairs Office,
U. S. Army Environmental Command, Building E4460, 5179 Hoadley Road,
Attention: IMAE-PA, Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD 21010-5401. E-mail
comments can be sent to PublicComments@aec.apgee.army.mil.

The draft statement is available at http://aec.army.mil/usaec.

Reach William Cole at wcole@honoluluadvertiser.com.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

17. Army: Stryker brigade could be moved to Colorado avoid hurting Hawaii
Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2007 09:30:19 -1000
From: kepalo <kepalo@hawaii.rr.com>

http://kjct8.com/Global/story.asp?S=6821125
Army: Stryker brigade could be moved to Colorado avoid hurting Hawaii
Associated Press - July 21, 2007 10:24 AM ET

HONOLULU (AP) - The Army has come up with a new reason why it needs more
room in Colorado.

It says keeping a Stryker Brigade in the islands will significantly harm
threatened and endangered species.

A federal appeals court has ruled the Army based the 4,000 soldier brigade
in Hawaii without the proper studies.

Other possible sites for the brigade would be in Alaska and Hawaii [looks
like somebody went to sleep here... g]. The Stryker is a wheeled, highly
mobile armored vehicle.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material
may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

18. HECO greenwashing unethical fuel business
From: "Maui Tomorrow" <aina@maui-tomorrow.org>
Sent: Saturday, July 21, 2007 9:39 AM

> http://www.haleakalatimes.com/pointsofview/story2595.aspx
> Haleakala Times
> July 17, 2007
> HECO greenwashing unethical fuel business
>
> From 2001 to 2005, ten million acres of the Indonesian section of
> Borneo were cleared by slash and burn harvesting for palm oil
> plantations. This destruction is ongoing. Indonesia is the third
> largest contributor of carbon dioxide to the earth's atmosphere. Twenty
> percent of the world's global warming carbon dioxide gases are created
> from slash and burn logging and clearing.
>
> I recently spoke with an eyewitness to the palm oil plantations in Costa
> Rica. He said, "We were driving through the most magnificent forest we
> had ever seen. Sloths, toucans, myriads of colorful tropical birds,
> butterflies. We have seen many forests in our lifetimes but none
> compared to this forest and then all of a sudden the forest canopy ended
> and we came upon African palm oil tree plantations. These oil trees
> went on for miles in all directions and we drove for hours through this
> weird monoculture environment."
>
> Things are no better for the people who work there. "We came upon small
> housing settlements in these plantations where the workers lived," he
> told me. "I went into a restaurant to get directions and the workers
> there were very, very angry. They had just been screwed by the
> plantation management and they were not getting paid."
>
> Hawaii is about to undertake a decision and is at a crossroads. At
> biodiesel plants on Maui and Oahu our electric utility company is going
> to share in "green washing" a very unstable, volatile and unethical
> business of palm oil biodiesel for electric generation. In the last year
> Indonesian palm oil has risen in demand and thus in value on the world
> market from $400 a ton to $800 a ton. This in turn is driving the
> illegal cutting of ancient tropical rainforests by Indonesian/Malaysian
> military generals and multinational corporations.
>
> They call it "land clearing" now instead of logging. The alternative of
> GMO soybean oil from South America is just the same thing but taking
> place in the Amazon instead. It is destroying ancient ecosystems,
> displacing indigenous tribes, and putting entire communities under the
> control of unscrupulous multinationals and plantation bosses. This idea
> that we can "certify" as sustainable a destructive undertaking like palm
> oil is a fraud. All the unsustainable uncertified oil will be bought up
> by China as they already buy 85 percent of the oil produced in Asia.
>
> We'll only be helping the process and giving credibility to an unethical
> product. Once it's all blended into a tanker and imported to Hawaii,
> how will you tell the difference?
>
> This is just the beginning for Hawaii and I am afraid that the good name
> of Maui and the State of Hawaii is at risk. Tourists around the world
> will not be pleased to learn that our electricity is generated from palm
> oil or GMO soybeans from lands which once were magnificent, unique,
> biologically diverse ancient tropical rain forests - that we feed our
> air conditioners with the lungs of planet earth.
>
> Before we blindly go any further, let's invest in research in Hawaii and
> find out exactly what we ourselves can grow locally and sustainably for
> oil and ethanol feedstock, factoring in what lands will be prioritized
> for food production.
>
> Let's also research how much of this liquid fuel must meet the needs of
> transportation. Finally, let's research how we can maximize the use of
> wind and solar for electric generation. We already have access to the
> Saudi Arabia of energy - our sun.
>
> Lance Holter
____________________________________________________________________________

19. DICTATOR-IN-CHIEF: Executive Order of 7/17/07 against anti-war
activities/activists
Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2007 10:07:17 -1000
From: Lcruz <palolo@hawaii.rr.com>

wasn't sure if this was true, then went to the whitehouse.gov site:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/07/20070717-3.html

Bush Outlaws All War Protest In United States By Sorcha Faal, and as
reported to her Western Subscribers 7-19-7

In one of his most chilling moves to date against his own citizens, the
American War Leader has issued a sweeping order this week outlawing all
forms of protest against the Iraq war.

President Bush enacted into US law an 'Executive Order' on July 17th
titled "Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization
Efforts in Iraq", and which says: "By the authority vested in me as
President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of
America, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, as
amended (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.)(IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50
U.S.C. 1601 et seq.)(NEA), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code,
I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, find that,
due to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and
foreign policy of the United States posed by acts of violence threatening
the peace and stability of Iraq and undermining efforts to promote
economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq and to provide
humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people, it is in the interests of the
United States to take additional steps with respect to the national
emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 of May 22, 2003, and expanded
in Executive Order 13315 of August 28, 2003, and relied upon for
additional steps taken in Executive Order 13350 of July 29, 2004, and
Executive Order 13364 of November 29, 2004."

According to Russian legal experts, the greatest concern to the American
people are the underlying provisions of this new law, and which, they
state, are written 'so broadly' as to outlaw all forms of protest against
the war.

These provisions state: "(ii) to have materially assisted, sponsored, or
provided financial, material, logistical, or technical support for, or
goods or services in support of, such an act or acts of violence or any
person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to
this order; or (b) The prohibitions in subsection (a) of this section
include, but are not limited to, (i) the making of any contribution or
provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any
person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to
this order, and (ii) the receipt of any contribution or provision of
funds, goods, or services from any such person.

(c) the term "United States person" means any United States citizen,
permanent resident alien, entity organized under the laws of the United
States or any jurisdiction within the United States (including foreign
branches), or any person in the United States.

"All agencies of the United States Government are hereby
directed to take all appropriate measures within their authority to carry
out the provisions of this order and, where appropriate, to advise the
Secretary of the Treasury in a timely manner of the measures taken."

To the subsection of this new US law, according to these legal experts,
that says "...the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods,
or services by, to, or for the benefit...", the insertion of the word
'services' has broad, and catastrophic, consequences for the American
people in that any act deemed by their government to be against the Iraqi
war is, in fact, supporting the 'enemy' and therefore threatens the
'stabilization of Iraq'.

In an even greater affront to the American people are the provisions of a
law called The Patriot Act, and that should they run afoul of this new law
they are forbidden to allow anyone to know about it, and as we can read as
reported by the Seattle Times News Service: "The [Patriot] act also
expands the use of National Security Letters, which are a kind of warrant
that the Justice Department writes for itself, authorizing its agents to
seize such things as records of money movements, telephone calls and
Internet visits. Recipients of a National Security Letter are not allowed
to tell anyone about them, and so cannot contest them."

It is interesting to note, too, that this is not the first time that the
United States has unleashed the brutal power of their government against
its citizens to further their war aims and stifle domestic dissent, as
during the European conflict of World War I they enacted a law called The
Sedition Act of 1918 and which "...forbade Americans to use "disloyal,
profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" about the United States
government, flag, or armed forces during war."

It is curious to note that after the enactment of this new law there has
been no protest by any of the other political leaders in the United
States, with the exception of the only Muslim member of the United States
Congress, Minnesota Democrat Keith Ellison, and who compared President
Bush to the Nazi War Leader Adolph Hitler by stating the attacks upon the
World Trade Center could be likened to the burning of the Reichstag.

Today, as the United States faces an imminent economic collapse, while at
the same time its war bill has reached the staggering amount of $648
billion, one of the last freedoms the American people have had to protest
their leaders actions against them, and other peoples in the World, has
now been taken away from them, the freedom to speak and write in
opposition to what is being done to them.

"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what
they do not want to hear.", said the great British writer George Orwell,
but, and sadly, liberty has been lost to the once free people of the
United States who are no longer allowed to tell their leaders, or each
other, what they don't want to hear. With this being so, the American
people should, likewise, contemplate their 'new' future, and as, also,
stated best by George Orwell, "If you want a vision of the future, imagine
a boot stamping on a human face - forever."

© July 19, 2007 EU and US all rights reserved. [Ed. Note: The United
States government actively seeks to find, and silence, any and all
opinions about the United States except those coming from authorized
government and/or affiliated sources, of which we are not one. No
interviews are granted and very little personal information is given about
our contributors, or their sources, to protect their safety.] -----
------
From: gcfraser@peoplepc.com [mailto:gcfraser@peoplepc.com]
Sent: Saturday, July 21, 2007 4:52 AM

Here's an article:
http://www.rense.com:80/general77/asset.htm

Below is a link to the White House...

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/07/20070717-3.html
-------

Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2007 13:33:13 -0700 (PDT)
From: Laweleka <laweleka@yahoo.com>

That is all that is needed right now to put America under Martial Law
thereby putting CONGRESS out to pasture, fed of course for the rest of
their lives !!! One act of protest now will do it and there will be hell
to pay because the world will be subjected to a DICTATOR who is the son of
the BEAST, no less. Trust me Bush as well as Chenney will be looking to
make claims of anything and everything to cry out Martial Law. The only
possible way to stop it is if his own military turns on him. Lawe

--- Lcruz <palolo@hawaii.rr.com> wrote:

> wasn't sure if this was true, then went to the whitehouse.gov site:
> http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/07/20070717-3.html
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------>

20. [Monica Benderman] Facing the Truth
Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2007 13:26:26 -1000
From: viviane lerner <vivlerner@gmail.com>

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18050.htm
Facing the Truth
By Monica Benderman
07/21/07 "ICH" -- - -It^Òs about time Americans faced the truth.

A Marine not only convicted of conspiring to commit kidnapping, larceny,
and making false statements; but the murder ^Ö MURDER ^Ö of an innocent
Iraqi man, was given his sentence. He is to receive a reduction in rank
and a bad conduct discharge.

THIS is what America has become.

It is now considered ^Óbad conduct^Ô to murder an unarmed man, knowingly
return to the scene to fabricate the appearance of self- defense and hide
the facts after the fact.

Murdering an innocent Iraqi is now considered ^ÓBad Conduct.^Ô

In 2004 my husband, a ten-year US Army veteran, made a conscious decision
to no longer participate in war ^Ö he spoke openly of the bad conduct of
his commanders in giving orders to soldiers in his unit which not only
jeopardized the lives of innocent Iraqis, and children, but also those of
the soldiers he served with.

