A Civil Rights Don Quixote?

Reading the pious, self-serving commentary of would be civil rights “Don Quixote” David Rosen in Sunday’s Advertiser on May 27th was enough to make this “local haole” want to upchuck his fried rice & bangers. It was worth it, however, to see the exposure given to the logically unassailable rebuttals from kanaka ma‘oli luminaries such as Jon Osorio and Oswald Stender. I’m disgusted to hear the word “aloha” coming from the mouths of those who use it for one purpose – to pervert its meaning and employ their twisted definitions for personal gain. Unfortunately, the “final authority” that attorney Rosen seeks to appeal to contains even more neo-con sympathizers and hacks than the Supreme Court which betrayed America in December 2000, and it may even be possible for Bush to appoint more justices before a new president takes office in January 2009. It is clear from the shameless hypocrisy of Rosen’s commentary that his mouth is still watering from coming so close to achieving the kind of name recognition O.J defender Johnny Cochran grabbed with his slight of hand during Simpson’s nationally televised murder trial. If this parasite manages to round up a sufficient number of gullible plaintiffs to make it worth his while to take another run at the KSBE windmill, I’ll be happy to donate money to the school’s legal defense fund, and won’t expect any tax deduction. Ultimately I believe that Pauahi’s sacred trust will prevail, whether the Bush Supreme Court forces it to choose between giving up tax exempt status or admitting non-Hawaiians; and whatever the outcome, there may be a greater silver lining to be found. Perhaps such misguided legal attacks on the birthright and entitlements of Native Hawaiians will have the result of uniting their community behind Senator Akaka’s bill. Whatever one thinks of the framework it would establish, there is no question that it begins to get the ball rolling in the direction of compensation of kanaka ma‘oli for the wrongs acknowledged by the U.S government in 1993. It is imperative that the momentum toward a measure of sovereignty and justice be reestablished, and that Congress be persuaded to enact an unassailable framework to protect against future assaults in the courts by plunderers like Rosen and his ilk. If Hawaiians had rallied behind a realistic plan during the Clinton years in the wake of our Congressional team’s historic achievement in securing enactment of the 1993 Apology legislation, the citizens of the “Aloha State” would be much further down the road toward a society based on justice, peace, and true aloha.