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    A Bold Step Forward from Diapers

    Tom Yamachika
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    A Bold Step Forward from Diapers

    Our latest tale of legislative drama starts from diapers.

    Literally.

    House Bill 2414 in this year’s legislative session proposes to enact a general excise exemption for diapers.

    The bill recites that diapers are a large expense for Hawaii families with small children and are essential to babies’ and toddlers’ health as they each require about fifty diaper changes per week, or roughly two hundred diaper changes per month.  However, according to the National Diaper Bank Network, one in three families struggle to afford clean diapers for their children.

    Our general excise tax, the bill supporters point out, is highly regressive, meaning that people on the lower end of the income spectrum spend comparatively more of their hard-earned dollars on general excise tax.  This problem has been known for several decades but has been met with inaction for the most part.  It’s been well known that in this state, lots of things that are considered necessities of life are subjected to the GET, including food and medical care.

    So, the Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii had an interesting comment about this diaper bill.  “While the Chamber supports making a general excise tax exemption for the manufacture, production, packaging and sale of diapers, we believe the bill does not go far enough.,” it sald.  “The Chamber respectfully asks the committee to consider an amendment that would make a general excise tax exemption for the gross proceeds or income from the manufacture, production, packaging, and sale of food and medicine.  Food and medicine are the most important and basic life necessities in this world, and still some struggle to provide those items for their families. We believe including food and medicine into the general excise tax exemption would further help families in need.”

    Similar comments were made by the Hawaii Restaurant Association, Hawaii Food Industry Association, and Retail Merchants of Hawaii. 

    Apparently, that was enough to spur the Senate Committee on Energy, Economic Development, and Tourism into action.  On March 18, the committee voted to amend HB 2414 to add an exemption for food and medicine.  The text of the amended bill was not released by our publication deadline. 

    An exemption for food and medicine would indeed be a bold step forward.  It would undoubtedly have a massive revenue cost, but a massive impact as well. 

    To be sure, such exemptions have been proposed in the past and have mostly fallen to the wayside.  Lots of arguments have broken out, not only here but also in other states that have similar exemptions in their sales tax, about what kinds of food and medical care are “necessities,” presumably deserving of the exemption, versus “luxuries,” which presumably are not.  For example, would you exempt a doctor’s fee for performing plastic surgery?  Would your answer be the same if the surgery was necessary to put a person back together after getting in a car crash?   If a line needs to be drawn somewhere, how do you draw it?

    But—and this may be the point the Senate Committee is trying to make—the difficultly in drawing that line shouldn’t be an excuse for not doing anything about the problem.  We have a social problem in that our tax system is regressive.  It hits people harder when they have less of an ability to pay it.  How do we address that problem in a fair and thoughtful manner, as opposed to simple-mindedly saying that we should enact more and larger taxes that really beat the heck out of those who have some money?

    Otis Expands its Repertoire

    Robert Kay
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    Otis Expands its Repertoire

    Otis and gun cleaning have always been synonymous.  The company’s claim to fame was assembling sturdy, well packaged kits for pistols and rifles in every conceivable caliber or configuration of calibers. For example you could purchase their Three Gun competition cleaning kit (with components to clean a .223/5.56mm rifle, 9mm/40/45 pistol, and a 12 gauge shotgun) or a professional cleaning kit just for Glocks.  

    They have recently expanded their line to include hearing protection, storage solutions and a full array of lubricants, protectants, CLPs, wipes and the like. (More on that later).

    The Ripcord

    My favorite Otis product is the Ripcord which I discovered at SHOT a number of years ago. I picked up a press release on it at the company’s pavilion which they described as a “one-pass cleaning tool”.

    Did that mean all I had to do was to yank the “Ripcord” through the barrel and then put the gun back in the safe?

    Not exactly.

    The Ripcord is really the latest evolution of the venerable bore snake. It’s not meant to be a substitute for a full-on fieldstripping. Rather I use it as sort of internal wipe down of the barrel at the range. By removing a great deal of the “detritus” before you get home, you’re making your maintenance job that much easier. I prefer to do it when the bore is at least “warm” so that you stand a better chance of removing the gunk.

    The multi caliber Otis Ripcord 10-pack is good for rifles, pistols and shotguns of every stripe from .17 Cal to .45

    A little about the design.

    This product differs from the standard bore snake in a number of ways. First off, it’s manufactured from Nomex fibers braided over a molded rubberized core/cable combination. Nomex is a product invented by DuPont, first used for flight suits and later as standard fare for people who need flame resistant garb to protect them from burns such as firemen, racecar drivers, etc.

    This material is not going to melt in a red hot barrel—if you ever get the notion to clean one!

    The Otis people state that the Nomex material acts as both a brush to loosen and a patch to capture fouling particles. If you compare a standard bore snake to the Ripcord you’ll note that the latter looks and feels more like a bungee cord. Whereas the bore snake is made of a flaccid, droopy material, the Ripcord has a rubberized core which forces the Nomex cleaning fibers to rub against the bore. (No, it’s not “stretchy” like a bungee cord but has a similar kind of sturdiness).

    It’s anything but flaccid.

    Because of its dense structure the Ripcord is actually quite robust, and is much easier to insert down a barrel than a standard bore snake which has to be “gravity fed” by tilting the gun downwards. All you do with the Ripcord is to place the longer, narrower end in the chamber and push/slide it–breech-to-muzzle. 

