A Vision for Independence

Mensahi Ginnen i Gehilo' #2
A Vision for Independence

One of the most important tasks that the Decolonization Commission has before it at present is the setting of a possible date for a self-determination plebiscite to help determine Guam’s next political status. After much discussion last year, the general election of 2016 was favored as possible date. Things have changed however as funding for the commission and the political status task forces seems unlikely for at least a year and the majority of members of the commission itself seem to now be against having the self-determination vote mixed with the politics of a gubernatorial election. Hopefully future meetings will help clarify this, so we can move forward.

In the meantime, for each political status task force, our most important agenda item is the updating and revising of our perspective position papers. In 2000, each task force, independence, statehood and free association submitted to the Decolonization Commission, separate reports that outlined the advantages and arguments for each particular status. These reports were to be used to craft the informational/educational materials that the Decolonization Commission will publish, which will detail in an objective way what each possible status might entail. As the commission remained inactive for almost a decade, these position papers have not been updated. In order to get the educational process started, over the next two months each task force will be working in updating or re-writing their arguments for their chosen political status.

For independence, this means working countering many of the myths that are in the community about the frightening and terrifying nature of Guam possibly becoming independent. Many people feel that independence would mean traveling back in time or radically changing life, but in truth independence means no such thing. All it means is that Guam become a locally sovereign nation, where its people, and not a government thousands of miles away hold the authority over life there. Independence would mean many changes to Guam, but so would the other statuses.

Although the original position paper is a very important work in establishing the argument for why independence for Guam can be considered part of a natural evolution, and is something that will help Guam in the long run in terms of developing and sustaining itself, I am grateful for the opportunity to update it and help enhance the message to appeal to as large an audience as possible. In order for this we have to offer a vision for independence that makes clear that independence is not solely about resolving the injustices of the past, but it is about the people of Guam, Chamorros and non-Chamorros as well, establishing the type of future for this island that they would want. It is important to note that even though only those who meet the definition of being legally Chamorro can vote in the plebiscite, it will be up to both Chamorros and non-Chamorros to help get us to whatever status is chosen. There are a long list of reasons why Chamorros should support an independent Guam, but there are just as many reasons why a non-Chamorro should support it as well.

Right now, if you are interested in helping to revise this position paper, please email me at mlbasquiat@hotmail.com. Si Yu’us Ma’ase.

Sahuma Minagahet ya Na’suha Dinagi

Michael Lujan Bevacqua

Chairman, Independence Task Force for Guam

Save Jeju Island

Guam Food Stamps

If I had more time I would love to write and research more the meaning of Food Stamps on Guam. Like most things in life, people tend to view them negatively through the people who use them. They complain about them towards the start of each month, when they crowd the aisles and choke the lines of grocery stores. They are viewed as things which suck away life, and make things weak. But are they really? We see so many forms of Federal aid as things that make us lazy, and show how sad and dependent we are, but why do we rarely reverse that ideological equation? Since food stamps are so bad, why do we not see more people condemn the US for weakening the people of Guam and taking away their ability to work or sustain themselves? 

One of the reasons why doing research on food stamps here could be very productive is because of the way Guam is not just a state, but rather a territory, a colony as well. So what is a simple ideological argument in the states, against racialized groups or poor groups, becomes drenched in colonial common sense in Guam. You won't hear many people in the states argue that food stamps are a reason why their state sucks and can't take care of itself, but you will hear that daily in Guam.

*****************

Food stamps twice the US average

3:00 PM, Mar. 5, 2012  |  

Written by

Meryl Dillman

The Pacific Daily News 

BY THE NUMBERS

•$694: The average amount of food stamp benefits Guam households received per month -- compared to $289 average nationwide -- in fiscal 2010.
•$218: The average monthly benefit per person on Guam -- compared to about $133 average nationwide -- in fiscal 2010.
•$685: The average amount of food stamp benefits Guam households received per month -- compared to $275 average nationwide -- in fiscal 2009.
•$208: The average monthly benefit per person on Guam -- compared to about $125 average nationwide -- in fiscal 2009.
2010 Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Fiscal 2009 State Activity report

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as food stamps, helps working families buy food they otherwise wouldn't be able to afford because of their limited budgets.

The program is a lifesaver for Josette Guzman, a mother of four who was laid off last December from the Department of Agriculture as a commodities inspector.

"It helps me feed my kids," the Santa Rita resident said. Guzman has been looking for a job ever since she was let go. "It's been hard. I applied (at) so many places."

Guzman's family is one of thousands of households on Guam that receive the monthly assistance.
In fiscal 2010, the average amount of food stamp benefits Guam households received was more than double the average amount that U.S. participating households received.

The average on Guam was about $694 a month, compared to the national average of $289, according to the fiscal 2010 Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program state activity report -- the most recent state report available on the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Service website.

The average monthly benefit per person on Guam in fiscal 2010 was about $218. The U.S. average was about $133, the report states.

The numbers were similar in fiscal 2009, when the average monthly benefit per participating household on Guam was about $685, according to the fiscal 2009 state activity report. The average monthly benefit for a U.S. participating household was about $275 in fiscal 2009.

In 2009, the average monthly benefit per person on Guam was about $208 compared to the U.S. average of about $125, the report states.

Reasons

There are two possible reasons for the benefits being greater on Guam compared to the U.S. average, according to James Gillan, director of the Department of Public Health and Social Services.
"It is due to family size and the lower income status of our clients," Gillan said in an email.

He said the program is available to families and individuals at more generous levels than other types of welfare programs. People with incomes that wouldn't qualify for the Medically Indigent Program or Medicaid, for instance, can qualify for food stamps, Gillan said.

"People with somewhat higher income levels will still qualify, but for less than lower income individuals," he said. "It simply means that our food stamp population is ... poorer and qualifies for more dollar value assistance."

Gillan also said the program isn't available to Freely Associated States citizens living here, but children born on Guam to FAS citizens do qualify. Citizens of the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and Palau can move to Guam under their countries' compact of free association agreements with the United States.

Maintain program

Joo "Jay" Ko, owner of New Asan Beach Mart, said the SNAP program is good for the economy.
"Thanks to food stamps, the beginning to the middle of the month business picks up, and toward the end of the month it slows down," Ko said. He said he notices customers fill up their baskets in the beginning of the month, but toward the end are buying items one at a time.

Ko, a resident of Harmon who bought the store from the former owners five years ago, said he hopes with the federal government's deficit, it doesn't touch food stamps.

"The wages here on Guam are not as high as back in the states. ... (The) majority of the people (here) are living paycheck-to-paycheck," Ko said.

One of those families is the Nakayamas. After her husband had a sports injury, Annet Nakayama, 32, of Asan, has had to take on the responsibility of primary breadwinner.

Nakayama works as a cashier at New Asan Beach Mart. The mother of three young children -- a 3-year-old, a 1-year-old and a 4-month-old -- relies on the program to help pay for groceries and other items, such as infant formula, which are necessary but "so expensive."

Nakayama's husband had worked at a restaurant and another supermarket until he was injured.
"
Right now, I'm the one that works, so I can pay rent and power," Nakayama said.

I Love EG

I am applying later this month for a grant to go to South Korea and conduct research on Starcraft 2 and issues of race and ethnicity in this international esport. Starcraft 2 like Starcraft: Brood War is something played around the world, by people of every ethnicity, and as a result there become competitions and narratives that are nationalist in scope and also racial. For example, there is a strong discourse in the sports world, that those who are black, have a natural ability to perform better in sports. Similarly, in the world of Starcraft it is South Koreans who seem to have an uncanny ability to play the game at much higher levels than everyone else.

