 I'm Marcia Jones and we are navigating the journey. Navigating the journey is dedicated to exploring the options and choices for the end of life care and to assist people to talk about their wish. It's time to transform our culture so we shift from not talking about dying to talking about it. It's time to share the way we want to live at the end of our lives and to communicate about the kind of care we want, don't want for ourselves. We believe that the place to transform this is not in the intensive care unit, but together we can explore the various paths to life's ending. Together we can make these difficult conversations easier, together we can make sure our own wishes for those of our loved ones are expressed and respected. So if you're ready, join us. Over the last six months we have invited members of various religions and traditions to talk with us about the end of life culture. So much of what we think and do comes from our family narratives, our stories, our history. So much is lost that we do not pass on our family stories, especially today when everyone has smartphones and people talk in 140 characters. Today's guest is my friend who has given so much of the history of the Hawaiian nation. He is an author, attorney, electorate, a radio and TV host. My guest, Pocah, like Aloha, Pocah. Aloha Marsha. I'm kind of smirking because end of life discussion and my forte really being of future planning and planning for the Hawaiian nation. Can you draw me the connection between the two? Yes. There's a direct connection. Because as we said, so much of what people do at the end of life depends on their narratives, their stories, their family stories. But we lose that. We lose so much of the stories of the past and whatnot. And again, as people talk in 140 characters, they miss what we invited you to do is to talk about the past. We're going to talk about yesterday, July 4, and the reenactment of the July 4, 1894. Because those are the parts of the history that most of this generation doesn't know. And every time that we look at these reenactments, we learn, then the history becomes part of the narrative. It becomes part of the way we live and the stories we pass on to our families or don't pass on, as the case may be. Okay. So that's the connection. Thank you for that connection. And I would have to perhaps challenge or break out of the paradigm of end of life, whether or not there is a separation between past, present, and future, as if life and death is really a reality, or it's something that we impose upon evidence that we see. A guy walking one day and the next day is in a grave, whether or not it really is quote end of life. Doing the same way as we would with the idea of history being something of the past as we said yesterday as we talked about the 4th of July. The past has so much impact, influence, direction for us today and into our future that it should not be left in the past, but we need to grab hold of history, grab hold of the past, insult it, comment on it, praise it, take possession of it, and don't leave it there so that the continuum of time is something that is continuous rather than chopped up between these, what do you call it, road signs that we say life here, death here, birth here, death there. So I'm saying that the paradigm itself may not be appropriate or true for all people. So that is why we have asked people from all kinds of cultures and traditions to talk about exactly that, how they deal with this, but where I wanted you to do is because yesterday was all about bringing the past into today, learning stories that we don't have, which impact today and again most people don't know day before yesterday if it's not on a smart phone they don't know it. So we wanted to talk about what happened, let's re-examine yesterday which was the re-enactment of the 4th of July, 1894. So that people have a place, I got an interesting text from someone who said we had to have her husband because his grandfather was the Hawaiian who was made to take the flag down. We got all kinds of little pieces of history that we didn't know because people were pulling up this history, these pieces, these stories, the narratives of their family and that is where we're going. What I want people to look at, those little things that they may think are not important but they contribute to where they are in life. This is a concept of Hawaiian style of building stone walls and you use a large faces of the rock to face outside so that it shows to the public some major aspects of the stone wall. But you also need the small stones to give support to the larger stones. I think as we look at Hawaii's history, one we look at the major story and the conclusions that can be drawn from the major story. To such a point where even the United States Congress, the President of the United States in two instances, Cleveland and Clinton, they have confessed to the avigalities of the US agents and the occurrences in Hawaii. The details are to some extent important but not to lose sight of the major story. And so whenever you deal with Hawaiian history, you have to understand the largest story and then the interesting details of whose grandfather brought down the flag, what happened to the pieces of the flag that was cut up. All those kinds of stuff are interesting details but it's a matter of just understanding the grand story. So what we tried to do yesterday was to recite the grand story especially when in a society here in Hawaii where as a result of the theft, as a result of the overthrow, as a result of the taking of Hawaiian independence, we are now caught in an era in which the vast majority of the people, the vast majority of those in control of media, the vast majority of those in control of economics in Hawaii, of education in Hawaii are all persuaded into the belief that we are legitimately today part of the United States so that people celebrate the American independence but totally ignoring the fact that while you're celebrating American independence on that same day in 1894, the Hawaiian independence was stolen. Sometimes we look at the term independence and we don't fully appreciate. We talk about it in terms of the Fourth of July and firing rockets and all of those things from the American side. But what really is this idea of independence other