I just took my community survey put out by Rep. Nicole Lowen. The first part is multiple choice and then there’s an opportunity to submit additional comments in a blank space. You can say whatever you want (which I did) so please don’t attribute any of the following in any way to Rep Lowen, it’s all on me:
“I support welcoming immigrants and refugees. I support public education and am against charter schools and vouchers, especially for religious schools as I fervently believe in the Constitutional separation of church and state. I support more police if needed, but not militarized police.
I oppose Hawaii using privatized prisons either here or on the mainland. It is immoral and obscene to imprison people for profit. I support more services for homeless and food insecure people. I support the state taking over HELCO making it a public utility promoting clean energy. I support publicly funded medical insurance for everyone through a single payer state run insurance agency. We were the first state to mandate private coverage for employees, perhaps we can show the nation how to catch up with the rest of the industrialized world by guaranteeing care for all our residents while saving money overall.
I suggest consideration be given to officially declaring Feb. 18 a state holiday called “Evil Clown Day,” on which Trump’s orange likeness will be paraded through Waikiki atop a taco truck, then roasted in effigy by the Swedish bikini team (co-ed) in front of the Trump International Hotel to repudiate his ludicrous “alternative facts” regarding terrorism in their country.
Also on Evil Clown Day, the State of Hawaii will levy a ‘surcharge’ on the military installations located within the state, equivalent to the federal taxes paid by Hawaii citizens that were used the previous year in direct support of hate, bigotry, racism and Islamophobia, i.e. funding Trump’s wall and ICE. These revenues to be directed initially to funding our universal healthcare program.”
That tongue-in-cheek bit about Evil Clown Day got me thinking:
I am not afraid of immigrants. I am not afraid of refugees. I am not afraid of Muslims. I never understood why some people were afraid of clowns but now I’m one of them. I feel like I’m having a nightmare and I can’t wake up. An Evil Clown and his cohorts are turning our nation into a police state.
Every day the mean, ignorant, grotesque monster spews forth fresh venom from its big white house.
The scariest thing of all is that the Evil Clown commands hordes of enraged minions. He terrorizes them with lies they already believe, stoking the fear and anger they’ve acquired from decades of propaganda.
He preaches that only he can keep them safe from the monsters hiding under their beds. He rails against anyone who questions his absolute authority. And the minions, wearing red baseball hats, waving signs that are handed out before he comes forth to rant, cheer him in xenophobic frenzy, ready to tear down everything I believe made America great. They are eager to change us from a diverse, multicolored, multicultural, nonsectarian nation of indigenous people, former slaves and immigrants into a nation of irrational, cowardly, mean, bigoted, Islamophobic white supremacists.
What a nightmare!
Jake Jacobs is a cargo pilot and Kailua-Kona resident who writes an opinion column for West Hawaii Today.