NATIVE HAWAIIANS ASK SENATOR NORM COLEMAN TO DROP SPONSORSHIP OF AKAKA HAWAIIAN REORGANIZATION ACT S-310
May 20, 2008

The Resource Sentinel today supported the efforts of two Hawaiian citizens, who are both active members of the majority group of Hawaiian citizens opposed to the creation of an Indian Tribe in Hawaii.

Howard Hanson, editor of the Resource Sentinel is supporting the Hawaiians efforts and interests as a public service. He forwarded their letters to Mr. Coleman in the following e-mail to Mr. Matt Kettelson, Coalition Director of the Norm Coleman for U.S. Senate Committee:

“Hi Matt – Here are copies of letters from a couple Hawaiian citizens opposing the unconstitutional Akaka Legislation that is now called the “Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act of 2007.” S310 would create an unaccountable, destructive, racist and unconstitutional Federal Indian Tribe in Hawaii. Senator Coleman is a sponsor and the letter writers are asking him to drop his sponsorship of this unconstitutional legislation.

Senator Coleman must surely be aware of the negative social and economic ramifications this legislation will cause to the citizens of Hawaii. We have personally been in meetings in the Senators Office in Washington, D.C. each of the last three years with citizens from many states pleading with him to not support the Akaka legislation. Several of these citizens were tribal United States citizens who have no basic civil or human 14th Amendment rights on their reservations. The Senator's staff has heard many horror stories of how these unjust Federal Indian Policies will wreck the “American Dream” in Hawaii just like it has for millions of citizens in many states including many areas here in Minnesota. Believe me when I tell you that tears have come to my eyes many times as I have heard citizens from Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, Oregon and twenty other states tell their stories, which sometimes include being fearful for their own safety. Also the stories about the increased violence and drug trafficking on and around our reservations is making life in the Mille Lacs, Leach, Cass, Winnie, White Earth and Red Lake areas like that experienced in poorly-run third world countries.

Resorts and sports-fishing tourism-related businesses are going broke because of the over-harvest of our lakes by the tribal commercial gill net fishery and our elected officials give us untaxed tribal gaming for our new quality of life pursuit. According to professionally accredited studies, conducted by Prof. John Kindt of the University of Illinois, which are listed in the Congressional Record, tribal gaming can have social costs of three dollars or more for every dollar taken in by the tribe. The “or more” comes if they cheat. These costs rise as crime escalates 10% per year as more citizens become addicted to gambling, start stealing and/or file for bankruptcy.

Matt, we would greatly appreciate your passing this message on to the Senator, along with our request that he no longer be a sponsor of this terribly divisive and unconstitutional legislation, S310.

Thanks - Howard B. Hanson”

Hanson wants some answers to some unanswered questions. “What Senators Akaka and Coleman haven’t been telling the Hawaiian citizens is how many whales and other fish the invented new tribe will harvest or how many casinos Jack Abramoff’s partners, who are not in jail, are going to open.

These two issues alone will devastate the level economic playing field that has so long made Hawaii a wonderful place to live. If it is not working In Minnesota or other states how can it work in Hawaii?”

The letters are as follows.

Senator Norm Coleman 2550 University Avenue W. Suite 100 North St. Paul, MN 55114

May 18, 2008

Dear Senator Coleman,

I am a Hawaiian American and I oppose the Akaka Bill, and while I do not tout the Bible, Jesus Christ said it best when he said that no man can serve two masters. The insistence of our senators and representatives that Hawaiians need federal recognition is a misconception. Recognition will be for the governing entity as quasi-sovereign. Native Hawaiians who will fall under the jurisdiction of a Hawaiian government with tribal status will lose recognition as citizens having equal protection under the law; their rights will no longer be recognized by the federal government as declared in the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. As it stands, the Federal government recognizes Native Hawaiians.

