Disappeared News

A New Year’s Wish: Go Beyond!

by Johan Galtung, 31 Dec 2012 – TRANSCEND Media Service

Yes, go beyond, transcend!–that is our message, New Year or not.

Take the US school shootings.  The National Rifle Association’s vice president on TV: “the only person who can stop a bad person with a gun is a good person with a gun”.  That statement struck many cords.

There is the deep US culture of Dualism–two kinds of people–and Manicheism–one bad, one good.  There is Armageddon in the class room, the teacher or resident police pulling out the gun–bigger, better, more accurate–for the final battle, for the final and only solution.  The NRA is riding on this DMA (Dualism/Manicheism/Armageddon) ground swell from below, and so are millions of others.  It is concrete, feasible, and could start January 2013.

There is confirmation from above: this is US foreign policy.  The only way to stop a bad country with arms is a good country with arms; the only way to stop evil terrorism from below is good state terrorism from above.  Balance of power, countless bases, search and destroy.

We agree about the critical focus: school shootings–the USA committing suicide!–must not happen.  But what do we know empirically to be constructive, creative?  The answer is wrapped in ambiguity.

Of course deterrence sometimes works.  So does incapacitation by violent means, including killing, obliteration.  Or at least it may look so; at least for some time.  Particularly for the untrained eye.

The trained eye sees other things going on.  Deterrence is a stage; then the arms race sets in, within and between countries.  The NRA escalates by arming the schools, to the considerable profits of the gun manufacturers and shops with NRA as publicity front.  And the bad persons?  The step from hand guns to assault rifles has already been taken.  Next step: putting schools on fire?  Bombs?  9/11?  Ominous.

The trained eye also sees killing as a stage; then revenge sets in.  The mass murderers committing these atrocities may not know each other; but the shared interests may lead to joint revenge.  Ominous.

The NRA’s concrete gun proposal may be very destructive in practice.  But the statement opens for two constructive ideas:

1. Deprive bad persons of guns
2. Make bad persons better persons

A “war on arms” means US domestic disarmament.  One “war” has been quite successful: the war on smoking, even if still a major cause of death.  Enlightened self-interest was involved.  Engrave “Arms are dangerous to your and your family’s health”, ban publicity of any kind, and as a first step ban the NRA from interfering with the US political process. Quit smoking, quit arms.  Launch a culture where having arms, and making a living on arms, is as immoral as slavery, human trafficking.

So much for capability, access to arms in USA and in Germany, in Finland (some school shootings) and Norway (Breivik), using hunting licenses and online shopping.  How about the intent of bad persons?

The sad long list of school tragedies in the US from a beginning  in 1764 to 8 in the 1970s, 18 in the 1980s, 16 in the 1990s, 21 in the 2000s–the 2010s on the way–indicates three factors: some minority background, some conflict with the school, some mental disorder.  Many Americans would meet those criteria.  But they point beyond negative peace through balance of power and disarmament to a positive peace with constructive protection through mutuality and equality.

To start with the obvious: The NRA, like many, blames TV-video games violence.  No doubt both normalize violence in general and shooting in particular.  So do news over-reporting violence, domestic or global.  And news glorifying US military interventions–fiascos or not–take the step from normalization to legitimation.  “If my country can do it so can I” went through the head of a Timothy McVeigh, possibly also an Anders Breivik; but neither the USA nor Norway want any focus on that.

However, this approach is still only within negative peace.  Limit TV-videogame-news violence to reduce violence: good, but not good enough. We need constructive approaches beyond reducing the destructive elements.

Here is the wish for 2013, for the decade, the century: fill TV and video-games with the true-to-life dramas of conflict resolution and trauma reconciliation without violence!

Authors, where are you?–lost in the aristotelian drama=tragedy+comedy?  Show how we humans usually muddle through–in the family, at school, at work–and could do better inspired by visions and skills!

Journalists, where are you?–lost in the idea that only bad news are news, that peace is normal, not worthy of reporting, including the struggle for peace?

Art and TV fare so incredibly badly that even small steps forward could make a big difference.  There is optimism in that!  The SABONA Project in elementary schools and kindergartens in Norway show that so much can be gained by training the kids in conflict handling–not only teaching “good manners”.  It is almost unbelievable, but TV channels that pick up anything to portray “reality” fail on this one.  There is Dr Phil on US TV, fine, but limited to inter-personal conflicts.

There is some state logic at work: states are addicted to violent options and the idea of “necessary wars”; solving underlying conflicts to the benefit of all would undermine that doctrine.

There is some capital logic at work: bad news sell.  Maybe, but good news might sell even better among women, the young, the old.

Imagine good conflict resolution stories becoming the talking point of nations: how about trying it on what we saw last week on TV?  Or asking a prime minister how he will handle the underlying conflicts?

Including school conflicts, the key focus.  Super-competitive schools produce winners, losers, hatred, violence, bullying. Shootings are bullying US style.  Make schools cooperative, let students compete with themselves to improve.  Make everybody a winner.  Not fail-proof: Finland[i] also uses that constructive, concrete and creative approach.  Students might even become interested in the content, not only in their grades.  And even small steps may pay off quickly.

NOTE:

This work is licensed under a CC BY-NC 3.0 United States License.

Permalink posted by Larry @ 12/31/2012 06:40:00 AM   1 comments - add your comment links to this post

by Larry Geller

Every Sunday I spend a bit of time first thing in the morning trying to find insight in the Star-Advertiser.

It’s not easy.

The thin section is hidden after money, after the food advertising section, ‘way down in the pile after the comics and the stack of ads. But the search is well worth the trouble. I need my Richard Borreca fix.

Borreca is an Insider. During the legislative session he covers whatever is hot. If I’m in a hearing and he’s not there, hot it’s not. If he is in the room, I look forward to seeing if his take on the subject matter is the same as mine. See, I’m studying up to be an Insider also, in a way.

It’s no surprise that Borreca’s column today is about Daniel Inouye, who was as much a Congressional insider as it’s possible to be. And although the majority of Americans may have lost faith in Congress and the corporate-money-grubbing politicians whom they originally elected as their representatives, Inouye, as one of the leading insiders, is credited with bringing home the pork to Hawaii. The press has not hesitated to mention this, including, of course, that that era is now ended for the state.

