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March 20, 2002
Lori Allen
Live
from Ramallah:
The Madness of Occupation
March
19, 2002
Tariq
Ali
Nuke
Iraq?
Phyllis
Pollack
Roger
Daltrey's LA Surprise
Amir Amahdi
War-Mongering
Academics:
The New Tartuffe
Ben White
Bomber
Blair
Fran Shor
Child-Murderers
and Madmen
March
18, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
Crazy
is Cool
Dave Marsh
DeskScan:
What's Playing At My House
Armen
Khanbabyan
The
Pentagon in the Caucasus:
Georgia Is Only the Beginning
Gabriel
Ash
Abdullah
v. Osama
Bernard
Weiner
Middle
East for Dummies
Alexander
Cockburn
Tipping
in America
March
17, 2002
David
Vest
The
Politics of Packaging
Tariq
Ali
The
Left's New Empire Loyalists
March
16, 2002
Chris
Floyd
Ashcroft's
Secret Snatches
March 15, 2002
Doron Rosenblum
Israel's Settler Warlords
Alex Lynch
Rhetorical
Attacks On Iraq
Norman Madarasz
Neo-Con Propaganda
and the National Review
Paul-Marie
de La Gorce
Making
Enemies
March
14, 2002
Dr. Susan
Block
RIP
Danny Pearl
Francis
Boyle
Bush
Nuke Plan Violates International Law, Again
Wayne
Saunders
Memo
to Paul McCartney:
There Are Two Kinds
of Freedom, Sir
H.P. Albarelli
Anthrax
Cover-up?
March
13, 2002
Amira
Hass
Are
the Occupied Protecting the Occupier?
CounterPunch
Wire
National
Review Editors Suggest Nuking Mecca
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Personal
Responsibility
for Corporate Elites?
Robert
Fisk
Arabs
Don't Want US
to Strike Iraq
Alexander
Cockburn
When
Billy Graham Wanted
to Kill One Million People
March
12, 2002
Kay Lee
Dangerous
Changes in
California's Prisons
John Patrick
Leary
The
Return of Otto Reich
Wole Akande
US
is Being Discredited
in the Eyes of Africa
March
11, 2002
Hani Shukrallah
This
is the Way the World Ends
Tommy
Ates
Bush's
New Nuke Policy:
Target Allies and Enemies
Lidia Andrusenko
The Great
Chicken War:
Bush v. Putin
Dave Marsh
10
CDs Playing On My Desk
John Chuckman
Footprints
in the Dust
Norman
Madarasz
Max
Steel in a Time of Chaos
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
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8-Page Special Issue
War Diary
CIA's Assassination Plan a History of
Torture in US Prisons
bin Laden and Bush
Business Connections
Aisha Ikramuddin on the Hidden Hype
of US Food Bombs
Peter Linebaugh on
Pakistan
Christopher Hitchens' Love for Mrs. Thatcher
Jiang Zemin Tells Bush:
Nuke 'Em
Search
CounterPunch
Read Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The New Crusade:
America's War on Terrorism
By Rahul Mahajan
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
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Reviews of Gore:
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March 20, 2002
Notes from Hawai'i:
Trouble in "Paradise"
By Shepherd Bliss
Big Island,
Hawai'i
The Hawai'ian Islands are besieged. Multinational
corporations and tourists contribute to over-development and
bring invasive plants and animals that upset the balance of nature.
But a resurgence of indigenous culture, including sustainable
agriculture, has been occurring in recent years.
Mainlanders have fantasy images of Hawai'i.
Television, movies, and romantic stories portray it as a "paradise"
for the wealthy to play. But to native Hawaiians and the rich
bio-diversity of plants and creatures, there is another Hawai'i.
Hawai'i is the most isolated occupied
landmass in the world, more than a couple thousand miles from
the nearest populated land. But Hawai'i's native rainforests
are endangered by alien species, such as bamboo and miconia,
which has already devastated 75 percent of Tahiti's native forest.
Wild pigs, mongoose, and other invaders damage delicate ecosystems.
Many of Hawai'i's indigenous plants and animals are already extinct
from competition by aliens and the destruction of habitats by
humans.
Sea turtles are among the threatened
species. "Remind them: We are all children of the sea,"
Maui teacher Sam Ka'ai closes the new book "Fire in the
Turtle House: The Green Sea Turtle and the Fate of the Ocean,"
by Osha Gray Davidson.