I have always found it interesting what the political effects are of such narratives of innate dominance. In the case of African Americans, their physical prowess is something that was once used to justify their enslavement (since to so many Europeans it seemed that God had created them for slavery), but then later used to justify not doing anything to make up for the inter-generational long-lasting impacts of slavery. There is alot of sort of casual rationalization which goes on here, and you need not be a card carrying racist or an active member of a eugenics cult in order to enjoy their "privileges." For everyone who doesn't want to address the issue of redress for slavery, aren't African Americans who are successful athletes a perfect example of why they aren't necessary? They have achieved so much because of their natural skills, in ways that any of their former slave owners and their descendants could never match. In this way, what is a simple thing, a simple conversational node, becomes a political argument, something that feeds into to pot of elixir known as nationalism.

A case in point is a statement that Barrack Obama made regularly throughout his campaign for President in 2008, in particular in his "A More Perfect Union" speech, which is known as basically his master treatise on race. He stated that in no other country is his story, to go from being a poor black kid in Hawai'i, to a Senator, to possibly President, in no other country is this even possible. Only America has the ability to create this sort of opportunity. Only America is loving, forgiving, and giving enough to take a chance on a skinny black kid with a funny name, and allow it to be the leader of the free world. Only in America can a race of people once enslaved and deprived of every right or privilege, rise up to be the leaders of entertainment and sport industries.

This is of course not true at all. Sen ti magahet este. But the point of nationalism, is that it is the magical stuff that Renan marveled about. It has the ability to conjure up both a grand past of events that so many people, even those whose ancestors weren't there, can try to claim to be a part of it, and at the same time, a grand future, in which they, and only they will do great things. But as Renan also points out, this requires forgetting, it requires a great deal of amnesia, in order to arrange the chaos and the systems of injustice and silencing that exist as part of the nation in order to create that powerful force. This nationalist core can do great things, but it is also something which blinds you to much as well. Nationalism is the ego of the nation, and I don't only mean that in the sense of being something that makes you feel like you're the best, but allows you to defend yourself, from even your own critiques. Nationalism is not only pride in yourself, but it is also the ability to have blind faith, the ability to erase things from your memory and attempt to rearrange history in a way to help you forget the things you'd rather not remember.

Video games are supposed to be a place where race does not matter. The internet was supposed to be a similar phenomena, where the body, the mere, weak, and patricularized flesh would be surpassed, and a new form of being could be enjoyed. In truth, the internet, the virtual experience holds the power to perpetuate issues of the flesh or the body, such as race or ethnicity in even more concrete way, despite the entire experience supposedly being abstract or disconnected. One of the things we find in gaming for example is the gleeful use of terms such as "nigger" or "faggot" and rampant expressions of homophobia and sexism. The question is always why we should see these things in the virtual world? If the virtual world is so detached from this world and offers freedom from it, why would what most people think of as the worst of this world, make it into the next?

Could it be that since the virtual world is supposed to disconnect you from your body and this world, that you can enjoy more eagerly the racist or sexist or homophobic fantasies that you aren't supposed to be able to discuss or invoke in real life? You can call someone a word filled with all the hate of centuries of oppression and not feel like those you who use it on get the chains of history slapped on them, while you escape completely free. They are meant to feel the sting of being a slave, of being owned and denigrated and have an entire society build its wealth off of your back and labor, but while you were supposed to feel the sting of being a bad person for both invoking that history and possibly profiting directly as a descendant of that oppression, the screen of virtuality is supposed to protect your identity. In a sense the internet is supposed to be an identity theft program in the sense that it can keep your identity from being hijacked by the truth. It is a way of keeping it from being stolen by reality.

Starcraft 2 is known for having a more mature gaming base, and so playing it can be more pleasant than others such as Counter-Strike, WoW or Call of Duty, because there is less more openly racist and sexist profanity. But at the same time, that doesn't mean that these issues are not there.

Recently a scandal in the SC2 community developed over the actions of a caster named Orb, who used racist statements most importantly the word "nigger" while streaming (publicly broadcasting his games online), and attacking other players. SC2 players produced screenshots and went through replays of his looking for any evidence and found several examples of him taunting or attacking other players using clearly racist terms. He denied this at first saying another player had used his account without him knowing it, but eventually it was determined that he had indeed been using such language on his stream. He had just been picked up as a caster by a major esports company, Evil Geniuses or EG recently and so this was a very big deal as it could cost him quite a bit. Going through the threads for Team Liquid, the most prominent SC and SC2 forum site, I saw alot of division over how to handle this. Many said, as expected that it simply didn't matter. That things aren't that racist now, people should let things go, and that it isn't worth him being fired over. Others said it was a big deal and that he should be castigated in someway since, that sort of behavior isn't appropriate for someone who wants to be a celebrity in esports.

It was determined that Orb had indeed made the comments that he was accused of, and as a result he was fired from EG with a warning that he would never be hired back by them. I read the message from the EG CEO Alex Garfield, and was amazed at it. I had heard of Garfield before, but didn't know that he had taken classes during college in Ethnic Studies and Social Justice and had graduated with a degree in Black Studies. I was expecting some corporate statement on this is not acceptable and because of sponsors and so on. Instead I read the letter below, which invokes so many concepts central to critical studies of race. It makes a distinction between racism as something only an individual chooses to express and as a system that assigns value to one person over another. He even breaks down why using racist language, even if racism isn't supposed to be an issue anymore is wrong. It was a joy to read, and I hope it educated a few nerds out there, who think of esports as being a place where these things don't exist or shouldn't be addressed. I've pasted it below, and I'm sure I'll be using it somewhere in my research.

But for now, because of the critique yan teimemtom of their CEO, Hu guaiya EG. I love EG. I think I may go order a t-shirt from them later today.

********************


Back in 2003, a group of well-known Counter-Strike players (mostly White and Asian) decided that it would be fun to masquerade as an African-American Counter-Strike team. They created fake names, used fake profile pictures, and proceeded to compete in an entire season of league play while pretending to be African-American. When the players were finally exposed, the Counter-Strike community reacted to the incident with more amusement than anything else, and I - an avid member of the CS community at that time - was shocked and offended. I expressed my shock and disappointment in an op-ed, which was received somewhat controversially. While I was disappointed enough in the community's initial reaction to the incident, I was even more disappointed at its reaction to my comments. It was extremely disheartening to witness the cultural values, or lack thereof, being displayed by my peers.

Almost ten years later, I am a proud member of the StarCraft community, a culture which I find to be far more intelligent, conscious, and respectful than the Counter-Strike community was in 2003. And, while what I'm about to say may be odd to hear, given that EG's sponsors have been bombarded with complaints from StarCraft fans and players over the past 24 hours, I can say with complete honesty and sincerity that I have never been prouder to call myself a member of the StarCraft community than I am at this moment. I'll explain why further down in this write-up, but first, bear with me as I offer some context.

My undergraduate degree is in Black Studies, Sociology, and Social Justice. And, while I'll never claim to understand what life is like from the perspective of anyone other than a straight, White guy, I'd like to think that I have a pretty solid academic understanding of how race and racism function in contemporary society. My own credentials aside, I think it's really important to point out that racism today is not what it once was; not in the sense that it is any less widespread, or that it has any less of an impact on people's lives, but rather, in the sense that it functions very differently today compared to how it functioned twenty, thirty, forty, or more, years ago.

