Parx on Supreme Court Decision

SUBHEAD: Tempest in a teapot, much ado about nothing, not with a bang but a whimper. By Andy Parx on 31 March 2009 in The Parx Daily News - http://parxnewsdaily.blogspot.com/2009/03/not-so-fast-there-rover.html Image above: A Hawaiian sovereignty supporter demonstrates in Honolulu. From http://www.bigisland-bigisland.com/hawaiian-sovereginty-free-hawaii-is-my-take.html Not So Fast There Rover Pick you trite cliché but it’s gratifying to see the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) tell everyone from the respondents to the pundits- and especially to the Hawai`i Supreme Court (SCOHI) - to go home shut the hell up in today’s decision on the “ceded lands” case. Because despite what the mainstream media and the state is saying the decision did not establish any new federally-sanctioned state “ownership” in any way shape or form, it simply vacated it and remanded it back to the SCOHI. What they actually said - not what the Honolulu Advertiser or state attorney general wishes they said- was:

(W)e have no authority to decide questions of Hawaiian law or to provide redress for past wrongs except as provided for by federal law. The judgment of the Supreme Court of Hawaii is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

Seems like another typical case of American blind justice and the judges were going to look at the 27 8x10 color glossy photographs with the circles and arrows on the back that purportedly showed state ownership the lands stolen from kanaka maoli lands. The SCOTUS just sent the whole matter back to the SCOHI to re-write their opinion without mentioning the 1993 “Apology Law”. The decision wasn’t based on their stilted and selectively amnesic recitation of the Amerikan view of the thrift-based “ownership” of the “crown lands”. It was solely based on the use of federal law by the SCOHI. Most people expected this would happen after the oral arguments. Even most of us who asked what part of the apology’s “confession” made the illegal theft legal didn’t expect true justice from a court that has always endorsed the genocidal underpinnings of Amerika. Still it was nice to see a rap on the knuckles for both Governor Linda Lingle’s corrupt shyster mouthpiece Attorney General Mark Bennett and the state Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) who thought they were going to get some kind of definitive ruling answering the question of who ‘owns’ the land. Even we momentarily expected the worst, especially after, as the SCOTUS said,

even respondent OHA has now abandoned its argument, made below, that "Congress . . . enacted the Apology Resolution and thus . . . change[d]" the Admission Act.

But as any SCOTUS watcher knows the prime directive of the Roberts Court is, to paraphrase him, to not make any decision it doesn’t have to make and push it all down the road as long as possible. What may be the best part of the decision is that it exposes OHA for what it is - nothing more than a cog in the genocidal state and federal machine. When push came to shove, during the hearing, OHA showed it’s true stripes, basically begging the justices to spare their life, saying they agreed with Bennett et al, on state ownership of the land... because without state ownership, as a creature of the state they would have and be nothing at all. Dropping all 30 years of pretense in claiming that they represented the kanaka maoli in any way shape or form, their duplicitous “please have pity on your humble servant oh wise, wonderful and benevolent court” plea was a disgusting show of bureaucratic self - preservation even if it meant the betrayal of their charges. There’s little doubt that the SCOTHI will go back and purge their opinion of the apology law references and replace them with state law. The process for doing that is contained in the OHA brief in opposition filed in the case. But then what? Is kicking the can further down the road a strategy that will do anything but allow the thieves to consolidate power behind the now official concept of Amerikan Justice that says that land can owned after being stolen... fair and square? Certainly this is nothing new in US jurisprudence. Ask any descendent of mainland natives who thought they had rights to their land rights, many with better paperwork than na kanaka have. Some may think that for now it is a bullet dodged none the less for those who have any hope of maintaining a land base for the reestablishment sovereignty over these islands. All we can say is don’t count on it being anything beyond, to cite another cliché, the calm before the storm. For those who haven’t seen it, here’s the SCOTUS decision

When a state supreme court incorrectly bases a decision on federal law, the court’s decision improperly prevents the citizens of the State from addressing the issue in question through the processes provided by the State’s constitution. Here, the State Supreme Court incorrectly held that Congress, by adopting the Apology Resolution, took away from the citizens of Hawaii the authority to resolve an issue that is of great importance to the people of the State. Respondents defend that decision by arguing that they have both state-law property rights in the land in question and “broader moral and political claims for compensation for the wrongs of the past.” Brief for Respondents 18. But we have no authority to decide questions of Hawaiian law or to provide redress for past wrongs except as provided for by federal law. The judgment of the Supreme Court of Hawaii is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. It is so ordered.

See also: Ea O Ka Aina: Supreme Court decides Hawaii Case 3/31/09 .