Big Island County Council Member Jen Ruggles made news last week when she began boycotting her official duties due, she said, to her fear that performing the duties of her office might entail committing “war crimes” against Native Hawaiians.
Say, what? This Big island official had to swear to uphold and defend the Constitution in order to run for office, and again when she was sworn in after winning election. And now she wants to renege on her oaths based on this misreading of the laws of war?
See:
“Big Island: Am I A Criminal? Puna Councilwoman Questions Her Legitimacy,” Jason Armstrong, Civil Beat, August 30, 2018.
“Ruggles to skip meetings; Councilwoman not satisfied with county’s response to ‘war crimes’ claim,” Tom Callis, West Hawaii Today, September 2, 2018.
The war crimes claim came up a few years ago when Sai pursued a quasi-legal claim on behalf of a Kauai man, alleging that being required to pay taxes constituted a crime of war by the local and federal governments. When I interviewed the supposed victim, he quickly backpedaled.
See: “War Crimes on Kauai?“, Civil Beat, November 11, 2015.
Having an elected official raise the silly “war crimes” argument is one thing. Heaven knows politicians are prone to doing some very silly things on a regular basis.
But, in my view, the news media has failed the public by not providing careful, critical, and sustained reporting on the issue, providing the facts to debunk these claims, which have largely been given a pass by reporters and editors.
Ruggles relies on an argument that has been peddled by David Keanu Sai, who claims to be the titular head of the long-lost Hawaiian Kingdom (although, of course, that’s a claim disputed by any number of rival claimants to the same Kingdom’s throne).
In its simplest form, Sai and his followers argue that the annexation of Hawaii by the United States was illegal because it was done via a joint resolution of Congress rather than a treaty of annexation. And, if the annexation was illegal, then it must be that Hawaii has been subject to an illegal military occupation for the past 120 years.
Of course, the U.S. Supreme Court–the final arbiter of what’s legal and what isn’t in the United State–long ago upheld the legality of annexation via the joint resolution route, so the argument quickly fails. And then there’s that inconvenient fact that island residents, including Hawaiians, quickly obtained U.S. citizenship and have wielded it now for 120 years, including half a century during which Hawaiians were politically allied with the Republican-controlled territorial government and dominated the patronage that it dispensed.
But that hasn’t deterred its proponents from continuing to misrepresent and selectively quote sources in their continuing quest for evidence of “occupation” along with some semblance of legitimacy.
Back in 2011, I commented on the role of the media and the lazy “he said, she said” reporting style in prolonging this lame debate.
Sai and others making similar arguments don’t get their fair share of serious criticism, constructive or otherwise. In part, there’s political correctness involved. People are just reluctant to be seen as publicly critical of things Hawaiian. Hawaiians ourselves are usually more inclined to shy away from open criticism and conflict, and just work around differences. It’s an island thing we grow up with. We live on an island, so don’t fight unless absolutely necessary. The media, along with most politicians, also seem to believe Hawaiian issues are another “third rail” of public life to be avoided.
The situation hasn’t changed in the intervening time.
In my view, this has some very unfortunate political effects.
First, it requires believers to accept an unhealthy dose of magical thinking, and to venture into a Trump-like world of alternative “facts” that ignore the political realities of more than a century.
Second, it demeans and trivializes the experience of contemporary victims of actual war crimes to compare their experience of violence, pillaging, and wars of occupation to that of Hawaii residents. There just isn’t a rational comparison to be made there.
And, third, it takes the legitimate debate over what should be done to build an entity capable of pursuing Hawaiian sovereignty and self-determination, and pushes that much needed discussion off to the sidelines, while vocal proponents of the “war crimes” and “annexation never happened” theories are allowed to take center stage to spout their views that taxes=war crimes, that the Kingdom lives on, and Hawaii is nothing more than a “fake” state.
There’s so much wrong here that it’s hard to know whether to laugh or cry.
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What are the consequences of a politician refusing to do their job? Recall election?
Thanks Ian. As your essay points out so well, the media are shirking their responsibility to provide a deeper analysis of the “war crimes” topic — they seem happy to attract readers by merely displaying spectacular absurdities. On the broader topic of Hawaiian sovereignty, the media have also shirked their duty by portraying the issue as though there’s an urgent crisis (there isn’t) and that it has only two possible solutions: either an independent nation (taking the entire State and all its people out of the U.S.) or else a federally recognized Indian tribe. But I believe the vast majority of Hawaii’s people, and probably including a majority of ethnic Hawaiians, do not want either of those choices — we want to remain part of the U.S. and we do NOT want our lands and people to be divided along racial lines. Somehow the media avoid presenting this majority view.
You also point out that “Sai and his followers argue that the annexation of Hawaii by the United States was illegal because it was done via a joint resolution of Congress rather than a treaty of annexation” and that the U.S. Supreme Court is “the final arbiter of what’s legal and what isn’t in the United State[s].” I’d like to emphasize that point.
The Republic of Hawaii offered a Treaty of Annexation. Independence activists seem to think that the method whereby the U.S. chose to accept that offer is somehow a matter for “international law” to rule upon. But no. The U.S. is a sovereign nation, which means it is free to make its own decision whether to accept an offer, by using whatever method of decision-making it chooses. The U.S. Senate had long and contentious debates lasting many months over whether to accept Hawaii’s offer. There were actually a few Senators who stated during the debates that joint resolution was not an acceptable method. But they lost. After the Senate voted 42-21 in favor (the rest were absent just before a long holiday, or else failed to vote “present” if they wished to abstain), the Senators on the losing side would certainly have had legal “standing” to take the issue to the Supreme Court regarding either (a) Is joint resolution an acceptable method for approving a Treaty) or (b) Does the vote of 42-21 constitute a 2/3 vote of those present in light of the fact that additional Senators might have been present who failed to actually cast a vote of “present.”