Take, for example, the term "racist," which I think is a rather antiquated word, and one that's been injected with so much hyperbolic meaning and stigma over the years that it is now almost entirely devoid of any actual, useful meaning. Traditionally, using the term "racist" in describing a person, action, or statement implies intent, or belief in a racial hierarchy, or belief in the superiority of one race over another. These are the objective criteria standardly utilized in labeling something or someone as being "racist."

But at this point in time, in contemporary society, there are relatively few people (especially compared to how things were in the mid-to-late 20th century) who actually believe in the aforementioned kinds of objectively-racist systems of thought. Aside from White Supremacists and Neo-Nazis (who still very much exist, don't get me wrong), and other extreme examples, most people in our age group just don't believe in that kind of racism. I'd say it's a pretty safe bet that most of the people reading this post were taught that racism is bad, that racial equality is good, and that you shouldn't be racist. The fact is that these days, most people don't think they're racists, and don't want to be identified as being, or doing something racist. And yet, racism still occurs, and we all still say and do things to perpetuate it, whether consciously or unconsciously, intentionally or unintentionally. There's a great book about this sociological issue called "Racism without Racists," and if this kind of subject matter interests you, you'd be wise to check it out.

Anyway, the bottom line is that, despite this change in how we view racism, it's still everywhere. It's still incredibly powerful, and it pervades most - if not all - aspects of our society. It's just, for the most part, much more covert than it was fifty years ago. Nowadays, it usually takes the form of stereotypes and institutional policies, rather than racial slurs and violence. And correspondingly, in my opinion, it has become far too complex to be accurately described by the term "racist." We've all witnessed arguments about whether a particular joke someone made was "racist," or "offensive," or "insensitive." The question I always ask is, are any of these adjectives really accurate or appropriate? I don't think we've developed a functional verbal toolset to appropriately discuss contemporary, covert racism. With this in mind, I try to entirely avoid labeling people as "racist," and I define something as being "racist" only if it plays a functional role in perpetuating racism (for example, I'll call a joke a "racist" joke if it plays on stereotypes, because stereotypes function as the foundational pillars of race and racism).

Now, moving on to points more relevant to the happenings of the past several days, let me be clear: it is my personal opinion that n----- is the ugliest, most repulsive word in the American-English vocabulary. I have never said it, typed it, or written it. If it's used in my presence, I immediately speak up and demand that it not be used again in my presence, regardless of context or circumstances (and for the record, I am equally sensitive about who can and can't say n---a, but that's a different discussion entirely). There are many valid reasons to find the word n----- offensive and repulsive, but for me, the overarching reason is that there is no other word that so efficiently and effectively captures such extreme human injustice and inequality. There is an inherent power dynamic/discrepancy contained within the act of saying the word n-----, and its use sets its subject apart from its object to a greater extent than any other word we have is able to. As such, if you prescribe to my contemporary definition of racism outlined above, there is no more racist word in existence than n-----. By its very nature, it is the essence of absolute racism, in its most extreme form, encapsulated in a noun. In my opinion, with few exceptions, it doesn't matter who says it, to whom, in what context. It's a racist word. If it has a subject and an object, I find its use to be inexcusable - again, with very few exceptions.

In line with this, earlier today, Orb, who had been contracted by EG to anchor our Master's Cup broadcasts, was informed that he has been dismissed of his position and will not be invited back. I apologize to those of you who feel that we took too long to make this decision, but we wanted to make sure the allegations were true before acting, and as recently as 24 hours ago, their validity was still in question (as Scott explained on Live on 3 last night). While Orb's inexcusable comments occurred before he was contracted by EG, and they (of course) did not occur on an EG-affiliated broadcast, neither of these points accounted for our delay in dismissing him. We were never looking for a loophole, here. It didn't matter to us where or when these actions took place. We just wanted to make sure the allegations were true before moving to act and formally parting ways. And, it should go without saying that if we'd ever known that Orb had used such language in the past, or was prone to using such language, we wouldn't have contracted him in the first place.

For the record, I do want to point out that I don't think Orb is "a racist." As mentioned above, I think that to make such a claim would be to misunderstand the nature of contemporary racism. This, of course, does not lessen the severity of his actions, or the extent to which they are unacceptable and inexcusable, but it's still an important distinction to make. As also mentioned above, I think that it's possible to make a racist comment without being a card-carrying Neo-Nazi - the latter is not a necessary condition for the former - and I hope that all of you will consider - whenever it is that you're done expressing your very justifiable outrage - forgiving Orb, if he apologizes sufficiently. While no amount of penance will land him back at the EG broadcast desk, he's a very talented caster, and I hope that he learns from this experience and eventually rebounds from the trouble he's gotten himself into.

In many ways, a culture's icons reflect its core set of values. Being granted celebrity status, and being allowed to represent an entire community, or a portion of a community - these are privileges only given to individuals with whom said community identifies and whose perceived values said community respects. I mentioned at the beginning of this post how disappointed I was in the Counter-Strike community back in 2003, because the community still allowed that team of players to retain its celebrity/icon status, even after their true identities and transgressions were exposed. Their actions violated my core values, and as such, I felt that they should be publicly condemned, and have their celebrity status revoked. The majority of the community, however, felt the exact opposite, and further celebrated the team for their behavior. Based on this, I came to the conclusion that the community's cultural values were not in line with mine, and that was a disheartening realization for me.

However, almost ten years later, as I also mentioned at the beginning of this (very long) post, I've never been prouder to be a part of the StarCraft community (or of any gaming community) than I am at this very moment. And I feel this way because, despite the fact that you guys have been peppering my sponsors with complaints*, your outrage shows me that we do have a set of core values (one of which is that racism isn't acceptable), and we expect our icons and celebrities to share those values; otherwise, they won't be our icons and celebrities any longer.

The eSports industry, and especially some of its respective communities, still have a lot growing up to do before they're truly ready to become mainstream. Just a few weeks ago, we saw the fighting game community at the heart of some major controversy because its culture seemed to condone overt sexism and sexual harassment; these forms of discrimination, in fact, were cited by many members of the FGC as part of what makes fighting game culture what it is. In that regard, the FGC revealed the immaturity of its cultural values, and showed that it still has a lot of growing up to do.

I think we all already knew, prior to this incident, that the StarCraft community was one of the more mature gaming communities out there, but it's still refreshing and encouraging to see that maturity reinforced by how (most of) you guys have reacted over the past few days. I urge you to continue to stand up for what you think is right, and help make this community a safe, comfortable space for everyone.

I can say, with unwavering certainty, on behalf of everyone at EG, that we are absolutely, 100% committed to doing our part to achieve those goals.

...Now, I just wish you guys would also get this upset when people use the word f----t, so that we could start fighting homophobia, too, and show people that it, like racism, also doesn't belong in our community .

Sincerely,

Alexander Garfield
CEO, Evil Geniuses
@ottersareneat on Twitter


*For those of you who complained to our sponsors: if you're satisfied with what I've written here, please re-contact them to let them know you're happy with us - really, please do it.


For those of you who didn't initially complain, but are satisfied with this post nonetheless, I'd also ask that you contact our sponsors to let them know you support us.


I would also ask that, in the future, if you're unhappy with something that happens in eSports, you guys give the offending party a chance to respond and/or act before seeking vigilante justice via contacting said party's sponsors.


