M.ana

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Welcome Mana!

Good to see you contributing! I've started putting some more information in the Morgan Report page - specifically taking NPOV information out of http://morganreport.org and placing it there. I think it is a great idea to have a wiki page specifically for the Morgan Report here on wikipedia, rather than having links directly to the morgan report site. Please feel free to take anything from http://morganreport.org you wish to put into that article! --JereKrischel 03:11, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Discontent with the Monarchy

As per your discussion with Zora regarding NPOV, the statement that there was general discontent with the monarchy applies regardless of the change of opinion that may have happened later with the K'ue petitions. Kalakaua was seen by many kanaka maoli as a pretender that bribed his way past Queen Emma, and Liliuokalani was not universally supported by kanaka maoli either (even though 17,000 signatures were allegedly made asking for her restoration - less than half of the kanaka maoli population at the time). On top of that, kanaka maoli were not a majority in Hawaii in 1892, so to assert "general discontent" does not imply a majority of discontent, or a uniform level of it, merely that the political character of the time included a lot of criticism against the monarchy from all quarters. See Andrade's "Unconquerable Rebel" regarding Robert Wilcox for more information. --JereKrischel 03:17, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Examples of clear discontent with the monarchy in general upon the ascension of Kalakaua, from both kanaka maoli and others, include: The riots upon Kalakaua's election; The reciprocity treaty of 1875 and closer ties to the U.S. with the lease of Pearl Harbor (especially discontenting the kanaka maoli nationalists); The support of lottery and opium acts; The Aki opium bribery scandal which instigated the 1887 constitution forced upon kalakaua; The expensive post-coronation coronation ceremony and increased expenditures by Kalakaua; Kalakaua's acquiescence to the 1887 constitution (particularly to people like Robert Wilcox and Liliuokalani, who thought it cowardly of him); Liliuokalani's support of lottery and opium bills; Liliuokalani's/Kalakaua's association with Claus Spreckels. Just to mention a few. --JereKrischel 04:48, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I guess, Mana, if you have citable sources indicating that there was no general discontent with the monarchy starting with the reign of Kalakaua, I would be more than happy to entertain illustrating the fact that there are two interpretations available - however, I think your denial of any such general discontent is unsupportable by the historical record, and your attempt to promote it in the lack of any evidence besides the K'ue Petitions, which of course post-dated the overthrow, represents a POV push that is inappropriate. The characterization of "general discontent" with the monarchy is an accurate one that does not push a given POV - it is backed up with evidence in the historical record regarding the reign of Kalakaua and Liliuokalani. --JereKrischel 05:52, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Changing Hands

I agree that the changing of hands was not a dramatic one from the Provisional Government to the Republic of Hawaii, but neither was it "the same people". Can you think of another way to phrase it that is more neutral? --JereKrischel 04:00, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I think it would be fair to say that the personnel of the Provisional Government and the Republic of Hawaii were overwhelming drawn from the plantation operators and large-scale merchants of American or European descent. Zora 04:50, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

General discontent

Gavan Daws, Shoal of Time, pp. 266-276. Liliu'okalani had managed to offend most of the factions in the kingdom -- the missionary faction, with her reliance on a medium and her support for opium sales, the business community, with her plan to abrogate the constitution, and an undetermined number of Hawaiians led by Robert Wilcox (who had already tried to lead an insurrection against Kalakaua).

I can't say that I approve of the insurrectionists, BUT, Liliu'okalani was an obstinate but silly woman. If she had had an ounce of cunning, we might still be a monarchy. Zora 09:45, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Why do you think that Daws is controversial? My impression is that he's fairly anti-missionary (unlike Kuykendal) but that this is the norm in academia these days. Zora 10:15, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Main article-ism

It seems like you're going to try to jam the whole controversy into the Hawai'i article, which is already too long. There are subsidiary articles which cover the whole history in much more detail. Not only that, they're more strident in tone -- which I regret, and don't approve, but there it is.