For his decision to no longer be part of the destruction, wanton killing,
and unjust, immoral action this war has shown itself to be, my husband was
accused of being a deserter, faced trumped up, fabricated charges of
intentionally missing his unit^Òs movement, and when the first
court-martial attempt failed, was handed additional trumped up charges of
larceny for combat pay his command erroneously placed in his paycheck.
During a second court-martial attempt he was found guilty of missing
movement or not getting on a plane and was sentenced to 15 months in
prison, loss of all pay, reduction in rank and a dishonorable discharge.

A veteran with ten years of honorable service, who took a stand to no
longer participate in an action in which murdering innocents is acceptable
is now considered ^ÓDishonorable.^Ô

How low do you intend to go, America?

How far are you going to let your values dip before you stop the slide?

We don^Òt need to see the documents ^Óexecutive privilege^Ô is denying us
the right to see. Their content is evident in the actions of our military
courts ^Ö Justice in America no longer has a conscience, and the travesty
continues as Americans sleep through the reality of what it is they are
about to lose.

The United States Congress spent an entire night ^Ö wasted an entire night
^Ö in a public display of ridiculous bantering over a war which has now
caused the deaths of almost 4000 US military personnel and hundreds of
thousands of innocent civilians ^Ö CHILDREN are dying every day in Iraq
because of what this country has allowed to happen, and our Congress has
the foresight to remember to place cots in the Senate chambers in case one
of the illustrious elite might grow weary of their repetitious ^Ópillow
talk^Ô and need a rest.

I am weary of the talk ^Ö the Iraqis are weary of the talk ^Ö and I know
for a fact that American soldiers are weary of the talk.

There are some who, while wearing our nation^Òs uniform, have committed
horrendous crimes in this war, and in a great many instances have received
little more than a slap on the hand for their actions. Hundreds of
thousands more soldiers have served honorably under the most horrendous
conditions, fighting against their instincts for survival to maintain
morality in their actions in the most difficult circumstances. They
deserve better than to see those who cannot control themselves face so
little consequence for their lack of character.

The administration that sent our military to war has become nothing more
than a dictatorship in emperor^Òs clothing and our congress is clearly
displaying how little backbone they have when it comes to defending the
truth in the hallowed halls within which our Constitution is supposed to
still matter.

The American people seem to live in a stupor as our soldiers continue to
be sent to war ^Ö our congress can^Òt seem to find it in themselves to get
up off their cots and realize that our military needs a rest too, as do
the Iraqi citizens who have seen their country devastated beyond
recognition by the maniacal whims of an administration that is lost in its
love for self-aggrandizement and its need for public recognition
regardless of whether their behavior is even remotely recognizable as
human.

Where is America^Òs Conscience?

This country has become such a nation of followers, addicted to letting
someone, anyone else make their decisions for them as long as they can
continue on in their hazy stupor, wrapped in the illusion of living a
celebrated life, carefree and requiring no responsibility for their
actions.

Why is this administration still allowed a shred of credibility?

Why are we still acknowledging any of the members of our congress as being
capable of representing any truth in their actions?

The truth is that none of our government officials are willing to admit to
a mistake. None of our government officials are willing to take a stand to
acknowledge that their role in sending our soldiers to war was
instrumental in the greatest mistake imaginable. Our government officials
continue to hope that a ^Ósurge and a prayer^Ô will bring victory to the
glittery false promises they so boldly made as they sought to assure a
fearful nation to put their trust in leaders who have yet to come to terms
with the true meaning of responsibility; and the war drags on as more
soldiers die and more families face their loss in the heart of a nation
whose beat yields a very hollow sound.

Our soldiers and their families deserve better and it is past time for
American citizens to take a stand to defend the laws they have expected
our soldiers to fight for in their name.

Our government leadership stands with their hands over their hearts crying
crocodile tears as they tell story after story of the ^Óbrave soldiers and
families^Ô who continue to sacrifice so greatly in this country^Òs name ^Ö
doing so with all the feeling of the new robot baby introduced as the
latest ^Ómust have toy^Ô soon to be all the rage in every American
household.

Our military families stand with their hands empty and their hearts heavy
as they struggle to make it through a memorial service trying to find
meaning in the cause for which their loved one died ^Ögrasping at
believing the words of the politicians when they are told this sacrifice
has been worth the loss, simply because they don^Òt want to believe they
lost their loved one for nothing.

America doesn^Òt know their loss ^Ö America knows talk. America knows
drama. America knows politics.

America hasn^Òt the first clue about loss ^Ö and so Americans continue to
lose, and soldiers continue to die while the games of politicians are
acted out on the nightly news in dramatic displays of understanding with
the depth of a two inch mud puddle.

Americans haven^Òt the first idea what it means to sacrifice ^Ö and
Americans don^Òt care whether there was a reason for our soldiers to die
or not, as long as they are not the ones who must look in the mirror and
face what they have become ^Ö a nation without a conscience.

I watched soldiers board buses in the middle of the night, somber and
teary eyed, even in their strength, as they left to invade a country in a
war which even then made little sense. I watched them hold their heads
high as families stood in the distance until the buses were no longer in
view, and felt the emptiness of the darkness we were left with, wondering
whether one of those men would be the first to die in a war whose cause
has still not been defined.

I have walked across the sidewalks lined with almost 400 trees now, in the
middle of Fort Stewart^Òs parade grounds; trees planted to remember lives
lost. I^Òm sorry but I don^Òt see that to be an equal exchange and the
memory of a lone soldier kneeling beside the base of one tree to leave a
note for someone who had been so much more than a friend represents a loss
this country can^Òt seem to comprehend.

Our soldiers deserve better than a congress that is willing to spend an
entire night in a debate of futility.

Our soldiers deserve better than an administration that cares more about
defending its right to hide its incompetence from us than it cares about
even its own humanity, as it orders our soldiers to a war that has become
nothing more than another act of covering the tracks of a leadership that
has clearly demonstrated its inability to lead.

Our soldiers have been stranded in a country that is now decimated and in
danger of becoming lawless because American citizens have sat idly by and
allowed themselves to be led toward becoming a nation of lawlessness, and
there is no end in sight unless American citizens step up and defend the
laws which have given them their freedom for over two hundred years.

Where is your conscience, America?
----------
Monica is the wife of Sgt. Kevin Benderman, a ten-year Army veteran who
served a combat tour in Iraq and a year in prison for his public protest
of war and the destruction it causes to civilians and to American military
personnel. Please visit their website, www.BendermanDefense.org to learn
more.

Monica and Kevin may be reached at mdawnb@coastalnow.net
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

21. Report: Stryker would cause harm
Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2007 15:52:44 -1000
From: viviane lerner <vivlerner@gmail.com>

http://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/articles/2007/07/21/local_news/local03.txt
Report: Stryker would cause harm
Impacts in Hawaii greater than if brigade training was in Alaska or Colorado
by Peter Sur
Tribune-Herald Staff Writer

Basing a Stryker Brigade Combat Team in Hawaii would cause significant
impacts to soil erosion, wildfire management, cultural resources and
endangered species at Pohakuloa Training Area.

Those are some of the conclusions contained in a 595-page draft
environmental impact statement released Friday and prepared by the U.S.
Army Environmental Command.

The public has 45 days to comment on the study, which examines the
comprehensive effects of a Stryker Brigade's presence in Hawaii, Alaska
and Colorado.

Any of the three proposed sites would see significant impacts to their
resources if the Strykers were based at these locations. However, the EIS
indicates that Hawaii would be the most significantly impacted of the
three sites, followed by Colorado and Alaska.

This document was generated because the U.S. Army is in the -process of
changing into a leaner, quicker fighting force, a critical component of
which is the Stryker Combat Vehicle. Since 2004, the 2nd Brigade, 25th
Infantry Division (Light), based at Schofield Barracks, has been turning
into a Stryker Brigade Combat Team, to be combat- ready by November.

However, the process hit a snag in October 2006 when the 9th Circuit Court
of Appeals ruled that the division's transformation had not fully complied
with the National Environmental Policy Act, because it did not consider
alternatives for basing the Stryker vehicles outside of Hawaii.

The EIS issued Friday addresses these concerns by taking a "hard look" at
some of the environmental impacts of supporting this Stryker unit "in a
location that can accommodate the Brigade's training and quality of life
requirements while meeting the strategic needs and national security
requirements of the United States."

Once this brigade's training in Hawaii is complete, it will be deployed to
Iraq or Afghanistan, and return around the end of 2008. The Stryker
Brigade's permanent home base, wherever it is, must be ready for the
unit's return by the end of 2008, the Army said.

For Hawaii, the effects on Pohakuloa Training Area, in the saddle between
Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, were studied along with training with areas on
Oahu, specifically Schofield Barracks Military Reservation, Dillingham
Military Reservation, Kahuku Training Area and Kawailoa Training Area.

Were the Strykers based permanently in Hawaii, PTA facilities to be built
would include a "Battle Area Complex," an anti-armor live fire tracking
range, a land easement and military vehicle trail between PTA and
Kawaihae, an ammunition storage building, a tactical vehicle wash
facility, a range maintenance facility, an upgrade and extension of
Bradshaw Army Air Field, and the installation of "Information
Infrastructure Architecture," which presumably means communication
equipment.

All environmental impacts are classified as either "significant,"
"significant but mitigable to less than significant," "less than
significant," "no impact," "beneficial impact" and "not applicable."

The impact on soil erosion was one of the categories that fell under
"significant impact" at Pohakuloa. Of all the resources, only one -- the
wetlands -- was rated "no impact," and none was classified "beneficial
impact."

"Construction of PTA Trail would remove existing vegetation and disturb
soils, increasing the erosion potential," the document states. "As
proposed, much of the trail would be on steep slopes and would be nearly
straight up the fall line of the slope. The road may use existing road
alignments and would be paved with asphalt on slopes greater than 10
percent. In effect, nearly all uphill segments would be paved with
asphalt, and traverses along elevation contours would be paved with
gravel."

A possible significant impact would be large soil runoff events -- floods,
for example -- that could result in soil accumulation in culverts at gulch
crossings, resulting in flooding and possibly a washout. However,
mitigation measures would make this scenario "unlikely," the EIS said.

The management of wildfires would also be significantly impacted, as a
result of the use of larger-caliber munitions in the Battle Area Complex.

"The BAX at PTA would be located in a previously disturbed site and
oriented towards pre-existing ordnance impact areas. As a result, both
live- and nonlive-fire training would increase, resulting in the potential
to increase the frequency of wildfires."

Cultural resources at PTA would be significantly impacted by range
construction, live-fire training and maneuver training.

"Range construction involves grubbing vegetation, grading site surfaces,
excavating subsurface, and moving heavy construction equipment. All of
these activities, particularly excavation, could result in direct damage
to or destruction of archaeological resources. Destruction, damage or
restricted access to previously unknown properties of traditional
importance could occur. Mitigation measures would minimize impacts to
cultural resources; however, the loss of cultural resources is considered
a significant impact." There are 12 reported cultural resources in the
area of the proposed Battle Area Complex.