It documents the growing damage to ocean
ecosystems. Native birds, such as the Hawaiian goose and crow,
have been particularly besieged. Of Hawai'i's eight main islands,
Oahu, with the large capital city of Honolulu, and Maui are built-out
and over-crowded.
Though wild areas still exist on the
Big Island, it is also threatened. But grassroots movements such
as "Keep Kealakekua Wild" have grown. It is successfully
keeping a wealthy developer from adding more houses and golf
courses to the Kona coast.
But the pressure to develop mounts.
Indigenous Resurgence
One and a quarter million people live
in Hawai'i, but over six million visit each year. As tourists
and immigrants crowd the islands, Hawai'i is also experiencing
a resurgence of indigenous culture. Though less than 10,000 full
Hawaiians remain, with a much larger number of part Hawaiians,
their political presence is increasing. A movement for sovereignty
grows more visible and assertive.
Hawai'i is the most multi-cultural state
in the union. Caucasians comprise about one-fourth of the population,
with Japanese nearly a fourth. Other large ethnic groups are
Filipino, Chinese, Korean, and Black. About one-third of the
population is mixed.
Locals advocate the intrinsic value of
land (aina) and the old ways. Use of the beautiful Hawaiian language
expands, as does cultural pride in Hawaiian music and the authentic
hula.
Pele, goddess of volcanoes and fire,
is a living presence revered by many locals. Kilauea Volcano
began erupting again in l983 and continues to this day, indicating
Pele's power. Big Island locals protest the growth of observatories
on Mauna Kea, a volcano nearly 14,000 feet high.
Scientists from many nations have perched
on the mountain that native Hawaiians consider holy. They desecrate
sacred sites, polluting the mountain and water. Thirteen large
astronomical telescopes already dominate the volcano and scientists
want to build eight more.
Cultural practitioners continue their
spiritual ceremonies on the revered mountain. With all the high-tech
equipment it now "looks like a junkyard," according
to Kimo Pihana, quoted by Hawaiian writer Leslie Lang in the
popular bi-weekly "Hawaii Island Journal." Pihana adds,
"It really angers me. I felt hurt and actually cried."
"It's clear to Hawaiians that things
are not working the way they are now," commented one Hawaiian,
who requested anonymity. "Hawaiians, as a group, are under-educated,
under-employed, at the top of the list for serious health problems,
over-represented in prison, and at the bottom of the list for
owning land and homes. In their own land!"
"So the sovereignty issue is strong
and is not going to go away," he added. "There are
many different models of what form sovereignty could take, including
some sort of self-rule over lands that were illegally taken from
the Hawaiians years ago."
The great singer Israel Kamakawiwo'ole,
who died in 1997, laments "this modern city life" with
its "traffic lights" and "railroad tracks."
He sings to people to "Cry for the gods. Cry for the people.
Cry for the land that was taken away. And then yet you'll find
Hawai'i."
Even after decades of oppression, especially
by Euro-Americans, most Hawaiians remain open and receptive,
practicing their ancient aloha. The basis of Hawaiian aloha culture
does not easily translate into English. It means love, compassion,
greetings, and friendship. Aloha includes respect for people,
family, nature, and spirit.
Agriculture positive developments in
recent years include the growth of organic and small family farms.
Large monocrop corporations dominated Hawai'i for decades, using
many chemicals on monocrops like sugar and pineapple.
In 1922 James Dole bought the entire
island of Lanai for slightly over a million dollars. The so-called
Big Five controlled 96% of the sugar crop by 1933.
Over the decades Hawai'i's land and fisheries
have been over-harvested by people and over-grazed by cattle.
But the global corporations have been abandoning the islands
for cheaper labor, leaving damaged land to be restored by sustainable
practices such as permaculture.
Since the crash of Japan's economy in
the l990s, many Japanese corporations have been leaving as well.
Hawai'i's indigenous culture is based
on agri-culture, including the root crop taro and the food poi
made from it. According to the well-researched and authoritative
"Environment Hawai'i" monthly newsletter, "Across
the islands, the cultivation of taro is experiencing a resurgence."
Taro is important not only as a food source, but for its community
building value.
Tourists, telescopes, developers, alien
plants and animals besiege Hawai'i. Some global corporations
and individuals profit by these invasions. At continuing risk
are native people, plants, animals, sustainable agriculture,
delicate ecosystems, and the islands themselves.
Shepherd Bliss
owns the organic Kokopelli Farm in Sebastopol and can be reached
at sb3@pon.net
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