His replacement, no matter whom she may be, will not be an insider for some time.

“Inside” or “Outside” is an important way to slice politics today. It’s not so much “Democrat” or “Republican” or even “Left,” “Center,” or “Right.” They are all responsible first to their Wall Street masters, one party just a bit more than the other.

Insiders can be recognized by the swarms of lobbyists crowding around them. They have the fattest campaign war chests. Insiders do not necessarily represent their constituents, and they are seldom the grass-roots candidates. Rather, they arrange themselves in factions and grasp for increasing power. Popular representatives, such as Dennis Kucinich, are barred from these factions, effectively denying power to the people. And we know this. My words will shock no one.

And so our government has become increasingly alienated from the electorate. We send these actors to Washington but we don’t write their lines. They get re-elected because of corporate spending. Like actors, they have to put on a show for us locals. We become sheep, following the directions of TV advertising funded by corporations and partisan billionaires. Does anyone check the incumbents’ voting records? It isn’t easy to do, the newspapers and TV favor ads over factual articles at election time.

Hawaii is noted for low voter turnout. It doesn’t surprise or concern me much. Who wants to be a sheep anyway? Insiders get reelected because they are Insiders. No matter what we do. Insiders, by dint of their Insider-ship, can easily get reelected, right? We’re caught. We want Insiders like Inouye was to represent us in Congress. Yet we know that whether or not we vote for them makes no difference. Once they gain Insidership they tend to remain in office forever. So whether I vote or not, what does it matter?

This is not to say that Outsider politics has no influence, but it has the strength of a candle compared to the 500-Watt bulb of the corporate-funded Insiders. The recall election in Wisconsin failed to unseat a problematic governor despite an incredible Outsider effort. Both the Tea Party and Occupy uprisings are powerful Outsider movements that may yet challenge the Insiders, but their longevity and potency are not assured.

Outsider politics is likely the only force working to bring about critically needed change in Washington. Let’s see how it goes.

Back to Hawaii—the local Democratic Party leaders will have 15 minutes of fame when they present their list of three potential candidates for Inouye’s Senate seat to the Governor, then it’s back to obscurity for them. Likely Hawaii’s prominent politicians had already pondered their course should Inouye not fill out his term of office and worked it into their strategy. They’ve no doubt been whispering among themselves about a vacancy for some time, creating one contingency plan or another.

Certainly, what Democrats hope for and cannot achieve easily is to send someone to Washington who will become an Insider as rapidly as possible. This is supposedly required for our economic prosperity. But there are secondary considerations.

Assume for the moment that Hanabusa becomes the anointed one. This will open up her seat to a new scramble for Insider-ship.

Will Djou or Case have another go at the House seat?

Did the chance to run again for Congress fit into Case’s campaign strategy last time around? This is all speculation, but it illustrates the complexity of the Governor’s decision. Would he risk putting Djou, a Republican, in office if he did send Hanabusa to the Senate? After all, voters may prefer a real Republican to a fake Democrat. In which case, would Hawaii be closer to Insidership with Djou, in a Republican-controlled House? Strange thought.

Borreca explores Hanabusa as the anointed one in today’s column. She was chosen by Inouye to succeed him, and her appointment without delay would give her a few moments more seniority in the Senate. Seniority seems important as part of Insidership, of course. Being more senior means more lobbyists flitting about one’s office, I guess, and so forth.

Washington is far from Hawaii. Inouye spoke with a highly educated, not a local voice. While we say he has finally come home, his home was in the Beltway and his job was to bring in the pork for Hawaii. Likely his replacement will not have a similar voting record and hence a longer slog to becoming an Insider.

Hawaii will just have to adjust, hence the speculation in print and on-line over what Inouye’s loss will mean to us economically. The speculation is certainly valid, but it underlines the need to identify local leadership to carry us through whatever his loss may bring.

Related, and more on Insider/Outsider, only $1.99 as an ebook:

Permalink posted by Larry @ 12/23/2012 12:36:00 PM   4 comments - add your comment links to this post

by Larry Geller

Strangely, it appears that at least some of the people leading yesterday’s raid on (de)Occupy at Thomas Square were not familiar with the court-ordered agreement that restrained their conduct during the raid.

Today a status conference was held on the lawsuit filed by (de)Occupy Honolulu on their “Motion for Sanctions, Enforcement of Agreement, and/or Temporary Restraining Order” resulting from allegations that the city violated its court-ordered agreement during the December 20, 2012 raid on the encampment.

An evidentiary hearing on the motion will be held on January 10, 2013 at
1:30 p.m. in federal court.

Plaintiffs wrote to the court:

1. On December 20, 2012, Defendant City conducted a raid at Thomas Square.

2. Although the conduct of the City employees was much less egregious than was the custom and/or policy before the filing of this lawsuit, the City nevertheless materially breached the terms of the agreement.

3. Specifically, the City: seized “untagged” items; rummaged through and seized personal property within tagged tents without any meaningful attempt to identify the owner of the tent and without permitting the owner to remove their personal property from the tent; failed to exercise due care to prevent destruction or harm to seized property; failed to store seized items in numbered bins and/or failed to identify the bin number on post-seizure notices; and, now, refuses to immediately return seized property to the property owner despite the property owners’ attempts to present the City with the appropriate post-seizure notices.

Caught on video: According to a declaration filed in federal court today, “A City Worker opened, entered, and rummaged through the property of the blue tent without attempting to identify the owner and without providing anyone the opportunity to claim the items within the blue tent.”

Caught on video: “Nearing the end of the raid, I observed the unidentified male from ‘Exhibit B’ walk down near the end of the park to the Northeast corner of Thomas Square. Here, a homeless individual had erected a temporary shelter using tarps. The unidentified male picked up the edge of the tarp and looked underneath the tarps into the shelter. I did not see any tags on any of the tarps and the shelter was not seized. Instead, the homeless individual was told he ‘needed to leave.’ “

The (de)Occupy group is clearly organized, but not the average homeless family or individual. There could be hundreds of stories out there of how the city is violating its own ordinance and harassing them each day.

The declarations filed with the court include the assertion that a supervisor of the raid “did not know about any Order, that he was not held to any Order, and essentially, that he did not care what any Order said.” The declaration states that a video of the exchange is attached as an exhibit.

