Posted on: Friday, July 2, 2004

Letters to the Editor

Kerry should support Bush on 'Fahrenheit'

"Fahrenheit 9/11" is more entertaining than its humorous trailers. And it is much more than a story of Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Powell, Wolfowitz and corporate investors.

Early in "Fahrenheit 9/11," a local political leader makes a cameo appearance. Supporters of candidate Al Gore in November 2000 will see Gore as president of the Senate two months later. In his final role, Gore cuts off Patsy T. Mink and African American congressional representatives, squelching their challenge to the purging of blacks from the voting rolls in Florida.

Fast-forward to the Iraq war. Bush and his advisers could not have done this by themselves. They needed domestic allies.

Thus, viewers will not miss the pliantly loyal statement and vote by Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D.

Fans of Dan Rather, CNN, Fox News and "embedded" journalists will squirm in their seats as these anchors and reporters gush enthusiastically and explicitly defend their "bias."

Sen. John Kerry is understandably uncomfortable about "Fahrenheit 9/11." He should support Bush administration campaign officials who wish to suppress this film. If teenagers are permitted to view the "R"-rated aftermath of battlefield violence (sorry, no bedroom scenes), young people will think twice before enlisting.

Lack of understanding of Hawaiian law shown

I watched the hour-long "Akaka Bill: Myth or Reality?" aired on KITV4 recently. It was clear to me that there was no one on the panel who was speaking in the interest of kanaka maoli.

While an article by Vicki Viotti, "Akaka bill has chance of passing, panel says" (June 22), says that these "native law experts" were "Charles Wilkinson, an authority on Indian and land laws; Native Hawaiian law expert Melody MacKenzie; and OHA attorney and former state Supreme Court associate justice Robert Klein," there is nothing that they said or, shall I say, answered that convinced me that they were experts in Hawaiian law or international law.

They seemed to inadvertently dismiss issues that had anything to do with international law, kanaka maoli, etc.

MacKenzie could not clarify Hawaiian laws because it is obvious she only knows state law/HRS law, which we all know does not pertain to us. Had she known and been an expert in Hawaiian law, she would also know that as nationals, we are obligated to follow Hawaiian law and that the major problem facing kanaka maoli today is ignorance, ignorance of the law, ignorance of the true history of Hawai'i, which is being hidden by those choosing not to acknowledge the facts although tons of evidence show the effect of the prolonged U.S. occupation of Hawai'i is having detrimental effects on this institution and everyone's health, education and the economic development of Hawai'i as a whole.

U.S. is not obligated to defend Taiwan

David Broder's June 26 commentary on China's economy is insightful and thought-provoking. One point needs correction: The United States is not committed by treaty to protect Taiwan from military action by China.

When the United States recognized Beijing in 1979, all treaties with the Republic of China, including the mutual defense treaty, were abolished. Currently there is no treaty between the United States and Taiwan, which the United States acknowledges to be part of China, not an independent country. The Taiwan Relations Act, which is a domestic public law but not a treaty, contains no such commitment.

The Taiwanese professor whom Broder met in Shanghai was probably right when he said he is convinced America "would not sacrifice one soldier for Taiwan independence" but "90 percent of the Taiwanese believe the Americans would fight." This perception probably encourages President Chen Shui-bian, and may lead to miscalculations and possibly war between the United States and China. I agree with Broder that the Taiwan issue is serious business, but most Americans are not aware of it.

The U.S. strategy should be to make sure that war does not happen, rather than make preparations to win. There will be no winners if war breaks out across the Taiwan Strait.

There's more to life than buying gasoline

Gas prices are ridiculous nowadays. At a Hawai'i Kai station, regular unleaded gas is $2.25. On a school trip to the Big Island, I noticed gas was about $2.45. Gas is so high now, it costs about $30 to fill up. I remember in 2003, gas was about $1.45.

My family still needs to pay for food, my brothers' and my education. We need more things than gas.

A solution is to walk to places that aren't very far away from your house. If a grocery store is nearby and you need to buy something, walk if it's going to be small. Make one trip at a time instead of going in and out and in and out again.

Make them bring gas prices down, not up. An idea is to have a gas cap. Under $2 everywhere! Not $2.29 somewhere and $2.25 somewhere else.

'Wrap': rest in peace

The "wrap" design change was unnecessary and extremely annoying for anyone riding TheBus in the affected seats. Now, ALL buses have had the "wrap" removed. Hooray!

If you've just moved, re-register to vote

Now is the time for citizens of Hawai'i to start thinking about Election Day. With so many transient families in our neighborhoods, remembering to re-register to vote when you change your address is crucial, especially in such an important election year.