    The tips of the Ripcord have 8-32 threaded ends so you can screw in jags, brushes and the like. (Yes, I will replace my well worn .45 cal Ripcord immediately!)

    When the tip emerges from the end of the barrel you can pull it through. Otis says the core has a “helix shape, which helps engage the rifling throughout the length of the barrel.”

    I was expecting to find an abrasive texture on the exterior, but this is not the case. 

    One of the bore snakes I use for my 1911, has a bristly copper overlay which will poke you if you grab it wrong way. Not so with the Ripcord. The fiber is quite smooth—you won’t jab yourself.

    Unlike a standard bore snake, the ends of the Ripcord have 8-32 threaded ends so you can screw in jags, brushes and the like to assist in cleaning. In addition, says Otis, “the core is a helix shape, which helps engage the rifling throughout the length of the barrel.”

    Whether you want to do this at the range is up to you. Obviously if you want to do a thorough cleaning job you’ll need to combine a copper brush or the like with some chemical and I suspect the range may not be the best place to engage in this kind of endeavor.  

    What happens when it inevitably gets dirty?

    You can wash it with mild soap. Don’t put it in the washing machine or dishwasher! (In order to extend the life of the product, Otis recommends you attach a slotted tip & patch to the Ripcord and place the solvent on the patch instead of the Ripcord).

    The bottom line: If you’re thinking of buying an old-fashioned bore snake, get this instead.

    Shooters Choice FB-10 CLP is a proven product.

    The Ripcord is available in 17 cal, .22 cal/.223 cal, .243 cal, .260 cal, .270 cal., .30 cal/7.62mm, .38 cal/9mm, .40 cal, .45 cal and 12 gauge.

    Better Shooting through chemistry

    Otis also has a dizzying array of cleaning offerings for a number of years (under their own brand) but recently acquired the Shooters Choice company whose products they have both integrated into their own Otis line of cleaning kits and sell separately on sites such as Midway USA, Amazon, etc. 

    In my reckoning, the Shooters Choice signature product is their FP10 CLP which I note Otis includes in their high end sets such as the Elite Range Box. FP-10 CLP, has a great reputation for cleaning carbon residue from burning gunpowder and primer charges, lead deposits from bullets or shot pellets, and deposits from your chamber, forcing cone, cylinders, trigger, slide, ejector mechanism and port, and barrel.

    Otis designs cleaning kits specifically for the US Military. The Army recently acquired their I-MOD and T-MOD cleaning kits for 5.56 and 7.62 caliber rifles.

    They also have new Bio-Degradable Bore Cleaner that’s become part of my routine.

    The bottom line is that Otis make some of the best cleaning kits in the business and according to their spokeswoman, supplies all branches of the service. Recently the Army acquired their I-MOD and  T-MOD cleaning kits for 5.56 and 7.62 caliber rifles.

    If it’s good enough for our servicemen and women, it’s certainly good enough for me.

    Free-fall – A perspective and commentary on art, global and environmental issues–Part 1

    Guest Contributor
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    Free-fall – A perspective and commentary on art, global and environmental issues–Part 1

    by Joe Carlisi

    Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of art and commentary by local painter, Joe Carlisi. Joe has lived all over the world and currently makes his home in Waikiki.

    “A New Earth” – A woman sits naked, empty and unafraid with a leopard peacefully draped across her lap. The leopard’s potential ferocity is not an issue. She is not prey but rather, a peacefully coexisting creature, free of the fears that separate people and nature. Seated at the portal of an unfolding tableau of a new earth. An intense, bright sun rising behind the skeletal silhouette of a massive tree representing the past illuminates a new landscape. A tableau charged with a new energy delivered by a growing river of light, infusing the barren earth.

    ******************

    People are frightened, anxious, confused and depressed. There is good reason. The world, as we have known it, is unraveling at a frighteningly accelerating pace.

    Let’s start with the fundamental set of elements or platform upon which everything . . . literally everything . . . rests. The host environment . .  planet earth, a sensitive, living platform supporting all life as we know it. Something has changed and continues to change on the deepest level. Dimensional. Radical. The limited predictability of nature’s cycles on which we have always relied and patterned our lives is gone.

    Free – Fall!

    Nature abhors chaos but, at the same time, is in a constant state of flux, continuously unfolding in a never ending process. Human activity has unbalanced the core patterns of nature on this planet. We are experiencing the undeniable, resultant meltdown. Turn on the TV.

    The one constant, prevailing, universal law of nature is that all natural systems seek balance. What appears as chaos is the transient free – fall of natural elements re-configuring toward a new balance. Change and a new equilibrium will necessarily come.

    But . . . hey, we want to get back to the way it was . . . to the good old days when we could do whatever we wanted. Blindly flailing, stumbling, never skipping a beat. Driven by the fictional belief that we are special . . .  superior to and above nature . . . gifted with an entire world to treat as our personal warehouse of goods to consume, ravage and casually annihilate as our whims dictate.

    Yeah, let’s get back to work and finish the job…n the eve of our own carefully engineered extinction. The good old days.

    But wait. Maybe there is an opportunity for us in this remake. Perhaps a time to let go of the fictions and delusions that brought us to this point. Time to embrace . . . revel in change. Why not? The old shit clearly failed . . . enormously.

    Segue to Art. Art can jolt your ass . . . shut down, if for only a second, awareness habitually focused and expecting familiar, stale visual stimuli.