than some hazy principle? Independence is a fruition of the exercise of self-determination. Self-determination is so important. This is what the American colonies had fought for, to be independent, to determine for themselves. This is what the Hawaiians had established through the exercise of self-determination. If we look at it from a national position, people think we're talking merely about politics, but let's take for a moment to move it down to the individual. When you take away someone's self-determination, when you take away someone's independence, what have you stolen from that person? You have enslaved that person. They went through wars. They went through a long period of history. When you enslave a whole nation, you take away their right to control the transmigration into this territory. You take away the right to have them run their lands as they should. What results do you have? You have the situation that we have today. You have homelessness. You have unlimited infiltration of foreigners coming into Hawai'i. You have our failure to control our relationship with foreign governments and you see that to another country. So all of these changes that is bypassing us because we don't control any more that kind of ability to tell that story of what happened in Hawai'i. We think everything is grand. Let's go down and march through the streets of Honolulu or the streets of Kailua and pretend or just forget for a moment and just enjoy the fact that we are in the United States and independent nation all the while possessing a foreign country's nation and trying to forget those issues. That's why history is so important. So tell us now, recreate for us what happened yesterday on the steps of the Iolani Palace. Okay. What we did was we tell the story of what had happened back in 1894. If we go back just a year before that, 1893, the American troops landed in Hawai'i a hundred and what was that, 186, I forget the number, landed in Hawai'i and through force of arm essentially forced Queen Lili Okalani to surrender. To surrender not to the American government but to 18 people who declared themselves now the provisional government of Hawai'i. Every by declaration they say, oh, we hereby declare that we are the provisional government of Hawai'i. Yeah. Mr. Henry Cooper that tacked the provision on the door or whatever. Well he read the document in back of the Ali or Lani Ali. And in making the declaration the American troops then walked across the street to give recognition and protection of these 18 members and said we recognize this group as the official government of Hawai'i. All previous to that Lili Okalani who was a head of the Hawaiian monarchy had been recognized officially not only with the United States but throughout the world as the representative of this independent nation. So it was a coup d'etat and attempt to change the rulership of Hawai'i to one that would be favorable to giving Hawai'i to the United States. What happened was that as soon as that event occurred Lili Okalani said okay I will yield my authority not to the provisional government but to the United States who through force of arms have forced me to do so and have threatened to take the lives of myself and our members of our nation. Only for so long as president the president of the United States is able to do an investigation and restore the life back to the Hawaiian people. So it wasn't a permanent session it wasn't a giving up of her chair or her seat as queen. What the provisional government did immediately was to send a treaty of annexation to the United States and within less than a month they had the treaty submitted into the senate signed by the president of the United States. Now oh boy we have to take a break and when we come back let's move up to the 4th of July and what took place there. Okay great thank you we'll be right back. You're watching Think Tech Hawaii which dreams live on thinktechhoaie.com, uploads to YouTube and broadcasts on cable OC16 and O'Lello 54. Great content for Hawaii from Think Tech. Some say scuba divers are the poor man's astronaut at DiveHeart we believe that to be true. We say forget the moon. DiveHeart can help children adults and veterans of all abilities escape gravity right here on earth. Search DiveHeart.org and imagine the possibilities in your life. And we're back with my guest Pocah La Nui. Aloha. Aloha Pocah. Pocah has been on the forefront of the sovereignty movement for as long as I can remember. I met you in 1987 when we were fighting chemical weapons to Johnson Island, yeah so that's a long time and I've watched you with this sovereignty movement grow. So now let's go back to tomorrow, come into yesterday. We left a story where the Treaty of Annexation was sent to the Senate of the United States. At that time President of the United States was Harrison and at that time they would inaugurate new presidents not in January but in March. So in March Cleveland comes into office. Cleveland sees the treaty he also receives an emissary from England and that is Princess Kailani and they appeal to him you cannot accept the treaty until you at least do an investigation in Honolulu. So he sends his minister Vlaun to Hawaii to investigate and he receives a report. When he receives a report he says I cannot allow the treaty to go through the United States Senate because of the discovery that I have found in the Blunt Report and then he contains in his speech in his joint houses to the joint houses of Congress he says by essentially through an aggressive act by the United States we have attempted to change the leadership in Hawaii so that it will be more favorable to accepting or to sealing Hawaii to the United States. He says I will not fall for that and this government who claims to be the government of Hawaii this provisional government provisional meaning temporary doesn't even have a constitution it's whole legitimacy is in question so he says as long as I'm president no I'm not going to submit the treaty back into the Senate so what happens back at the ranch here in Hawaii they say well if Cleveland is not going to accept us because we don't have a constitution let's change our clothing let's get a constitution call ourselves by another name so Sanford Dole who heads this provisional government says we shall have 37 delegates