NYTimes Editorial: Occupy Honolulu

[ellisonz]

Editorial
Occupy Honolulu
Published: November 20, 2011

Wall Street and Oakland get all the attention, but there’s an Occupy Honolulu, too. Its tents and lawn chairs have taken over Thomas Square, a green expanse downtown all set about with banyan trees.

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Hawaii has one of the worst homeless rates in the nation, behind Nevada and Oregon. The causes are many, including an absurdly tight housing market and a rampaging methamphetamine problem.

Hawaii doesn’t lack for ineffective plans. The last governor put one out after seeing a man living in a tree across the street from her mansion. The new governor’s plan has been criticized for directives — don’t feed them! — that seem harsh and don’t do enough to fix root causes.

The divide in Hawaii between haves and have-nots is grotesque. So is the reluctance to challenge it. A Hawaiian musician, Makana, recently got a chance and blew it. He was invited to play at an APEC dinner, where he quietly sang a protest song, “We Are the Many,” for 45 minutes. Too quietly: world leaders, including President Obama, kept chatting and chewing, undisturbed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/21/opinion/occupy-honolulu.html