The endangered palila bird would have its territory adversely affected in
the short- and long-term as a result of construction and training, the EIS
said.

"Construction activity and increased training would have adverse impacts
on the habitat, deterring the recovery of the species. BAX (Battle Area
Complex) construction will affect the easternmost population of honohono
(Haplostachys haplostachya, an endemic, endangered plant), significantly
reducing the distribution of this species. Populations of Silene
hawaiiensis (no common name) are known from the footprints of the BAX, and
up to 20 percent of the total number of existing plants of this species
could be adversely affected by construction. One individual representing
less than 1 percent of the total population of (Zanthoxylum hawaiiense)
occurs in the BAX project area and would likely be affected by
construction. Mitigation measures would minimize impacts to threatened and
endangered species and their habitats, but not to a less than significant
level."

Numerous other factors were considered in the draft EIS, such as dust,
noise, traffic and impact on wetlands. These factors were then compared
with the other sites around Hawaii, and the Hawaii option as a whole was
compared with possible sites in Fort Richardson, Alaska, and Fort Carson
Military Reservation, Colo.

The impacts examined in the EIS arose from concerns raised by island
residents in a series of contentious scoping meetings that were held in
January and February.

In acknowledging the controversial nature of this proposal, the Army
included a cover letter asking residents to keep comments on-topic,
relating directly to the EIS, and as specific as possible.

"While public opinions for or against the Proposed Action are of interest,
they are often not useful for modifying an EIS, and they seldom have any
bearing on the criteria the agencies must use to make decisions regarding
proposals."

Following the 45-day comment period, relevant comments will be addressed
in the final EIS. It will then be followed by a 30-day wait period, after
which the Army chief of staff would make a final determination on where to
base the Stryker Brigade.

One of the major concerns among local peace activists is the possible
presence of depleted uranium, which has been found at Schofield Barracks.
The Army maintains in the EIS that it has found no records or other
information to indicate that depleted uranium munitions were used in
training exercises at Pohakuloa, though it is still reviewing historical
records to verify that. Army policy currently prevents the use of depleted
uranium in training worldwide.

Peter Sur can be reached at psur@hawaiitribune-herald.com.

Public comments
Comments will be accepted until Sept. 4 as follows:

- By mail: Public Affairs Office, U.S. Army Environmental Command,
Building E4460, 5179 Hoadley Road, Att: IMAE-PA, Aberdeen Proving Ground,
MD 21010-5401

- Fax: (410) 436-1693

- E-mail: publiccomments@aec.apgea.army.mil

- Telephone: (410) 436-1693 (Verbal comments will be accepted at the
public meetings)

=====---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

22. SEIU Healthcare Workers West Supports Single Payer
Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2007 19:30:34 -1000
From: Lcruz <palolo@hawaii.rr.com>

hopefully we'll be doing something similar in the nation...

----- Original Message -----
From: <moderator@PORTSIDE.ORG>
Sent: Saturday, July 21, 2007 4:52 AM

> Service Employees International Union (SEIU) United Healthcare Workers
West
> SEIU United Healthcare Workers West "Strongly" Supports HR 676
> Oakland, California.
>
> The 140,000 member United Healthcare Workers West, an affiliate of SEIU,
> has endorsed HR 676, legislation introduced by Congressman John Conyers
> (D-MI) which would implement a single payer healthcare system in the
> U.S.
>
> In a letter to Conyers' office announcing the endorsement, Richard
> Thomason, Policy Director for the union, expressed the union's "strong
> support for HR 676" and went on to state:
>
> "Like every other industrialized nation, the United States should
> provide health security for its residents as a matter of basic human
> dignity. Your legislation would accomplish that critically important
> goal.
>
> "Our local represents 140,000 caregivers who work in hospitals, clinics,
> nursing homes and homecare programs across California. Every day our
> member see the harmful consequences of being uninsured among their
> family members and the people they care for on the job. HR 676 will
> ensure that all Americans have health coverage through a publicly
> financed, privately delivered health care system that provides high
> quality, cost- effective health care."
>
> United Healthcare Workers West is the second largest local in the SEIU.
> The largest, 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East has also endorsed
> HR 676 along with Local 73 in Chicago and Pennsylvania locals 668 and
> 1199P. #30# HR 676 would institute a single payer health care system in
> the U.S. by expanding a greatly improved Medicare system to every
> resident.
>
> HR 676 would cover every person in the U. S. for all necessary medical
> care including prescription drugs, hospital, surgical, outpatient
> services, primary and preventive care, emergency services, dental,
> mental health, home health, physical therapy, rehabilitation (including
> for substance abuse), vision care, chiropractic and long term care. HR
> 676 ends deductibles and co-payments. HR 676 would save billions
> annually by eliminating the high overhead and profits of the private
> health insurance industry and HMOs.
>
> HR 676 currently has 75 co-sponsors in addition to Conyers.
> Co-sponsors and bill text are here:
> http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:h.r.00676 :
>
> HR 676 has been endorsed by 288 union organizations in 43 states
> including 77 Central Labor Councils and Area Labor Federations and 20
> state AFL-CIOs (KY, PA, CT, OH, DE, ND, WA, SC, WY, VT, FL, WI, WV, SD,
> NC, MO, MN, ME, AR & MD-DC).
>
> For further information, a list of union endorsers, or a sample
> endorsement resolution, contact:
>
> Kay Tillow All Unions Committee For Single Payer Health Care--HR 676 c/o
> Nurses Professional Organization (NPO) 1169 Eastern Parkway, Suite 2218
> Louisville, KY 4021
_______________________________________________________________________________________