In this case, I promptly informed everyone that we'd be issuing a statement and were taking the matter seriously, but some of you still decided to contact out sponsors before hearing me out. I don't think that's fair. Please try to be more patient in the future. It's hard enough to bring sponsors into eSports as it is - we as an industry don't need angry, pitchfork-wielding mobs making that task any more difficult .

Ti Ya-hu Si Ayn Rand

Published on Monday, March 5, 2012 by The Guardian/UK

How Ayn Rand Became the New Right's Version of Marx

Her psychopathic ideas made billionaires feel like victims and turned millions of followers into their doormats

by George Monbiot

 

It has a fair claim to be the ugliest philosophy the postwar world has produced. Selfishness, it contends, is good, altruism evil, empathy and compassion are irrational and destructive. The poor deserve to die; the rich deserve unmediated power. It has already been tested, and has failed spectacularly and catastrophically. Yet the belief system constructed by Ayn Rand, who died 30 years ago today, has never been more popular or influential.




Rand was a Russian from a prosperous family who emigrated to the United States. Through her novels (such as Atlas Shrugged) and her nonfiction (such as The Virtue of Selfishness) she explained a philosophy she called Objectivism. This holds that the only moral course is pure self-interest. We owe nothing, she insists, to anyone, even to members of our own families. She described the poor and weak as "refuse" and "parasites", and excoriated anyone seeking to assist them. Apart from the police, the courts and the armed forces, there should be no role for government: no social security, no public health or education, no public infrastructure or transport, no fire service, no regulations, no income tax.
Atlas Shrugged, published in 1957, depicts a United States crippled by government intervention in which heroic millionaires struggle against a nation of spongers. The millionaires, whom she portrays as Atlas holding the world aloft, withdraw their labor, with the result that the nation collapses. It is rescued, through unregulated greed and selfishness, by one of the heroic plutocrats, John Galt.

The poor die like flies as a result of government programs and their own sloth and fecklessness. Those who try to help them are gassed. In a notorious passage, she argues that all the passengers in a train filled with poisoned fumes deserved their fate. One, for instance, was a teacher who taught children to be team players; one was a mother married to a civil servant, who cared for her children; one was a housewife "who believed that she had the right to elect politicians, of whom she knew nothing".
Rand's is the philosophy of the psychopath, a misanthropic fantasy of cruelty, revenge and greed. Yet, as Gary Weiss shows in his new book, Ayn Rand Nation, she has become to the new right what Karl Marx once was to the left: a demigod at the head of a chiliastic cult. Almost one third of Americans, according to a recent poll, have read Atlas Shrugged, and it now sells hundreds of thousands of copies every year.

Ignoring Rand's evangelical atheism, the Tea Party movement has taken her to its heart. No rally of theirs is complete without placards reading "Who is John Galt?" and "Rand was right". Rand, Weiss argues, provides the unifying ideology which has "distilled vague anger and unhappiness into a sense of purpose". She is energetically promoted by the broadcasters Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Rick Santelli. She is the guiding spirit of the Republicans in Congress.

Like all philosophies, Objectivism is absorbed, secondhand, by people who have never read it. I believe it is making itself felt on this side of the Atlantic: in the clamorous new demands to remove the 50p tax band for the very rich, for instance; or among the sneering, jeering bloggers who write for the Telegraph and the Spectator, mocking compassion and empathy, attacking efforts to make the word a kinder place.

It is not hard to see why Rand appeals to billionaires. She offers them something that is crucial to every successful political movement: a sense of victim-hood. She tells them that they are parasitized by the ungrateful poor and oppressed by intrusive, controlling governments.

It is harder to see what it gives the ordinary teabaggers, who would suffer grievously from a withdrawal of government. But such is the degree of misinformation which saturates this movement and so prevalent in the US is Willy Loman syndrome (the gulf between reality and expectations) that millions blithely volunteer themselves as billionaires' doormats. I wonder how many would continue to worship at the shrine of Ayn Rand if they knew that towards the end of her life she signed on for both Medicare and social security. She had railed furiously against both programs, as they represented everything she despised about the intrusive state. Her belief system was no match for the realities of age and ill health.

But they have a still more powerful reason to reject her philosophy: as Adam Curtis's BBC documentary showed last year, the most devoted member of her inner circle was Alan Greenspan, former head of the US Federal Reserve. Among the essays he wrote for Rand were those published in a book he co-edited with her called Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal. Here, starkly explained, you'll find the philosophy he brought into government. There is no need for the regulation of business – even builders or Big Pharma – he argued, as "the 'greed' of the businessman or, more appropriately, his profit-seeking … is the unexcelled protector of the consumer". As for bankers, their need to win the trust of their clients guarantees that they will act with honor and integrity. Unregulated capitalism, he maintains, is a "superlatively moral system".

Once in government, Greenspan applied his guru's philosophy to the letter, cutting taxes for the rich, repealing the laws constraining banks, refusing to regulate the predatory lending and the derivatives trading which eventually brought the system down. Much of this is already documented, but Weiss shows that in the US, Greenspan has successfully airbrushed history.

Despite the many years he spent at her side, despite his previous admission that it was Rand who persuaded him that "capitalism is not only efficient and practical but also moral", he mentioned her in his memoirs only to suggest that it was a youthful indiscretion – and this, it seems, is now the official version. Weiss presents powerful evidence that even today Greenspan remains her loyal disciple, having renounced his partial admission of failure to Congress.

Saturated in her philosophy, the new right on both sides of the Atlantic continues to demand the rollback of the state, even as the wreckage of that policy lies all around. The poor go down, the ultra-rich survive and prosper. Ayn Rand would have approved.

© 2012 The Guardian

 

George Monbiot is the author of the best selling books The Age of Consent: a manifesto for a new world order and Captive State: the corporate takeover of Britain. He writes a weekly column for the Guardian newspaper. Visit his website at www.monbiot.com

Urgent from Gangjeong

Two urgent messages about the situation in Gangjeong, Jeju:

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From Save Jeju


Dear friends,
Starting today, Gangjeong is in an emergency situation. Nearly 700 police have arrived from the mainland in Gangjeong village to monitor the blasting of Gureombi, the volcanic rock coastline, and the dredging of the seafloor. Not only will the marine life, including endangered crabs and coral reefs, be swept away, the blast has already impacted the fresh water springs that the majority of the island is dependent upon.
Though our numbers are small in the village, we will do our best to fight to stop the blast of Gureombi. It is still uncertain whether the Seogwipo Police will allow the Navy to blast Gureombi on Monday, when the Governor of Jeju Island is supposed to make his decision.
Please send an email to the Governor NOW asking him to please stop the blast of Gureombi.
Thank you for one minute of your time. We urgently need international solidarity NOW.
In peace and justice,

Gangjeong Village



Mr. Woo Keun-Min
Governor
The government of Jeju-do
312-1, Yeon-dong, Jeju-si, Jeju-do
REPUBLIC OF KOREA
Fax: +82 64 710 3009
E-mail: jejumaster@jeju.go.kr

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From the Global Network

Jeju Island Needs Our Help

Mary Beth Sullivan
Bath, Maine
March 4, 2012
At the end of February, 2012, I joined the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space to attend an international peace conference, and connect with the villagers and activists living in Jeju Island’s 450-year old Gangjeong village.
The South Korean Navy, with pressure from the United States, intends to build a naval base at this southern coastal village. For five years, the villagers have been fighting this decision through political and legal means, while simultaneously resisting each stage in the process. The Navy, with lead contractors Samsung and Daelim, has taken over people’s property; felled trees; destroyed greenhouses; built miles of fence preventing the village’s view or access to Guroembi, their ancient, holy place of prayer.
The people resist. When they can’t walk to the Guroembi rocks, they kayak. When the kayaks are blocked, they swim. It was humbling to bear witness to the passion and love people had for their beloved Guroembi. Jeju is a volcanic island, and there are many rock formations, but Guroembi is unique. These living rocks have fresh water springs that lay beneath; coral reefs that sit off shore as colorful as any tropical reef; endangered red crabs that feed off these rocks. This eco system and the villagers – fishermen, women divers, farmers, lovers of nature – have had no voice in the decision to bury Guroembi in cement to build a naval base. They have been organizing for years to build community, to change the hearts and minds of decision-makers, and to prevent the destruction of their village.

