Thousands marched through Lihue, Kauai, on Sunday to support Kauai County Council Bill 2491, aimed at curbing restricted-use pesticides and establishing "Right to Know" disclosure laws concerning GMO cultivation on the island.

Community member Michael Shooltz, who is aligned with the group Kauai Rising, addressed this letter to the island's Mayor and City Council members encouraging the council to vote in favor of the bill:

Aloha Mr. Mayor and County Council Members,

Together, you and We the People, are facing extraordinary challenges in extraordinary times. These challenges are not going to go away and we must face them now. Unresolved they will destroy us.

You, and We the People, share a desire for a healthy, abundant, prosperous life for ourselves, our families and our beautiful island home. We struggle to achieve these visions within a system that has been corrupted, and gone astray and serves a powerful corporate elite at the expense of We the People.

We struggle within the illusion that there exists a government "of the people, by the people and for the people." When we zoom out for a broader context we see that the very laws governing the System are crafted by a Corporate Aristocracy striving to tighten their grip on every aspect of our society.

We live in a System where We the People can be thrown in prison, without charge indefinitely, and where it is now legal to assassinate American citizens at the whim of the President. We see a system where Truth Tellers are imprisoned and criminal banksters walk free.

Zoom in and we find ourselves on an island where the System says it is legal for multinational chemical companies to come here at their whim and spray toxic chemicals which poison our children, our homes, our schools and our environment, and yet it is against the law for We the People to say no to such lethal abuse.

We are dealing with Chemical Companies claiming to be farmers while they must wear HazMat suits in the fields to spray their toxins and then, after spraying, must stay out of their "gardens" for 72 hours while the poisons have time to spread into the crops, the soil, the air, the water, the schools and the neighborhoods, thereby making the fields "safe" to re-enter.

Zoom out and we watch the Elite's System plan to go to war in Syria because of one or two days of an alleged spraying of toxic chemicals on the people of Syria. Zoom in to our island home and we observe our people being sprayed with lethal toxins daily for years and our governments doing nothing to stop it.

The system is corrupt and broken. We the People listen to the political discourse on every level of government and hear our elected officials talk about law. And all around the world people are rising up in recognition that within the Elite's System there exists no relationship between law and justice.

Zoom out and we see in every corner of the world the people rising up and finding ways to let their voices be heard demanding Justice. Zoom in to our island home and we see We the People rising up in a united voice, also demanding Justice.

If laws are not just, they must be overturned and replaced. When the law says that it is legal to poison the land, and We the People of Kauai, the laws are unjust.

You as our elected representatives are serving in a very difficult and challenging time and situation. The difficulty you face is recognized. Rightly or wrongly you are at times perceived in the following ways.

Here on Kauai when the people approach you, our elected officials, and plead for help because the toxins being sprayed are killing us and our land, and we hear your concerns about "points of order", and what's on the agenda, and who is allowed to speak, we are witnessing a crumbling system struggling to maintain its own existence in the face of a rising tide of greater awareness.

When a tearful mother or grandmother approaches the railing in the council chambers expressing her concern and grief over the children's asthma, or birth defects, or a relative's cancer, and the response is "Thank you, your three minutes are up" and nothing happens to stop the poisoning, the futility and unjust nature of the system is extraordinarily obvious.

You did not create this system. You inherited it with all of its flaws just as we all did. It is our shared responsibility to remedy these flaws.

We the People of Kauai watch our State Senate President appoint a Monsanto Lobbyist to a key position overseeing water rights, and watch our Governor on Youtube assuring the Chemical Companies that, "You don't have to lobby me, you already have my full support!"; and we witness the flurry of laws being presented in our State Legislature that have obviously been written by the Chemical Companies.

