CAN’T YOU HEAR THAT WHISTLE

CAN’T YOU HEAR THAT WHISTLE?: Tin political ears are often the coin of the realm on Kaua`i. It’s a tradition going back at least as far as Smokey Louie Gonsalves, who in the 50’s purportedly, approximately said “people will know what they think about that when I decide and tell them what they think”.

Kauaiians rarely cared in the olden days because the paternalism was so strong that people expected the roguish behavior that recently departed Bryan Baptiste’s father Stan exhibited by running the island as Mayor from a jail cell.

No matter how many times pundits cite “changing demographics”- a code for the exponential increase in the influx of mainlanders- nothing has changed since the first time we heard this during the 1980 elections.

So when Kaua`i Police Department (KPD) Chief Darryl Perry got off on the wrong foot by playing up high-tech abusable cop equipment , jacking up a peaceful sovereignty activist , pledging to “take care of” protesters if the Superferry came back and finally writing a condescending tone-deaf commentary in response to suggestions for instituting community policing techniques, people figured that the anyone upset about the desecration of the burial site at Naue had already been stuck with the proverbial fork.

All that was left was for the cultural defenders occupying the location was to count down the hours to the day of reckoning, scheduled for yesterday at dawn.

It was assumed that this would be the final nail in the coffin, solidifying the impression in the community that this was the official end any illusory “our friends and neighbors on the force” era of policing on Kaua`i and that the interests of money and power were to be protected at the point of a taser and a riot shield.

But they didn’t count on Perry being smarter than the average bear and having a political ear that could serve him well if he ever chooses to exercise it in the electoral arena.

Nothing would have seemed out of the ordinary had he ordered his force to round um up and cart um off in the paddy wagon and give the thumbs up to the construction crew.

Although people would have shaken their heads in disgust we’re used to doing that on Kaua`i. We would have gone on with our lives and perhaps occasionally bemoaned the day that Perry brought us into the era when the department fully served the new plantation bosses as they had enforced the laws made up by lunas since the first commercial sugar cane stalk was plunged into the `aina in Koloa.

No one knows what will happen from here in the courts. Apparently the law Perry cited regarding “desecration (such).that the defendant knows will outrage the sensibilities of persons likely to observe or discover the defendant's action“ has never been court tested, especially as it may conflict with the Burial Council processes.

But the fact that Perry took the chance at angering the all powerful land use lawyer Walton Hong and acknowledged that there are people who Hong and his client know full well have their “sensibilities outraged” speaks as much as the action itself.

It would have been easy for him to say, like the small but growing part of the “haole” crowd - the ones for whom we commonly use the word in conjunction with a certain copulatory adjective- that they’ve been doing this for years so why stop them now.

He could have ignored the obvious desecration of his own people’s culturally iconic bones and no one would have said anything but “well, same as it always was”

Today the progressive, culturally-sensitive haole community is singing Perry’s praises. These are the self-same people who were calling for his job if not head yesterday.

With his action Perry gained a bank-full of political capital in future endeavors. How he spends it could put those that were critical of his previous words and deeds behind the eight-ball for some time to come if he abuses it

Should he seek to spend it allowing the rogue element in KPD to abuse innocent until proven guilty suspects and non-violent activists, the funds could disappear quickly, although he has established enough credit to have a no-minimum-balance account for the time being.

People say Perry’s snatching victory from the jaws of defeat shows that he has a good heart in his chest. Maybe. But what was most useful to him yesterday at Wainiha was the uncommon-for-Kaua`i size of the brain in his head and those uncommonly astute ears.

'TIL THE LAST YELLOW DOG DIES

'TIL THE LAST YELLOW DOG DIES: The bullets continue to fly over the disastrous Republicans’ Convention last weekend but you wouldn’t know it to read the Honolulu newspapers.

In addition to the scathing back and forth between party activist and bosses we reported on the other day, new ballistic bombardments and sieve-like shields are still being posted at the Republican’s best and worst friend Malia Zimmerman’s Hawai`i Reporter news service.

Now there’s some new and improved coverage of the debacle with even a video of some of the scripted authoritarian event where the Ron Paul supporters were shut out of the process causing even some of the McCainiac party regulars to swear to never participate again after their leadership ran rough-shod over everyone, abusing not just the process but apparently the delegates themselves.