Their struggle is not only to protect nature’s gifts; they also have a noble, passionate commitment to a democratic process. The injustice of a Navy’s dictate to confiscate land and expose an island to the vagaries of war in this 21st Century is an unacceptable control over people’s lives. The people refuse a quiet acquiescence to this atrocity. Samsung and the Navy bring waves of riot police from the mainland to rough-up and arrest non-cooperative villagers, and to block access to the sea and shore that has a centuries-old history. Indignant, the people persevere, continuing to work every avenue possible to save Gureombi.

In our short time on Jeju Island, our international delegation got a glimpse of the determination and creativity the villagers have displayed over the years. We have been watching the videos from Gangjeong faithfully, of villagers and activists arrested for laying their bodies down in front of the wheels of the cement trucks, the cranes, the machines meant to blast holes deep into the heart of Gureombi. And, once released from prison, villagers lay their bodies down again.

Although the Korean Peninsula has plenty of military installations, until now, Jeju Island has been spared this fate. The public relations campaign claims this new naval base will be “dual use” – insulting the intelligence of all by providing illustrations of a pier on one side of the base with a huge luxury liner docked, with mini-skirted women prancing the upper deck, while two submarines and a naval destroyer dock at a nearby pier. Who gets paid to create such fantasies?

In fact, this base is intended to dock U.S. nuclear submarines, Aegis Destroyers (built in my home town of Bath, Maine) and aircraft carriers. Based on a mutual defense pact and Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), the U.S. has the right to use any South Korean ports and airfields. President Barack Obama has declared a U.S. military “pivot” toward Asia, while China and the U.S. continue competing for the world’s oil, gas, and underground minerals. The truth is, the U.S. has a huge military presence in the Asia Pacific region already, and has an expressed goal of dominating militarily in all corners of the globe “to protect U.S. interests and investments.” A military base in Gangjeong will make Jeju Island a target in the war-game exercises the U.S. regularly engages off the coast of China. The villagers are correct in resisting this dangerous disruption to their way of life.

Korea’s Jeju Island has earned a triple crown of UNESCO recognition as: 1) a World National Heritage site; 2) a Biosphere Reserve Zone, and 3) a World Geological Park. It is a government-designated “absolute preservation area”. It is characterized by rare rock formations, abundant and fertile farmlands, pristine fresh and seawaters, and endangered marine life. As concerned world citizens, we should all honor the people of Gangjeong who are giving their lives to this 21st Century struggle.

Finally, Professor Yang Yoon-Mo recently turned 56 in Jeju City prison. He is in jail for the second time in a year for putting his body in front of cement and construction trucks; The first time, he fasted for over 70 days. Since his arrest in January, he has begun his hunger strike again, and is now in his fourth week. I visited him in prison before I left the island. I can never express the emotion of the experience of hearing this gentle, holy man explain so clearly: “If Guroembi lives, I live; if Guroembi dies, I die. Do not cry for me, cry for the future generations who may not be able to know the beauty of Guroembi.”

I urge us all to take action. As I write, the navy is planning to start blasting Guroembi rocks today or tomorrow. Save Guroembi. Save Yang Yoon-Mo. Do your part.
Contact South Korea’s:

Island Governor (Mr. Woo Keun-Min, Governor, The Government of Jeju-do, REPUBLIC OF KOREA, jejumaster@jeju.go.kr),

President (Mr. Lee Myung-Bak, President, Republic of Korea, president@cwd.go.kr ),

Defense Minister (Mr. Kim Kwan-Jin, Minister, Ministry of National Defense,

REPUBLIC OF KOREA cyber@mnd.go.kr)


Especially put pressure on the Jeju Island Governor to prevent the blasting of Goreombi rocks! (Could we fill his email box today?) Let them all know that the world is watching, and that destruction of the village to build a naval base needs to stop. Keep track of the current situation by joining two facebook pages: Save Jeju Island; and No Naval Base on Jeju. As the people say to us always, “Please save Gangejong, the Life and Peace village.”

‘The Fadang Between US’

by Michael Lujan Bevacqua
The Marianas Variety
1/4/12

IN NOVEMBER of last year, I travelled with 10 others as delegates to the 2011 Japan Peace Conference in Okinawa. This conference is held annually in any prefecture in Japan that hosts U.S. military bases, and is attended by thousands from every corner of Japan who discuss issues of peace, demilitarization and nuclear abolition. As delegates from Guam, we spoke about the military buildup, the Pågat lawsuit, and our ideas for peace in the region.

It is not hyperbolic to say that my trip to Okinawa was a dream come true. After reading so much about Okinawa since the military buildup was first announced, it was very enriching to finally visit the place and see things for myself. The fates of our islands have recently been tied together by the strategic and political interests of the U.S. and Japan, but this entwining is very cursory, ti tahdong. In the week prior to my trip, I spent time reading up on Okinawan history, wondering if there were any deeper or more interesting connections.

In my cursory research, I found references to Okinawans coming to Guam in the 1800s as farmers, and to people of Okinawan ancestry coming to Guam after World War II. Okinawa and Guam have both had long experiences of colonialism under Japan and the United States.

As the U.S. discriminated against Chamorros and sought to prohibit their language and denigrate their culture, such was also the case with the Japanese against Okinawans. Both have felt the pressures of being strategically important and shouldering a heavy military presence because of it.

This connection is further tied to their history as both are sites of battles between Japan and the U.S. in World War II. The Battle of Okinawa was far more bloody and brutal, but they are nonetheless linked in history as places where U.S. soldiers fought and died.

While reading the article "Rising Up from a Sea of Discontent: The 1970 Koza Uprising in U.S. Occupied Okinawa" by Wesley Iwao Ueuten from the anthology Militarized Currents (edited by Keith Camacho and Setsy Shigematsu), I came across another interesting and unexpected connection. This one dealt with hardships and the consumption of the fruit of the fadang, or as it is known in English: the cycad or the Federico Palm.

I thought I’d share the gist of it below, since I think it’s important that we on Guam don’t define ourselves solely or primarily by the ways in which the United States attaches us to places (such as Okinawa). It is important to look deeper and sometimes find our own connections, even if they are tragic.

For those of you familiar with World War II history on Guam, you will remember the role that the fadang played in sustaining Chamorros in a time of terrible crisis. Food was scarce during the war, as imports trickled to nothing and Chamorros were forced to farm to feed the Japanese. In order to survive, Chamorros increasingly turned to the fadang in order to make tatiyas to eat. The fruit of the fadang is poisonous and has to be boiled properly before it can be made into a starch. Chamorros have been using the fadang as a staple for thousands of years, but it became less frequently used when corn and other crops were introduced by the Spanish. At that time, fadang was abundant and largely untouched in Guam’s jungles. This made it ideal for those foraging in order to feed their family.

