This editorial was in today’s Star Advertiser calling for civility in the TMT debate.  It’s ironic that the editorial board took time to report on the hateful comment made by an anti-TMT supporter.  I have to wonder why this was never called out with the GMO debacle.

The agricultural community was the target of a lot of hate because of a heavy handed mainland funded organizations.  It was a regular occurrence on the social media to get spiteful and disrespectful rants.  Even politicians were getting targeted by these people.  Did we ever see a news story calling this out? Nope, nothing except for a Civil Beat story on the Babes Against Biotech’s Jessica Mitchell telling Senator Nishihara to go back to Japan. 

The main newspaper never reported anything about what was happening in our communities with the whole anti-GMO war was unfolding on Kauai, the Big Island, and Maui.  Things were really ugly and uncivil and yet no one acknowledged it.

There was no mention of any pro-ag people getting harassed at neighborhood board meetings or the graffiti on the highways.  The Maui paper posted photos online of the graffiti in Lahaina but that was it.  No one talked about the rude anti-GMO activists yelling about Mayor Carvalho’s decision to veto the bad Bill 2491. No one talked about pro-science candidates getting their signs cut up and vandalized.  No one mentioned anything about the activists putting out wanted posters of Dr. Paul Brewbaker, the man who brought the seed industry to Hawaii and fill the loss of sugar cane and pineapple.

I wrote a post that documented the actions of the no aloha crowd over the last several years.  I collected lots of evidence of what these activists have done throughout our state and its a big black eye upon our state.  This behavior went on for over 2 years unchecked and not called out.  The media chose to ignore any of this and actually sustained this bleeding of aloha by their inaction.

It is late in the game for media outlets and long time Hawaii bloggers to call this kind of stuff out.  We let it go unchecked for too long and now it’s clear that history is repeating itself once again.  Do we want the world to see that Hawaii is resistant to change and full of hateful, threatening people who can pull the plug on investments and innovation at any moment? Do we want a Hawaii where laws can be ignored on the basis of mythology? When our leaders take a stand for something and then turn around and back off of their decision, what does that say about their integrity?

Hawaii and its leadership needs to learn from the whole anti-GMO tidal wave of hobby activism that we can’t let history repeat itself.  Speak the truth and expose the real picture about these activists and their no aloha ways.  These folks have no idea about the consequences of what they are asking for as evidenced by the actions and words they choose.  It’s time to restore the aloha in Hawaii or we risk losing it forever at this rate.