Scroll down to read this post.

 

Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. I keep the website clean from pop-ups and annoying demands. Instead, I depend entirely on my readers to support me. Though this means I am sacrificing some income, it also means that I remain entirely independent from outside pressure. By depending solely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, no one can threaten me with censorship. You don't like what I write, you can simply go elsewhere.

 

You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:

 

1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.

 

2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
 

3. A Paypal Donation:

4. A Paypal subscription:


5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
 
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652

 

You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.


Hawaiian protesters fail to block mirror for solar telescope

The coming dark age: Protesters today tried, and failed, to block the delivery of the primary mirror of a new solar telescope being built on top of Haleakalā on the island of Maui.

Protesters chanted, sang, marched, and blocked the road with two bamboo altars on which they presented offerings of flowers and garlands in a traditional ceremony. Police stood by for about an hour, periodically coming forward to talk with protest organizers.

At 4 a.m., they moved in to clear the road. Protesters were lying down in the road with their arms linked. Police lifted them out of the way to allow the trucks to pass. Several men then rushed forward and threw themselves in front of and under the massive trucks. Police removed the men, along with several others, as protesters shouted, “auwe” (alas), and “shame.” Organizers say three men and two women were arrested.

I think this quote from one of the protest organizers (who happens to be an assistant professor of Hawaiian Studies & Language at the University of Hawaii, epitomizes their movement:

Earlier in the evening, organizer Kahele Dukelow vowed to continue to oppose future construction and to ultimately bring existing telescopes down. “This struggle is going to go on for generations. It’s not going to stop with us,” she told protesters. “We will never accept it.”

Apparently the idea of gaining knowledge about the universe is unacceptable to this college professor and her allies. Such knowledge is evil, and must be blocked at all cost. The only knowledge that matters is the ethnic race heritage of native Hawaiians, no matter how primitive and uncivilized.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

30 comments

  • pzatchok

    No matter how primitive their culture I understand them wanting to preserve it.

    I just don’t understand them wanting to remove ALL the construction from the mountains.
    Its been 60 years since the first one went up. Obviously the goddess is willing to let them be there.

    I can understand, and in fact would protest with them, if they just wanted to stop expansion of the developed areas. But no they do not want to be reasonable and they just want all white men and everything they brought with them gone from the islands.

  • LocalFluff

    You would protest against the construction of astronomical observatories because of some non-existing ghost that you don’t even believe in?? Hopeless!

  • A. Feit

    I wonder if they asked the Diety what he thought.

  • Michael Miller

    Scientist : We wanna plant a telescope on this mountain.
    Native : This my people holy mountain!
    Scientist : Good ! This is our Holy Telescope !

    BOING !

  • Chris

    They want all the modern things removed … let’s start with the medicine and the food.

  • LocalFluff

    @Michael Miller
    The native primitive wins because his purpose is meaningless and his imaginations are plain wrong. And since the Western world wants to exterminate itself, of course the primitives are given highest priority. Because they are completely wrong about nature and thus fail. Perfect suicide. No more efficient way to mass murder than having those savages decide how society should be run. After astronomy (the mother of all science) is blocked, starvation and the plague will make some other species take over.

  • Hi Robert,

    I heard your recent appearance on C2C and was not surprised when I visited your website to read your thinking as relates to the Hawaiian protests against a telescope. I confess, I have never heard of people hating telescopes before. But I do know people who love mountains. I’m going to guess that these protesters, who seem willing to sacrifice their careers and lives, believe the mountain holds profound spiritual and cultural significance for them. I wonder how you might feel about this if you sat down for coffee with that professor you quote and simply listen to her.

    But I didn’t visit your site to talk about Hawaii. I visited because of the moon. I was amazed at the laissez-faire brand of capitalism you envision gobbling up our glorious moon. You claim to love space but you would have mining operations destroy our moon, responsible for the tides of our great oceans?

    Please rethink your thinking.

    Do we allow mining operations to remove 10% of the mass of the moon? 15%? Half?

    Let’s never visit that slippery slope and allow that heavenly dust to remain where it is. And no, I do believe in a scientific earth colony, but not a mining colony. I do believe there can be a telescope at the top of a mountain, but I believe we can ask Hawaiians to bless it with ceremony and include them in the alterations that must be made to their mountain to accommodate our telescope.