    Art is a lens through which we see the world. Not necessarily the world that we expect… but a world beyond the familiar and the explainable that opens  our consciousness to the magic of the unknown.

    ************

    Joseph Carlisi – Biography     

    Born and raised in New York City, he earned BA and MA degrees in Philosophy at Hunter College of the City University of New York and then continued his graduate studies in Philosophy and Artificial Intelligence at Massachusetts Institute of Technology working under the mentorship of Marvin Minsky. Joseph worked as a part time content and copy editor for Harvard University Press (science and medicine) while attending M.I.T.     

    After ten years as a university lecturer, researcher and administrator, he started and managed an advertising / public relations firm in San Diego, CA that handled a wide range of commercial accounts. On the academic side, he published a series of seven articles on animal behavior for Harvard Magazine and two books: “A Guide to Personal Power” and most recently “Playing God on the Eve of Extinction”.

    Joseph Carlisi creates oil on canvas paintings that can be described as vivid, surreal and unexpected. His paintings have been exhibited and sold in: Honolulu, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, New York City, Miami, Tokyo, Yokohama, Amsterdam, Berlin and Salvador Brazil.

    Joe’s art is available for purchase.

    Contact him at carlisijoseph@yahoo.com.

    Earned Income Tax Credit: Great, but Where Is It?

    Tom Yamachika
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    Earned Income Tax Credit: Great, but Where Is It?

    A few years ago, in 2017 to be exact, our lawmakers enacted an Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which then was touted as a truly wonderful way to deliver tax relief to working families.

    If it is properly claimed, that is.

    One alert reader, in a Star-Advertiser letter to the editor, wondered out loud how people are supposed to figure out how to claim the credit…and with good reason.  So, we are going to walk through the return and give you some spoilers.

    Most working families in Hawaii, and any that would qualify for the EITC, would need to file Form N-11, which is the Hawaii income tax returns for residents of this state.  The form, however, does not mention earned income tax credit.  At all.

    Going to the instructions for Form N-11 doesn’t help much.  The form mentions “earned income tax credit” in a couple of places, both while talking about other things.  It does not tell you how to claim this credit.

    So, where do you even put down a number for the Hawaii earned income tax credit once you figure out what the number is?

    Here’s the spoiler!  It goes on line 35, which says, “Total nonrefundable tax credits (attach Schedule CR).”

    Okay, so we now know that we need to pull another form, called Schedule CR, to claim the EITC.

    Where do we find this form?  If you look through the Department of Taxation’s website and look through all the forms starting with the letter N (which is a logical place to look because that’s where you would find Form N-11 and its instructions), you won’t find it.

    Spoiler:  Look through the Department’s website under “Tax Forms Beginning with S.”  Because “Schedule CR” starts with S.

    Okay, now we have Schedule CR.  Where on the form does it mention the EITC?  Well, it doesn’t.

    Off to the Schedule CR instructions we go.  Aha!  There is indeed something that mentions the EITC.  It says that the EITC amount is reported on Line 25, and that you will need to attach Form N-356.

    On Schedule CR itself, line 25 simply says, “Attach Form N-356 (N-11 and N-15 filers only).”  But alas!  There are three different columns on line 25.  Column (a) says, “Total New Credit Claimed for this Tax Year.”  Column (b) says, “Total Credit Applied to this Tax Year.”  Column (c) says, “Unused Credit to Carryover to Next Tax Year.”

    Fortunately, once you pull Form N-356 and get through both pages, the form will tell you how much to put in Columns (a), (b), and (c).

    So, here’s the ultimate spoiler:  To claim the EITC, you need to pull Form N-356 and Schedule CR, and you need to attach them both to your income tax return.

    To those of you who want to claim the EITC and you (or your tax preparer) have found this article:  Congratulations!  Now you know what forms to pull and where the amounts from the forms go to.

    For those you who want to claim the EITC and you (or your tax preparer) have not found this article:  Good luck!  You’re going to need it.

    And, if you’re a lawmaker or you’re at the Department of Taxation, you might want to consider making this credit easier to find so the working families that we want to help at least have a fighting chance at getting this relief.

    Non-Ad Valorem Property Tax Financing

    Tom Yamachika
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    Non-Ad Valorem Property Tax Financing

    In our Legislature this year, there is a bill advancing that contains an innovative (or horrible, depending on your point of view) idea for financing certain home improvements.

    Let’s say you own a home and you need or want a septic system, connection to a sewer system, clean energy technology, efficiency technology, or a resiliency measure (whatever that means).  The bill, HB 2088, creates a program where you could go to a lender, borrow money to make that improvement, and then repay the loan with payments that are added to your property tax bill.

    If you have a mortgage on the home, like most folks do, you won’t have to worry about your mortgage lender getting upset about a new loan coming on to the property.  The bill provides that although the new loan would be repaid through the property tax system, and property tax payments get paid first if something bad happens and the property is foreclosed, the new lender only has to notify the mortgage holder of the new loan and the mortgage holder would not be able to do anything about it.

    In that way, the supporters of the bill say, the governments can help homeowners obtain loans for socially desirable improvements to the property that would make the home safer or enable it to use green energy.  For example, the bill recites that there are 11,000 cesspools on Oahu that all must be upgraded by 2050 to preserve the integrity of our ground water.