The federal government does not recognize Native American Indians and Native Alaskans, who are enrolled tribal members, as individuals. It is the tribal governments with all the land, power and wealth who are federally recognized as the sovereigns. Enrolled tribal members fall under tribal government jurisdiction and ambiguous tribal laws. As an example, thousands of Native American Indians have been disenrolled from their tribes and evicted from tribal lands. Those people will never have their day in court.

The Akaka Bill proposes that Hawaiians will fall under a federal policy which imitates Federal Indian Policy. Federal Indian Policy promotes tribalism and protects tribal governments - not individual American Indian citizens. American Indian citizens are at the mercy of their tribes. The Akaka bill purports to restore rights somehow perceived to have been lost by Native Hawaiians. The individual rights of all subjects regardless of race were recognized under the first constitution of the Hawaiian Kingdom and that did not change after the Overthrow, Annexation, and Statehood to the present day.

Thoreau wrote in Civil Disobedience “That government is best which governs least.” Adding another layer of government will only intrude in people’s lives. Rights are inherent for all people by virtue of their humanity, not by virtue of their ancestry or nationality. The Bill of Rights does not grant rights; it clearly states what actions the United States government cannot take and was written to protect the rights of all the people. What the Akaka bill proposes would infringe upon people’s rights including those whom it pretends to benefit.

Very truly yours,

Kaleihanamau Johnson Phone: (808) 551-1630

Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it 98-282 Kaonohi Street #101 Aiea, Hawaii 96701

Senator Norm Coleman 2550 University Avenue W. Suite 100 North St. Paul, MN 55114

Friday, May 16, 2008

Dear Senator Coleman,

I strongly implore you to vote against the upcoming Akaka Bill. As a native of the Hawaiian islands with ancestry going back over 100 years, who is a product of the multi-cultural and multi-racial melting pot of Hawaii, I beg you not to separate my people by blood. Although the Akaka Bill supporters wish you to believe that there was once a native Hawaiian only Kingdom, and that it was usurped by the United States unfairly, this fiction could not be farther from the truth. The Kingdom of Hawaii was created by a multi-ethnic team, including Kamehameha the Great, his son-in-law and former British sailor John Young, botanist Spaniard Don Marin, and a host of others. The first constitution of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1840 nobly declared that all people were "of one blood" (“God hath made of one blood all nations of men, to dwell on the face of the earth in unity and blessedness. God has also bestowed certain rights alike on all men, and all chiefs and all people of all lands.”) - enshrining civil rights over 100 years before the United States' civil rights movement led by Dr. King. And the only participation the United States had during the 1893 Hawaiian Revolution was the landing of 162 peacekeepers who remained strictly neutral in the conflict.

The Akaka Bill promises to separate the people of my homeland by race, when today they are intermixed as thoroughly as any population has ever been. The Akaka Bill promises to elevate one set of cousins over another, pitting brother against brother. And the Akaka Bill promises to allow a tiny native Hawaiian elite to define and decide who is allowed in their new government, and who is not. Much like the current Cherokee Freedmen debacle where an ethnic Cherokee elite is trying to disenfranchise other tribal members solely on race, the Akaka Bill gives no constitutional guarantees to those who may be placed under this new native Hawaiian government. These new Akaka Tribe leaders will have the power to decide who is and who is not native Hawaiian enough to be in their tribe, regardless of how much native Hawaiian ancestry they may have. Other native American tribes already suffer from this kind of despotism, and the Akaka Bill promises to bring that to Hawaii.

Ethnic nationalism is never moral, and it pains me to see good senators misled by native Hawaiian victimhood activists, who would undo over 200 years of integration in Hawaii and replace it with apartheid. Please, vote no on the Akaka Bill, and withdraw your sponsorship for this bill which promises to be so painful to my people.

Mahalo,

Jere Krischel civil rights activist 1611 Verdugo Boulevard La Canada, CA 91011 This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

For further information please contact Kaleihanamau Johnson 808.551.1630 Jere Krischell 626.390.4045 Howard Hanson 612.868.3148