The Office of Elections makes registering to vote simple. You can register at the post office, library or City Hall, and even through the phone book. Do not wait until the last minute; make sure your voter registration is up-to-date. We must engage in this simple and effective action.

In Mililani, you can now register to vote at the Mililani Town Association offices; ask for the Mililani Neighborhood Security Watch coordinator.

Unemployment figures skewed to make a point

On June 2, commentator Robert Rees wrote that the average rate of unemployment during the Reagan years was 7.5 percent. Thus he showed that, as Mark Twain said, there are liars, damn liars and statisticians.

What exactly were the numbers? President Reagan assumed the office in January 1981.

For the three preceding years, the rates were 6.6 percent, 6.0 percent and 5.9 percent. His first year in office, the rate shot up to 6.8 percent.

Before one reads too much into this, however, one should be aware that this merely continued a trend starting in 1980 when the rate went from 5.6 percent in January to 6.4 percent in December. One might reasonably assume that President Reagan's policy did not suddenly start to have effect the moment he took office. He actually needed to propose and have his legislation enacted. Thus the increase in 1981 from 6.6 percent to 7.4 percent would still have been due almost entirely to President Carter.

Now, the largest economy in the world is more like a supertanker than a motorcycle. Simply putting on the brakes and turning the wheel does not automatically result in an immediate change in direction. So it is not surprising that unemployment continued to increase until 1983.

But 30 months after Reagan took office, it started to go down (about 18 months after his policies were put into place). Forty months after he took office (about 28 months after his policies were in place), unemployment was down to where it was when he came into office. And it continued to decrease until at the time he left office, it was hovering around 5 percent, a full 1.5 points below where it was when he came into office. (These numbers are from the readily available Department of Labor statistics on the Internet.)

Mr. Rees takes statistics that clearly point in one direction (in this case, falling unemployment) and by hiding key elements makes them point to another. His entire article was like this, but I chose one example that could be most thoroughly and easily refuted with hard, irrefutable facts.

Renewable-energy law sound

In a June 25 letter, Mr. Dick O'Connell criticized the economic soundness of the Renewable Portfolio Standard bill, or RPS. Gov. Lingle signed Hawai'i's new RPS into law on June 2.

The RPS requires Hawai'i's electric utilities to provide increasing percentages of sales from renewable energy: 8 percent by 2005, 10 percent by 2010, 15 percent by 2015 and 20 percent by 2020.

This electricity will come from such renewable-energy resources as wind, biomass, municipal solid waste (like H-POWER), geo-thermal, hydroelectricity and methane gas from landfills. It includes solar water heating because that replaces the need for electric or gas water heating. Other renewable energy, like hydrogen fuel cells, would also qualify.

Mr. O'Connell could not have been referring to the final version of the bill because SB 2474 SD3 HD2 — the RPS bill that Gov. Lingle signed — did not contain the inaccurate statement he cited about financial benefits to utilities from oil use. It is regrettable that Mr. O'Connell did not see the three protections added to the bill that are intended to avoid increasing the cost of electricity to consumers while also reducing Hawai'i's dependence on oil:

• The RPS bill amended an earlier state law that required the PUC to set the price paid by utilities for renewable energy to be above what it cost the utility to generate its own power. To ensure renewable energy under the RPS would be cost-effective, the law was revised so that renewable energy will be produced equal to or less than the utilities' costs. It also conforms Hawai'i law to federal law.

• Every five years, beginning in 2009, renewable-energy experts at the University of Hawai'i will conduct a review to consider many factors to determine whether the RPS can be achieved in a cost-effective manner. This report will also be "peer-reviewed" by other experts. Based on this independent study, the PUC may revise the percentage of future standards up or down, as appropriate. This process will be used to set standards beyond 2020. These features are unique to Hawai'i's new RPS — no other states with RPS laws include this type of protection.

• If an electric utility cannot meet the RPS in a cost-effective manner due to circumstances beyond its control, which could not reasonably be anticipated or ameliorated, the PUC can temporarily waive the standard.

There are many commercial technologies in use today that can use the renewable-energy resources above to cost-effectively produce electricity, or otherwise replace electricity for essential energy, like solar water heating.

In her State of the State address, Gov. Lingle called for a mandate that 20 percent of all electricity sold in the year 2020 comes from renewable sources to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and move our state to the forefront of leading-edge energy policies. Hawai'i's RPS will help ensure greater use of Hawai'i's abundant renewable energy, reduce the impact of volatile world oil markets on our economy, and protect our environment from the impacts of increased fossil fuel use.

The RPS law is a bold step Hawai'i has taken to address serious challenges as world supplies of cheap, conventional oil diminish, especially critical to our Islands — the most oil-dependent state in the nation.