Protesters Block Construction of Giant Hawaii Telescope

[Peace Patriot]

9. I would never call protesters "ignorant kooks" on the basis of an AP article.

AP are ignorant kooks, in my opinion. I don't call them the Associated Pukes for nothing. They have repeatedly, and unforgivably, served the interests of those who wage unjust war, steal billions and billions of dollars, steal elections and destroy democracy, here and elsewhere. I do not trust their reporting.

I also wouldn't denigrate a protest because it isn't large or because its point is unusual ("fringe&quot . I've just lived too long, I guess, and know too much history, to dismiss anyone's view, out of hand, because it's just one person or a few people, when they are taking personal risks to peacefully express their views.

My first impression is that I don't agree with these protestors. I passionately support telescope building and space exploration. And this is not the first major telescope at that site. So I wonder why they are protesting the new telescope. I would like to know more about their views. It could be that Native Hawaiians have just been ignored and pushed aside once too often, regarding use of this site. I DON'T KNOW if their grievance is justified--or would be justified in my view--without more direct information, not from a corpo-fascist news source.

As for the horrors of development on Hawaii's beaches, as someone mentions below (why aren't they protesting that, instead of science?), it could be BECAUSE of that horrible development that the mountaintop has become more precious to them as a sacred site. They see yet more roads, more trucks, more heavy equipment, more construction, more people, more disruption, more noise, etc., and this has happened once too often. I very much want the new telescope but I am not a Native Hawaiian; it is not MY precious last bit of sacred environmental ground. It also occurs to me that those of us who passionately support space exploration need to answer the question: If we DO discover intelligent life, or any life, elsewhere--one of our major motivations for investment in astronomy--will we brutally shove it aside and destroy it, in our society's insatiable greed for resources, as we have done to native peoples in the U.S. and all over planet Earth?

We DO need to think about our motives and our society's major ills, even in a case like this, which seems to be one of pristine innocence--pure scientific curiosity, EVIDENTLY harmless, harmless from OUR point of view. Have these considerations been taken into sufficient account by the telescope builders? I DON'T KNOW. So I'm not going to dismiss these protesters as "kooks." I don't have sufficient information to make a judgement of their protest.