I did not see any commercial media covering the raid, nor do reporters show up around the island when the city ordinance is invoked against homeless encampments. Despite the news vacuum, you can be a witness by viewing the unedited YouTube video here.  A copy of two declarations as filed with the court can be downloaded here. The motion for sanctions is here.

Permalink posted by Larry @ 12/21/2012 07:56:00 PM   0 comments - add your comment links to this post

by Larry Geller

In an article yesterday I questioned the wisdom, if not the sanity, of conducting 55 raids that have failed to dislodge (de)Occupy from its encampment on Beretania Street.

Since red tents were tagged yesterday, another raid is possible. Of course, by the time police, garbage trucks and that front loader arrive, the red tents will not be there.

The city installed a camera that focuses as much on the encampment as on traffic, and as you can see from the image below, is of much higher quality than the traffic cams you can watch on the city web pages. The encampment is now further down the street, but the city could easily see yesterday that the blue tents it tagged were no longer there. The tents were red.

So the question naturally arises: if they went to the expense and trouble of installing a camera to spy on the encampment, why then waste additional taxpayer money conducting a raid when nothing can (legally) be removed?

This morning it appears that the red tents tagged by police yesterday are already being taken down.

The ordinance and the court-enforced settlement require the city to store property and to return it. In effect, they are providing a free storage service that any citizen of Honolulu can take advantage of. It’s even better than those public storage lockers in the sense that the city comes to pick it up from you, and you don’t have to pay any rent. From the agreement:

Impounded property will be stored at a facility in or near Halawa.At the time that a person produces an impoundment notification with the specified bin number and attests to ownership of the property, all property related to that impoundment notification will be returned to the person immediately. Production of receipts or identification will not be required for the return of the property.

Which leads one to ask: Why do they do this? And another question: Who wrote the city council ordnance in the first place?

Finally, of course the city is not following its own law. If you do entrust property to them, count on it being damaged or destroyed. Despite the court order, city misconduct was evident in yesterday’s raid.

Sure, anyone jaywalking in front of a cop risks getting a ticket, but the city breaking the law got no reaction from the police. What else is new?

Permalink posted by Larry @ 12/21/2012 07:04:00 PM   2 comments - add your comment links to this post

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”--Albert Einstein, (attributed)

According to Doug Matsuoka, who has been a chronicler of the Honolulu (de)Occupy movement, today’s raid on the Thomas Square encampment was #55. It was also the first raid under the court approved agreement resulting from a lawsuit filed by Occupiers earlier this month.

It appears, though, that the city can’t shake its obsessive-compulsive behavior, which is costing taxpayers unnecessary expense. Although the stipulated agreement prohibits the city from violating its own ordinance by crushing confiscated possessions in its garbage trucks, they brought along the garbage truck and a front-loader anyway. At this point, after 54 previous raids, parking the front loader on the sidewalk nearby can’t be intimidating to anyone but casual bystanders and tourists. It’s been a regular visitor to this spot.

This pic is from Doug’s video of today’s raid, available unedited on YouTube.

The number of trucks and personnel arrayed on Beretania Street was astounding, considering that they could not take away more than a few signs. Toward the end, perhaps out of spite, they took the chairs that people were sitting on. Whether those chairs were legally taken or not, I’m not sure, since no tags were visible in the video, though the tags might have been taken off. They also netted the possessions of a homeless person not affiliated with Occupy whose tent was there yesterday and taken away today. Note that the city did nothing to solve its perceived homeless problem by confiscating the few possessions this person had in the world.

The “tags” are notices required by the city ordinance. They are affixed to tents and other items. The city must then come back no sooner than 24 hours later and can only take the previously tagged items, logging them and storing them away to be reclaimed later. In effect, the city would be operating a free storage service for anyone who wants one. Just leave things out on the street that you’d like them to pack and store away for you.

The garbage truck that they brought along could not be used, or they would be in violation of the agreement and subject to court sanctions in addition to damages.

Notice that all the tents in the image above are red. Also, note that they don’t have tags. So there is nothing for the army of city people to take away. When they came by yesterday to tag the tents, the tents were blue. Today the blue tents are gone. Now there are only red tents. Simple but fiendishly clever strategy, no? 

So raid #55 netted essentially nothing. Nor will raid #56 (which is likely to be tomorrow) or raid #100. If  insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, then the city is out of its mind thinking it can beat both these experienced Occupiers and the federal court.

Each day they dispatch their army of trucks and personnel they waste taxpayer money. Of course, since the commercial media have been almost totally absent, the average citizen has no idea how their money is being wasted.

Einstein is usually right.

Tomorrow the tents will be blue. One day they might be yellow or black. Will the city just keep coming back?

I’ll close with another quotation which I think applies to Mayor Carlisle’s futile efforts so far to eradicate both Occupiers and the homeless from sight. This piece of wisdom is thanks to a dimmer government bulb, our former president George W. Bush:

"There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."

Honolulu isn’t Tennessee, so apparently the city can be fooled any number of times. Tomorrow, around 10:30 or a bit later, it could conduct raid #56, and be fooled once again. Shame on Mayor Carlisle, shame.

Permalink posted by Larry @ 12/20/2012 10:10:00 PM   2 comments - add your comment links to this post

by Larry Geller

No sooner did the toner dry on a stipulated order filed with the federal court yesterday (see below) than Honolulu police descended on the (de)Occupy encampment near Thomas Square to tag property.

The lawsuit filed by attorneys for several (de)Occupy Honolulu plaintiffs asks for a preliminary injunction and a jury trial to prevent the city from violating plaintiffs’ civil rights and asks for compensation for property taken and destroyed illegally. The agreement draw up by both parties is in lieu of a temporary restraining order and basically requires the city to follow its own ordinance.

If the city complies, that would mean that loading personal possessions into garbage trucks, as video demonstrates has been the previous practice, would be a violation of the agreement and could bring court sanctions.

If HPD follows past practice, according to one of the plaintiffs, they may show up today at about 10:30 at the encampment.

Permalink posted by Larry @ 12/20/2012 09:51:00 AM   1 comments - add your comment links to this post

by Larry Geller

Hawaii has had a couple of prominent cases involving bloggers arrested for filming police. Although minor in comparison, I myself was prevented by a police officer from taking photographs of a car smacking into a tree on the property where I live.