23. GWB, Africa & a New African American General
From: <moderator@PORTSIDE.ORG>
Sent: Saturday, July 21, 2007 5:32 AM

http://www.blackcommentator.com/238/238_cover_left_margin_gwb_africa_new_general.html
> Black Commentator
> July 19, 2007
> GWB, Africa and a New African American General
> By Carl Bloice
>
> 'In between panels, I ran into Colin Powell and asked him if we are ever
> going to get out of Iraq,' Arianna Huffington wrote on July 2006 in a
> report from the Aspen Ideas Festival. "We are," he told me, but we're
> not going to leave behind anything we like because we are in the middle
> of a civil war.'" Writing on her website, Huffington added, 'Powell and
> Jack Murtha both talking about civil war in Iraq -- shouldn't that be
> headline news?'
>
> Evidently not.
>
> Powell showed up at Aspen again this year and said quite out loud that
> he once spent 2-hours vainly trying to persuade President George Bush
> not to invade Iraq and believes today's conflict cannot be resolved by
> US Armed force. 'I tried to avoid this war,' Powell alleged at 2007
> Festival in Colorado. 'I took him through the consequences of going into
> an Arab country and becoming the occupiers.'
>
> We know the former secretary of state said these things to the heavy
> thinkers gathered at the ski resort because correspondent Sarah Baxter
> reported it on July 8 in The Times in Britain. We wouldn't know it
> otherwise. Aide from a note in a media review column in the Washington
> Post, the story was almost totally ignored by the major news outlets in
> this country.
>
> General Powell, once a top official in the U.S. government has
> apparently become an invisible man.
>
> I was musing on this the other day when the news came that another
> African American military leader had been picked to carry the weight of
> still another important controversial aspect of Bush Administration
> foreign policy. On July 10, the Defense Department announced that Gen.
> William E. "Kip" Ward, the Army's only active black four-star general,
> will take over Pentagon's new Africa Command or 'Africom.'
>
> It's clear that the Bush Administration has embarked on a bold effort to
> increase U.S. presence and influence in Africa and that part of the
> effort is putting African Americans upfront in the drive.
>
> Bush Administration Africa policy flows almost directly from
> recommendations from two right-wing Washington think tanks: the Heritage
> Foundation that came up with the idea of an African command and the
> American Enterprise Institute. (The latter would appear to be working to
> increase its clout by recently adding to its staff former - briefly -
> World Bank director, neo- conservative, and Iraq war promoter, Paul
> Wolfowitz, who says his principle interest these days is Africa.)
>
> Another African American Pentagon official, Cindy Courville, was
> recently appointed U.S. ambassador to the African Union, having
> previously served as director for East African Affairs in the Office of
> the Secretary of Defense where she was responsible for the coordination
> of U.S. military and security policy with East Africa and the Horn of
> Africa. Courville said at her confirmation hearing, 'Africa holds
> growing geostrategic importance and is a high priority of this
> administration.'
>
> According to the Administration, the new Africa command Ward now heads
> up will help "promote peace and security and respond to crises on the
> continent' and coordinate military support for other diplomatic and
> development programs. The new command has been set up, according to a
> Pentagon press release, because of 'the increasing importance of Africa
> strategically, diplomatically and economically.' This is because of 'the
> increasing importance of the continent to the U.SÃ¢â,¬Â¦'
>
> One of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's last acts before his
> dismissal was to convince President Bush to create Africa command.
> President Bush announced the formation of the Africa Command in
> February, saying it will "strengthen our security cooperation with
> Africa and create new opportunities to bolster the capabilities of our
> partners in Africa."
>
> Not everybody sees it quite this benignly. Many people both here and in
> Africa are alarmed by the Administration's decision to step up U.S.
> military operations on the continent. Moreover, many see it linked to
> the rapidly accelerating scramble for Africa's natural resources,
> principally, but not exclusively, oil.
>
> Nii Akuetteh, the executive director of Washington- based Africa Action,
> said Africom 'has nothing to do with African interests and programs; its
> access to oil and the Ã¢â,¬Ëowar on terror'.' Akuetteh, a former Adjunct
> Professor at Georgetown's University's School of Foreign Service and one
> time Research and Education Director of the advocacy group TransAfrica,
> told me he is of two minds about the appointment of General Ward. 'He
> must be someone of considerable competence to have risen to where he is,
> given the persistence of racism, and that is a good thing. What bothers
> me is the concept of Africom itself; I don't like it. Beyond all the
> talk about bureaucratic reorganization the real fear must be over the
> threat of increased militarization of sub-Saharan Africa. If you read
> the details you will see that that's pretty much what it is.'
>
> Akuetteh says although some African governments may have welcomed the
> idea, civil groups in most of Africa and people in the U.S. concerned
> with U.S. policy toward the continent, ' are all of one mind: we don't
> like it.'
>
> Bill Fletcher Jr., BC Editorial Board Member and former President of
> TransAfrica, said, 'It is ludicrous to think that setting up Africom has
> anything to do with fighting terrorism. It is a dangerous notion.' The
> real motivation, he says, is to protect America's oil interests in
> Africa.
>
> 'Pentagon to train sharper eye on Africa,' read the headline over a Jan.
> 5 report by Richard Whittle in the Christian Science Monitor. 'Strife,
> oil, and Al Qaeda are leading the US to create a new Africa Command.'
> Today, the US gets about 10 percent of its oil from Africa, but, the
> Monitor said, some experts say it may need to rely on the continent for
> as much as 25 percent by 2010.'
>
> 'I think the emergence of Africa as a strategic reality is inevitable
> and we're going to need forward-based troops, special operations,
> marines, soldiers, airmen and sailors to be in the right proportion,'
> Marine General James Jones, then-NATO's military commander and head of
> the US European army, told an interviewer last year before the African
> Command plan was revealed. Jones was appealing for more U.S. troops in
> Europe to be available for deployment for trouble spots in Africa. 'I
> think the emergence of Africa as a strategic reality is inevitable and
> we're going to need forward- based troops, special operations, marines,
> soldiers, airmen and sailors to be in the right proportion,' said Jones.
>
> However, TransAfrica argues that 'While the Bush administration claims
> this development will build partnerships with African governments that
> will lead to Ã¢â,¬Ëogreater peace and security to the people of Africa'
> nothing could be further from the truth. This newest incursion follows a
> pattern of extraction of minerals and aiding factions in some of
> Africa's most bloody conflicts: thus further destabilizing the
> continent. This operation will strengthen the US military's presence in
> the Gulf of Guinea, to aid oil extraction processes and will work to
> further militarize the Horn of Africa in support of the administration's
> 'war on terror.' US troops are already on the Horn of Africa carrying
> out operations within Somalia and on its border with Kenya.'
>
> That an African American general would be named to oversee U.S. military
> operations didn't come as a surprise. In August of last year, Time
> magazine previewed the decision to set up the African command. It noted
> that it would also 'provide a single military organization for agencies
> like the State Department and the CIA to work within the region.' A
> Pentagon source said at the time Ward would probably be put in charge of
> the project, noting what Time called 'his boots-on- the-ground
> experience in Africa.'
>
> Ward, 58, currently deputy commander of U.S. European Command, graduated
> from Morgan State University's ROTC program and joined the military in
> 1971. He received his bachelor's degree from Morgan, and his master's
> from Pennsylvania State University. Among his many assignments, in the
> early 1990s, he served in Somalia as commander of the 2nd Brigade, 10th
> Mountain Division (Light) Fort Drum when America sent the military in to
> battle Somali militias. In 2000, he commanded the occupation force in
> Bosnia and Herzegovina following the breakup of in the former
> Yugoslavia. He was the U.S. Security coordinator for the Palestine
> Authority for most of 2005. He was promoted to four-star general last
> summer.
>
> The announcement of the new military command was followed by the joint
> U.S-Ethiopian invasion of Somalia. Once again, an African American
> became the public face of the Administration in an African operation.
> That would be Assistant U.S. Secretary of State for Africa Jendayi
> Frazer. In Somalis things are going from bad to worse with the Ethiopian
> occupation igniting an Iraq-like civil conflict that shows no sign of
> abating and threatens to become a larger regional conflict. Recent
> declarations by Frazer are said to be exacerbating the danger.
>
> Last week, it became quite clear that Frazer's boss, Secretary of State
> Condoleezza Rice is not a central operative in terms of U.S. policy in
> Iraq. That role has apparently fallen to Defense Secretary Robert Gates
> and Rice's 'assistant,' John Negroponte.
>
> Rice was scheduled to visit Africa this week. After a stop in the
> Israeli-occupied West Bank she was slated to visit the Democratic
> Republic of the Congo and attend a trade conference in Ghana. However,
> all three trips Ã¢â,¬â?o and another to Southeast Asia - were canceled
> or postponed. This came after the President said he was sending Defense
> Secretary Robert Gates to the Middle East early next month to survey the
> situation with Ã¢â,¬â?o in the words of the New York Times - 'an assist'
> from Rice, and the projection of a fall regional conference on the
> Middle East that she is to chair.
>
> The postponement of Rice's trip to Sub-Saharan African should not be
> taken as any diminution of the Administration's stepped up attention to
> the continent. On July 11, she addressed the Organization of American
> States/African Union Democracy Bridge Forum in Washington.
>
> 'We have had combatant commands around the world for every place except
> Africa,' Rice recently told participants in the 2007 Edward R. Murrow
> Program for Journalists. 'We have a European Command. We have a Central
> Command; that's the Middle East. We have a South Command, a Southern
> Command that is Latin America. We have not had a command dedicated to
> Africa."
>
> "Both on the war on terror and in dealing with conflicts, we are
> cooperating very intensely with local governments and local armed forces
> in training, equipping and intelligence sharing,' said Rice. 'For
> instance, right now we are assisting the African mission in Sudan, and
> but we're doing it from our European Command. When we did the Liberia
> work with a very fine Nigerian general, General Okonkwo, we did that
> from European Command. So it only makes sense as we cooperate more and
> work more with African militaries and African leaders to have an African
> command.'
>
> 'According to Rice, 'what you're really seeing is the president's very
> active policy in Africa in partnership with Africans to resolve Africa's
> problems. Now you're seeing the institutions begin to develop to make
> that possible over the long run. Africa Command is one. Now in Africa we
> will have a sub-combatant commander for Africa and an ambassador to the
> AU because we're doing so much cooperative work with the countries of
> Africa.'
>
> Any African patriots looking over their shoulders at what U.S. efforts
> in the Middle East have wrought might only shudder at the thought. That
> is except for the autocratic rulers who have already thrown their lot
> with Washington Ã¢â,¬â?o Chad, Ethiopia and Uganda come to mind Ã¢â,¬â?o
> which have employed such 'security' cooperation to try to crush local
> opponents. However, the Africom project drew a cool, sometime hostile
> response elsewhere on the continent. Under Secretary of Defense Henry
> recently led a team promoting the Africa Command to Egypt, Morocco,
> Algeria, Libya, Ethiopia and Dijbouti where, according to the Financial
> Times they were met with "a wall of hostility from governments in the
> region" most of whom are apprehensive about the plan and hardly anxious
> to join the Administration's so-called war on terror.
>
> A State Department official told the Times: 'We've got a big image
> problem down there. Public opinion is really against getting into bed
> with the United States. They just don't trust the United States.' The
> Guardian (UK) reported, 'The Libyan and Algerian governments reportedly
> told Mr. Henry that they would play no part in hosting Africom,' adding,
> 'Even Morocco, considered Washington's closest north African ally,
> indicated it did not welcome a permanent military presence on its soil.'
>
> Most commentary on this situation avoids what I would consider the most
> important point: what right does the U.S. government have to interfere
> in the affairs of sovereign African nations? To intervene in their
> disputes? To promote the militarization of the continent? These
> questions seem to have eluded Rice, Frazer, Courville and company. But
> then again, they don't make policy; they're just doing their job.
>
> Michele Ruiters, a senior researcher at the Institute for Global
> Dialogue in South Africa, wrote in the newspaper Business Day that
> Africans should 'oppose the expansion of US military power on the
> continent.' Debates will emerge, she wrote, 'about Africom's interests,
> maneuvers and probable outcomes, but we should also examine the
> potential social, economic and political destabilization of an already
> vulnerable continent.'
>
> 'The African Union and the Peace and Security Council were established
> to entrench democracy, create economic development and monitor and
> secure peace but have not been allowed to develop and mature enough to
> deal with the continent's problems, 'continued Ruiters. 'Africa does not
> need another US base aimed at Ã¢â,¬Ëopromoting' peace and development.
> Africom would destabilize an already fragile continent and region, which
> would be forced to engage with US interests on military terms.'
>
> Meanwhile, General Powell also told the Aspen audience that Al Qaeda is
> only 10 percent of the problem in Iraq, who told columnist Robert Novak
> about CIA agent Valerie Palme was never a secret, and: "I believe
> Guantanamo should be closed.' Shouldn't that too be headline news?
> Evidently not.
>
> Commander Ward might well be on guard as he moves into his new position.
> Sometimes when things go bad in an unjustified, ill thought out foreign
> adventure - say aiding the invasion of Somalia - the brother in charge -
> like Powell - can apparently later become invisible, his recollections
> unreported.
>
> BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member Carl Bloice is a writer in
> San Francisco, a member of the National Coordinating Committee of the
> Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism and formerly
> worked for a healthcare union.
________________________________________________________________________________________

24. Online Hawaiian Language Class Open Enrollment
From: "World Wide Web Server" <www@koa.ahapunanaleo.org>
Sent: Friday, July 20, 2007 12:58 PM

> Act now. Seats are filling up! Open Enrollment is well underway for the
> Niuolahiki Distance Learning online Hawaiian language classes offered by
> 'Aha Punana Leo. The last day to register is 07-30-2007 so don't delay.
> Classes will begin on 08-20-2007.
>
> All applicants may proceed to the registration site by clicking the link
> below. Be sure to have your log in information handy. You will need it
> to enter the website. If you have forgotten it, you may retrieve it from
> the Niuolahiki Registration website. Your login name is the email
> address you provided in your online application.
>
> Proceed to the secure registration website at:
> https://lama.ahapunanaleo.org/kainoa/applogin.php .If you have problems
> accessing the site, please contact: papatechsupport@ahapunanaleo.org.
>
> Once you log into the site, click on the "Select A Course" tab in the
> green navigation bar at the top of the page. Once you select a course,
> you will be taken to a page to confirm your choice. If you agree, click
> the button to pay on the PayPal website.
>
> We strongly urge you to select and pay for a course as soon as possible.
> Only a limited number of seats are available. Once payment has been
> made, you will receive an e-mail confirmation of your payment from
> PayPal. 'Aha Punana Leo will also receive notification of your payment
> from PayPal, and we will then begin to process your registration. You
> are not officially registered until 'Aha Puanana Leo receives your
> payment and processes your registration. As soon as your information is
> processed, 'Aha Punana Leo will assign a seat to you and will e-mail a
> confirmation to you.
>
> If no available seats remain at the time that we process your payment,
> you will receive a full and immediate refund. Under normal conditions,
> it could take up to five business days to process your payment and
> registration information.
>
> The absolute last day to pay for a class is 07-30-2007. However, we
> encourage all first time students to the Niuolahiki Distance Learning
> program to complete this as soon as possible in order to allow ample
> time to prepare your computer and familiarize yourself with the class
> content sites. All new students will need to complete four introductory
> modules before the start of class on 08-20-2007.
>
> Mahalo.
>
> 'Aha Punana Leo
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

25. Army: Stryker brigade could be moved ... - comments
Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2007 04:37:33 -0400 (EDT)
From: KahiwaL@cs.com

In a message dated 7/21/2007 9:56:27 AM Hawaiian Standard Time,
palolo@hawaii.rr.com writes:

Army: Stryker brigade could be moved to Colorado avoid
hurting Hawaii

If this comes to pass, and I hope it does, I wonder what is going to
happen to the 23,000 acres the army bought for the Strykers from Parker
Ranch?

ku
------

Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2007 22:54:55 -1000
From: mia <kaimi@lava.net>

Would be nice to see a Hawaiian village settlement there....
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

26. Colombian Journey - Oil, Genocide, and Resistance
Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2007 07:55:52 -1000
From: Lcruz <palolo@hawaii.rr.com>

al gore investments in colombia? this is the place where several
activists (a couple from hawaii) were tortured and killed about 7 or 8
years ago, as i recall, by merecenaries hired by the oil companies (they
have their own militia).

----- Original Message ----- From: Meredith Aby
Sent: Sunday, July 22, 2007 7:50 AM

This is from a Colombia solidarity activist we work w/. He has been on the
ground in Colombia for a year.

I am moving to Gmail. Please send future messages to me here at
awcmere@gmail.com. Thanks!

Dear friends,

The state of Arauca is located in a very beautiful region of Colombia that
is suffering the curse of our addiction to oil. The U'wa people, in the
eastern range of the Andes, have been struggling for the past 15 years to
prevent oil drilling in their territory.

I traveled to the Gibraltar 3 site in U'wa territory on January 28 with a
national and international commission. Ecopetrol had begun transporting
equipment to the site two weeks before and the drilling tower was being
assembled. I returned to the site on July 7 with a Witness for Peace
delegation ^Ö the tower was up and exploration had started.

The U'wa have witnessed the destruction of the Guahibo people and their
territory by Occidental Petroleum's Caño Limón oilfield. The Lipa Lagoon
was a sacred site for the Guahibo and they lived in the area around the
lagoon. Oxy (Occidental) drained the lagoon in order to install their oil
wells and displaced the Guahibo from their territory. The Guahibo culture
has been destroyed and the Guahibo people that still exist live in abject
poverty.

Oxy then announced their plans to drill for oil in U'wa territory. The
U'wa consider oil to be the blood of Mother Earth and they launched a
national and international campaign to prevent the drilling. Terence
Freitas traveled here from the U.S. in 1996 to accompany the U'wa in their
struggle. Terence and two other U.S. indigenous rights activists, Ingrid
Washinawatok and Lahe'ena'e Gay, were kidnapped and killed by FARC
guerrillas in February 1999. When we met with the leaders of the U'wa on
July 7 they expressed their ongoing grief about the murder of their three
friends.

Thousands of U'wa and supporters from the Arauca social organizations
blockaded the road leading to the Gibraltar site for two months in 2000 to
prevent the entry of the drilling equipment. The U'wa leaders told us that
the military tried to violently break-up the blockade four different
times.

During one of those attempts, as people were running away in panic, two
indigenous children drowned in the Cubugon river. Al Gore was campaigning
for the Democratic presidential nomination at that time while holding
hundreds of thousands of dollars in Oxy stock. His father, Al Gore Sr.,
had been a close friend of Oxy founder Armand Hammer and served on Oxy's
board. A national campaign in the U.S. urged Gore to take action to stop
Oxy's plans to drill in the territory of the U'Wa.

The inconvenient truth is that Gore did nothing ^Ö no book, no movie, not
a word on behalf of the U'wa and the environment.

In response to the campaign here in Colombia and internationally, Oxy sold
their drilling "rights" to Ecopetrol (the Colombian government-owned oil
company). Ecopetrol started bringing equipment to the Gibraltar site in
January of this year. If Ecopetrol discovers a significant deposit of oil,
it will probably assert that it lacks the capital to develop the field and
needs a "strategic partner" for that work. That partner would likely be
Oxy or Repsol (a Spanish corporation active in Arauca). Luis, the
president of the U'wa Association, spoke before the Inter American Human
Rights Court on July 19 and again expressed the opposition of the U'wa to
any drilling in their territory.

"We want to live in peace, and we want our land that has been invaded to
be returned to us," Luis and Armando told us. "This struggle is not just
for the U'wa people. Because of global warming, this is a struggle for the
life of the planet." In love and solidarity, Scott
________________________________________________________________________________

27. Tree holds promise for future of biofuel
From: "Maui Tomorrow" <aina@maui-tomorrow.org>
Sent: Sunday, July 22, 2007 8:04 AM

http://starbulletin.com/print/2005.php?fr=/2007/07/22/news/story03.html
The Honolulu Star-Bulletin
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Tree holds promise for future of biofuel

UH hopes to grow an isle biofuel source to re-engergize Hawaii's
agriculture industry

STORY SUMMARY >>

Unused land on the Waianae Coast and other areas of the state could one
day be green with plants grown for fuel to reduce Hawaii's dependence on
imported oil.

That's the hope of researchers who are trying to determine if biofuel
crops have the potential to re-engergize Hawaii's agriculture industry.

The University of Hawaii and the Hawaii Agriculture Research Center are
growing test plots of jatropha, a plant that is already being used to make
biodiesel in India.

But what's yet to be determined is whether the crops will be profitable
for farmers.

STAR-BULLETIN
FULL STORY >>
By Craig Gima / cgima@starbulletin.com

A patch of green trees rising from the red dirt at the University of
Hawaii's Poamoho Experimental Farm may be the first seedlings in what
could become a new agricultural industry in Hawaii -- growing crops for
fuel.

Jatropha trees are already grown to make biodiesel in India. The plants
have three pointed leaves like the kukui nut tree and when the fruit
ripens, it contains three seeds which are high in oil content.

UH researchers planted a test crop of jatropha trees in January and they
are already starting to bear fruit. A similar plot at the Hawaii
Agriculture Research Center in Kunia has also flowered and borne fruit.

Mike Poteet, a crop scientist with the Hawaii Agriculture Research Center,
believes biofuels have the potential to create a new agriculture industry
in Hawaii.

Poteet wrote a report last year that suggested Hawaii could grow enough
biodiesel crops to reduce imported diesel by 20 percent -- perhaps 150
million gallons a year.

But he said the effort is still in its infancy.

"Right now we're just crossing our fingers," Poteet said. But he said the
crops could have the potential to "revitalize agriculture across the
state."

Plans are already underway to build two large biodiesel plants in Hawaii.
A Seattle-based company, Imperium Renewables Inc., wants to build a $90
million processing plant at Barbers Point to produce 100 million gallons
of biodiesel a year.

Maui Electric Co. and BlueEarth Maui Biodiesel has also proposed a $61
million refinery on the Valley Isle to produce up to 120 million gallons a
year of biodiesel to produce electricity.

Both companies would start operations using imported vegetable oil. But
both also have said they would eventually like to use local crops.

"The market is there. We've got to do something to meet the demand," said
Richard Ogoshi, a crop researcher at the College of Tropical Agriculture
at UH-Manoa.

But farmers won't risk growing a crop without knowing how best to raise it
and if they can make money.

It's hoped the research going on now will determine what crops might work
best in different growing conditions in Hawaii and what plants will give
farmers the best return.

"Until somebody shows it's feasible, it's going to be difficult for a
landowner to put his money into it, because it's such a gamble," said Bill
Steiner, dean of UH-Hilo's College of Agriculture, Forestry and Natural
Resources.

Steiner is leading a UH-Hilo effort to begin research in growing different
types of oil palm on 120 acres of land in Pauuilo on the Hamakua coast.

So far, Steiner has about $45,000 and is seeking more funding.

UH-Manoa and HARC are sharing a $150,000 state Department of Agriculture
grant. UH-Manoa also received another $250,000 from the Legislature this
year, said Goro Uehara, a soil scientist with the College of Tropical
Agriculture.

UH-Manoa is starting with jatropha because it has already been grown
successfully elsewhere. It also can be grown on marginal agricultural
land, Uehara said.

"We have to find crops that will grow in underutilized areas. We don't
want to compete with prime agriculture," Uehara said.

UH has identified plots of land on different islands with varying
conditions to plant jatropha and other potential fuel test crops including
kukui, castor bean, soy bean, sugar, sugar beet and sweet potato.
Scientists are also looking at haole koa and some varieties of grass that
could be used with cellulose-technology to make fuel.

Another part of the research is looking at byproducts from fuel plants
into other salable products, such as animal feed or pharmaceutical
products, Poteet said. The sap of the jatropha is similar to latex and
that may also have some value, he added.

"It could mean new jobs and new businesses," Steiner said. "It could be
very interesting for Hawaii besides leading us down a path towards more
energy independence."

The researchers emphasized that they are three to six years away from
being able to determine the economic viability of fuel crops in Hawaii and
the best ways to grow them.

"We are in the infant stages," Poteet said. "There's a very great
potential for this industry but we've got to have the support to get
things off the ground."

JATROPHA TREE
>> Native to Caribbean
>> Seeds used in India to produce biodiesel
>> Oil content: 43-59 percent
>> Potential gallons of oil per acre: 300
>> Grows in a variety of conditions and can withstand high temperatures
and drought.
Source: Biodiesel Crop Implementation in Hawaii report
(c) 1996-2007 The Honolulu Star-Bulletin | www.starbulletin.com
_________________________________________________________________________________

28. Army denies Hawaiians access to sacred sites
Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2007 10:02:23 -1000
From: Kyle Kajihiro <keboi@aol.com

Begin forwarded message:
Article: Army denies Hawaiians access to sacred sites
This article from HonoluluAdvertiser.com has been sent to you
by summer
Article:

http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2007/Jul/22/ln/hawaii707220365.html

Long-simmering differences between Native Hawaiians and the military
over access to Makua Valley have flared anew, with the Army notifying two
prominent groups that they will no longer be allowed access to four sacred
sites they've visited in the past.

Malama Makua and Hui Malama say the Army's notice, contained in a
June 12 letter, may violate a 2001 court order guaranteeing cultural
access to many sites in the valley, including the four sites they can no
longer enter.

"The 2001 court decree said that Malama Makua and other groups must
be allowed a minimum of two daytime accesses per month and one overnight
visit a year for cultural activities at the sites," said William Aila, a
member of Hui Malama, a Native Hawaiian faction that has conducted
cultural practices at the sites along with Malama Makua. "Now, these
activities have been severely restricted."

Denying access to sacred sites denies Native Hawaiians the ability
to honor their ancestral spirits within those locations, Aila said. He
said the Native Hawaiian groups will continue to seek access to the
restricted areas. If their requests continue to be denied, they'll let a
judge make the decision.

The Army allows the Hawaiian groups access to other areas near the
front of the valley.

But since 2005, Malama Makua and Hui Malama have been banned from
the four sites within the valley's south firebreak road. The groups had
hoped to be allowed back into those sites this year. Around two dozen
cultural practitioners with Malama Makua hoped to visit the four sites
yesterday morning during a scheduled visit to the valley. While they were
allowed into the valley, their request to enter the four sites was
denied.

The Army cited safety concerns for its 2005 ban. After two years of
ordnance removal, Hawaiian groups expected they would soon be allowed back
to the sites. Instead, they received the June 12 letter, saying they will
no longer have physical access.

It stipulates that only visual access to the firebreak road sites
will be allowed from trails and overlooks. Cultural practitioners and
other members of the public will no longer be allowed to physically touch
or enter the areas in order to preserve and protect those locations, the
letter said.

The letter, signed by Steven M. Raymond, director of public works at
Schofield Barracks, cited two reasons: Unnamed "lineal descendants" object
to the visitations and contend that access to the areas "by malihini
(newcomers), and non-family members" will harm and desecrate sacred family
sites.

Also, it said past studies by the National Park Service on
archaeological locations had found that "unlimited and/or unrestricted
access physically damages cultural sites."

