Hawai`i Democrats take word of UH's Little Ward Churchills over Iraq War Veteran

By Andrew Walden

Hawai`i State Senate Democrats used what UH Hilo student leaders are calling fraudulently obtained testimony as an excuse to vote down Iraq veteran Dylan Nonaka’s nomination as student representative to the University of Hawai`i Board of Regents (BOR) in an April 29 Senate session. In earlier hearings in front of the Senate Committee on Higher Education, the committee’s lone Republican, Gordon Trimble, who voted to support Nonaka, pointed out that the majority of 200 “written testimonies” against Nonaka were mimeographed statements faxed from a single phone number in an UH Hilo academic office. Nonaka pointed out to the committee that some opposing “testimony” was obtained by telling students in cafeteria lines, “if you oppose tuition increases, sign this.” The signers, some of whom were supporters of Nonaka, were never told they were signing “testimony” opposing his nomination. UH Hilo student government leaders say they have as many as ten students who have sent statements to the Senate withdrawing “testimony” they had been tricked into signing.

The UH Hilo Global Hope Club, whose members obtained the questionable testimony against Nonaka, has a questionable record of its own. They have argued that Israelis attacked the World Trade Center (WTC) and Pentagon on 9-11. They have claimed the CIA did it. On April 14 the hosted a UH Hilo campus showing of 911 in Plane Sight -- which they said provides “irrefutable evidence” that the US Air Force attacked the WTC and Pentagon on 9-11. Which ever story they are telling, much of this material comes not from leftists, but from right wing extremists and anti-Semites.

According to several of her students, Global Hope Club Faculty Advisor, Hawai`i Community College Sociology Professor, Noelie Rodriguez, has been requiring them to attend anti-tuition increase rallies at various locations around Hilo—for a grade. Global Hope’s two UH Hilo student senators, Justin Avery and Randy Rambo, have plastered the UH Hilo campus with leaflets calling for the ouster of UHH Student Association faculty advisor Dr. Alton Okinaka. Just as they claimed that Nonaka supports tuition increases and is therefore unacceptable, they also argue Okinaka’s position as Chair of Hawai`i Governor Lingle’s (R) East Hawai`i Advisory Council somehow connects him to the BOR’s proposed tuition increases. This, they claim, makes Okinaka “unacceptable” as faculty advisor.

In contrast, Global Hope does not consider its own association with the claim that the US Air Force attacked the United States on 9-11-01 to place them outside the bounds of political “acceptability”.

Link to more coverage on Nonaka: http://www.hawaiireporter.com/ (search Nonaka)
Global Hope’s website: http://globalhope.blogspot.com/
Link to Global Hope’s favorite 911 movie: http://www.911inplanesite.com/
Link to anti-Semitic article previously posted on Global Hope’s website: http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/govknow