"The past is never dead. It's not even past." This argument is about sovereignty. Hawai'i was overthrown 125 years ago, and today's zeitgeist calls that injusti

"The past is never dead. It's not even past." This argument is about sovereignty. Hawai'i was overthrown 125 years ago, and today's zeitgeist calls that injustice. Of course, the overthrow was not something that happened once, then ended. We choose daily whether to reaffirm the ethos of overthrow, or how to reject it. When Akaka convened the working group described in the article, that is one way to grapple with the question of sovereignty. When people talk about whether Native Hawaiians support the telescope, that is another way to do it. In this thread, I see a lot of comments that don't seem aware of the undercurrent. To describe the opposition as superstitious makes sense if you're dismissing some weird part of your own polity. If you were talking about opposition to a cow science facility in India, you probably wouldn't describe the opposition as superstitious. (Not because they aren't, but because sovereign people are entitled to their beliefs.) People are welcome to dismiss the sovereignty of Hawaiians on a message board, but I thought I'd write this comment for anyone that doesn't get what the conversation is about. Similarly, to say that the opposition is "small but vocal" fails to comprehend why the state does not simply remove them. It's because the public (while conflicted) does not love the ethos of overthrow, and the state cannot cart away the protestors without reaffirming that ethos in a very public way.