    In other states, as of 2019, over 200,000 homeowners have made $5 billion in energy efficiency and other improvements to their homes through this kind of financing. Typical home improvement projects include replacement of broken or failing heating and cooling systems and hot water heaters; air sealing and insulation; ENERGY STAR doors, windows, roofing; ENERGY STAR appliances; solar photovoltaic systems; and water conservation and resiliency measures (e.g., seismic retrofits and wind hazard protection).  This type of program is now available in California, Florida, and Missouri.

    The banks, in the meantime, are screaming bloody murder.  They point out that when they analyze a potential mortgagor’s collateral and ability to repay a loan, they assume that there will be no other, later loan that will hop ahead of the mortgage in lien priority.  There will be situations where the bank will be confident that the borrower would be able to repay both loans, and in those the bank would be willing to voluntarily consent to the non-ad valorem property tax financing.  But the banks are worried about the parts of the bill that would force them to accept a new loan that they wouldn’t otherwise consent to, and they say it’s unfair and unconstitutional for the government to come in and alter their contractual relationships with their borrowers in that way.  So the Hawaii Bankers Association, the Hawaii Credit Union League, the Mortgage Bankers Association of Hawaii, and the Hawaii Financial Services Association submitted testimony opposing the bill; and even the Department of the Attorney General has weighed in with some concerns that the bill might be unconstitutional because it impairs the obligation of contracts.

    So what is going to happen here?  Is the dogfight between the bill supporters and the lenders going to continue?  Will there be a compromise legislation that satisfies all interests?  The bill is set to cross over into the Senate, where there will be further testimony and debate.

    ‘Tokyo model’ could help Hawaii produce more affordable housing

    Grassroot Institute
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    ‘Tokyo model’ could help Hawaii produce more affordable housing

    By Keli’i Akina

    When you’re a hammer, the saying goes, everything looks like a nail. And when you’re a fan of big government, regulation is the go-to solution to every problem. 

    That may be why so many of our policymakers try to address Hawaii’s housing crisis via big-government solutions — like taxes on empty homes, government-funded housing projects and regulations to limit or mandate certain kinds of development. 

    Keli’i Akina

    Extensive research, however, shows that big government is the reason for Hawaii’s housing shortage to begin with. So can we please try something else?

    The reality is that if we want to turn things around, we shouldn’t be trying to import policies from areas with high housing costs, like San Francisco, or countries that have vastly different social and government structures, like Singapore. Instead, we should be looking at places that have managed to keep housing affordable, like Tokyo, where housing prices have been relatively flat for two decades.

    On my latest “Hawaii Together” program on the ThinkTech Hawaii network, I discussed the “Tokyo model” for housing and what it could mean for Hawaii with Edward Pinto, head of the American Enterprise Institute Housing Center. Pinto has spent decades studying housing and development, and he easily pinpointed the origin of Hawaii’s high housing prices.

    According to Pinto, Hawaii, had robust housing construction up until about 1972 or 1973, but then it collapsed and it has never recovered.

    Reasons for that, he said, include the state Land Use Commission, established in 1961, and Hawaii Environmental Policy Act of 1974, both of which are heavily involved in land-use management.

    “It all comes down to land use and making things illegal,” said Pinto. “Basically, … reasonable density — we call it light-touch density — has been made illegal [in Hawaii]. Having two units on a lot is illegal. And all of these things just drive up the land cost.”

    As a result, Pinto said, Hawaii has one of the most expensive housing markets in the world, just behind San Francisco and just ahead of London.

    In a guest appearance on Sen. Stanley Chang’s “Our Homes” podcast, Pinto said a growing body of research shows that “subsidized housing, inclusionary housing, rent control and land-use policies that constrain supply end up creating scarcity and raising costs. … The reason that these policies have failed is that they don’t tackle the root cause, but rather the symptom.”

    Chang is a well-known advocate of the so-called Singapore model of housing, which is the basis for his ALOHA homes bill that he has introduced in the Hawaii Legislature for several years now. Pinto said that he doubts that model could be reproduced in Hawaii, for several important reasons.

    “For example,” he said, “Singapore, after its independence, had really a clean slate. Singapore back in the 1960s consisted mostly of shanty towns, and the government today owns 90% of the land and it can acquire private land at low costs. 

    “Furthermore, Singapore also has a highly effective public leadership cadre and it really has only one form of government that is not as responsive to voters necessarily, which allows it to overcome many barriers to increasing supply. 

    “So the downsides for applying such a model to Hawaii,” he said, “could be that this Singapore model may not necessarily be scalable. And if you end up with a failure, it could come at a heavy cost, because you could end up with public housing, as is very common in the mainland, where you have basically increased racial and income segregation, you have also trapped many residents in housing and it has reduced social mobility.” 

    Finally, he said, “generally, these projects, if the government gets involved, tend to be very expensive and they tend to exceed the budget.”

    For Hawaii, Pinto said a better option would be the sort of “light-touch density” zoning that has helped Tokyo produce adequate affordable housing.

    The secret to Tokyo’s success? Property rights. 

    After World War II, Pinto explained, Japan’s new constitution provided for strong property rights. By the 1980s, this included the right to develop your property as you wished, so long as it wasn’t a nuisance.

    “You could build duplexes, quadruplexes, triplexes, high-rise buildings. As a result,” Pinto said, “Tokyo has built more housing in a period than the entire state of California by a multiple.”