    I feel as strongly about the moon because I spring from Greek and Roman traditions that worshipped ten moon deities. Of course I don’t worship these deities, but the primitive cultures from which my own lofty culture sprang once did. You realize I’m referring to your dismissal of Hawaiian culture as primitive, right? Those folks simply are not white enough for you, but I implore you to remember the gods and goddesses who made Western Civilization possible — ten of these were moon deities.

    Gods and goddesses may mean zero to you. That’s cool. But you do need to understand what they mean to others. They mean celebration, and family, and love, and ethical reasoning. Gods are more human than humans and that’s why we love them, because they are our best and worst mirrors.

    I don’t think you can understand the above and I do not expect you to. But what might be expected of you is to try. Why did the Hawaiian man throw his body under the truck? Please do not dismiss it by saying he is crazy or primitive. He feels in his beating heart greater passion than you or I are capable of. He feels something important and in his blood flows the courage it took to settle those far away islands. Do not misunderstand that passion as hating science. For all I know that mountain is his family. He is defending it so hard.

    Humans love their gods. Real or not — they are real to them. Seventy-Five deities serve the moon: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lunar_deities

  • LocalFluff

    We who post here are wasting our time. But I think we can agree upon nominating Chris Riseley our king of madness. Unsurpassed. The doctrine that if one mentally deranged individual imagines sick and unreal things, then he should dictate the exploration policies of all of human kind. Completely deranged and very very dangerous!

  • BSJ

    And if ‘they’ wanted to build a 30m telescope on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, what would you say?

  • LocalFluff

    @BSJ, sound like a great idea, if the atmospheric conditions had been good enough. it already looks like an observatory to begin with. What greater honor could there be than elevating ancient speculations about the heavens to actual science in our time?

    Robert will protest my nomination of Chris as the king idiot, by saying:
    “- No no no! I met this guy on a space conference five years ago, and Chris hasn’t got a chance in competing with him for that title!”

  • wayne

    Chris-
    4:17 am comment
    Good stuff.

    I would include the exclusion of antibiotics, Adderall, and opiate painkillers, for the entire State of Hawaii.
    All invented by some dead white guys.

  • Garry

    Chris, you seem to make a lot of assumptions, starting with assuming the sincerity of the religious beliefs of the protesters. Among other evidence, you cite the protester’s throwing his body under a truck.

    Perhaps they are sincere, but I doubt it.

    A more common scenario is that the protesters have lost all grasp of what they actually think, and just like protesting and “sticking it to the man.” The protester was trying to stop or delay the truck; he knows that the driver would never run him over (so long as the driver knows he’s there).

    I’d be more inclined to believe in the protester’s sincerity if he did the same thing in China or Venezuela or some other totalitarian regime where there are often no real repercussions of running over a protester.

    When my children were very little they would often make up stories about imaginary creatures in the yard, and play as if the creatures were there. Don’t get me wrong, I respect religion and don’t dismiss it as 100% false, but your example of the ancient moon deities is very poorly chosen. I don’t know of anyone who still believes in the ancient Greek and Roman gods, and if they did, they would be delusional. Perhaps you celebrate them without believing, as way of honoring history, but if you convince yourself they’re real then you’re being delusional.

    My children knew they were playing make-believe, and they’ve since outgrown it.

    Your take on this is so one-sided and full of assumptions that it comes across as cartoonish. The way we pursue scientific truth and discovery simply can’t be based on cartoonish behavior.

  • wayne

    Garry-
    Good stuff.

    It’s interesting to note– these people demand “religious toleration” for every “religion” except our Judeo-Christian heritage.
    Heaven help you if you “disturb” anything American Indian and/or native-Hawaiian, but its OK to force Christians and Jews to submit to the will of the State.

    “What are you rebelling against?”
    The Wild One
    https://youtu.be/_4NkkAQllfo
    (0:21)

  • Nick P

    LocalFluff

    “I think we can agree upon nominating Chris Riseley our king of madness”

    I was trying to find a nice way of putting it but I couldn’t find the words. Thanks.

    To cute through all the crap, Mona Kea wasn’t chosen at random. It just happens to be the best seeing in the world and there’s no equivalent. Unfortunately that trumps the feelings of some ignorant pagan idiots. Sometimes life stinks. Too bad.

  • Cotour

    In political correctness and social justice you can find the justification for what ever YOU like. That is why it is soooo dangerous to everyone. It is what threatens us all in the “free” world. It is the second bite at the apple for the conquered. Just another political strategy designed to ham string those and that who exist through perseverance.