In the article "Rising Up from a Sea of Discontent," there is a section where the author recounts a short history of Okinawan suffering under the Japanese. He makes a reference to the fadang and how it also came into play in Okinawan history in a time when they were undergoing a crisis of their own. This particular crisis isn't from World War II, but from the years after Okinawa was annexed into Japan in the late 1800s. The Japanese began to exploit Okinawa economically, leading to periods of starvation forcing the Okinawan people to turn to the fadang in order to survive.

Here is a passage from the article:

Okinawa's sudden inclusion into Japan's capitalistic system created conditions for widespread poverty and suffering. Since sugarcane became a cash crop, much land was appropriated for its cultivation, while less land was used to grow food. Consequently, the Okinawans were forced into an increasingly dependent situation where they grew sugarcane for cash to buy food from Japan. When world sugarcane prices dropped after World War I, Okinawans experienced what they call sotetsu jigoku, literally translated as "cycad hell," where many people were forced to eat the sotetsu, or cycad, to survive. Since sotetsu is poisonous if not prepared correctly, many people died from eating it.

What if we weren't the Tip of the Spear?

Sometimes I wonder when the idea that Guam has strategic value will no longer be news? Every few weeks or month or so, another speech is given, another statement is made in D.C. or at a forum at UOG, another report is released. It always states that Guam is gof gaibali nu i US put i saga'-na gi fi'on Asia. With current US strategy, Guam is gof impottante. 

As a place which is not truly part of the US, but something in truth, owned by the US, this strategic importance is like an oasis of refreshing water for those who burn with a desire to be one with the colonizer. Their desire to be Americans, to be real Americans, to really have that flag represent you and not just be a footnote to it; so many people on Guam feel this burning passion, and although it is never fulfilled in any real way, people search for any possible way to complete this desire.

This military importance is one of the key things nowadays that people use. They use it to express patriotism, by showing support for the buildup, they show support for the US, and meekly hope that their request to be part of the US will be accepted. Since they can't point to anywhere in the US Constitution, or the flag, and sometimes even the American flag to argue that Guam is a true and real part of the US, they point to that importance to say that see, we do matter, we must be a part of them.

There is a fundamental difference to being someone that belongs to something in terms of equality, such as a family or a state of a union, and being something that belongs to someone, which is what Guam is. But, so much on Guam tells us that this difference, this colonial difference doesn't exist, and we do as much as humanly possible to deny things or seek out any pathetic little form of inclusion to argue that things aren't that bad, things are just fine. Being a territorial is just like being a state.

But what kind of existence would we have if we weren't strategically important? So much of the inclusion that Guam has been able to leverage over the years, often resulting because of somewhat effective lobbying at the non-voting delegate level, was predicated on that strategic importance. The Section 30 money that Guam receives each year was thought to be the payment for use of military lands. For the first 10 years of postwar Guam history, so much of the rebuilding and developing of the island was because of its military importance and how the military needed a more functional and more modern Guam to co-exist with. This strategic importance can even extend into helping Guam get things that have nothing to do with military security or defense. Guam would look drastically different today if this importance didn't exist. If Guam was located off the coast of Chile, close to Antarctica, or north of the Galapagos Islands between Mexico and Hawai'i, we might still be somewhat strategically important, but nowhere near as much.

If this was the case, then the great bounty of gifts that makes us want to surgically implant our passports so they become part of our patriotic rib cages, because we are almost too pathetically desperate to be real Americans, would be much more difficult to realize. If we were less important, than it would be far more difficult to get even the basic "American" treatment that we crave all the time. We would get much less respect, much less attention. It would be harder to get any traction for Guam's needs in DC or elsewhere.

The more we sharpen ourselves as the tip of America's spear, the more we should realize that this sort of connection to another, to a colonizer is so tenuous and so fragile. It is not based on a common contract or a union of respect, but rather based on geography, on the accidents of history, and as such, it can flow one way this moment, and against the next. The US can treat us like we are best friends one moment, but then like complete strangers the next. There is no fundamental basis for treatment, and so we are treated nicely so long as we are valuable, but who knows what we would be treated like if we weren't?

If Guam was less strategically important, the discussion of decolonization would be so much easier. The colonial difference would be so much clearer, and we would be far better at perceiving our situation.

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Guam vital to military strategy
KUAM
Sabrina Salas Matanane
3/2/12

Guam - The commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, Admiral Robert Willard, appeared before the House Armed Services Committee to discuss the posture of PACOM forces in the Asia Pacific Region. And once again, Guam's strategic importance and its role in protecting America's interest was discussed.

The U.S. Pacific Command's area of responsibility extends from the West Coast of the United States to a dividing line in between India and Pakistan. "It covers half the world and that the Asia Pacific Theater extends entirely across the Pacific Ocean," he said.
 
The Asia Pacific Region is one of the areas the Department of Defense and the Obama Administration plan to focus on bolstering the nation's defense. But in this age of austerity and criticism from members of the Senate, certain members of the House questioned Willard about some of DOD's strategies they plan on employing such as the 2006 plan to realign forces in Japan, of which some would be relocated to Guam.

Virginia congressman Randy Forbes said, "What would be the impact on your ability to perform the duties you need to perform if we were to bring the Marines back to the continental United States? You know, because we have a lot of voices that say we should no longer have them forward deployed."

Willard said, "Our Marines are part of every contingency plan that we have and when you consider the time distance factors in the Pacific, the largest ocean in the world, it's very important that we maintain the posture and presence forward that we do in fact I was asked have been asked many times what's most important to you and it's the forward presence in the Asia Pacific."

Admiral Willard made it clear during Friday's hearing that Guam remains a critical part of DOD's strategy even if troops are rotational or permanent. According to new numbers out of the 8,000 Marines Guam was originally expected to see relocated here, we are  now only expected to get about 4,700.

Guam delegate Madeleine Bordallo said, "I appreciate DOD's recent efforts to address local concerns about the rotational forces, however I do remain concerned that this decision was primarily driven by concerns raised  in the senate not this committee 5313 as well as budgetary considerations, can you elaborate on the strategic rationale for these proposed changes."

Willard said, "What is most important to me is that the forces that we have present in Guam and elsewhere are maintained at a readiness level where they can be the first responders in the region. So they have to be dwelled their long enough to be trained, exercised and equipped resources and engaging fairly on a continuous basis. So the duration for which they are present in Guam matters to me and the work the ability to lift those marines or other forces where they can do the most good matters to me as well."

The congresswoman meanwhile says she will continue to work with DOD as the negotiations between the U.S. and Japan are finalized to ensure that the revised realignment plan is beneficial to our civilian and military communities.

Fina'kuentos #1: Hokkok i Salape'-na

Pa'go' matutuhun i mas ya-hu na mes guini giya Guahan, Mes Chamoru.

March is Chamorro month in Guam, and although people make plenty of good arguments that say that every month should be Chamorro month, it is still nonetheless nice to have a month where everyone on Guam, regardless of their race or feelings of racism, has to celebrate Chamorros and Chamorro culture. It's nice to see businesses get all "Chamorro-ed" out in terms of their decorations, their activities. It's nice to see every DOE teacher incorporate Chamorro something into their class work, even if some of them find the most ridiculous or silly ways of doing so.

