So many of us are looking for our own place. Where do I fit into the big picture?
You fit in right where you are, and yes there are also other things you can be incorporating into your life to take us as a whole, one more step closer to achieving our combined goals.
When do I know I'm no longer in the Amelikan system?
Well, you know that when they no longer have the chattel bond on you - that is when you no longer have a social security number. As long as you have one, you are considered Amelikan, no matter how much of a lie that whole country is, or how much you don't like it.
There are ways however, that you can get what you need both within and without that system. Let's take a look at what we are describing here:
Within the system - Since you have a social security number and if you have a job, it is likely that you pay taxes to Amelika, there can be no denial that you are in their system. But you don't want to be in their system and it sucks that unless you are in their system, you cannot express your mana'o on matters that count to you as a sovereign, as one Kanaka Maoli. What do I mean? Well either you vote in their system or you sit back and allow their most horrible people get into a position of power, which can work against us as a people. It affects everything around us as well as our quality of life.
So what can you do?
First of all, yes - you vote, you testify. We need you to stand up and make our voices strong. Without you, my voice alone is outnumbered by others who wish to take control of our country.
Second of all, you take those tax credits on your donations. I don't know where you got the idea to not do that. Have you spoken to the person who does your taxes? Have you thought about what that extra money will do for both you and our lahui? You probably don't really understand where I am going with this. Well, when you make a charitable contribution to a non-profit, they give you a receipt or you can take a screenshot if its online. You save that with your transportation receipts & work clothing/supply receipts. At tax filing time, you claim every tithing & donation and the federal IRS must reimburse you upto 50% of your gross income which means that you did not pay that amount of federal taxes this year. Long story short, they won't be making bombs on your tax dollars, but our communities will benefit from all the new donations coming in, which will increase the way they serve our community.
Third but definitely your last option or area of opportunity to become more sovereign, is to make one small goal per month to do something for your community or extended ohana. Maybe a beach day where you focus on the unity, instead of other things that distract us from spending quality time with our families.
Just because our kingdom is dormant, does not alleviate us of our kuleana to the kingdom. They said until the last Aloha Aina - they didn't mean until the last time we laid down and did absolutely nothing about all the issues we complain over. They did not say until we were pau pulling one another down in self-pride. They said the last Aloha Aina... that includes all of us, not just the same dozen of people who are falling apart while trying to hold an entire lahui together. Let's get off our asses, stop criticizing one another, stop with the immature bullying and gossiping, and do this together.
Thursday, March 30, 2017
Kanaka Gardens
There are many benefits cited about gardening but perhaps the most appealing benefit to you and I is the amount of money we will save from groceries, and the fact that you can either share your excess for events and family or you can sell it at a local market for supplemental income.
Yesterday was a great time to start your garden, but today or tomorrow will do. We don't want to find our families in a period of hardship, should that barge we depend on ever stop coming. Would you be prepared? How many items that presently come on the barge, can we manufacture right at home?
Let's look at how much we can do with a small & simple garden:
Fruits: you can use some, sell excess, share with family, make and sell jelly or dried fruit products, and make a lucrative income just on raw fruit sales.
Vegetables: you can use some, sell excess, share with family, make and sell pestos and sauces for a great income
Herbs & Spices: what you don't use, you can share with family and sell in markets, or make products. Check in with your local kahu to see if they need any on stock. They will be thankful
Medicinal Plants: for all other obvious reasons
If you have a chipper, you can contract that to people who are cleaning up their land, mix it with your compost or make bio-char to clean your aina. No matter how you use it, you can make a decent living turning it into nutrients for the soil.
Perhaps its time for you to assess your garden and how you can save time & lawn mower gas by making edible landscaping, as opposed to the never ending task of cutting a hot lawn, getting sunburn and wasting money on upkeep that doesn't serve you or your family. Let's plant seeds together.
DHHL Scams
Do you remember that video of Abercrombie in DC laughing about 200,000 acres of Hawaiian land that the state is benefiting from and not going to give up?
Do you know how some of our kupuna sit on waiting lists for decades waiting for their DHHL lots?
Have you ever read in its entirety, what Prince Kuhio truly established when he put DHHL into existence?
The date was January 21, 2015
There was a DHHL meeting in Pakukalo Homestead, Maui
Hosting the meeting: Robin Danner & Michelle Kauhane
I honestly don't know what the point or goal of that meeting was, but it was one meeting I will never forget. A friend invited me to the meeting where some uncles were supposed to shut it down. I was asked to simply be there for the support in numbers.
I had never gone to one of these meetings before, having been brought up in a foreign country and lacking the necessary federal blood quantum requirements to participate in such programs. I really did not want to go to yet another function where I would be discriminated against. It gets a little old after awhile. That divisive mentality is not what our ancestors taught us to be like. Even I know that, and I didn't grow up here. So much for the stereotypes.
Not knowing what to expect, but knowing it wasn't my place to participate, I kindly did what any activist in my shoes would have done - resorted to journalism for this event. So I pulled out my tablet as the meeting began and hit record. This was definitely going on facebook, youtube, twitter and any other social media I could think of.