    And when you visit Chris Reisely’s web site, what is the first cartoon panel you find and what is the message ?

    “Consume, Conform, Submit”, your words Chris, not mine. And to add insult to all emancipated modern women you appear to be a sexist and anti feminist. Look how you have degraded and stereo typed women, a buxom well endowed woman in a bikini and high heels on her stomach ready to submit? (To be honest, I like her) How do you live with your contradictory self? A blatant disgrace to the movement.

    Consume, conform, submit, everything that the Hawian’s are not doing. Please explain.

  • LocalFluff: Why must you descend into calling people names? Wouldn’t it be better to explain why Chris Riseley’s positions make no sense, rather than simply throw out insults? While it would be worthwhile to change his mind, the real goal here is to persuade readers who might be sitting on the fence. Such people will compare the two comments, and reject you.

  • BSJ asked, “And if ‘they’ wanted to build a 30m telescope on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, what would you say?”

    I would say, as long as there was a negotiated agreement (which is the case here in Hawaii), it is all right with me.

  • LocalFluff

    Should I “explain” how Chris’ position makes no sense? He’s done it himself. He doesn’t need any help with that. For those who reject “me” as in simply saying how it is, well, sorry, you’re going down. Bad and quick. And it isn’t just “me” out there as a single ghost to realize this obviousness. Even the slow volcanic mountains wonder why they are not allowed to gaze at the stars yet unknown.

  • Nick P

    “And if ‘they’ wanted to build a 30m telescope on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, what would you say?”

    Bad comparison. Mona Kea is unique. The Temple Mount isn’t. There is nowhere else like it. There are no alternatives with such quality skies, at least in the northern hemisphere.

  • pzatchok

    ” LocalFluff
    August 3, 2017 at 12:32 am

    You would protest against the construction of astronomical observatories because of some non-existing ghost that you don’t even believe in?? Hopeless!”

    Please don’t call me hopeless. Especially for the simple reason that I would help someone uphold their religious belief.

    I see a lot of people posting on this sight who would protest against the US government taking a ranchers land for a road or oil line. This protest is no different.

    The land that is being develop[ed on that mountain has already been sold so no I would not be at the protest.

  • Tom Billings

    People, Chris has expressed a failing of modern academia, for the purpose of preserving social hierarchy. It goes back to the first excuses of the 1960s about “multiculturalism”. That was then little more than a way to preserve agrarian cultures. They give social anthropologists people to study without looking at the industrial culture growing around the world that refuses to place academicians on a high enough pedestal.

    The idea that agrarian cultures *should* be allowed to die horrified the social anthropologists. Their doctrine of multiculturalism has since grown into another means for political power on the Left, especially since Stalin’s “socialist camp” finally packed it in. Chris does nothing more than assume that this agrarian culture (Polynesian overlords dominating the “black dwarves” they found there ahead of them) should still dominate an island the Polynesians invaded some 800 years ago.

    It should not. Cultures, like people, should live in environments they can adapt to, by successfully culturing up children to live in that environment, or they should die! On a planet with 7+ billion large, obstreperously violent primates, we *all* live at industrial population density.

    It is long past time for academicians to recognize this. Their desire for building an oligarchy of elites-by-certification will have to be excused by something else. Among the good things resulting would be that the field of anthropology would no longer be dominated by social anthropologists, which has been the case for decades.

  • LocalFluff

    pzatchok,
    You’re hopeless!
    You protesting against science by climbing some hill chanting something about some ghost. That’s hopeless. I mean, how could we even start trying to discuss this? Anti-exploring this hill top, as one of a couple in the world as suitable for astronomy, completely outweighs your whatever complaint about your non-existent ghost. It won’t tell us nada about what’s going on out there. The infidels know nothing about it. They are just dancing and singing randomly like maniacs. When they have exhausted themselves, could we please have a look on the deep dark? To try to learn something for a change. The primitives never did. That’s the big difference between us who learn and those who refuse to learn.

  • Cotour

    Ah, Tom Billings, we are on the same page, well stated. Another dose of reality pitted against the suicidial death spiral of multiculturalism, political correctness and social justice, the thinking that endangers us all.

  • Judy

    Michael Miller – nice Firesign Theatre reference! :)

  • FC

    Since there seems to be some confusion in this thread, I’ll point out that the structures on the Temple Mount are Muslim mosques built six centuries after the Jewish Temple was destroyed during a war against the polytheistic Romans.