The New York Civil Liberty Union is fighting back against unconstitutional police action against a woman who stood nearby documenting a stop-and-frisk interaction on her smartphone. See: NYCLU Lawsuit Challenges NYPD Arrest of Brooklyn Woman for Filming Stop-and-Frisk (NYCLU, 12/17/2012).

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, asserts that NYPD officers are improperly trained in how to respect the rights of onlookers to film police activity in public.

“Given the growing prevalence of smartphones and the explosive controversy surrounding the stop-and-frisk program, the NYPD should be training its officers to respect people’s constitutional right to film police activity in public,” said NYCLU Associate Legal Director Christopher Dunn, lead counsel in the case. “Good policing has nothing to fear from citizen oversight. Good policing embraces transparency.”

What was taking place was not good policing.

The plaintiff, Hadiyah Charles, used her smartphone to record two NYPD officers as they questioned and frisked three black youth whom had been innocently fixing a bicycle down the street from her Bedford-Stuyvesant home.

The New York Police Department’s stop-and-frisk activities are far from lawful, but so far neither the courts nor the state legislature have been able to stop them. The police engage in racial profiling in the 700,000 or so stops they conduct annually:

About 87 percent were black or Latino. Each of the top four police precincts with the most stop-and-frisk activity has a majority black or Latino population.

Ms. Charles was shoved by police and ultimately handcuffed and taken away to jail. Her mistreatment was observed by several witnesses, according to the NYCLU article.

Will this lawsuit stop stop-and-frisk? No, nothing has worked so far. But it’s good that the NYCLU has decided to assist and defend the rights of citizens to photograph police. And no, the police are not about to stop interfering with citizens recording their activities either. One thing that has become clear is that the New York police are beyond the law, whether it is illegal stop-and-frisk harassment or spying on mosques outside their jurisdiction, up and down the East Coast.

The NYCLU complaint provides background on stop-and-frisk as well as describing the scene and Ms. Charles’ mistreatment and arrest without probable cause. It asks compensatory damages and also punitive damages from the police officers involved.

Permalink posted by Larry @ 12/17/2012 06:36:00 PM   0 comments - add your comment links to this post

by Larry Geller

The Green Party of Hawaii has filed a lawsuit on Friday to enforce Hawaii’s Administrative Procedures Act (HRS 91) against the Office of Elections. This is the second lawsuit that public interest attorney Lance Collins has fought against the same office for violations of the same Hawaii law. This lawsuit related to the ballot shortage that tainted the 2012 elections across the state.

The press has reported on the failure of the Office of Elections to provide adequate numbers of ballots at various precincts across the state, resulting in the disenfranchisement of an unknown number of voters. Many potential voters chose to leave the long lines that formed on election day when ballots ran out. Others were given incorrect ballots that belonged to another precinct.

(See: Green Party Sues Hawaii Elections Chief Over Ballot Shortages, Civil Beat, 12/10/2012)

Some voters reported that candidates they wished to vote for were not even on the ballots they were given (see, for example, the audio file in this article, at 1:22:30 into the recording—just move the slider along).

The move to unseat long-time Speaker of the House Calvin Say was a bold move on the part of Green Party candidate Keiko Bonk, and came at a time when so-called dissidents in Say’s own party were organizing a faction to replace him as Speaker. Because of the election irregularities in Say’s precinct it is not known how close Bonk came to achieving her goal of representing the district.

A copy of the complaint is posted below. It is written in plain English and is an easy read.

2008 lawsuit resulted in injunction

Attorney Lance Collins filed a successful lawsuit against the Office of Elections in 2008 that resulted in an injunction against the 2010 election by a state judge. The complaint was similar: a violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.

The earlier suit (Babson v. Cronin, Civ No. 2cc08-1-000378 ) was brought on behalf of five citizens of Maui against Hawaii’s Chief Elections Officer  at the time (see background on Disappeared News in these articles). The suit challenged three aspects of the voting process, according to attorney Collins:

1. The use of electronic voting machines was not adopted through lawful rulemaking in accordance with the Hawaii Administrative Procedure Act (HAPA).

2. The use of the Internet and/or telephone lines to transmit vote counts was not adopted through lawful rulemaking (HAPA).

3. The use of the Internet and/or telephone lines to transmit vote counts was not allowed under current state law.

The fear was that the system put together by the Office of Elections could be subject to so-called “man in the middle” attacks that could change the vote count without anyone being aware of the tampering.

As a result of the suit, the Office of Elections was forced to deal with the creation of new Administrative Rules, a process which includes public notice and public hearings.

Alleged irregularity in 2010 election

Disappeared News raised questions prior to the 2010 elections as to whether the current Chief Elections Officer allowed then State Senator Robert Bunda to run for office without having resigned from his Senate position (see these articles).

Disappeared News first noted that Senator Bunda may not have resigned from his Senate seat prior to taking out papers to run for Lt. Governor in an article posted on August 9, 2010. Subsequently, a Maui resident filed a complaint with the Office of Elections challenging Bunda’s candidacy on the grounds that he hadn’t resigned his Senate seat. However, the Chief Elections Officer declined to forward the matter to circuit court for a determination.

The Elections Commission also declined to investigate, even after a curious letter of resignation dated July 16 and addressed to the Chief Elections Officer turned up at the Senate President’s office in August (it seemed clear that a resignation should be filed with the Senate, but the Senate had earlier confirmed that it did not have a resignation letter on file).

Copy of current complaint

(This is an OCR copy and may contain errors. Do not rely upon it.)

Download Green Party of Hawaii v. Nago - OCR from Disappeared News

Permalink posted by Larry @ 12/11/2012 04:30:00 PM   0 comments - add your comment links to this post

• We take as our state motto -- Ua mau ke ea o ka 'āina i ka pono -- which proclaimed by Kauikeaouli, King Kamehameha III, denies the very existence of the State of Hawaii (hereʻs part of a video by Umi Perkins explaining that point);

• And mindful that he would no doubt object to the imposition of foreign rule and an alien legal system on his nation, we name the District Court after him anyway (Kauikeaouli Hale); 

• We declare Hawaiian as well as English an official language of the State, and although we give government buildings and streets Hawaiian names, we donʻt require any further familiarity with the language or culture, even for government officials and judges;

• We enshrine the Law of the Splintered Paddle, Kamehamehaʻs Kānāwai Māmalahoe, into the State Constitution, but donʻt require the State, its police, or its courts to possess any familiarity with it or understand it or have any intention of following it.