Danner opens the meeting with a theatrical performance where she wonders why so many Hawaiians are sitting on the waiting list for so long when there are 200,000 acres of unused homestead properties. She goes in to describe how Kuhio set it up that there would always be something for Hawaiians and how Kuhio broke that ratio down. There was so much for ranch, so much for residential and so much for mercantile use. I began to notice circles in her explanation. I wondered why it was getting fuzzy all of a sudden.
Spidey-senses alert, I listened very carefully and had to look at my friend next to me for confirmation that I heard her right. She went on to dismiss Kanaka Maoli from ever applying for mercantile lands because they won't get it, or the chances are slim. The combination of Danner and Kauhane worked seamlessly to explain how too many Hawaiians fell non-compliant and that the ratio of non-compliant Hawaiians was 35% while non-Hawaiians were only non-compliant 21% of the time.
I jumped so fast that I almost fell out of my seat! Hand went right up..
I asked what were the numbers because percentage doesn't mean anything without true value of the numbers. Another well known Wahine Maoli detected the east coast in my accent and hastily gave me the numbers, then asking where was I from and who are my parents. She followed up her verbal two-piece by asking me what my blood quantum was. Oh boy oh boy... here comes the distractions! And just where were those uncles who were supposed to be shutting the meeting down?
Turned out that because the figures were low, there actual numerical difference was 9 non-compliant "Hawaiian leases" as she described it earlier. Without hesitation, I answered her questions while reeling that fish in. I knew it! I smelled a fish. "Born & raised in Philadelphia, 3rd generation gone since 1906 to the Maui family to which the last name goes back to 1528 as far traced. 12.5% and does that make me Hawaiian or not? Because if not, I want a refund, take your 12.5% back. If you represent what it is to be Hawaiian, I want no part of that. But do you want to explain to the Hawaiians in the room how non-Hawaiians got on Hawaiian-only land in the first place?"
I could feel the electric level tension across the room. I don't know if people were more mad at me for not being 50% and showing up (like be maha'oi) or if they were mad about the lies they were sitting through. But the other wahine directed that anger right to me by telling me I had no rights to homestead and why always the haoles want what Hawaiians get? Blood levels burst and two other wahine jumped up and announced their blood quantum as an achievement at me, while I told the first wahine to keep her Reservation land because that means that all the state land out there belongs to me and I have more options. I also reminded her that if they truly wanted to eradicate Hawaiians, they would hit up the homesteads first because those are the only Hawaiians.
Ooh, she turned purple! Very nice, the way her colors blended to get that color. But it had to be done. I went on to tell her that I never saw her taking care of houseless kupuna, which are whom I am standing there to represent. I don't want to live in homestead. Here are some reasons why:
You have to let some federal entity micromanage your entire existence to get in homestead, then you are micromanaged and constantly help up to some other standard. You constantly have to go to meetings where, if you aren't paying attention (like the good blood quantum people in this meeting) they are ripping you off at every angle. If you are having financial trouble, you get evicted faster than in a home on state land. Last but not least, your name is being used in their corporate misdeeds where they make all kinds of bad choices concerning our people, in your name. No thank you.
The meeting was thoroughly in a state of civil unrest as the three women up front and I in the back carried on. I got emotional and told them all of this and how they are using innocent and unknowing people's names without permission, to commit hewa. I reassured them I do not want their reservation but I will not sit idly where I am helping kupuna who should have something, suffer.
Somewhere in this whole thing, the uncles showed up and took it from there. Danner & Kauhane were extremely upset to have been caught in their mischief and right when the uncles took over the fight, giving me a little rest, Michelle Kauhane's husband got emotional and closed the meeting down. He was ready to physically fight. The women were so red.
The lesson in all of this: Blood quantum is a federally based method of division among our people. We have to pay attention to what they are really doing. Remember that while you may have the blood quantum to qualify, your grandchildren mostlikely do not. See how the rules have changed recently. Notice that I never got an answer on how non-Hawaiians got on Hawaiian only land. Notice how the smoke cloud put the focus on my being there, rather than to the issues at hand. Not one answer was given, but the ugly in people sure showed. What limelight does that shed?
All of the experiences that I write from what I see, is nothing more than documentation from my eyes: Kanaka Maoli with identifying scars from war crimes in foreign lands. I would encourage you to open a blog and write what you see with your eyes. The more we have, the more clear our history will be later. Mahalo Ke Akua for giving me channnels for my voice to be heard. I hope to capture as many voices I can to present to you from here. Aloha Maluhia
Do you know how some of our kupuna sit on waiting lists for decades waiting for their DHHL lots?
Have you ever read in its entirety, what Prince Kuhio truly established when he put DHHL into existence?
The date was January 21, 2015
There was a DHHL meeting in Pakukalo Homestead, Maui
Hosting the meeting: Robin Danner & Michelle Kauhane
I honestly don't know what the point or goal of that meeting was, but it was one meeting I will never forget. A friend invited me to the meeting where some uncles were supposed to shut it down. I was asked to simply be there for the support in numbers.
I had never gone to one of these meetings before, having been brought up in a foreign country and lacking the necessary federal blood quantum requirements to participate in such programs. I really did not want to go to yet another function where I would be discriminated against. It gets a little old after awhile. That divisive mentality is not what our ancestors taught us to be like. Even I know that, and I didn't grow up here. So much for the stereotypes.
Not knowing what to expect, but knowing it wasn't my place to participate, I kindly did what any activist in my shoes would have done - resorted to journalism for this event. So I pulled out my tablet as the meeting began and hit record. This was definitely going on facebook, youtube, twitter and any other social media I could think of.
Danner opens the meeting with a theatrical performance where she wonders why so many Hawaiians are sitting on the waiting list for so long when there are 200,000 acres of unused homestead properties. She goes in to describe how Kuhio set it up that there would always be something for Hawaiians and how Kuhio broke that ratio down. There was so much for ranch, so much for residential and so much for mercantile use. I began to notice circles in her explanation. I wondered why it was getting fuzzy all of a sudden.
Spidey-senses alert, I listened very carefully and had to look at my friend next to me for confirmation that I heard her right. She went on to dismiss Kanaka Maoli from ever applying for mercantile lands because they won't get it, or the chances are slim. The combination of Danner and Kauhane worked seamlessly to explain how too many Hawaiians fell non-compliant and that the ratio of non-compliant Hawaiians was 35% while non-Hawaiians were only non-compliant 21% of the time.
I jumped so fast that I almost fell out of my seat! Hand went right up..
I asked what were the numbers because percentage doesn't mean anything without true value of the numbers. Another well known Wahine Maoli detected the east coast in my accent and hastily gave me the numbers, then asking where was I from and who are my parents. She followed up her verbal two-piece by asking me what my blood quantum was. Oh boy oh boy... here comes the distractions! And just where were those uncles who were supposed to be shutting the meeting down?
Turned out that because the figures were low, there actual numerical difference was 9 non-compliant "Hawaiian leases" as she described it earlier. Without hesitation, I answered her questions while reeling that fish in. I knew it! I smelled a fish. "Born & raised in Philadelphia, 3rd generation gone since 1906 to the Maui family to which the last name goes back to 1528 as far traced. 12.5% and does that make me Hawaiian or not? Because if not, I want a refund, take your 12.5% back. If you represent what it is to be Hawaiian, I want no part of that. But do you want to explain to the Hawaiians in the room how non-Hawaiians got on Hawaiian-only land in the first place?"
I could feel the electric level tension across the room. I don't know if people were more mad at me for not being 50% and showing up (like be maha'oi) or if they were mad about the lies they were sitting through. But the other wahine directed that anger right to me by telling me I had no rights to homestead and why always the haoles want what Hawaiians get? Blood levels burst and two other wahine jumped up and announced their blood quantum as an achievement at me, while I told the first wahine to keep her Reservation land because that means that all the state land out there belongs to me and I have more options. I also reminded her that if they truly wanted to eradicate Hawaiians, they would hit up the homesteads first because those are the only Hawaiians.
Ooh, she turned purple! Very nice, the way her colors blended to get that color. But it had to be done. I went on to tell her that I never saw her taking care of houseless kupuna, which are whom I am standing there to represent. I don't want to live in homestead. Here are some reasons why:
You have to let some federal entity micromanage your entire existence to get in homestead, then you are micromanaged and constantly help up to some other standard. You constantly have to go to meetings where, if you aren't paying attention (like the good blood quantum people in this meeting) they are ripping you off at every angle. If you are having financial trouble, you get evicted faster than in a home on state land. Last but not least, your name is being used in their corporate misdeeds where they make all kinds of bad choices concerning our people, in your name. No thank you.
The meeting was thoroughly in a state of civil unrest as the three women up front and I in the back carried on. I got emotional and told them all of this and how they are using innocent and unknowing people's names without permission, to commit hewa. I reassured them I do not want their reservation but I will not sit idly where I am helping kupuna who should have something, suffer.
Somewhere in this whole thing, the uncles showed up and took it from there. Danner & Kauhane were extremely upset to have been caught in their mischief and right when the uncles took over the fight, giving me a little rest, Michelle Kauhane's husband got emotional and closed the meeting down. He was ready to physically fight. The women were so red.
The lesson in all of this: Blood quantum is a federally based method of division among our people. We have to pay attention to what they are really doing. Remember that while you may have the blood quantum to qualify, your grandchildren mostlikely do not. See how the rules have changed recently. Notice that I never got an answer on how non-Hawaiians got on Hawaiian only land. Notice how the smoke cloud put the focus on my being there, rather than to the issues at hand. Not one answer was given, but the ugly in people sure showed. What limelight does that shed?
All of the experiences that I write from what I see, is nothing more than documentation from my eyes: Kanaka Maoli with identifying scars from war crimes in foreign lands. I would encourage you to open a blog and write what you see with your eyes. The more we have, the more clear our history will be later. Mahalo Ke Akua for giving me channnels for my voice to be heard. I hope to capture as many voices I can to present to you from here. Aloha Maluhia
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