  • eddie willers

    I, for one, would enjoy seeing a telescope sticking through the roof of the Dome of the Rock.

  • Max

    Solomon built the temple out of huge stones that lasted until the Romans destroyed Jerusalem near 70 A.D. they tore down the temple plowed the ground and salted the earth so nothing will grow. Later, the Romans built a temple to the god Jupiter on top of the foundation supports. (The Wailing Wall)
    When the empire fell, the Muslims put the dome over the Roman temple. Later during the Crusades, the land and trade routes was taken and the Christians put a cross on top of the dome. Truly a fine example of one religion giving away to another over thousands of years.
    I must complement the Hawaiians on their protest, so far violence has been minimal and no one has died. Had this protest taken place in the Middle East, suicide bombers would’ve cleared the path for the construction to begin. If someone was to lie, and say that the Muslim God and prophet had been cursed or slandered, or a Koran trampled upon, suicide bombers from around the world would converge on Hawaii just to prove their dying devotion to the Faith… And take as many infidels be they Hawaiian or white or Chinese as they can. If I remember right, when this issue first came up, the suggestion was to give the Hawaiians what they want… More money.
    Chris R :
    As for mining on the moon, future colonies and factory manufacturing will have no choice but to get the resources were available. From 200,000 miles away, mines and cities will most likely not be visible. (At least not for hundreds of years) If valuable resources were found on the moon, how would you stop them from mining? By what Right would you deny them the means to their survival? They would have no need to remove any mass from the moon, earth has its own resources. There’s would be used to substain the colony and venture to other regions of the solar system.
    When better resources are found in the astroids or the gas giants moons, the lunar colony Will re-tool and adjust probably turning into a low gravity retirement community/peace keeping military base.

  • wayne

    Max-
    Good stuff.

    “Hawaii Five 0” Intro theme
    https://youtu.be/AepyGm9Me6w
    (0:59)

  • Edward

    Chris Riseley,
    I’m sorry that some of the people here were less than open to your thoughts. I hope you are still around to continue a discussion on the topic.

    You wrote: “Gods and goddesses may mean zero to you. That’s cool. But you do need to understand what they mean to others. They mean celebration, and family, and love, and ethical reasoning.

    What makes the Hawaiian protesters’s sincerity suspect is that they did not feel this way when the other telescopes were being built over the past half century or so. Why do they throw themselves under the truck? It is hard to say, since this is their protests are only recent.

    As for mining the Moon, I think it will take almost as long for mankind to mine 10% of the Moon as it is taking him to mine 10% of the Earth. It is too early to worry about reducing the Moons mass by a significant amount.

    If future generations believe that mining that much material is worth it, then isn’t that their decision to make?

  • LocalFluff

    “you do need to understand what they mean to others. They mean celebration, and family, and love, and ethical reasoning.”

    And insane imaginations about ghosts that motivate you to use violence to prevent the construction of science and enlightenment. It’s that latter part, which you didn’t mention, that I disagree with (because I accept reality) and that we must swiftly get rid of, because it’s good for nothing. Astronomers who spend their career on these telescope also love, celebrate, have families and reason ethically. Somehow the extremist leftist have made those things synonymous with raving mad violent savages! The biggest lie is the easiest to believe in, you know.

    The ghost doesn’t exist, so any attempt of reasoning beginning with the assumption that it does, is only to be erased erased erased as the error it is. The savages could make the telescope mean something beautiful in their minds, if they chose to. Anyone can imagine anything, it is a free choice. But these savages choose to imagine themselves fantasies that motivate them to use violence to stop science. They are murdering their own children. The fantasy ghosts that they have delegated their decision making to don’t understand how the real world works, what makes humans live. They would starve without the industry that astronomy has endowed them with (undeservingly, I vote we take all of industry’s fruits away from them until they learn to appreciate it as their dying children cry out for it!)

Readers: the rules for commenting!

 

No registration is required. I welcome all opinions, even those that strongly criticize my commentary.

 

However, name-calling and obscenities will not be tolerated. First time offenders who are new to the site will be warned. Second time offenders or first time offenders who have been here awhile will be suspended for a week. After that, I will ban you. Period.

 

Note also that first time commenters as well as any comment with more than one link will be placed in moderation for my approval. Be patient, I will get to it.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *