PJ Media

I’m a resident of Hawaii and have long heard about the exorbitant sums of money spent on the mostly undeveloped Hawaiian Homelands. Miles and miles of dark fiber run around the island. Many many many acres of valuable, usable land sit idle with utility connections while Kanaka has his tent set up with the Hawaiian flag upside down. And that’s just the big island.

Something else to note is that today’s Hawaiians aren’t yesterday’s Hawaiians. And that not even Big Island Hawaiians see eye to eye as Oahu Hawaiians. The Hawaiians in the Southern part of the Big Islands resent Kamehameha because he himself was a conqueror of these lands.

The big fallacy is that Hawaii was a stable government of kingdom that was overthrown by the US. In fact, the US was more or less a side player in all this. Before the HIs were discovered Hawaii was split into at least two separate governments. After Captian Cook lent Kamehameha his cannons and guns, he proceeded to “unite” the rest of the islands.

After the “unification”, the missionaries came, whose descendants became the largest landholders in the islands. They also intermarried with Hawaiians and thus had “rightful” claim to the land as well. These large landholding families decided it would be in their best interest to allow the US to annex them. So, with their huge numbers of 2nd generation plantation workers, they voted to have that changed.

Akaka doesn’t even begin to right wrongs from the times of Kamehameha, the Missionaries (read the book Hawaii by Mitchner), and the hordes of “old boys club” politicians who rule the state from a single point and let the outer islands go largely unheard for their corporate or special interests.

Hawaii’s government and politicians have failed it.

Hawaii is also the largest employer in the state. Interesting huh? What a welfare state. Bleagh.