The world has paused . . .
The world has paused, and the business-as-usual has taken a time out in the Aloha State. The tourists are gone and we are privileged to experience a Hawaii that has been stripped of the trappings of greed. No polluting tourist buses on the roads, or clawing tourists clogging up our beautiful islands. Take a moment, take a deep breath, the air is fresh, clean . . . and that sound you are hearing? That's the sound of the trade winds blowing across our island. The voice of greedy private self interest has been temporarily silenced . . . and now we can, for the moment, experience the real joy that is our island State. We have despoiled our home, and now we know it. Our leaders are experiencing this too. Will they lead us back into hell when this is over?
The pandemic has near-instantly remapped the playing field. Our leaders will now have to come out from behind the curtain and abandon "business-as-usual"; they'll need to stop pandering to the whims of the rich and refocus their efforts to achieve a more balanced outcome for our entire community.
Lack of preparedness is a risky game of musical chairs
The pandemic has exposed our governments for the game that they’d been playing at the expense of the public they were supposed to be serving. The nation – and the State of Hawaii – have demonstrated that they were never prepared for a serious crisis, let alone a global pandemic.
What this means is that the politicians that you voted for in the last election lied to you. They convinced you that they would administer the affairs of the public in an actionably responsible way. “The health, safety and well being of my community is my first priority . . . .” Remember that one?
Healthcare providers – doctors, nurses, and support staff – are frightened. There is a critical shortage of PPE (personal protection equipment). There never was an actionable emergency plan, with supporting infrastructure, in place that could be seamlessly applied in the event of a pandemic, a military assault (including bio-attacks), or a serious natural disaster; there is little in the way of a real, actionable, plan for the catastrophe that global warming will bring upon us. And, are we really ready for catastrophic weather events in Hawaii? How about catastrophic geological events like near-location tsunamis?
The curtain pulled back
Like the wizard in “The Wizard of Oz”, when the curtain is pulled back, our leaders are the frightened little diminutive man, frantically cranking the wheels and valve handles of the machine that spins the illusion that continues to fascinate the audience. And then one day, the skies darken and the air becomes stifling, and people are getting sick and dying . . . and nothing in that spin machine can save them. Nothing.
And, you know what? After the smoke clears and the bodies are safely out of sight, people will vote for these very same politicians again.
Shouldn’t we be taking responsibility for our own stupidity?
Pandemic camouflage: using the pandemic as a cover to further other, less public-friendly agendas
Wealthy interests and some of Hawaii’s (and our nation’s) politicians are cloaking themselves in concern over the Covid crisis while, in the background, they are using the occasion to further their own pet agendas.
The DLNR has been looking for an excuse to abandon the public harbor system, for years. Now they've found one.
Suzanne Case's DLNR decided to withdraw all personnel from public harbor offices around the State. Tenants in the harbor system were caught unawares and left to wonder about how harbors would survive at all. Bathrooms were initially locked down, despite the fact that tenants still used the harbor. No one has seen a DLNR enforcement officer . . . in fact, no one has seen a harbormaster. The garbage pick up schedule in the harbors has been curtailed leaving mounds of trash heaped high in dumpsters, and there has been zero interaction with the boating public via the harbor offices, impacting revenue collection, slip allocation and mooring enforcement, among the multitude of daily transactions that are no longer performed.
Nonessential?
The DLNR example is just one of many. The most recent example to come to light was exposed via a letter by one of our residents, to the Governor of Hawaii and the Mayor of Honolulu asking that same adhere to the intent and spirit of their pandemic proclamations and stop putting construction workers at risk by asking them to work on nonessential hotel restoration and beautification projects. Apparently, the governor and the mayor have chosen to redefine the word nonessential so that it is applicable to working class residents but not wealthy private financial self interests that endlessly pander to Hawaii’s leaders for prima donna status.
What constitutes "nonessential" and who is benefiting from that designation? Of course we want to keep as many people working as possible, especially now; the unemployment lines are out the door and around the block here. But the question being asked is whose project is being blessed and why, and which ones get the ax. Interesting side note: one of the main ways in which the disease is transmitted is via contaminated surfaces. Shiny, hard surfaces, often found on tools and materials used for construction, are very real potential disease spreaders. The guys on construction sites work all morning touching materials and tools that may have been handled by a half dozen other people . . . and then go have lunch -- maybe a sandwich that they grab with both hands, for example. So there is not a lessened risk to construction workers, which brings us back around to the question of "nonessential" . . . who, exactly, is allowed to "live" and who "dies."
No more business-as-usual
We have near-instantly entered an era where business-as-usual is no longer a valid performance standard. The governor and the mayor have to think things through now, carefully . . . wholesale shutdowns and indiscriminately deciding which businesses should cease and which should thrive -- who lives and who dies -- is nothing more than the same old dumbed-down knee-jerk responses that we're used to in Hawaii. We'd like to see our leadership think solutions through, and not only for this crisis, but for the potential catastrophic crises that are inevitable in the foreseeable future. The damage from the pandemic will be much more than from the disease itself. Social distancing must be tempered with intelligent schemes that will foster a realistic recovery and maintain healthy social balance. The game is up and the wizard has been discovered. It's time for the grassroots to rise up and to take responsibility for their future.