'DELAY TACTICS'

On Friday, the Army issued a statement in response to objections
raised by Malama Makua and Hui Malama, saying it "is providing access
consistent with the 2001 Settlement Agreement, federal laws and safety
concerns. Safety is and will continue to be one of the Army's foremost
concerns. Makua Military Reservation is a live-fire training range, and as
such, safety hazards like unexploded ordnance are present."

Fred Dodge, a board member of Malama Makua, said the letter is just
the latest attempt by the Army to deny, limit and restrict access to Makua
Valley, which the military uses for training purposes and which many
Native Hawaiians believe holds great religious, ancestral and cultural
significance.

"The Army has been doing delay tactics all over the place," Dodge
said. "It's been one excuse after the other."

The Makua Valley access debate dates to World War II "when the Army
took over the valley in early 1943 and kicked out the residents," Dodge
said. "And there was an agreement that six months after the war was over,
the valley would be returned in a condition satisfactory to the state.

"And when that didn't happen, the territory sued and it was in and
out of the courts until statehood. It was a condition of statehood that
the issue be resolved."

In 1964, for the sum of $1, America's youngest state leased the
lower third of Makua Valley to the Army for 65 years, Dodge said.

DISAGREE WITH FINDINGS

David Henkin, an attorney with Earthjustice, a leading ecological
law firm that represents Malama Makua, said for more than three years
after the court settlement ^× between 2001 and 2005 ^× Malama Makua, Hui
Malama and other cultural practitioners visited south firebreak road sites
with no apparent harm to either people or archeological features. Then the
Army abruptly halted access to those locations, citing safety concerns.

According to Henkin, the Pentagon insisted that areas being accessed
must first be cleared of all ordnance to at least a foot below the ground
surface. That clearing process lasted through the end of 2006, after which
the areas were safe to visit, he said.

"And now the Army is erecting this fictitious argument about
possible damage to the sites, and they're also claiming that these
so-called 'lineal descendants' have some sort of primacy to the area,"
Henkin said.

Henkin's July 11 response to the Army said: "We strongly disagree
with both of these findings."

Since none of the cultural practitioners ever sought or was given
"unlimited and unrestricted access" to any valley sites, and because
visitations have all been closely monitored and controlled by the
military, that argument has no bearing, the response said.

"Malama Makua objects to the Army's reference in its letter to
certain consulting parties as 'lineal descendants' and its apparent
deference to the wishes of these unnamed individuals," Henkin wrote.

"No one consulting party has a monopoly on 'lineal descendants.' "

However, the Army insists the June 12 decision is not a case of
favoritism.

"The Army did not favor any Native Hawaiian group and/or individual
in making the decision to provide access along designated pathways," the
Friday statement said. "Instead, we based our decision on providing access
in a reasonably safe manner that will protect both the public and the
cultural features from physical harm while complying with applicable laws
and regulations."

Reach Will Hoover at whoover@honoluluadvertiser.com.
------------------=============-----------------------------------------------------------------------

29. Earmarking the War Machine
Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2007 11:41:26 -1000
From: viviane lerner <vivlerner@gmail.com

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/07/22/2674/
Published on Saturday, July 21, 2007 by The Boston Globe
Earmarking the War Machine
by Derrick Z. Jackson

ONCE AGAIN, the railing of Senate Democrats did not matter on Iraq.^ÔThis
is George Bush^Òs war,^Ô Hillary Clinton said. ^ÓHe is responsible for
this war. He started the war. He mismanaged the war. He escalated the
war. And he refuses to end the war.^Ô

Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts said, ^ÓAfter more than four years of
such smoke and mirrors, Congress and the American people have lost faith
in the president^Òs competence in managing the war.^Ô

Carl Levin of Michigan, the Armed Services Committee chairman who is
cosponsoring a combat-troop pullout deadline with Senator Jack Reed of
Rhode Island, said, ^ÓWhat we^Òre not comfortable with is the huge chaos
which exists in Iraq right now . . . which we^Òre trying to bring to an
end by changing the course.^Ô

Not only did the Senate Democrats fail again this week to advance
proposals for a pullout, they show in much broader ways that they have not
changed course at all. They may want to end the war bungled by
Republicans, but they refuse to end the escalation of the American war
machine.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said the Democrats would ^Ódrain the
swamp^Ô of Republican corruption and ^Óbreak the link between lobbyists
and legislation.^Ô But the Globe recently reported that Kennedy slid $100
million into the 2008 defense authorization bill for a General Electric
fighter engine that the Air Force said it did not need.

It gets worse in a defense budget that is zooming to $648.8 billion. The
nonpartisan budget watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense last month
analyzed 309 Senate defense earmarks. Four of the top five ^Óearmarkers^Ô
were not Republican hawks but centrist and liberal Democrats.

Levin led the way with 44 earmarks. Clinton was second with 26. Reed was
fourth with 23, one behind Republican John Warner of Virginia. In fifth
place was Charles Schumer of New York with 21. When asked if she saw any
change in defense earmark behavior since the Democrats took back the House
and the Senate, senior analyst Laura Peterson of the Taxpayers for Common
Sense said over the telephone, ^ÓNo.^Ô

More proof the swamp is still full is the fact that only four of the top
10 senators in defense campaign contributions in the 2006 election cycle
were Republicans. According to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive
Politics, Democrats Kennedy, Clinton, Christopher Dodd of Connecticut,
Dianne Feinstein of California, Bill Nelson of Florida, and
Democrat-turned-independent Joe Lieberman of Connecticut collected 60
percent of the $1.4 million the industry lavished among the top 10.

Democrats say defense contracting is not about war but about jobs in their
states (and of course votes). This no longer washes when bringing home the
bacon fries the rest of the world. The Stockholm International Peace
Research Institute last year reported that the United States is now
responsible for just under half of the entire planet^Òs trillion-dollar
military spending. No other nation accounts for more than 5 percent of the
world^Òs military spending.

The Stockholm report said the United States ^Óis the principal determinant
of the current world trend.^Ô With that, it is no surprise that the United
States accounted for 80 percent of the increase in global military
expenditures in 2005. The United States is also roughly tied with Russia
in exporting arms to the rest of the world, together accounting for 60
percent of the total.

The World Policy Institute, an independent arms proliferation watchdog
group, reported in 2005 that the United States transferred arms to 18 of
the 25 countries in active conflicts. It also reported that 20 of the 25
nations that received arms from the United States in 2003 were classified
as undemocratic or as having a poor human rights record by our own State
Department.

Have you heard the Democrats leap up in unison to end this madness? They
know they are not just funding better body armor or prosthetics for our
soldiers. They know they fund the gear that makes prosthetics necessary.

This week, Kennedy reacted to Bush^Òs progress report on Iraq by saying in
a statement, ^ÓIt^Òs wrong to keep pouring more and more lives into the
endless black hole of a failed policy. It^Òs time to say ^Ñenough.^Ò ^Ô

When Kennedy and the Democrats say the same thing about defense earmarks,
arms proliferation, and lives lost in black holes outside of Iraq, we will
know the swamp is truly being drained.
--------------------------------------------------------------------==============

30. News of Actions in Ireland
Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2007 23:07:40 +0100
From: Jenny James <atlantiscol@hotmail.com>

News from Schnews....

ARRESTS AT SOLDIERS HILL AS SECURITY GETS HEAVY AT TARA
Seven protesters against the motorway planned at the Hill Of
Tara in Ireland (See SchNEWS 596) were arrested on Weds 18th
trying to stop diggers from illegally destroying the
important archaeological site at the proposed Blundlestown
interchange in the Tara/Skryne Valley.

Campaigners against the new M3 road were there by 7am and the morning
quickly turned into the battle of Soldiers Hill as they were met with
thirty diggers and heavy security. After protesters stood in the road in
front of the trucks, five were arrested by Gardai, including archaeology
professor Muirfeann Ni Bhrolchain. A further two were nicked in the
evening, all for obstruction and Public Order charges.

This marked a shift in security tactics ^Ö up until then anyone putting
themselves in danger from machinery stopped work. The change was evident
after contractors and security personnel acting for SIAC/Ferrovial
attempted to establish a machinery depot in the middle of the Valley, at
the proposed site of the 25-acre Blundlestown interchange. Protesters were
subject to physical abuse, including threats and actual blows, leaving one
hospitalised.

After the morning arrests, EU MEP Cathy Sinott arrived announcing that
Ireland is currently in court with the EU over the recent archaeological
discoveries along the path of the road, and called for work should be
stopped for two months until the court hearing ^Ö a call likely to fall on
deaf ears without even more determined public action. Of the seven
arrested, four have been remanded in custody for a week after breaking
bail condition and returning to the protest site. They will appear in
Navan District Court next week.

The Hill Of Tara is still to be won ^Ö but there's not much time. Help the
protests all you can now ^Ö with getting down there, and also camp tat
including the usual rope, tarps, food, etc.

* For more see www.savetara.com & www.tarawatch.org
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

MAYO THE FORCE BE WITH YOU
Another SchNEWS correspondent with a report from Rossport, Ireland:

"The resistance to Shell's proposed gas refinery and pipeline development
in County Mayo, Ireland, has intensified once again. Last Wednesday three
local fishermen were jailed, accused of assaulting Gardai on a picket last
year. They vigorously denied the charge and the prosecution were unable to
produce any evidence in court aside from contradictory police testimonies.

Nonentheless, Judge Devins (coincidentally married to a junior government
minister ^Ö surely no conflict there) somehow managed to find both men
guilty and sentenced them to three months inside. The community response
was swift and unequivocal. On Friday, two men locked on to an immobilized
vehicle for over six hours, blocking traffic on the main haulage route to
the proposed refinery site at Bellianboy. Locals also used their bodies to
block traffic on the alternative routes to the site.

In the evening, a procession of 100 vehicles drove to welcome home the
three bailed fishermen. The convoy stopped when it reached the proposed
refinery site and around 200 people gathered outside. Some of the crowd
forced open the gates and around 100 people marched through the site. The
community celebrated as power was temporarily reclaimed from Shell in
Bellinaboy.

Since the picket was broken last October, community control of the
situation here is infrequent, and they have no doubt about the strength of
the forces they are up against. One resident told me, "Make no mistake,
this is war. Shell and the Gards will not stop at anything until this
thing is built." With the odds so stacked against them their
uncompromising opposition is impressive, but in the face of what life here
will become if Shell succeed, they are people with little to lose. If the
development goes ahead, this remote community, and the land and sea many
of them depend upon, will be altered irrevocably. The gas pipeline is only
the beginning - if it is built, oil refinery developments are certain to
follow. Consequently, resistance is not so much a choice, as a necessity.

Campaigners are hoping to keep the momentum of the past week going and a
national day of action has been called for Saturday at Bellinaboy. In
general, support is always welcome, the Rossport Solidarity Camp is
located near the site providing a base for activists who want to help with
the campaign. Come with ideas for action!"

* For more detailed info check out www.shelltosea.com
www.indymedia.ie/mayo www.rossportsolidaritycampcom
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ----------------------

31. Wailea 670, What's in a name?
From: Maui Tomorrow
Sent: Sunday, July 22, 2007 12:13 PM

Wailea 670, What's in a name?