    This has enabled Tokyo to meet the needs of its population, in terms of keeping housing affordable for both renters and homeowners.

    Pinto said light-touch density relies partly on “by-right” zoning, which allows projects that meet all zoning requirements to proceed without going through a discretionary approval process. This, in effect, legalizes small, fast, economical, adaptable and simple additions to housing supply while still accounting for health and safety.

    Pinto estimated that if Hawaii were to adopt such policies, Oahu alone could add 26,000 homes over the next 10 years. 

    On Chang’s “Our Homes” podcast, Pinto’s colleague at the Housing Center, Tobias Peter, said it also would be helpful for Hawaii to make more land available for residential use. Specifically, as the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii has noted, with only 5% of Hawaii land available for residential construction, an increase of only 1 or 2 percentage points would translate to a 20% or 40% increase, respectively, in the land available for housing.  

    I realize, of course, that there is no such thing as a quick fix to Hawaii’s housing crisis. It is a problem that has been decades in the making, and it is being made worse through fashionable policies like inclusionary zoning. 

    I also have no doubt that the people who want to use the government to solve the problem are well-meaning. But the data is clear: If we want our children and grandchildren to be able to find affordable homes in Hawaii, we need to liberalize our state and local land-use and zoning regulations.
    ___________

    Keli’i Akina is president and CEO of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii.

    Blind to History, Stumbling into the Apocalypse — Reflections on a recent exhibition at UH West Oʻahu

    Guest Contributor
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    Blind to History, Stumbling into the Apocalypse — Reflections on a recent exhibition at UH West Oʻahu

    Editor’s Note: University of Hawaii West Oahu Library was one of 50 U.S. libraries selected to host Americans and the Holocaust, a traveling exhibition from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum that examines Americans’ responses to Nazism, war and genocide in Europe during the 1930s and 1940s. In this essay Louis Herman, PhD, Professor of Political Science at the University of Hawaiʻi-West Oʻahu reflects on the value of the exhibit in understanding the current rise of neo fascist politics globally, and how vital it is for us to respond boldly.

    Americans came perilously close to colluding in the mass evil unleashed on the world by Hitler and the Nazi party. We have never been in more urgent need of learning from our past blunders.  After World War I fascist delusions gripped large sections of the traumatized population of Germany. By 1933 the Nazis were elected as the largest party in the Reichstag.

    In 1941, the Nazi’s Wannsee Conference coordinated every branch of the German government and mobilized the resources of some of its best engineers to create a production line of death dedicated to exterminating all the Jews of Europe. By the end of World War II, the Nazis had succeeded in murdering some two thirds: six million Jews. Altogether, tens of millions of people perished because of the Nazi driven insanity of World War II. Today in these same ‘bloodlands’ of central Europe, another delusional dictator, Vladimir Putin, is waging war against the entire population of democratic Ukraine.

    UH West O’ahu Chancellor Maenette Benham discusses the exhibit.

    The Holocaust has become the paradigm for evil in modernity. But in a recent poll of Americans under 40—Millennials and Gen Zs—63% did not know six million Jews were murdered by the Nazis. In New York, the state with the largest Jewish population in America, almost 20% of those surveyed thought the Jews caused the Holocaust. We now live in an age of compulsive consumption, continuous distraction and cynicism about established authority. As a result, too many have given up on the hard, but deeply humanizing pursuit of wisdom seeking. Education—knowledge of, and love for, the truth of the good of the whole—has now become an urgent survival issue.

    The traveling exhibit, Americans and the Holocaust, gives a vividly curated glimpse into the American mindset of the late 30’s and 40’s. We are shown  patterns of fascist and racist thinking, chillingly close to what we see on the rise today in American and global politics.  We see how in the 30’s many Americans slipped into fascism through greed, ignorance, and bigotry. The great Henry Ford was a conspiracy theorist who funded the Jew-hating Dearborn Independent with a circulation of 100,000.The Nazis approvingly bound and published copies in Germany, with Hitler citing Ford in Mein Kampf as an inspirational figure. For others, ignorance allowed fear and hatred take over.  

    The Nazis approvingly bound and published copies in Germany, with Hitler citing Ford in Mein Kampf as an inspirational figure. For others, ignorance allowed fear and hatred take over.  In 1939, some 20,000 Americans gathered in Madison Square Garden, organized by the pro-Nazi German American Bund, to cheer “Heil Hitler” and boo Roosevelt. Throughout the war, IBM supplied the computers and punch cards used in the Nazi’s administration of the extermination centers.

    By 1939,  300,000 German Jews had applied for visas to America. But the immigration quota system allowed no more than 27,000 Jews a year, and even that was never filled. Many of those left waiting were killed in the death camps. In May of 1940 after the Nazis had invaded Poland, and occupied Czechoslovakia, Austria and France, a poll revealed that 93% of Americans opposed entering the war to fight Hitler.

    When global leadership has never been more critical, we are regressing into the murderous narcissism of autocrats and hypermasculine strongmen. As Anne Applebaum put it in a recent article, liberal democracies are in retreat, ethnonationalism is advancing and “the bad guys are winning”: we have Vladimir Putin in Russia, Xi Jinping in China, Kim Jong Un in North Korea and Bolsonaro in Brazil (who is escalating the destruction of the Amazon rainforest). Then there are a host of autocratic rulers on the sidelines, Erdogan in Turkey, Orban in Hungary, Bashir Al Assad in Syria, Duterte in the Philippines, Maduro in Venezuela, and the generals of Myanmar, who grabbed power through strategic terror, shooting dozens of student demonstrators, and imprisoning, torturing and murdering opposition leaders. Such dictatorships are only possible because of the blind obedience of individual soldiers and police. Thoughtless obedience to authority—Hannah Arendt’s ‘banality of evil’—is encouraged by a population made submissive by fear and stupefied by propaganda.