Permalink posted by H. Doug Matsuoka @ 12/10/2012 09:43:00 PM   3 comments - add your comment links to this post

“ ‘Todd Stern and Jonathan Pershing have come to Doha with their needle stuck in the groove of obstructing the U.N. process, an art they have perfected. It is disrespectful of President Obama to inflict on us two negative negotiators who act as if the comments he made after his election were never made. He should either pick up the phone and tell his delegates to follow his lead or alternatively call them back to Washington.’ When I asked Pershing to respond to Naidoo, whether he was following President Obama’s wishes, he replied, ‘No comment.’ ”—Amy Goodman, quoting the executive director of Greenpeace International

by Larry Geller

Amy Goodman is in Doha this week covering the climate change summit. From the interviews broadcast on Democracy Now, it appears that delegates are more interested in setting up a profitable regime of trading carbon credits than in ending global warming. The US delegation in particular has come under criticism (see transcripts of programs posted on the Democracy Now website) for obstructing any possibility of progress.

Sing for the Climate (from Belgium)

Permalink posted by Larry @ 12/07/2012 09:08:00 PM   4 comments - add your comment links to this post

“The Program lacks adequate procedures to prevent or detect whether distributors fraudulently or erroneously underreport beverage containers sold/distributed or certified redemption centers fraudulently or erroneously over-report beverage containers redeemed.”

by Larry Geller

Two audits of the State of Hawaii Deposit Beverage Container Deposit Special Fund conducted in 2008 and 2010 respectively, have appeared within the past week on the state auditor’s 2012 report page.

Perhaps Marion Higa, who also announced her retirement at the end of the year in a letter to legislators on November 27, is cleaning out her drawers… actually, correspondence at the end of the reports indicate that they are not yet in final form as published.

The audit’s tests found inaccuracies in the system that results in unsupportable payments. These reports should be a call for action.

The Department of Health administers the redemption program and has the authority to increase the Hawaii beverage tax, which it has chosen to do. Unfortunately, the program continues to rely on a fraud-prone procedure that should make the tax increase highly questionable.

A snip from the 2008 report describes the basic failure of the system to be accountable for how public money is spent:

The Deposit Beverage Container Program Is Poorly Managed

Despite previous findings and planned corrective actions reported in Office of the Auditor Report No.05-09, Audit of the Deposit Beverage Container Program, we continue to find several deficiencies indicating poor management of the Program.

Over-reliance on self-reporting increases financial risk

Over-reliance on self-reporting increases financial risk The Program lacks adequate procedures to prevent or detect whether distributors fraudulently or erroneously underreport beverage containers sold/distributed or certified redemption centers fraudulently or erroneously over-report beverage containers redeemed. Deposit and fee collections from distributors, as well as payments to certified redemption centers, are based on unverified numbers with limited inspections performed by Program personnel. Redemption center errors are passed on to the Program.

Further, the Program lacks controls to prevent or detect unauthorized beverage containers from entering the redemption stream. Since inception of the Program, exempt commercial passenger-vehicle companies have not been inspected.

Consequently, the Program may be operating at a greater cost than necessary, and the reported redemption rate may not be reliable to justify increasing the container fee.

[State of Hawaii Deposit Beverage Container Deposit Special Fund Financial and Program Audit, June 30, 2008]

The problem is that the program is based on self-reporting. Is the DOH monitoring or auditing distributors and redemptions centers to catch fraud? Yes and no:

Despite the performance of 176 inspections in FY 2008, these inspections are not designed to substantiate distributor reports.

In other words, the DOH is looking the other way. On the other hand, the program as designed will perpetuate fraud.

Looking again at redemption centers, since a redemption center simply reports the number of bottles (for example) processed, there is absolutely nothing to substantiate their claims or to prevent them from routinely and systematically inflating the numbers.

The 2010 report indicates that the same concerns continued unabated:

The Deposit Beverage Container Program Is Exposed to Fraud

Despite five years of experience with the Program, which began in 2005, several deficiencies expose the Program to fraud, including the over-reliance on self-reporting by Program personnel and lack of systematic compliance inspections.

Deposits and fee collections from distributors, as well as payments to redemption centers, are unsupported. For several sample distributor reports selected for testing, distributors could not support amounts reported and payments made to the Program.

Four redemption centers refused to provide support for amounts redeemed and the related deposit reimbursements requested, including two uncertified redemption centers that appear to be operating in violation of the law and rules. There is also at least one large redemption center operator that increases the weights reported on deposit redemption forms submitted to the Program to correct for errors made by redemption center employees.

Exempt commercial passenger-vehicle companies have not been inspected since the inception of the Program, which continues to expose the Program to risk of unauthorized beverage containers entering the redemption stream.

Consequently, the Program may be operating at a greater cost than necessary, and the reported redemption rate may not be reliable. Resolution of these deficiencies is necessary to alleviate public concern over the cost of the State’s beverage container recycling program, including questions on the container fee rate necessary to operate the Program.

[State of Hawaii Deposit Beverage Container Deposit Special Fund Financial and Program Audit, June 30, 2010]

A personal visit to a redemption center earlier this year revealed that bags of bottles were being weighed without checking whether the glass all qualifies under the program.  This illustrates nothing more than a fraud in progress on a daily basis. The program allows weighing in lieu of counting if the number of beverage containers is over 200, but I did not see counting occur during my visit even for smaller batches.

The 2008 audit supports my observation:

Redemption centers have an inherent incentive to overstate the amount refunded for deposit beverage containers redeemed to increase demand for their services and consequently increase the amount of handling fees generated. There is no financial disincentive to redemption centers for overpaying on deposit redemptions because the Program reimburses  redemption centers for all that they refund to consumers. The Program has failed to conduct a systematic compliance inspection and enforcement process that would limit the risk of overpayment of redemptions.

Certified redemption center errors are passed on to the Program

In our testing of deposits refunded by certified redemption centers, we found various errors in the amounts refunded to consumers based on the weight of deposit beverage containers redeemed. We found that the Program’s segregated rates used to convert deposit beverage containers to container equivalents was inaccurate compared to hand counting for several of the refunds we tested. We also noted errors in the redemption centers’ calculations for other refunds tested. As the DR-1 forms submitted by redemption centers are based on weight, it is likely that these errors are passed on to the Program, resulting in more deposits and handling fees being paid out than justified.

The program, as designed, has never been convenient for beverage consumers. Many have advocated point-of-sale redemption, but retailers have resisted.

As it is, the beverage tax increase is based on now well-established fraud and is therefore itself fraudulent.

When the Legislature tires of investing the UH concert incident, perhaps it could turn its focus to the Department of Health. In these hard economic times taxpayers should not have to bear the burden of this long-running drain on public finances either through DOH neglect or through an unjustifiable tax increase.

In the end, of course, the Legislature is responsible for the laws it passes if the laws themselves are flawed. The beverage container tax and redemption system look to be overdue for a legislative overhaul.

Permalink posted by Larry @ 12/07/2012 11:49:00 AM   1 comments - add your comment links to this post

The 'Raising the Retirement Age' Scam

What they're really talking about doing to Social Security

By Jim Naureckas

In the wake of Barack Obama’s re-election, a bipartisan “grand bargain” to reduce the federal budget deficit is on the agenda. It’s inevitable that “raising the retirement age” for Social Security benefits will be talked about by corporate media as an option that would save the government large amounts of money.

Such talk, however, will be entirely misleading—and designed to mislead.

During the 2012 campaign, there were indications that both major party candidates had this option on their radar, and corporate media seemed perfectly pleased. “Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has bravely proposed an increase in the retirement age,” editorialized USA Today (4/27/12):

Gradually raising the retirement age (currently 66 and climbing slowly to 67) for able-bodied workers is the approach that best matches the reason the program is in trouble. Social Security is not bloated or poorly run. Its shortfall is primarily the result of people living longer, and therefore drawing benefits longer.

And when Romney picked Paul Ryan as his partner on the GOP ticket, the Washington Post (8/12/12) voiced its approval of Ryan’s “willingness to tackle third-rail issues,” including “raising the retirement age” for Social Security.

President Barack Obama has been less explicit about his plans for Social Security in his second term, but accepting renomination at the Democratic National Convention (9/6/12), Obama said of the federal budget deficit: “Now, I’m still eager to reach an agreement based on the principles of my bipartisan debt com-mission.... We will keep the promise of Social Security by taking the responsible steps to strengthen it.”

What are those “principles,” set forth by Obama’s hand-picked commission leaders, former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson and Clinton administration staffer Erskine Bowles? As the Brookings Institution’s William Gale explained in a Washington Post piece on “Myths About the Deficit” (11/28/10), “Social Security supporters... have heaped criticism on Bowles and Simpson for their proposal to raise the early and normal retirement ages by one year per generation for the next two generations—even though the average lifespan will probably increase even faster, so retirement periods would still grow.”

In his first debate with Romney (10/3/12), Obama said of his opponent, “I suspect that, on Social Security, we’ve got a somewhat similar position.... It’s going to have to be tweaked the way it was by Ronald Reagan and...Democratic Speaker Tip O’Neill.” The point was glossed by the L.A. Times (10/4/12): “At that time the retirement age was raised modestly and the payroll tax increased significantly.”

When Reagan and O’Neill “tweaked” Social Security in 1983, they didn’t actually “raise the retirement age”; you could retire at age 62 before, and when their plan is fully phased in in 2022 (barring further “tweaks”), you will still be able to retire at age 62.

The way Social Security benefits work is that the longer you delay getting them, the more you get per month. The Reagan/ O’Neill scheme cuts the benefit that you got at any particular age, so that people who retire at 64 get as much as people who retire at 62 used to get, people who retire at 65 get as much as 63-year-olds used to, and so on. You still reach the maximum retirement benefit by retiring at age 70—but that maximum benefit is smaller than it would have been if you had been born a generation earlier.

This is what they called “raising the retirement age.” There’s a simpler, more understandable and more accurate way to describe it: “cutting Social Security benefits.” You take the amount of money everyone’s going to get, and you reduce it; that’s what “cutting” means.

They don’t describe it that way, of course, because “raising the retirement age” sounds so much more reasonable: People are living longer, aren’t they—so why can’t they retire a little later? You can argue with that, but it’s certainly easier to sell than “old people don’t need so much money, do they?”

It’s likely that a big part of the reason it sounds better to people is that the “retirement age” framing actually makes them misunderstand what’s being proposed. You imagine not getting a couple of years of benefits while you continue to work—you don’t imagine a slice taken out of every check you get for the rest of your life.

Because, really—what is it about living longer that should make people need less money for their retirement?

This work is licensed by Fair.org under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Permalink posted by Larry @ 12/06/2012 01:23:00 PM   1 comments - add your comment links to this post

UN: Two Empires Crumbling – And Then What?

by Johan Galtung, 3 Dec 2012 - TRANSCEND Media Service

From Washington, DC

There is History in the UN 29 November 2012 vote: 138 YES to giving Palestine the UN status as “nonmember observer state”, only 9 NO, and 41 abstentions.  Beyond Middle East politics the vote also mirrors the limits to the US global, and the Israeli regional, empires: 138 defy their grip and favor change, 41+9=50 do not, for various reasons. A crucial vote on a crucial issue is a crucial test.  Who wants what?

First, the OIC-Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Muslim, Arab: none yielding to USA-Israel in spite of the efforts against the Arab awakening. Israel is alone in the region: Greece-Turkey-Cyprus were all YES.  Next: Saraoui, Western Sahara; building on Spain-Morocco YES, and Kashmir on India-Pakistan.

Second: more than half of the not in favor was from Eastern Europe (16) and the Pacific (10: 9 mini-states, and Australia).  Add 7 from Latin America, 5 from Africa, 3 from Asia (not Japan) and we get 41.

Third: Western Europe-NATO divided.  The Nordic-EFTA (European Free Trade Association) countries in favor, as also Austria, France and GIPSI (Greece-Italy-Portugal-Spain-Ireland), the indebted EU periphery.  Not in favor: UK, Germany, Netherlands; 3 mini-states; hard core USA-Israel (Usrael)-Canada for the 50: only a quarter of the UN membership.

