Malu 'Aina

Honor Veterans!

     This week in Hilo, Hawaii, Jan. 22 through 28, 2024, will be a motorcycle escort and display of “The Wall That Heals.” The wall is a ¾ replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C. that includes the names of 58,281 Americans who died in that war. The Wall will be available for the public on the Hilo Bay Front soccer fields from 2 PM on Wed. Jan. 23 around the clock to 2 PM Sunday, Jan. 28 to honor the memory of those Americans who died in that war.

     Many of us had family and friends who died in that war, and I know the pain and loss are still very real and deep. Many of us believe that war should never have been fought. Some of us, instead of going to war, joined in non-violent resistance to oppose and stop the war and went to jail and prison out of conviction. Others left the country. It was a war that divided the country and much of the world. Many saw the war, not as a war for freedom and democracy, but a war for US profiteers. I was very moved by US Vietnam War veterans returning from Vietnam who joined in protests against the war. Many even threw their medals on the US Capitol steps in protest. On a single day in 1970 more than 13,000 people, including many vets, were arrested in Washington in a protest against the war.

     More than 3.5 million Vietnamese died in that war. Many more died in Laos and Cambodia too. Hawaii was a command center and staging ground for that war. Since Vietnam, it has been endless wars and regime changes for US global domination, When will we ever learn? It used to be that weapons were manufactured to fight wars. Now wars are manufactured to sell weapons. In the process, good, decent people are sacrificed as pawns to make money for the weapons makers. And tax payers money is diverted away from pressing human needs like housing, medical care, education, etc.

     Today, the US is funding the Israel Genocide in Gaza. The bombs killing Palestinians are US-made. More than 25,000 people have been killed in 3 months in Gaza, mostly women and children. More than 70,000 were injured, and thousands are unaccounted for, likely buried under rubble, 90% of the 2.3 million Gaza population has been displaced. Many people are starving. It’s time for an Immediate Permanent Ceasefire in Gaza. End all US military Aid to Israel. Stop a wider war that could spread to Lebanon, Syria, Iran, etc. even to a global nuclear war. The US is now bombing Yemen. Enough!

Don’t Fund More Wars!

1 . Mourn all victims of violence. 2. Reject violence & war as solutions. 3. Defend civil liberties.
       4. Oppose all discrimination: anti-Islamic, anti-Semitic, anti-Hawaiian, anti-Black, anti-Asian, anti-Russian, anti-LGBTQ, etc. 5. Seek peace through peaceful means and work for justice in Hawai`i and around the world.

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 to receive our posts.

For more information see https:malu-aina.org

Jan. 26, 2024, Hilo Peace Vigil leaflet – week 1165– Fridays 3:30-5 PM downtown Post Office

Aloha Peace Ohana,

Reminder:  Peace Organizing Meetings are held on the 2nd and 4th Mondays of the Month from 6 -8 PM at the Kea’au Community Center located behind the Kea’au Health Clinic and Police Station.  Next meeting Monday, January 22, 2024.  Usually there is Zoom from 6:30 to 7:15 PM.  Zoom Meeting https://us04web.zoom.us/j/9876901944… Meeting ID: 987 690 1944 Passcode: peace now. Steve Paulmier in our group is the person who sets up zoom. His email is <stephen.paulmier@verizon.net> and his phone 430-8866

Every Friday from 3:30-5 PM there is a peace vigil at the downtown Hilo Federal Bldg./Post Office on Waianuenue Ave. from 3:30 to 5 PM with set up at 2:30.  Please pass the word.

We are living in extremely dangerous times.  We need your involvement.

Your participation and solidarity are much appreciated.

Mahalo.

Jim

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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 Visit us on the web at www.malu-aina.org

2024: A Year Toward More

War or Peace?

     How do we assess the current path in which we are heading as humans on planet Earth? Here are just a few signposts along the way.  Billionaires’ wealth skyrockets by 114% amid global poverty surge. https://www.nationofchange.org/2024/01/16/ A senior ally of President Vladimir Putin warned on Thursday that any Ukrainian attacks on missile launch sites inside Russia with arms supplied by the US could trigger a Russian nuclear response. www.reuters.com/world/europe/russias-medvedev…

South Africa’s Genocide Presentation at the UN World Court Against Israel Called  ‘Overwhelming and Devastating’ Why Israel’s war on Gaza is “a textbook case of genocide.” The Genocide is being Live-Streamed. We can’t say we didn’t know.

