Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Obama goes on another holiday....

As if playing golf every weekend isn't enough time off in addition to his other vacations, readers of my blog know that although I've visited Hawaii as often as finances and health allow (and tried for years to get teaching work there), and have spent even more time when younger in Polynesie francais, even for a time being granted a carte de sejour (Residency) there, I've never been to Guam, but I continue to be moved by the overlooked plight of the people there as evidenced in the blog titled "The Drowning Mermaid" and the blog titled "Peace and Justice for Guam and the Pacific". Guam is officially a part of the U.S. Empire and continues to be decimated by our increasing military presence there. Because of protests in Okinawa and Korea, mostly having to do with continued rape by American military scum of young native girls (and children) in both places, and the closure of some bases there, Guam, to where the military is beginning to further relocate, suffers. Our only South Pacific colony, American Samoa, with a large navy base, has been almost culturally genocided by the encroachment of our "culture" - if one can call cheeseburgers and vulgarity, culture. Perhaps it is too late to save Guam from the same fate. However, Obama did promise the people of Guam he would go there after the election to see what was going on with the military in relation to the people and the protest movement.  He has not done so. Thus I am appalled by Obama's going on yet another out of the U.S. holiday under the guise of meeting his fellow "leaders" - most no better than the dictators of China. First they all meet in Hawaii, obviously the preferred holiday spot for our President (a wonderful place to have grown up, but I do get a sense he was always an alienated outsider there - probably something like "repitition compulsion" working), for whom I have lost more and more respect as his time in office passes. Then he travels on to places like Bali and Australia (to firm up Australian support for the Afghan war) just as his wife travelled on taxpayer money (millions for the security detail alone) to Spain and India. & for what? To what end? Really, is he no better than the dimmest of all the right-wing dim bulbs, megalomaniac politicians and jejune hacks vying to replace him? Surely, he must be. Or is it all just the weapons trade and corporate Mammonism now.

(& this from the Honolulu Star-Advertizer (one of the daily newspapers): The managers of Iolani Palace objected to its closure during the gathering of Obama and the APEC oligarchs....22 protestors were arrested and removed from the grounds of the Palace and all workers summarily laid off during the time of the visit of Obama and the Asian dictators. These Hawaiians are supporters of the Sovereignty Movement in Hawaii - which continues to protest against the long continuing illegal seizure and annexation of the islands (before people there - though not a majority of native Hawaiian people, voted for statehood) and its militarization - the first incursion of the U.S. Empire outside of the mainland. It is the first serious secessionist movement since the Civil War. Obama never visits any island other than
Oahu, and always stays, when there, on the Kaneohe military complex (with its adjoining golf course) or at multi-million dollar vacation homes of his sponsors nearby.)