in a constitutional convention 19 of whom shall be appointed by me that is myself and my 18 cabinet members and the balance of the people which by the way is a minority the other 18 will be elected by the Hawaiian people but to leave nothing to chance he also says that before anyone can run in that election or even vote in that election they have to swear their allegiance to the provisional government and disavow any loyalty to Queen Lily O'Colony so it's a setup of course the they hold a constitutional convention and they adopt a document they call it a constitution submitted by Sanford Dole and Lauren Thurston so that on the 3rd of July it comes out of the convention we have to tell everybody that Thurston is really the power broker here Thurston was a planner in ten years prior to that in 1882 he goes to the United States he ends up in office in DC and he asked if we should be able to take over this government and that or this office in that office will you be willing to accept a session of Hawaii to the United States and the president at that time doesn't give him a direct answer but say that you would probably find a very favorable administration at that time so yes Thurston was very much part of it so if we come back to now the 4th of July the next day Sanford Dole walks descends to the middle steps of Elani Palace as we had yesterday and he merely declares that good government requires that essentially white people take over because the brownies don't understand how to run good government. Yeah he says the Anglo-Saxons and those of Teutonic descent which means Europe. And one day other people may be able to. He even said well I guess we could use the Portuguese. So what he does is he merely declares this constitution as the new constitution for new government being the Republic of Hawaii. In making the declaration the constitution says that all of the lands and all of the waters of the government of Hawaii are automatically lands and waters of our government. All of the people all of the citizens of the Hawaii nation are automatically declared to be citizens of our government and Sanford Dole is to remain as president until 1900 without any votes taken merely by declaration we have a constitution a new government form and so the rest of the story is that they wait until Cleveland gets out of office a new president comes in and that is McKinley and McKinley then submits a treaty back into the Senate although it wasn't approved in the in the Senate and that is when they adopted the joint resolution of Congress. So that is how the process of say seating Hawaii all of the lands all of the waters and what we don't talk about enough is the human beings that should be considered seeded human beings because we never voted for it. Well let's go back to the last couple minutes here let's go back to the reenactment. Now you mentioned when they step up to the podium and they swear in dole when they they say you are now president at their constitutional convention they said you're it we decided on having a name and we think that the name Republic of Hawaii is more respectable has more substance then you also when according to every these one of the things that we have here in the book and with the Queen's book the Queen's story we actually have dialogue because the provisional government in their infinite wisdom I don't know why but they did they left all of their documents all of their letters everything intact so we can use their dialogue we we we know this is the the skull duggery that they did who did what who wrote to whom you mentioned cutting flag and it says that Thurston steps from behind dole after he's sworn in takes the Hawaiian flag down and then begins to cut it into two by three strips to give to their ancestors as souvenirs for their ancestors it it just blows it's more than than than ordinary people can handle take down a flag okay so you took the flag again but cutting it into two by three strips to give away it's it just as souvenirs you know it can seem outrageous but as I said before let's not use the pebbles to substitute for the major story there are a lot of details in our history of Hawaii and so we need to separate the what is insignificant not insignificant what is smaller in terms of importance than the largest story of the theft in which the United States of America participated first by landing the American troops going through and allowing changing of closing between one one group of people from the missionary party to the committee for public safety to the provisional government and now to the Republic of Hawaii and then submitted Hawaii and now we become a territory of the United States and then the state of the United States that chain of events you cannot lose sight of it although the minutiae of history is interesting but don't lose a major story because then we we get caught up in other things other than the major story well for those of you that did not we have a count of 487 people that showed up at the palace for the reenactment and there are clips on YouTube about the reenactment tons of pictures everybody took pictures and posted it on Facebook so go look go go be a part of history and really take it in understand feel it again read it it's written lots of places you've written about it the book where we are the book has word-for-word of their conversations and their letters the Queen's story documents everything that went on for all of those years from the bayonet Constitutional hold all of it step-by-step so I'm asking you the audience to to do that to to be a part of that history read it enjoy it know it and this is the thing that you pass on because we are talking you know about having conversations and other than 140 word things so we need to ask you the audience to do this ask polka if he will come back and talk some more before we close let me say that let's not leave history in the past and it's just an interesting conversation think about look at what is happening into the future the movement towards the United Nations discussions towards independence and the continuity of life in Hawaii and I think that is where the importance of what happened yesterday rest on well thank you again it's been a pleasure as always to have to visit with you and come back and visit again okay thank you for inviting me