A few years ago the proposed luxury development next to Maui Meadows
changed its name from Wailea 670 to Honua'ula. Is there any harm in
changing the name of a subdivision searching for a "brand" identity to a
"more Hawaiian" name?

In traditional Hawaiian life, a name was often very important. A place
name like Wailea, for example, told a story.

Wailea today is a multi-million dollar brand name symbolizing glamorous
hotels, shops and luxury gated communities. In one more generation, few
will recall that Wailea once referred to a small spring and the remains of
an ancient Hawaiian fishing settlement on Wailea Point. Fewer still will
recall the place name Kahamanini, referring to the abundance of reef fish
in nearby waters.

Who will remember that Wailea is part of the ahupua'a of Paeahu? This
ancient place name tells a story of many rows of stacked rock (ahu) along
these lands. Ahu were used to dry fish, plant sweet potatoes or as
ceremonial markers. Dozens of "rock mounds" were noted in Wailea golf
course archaeological surveys. They, like the names Kahamanini and Paeahu
have now vanished from our sight and our memories, replaced with smooth
golf courses, now "re-branded," as Wailea.

What about the Wailea fishing settlement? The wai (freshwater spring) that
gave the little settlement its name, has disappeared. The settlement
complex was rich in artifacts spanning nearly five centuries. It was
replaced by a multimillion-dollar condo after years of neglect and vandals
left it too "degraded" to be preserved in place.

The complex has been "reconstructed' into several oblong shapes further
south. Visitors along the Wailea Point coastal trail read the plaque and
believe they are viewing an authentic Hawaiian cultural site.

Has anything been lost by the expansion of the name Wailea from a humble
fishing settlement to a world-class resort?

And what about the ancient name of Honua'ula?.

Honua'ula is best known as one of Maui's 12 traditional moku, (ancient
districts). Honua'ula sailed with the great navigator Moikeha and landed
upon the shores of Maui. Did he give his name to this district?

Honua'ula moku included the southeastern flanks of Haleakala from near the
Kihei boat ramp to Kahikinui. During the first western census (1831)
Honua'ula was the 4th largest population center on Maui. "Honua'ula
Church" (Makena's Keawala'I church) was referred to as the "mother church"
of the region during the 1850's.

Is 670 acres of lands that span the three ahupua'a of Paeahu, Palau'ea and
Keauhou more worthy of the name Honua'ula than the lands surrounding
Makena landing, Keoneo'i'o or Ulupalakua Ranch? All are part of
Honua'ula.

Would the long and legendary past of the entire district of Honua'ula be
forgotten if this name is widely marketed and applied only to one tiny
portion of what is a very large district?

Anyone rightfully using the name Honua'ula should honor our ancestors and
protect our history and legacy at all costs. A place calling itself
Honua'ula should prominently showcase Hawaiian culture. It should respect,
value and protect all parts of that culture in their natural state- the
land forms, the plants and the remains of Hawaiian cultural sites.

It should consult with multiple archaeological scholars and not rely on
only one firm whose reputation is under dispute (see Star Bulletin
11/19/05). For a new town to be worthy of the name Honua'ula it should
invite the whole community to be part of its preservation process, Is this
the case?

The last four owners of the 670 lands have done little to seek out ways to
preserve its plants or cultural sites. Its 1988 Environmental Study, noted
no cultural sites at all. Only two dozen are recorded today. The native
plant survey found little as well and recommended only a tiny preserve
area that was later bulldozed "by persons unknown." Citizen interest lead
to further surveys and the discovery of rich habitat areas.

The present Wailea 670 Preservation and Stewardship Plan minimizes the
importance of 24 species of native plants on site and gives the developers
an "expert" opinion that will allow them destroy up to 95% of the 110
acres of Wiliwili dryland forest habitat.

I say to the local people of Maui, be onipa'a, steadfast. Come Wednesday,
July 25, at 1:30 p.m. to the County Council's public hearing on Wailea
670. County building, 200 S. High Street Wailuku, 8th floor. Be credible
and don't be angry. Or write the Council. Register at SaveMakena.org, and
be counted to protect what is left of the real Maui.

Ed Lindsay, President Hawaiian Cultural Lands
________________________________________________________________________________

32. Luci Tapahonso - poem
Date: Sun, 01 Jul 2007 06:33:33 -0700
From: Tia Ballantine <tiaballantine@earthlink.net>

Shaa Ako Dahjinileh
Remember The Things They Told Us

1.
Before this world existed, the holy people made themselves visible
by becoming the clouds, sun, moon, trees, bodies of water, thunder
rain, snow, and other aspects of this world we live in. That way,
they said, we would never be alone. So it is possible to talk to them
and pray, no matter where we are and how we feel. Biyazhi daniidli,
we are their little ones.

2.
Since the beginning, the people have gone outdoors at dawn to pray.
The morning light, adinidiin, represents knowledge and mental awareness.
With the dawn come the holy ones who bring blessings and daily gifts,
B\because they are grateful when we remember them.

3.
When you were born and took your first breath, different colors
and different kinds of wind entered through your fingertips
and the whorl on top of your head. Within us, as we breathe,
are the light breezes that cool a summer afternoon,
within us the tumbling winds that precede rain,
within us sheets of hard-thundering rain,
within us dust-filled layers of wind that sweep in from mountains,
within us gentle night flutters that lull us to sleep.
To see this, blow on your hand now.
Each sound we make evokes the power of these winds
and we are, at once, gentle and powerful.

4.
Think about good things when preparing meals. It is much more
than physical nourishment. The way the cook (or cooks) think and feel
become
a part of the meal. Food that is prepared with careful thought,
contentment, and good memories tastes so good and nurtures the mind
and spirit, as well as the body. Once my mother chased me out of the
kitchen
because it is disheartening to think of eating something cooked
by an angry person.

5.
Be careful not to let your children sit or play on countertops.
Not only is it bad manners, but they might have to get married
far sooner than you would ever want.

6.
Don't cut your own hair or anyone else's after dark. There are things
that come with the darkness that we have no control over. It's not
clear why this rule exists, but so far no one is willing to become
the example of what happens to someone who doesn't abide by it.

--Luci Tapahonso
--from: Saanii Dahataal: The Women are Singing.
U of Arizona P, 1993.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

33. Hawaii egg farmers pushed out of business
Date: Sun, 01 Jul 2007 07:31:36 -1000
From: mike reitz <mreitz@pacbell.net>

Egg farmers knocked from their roost
Hawaii egg farmers are being pushed out of business by high shipping costs,
stricter regulations and mainland competition
By Nina Wu

"mailto:nwu@starbulletin.com?subject=http://starbulletin.com/2007/07/01/"
nwu@starbulletin.com
STORY SUMMARY >>

WHEREAS local egg farms once supplied most of the eggs consumed in Hawaii,
they are now losing the market share to mainland suppliers.

The high cost of shipping feed to Hawaii, in addition to stricter
regulations and mainland competition, have pushed a lot of local egg
farmers out of the business.

Only a handful of commercial egg farms -- four on Oahu and one on the Big
Island -- continue to survive. Maui Fresh Eggs closed earlier this year in
March due to the higher costs of safety grading as well as the cost of
feed.

Most of the farms that remain, like the Mikilua Poultry Farm on the
leeward side and Peterson's Upland Farm in Wahiawa, are family-run
businesses that have been around for generations.

Some farmers, like Greg Yee of Blue Lotus farm, have found a niche by
producing locally grown free-range eggs raised on the North Shore. But Yee
produces too small a quantity to be counted by the state, and he, too,
faces competition from the mainland.

Consumers must be willing to pay a higher price for local eggs, according
to advocates, if the local farms are to survive. At the same time, they
will be getting fresher eggs.

FULL STORY >> HYPERLINK
http://starbulletin.com/2007/07/01/business/story01.html
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

34. island growers fear change will hurt them - comment
Date: Sun, 01 Jul 2007 17:35:59 -1000
From: pennysfh@hawaii.rr.com

a bit of apples and oranges i think.

i wonder why the few farmers on Maui and Hawaii who grow these exotic
fruits can't find enough of a market here?

fruit is one of the things in Thailand that global corporate agriculture
doesn't control (with the exception of pineapple plantations owned by
outsiders like Dole). its grown on thousands of small individual farms.
average size 1-5 rai (1/2 to 2.5ac); with larger growers about 5 acres.
Twenty acres is huge already, almost unheard of. the fruit is harvested
and buyers come with lorries to the farms and purchase at extremely low
prices - that 9 cents a pound for rambuttan is probably not farmgate. i
remember in the peak of the season back when the baht was fairly strong
against the dollar, farmers throwing their fruit away or cooking it down
into fruit taffy because they were being offered only one baht (back then
about 5 cents) per kilogram to be sold retail in Bangkok markets for
5-7baht/kg. its the distributors that make the money in that situation.
but, the local exotic fruit thing, reminds me of what happened with
macadamia nuts. most aren't grown here, but they're bought by former
Hawaii companies (now Hershey) to control the market and the perception
that the nuts come from here.

what's happening to ag lands in Hawaii is the result of old landholders
and new (to Hawaii) agricultural corporations playing cards together - a
very different animal. the lands that the seed and fuel crop industries
are going after is sugar and pine lands; easy to convert. doesn't make
sense that they are pushing out all the little guys to add more land to
the pot - most of those are small farms considered "marginal" or located
in difficult to access areas.

i think the key is who owns the feed and the fertilizer - then it links
back to corporate ag - since they own the seed, fertilizer and pesticides
that produce the crops and the companies that process the livestock feed.
that's the main factor in what is putting local growers out of business.
if you notice though, its not putting the free-range or organic guys out
yet (although, they have no support from the various Hawaii farmers'
boards). on Maui and Hawaii, ranchers have created their own hui of
organically produced local beef; on Maui they are making the move to
totally grass fed - to get rid of the high priced feed costs (tastes
better, too). the slaughter house is still the most expensive thing on
the list to keep here in Hawaii (not enough animals coming through to keep
them in the black?). and, the health permits for those facilities - and
to that you've got to wonder why DOA doesn't go to bat at all for small
producers in Hawaii and whose side they're really on?! Both the beef and
poultry/egg industries are plagued, too, with the outfall of the mad cow
disease and West Nile virus/bird flu outbreaks - EPA and DOH now require
all kinds of testing and screening that drive up costs.

its too bad that the sugar and pine guys (as much as we could do without
them) didn't think about switching to producing feed crops for local
cattle, chickens, pigs etc on old cane and pine lands before the big boys
took over the table. wonder if there are any small or mid-sized ranches
out there that could do it? but, i've heard even quality feed hay is hard
to produce here consistantly?

here's a long shot, since the guys who "own" the water are quickly
becoming a seperate group from the guys who own or lease the land - what
if - the county's could be convinced to develop and enforce a priority
list of who gets water under drought conditons? shut off the tap on all
these new ag/seed projects based on the fact that anyone not growing food,
or growing food primarily for export, is producing a non-essential and
therefore shouldn't get any!