Anyway, the point I’m trying to clarify here is that the legality of approving a Treaty by means of joint resolution is indeed an internal matter for a sovereign U.S. to decide for itself, and cannot be subjected to claims of illegality from other nations nor from the United Nations. Think of it as a legal contract between two parties: Offer (from Republic of Hawaii), Acceptance (by U.S. joint resolution), exchange of something of value (Hawaii’s public lands ceded to U.S. in return for U.S. covering the entire national debt of Hawaii). Many years later, suppose one party decides it no longer likes the deal. The disgruntled party goes to court and tells the judge that the happy party failed to follow its own internal procedures for approving a contract all those years ago, therefore the contract should be nullified. Of course, the judge laughs, says “case dismissed”, and bangs her gavel. Activists might claim there was an armed invasion, puppet regime, continuing belligerent military occupation, etc. — those are separate issues, not related to what method the U.S. used to make its decision to approve a Treaty of Annexation.
Then there’s the claim that the Republic of Hawaii was an illegitimate government which did not truly represent a majority of its citizens and therefore had no right to offer a Treaty of Annexation. But the Republic was in fact given formal recognition as the legitimate government by letters in 11 languages personally signed by emperors, kings, queens, and presidents of at least 19 nations on 4 continents, who personally signed those letters addressed to President Dole in Fall 1894; see photos of them at
https://tinyurl.com/gmdtgmy
Queen Victoria’s very friendly letter alone should be convincing to the Hawaiian activists, who might recall Victoria’s close friendship with Queen Emma, baby Albert, and Queens Kapiolani and Lili’uokalani. Throughout the world governments get overthrown and replaced by new governments through election or revolution, while the nation remains sovereign. The new government gets full diplomatic recognition under international law regardless of the fact that there are disgruntled citizens who say “he’s not MY president”; those new governments have full authority to speak on behalf of their nations, including the right to make treaties.
“But, in my view, the news media has failed the public by not providing careful, critical, and sustained reporting on the issue, providing the facts to debunk these claims, which have largely been given a pass by reporters and editors.”
Reminds me another stark example of journalistic ignorance:
Malia Zimmerman, who now has the national notoriety of false reporting and creating her own fake news, attacked Duke Bainum’s wife in 2004 …. two weeks before the mayoral primary election. Did the honorable Star-Bulletin look into it then? Nope. Somehow, it wasn’t a story. That explanation, in and of itself, was and is gutless and cowardly.
http://www.ilind.net/2017/08/01/former-hawaii-reporter-back-in-the-headlines/
It appears that your critical journalism efforts continue to be needed, Ian.
If Ruggles is going to invoke this crank bullshit and stop carrying out her council duties, then she obviously needs to immediately resign, return salary received, and stop being a useless parasite on the taxpayers of Hawaii County, who have some harsh realities to deal with.
Sai and assorted fellow cranks are not going to be providing crucial disaster assistance or anything else of substance.
The flaky self-importance and bad timing of this mini-spectacle of warped priorities are disgusting.
And the media also need to take a hard look at how Sai’s nonsense is being inflicted upon innocent students by people who really should know better.
Let’s not forget the poor, deluded souls who bought into Sai’s B.S. and his counsel to ignore paying their property taxes and mortgages and lost their houses as a consequence. He even convinced one of the three original founders of Locations, Inc. realty firm to go along with him. They have a lot to answer for.
https://youtu.be/G2y8Sx4B2Sk
So, going back to the subject of the piece, regarding Ruggles and her intention to skip out on her sworn duties as a government officer. I do want to remind all that Ruggles represents a district on the big island that is notorious for housing individuals who take Sai’s ideas and run with them, only because they have nothing really much else to do. Kale Gumapac is a community leader in those parts of which it is well known that he spouts the “illegal occupation” of Hawaii idea while also telling landowners they don’t need to pay their mortgages to banks because they were fraudulently sold the land title, and that the lands truly belong to someone else and that they need to also leave the land.
Get enough of these guys together in a room, and listen to them for a while and the liklihood of being convinced is kinda high. Ruggles does not strike me as a strong minded – principle focused politician that marches to her own drum despite the noise. She got suckered in like many others to the Sai theory of the illegal occupation in Hawaii.
The sad sad thing is that Ruggles is being used big time by these snake oil salesman to continually put forward their claims. Now they have something of a legit. item in the fact that Ruggles is stating that her actions are in response to threats that she could be convicted for a war crime. Pander that around enough and get one or two more weak binary minded politicians in Hawaii to fall in and also say the same thing and you take something that is nothing better than a sleight of hand trick the Wizard of Oz could do better and you actually put legitimacy behind it.
What is needed now is for the Hawaiian community to get its game together and start putting forward solid forward-thinking ideas that are based on real life and not what the snake oil salesman are making. I had thought the Aha that was held last year would have been a good start in having a real, adult conversation on all of these matters. But since then, no real attraction to building on the Aha’s conclusions are being driven, thus scaling the whole issue down again to promoting nonsense ideas and somehow thinking that make this whole theory legit.
And meanwhile, there is the 70% of everyone else in this state waiting for some direction to jump on and support, or beat down in defeat if it is not to the liking of the majority.