On the Federal level we watch the Monsanto Protection Act be passed, and the FDA and EPA headed by Chemical Company lawyers. We see how corrupted the System is, and then we listen to members of our County Council say, "Oh, this is an issue that should be handled by the State or the Federal Government". Clearly these issues have not been, and in all probability will not be, handled by other levels of government. We have heard nothing from any of our state level elected officials addressing the poisoning of Kauai. It is only here on our island home that we have the ability, along with the responsibility, to address these issues.

We the People have also listened to some of our Kauai County Council members express concerns about violating their oath of office to uphold the Constitution. This concern rings a very hollow note. In these extraordinary times extraordinary actions are required. In the past the "law" stated that women, blacks, indigenous people, and white males who did not own land, did not have the right to vote or hold office. If no one in the past had had the courage to stand up for justice against unjust laws it would still be illegal for some of our current elected officials to even vote, let alone hold elected office. In the past many courageous individuals took a stand for justice, against existing laws, which allowed you to hold the seats you now hold. In these times, that same courage and commitment is required.

When someone asks our State or County attorneys what we are "allowed" to do, they merely look at the laws that the Corporate Elite have made part of the system and come back and tell us what the Corporate Elite say we can do. The real question that is required in these times is, "What must be done in order for Justice to prevail?" We the People have seen no evidence that County or State attorneys get paid to ask that question, or that anyone is even asking them that question. They are not concerned with Justice, merely law.

In a just system it will not be legal for corporations to poison the people and the land of Kauai. (with over one hundred tons of toxic chemicals annually) In a just system the power of money and corporations will be subservient to the well being of the people and the environment. In a just system government will be of the people, by the people and for the people.

You, as our elected officials face the same daunting challenge that we all face, that of having to try to function within a corrupted, and crumbling unjust system while moving toward a system of Justice and well being for all. If you are unwilling to meet that challenge it will always be easier to say, "That's not my job, the state should handle it", or "it violates my oath", or "let the attorneys decide", or, "I'm afraid of lawsuits", or "give us more studies"........." Each of these approaches perpetuates the status quo of continued daily poisoning on Kauai and will insure our island's demise.

When the Naturopathic doctors, and the Pediatricians, and the Nurses, and the Teachers, and the parents, and the grandparents, and even the children all testify confirming the calamitous effects of the poisoning here on Kauai, it is clear to anyone who wants to see, that the well being of the people and the island is being assaulted, and that neither money nor unjust laws can ever justify these lethal practices.

In spite of the illusions of complexity presented by our corrupt, elitist system, the solution to the poisoning of Kauai is in reality quite simple. We the People just say "No", this poisoning will no longer be allowed on our island. Period.

Later we can dance through laws, or lawsuits, or whatever spasms the dying System tries to foist upon us. But when we the people join together, and just say "No." the poisoning will stop and the healing can begin. You, our elected officials, are a part of We the People unless you choose otherwise. We are all in this together. The toxins do not check to see what color t-shirt we are wearing before they inflict themselves upon us.

Together, we can successfully meet the extraordinary challenges of these extraordinary times. We are surrounded by extraordinary people with extraordinary gifts offering extraordinary solutions. The only way that we can fail is by denying these gifts and choosing to be the small sheeple that the Elite would like us to be, giving our inherent power and authority over to the corrupt system, while fearfully hoping that someone else will come to save us.

We the People did not elect you to save us. You were elected to represent us. Please hear our voices. We have significant challenges to face....jobs, health, economics, remediation. But first the poisoning must stop. The Ohana of Kauai are quite intelligent, creative, and resourceful people talking many wonderful initiatives. It is only fear and separation that can make us small. Together we can all be healthy, happy, abundant and peaceful in a clean, sustainable environment. It has been a long time since we've actually seen that happen. But these are truly extraordinary times, and we have the very real possibility of creating that reality now, here on this extraordinary island we call home.

May each one of us be blessed with the Wisdom to know what is right, and the Courage to do what is right. And may the poisoning of Kauai and its people stop, now.

Mahalo to each one of you for addressing these serious and challenging issues.

Blessings,

On behalf of Kauai Rising

Stop Poisoning Paradise

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