    A poster from the exhibition

    Today, civic space is increasingly infiltrated by propaganda brigades, bot factories, and troll farms, churning out fake news and grotesque and bloody conspiracy theories. As Yale historian Timothy Snyder put it, “if you want to rip the heart out of a democracy directly, if you want to go right at it and kill it, what you do is you go after facts. And that is what modern authoritarians do. Step one: You lie yourself, all the time. Step two: You say it’s your opponents and the journalists who lie. Step three: Everyone looks around and says, ʻWhat is truth? There is no truth.’ And then, resistance is impossible, and the game is over.”

    In the 2016 election in the USA, the ratio of professional news to junk news on Twitter was 1:1. An internal leaked Facebook report revealed the scale of a massive disinformation campaign engineered by Russia and its allies. For example, of top 20 Christian Facebook sites, 19 were fake, located in Russia and Eastern Europe; it was a similar story with a majority of the top native American and African American sites. Altogether, during the 2020 elections, troll farms regularly reached 140 million Americans a month.

    Without a shared narrative of meaning, without some sort of truth-grounding, democracy is dead, and the world becomes chaotic. 

    German Jewish Refugee soldiers with language skills such as Stephan Lewy (pictured above) were eager to serve.

    In these critical times, it is important for us to take courage from those who are willing to fight and die for the ideal of a deep democracy; not simply a democracy of elections, but one based on a culture which nurtures truth-loving activists. We see something of this in the extraordinary armed resistance of Ukrainians led by Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Vladimir Putin claims to be de-Nazifying Ukraine. The absurdity of Putin’s lie is revealed by the fact that Zelensky is Jewish and the combined list of Ukraine’s fascist and right-wing parties in the 2019 election received a mere 2.15% of the vote, with no seats in parliament. This means Ukraine actually has the lowest political support for fascists of any European country. The tragic irony is that it is Putin who is the fascist. Virtually an entire Ukrainian people, with an army outnumbered eight to one, are fighting furiously, defending their young democracy, holding off the tyranny of Putin’s kleptocracy. We see a comparable nobility of purpose in the resistance of the Hong Kong youth to the brutality of the Xi Jinping regime of China; we see it also in the determination of the thousands of students in Myanmar who kept demonstrating for democracy in the face of the bullets of the Generals.

    This extraordinary exhibition of Americans and the Holocaust reminds us that to be human is to always walk on the edge of falling from order into chaos, mass murder—evil. We are fortunate in Hawaiʻi to be more sensitive to issues of domination, colonialism, and the pathologies of corporate elites controlling the lives of the many. Indigenous wisdom and the deep spiritual traditions of humanity offer a healing response to the pathologies of fascism. They teach us that our primary moral imperative is to wake up; to seek truth in the service of caring for, and loving, all life; and they teach us that this spiritual foundation needs to be the beating heart of a deep democracy.

    Further Reading and Resources:
    Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder
    The Bad Guys are Winning by Anne Applebaum
    Survey finds ‘shocking’ lack of Holocaust knowledge among millennials and Gen Z by Kit Ramgopal
    In 60 Seconds, A ‘Daily Show’ Guest Brilliantly Exposed The Danger Of ‘Post-Truth’ by Maxwell Strachan
    Internal Alarm, Public Shrugs: Facebook’s Employees Dissect Its Election Role by Ryan Mac and Sheera Frenkel
    Troll farms reached 140 million Americans a month on Facebook before 2020 election, internal report shows by Karen Hao
    The author of this piece, Louis Herman, grew up in an orthodox Jewish community in apartheid South Africa in the aftermath of the Holocaust. The two poles of his formative political experiences were shock at human caused suffering and the beauty and healing power of Southern Africa wilderness. At the age of 12 he left South Africa with his family to receive a rigorous science education in England. He obtained degrees in medicine and the history and philosophy of science at Cambridge University and then took a break from academia for three years to get some deeper experience of life.He emigrated to Israel to explore life on a kibbutz—the agricultural commune which built the country—and then volunteered for military service in a paratrooper unit. His participation in a Middle East war confronted him with two hard facts—the futility of war as a solution to political problems and the recognition of Palestinians as an indigenous population.

    He returned to academia at the Hebrew University to contemplate the deeper questions of life—“How should we best live together?’ What is the Good Life?”  He was invited to complete his PhD at the University of Hawaiʻi, where he found the perfect vantage for developing a global perspective on the human condition. In 2013, he published Future Primal: How our Wilderness Origins Show us a Way Forward, which presents the politics of indigenous and early hunting-gathering societies as offering profound insights into truth seeking and righteous living which industrial society has lost touch with.

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    Launching an Annual Attack on the Wealthy

    Tom Yamachika
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    Launching an Annual Attack on the Wealthy

    Occasionally, lawmakers in the square building on Beretania Street come up with an idea that hasn’t been tried here before to see whether it sticks to the wall.  This year, one of those ideas is a “wealth tax.”  It’s currently in Senate Bill 3182, and Senate Bill 3250 would form a working group to study imposition of a wealth tax.