The General Assembly is the closest we have to a world democracy; no Security Council big power veto.  Israel has no regional support and the USA only little, shaky, insignificant, world support. Memories of the Soviet Empire—dead for 20 years–are fading and mini-states are exactly that.  The US clout does not even reach Afghanistan-Iraq-Libya recently bombed-invaded-occupied.  UK remains; like poodle to master.

Read the vote in terms of a world regionalization process: Green light for the OIC; some political light needed in the Latin America-Caribbean, Africa and Asia regions.  The Nordic-EFTA moral light is intact, and the new Third World, GIPSI, is joining the old.  Germany, beware.

The USA is out of touch.  Stop droning, killing; make a beautiful North America with Mexico and Canada (R. B. Zoelick in WP 30-ll-2012).

But empires also crumble from within through demoralization.

For political demoralization: the basic factor is lack of world clout.  But watch the “fiscal cliff” process for the doubts about the US political process: two parties, at logger-heads.  No forgiving mortgage debts, no creative lifting of the bottom 16%–many not knowing where the next meal comes from–into the economy, increasing domestic demand.

For economic demoralization: the basic factor is a West outcompeted. Add Robert Samuelson “Why the recovery lags”: The financial crisis and Great Recession scared the wits out of most Americans–cautious, risk-aversive and defensive–spending less and saving more” (WP 26-11-12). Greg Smith-Why I left Goldman Sachs: A Wall Street Story-defines good business as “flat commissions on transparent exchange-listed trades”; not exorbitant commissions, secret deals, obscure derivatives and bonuses and status linked to the gross credits the trader brings in.  Not a single person imprisoned; but lobbies against new legislation.

For military demoralization: the basic factor is the USA-NATO losing. But watch the lifestyle and affair on the top of the US Army in Afghanistan, and CIA anywhere, killing machines: General Petraeus. Imagine the effect on soldiers risking their lives for an unwinnable and dubious war with the top fooling around. See Richard Strauss 1874 opera, Die Fledermaus, for the end of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire.

For cultural demoralization: the basic factor is decreasing faith in US exceptionalism, leading the world as No. 1. The USA is No. 1 in claiming to be No. 1, in the mainstream media, by public figures ignoring what happens in the real world. Truth will dawn upon them.

For social demoralization: “U.S. birthrate plummets to lowest level since 1920″ (WP 30-11-2012)–”led by immigrant women hit hard by the recession”.  This may imply decline in the US population and in tax revenue, as in much of the West.  And the enormous gun violence.

Add it all up: the fall of the US Empire is on track.

How about Israel? Heading for a cliff of its own making: suicide.

The UN vote was on the 65th anniversary of the UN Resolution181-Partition Plan for Palestine. Two-State resolution following Folke Bernadotte, then murdered by Israel. Nakba. The problem is not Zionism but hard, revisionist Expansion-0ccupation-Siege (E-O-S). Zionism driving to the cliff. The UN vote legitimized Palestine and delegitimized that kind of Israel. Much will follow in multi- and bilateral diplomacy and NGOs; in spite of Usrael threats.

Direct negotiations lead nowhere: the Oslo process left security, Jerusalem, refugees, Israeli settlements, boundaries, for “later”.

But Israel would have to react to the rockets!  Yes, by dropping E-O-S for 2-6-20plus: Two States in a Six-State community with Arab neighbors in a 20plus-State Organization for Security and Cooperation within a nuclear free zone. Nevertheless, Israel delegitimized itself by choosing violence, Hamas-Hizbollah rockets, dirty bombs, Iron Domes, David’s Sling, huge 9/11 underground shelters. Israel buried underground in a sui-sociocide.

Israel also reacts to nonviolence–boycott, non-cooperation, civil disobedience–with violence, as it did against the Free Gaza Boats trying to break the siege.  Thus, it delegitimizes itself even further.

Together with mainstream USA, Israel, Usrael tries to control the discourse by branding all critics as anti-Semites, self-hating Jews, etc. A non-starter in democracies.  Jimmy Carter, Desmond Tutu, Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein, Richard Falk, to mention just a few recently branded that way, are neither anti-Jewish nor anti-Israel; they use transparency and dialogue–the hallmarks of democracy–constructively. Stifle that, and we get two elites listening only to themselves.

Travel these roads: delegitimize, meet violence with violence, meet nonviolence with violence, control discourse. And down the road, very close to the cliff, the South African scenario is waiting. The USA decides one day that Israel is more of a liability than an asset.

Israel is out of touch.  A regime change from within is needed.

________________________

Johan Galtung, a professor of peace studies, dr hc mult, is rector of the TRANSCEND Peace University-TPU. He is author of over 150 books on peace and related issues, including ‘50 Years-100 Peace and Conflict Perspectives,’ published by the TRANSCEND University Press-TUP.

This work is licensed under a CC BY-NC 3.0 United States License.

Permalink posted by Larry @ 12/04/2012 01:04:00 PM   0 comments - add your comment links to this post

by Larry Geller

The Star-Advertiser’s vog photo in Monday’s paper also turned out to be the best photo I’ve seen of the dangerous road conditions caused by Hawaii’s Department of Transportation construction on the H-1 highway. After the road bumps were ground down, they left markings on the road that can confuse drivers in bad weather or with the sun straight ahead (see: Star-Advertiser vog picture shows dangerous condition of H-1 highway, 12/3/2012).

This morning I was playing with my shiny new smartphone. I installed Google Earth and took it for a spin over Honolulu.

The Android app is really impressive. Fly anywhere on the planet in the palm of your hand.

So I headed East on the H-1, just to experience the trip out to Hawaii Kai.

But wait—look at this view of the highway in this screen capture from the phone. The satellite image appears to have been taken when the eastbound lane was completed but work on the westbound lane had not yet begun.

The poor visibility of lane markings is clearly visible from space (click image for slightly larger). The lines dividing lanes in the westbound direction are clearly visible, but the eastbound direction is a mess. Yesterday’s Star-Advertiser photo demonstrates that it still is, but now in both directions.

Certainly, the irregular section of road needed repair. It was a bit like riding a roller coaster before they did the work.

But that situation likely wasn’t hazardous. The way they have left the road surface is.

Permalink posted by Larry @ 12/04/2012 07:57:00 AM   0 comments - add your comment links to this post

by Larry Geller

Amy Goodman is broadcasting from Doha this week on the climate change summit now taking place there.