I'm thinking of how to celebrate Chamorro month on my blog this year. I'm considering that every other day or so, I'll be posting a different Chamorro saying pat fina'kuentos. These are fragments of Chamorro wisdom, that I've occassionally written about before on this blog. They are slowly over time being lost, as the Chamorro language becomes less and less spoken. They provide some interesting insights into the cosmology of Chamorros, their history, their culture. You can see the ways the effects of colonization have affect their philosophy, but also the way they have endured and still survived.

As I've written about before I'm trying to instill the wisdom of some of these sayings into my children, ko'lo'lo'na i hagga'-hu Sumahi. They are things that you, even if you don't speak Chamorro, that you can use as well. They can be a simple, sometimes silly, sometimes profound way of introducing yourself into either the language or the consciousness of Chamorros.

For today the the fina'kuentos I wanted to share is "Hokkok i salape'-na."

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Para este na fina'kuentos, guaha dos kumekeilek-na.

Fine'nina i mas "literal." "Hokkok i salape'-na" sina kumekeilek-na, na esta tumaya' i salape' i taotao. Taya' salape' gi i bangko, pat buente taya' gi i betsa-na. Sina humokkok para maseha hafa na rason, lao taya'ya' ha'. Gi minagahet, este na kumekeilek-na ti mismo fina'kuentos, este "kuentos" ha', sa' parehu este yan i mismo palabras.

Lao i mina'dos na sina na kumekeilek-na magahet na fina'kuentos. Sina un alok na hokkok i salape'-na un taotao anggen mumagio' gui' gi un lugat ni' ti mismo i katre-na pat sagan maigo'-na.

Annai hu hassuyi este na fina'kuentos ha na'hahasso yu' put un biaheru ni' humahanao gi un sen annakko' na chalan yan un mas annakko' na hinanao. Este na fina'estoria, ti mismo i nina'fanhuyong-na este na fina'kuentos, lao este i hinasso-ku put Guiya.

Taiga'chong este na taotao gi este na karera, lao ha petsigi mo'na. Manodda' gui' hotet gi i kanton chalan, lao annai humalom gui', ma sangani gui' na ti nahong i salape'-na, pues ti sina ma attkiluyi gui' ni' kuatto. Este na biaheru payon gui' nu este na klasin malatrata, ya ti nina'bubu. Ha dingu i hotet ya humanao gui' mo'na gi i kalang taifinakpo' na hinanao. Gi i mamokkakkat-na, gumof matuhok gui', ya taya' fanliheng'an gi oriya-na. Mata'chong gui' gi i kanton chalan, ya mumaigo' gui' kontra un trongko.

Un otro na biaheru ha faloffani i fine'nina na taotao. Inina i mamaigo' na biaheru ni' i mina'lak pulan. I ti mamaigo' na biaheru ha yengyong didide' i ilu-na, ya ilek-na, "ai adai, hokkok i salape'-na."

Sigun Si Joaquin yan Si Manuel Borja gi i lepblon-niha "Estreyas Marianas: Chamorro," ha eksplika i fina'kuentos taiguini:

"Put hemplo, i patgon ha nanangga Si nana-na gi sala ya gi duranten i ninangga-na mumaigo' gi ta'chong-na, pues sina ta alok put i patgon, "Ai sa' hokkok i salappe'-na."

Pues, anggen manli'e' hao taotao ni' mamaigo' gi i siya-na gi duranten i klas. Sina un sangani i otro na estudiante na "hokkok i salape'-na." Anggen manli'e' hao taotao ni' mamaigo' gi halom i kareta-na, sina un sangan na "hokkok i salape'-na." Anggen gaige un taotao gi i gima'-na, ni' ti ya-mu, ya ga'o-mu na sumasaga' gui' (yan mamaigo' gui') mohon gi un otro na lugat, sina un alok lokkue' na "hokkok i salape'-mu."

A Proud Member of the Amnesia Industry

A few weeks ago I was taking one of my English classes on a short tour around the historic central area of Hagatna. We walked from Angel Santos Memorial Latte Stone Park, through the Plaza de Espana and finally to Skinner Plaza. The point was for students to see the ways in which history is layered upon itself. You can see this in the way the Spanish part of Hagatna is also filled with American history in the way the American came to occupy the same colonial place, even to the point of remaking the primary buildings, such as the palace, in small ways to make it fit their tastes or their mission in Guam. But beneath all of that there is also the history prior to colonialism. It still emerges in so many ways, most of which swing between being overly visible to barely perceptible.

Angel Santos Memorial Latte Stone Park is one such place. As both the Plaza de Espana and Skinner's Plaza seem to exist to glorify the colonizers of Guam, the Park seems to attempt to signify something else and something earlier. The large set of mismatched latte there are the most obvious marker. They were placed there after the construction of Naval Magazine down south. They were placed there as a way of celebrating the Ancient Chamorros, but also as a way of quietly apologizing for the fact that these latte are what was saved after the Navy had destroyed so much else. Then there are the large signs for Angel Santos explaining who he was and why the place is named after him. Against the wall, towards the back there are caves which are the remains of a network of tunnels dug by the Japanese in World War II, in anticipation of an American reinvasion to the island. You can find tunnels like this, bokonggo, all over Guam, sometimes in completely unexpected places. Sometimes people walk right by them and not realize they are there. Although there is a plaque at Angel Santos Park that indicates the use of the caves in English, Chamorro and Japanese, most people who simply glance at entrances to the caves might just assume them to be restrooms or some unfinished GovGuam corruption project.

While I was giving my students a tour of the area, we happened upon a group of young Japanese female tourists, each of which sporting flower print dresses, each brighter and louder than the next. They were waltzing around the park, giggling, laughing, snapping pictures. They peered at the signage for Angel Santos for a few moments and then moved on, not clear what to make of them. They settled around the latte for quite a while, taking pictures in front of them, and then eventually taking turns snapping photos of themselves modelling around them, and clinging on to the latte stones in suggestive poses.

My students responded in two basic ways. The majority of them laughed and smiled at how cute and silly the Japanese tourists were being. Remarks were made about their happy memories of the island and how they might come back or keep pumping money into the economy since they were enjoying themselves so much. Some of the boys made references to how hot the girls were and then threw out random Japanese words as if they were planning on going over and trying to woo a pack of tourists.

The second response, which only a few Chamorro students had, was one of disgust. Some of the "more" Chamorro students, meaning the ones who more readily identify themselves as such, and have a fuller scope of knowledge of things Chamorro than other students, they felt disrespected when seeing these Japanese play so ignorantly around the latte. The stones had already been greatly disrespected by the US Navy, but now these ancient relics of their ancestors were being treated like stripper poles by clueless Japanese ladies. This response was voiced quietly, sometimes just muttered or spoken to me on the side. It was clear that the first response was the acceptable one, the one that is ready for public consumption, while this second response had to be censored and silenced. Manangon ha', ti sina masangan a'gang. 


For me however, the thought of the Japanese ladies modeling next to the latte made me think of something else. In the closing days of World War II, most Chamorros had been herded into concentration camps around the island, and this combined with the US intensive bombing campaign that focused on flattening Hagatna, made it very dangerous to be out in the open. There were chances that you could get hit by bombs or shrapnel, but the more dangerous concern was being found by the Japanese. It was pretty much common knowledge amongst the Japanese soldiers that they were not going to be able to defend Guam. This fact led to the end of their time on Guam being filled with slaughters and massacres, some of which were strategic in nature, while others were the acting out of soldiers who didn't want to die, and decided to preemptively take out their revenge against the unfairness of the world on the bodies of Chamorros.

