District 21 Newsletter (Waikiki-Kapahulu)

It’s That Time of the Year Again

This Tuesday, February 20, from 4pm-6:30pm, the district organizations (19-30) of the Hawaii Republican Party of downtown Honolulu, will convene with a potluck at McCoy Pavilion (Ala Moana Park across from Nauru Tower), at which time we select delegates to the state convention on May 18-20 at the Wailea Marriott on Maui, and determine the officers for each district in individual caucuses.

It’s a wonderful opportunity for political participation at the most basic (and effective) level of involvement -- before it gets distorted by the exigencies of conducting campaigns for anything. First one has to identify like-minded people who resonate with what one believes is the essential and central reasons for government and society -- or one will be overwhelmed with the notion that a strict conformity to any line of thinking is the only way possible.

So that is the importance for at least a two-party system -- in which there can be an alternative point of view and solution(s) that might be better. These objectives have a tendency to get lost in only the discussions of power that even to this day, many still think is the only reason for politics -- that it legitimizes a naked grab for power! A few of us would like to believe we’ve moved beyond that -- and that merit is what should determine leadership, and not merely who is the most ruthless.

Despite the overwhelming imbalance of the representation of parties in the legislature, we have to marvel at the achievement of having Linda Lingle as governor of the state of Hawaii, as our greatest achievement as voters and party organizers. That is the office that makes the biggest difference of influence and impact -- which is not lost on Governor Lingle but maximized to the greatest effectiveness ever seen. She was given the opportunity to be the titular leader of Hawaii and has become the de facto leader of Hawaii -- in setting the standard of excellence in public life.

That makes it possible to raise the standards of performance in all other arenas of life -- because the person at the highest level of accountability, is no longer just inventing explanations and excuses for why things aren’t going right -- and undermining and persecuting the perceptions of every citizen who believes otherwise. Already that is a huge difference in the transformation of the underlying culture that makes everything else possible -- and inevitable.

Nothing just happens -- as arbitrarily as many would like us to believe is the way of the world. Things happen for a good reason -- and good things happen, because people make them happen -- and not just because everybody demands that somebody else who they believe has all the power (while they have none), can act and do something.

I remember that’s what I used to point out as the dysfunction of Hawaii political life and government -- that people felt that there was nothing they could do but write a futile and desperate “letter to the editor” of the newspapers, begging, demanding, shaming the governor into doing something -- while the governor insisted that the authors of all those reports showing Hawaii distinctively last in every ranking, had no idea what they were talking about -- "because this was Hawaii, where all the rules of logic and commonsense were overruled.”

That was hardly a climate in which progress (or any change) was possible. And now we have a governor who is at the forefront of change and innovation -- as well, a leader ought to be. So we seem well on our way to restoring trust and integrity to at least the meaning of words from those at the highest offices, in order to have the confidence that we’re talking about the same thing.

What has been helpful also, and no less meaningful, are the changes in culture and thinking, taking place alongside government -- and no longer regarded reflexively as a competitor to the government for its exclusive loyalty and obedience. So the fall of tyrannies in every part of the world, has affected life and the experience in every part of the world -- now that the world is so increasingly and inevitably interconnected. Nowhere is that more true than in these Islands formerly considered the most isolated spot in the world.

It may turn out that because of these historical challenges, Hawaii now stands to be uniquely poised to be the worldwide leader in the emerging international global civilization. The key is the creativeness with which we solve today’s problems -- using today’s greatly enhanced technologies and the resulting greater consciousness by which age-old insurmountable problems can be eliminated instantly and entirely by the will to see life wholly differently.

For those who study cultures and societies, going from last to first is not unprecedented in the evolution of human civilizations -- because those who realize they have nothing to lose and everything to gain -- leapfrog even advanced cultures vested in protecting the status quo even until the complete dissolution and disintegration of their once proud and dominant achievements.

These are exciting times to be a part of creating that emerging world culture -- that these past few hundred years have uniquely prepared the citizens of Hawaii for. Never before has the world been more receptive to new and innovative ideas -- which is the theme of this year’s legislative focus. People are overwhelmingly saying, “No more of the same old same old. Let’s see what else is possible -- and what the old powers that be and who wished always to remain so, didn’t want us to see, or imagine possible.”

That’s how things are different already -- and what we get together to keep alive and moving.

Mike Hu
3123 Esther Street
Honolulu, HI 96815
(808)-561-3645
humikhu@aol.com
www.freerepublic.com/~mikehu