Liberate Hawai'i! - Olsen, Jon D.

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Résumé :
It has been said that history is written by the victors, but that is no criterion for its truth! Liberate Hawai'i! boldly challenges the prevailing narrative that the country of Hawai'i was annexed in 1898, converted to a territory until 1959, and then converted once again to a state of the United States. Recent important research by Hawaiian scholars concludes decisively that what was transferred in 1898 was not the sovereignty of Hawai'i, but merely control. In the 1800s, Hawai'i was recognized world wide as an independent country, including by the United States, and like other countries had widespread embassies and consulates, as well as its own currency and obviously a well defined island land base. The 1893 coup against the reigning Queen Lili'uokalani was a hostile act by a small group of Caucasian residents, with the complicity of minister (ambassador) John Stevens of the United States who directed the landing of 160 armed men from the USS Boston to menace the queen. Faced with this formidable force and impending war with the USA, the queen, wishing to avoid bloodshed, temporarily and conditionally yielded her authority to the USA, until the matter could be reviewed in Washington. The incoming president in 1893, Grover Cleveland, upon learning of what had transpired, halted the rush to annexation, the motive of the coup, and called the coup for what it was: an act of war. A stalemate ensued for the duration of his term. William McKinley took office in early 1897 and proceeded to re-submit the treaty of annexation that had been pulled by Cleveland. However, it failed to gain the requisite 2/3 majority in the Senate. Thus there is no (valid) treaty of annexation. What then occurred was the attempt to disguise a Joint Resolution of Congress, as a treaty, violating the Constitution and failing to recognize that no legislative body of one country can unilaterally annex a foreign country, even with the assistance of a puppet government, particularly when there is vehement objection by the residents of the country allegedly being annexed! Thus, the very foundation of the claim to have acquired the sovereignty of Hawai'i and subsequent claim of statehood cannot stand. It is this awareness that has generated in Hawai'i today a broad and deed determination to regain full the nationhood status of the 1800s. International diplomatic efforts in that regard continue.

Biographie:
Jon D. Olsen grew up in Maine and graduated from Lincoln Academy and Bates College, earning a degree in philosophy. After teaching high school for a year, he was drawn to Hawai'i, attending University of Hawai'i at Manoa in Honolulu, obtaining a Master's degree, also in philosophy. The time was the mid-sixties, when the Vietnam War was raging. He took an active role in opposing that unjust and aggressive war and was a founding member there of Students for a Democratic Society and Draft Resistance, along with a short-lived Peace and Freedom Party. Twenty years later he was a founding member of the Hawai'i Green Party., He met a newly arrived Filipina immigrant woman, Lilia, while working in the local tuna cannery. They married in 1981 and together have two adult children. Jon was drawn to various anti-imperial efforts, including gradually, the Hawaiian effort to regaining full effective sovereignty, paying close attention to Hawaiian activists who had deep knowledge of the subject matter. Upon returning to his Maine homestead in 2001 as his father was then turning 90, Jon brought with him books and documents pertaining to the matter of Hawaiian sovereignty, which then became the basis of Liberate Hawai'i! Renouncing and Defying the Continuing Fraudulent U.S. claim to the Sovereignty of Hawai'i. He quickly joined the Maine Green Independent Party, serving twice on the state committee and currently (2017) serves as co-chair. He does some low level organic gardening as well.