The figure “6 degrees” of temperature increase keeps coming up in her interviews. The current projection is that the atmosphere will be six degrees warmer by the end of the century. But what does that mean? Americans have resisted going metric, so I’ll bet many viewers can’t translate that 6 degrees Celsius as 10.8 degrees Fahrenheit.

Imagine summer wherever it is that you live about 11 degrees warmer. Parts of the Continent have already been baked at 112 degree levels, can you imagine 123 degrees?  That’s what “6 degrees” means.

Of course, the end of the century is far away. I don’t know if it’s fair to interpolate so I won’t venture a number, but by mid-century, it would still be pretty hot. People die of the heat or lose life and property in forest fires or record-setting storms.

Right now in mid-town Honolulu it’s 83 degrees indoors according to my thermometer. It’s December. In summer we might rarely hit 89. What will global warming mean to Hawaii? I don’t know. 83 degrees is hot enough. With the highest energy costs in the country it will also be a major expense to keep us cool here.

Our leaders are firmly in the pockets of big oil and big banks. It doesn’t seem like they care at all about the consequences of their continued subsidies to Big Oil. Obama may approve the pipeline from Canada that will further push up that global warming thermometer. Our government is obstructing international carbon agreements. Whose side are they on?? Well, we know that already.

How many “Sandy’s” will it take before we react? It’s not happening after just one. In fact, I’ve heard remarks that Sandy was a “job creator,” putting a new twist on disaster capitalism, or the Shock Doctrine.

Permalink posted by Larry @ 12/03/2012 10:54:00 AM   0 comments - add your comment links to this post

Stop by before work this Wednesday to hear a talk by Keiko Bonk. There’s usually plenty of opportunity for questions and discussions.

Bonk most recently challenged Speaker Calvin Say by running against him in his district.

The Interfaith Alliance of Hawaii Open Table meeting is free and open to the public. It starts at 7 a.m. at Harris United Methodist Church at Vineyard Blvd. and Nuuanu Ave. There’s plenty of parking and usually coffee and some cookies available to hold you until you get to the office later.

Here’s their announcement:

“The Politics of Compassion”

We are pleased to have community leader, activist, educator, and artist Keiko Bonk join us and share her vision of a more sustainable Island home for us all.

Keiko's life-long service within our community embodies compassion in action, where she has staunchly supported causes to protect the rights of individuals and also our fragile environment from exploitation and degradation by multi-national corporate interests.

Keiko's energetic and enthusiastic work towards cultivating more compassion in our Islands is truly inspiring and interfaith-affirming. Please join us!

Permalink posted by Larry @ 12/03/2012 07:41:00 AM   0 comments - add your comment links to this post

by Larry Geller

I wrote about the lane visibility problem on a section of the H-1 highway in Honolulu in a June 2012 article and included a picture I took (as a passenger) through the car windshield. It wasn’t a very clear picture though it illustrated the problem. When driving with sunlight ahead of the car, the visibility is not the best. The way the H-1 has been maintained greatly increases the problem for drivers.

The state has decided to leave construction markings unrepaired on the section of the H-1 past the 6th Ave. exit and has not improved the visibility of the inter-lane marking. So in the early morning, and particularly in the rain, it is hard to figure out how to stay properly in lane while driving.

In today’s Star-Advertiser there is a picture of the H-1 with a caption describing the vog situation that will prevail over Honolulu this entire week. The picture is also an excellent illustration of the highway marking hazard.

The picture is copyrighted, so I can only post a fair-use snip of it. If you have the paper, check out the half-page image on page B1.

Notice that the areas where road surface irregularities have been ground off and left as-is are still, even though construction ceased months ago, as bright as the fading dashed line that separates the lanes. The reflectors that the state uses simply reflect their poor engineering choices—mostly they don’t reflect light. Particularly in a rain squall, the lane markings are hard to discern.

The driver in the white car may simply be changing lanes—or he could be confused by the hazardous condition of the road.

Permalink posted by Larry @ 12/03/2012 07:31:00 AM   0 comments - add your comment links to this post

by Larry Geller

Ooops… I should have posted this earlier, but I think RSVPs may still be accepted even tomorrow… at least, try…

This is an announcement from Common Cause Hawaii (disclosure: I’m on the local board). It’s a subject of interest across the country, and this is the guy heading up an important campaign to undo the damage wreaked by the Supreme Court.

Overturn Citizens United and Amend the Constitution!
A special reception featuring Derek Cressman, director of the Campaign to Reverse Citizens United

Wednesday, December 5
5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.

Location: Indigo Restaurant
1121 Nuuanu Avenue, Honolulu, Hawaii 96817 (map)

$25 suggested donation
Pupus provided; no-host bar

Click here to RSVP online

Join us for a special evening of friends, food, and political reform with Common Cause Hawaii! Meet our visiting expert Derek Cressman, director of the Campaign to Reverse Citizens United and vice president of state operations for Common Cause. Mr. Cressman will share the latest updates on the nationwide movement for a U.S. constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United v. FEC, end corporate personhood, and stop big money from taking over our democracy.
Please join us for this special event and support our efforts! RSVP online by this Sunday, December 2.
Questions? Contact us at (808) 275-6275 or info@commoncausehawaii.org.
Mahalo and see you soon,
Nikki Love
and the rest of the team at Common Cause Hawaii

Let me take the opportunity for some comments of my own on why it’s important to reverse the concept that corporations are “people”.

The roots of Citizens United and corporate personhood begins way before the Supreme ruling.

There was another Supreme Court ruling in 1886 that corporations were "persons" and entitled to the same rights granted to people under the Bill of Rights. At that time it was railroads that sought greater powers. Since then, it has proven impossible to fight corporate influence over government.

The Fourteenth Amendment was intended to grant basic rights to freed slaves after the civil war, but it has been used by corporations to gain rights for themselves. Arguably it has benefitted corporate interests far more than it benefitted freed slaves.

While headlines since the Citizens United decision have largely confined the discourse to unfettered campaign spending and its effects on elections, in fact, corporate personhood is a far more extensive threat to citizen democracy.

I suspect it will take strong medicine to reverse this entrenched doctrine. Perhaps Derek Cressman’s visit will help us find the remedy.

Permalink posted by Larry @ 12/02/2012 05:38:00 PM   0 comments - add your comment links to this post