    What’s the difference between a wealth tax and the income tax that most of us are more familiar with?  Income tax is imposed when you make money but it doesn’t apply when you simply hold on to it.  Wealth tax, like real property tax, is imposed every year on the wealth that you do have.  The current wealth tax proposal would impose a 1% tax on the state net worth of any individual who holds $20 million or more in assets in the State.  (This, by the way, might not be a problem only for the ultra-wealthy.  If the tax isn’t producing what lawmakers want, there is always the prospect that future legislatures will drop the threshold so that it bites more people.)

    With the current tax proposal, practical difficulties abound.  One of them is figuring out what is an asset in the State (as opposed to somewhere else).  With real property and physical objects, that determination is relatively easy.  Where it gets tough is when the assets are intangible.  Suppose a taxpayer has stocks and bonds in various companies, some located in Hawaii, some entirely out of state, some foreign.  Even bank accounts can pose difficulties – suppose the taxpayer lives here but the bank is located in North Carolina.  Then what?

    Another difficulty is determining how much some of these properties are worth.  Bank accounts, publicly traded stocks, and such things as commodity futures might not pose that much of a problem because the markets come up with a price for them every day.  Maybe those owning real property could use the valuation numbers that the county in which the property sits comes up with.  But what about shares in a closely held business?  Art and collectibles (yes, even that PG 1/60 RX-78-2 Gundam Gold Version)?  And even the family car?  Taxpayers exposed to a wealth tax need to value their property every year, not just at date of death for estate tax purposes.

    Why impose a wealth tax?  It’s unclear who’s behind the one we have here, but wealth taxes have been proposed elsewhere – California, for instance – and its teachers’ union came out to support it.  “California billionaires have increased their wealth astronomically since the beginning of the pandemic, while regular working families have struggled to pay their bills,” their union president said in a statement.  “It’s time we took care of each other, and not just watch billionaires fly into space.”  It’s unclear whether the teachers’ union here in Hawaii is thinking the same thing, although a couple of local teachers did submit testimony in support of the wealth tax bill.

    California’s wealth tax had its opponents as well.  The California Taxpayers Association, California’s counterpart to the Tax Foundation of Hawaii, stated, “Last year’s version of the wealth tax led many Californians to rethink living in California, just by virtue of being introduced.  In the last year, these taxpayers sought out legal advice, hired tax experts who specialize in residency issues, and seriously reconsidered their future in California.  … If high earners leave – and they will, to avoid the tax hike as well as the headache of having to annually appraise everything they own, anywhere in the world – the taxpayers left in California will be asked to pay more.”

    Will the same issues play out here in Hawaii the same way?  As the Grassroot Institute points out, we’re already losing people – 32,237 since fiscal 2016, and the top 1% of Hawaii’s income earners already pay 23% of all income taxes.  If enough of those folks jump on planes as well, we will be seriously hurting for revenue…meaning lawmakers may well look to the rest of us to make up the difference.

    Russian oil imports cut off; will our D.C. delegates rise to the occasion?

    Grassroot Institute
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    Russian oil imports cut off; will our D.C. delegates rise to the occasion?

    By Keli’i Akina

    It has been a whirlwind week at the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii. But I’m not complaining. 

    International upheaval in Europe has brought significant attention to the Jones Act, which has long been a factor in Hawaii’s high cost of living because of its severe restrictions on shipping between U.S. ports. 

    Now, with the outbreak of war between Russia and Ukraine, the 101-year-old federal maritime law is even being recognized as a danger to Hawaii’s energy security.

    Keli’i Akina

    Institute research associate Jonathan Helton wrote about this early last week in his article “Hawaii needs Jones Act waiver for oil imports,” and I wrote about it again in my “President’s Corner” column a week ago, “Jones Act threatens Hawaii energy security.”

    The problem is that typically, Hawaii gets between one-fifth and one-third of its crude oil from Russia. This is because the Jones Act makes it too expensive to buy oil from U.S. sources. 

    As I said last week, maybe we should never have been so reliant on Russian oil imports to begin with. But that was a choice based on the high cost of U.S. oil, thanks to the Jones Act.

    The best way forward, I said, is to obtain a permanent Jones Act exemption for our state that would let Hawaii buy oil from U.S. sources at lower costs.

    On Monday, The Wall Street Journal — with a national circulation of almost 3 million — picked up our warnings and editorialized about it. The secondary headline of the editorial read: “Hawaii imports Moscow crude, and the Jones Act is one bad reason why.” Related national coverage soon appeared in the Washington Examiner, TIME, USA Today and Forbes. 

    Here in Hawaii, reporters reached out to us from local, national and international media. 

    Then on Thursday, Par Pacific Holdings, owner of Hawaii’s only remaining oil refinery, announced it would be suspending its purchases of Russian crude oil, to be replaced by shipments from sources in North and South America. 

    Oil tankers at the Russian petroleum port in Vladivostok.

    That announcement reinforced our belief that Hawaii requires quick, decisive action on the Jones Act to prevent energy and gasoline prices locally from soaring to sky-high levels.

    Shortly afterward, I sent a letter on behalf of the Grassroot Institute to President Joe Biden, asking him to grant Hawaii a one-year exemption from the Jones Act for fuel imports, to give the state greater flexibility in its oil purchases.

