Malu 'Aina

Aloha kakou,

This just in from friend Nancy Redfeather at 7:30PM Wed. Feb. 4, 2015

“In the past few minutes the Hawai’i County Council voted 6-3 (Councilman Aaron Chung the deciding vote) to allow Earthjustice and Center for Food Safety to work with Corporation Counsel in the Appeal for Hawai’i Island.  Mahalo to all the Council Members who voted for this.”

This involves appealing the Honolulu Federal court decision ruling against Hawaii County’s GMO Ban law in favor of Monsanto, etc. in a case filed by attorney Margery Bronster (former State Attorney General, acting on behalf of the biotech companies.

I was at the council hearing today from 9 till 3 but had to leave.  There was overwhelming testimony for the county to accept the free help of Earthjustice attorneys in appealing the case.

Please send those who voted FOR a note of gratitude.
Mahalo and solidarity,
Jim Albertini

The vote FOR:

valerie.poindexter@hawaiicounty.gov, aaron.chung@hawaiicounty.gov, margaret.wille@hawaiicounty.gov, maile.david@hawaiicounty.gov, karen.eoff@hawaiicounty.gov, dru.kanuha@hawaiicounty.gov

The votes AGAINST:

greggor.ilagan@hawaiicounty.gov,

dennis.onishi@hawaiicounty.gov,

daniel.paleka@hawaiicounty.gov,

—
Jim Albertini Malu ‘Aina Center For Non-violent Education & Action P.O. Box 489 Ola’a (Kurtistown) Hawai’i 96760 Phone 808-966-7622 Email ja@malu-aina.org www.malu-aina.org This communication may be unlawfully collected and stored by the National Security Agency (NSA) in secret. The parties to this email do not consent to the government retrieving or storing of this communication and any related metadata, as well as printing, copying, re-transmitting, disseminating, or otherwise using it. If you believe you have received this communication in error, please delete it immediately.

Humanity and the planet is now just three minutes from midnight when it comes to nuclear disaster and climate disruption. We must act. (Image: thebulletin.org)

“The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has just announced its latest nuclear Doomsday Clock moving ahead the minute hand to three minutes till midnight. The clock represents the count down to zero in minutes to nuclear apocalypse – midnight. This significant move of TWO minutes is the 22nd time since its inception in 1947 that the time has been changed.

“In moving the hand to 3 minutes to midnight, Kennette Benedict the Executive Director of the Bulletin identified in his comments: “the probability of global catastrophe is very high”… “the choice is ours and the clock is ticking”…”we feel the need to warn the world” …”the decision was based on a very strong feeling of urgency”. He spoke to the dangers of both nuclear weapons and climate change saying, “they are both very difficult and we are ignoring them” and emphasized “this is about doomsday, this is about the end of civilization as we know it”… The decision to move the minute hand is made by the Bulletin’s Board of Directors in consultation with its Board of Sponsors, which includes 18 Nobel Laureates…

“The time to act is now. There is so much that can and must be done. Congress will soon begin budget debates that include proposals to increase nuclear weapons spending for stockpile modernization by $355 billion over the next decade and up to a trillion in the next 30 years. Expenditures for weapons that can never be used and at a time when the economic needs for our country and world are so great…

      “Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said “We must all learn to live together as brothers or we will all perish together as fools. We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly…” See the full article here:  http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/01/22/3-minutes-midnight

Obama’s FY2016 Budget Proposal

A Department of Defense base budget of $534 billion, the highest in history, plus an additional $51 billion war funding. http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/02/04/top-four-things-you-need-know-about-obamas-fy2016-budget-proposal

When you add the Pentagon expenses to all the other money spent on National Security –CIA, NSA, money for veteran’s affairs, and the share of interest on our national debt attributed to military spending, the true cost of the National Security State budget is over $1 Trillion (1,000,000,000,000)   http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/02/02/b-billion-what-military-cuts

Stop the Doomsday Clock!   Work for Peace, Justice and the Planet!

1. Mourn all victims of violence. 2. Reject war as a solution. 3. Defend civil liberties. 4. Oppose all discrimination, anti-Islamic, anti-Semitic, anti-Hawaiian, etc. 5. Seek peace through justice in Hawai`i and around the world.
Contact: Malu `Aina Center for Non-violent Education & Action P.O. Box 489 Kurtistown, Hawai`i 96760.
Phone (808) 966-7622. Email:ja@malu-aina.org  http://www.malu-aina.org

Hilo Peace Vigil leaflet (Feb. 6, 2015 – 698th week) – Friday 3:30-5PM downtown Post Office

Please submit testimony on State and County proposed legislation.  See below from Shannon Rudolph.
Mahalo.
Jim Albertini

-Aloha! 
PLEASE spare 5 minutes for Hawai`i ~ 
Your quick clicks needed by 8am Wed. 2/4 Please forward & share... asap.

