Thursday, October 02, 2008

It’s Pretty Obvious

The only hope for Honolulu (Hawaii) is for straight-talking leaders who can maximize functioning with the present realities instead living in their delusions of unlimited free money from the federal government -- that is not going to be the future world.

Barbara Marshall also asked at the City Council meetings if there was a plan other than the Rail -- for the next 20 years of empty promises and dreams with no accountability. Do we expect to fool the people forever? Someday, even the supporters of Mufi Hannemann and the unions will have to wake up and realize you can't get something for nothing all the time.

People one day wake up and realize they have nothing, and the other guys have everything. It doesn't just happen.

So I'm glad to hear that Ann Kobayashi and Panos Prevedouros are talking reality and hope the people of Honolulu are finally waking up to listen -- and really do something about all their problems -- with what they already have and can do better with. The whole Hawaii culture and society is about waste, fraud and corruption -- but nobody sees it because everyone is drowning in it.

In its own way, the current downturn is a return to reality -- forced upon everyone. Most people have the basic competency to overcome failure and hardships; much fewer people know how to handle success, and so we often learn about those destroyed by their apparent success only leading them to greater excesses and abuses that were not magnified as long as they struggled.

Then as soon as they have the power, instead of using it for the good, they use it to destroy all their rivals for good. That’s pretty much been the story of leadership and power in Hawaii -- of this primitive notion of fighting to get to the top, and once there, using that power only to aggrandize more power to themselves, or at least, establish a lifetime sinecure for themselves.

Leadership was never meant to be permanent but revolving as the needs changed -- to meet the needs. It was never a wise idea to become just skilled at obtaining pork barrel monies (earmarks) without ever developing the ability to produce anything of real value -- after spending the monies, and then applying for the next boondoggle.

In a world of global trade, one has to come to the table with something of value that the world wants to trade for, and lacking that, there is no market for those who just want more money.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home