----- Original Message -----
From: mike reitz
Sent: Sunday, July 01, 2007 2:53 PM

Great points in this letter...but...or maybe I should say/ask
additionally, is there something else going on here? I mean it's not like
we're talking big-ag, mono-crop pineapple, oranges, grapefruits, bananas
but, in terms of the "US" market anyway, pretty small-market kine fruits.
So the question that occurs to me--I mean look at the recent news
stories--why are all these USDA policies emerging that last week were
killing milk production in Hawaii, a few days ago (this story) killing
small-market fruit production in Hawaii and, as reported today, now
killing egg production in Hawaii? We barely grow any of our food here now,
so why finish off the small-time, local hoof, poultry, and fruit farmers?

Then you also read that, "Seed corn currently comprises 92 percent of the
current value of the Hawaii seed industry" and that the 2007 US corn crop
was up 19% from 2006, which was up 14% from 2005, and ""Expansion of
product development operations in Hawaii and Puerto Rico has put our best
genetics with the best traits on a fast track," says Ray Riley, global
head of corn and soybean product development for Syngenta Seeds..."this
year we are doubling our seed production with stacked traits [GMOs},
thanks to the acceleration [four crop cycles per year] these locations
provide." And then you read that Monsanto added nearly 1000 acres on
Moloka'i to its holding in March, and picked up another 2300 acres on Oahu
in April, and maybe you being to wonder.

Or, maybe you don't.

m
-----
From: pennysfh@hawaii.rr.com
Sent: Friday, June 29, 2007 9:27 AM

here's a letter to the editor that a friend submitted in response to that
article on thai fruit being reluctantly allowed to enter US markets, and
boo-hoo, why won't they take Hawaii's fruit first, that will probably
never get printed by the Bulletin. it's been my experience that anything
negative towards the university or the DOA never sees the light of day in
either of our illustrious newspapers.

p
-----

"The article "Island growers fear change will hurt them" is a fine example
of US imperialism and American arrogance, never mind you live Hawaii.
Rambuttan, mangosteen, longsat, lychee, jackfruit, durian, the Kieow Sawoi
mango and more originated in Thailand and Asia. Mangosteen, rambuttan,
and durian have been part of the forest from Thailand to Indonesia for
thousands of years; durian is an important canopy tree in the rainforest.
We went over there, brought these trees back a few decades ago - legally
or illegally - and now, we want to own the market and charge outrageous
prices? Yes, Thailand produces 1.4 billion pounds of rambuttan per year -
it's their birthright. Truth be told, the rambuttan, mangosteen and
durian here is of extremely inferior quality compared to Thailand.
Mangosteen in Hawaii is typically infected with a fungal disease that
makes them inedible. But, hey, if a farmer or retailer can get away with
charging more than $10 a pound for them, edible or not, and keep
Thailand's rightful heritage out, I guess that's what capitalism is all
about. Great that we can grow these fruits here, but stop with the
aggressive, ugly American thing already."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

35. Court Ruling
Date: Mon, 02 Jul 2007 08:47:28 -0700 (PDT)
From: Laweleka <laweleka@yahoo.com>

The newspaper seems to think the following "The safest way to avoid a new
challenge to the policy would be for the well-endowed institution to stop
charging tuition, thus eliminating contracts regulated by the Civil Rights
Act." I just think the simplest way to avoid any challenges period is to
cut to the chase and follow the laws that apply here which has always been
Hawaiian Kingdom Laws. Those are the only laws mind you besides
international laws that apply here. Speaking of these international laws
none of the U.S. Supreme Court justices that have recently been appointed
have any background on International Laws. Again, the answer is
simple..... Kamehameha Schools at this point needs to stop fussing with
American Laws that are not applicable here because this is not America and
neither are we Americans. If you're in China, or even Saudi Arabia, would
you apply American Laws there ? Same here !!! Not even the TRUST is an
American Trust !!! So best to tell these Americans, their attorneys as
well to get their grubby hands off of the labors of Pauahi as she and
everyone else born in the HK during and immediately thereafter top present
are all PRIVATE PEOPLE. It's just a matter of reminding ones self and
knowing once again who you are and even if that doesn't seem to sink in
for whatever reasons, then at least you board members need to know and
remember who the hell you are representing which is anything other then an
American. Lawe
-------
Court ruling limited to public schools
THE ISSUE

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that public school systems cannot
consider a student's race in trying to achieve integration. A HONOLULU
lawyer seeking plaintiffs to resurrect a challenge to Kamehameha Schools'
restriction of admissions to native Hawaiians says he is encouraged by
last week's Supreme Court's invalidation of racial diversity in public
schools. However, he is remiss in applying the constitutional issues in
that case to a private school's admission policies. The ruling casts a
cloud over the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment in protecting
blacks in the landmark 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education. Five
justices, including Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., rejected student
transfers on the basis of race as a "tiebreaker" for admission to
particular schools. The ruling stands the amendment on its head. The
constitutional issue has no bearing on private schools. Kamehameha Schools
was challenged as violating the 1866 Civil Rights Act, which forbids
racial discrimination in contracts. On the same day in 1976, the Supreme
Court ruled that private schools' tuition agreements are contracts and
that all races, including Caucasians, are protected, although the law,
enacted in the wake of the Civil War, obviously was aimed at protecting
blacks. David Rosen, while confusing the 14th Amendment with the 1866 law,
may have captured the flavor of the new court with its recent addition of
Roberts and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. Indeed, the court's general
outlook on racial issues may create problems for Kamehameha if a new
lawsuit is launched against its admission policies. The safest way to
avoid a new challenge to the policy would be for the well-endowed
institution to stop charging tuition, thus eliminating contracts regulated
by the Civil Rights Act.
________________________________________________________________________________

36. URGENT: Henoko protest leader injured in underwater attack.
From: Hikaru Kasahara [mailto:hikaru_7@hotmail.com]
Sent: Sun 7/22/2007 10:19

URGENT: Henoko protest leader injured in underwater attack.

As nonviolent resistance to the new U.S. military sea base construction in
Henoko, Okinawa, continues, Japanese government aggression against
protesters has taken an ugly turn.

On July 21, Natsume Taira, one of the protest leaders, was almost killed
in an incident involving a diver from a company contracted by the Defense
Facility Administration's Naha Bureau. The Bureau has been pressing ahead
with the installation of seabed equipment for what it calls a "pre-survey"
-- an activity legal experts say violates Japan's Environmental Impact
Assessment Law.

According to the Okinawa Times, the incident occurred when Natsume, a
pastor, was diving one kilometer offshore of Henoko fishing port. He was
using his body to shield the groundsill of a piece of equipment from three
contract divers. As of the divers locked his arm in a full nelson, Natsume
found himself unable to breathe. Natsume managed to slipped away from his
attacker and burst to the surface. On examination of a video shot by
protesters, it appeared the contract diver had closed the valve on
Natsume's air supply. Natsume was rushed to hospital and treated for
decompression sickness. "I believe the worst is over," he said in a
statement to supporters.

Responding to this serious aggression, Okinawa-based groups Citizen's
Coalition for Peace and Conference Opposing Heliport Construction called a
press conference and released an urgent statement.

Although this is not the first time Henoko protesters have experienced
violence from Japanese government forces, Natsume told the Ryukyu Shinpo
newspaper, "They have crossed a line. I will consider a criminal compliant
against this act."

Hikaru Kasahara (Asian Peace Alliance [APA] Japan)

======================================
WE STRONGLY CALL FOR YOUR SUPPORT
======================================

1. If you have a media list, please send it to APA Japan
(ppsg@jca.apc.org) as we would like to send information about Henoko to
international media.

2. Email, Fax, Phone statements in support of Natsume and the Henoko
protest:

Japan Maritime Self Defense Force (JMSDF)
Tel: +81-3-3268-3111
Email: mso-cadv@ic.jmsdf.go.jp

Japan Defense Facility Administration Agency (Naha Bureau)
Email: mso-cadv@ic.jmsdf.go.jp
Tel: +81-98-868-0174
Fax: +81-98-866-3375

Ministry of Defense
Tel: +81-3-5366-3111
Email: infomod@mod.go.jp

Japan Coast Guard, 11 Regional Headquarters
Tel: +81-98-867-0118
E-mail:soumu-11@kaiho.mlit.go.jp

U.S. Councilor Office, Naha, Okinawa
+81-98-876-4211

U.S. Embassy in Tokyo
Tel: +3-3224-5000

3. Send your solidarity message to the people of Henoko:

Heiwa Shimin Renrakukai (Citizens Coalition for Peace, Naha, Okinawa)
Fax:+81-98-885 8230

Conference Opposing Heliport Construction (Nago, Okinawa)
Fax: +81-980-53-6992

4. Letters to the Editor:

Yomiuri
https://app.yomiuri.co.jp/form/index.php
Asahi
http://www.asahi.com/reference/form.html
Mainichi
https://form.mainichi.co.jp/toiawase/
Nihon Keizai (Nihon Business)
webmaster@nikkei.co.jp
Sankei
u-service@sankei.co.jp
Tokyo Shimbun
https://cgi2.chunichi.co.jp/tko/hotline/form.shtml
Nikkan Gendai
http://gendai.net/?m=infotoiawase
Shimbun Akahata
hensyukoe@jcp.or.jp
Kyodo Tsushin
feedback@kyodonews.jp
Jiji Tsushin
https://www2.jiji.com/f/enq/form.php?pid=company
NHK [less than 400 words]
https://www.nhk.or.jp/css/goiken/bangumi.html
Nihon TV
https://www1.ntv.co.jp/staff/form.html
Fuji TV
https://wwws.fujitv.co.jp/safe/red_mpl/response/res_form.cgi?
TV Asahi Hodo Station
http://www.tv-asahi.co.jp/hst/contents/opinion/index_see.html
TV Tokyo
https://www2.tv-tokyo.co.jp/main/goiken.php

Okinawa Newspapers (less than 400 words)
Okinawa Times opinion@okinawatimes.co.jp
Ryukyu Shimpo koe@ryuukyushimpo.co.jp

5. Henoko protest contact person:

Ms. Suzuyo Takazato (Citizens Coalition for Peace, Naha, Okinawa)
Mobile number: +81-90-3072-0672
Fax: +81-98-864-1539
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

37. Superferry
From: Katy Rose [mailto:klrose@earthlink.net]
Sent: Sun 7/22/2007 12:27 PM

Aloha friends,

Would you please pass this on? A coalition is really coming coming
together on Kaua'i and I know they would really like the word to be
spread, especially on Oahu. Thank you! - Katy

http://www.boycottsuperferry.org/

-----Forwarded Message-----
From: Makaala Kaaumoana
Sent: Jul 21, 2007 5:31 PM

Please pass along, mahalo, Makaala

Makaala Kaaumoana
POB 1205 Kilauea, HI 96754
Phone: 808-828-1205

From: CC [mailto:hrhcc@hawaii.rr.com]
Sent: Saturday, July 21, 2007 12:09 PM

http://www.boycottsuperferry.org/

You guys seen this? Be sure to listen to the Superferry song!

Hugs,

CC
http://hrhcc.blogspot.com/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gabrielle Welford, Ph.D.
Instructor
University of San Francisco
welford@hawaii.edu

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