Here Ya Go! ~ Mahalo for Protecting Hawai`i

HB849 – “The NEW Monsanto Protection Act”
Right to Farm; Amends Hawaii’s Right to Farm Act to ensure that counties cannot enact laws, ordinances, or resolutions to limit the rights of farmers and ranchers to engage in agricultural practices.

> OPPOSE! HB849 HERE: http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/measure_indiv.aspx?billtype=HB&billnumber=849&year=2015

HB1514 Pesticide Buffer Zones

Here:

Also ~ Please Kokua your Puna Ohana!
Separate Emails: Reso. 58 To support our law against geothermal night time drilling.
(Can you imagine the sound of jets roaring at all hours, for months, in YOUR neighborhood?)   
And Reso. 59: To go to court if the geothermal company/PGV refuses to comply with our county’s night time drilling ban.

It’s as simple as saying I SUPPORT Comm. 9.1

(Separate Emails) : I SUPPORT Reso 58 – I SUPPORT Reso 59.

MAHALO!!!

- 
Jim Albertini

Feb. 4, 2015 Testimony in Support of Comm 9.1

Aloha Council members,

I am one of your constituents.  I’ve been a resident and farmer in Kurtistown for 35 years growing a wide range of organic fruits and vegetables –taro, sweet potatoes, bush beans, ginger, bananas, and more than 50 different fruits.

I urge you to support Communication 9.1 to accept the offer of Earthjustice and Center for Food Safety in donating their services defending the county against big corporate interests dictating our future in Hawaii County.  This is a home rule issue and we need to stand together as one.  A number of years back, as a taro farmer I stood with Jerry Konanui, Henry Leong and others in testifying for a county law to prevent the Genetic engineering of kalo.  That county law passed. But if we don’t succeed in defending the current GMO county ban, kalo, Kona coffee, etc. will again be on the GMO chopping block and who knows what other attempts at pre-emption by higher governments and corporate interests.  We are already seeing this on the international level with the drafts of TPP –Trans Pacific Partnership even trying to pre-empt nations from enforcing their laws on environmental safeguards, labor rights, and other common sense regulations.  Multi-national corporations want free reign to ravage the planet for short-term profits with little or no regulation.  These transnational corporations have no ties to nations, states, counties, to land, to aloha aina, to ohana. Their main concern is short-term profit at whatever cost to air, water, land, people, plants and animals.  The world’s climate crisis (with increasingly intense storms) is giving daily testimony to the destructive nature of corporate greed and modern consumer lifestyles that put profit and personal gain before malama aina and all that is necessary for life to continue on this fragile planet we all call home.

We cannot let this continue.   We must stop sowing the seeds of our own destruction.  We must stand firm for aloha aina and malama aina for present and future generations.

In my view, Home rule is crucial.  Government works best at the lowest level — the grassroots level.  The higher up we go — to State, Federal, and international levels, the greater the distance between the decision makers and the people, and the more big money comes into play in buying votes.  The old saying holds true: the higher the monkey goes up the tree, the more your see his okole.

The County of Hawaii needs your support of Communication 9.1. Together we need to defend Home Rule.  As a farmer and constituent I ask for your solidarity.  Haloa, and your ohana, and future generations ask for your solidarity.  Mother nature has been asking for our solidarity but we haven’t been listening.  Now is the time to demonstrate our commitment through action.     Mahalo for your solidarity.

Jim Albertini

Jim Albertini, president — Malu ‘Aina Center For Non-violent Education & Action

P.O. Box 489 Ola’a (Kurtistown) Hawai’i 96760 Phone 808-966-7622 Email ja@malu-aina.org www.malu-aina.org

Testimony in support of Resolution 58

Feb. 4, 2015

Aloha Council members:

I support our County law against geothermal night time drilling. Let’s make it clear to PGV that it needs to respect the neighbors and show some aloha while it is raping the Hawaiian deity, Pele. Hawaii County presently only allows the day time rape of Pele. Perhaps some council member will have the courage, some day, to introduce a bill to outlaw the rape of Pele, and respect Hawaiian religious values, day and night.
Mahalo.

Jim Albertini

—
Jim Albertini Malu ‘Aina Center For Non-violent Education & Action P.O. Box 489 Ola’a (Kurtistown) Hawai’i 96760 Phone 808-966-7622 Email ja@malu-aina.org www.malu-aina.org