If you helped the Japanese build their defenses against the US, your fate basically was determined by the flip of a coin, or the mood of a commander. Did the commander want to let you go and be with your family and live your life? Or, did the commander not want to risk you talking to the Americans and telling them about the defenses of the Japanese? Depending on his mood, you could end up cowering with your family as the bombs continue to fall, or you could end up kneeling on the ground, with your head laying next to you.

In those final days of the Japanese occupation, if you were out at the wrong moment and met the wrong Japanese soldier, that same fate might face you. If you met a soldier who simply wanted it all to end or just wanted to go home, he might look away and pretend not to see you and just keep moving. But if you met someone else, who wanted to extract some measure of vengeance for his nation's loss or for his own family's loss, than you would most likely be beheaded.

In the area at the bottom of San Ramon hill, where Angel Santos park is today, several Chamorros were killed in the closing days of the war. One group of women in particular were beheaded there, after each was collected while wandering around Hagatna. The Japanese soldiers asked them if they loved Americans or the Japanese? When they said the Japanese, the Japanese mocked them for both their obvious lies, but also their faith in the United States. They mocked them for hoping America would save them, since by the time the US returns to Guam there will be nothing left but flies.

The soldiers mutilated the women one at a time. Cutting off heads, breasts and slicing open the stomach of another and watching her entrails spill out. The last girl, was the youngest. Before they moved on to her, one soldier asked her about his girlfriend, a half-Japanese local girl. She had been expecting a baby and he wanted to know if she had it yet. The youngest girl responded that she didn't know. Everyone was cowering in the jungles and praying that they survive.

Then the youngest girl was "executed." According to her account:

"So finally when they are finished with me, he [the soldier who asked about his girlfriend] pushed my head down and he hit me in the back of my neck. And all I did is, I feel a splash down on my body, and I was gone."

She woke up later, buried in that ditch, surprised that she was still alive. She had a terrible wound on her back, that would leave a scar for the rest of her life, but she still survived. She found another person, a young man who had been "executed" but survived and together they stayed alive until American troops found them. She would later become a famous voice in the struggle for Chamorros to receive war reparations, although like so many others, would not live to ever see it happen.

As I watched those Japanese tourists, young girls, probably similar in age to the women who were slaughtered in that very spot, I told my students my perspective on the matter. Some walked away uncomfortably, not sure how to react. Some laughed at how messed up it was. A few seemed disturbed at the sort of cluelessness of the Japanese.

Every people, every country, every community has clueless, ignorant, taitiningo' people in it. You could argue some have more, some have less. There are several factors that come into play in how we determine that. Some may argue that Europeans are much more knowledgeable about the world than Americans. Some might argue that Europeans just know more about Europe than Americans, but don't necessarily have more inherent knowledge. General knowledge, the basic sorts of facts and assumptions, fragments of the world converted into meaningful meaning are all actually based on blindspots and the assumed possible or acceptable gaps in human knowledge. We can't know everything and wouldn't want to know everything (ayu i che'cho' Yu'us). So every place has various blindspots that help determine what they should and shouldn't know. What they have to know and what they can assume not to or not even pretend to care about. Nationalism is the brew that takes care of much of this for most people. Your largest and most openly political blindspots are the ones you enjoy in order to protect the nation.

Patriotism is one of those things which feels normal and natural, but becomes silly and almost foolish the more you think about it. There is patriotism as support and love for a nation in order to keep it strong. But notice how so much of that support comes in the form of looking the other way? So much of patriotism is about passionately keeping yourself ignorant and just assuming that since this is your country, everything must be ok, since you would never feel patriotism for a terrible country. Such is the cycle of patriotic ignorance, that protects both you and your nation from acknowledging things it is doing that are wrong or has done wrong in the past. This type of patriotism is the most popular since it requires almost nothing except faith and pathetic and stereotypical expressions of political devotion. It is easy and it is simple. Just wave a flag, hate on those who question what your country is doing, and most importantly of all, don't actually do anything to affect what your country is doing.

Although for most people on Guam, the Japanese are imagined in a singular basic way, as being sources of income. Guam is such a friendly place and these people pump money into the economy and so we should just be grateful that they are willing to visit this tiny island in the Western Pacific. They are perceived through their wallets and purses. They are not imagined to have any history attached to them, there is barely any sense of irony or discomfort for most on Guam when they see Japanese people wandering around the island. There is similarly no sense of anger, discomfort or irony when Chamorros see military servicemen strolling around Tumon, even if anyone with a sense of history, should at least be able to guess why that might be ironic and bewildering.

The local blindspot, could be rearticulated as forgiveness, and some have commented on the fact that Chamorros forgave the Japanese faster than anyone else in history. Within a single generation the Chamorro people were welcoming the Japanese into the island where they had brutalized so many just 30 years earlier. Some have said that the Chamorro heart is so large that it couldn't hold the hate for very long. Others have said that their religious faith helped them forgive faster. For whatever reason Chamorros moved on in terms of hating the Japanese, although they held on to their hatred for the Chamorros of the Northern Marianas for even longer.

What I have always found disturbing about the way the Japanese come to Guam free from history or irony, is the way it supports their own amnesia and their own massive blindspots. Japanese tourists have come to Guam for 40 years, sometimes not even having an inkling of the fact that in World War II, they conquered this island and killed close to 1000 people. They play in the ocean and drive around the island. They drive by places where Chamorros were massacred or brutalized almost everywhere they go, but have no idea. Now, obviously having a tourist industry would be difficult if we put signs everywhere about what atrocity the Japanese soldiers committed in this place during World War II. Maybe we wouldn't want to recreate the island as a constant reminder of the terrible things Japan did in the past.

But, at the same time, Guam doesn't only participate in the fantasy industry of creating an island getaway for the Japanese, we also participate in the World War II amnesia industry. Japan emerged out the ashes of World War II determined to erase its past, and did so in a way that put it on par with the amnesia industries of every other major colonial or imperial power in recent history. It succeeded in whitewashing its war of aggression and transforming itself as a victim in World War II. Guam, by being a site where Japan enacted that aggression, but by refusing to allow people to be reminded about it or insist it has some ethical value, enables that forgetfulness and allows Japan to continue its fiction.

I have seen this in so many large and small ways it sometimes become hysterical and so sad. For example, recently there has been some discussion at UOG about the merging of certain programs together. There are two existing programs that are small and should be consolidated, East Asia Studies and Japanese Studies. There is also another new program Chamorro Studies, which is also being suggested to be combined with these other two programs into a new umbrella degree. The merger has caused some concern and some questions. The faculty for both East Asia Studies and Chamorro Studies are supportive of the merger, but the Japanese Studies faculty have been almost irrationally opposed.

Their core argument in opposing this merger is that Japan and Japanese Studies will be lost amid the other programs and their faculty, that it will become marganlized and taken over by Chamorros and East Asians. One went so far as to say that they refused to join the other programs for fear that they would be oppressed by the others, especially China. For anyone with a basic knowledge of history, this should make your eyeballs bleed when you hear it. In World War II Japan dominated both China and Guam, along with several other nations in the Asia-Pacifc region. They were particularly cruel in China, massacring people by the millions, including civilians. I was astounded to hear these educated Japanese professors speaking so brazenly about others colonizing and oppressing them, when it was not so long ago that Japan oppressed both of these places.

All images in this post are from Google Images. I don't own the rights to them, nor claim to have shot or created them.