But the Honolulu Advertiser’s purveyor of the politically obvious Jerry Burris either doesn’t read or research very much- or maybe he wrote the piece before the convention. He certainly didn’t ask anyone who was there in writing in his regular Wednesday column:

“The Republicans ended their convention upbeat and enthused. That's what conventions are for. But the reality is that despite the sparkling individual success of Gov. Linda Lingle, the Hawai'i GOP has yet to find its voice or its home in contemporary local politics.”

And, from those we’ve talked to and what we’ve read , it sure sounds like a similar meltdown might be in store as the Democrats turn to self-destruct in its normal manner at their State Convention this weekend.

It remains to be seen whether the Obamanics will smother dissents from Shrillary Hillary supporters who see misogyny in everyone that doesn’t live in their sound=-proof booth.

According to reports there are still three party bosses- er, Superdelegates- at stake and their appointment goes along with newly elected party leadership positions.

The only question is whether the Dems will allow a battle royale and thus disintegrate into the usual melee they have been famous for or will take a repressive page out of the Republican Convention Playbook thus disillusioning all those wide-eyed new members that came in on Obama’s caucus coattails.

And, surprise- this year there are also some platform issues for Democrats to “discuss”, always a fun time for observers from the other party. This year they come replete with a contentious plank on the one issue that is bound to piss everyone off – Israel and Palestine- with AIPAC throwing their weight around in try to defeat a popular resolution that is none too complementary to the Zionists.

Even nationally pundits seem to have their heads so far up the butts of party leadership that when Howard Dean speaks you can see Richard Cohen’s face between his teeth. They are never talking to the rank and file or even the lower level activists yielding the kind of drivel that drives the horse race coverage and the conventional wisdom- a catch all meaning lazy insular analysis.

Nowhere do you hear the realities of the Democratic race- things like how if there is even a race with the Republican in the fall it is the turnout of new voters and people motivated to vote that will decide the race and that the Obama campaign has done the most incredible grassroots job of precinct by precinct bottom up organizing ever seen.

They brought in community organizers and Democratic Party wannabes last summer and fall and sent them to campaign schools, teaching the basics of “do it on your own” neighborhood organizing.

Then, months later found that, in many states, there were Obama campaign headquarters springing up unbeknownst to the national campaign. The locals were already there when they came to town to campaign in the primaries and caucuses.

That more than anything explains his successes where the corporate pundits had eliminated him early on- something they still haven’t caught onto.

No one sees how the right-wing-despised Hillary Clinton came into the race with electability inside the base of the Democratic constituency.

And, because they only talk to the insiders, none of them talk about how she destroyed any advantage she might have had by creating more hatred on the left than existed for her and Bill on the right by copying Rovian-Atwater-style campaign tactics when she fell behind after Iowa.

It has nothing to do with her being a woman. And as a matter of fact the desirability of tempering the usual masculine aspect guiding our war mongering, male-dominated, power-as-an-aphrodesiac Congress with the feminist aspect and viewpoint is one of the strongest arguments for electing females. . and it’s one that Clinton quite apparently fought hard to dissipate by trying to out-macho the men with her votes in the Senate.

We don’t believe Obama is any different than Clinton- or McCain for that matter- with his opposition of single payer, non corporate, universal health care, his votes for every war funding bill and the new Patriot act, his opposition to impeachment, his support for coal and innumerable untenable positions for true progressives.

But elections are not decided on issues- they are decided on who you’d rather have dinner or a beer with. And Hillary has sickened many on the left, especially among the young and previously disenfranchised, via the campaigning style she has adopted over the past few months.


Will there be a free for all this weekend or can the Hawai`i Democratic “leadership” head it off? And if they head it off will there be acrimony over the process? The one thing that could cut those new 37,000 membership numbers down to a new handful of activists and cause 36,500 that don’t even remember they joined the party would be to make them feel like the “old boys” didn’t give everyone there a fair hearing.

Whatever happens, will it be reported in the newspapers rather than just light up the on-line alternative press and blogs? Doubt it.

The bland penchant-for-the-obvious for political columnists at the Advertiser and Star-Bulletin and their lack of understanding of politics notwithstanding not pissing off the losers is the art of insider party politics.

And it ain’t as easy as it sounds in both cases – last week with the R’s and this week with the D’s- you have a forgone winner and a doomed loser. And a platform debate that will be bound to turn people away if it is allowed but will probably be a lot worse if it’s stifled.

Whatever happens the big question is, if something happens in Hawai`i politics and neither Jerry Burris or the equally lackluster and pedestrianly-mediocre Richard Borroca report it in the corporate newspapers does it make a policy sound?