    As I explained in our news release about the request, the immediate purpose of the waiver would be to alleviate Hawaii’s fuel crisis. But such an exemption also would allow policymakers to review the potential effects of long-term updating of the Jones Act. A one-year waiver would prove a useful experiment.

    Yesterday, the Honolulu Star Advertiser reported on the institute’s waiver request, and that  U.S. Rep. Ed Case also will be asking the U.S. Department of Transportation for a waiver that would improve Hawaii’s access to domestic oil. 

    My fingers are crossed that the rest of Hawaii’s delegation will grasp the seriousness of our situation and support Case in his actions.

    To be clear: A limited Jones Act waiver would not necessarily cause a significant drop in Hawaii’s high gas and energy prices. The Ukraine crisis is affecting energy supplies and prices around the world. 

    However, a waiver would be an important first step toward addressing the fact that the Jones Act has made our state dependent on foreign oil and vulnerable to crises like the current conflict with Russia.

    I am proud of the role that the Grassroot Institute has played in informing policymakers, the media and the public about the need for a Jones Act waiver for Hawaii. 

    Like you, I am concerned about the impact higher energy prices might have on each of us individually and on our economy as a whole, which is still struggling to recover after two years of crippling coronavirus lockdowns.

    I hope that President Biden hears and responds to our request for a limited Jones Act waiver. In any case, I remain committed to addressing once and for all our state’s energy supply vulnerabilities.

    If anything, this crisis has highlighted how critical it is that we update the Jones Act for the 21st century.
    ____________

    Keli’i Akina is president and CEO of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii.

    Perhaps Another Civil Responsibility–Keeping Anger to Yourself

    Guest Contributor
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    Perhaps Another Civil Responsibility–Keeping Anger to Yourself

    Editor’s Note:

    Dr. Greg Yuen is local-born psychiatrist in private practice for over 40 years.  He has also, for as many years, taught free taichi classes in both Honolulu and Kailua.  When he was twelve, the death of his grandmother launched him on a quest for longevity and an answer for a fear of death.  Dr. Yuen blends his training in Western medicine with his experience in Eastern approaches to health.  A license massage therapist, he has explored nutrition and macrobiotics, and has maintained a study and practice of Tibetan buddhism.  He is presently promoting a self-massage technique called do-in to optimize personal healing. His approach to health is holistic and focused on self-health where an individual strives for more responsibility for their own health.  To that end, he produced a program called Natural Success to apply natural principles for health and happiness.

    ********

    Nurses are being assaulted by patients.  Flight attendants are being assaulted by passengers.  Asians are being assaulted in public.  Just over a year ago rioters stormed the US Capitol in a violent assault.  Isn’t all of this going too far?

    I would like to propose a new civil responsibility.  The objective of this new responsibility seeks to reduce the level of anger in our society.  If we reduce our anger, then it will likely reduce the level of violence that we all share in our daily lives. 

    Let’s begin with the word “civil”.  It seems like we’ve forgotten the meaning of that word.  At least some of us are certainly not putting that word into action.

    “Civil” means “courteous and polite”.  Hardly what we have been seeing these days.  Perhaps some civility is in order in terms of dealing with the consequences of Covid: whether it be with wearing masks or with blaming Covid’s origins.  Can we even be civil about the democratic process and the results of an election? 

    The actual primary meaning of “civil”, in the dictionary, is “relating to ordinary citizens and their concerns…”  Thus, the “civil” war was about citizens.  Isn’t it ironic that when we gave up being “civil”, we ended up in a “civil” war.  Pray that this does not happen again.

    Now let’s move on to “responsibility”.  The responsibility I am proposing is a radical departure from our usual conceptions of it.  If you do something, you generally think you are responsible for that act.  If someone does something to you, you would usually say that other person is responsible for that act. 

    My proposal is that we assume responsibility for all acts done unto us by others.  Why would I suggest something that seems so unjust?  Because it leads to a conclusion that is better for you and everyone else.  It strives to diminish any justified anger for a situation.  

                    ANGER DIRECTS TOWARDS OTHERS OR SITUATIONS

     

    Those of us who would resort to violence because of their anger are not generally the ones who would like to reduce anger in our society.  Trying to get them to be more civil is downright futile.  Therefore, as responsible citizens, those of us who deplore the violence and level of anger in our society need to rise up.  We are the ones who must make the change if any change is going to occur.  We have to be the example for the recalcitrant to follow.  We ourselves also harbor comparatively reduced levels of anger and if we can show them that we can reduce it within ourselves, perhaps this will have rippling effects for others.

    In assuming responsibility for another person’s acts upon you, I’m not saying it is your “fault”.  The other person is still the actual perpetrator of that act.  By you assuming responsibility for that act, you give yourself enormous power.  If you are “responsible” for that act, then you can make that act disappear.  Of course, you can’t change history but you can transform the situation to your advantage

                     RESPONSIBIITY REDUCES ANGER

    When you get angry at someone who has mistreated you, you end up suffering more than the perpetrator.  He’s not suffering while you brood.  Why put yourself in that situation?  You can choose to be responsible because that leaves less room for anger to arise within yourself.  Of course, getting angry at yourself is also out of the equation here.  You take responsibility for your frame of mind as you are really the only one who can tame it.  You take a stand that any lingering anger is more detrimental to you than beneficial.  Your miscreant does not suffer while you smolder with anger.

    End of Part 1

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