Editors new to Wikipedia often fall prey to main article-ism, in which they try to jam everything into the main article on a subject, instead of putting it in the breakout articles. If the subject isn't treated at the length you think it deserves, it's because only so much detail can be crammed into one article. Go to Republic of Hawai'i and see what you think of that treatment. Zora 10:24, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Mana, your edits referencing Ken Conklin as an authority for the general discontent of the monarchy is an inappropriate reference. I understand you see his belief in a point of view as a poison pill by which to discredit a statement, and such POV pushing is inappropriate. Furthermore, although wikipedia seniority is not a substitute for hawaiian history authority, you have never claimed to have any sort of authority or referenced any sort of authority to contradict the information put forth establishing general discontent with the monarchy. Both Daws, Kukyendall, Andrade, and other established historians, as well as going back to source documents of the time including hawaiian language newspapers and the Morgan Report with Alexander's history of the islands, and P.C. Jones' testimony, have clearly established that which you are attempting to discredit. Please re-read the Wikipedia Guidelines and contribute appropriately in the future. This is not a blog comment board, and we are not here to push a certain point of view - NPOV is the goal, and it would be helpful if you established what POV you saw pushed, and what evidence refuted what was being stated. --JereKrischel 11:30, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Unsourced extremist POV edits versus accepted sources

I'm sorry M.ana, but both Kuykendall and Daws are respected and generally accepted authorities regarding Hawaiian history. Your disagreement with their validity, or any other extremist point of view which you insist upon, does not make the reference of their scholarly work, nor their neutral conclusions, POV pushing. NPOV does not mean that you can take an extremist point of view and push POV closer to your direction - it means presenting topics in a neutral manner. Your repudiation of Kuykendall and Daws, with no other references or works to cite, does not strengthen your claim. If you wish for people to seriously consider the seminal works of Hawaiian history as somehow POV pushing in their claims, you really must cite more than "sovereignty activists" and their beliefs. --JereKrischel 00:19, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, now that we have a large space in which to work, all the views can be presented in full, from the "it was an outrage" to "it was all for the best". We don't have to come to an agreement on anything; we can just say "some people believe A, some believe B, some believe C ...." Zora 01:51, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

You make a great point Zora. Mana, if you could start up the Overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy, we can start working on it. I suggest you look at Template:Legal status of Hawaii as a basic overview of the two points of view. --JereKrischel 02:38, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Mana, my apologies if you took the "Tin-foil hat" as an insult. I've changed the section title for you. --JereKrischel 03:11, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Personal attacks

Although I understand we have a common history of flaming in other forums, please refrain from personal attacks here. Your statement, "A little attention to detail might improve your [sic]your ignorance.", is gramatically incorrect and unecessarily rude. We can be malicious to each other all you want in other forums, but Wikipedia should be considered a demilitarized zone, please. --JereKrischel 03:03, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree. See your talk page. I believe we should maintain a great degree of impartiality with each other while on here. M.ana 03:07, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Pretty soon we'll have WikiLove, I'm sure! --JereKrischel 03:12, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Hawaiian language

Someone dumped a huge amount of text from Ken Conklin's website into the Hawaiian language article, text claiming that Conklin conclusively refutes those "whining Hawaiian activists" and their claims that the government banned the language.

I stripped out such POV language as I could and moved the material into its own section. However, the material is still extremely lopsided -- it's all Conklin demolishing a position that may be part popular belief and part straw man. It's not clear to me which of the LEADERS of the Hawaiian sovereignty movement are claiming this, as opposed to popular misconceptions.

I'm going to post a request for comment on the Hawai'i Wikiproject page, but you may be the one person participating here who has the cites at hand to demolish the straw man. If you have the time, it would nice if you could take a look at the article. Zora 07:35, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Jerekrischel, your nemesis :), actually did a fairly good job of stripping out a lot of the POV. It seems OK to me now. If you want to give a Hawaiian perspective on it, you're going to have to come up with authorities, or publications, arguing that mandating English as the main language of instruction was a death blow to Hawaiian. This has been an issue in other countries (frex, I'm involved in edit wars re Khuzestan right now, and one of the grievances of the Khuzestani Arabs is that school instruction is in Persian, thus devaluing the Khuzestani Arabic dialect). So there's probably some information out there, on the general issue. Zora 07:30, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Here is a site with 2 blogs that may contain the sort of information that you are looking for http://mauliauhonua.com/PaulsWordPress/index.php/?p=17 and http://www.mauliauhonua.com/LaurasWordPress/index.php/?p=38#respond

Morgan Report

Hi! I am mediating the dispute about the Morgan Report. I would like you do succinctly state your case in the discussion section if you can. Thanks! --Tbeatty 19:08, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Article on saving indigenous languages

Mana, if you want to email me at lofstrom@lava.net, so I have your regular email address, I'll send you a copy of an article that I think might interest you. Not only is it a good article, it has a bibliography that will point you to more resources on what makes a language flourish and what kills it. It's about 15 pages long. Zora 11:54, 26 March 2006 (UTC)