https://www.bizjournals.com/pacific/news/2019/08/01/mountain-of-lies-against-tmt.htmlMountain of lies against TMTBy A. Kam Napier – Editor-in-Chief, Pacific Business News
One of the frustrating things about watching the Thirty Meter Telescope protests stifle construction are all the emotionally manipulative lies being used to justify the blockade. Chief among the mischaracterizations is the idea that the telescope is somehow going to make greedy developers rich.
None other than actor Leonardo DiCaprio did a drive-by social media hit this weekend advancing that whopper, by passing along Instagram posts from graphic designer Ashley Lukashevsky and ethically challenged former state Rep. Kaniela Ing. Lukashevsky, a part-time Hawaii resident who sells “Protect Mauna Kea” posters for $25 on her website, says: “Standing in solidarity with protestors on Mauna Kea, protecting the sacred aina from scientific imperialism. It breaks my heart to see indigenous people and land continue to be dismissed by the state of Hawaii and its wealthy developers.”
Ing’s post says the protests are “an environmental struggle against wealthy developers who seek free reign. It’s a microcosm of what’s happening across Hawaii and the world: profiteers exploiting fragile places without regards for the future. … Some things are more important than a quick buck — like our planet’s and people’s survival. That would be $1.3 billion well spent.”
That’s some pretty dramatic rhetoric. It’s also untrue.
There are no greedy developers. There is no profit, no quick buck, no profiteering. The $1.4 billion price tag is not proof that shadowy evil rich guys somewhere expect to get richer. It’s proof only that such a sophisticated, one-of-a-kind instrument is extremely complicated and expensive to build. And it’s being built, if it’s ever allowed to be built, by a nonprofit organization that basically has to beg for the money in the form of grants.
If you can’t oppose something without lying about it, then the thing you’re opposing literally does not exist. You’re opposing nothing but a figment of your imagination.
The only real profit to be made on Mauna Kea is knowledge.
Just last week, Hawaii Island’s W.M. Keck Observatory announced that observations made there of a star transiting a supermassive black hole near the center of our galaxy will play an important part in understanding how well Albert Einstein’s theories hold up. The observations have taken nearly a quarter century to perform and can shed light on how the universe itself operates.
This is not a luxury resort being built over the iwi. This is not Kahoolawe being bombed by the Navy. It’s a telescope. It’s something everyone can be proud of. The protestors want to decide for all of us, Hawaiian and non-Hawaiian alike, that learning new things is just “scientific imperialism” and something Hawaii wants no part of.
That’s the bottom line for protestor leader Kahookahi Kanuha, who has flat-out stated there is nothing to negotiate. Their position is final. No TMT. The Canary Islands can have it. Humanity can get smarter over there.
What a thing to be proud of.
As for the state, what can I say? Gov. David Ige has punted the negotiations, in which one side won’t negotiate, to Mayor Harry Kim, who doesn’t want the job and literally has no role to play. It is not his county government that is really being tested here.
Does Ige get this? Does anyone in the administration get it? Does the Legislature? The protestors are testing you. They think you’re kidding when you say TMT has a legal right to proceed. They think the entirety of state government is an illegitimate joke.
A million other citizens of Hawaii are waiting to see if the state will prove the protestors right, that state government is, in fact, a joke.
If the state caves, the protestors will celebrate, briefly, before the sad reality kicks in. Winning this will do nothing for them, nothing for Hawaii. They’ll be king of the hill on a mountain of spite.