     January 2024, marks the third anniversary of The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) to comprehensively prohibit nuclear weapons. It is also the first to include provisions to help address the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapon use and testing. The treaty entered into force on 22 January 2021. As of December 18, 2023, 93 countries have signed the treaty and 69 have ratified it. The problem is the present 9 nuclear weapon states, including the US, have refused to sign and ratify the treaty. We need to turn the pressure up. https://www.icrc.org/en/document/2017-treaty-prohibition-nuclear-weapons

     The present Israel/US war on Gaza is already widening and has the potential to escalate into a global nuclear war. The US needs to stop bombing Yemen and stop supplying weapons (including bunker-busting bombs), used by Israel in heavily populated Gaza. There needs to be a Permanent Ceasefire put in place immediately before further escalation. The US State Dept. is bypassing Congress to send more and more weapons to Israel. Does anyone see a connection between the US record-breaking gun violence at home and the US waging wars and record-breaking military weapons sales across the world?

      Become a member of the local and global anti-war movement! What are you waiting for? Make 2024 a Year of Justice and Peace to save humanity from destroying itself. End the silence! Stand Up & Speak Out Now!

Wage Peace Not War!

1 . Mourn all victims of violence. 2. Reject violence & war as solutions. 3. Defend civil liberties.
       4. Oppose all discrimination: anti-Islamic, anti-Semitic, anti-Hawaiian, anti-Black, anti-Asian, anti-Russian, anti-LGBTQ, etc. 5. Seek peace through peaceful means and work for justice in Hawai`i and around the world.

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 to receive our posts.

For more information see https:malu-aina.org

Jan. 19, 2024, Hilo Peace Vigil leaflet – week 1164– Fridays 3:30-5 PM downtown Post Office

Free Hawai’i!

End US Illegal Occupation

Now!

     On Jan. 17, 1893, the US and European Sugar Barons, with the direct assistance of US military troops, carried out a coup — an illegal overthrow of the independent Nation of Hawaii and Queen Liliu’okalani. Six years earlier in 1887, these same business interests orchestrated “the Bayonet Constitution” that forced King David Kalakaua to give more power to these business interests, including a free trade agreement with the US, and exclusive use of Pearl Harbor to the US military. But they wanted more. They wanted total control. In 1898, Hawaii was illegally annexed to the US. Illegal Statehood, followed illegal annexation, which followed the illegal overthrow. It now has been 131 years of illegal occupation.

     From the time of Hawaii’s first western contact in 1778, western diseases reduced Hawaii’s native population drastically, by over 75% in just a few decades. Lands became privatized in former missionary hands that became Big 5 private corporations, sugar, and pineapple plantations, instead of a self-sufficient ahupua’a (mauka to makai –mountain to the sea) village system. Today, instead of being 100% self-sufficient in food, Hawaii now imports over 95% of what is consumed here.        

     Mass tourism and over 100 US military installations are the new plantations.  Former Sugar barons still control a lot of land in Hawaii. But there are new Hi-tech barons with net worth in the hundreds of billions of dollars. The likes of Jeff Bezos ($177B) of Amazon, Mark Zuckerberg ($128B) of Facebook, Larry Ellison ($123B) of Oracle software company, and Michael Dell ($78B) of Dell computers, all have palatial vacation estates here in Hawaii. Ellison owns over 98% of the island of Lanai. Zuckerberg besides his mansions and large land holdings has an underground 5000 square foot doomsday bunker on Kauai, Bezos has a $78 million estate on Maui, and Dell has a multimillion-dollar place in Kukio, the vacation land of the 1/10 of the 1% just north of Kailua-Kona on Hawaii Island. Meanwhile, native Hawaiians have been priced out of Hawaii, their homeland. More Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians) now live in the Las Vegas and the LA area than in Hawaii. Shameful! Justice demands fundamental change and a restored independent Hawaii nation, and ahupua’a village homeland for Kanaka Maoli. 

In 1993 President Bill Clinton signed an apology bill for the illegal overthrow of Hawaii. But an apology is not enough.

No Lie Can Live Forever! Free Hawai’i Now!

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 to receive our posts.

For more information see https:malu-aina.org

January 17, 2024