#1582 Maui Fire Sale: Hawaiian Colonization, Disaster Capitalism, and the Climate Crisis Fueling Wildfires and Housing Insecurity in Native Hawaiian Communities on Maui and Beyond
Best of the Left - Leftist Perspectives on Progressive Politics, News, Culture, Economics and Democracy
Jay Tomlinson
4.5 • 3.4K Ratings
🗓️ 13 September 2023
⏱️ 56 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Air Date 9/13/2023
This eye-opening episode will explore the complex web of colonialism, disaster capitalism, and climate change is ravaging Native Hawaiian communities. We explore how corporations and privatization going back to annexation have exacerbated wildfires, water scarcity and housing issues in Hawaii. We also discuss the role of tourism and its impact on local culture and resources and learn how community-led mutual aid efforts are offering a glimmer of hope for the unhoused and those struggling to reclaim their ancestral lands.
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Related Episodes:
#1401 That is a Texas-Sized Climate Disaster You Got There
SHOW NOTES
We speak with Hawaiian law professor Kapuaʻala Sproat about the conditions that made the fires more destructive and what’s yet to come for residents looking to rebuild their lives.
Ch. 2: Why Maui burned - Today, Explained - Air Date 8-15-23
Hawaii’s landscape has been rapidly changing for the last 200 years thanks to plantations, tourism, and climate change. A reporter and climatologist explain how those factors fueled one of the worst wildfires in US history.
Ch. 3: We are concerned for you. - Read Choi - Air Date 8-4-23
A skit imagining a discussion between an elite property owner and a Native Hawaiian
Ch. 4: Disasters at every turn - Native America Calling - Air Date 8-28-23
Officials are still sorting out the human and financial toll of the unprecedented fire on Maui. Many Native Hawaiians remain missing, hundreds more sustained serious damage to their homes and businesses.
We speak with Kaniela Ing, national director of the Green New Deal Network and seventh-generation Kanaka Maoli, Native Hawaiian, about the impact of this week’s devastating wildfires and their relationship to climate change.
In Lahaina, the area in west Maui that is of historical importance to Indigenous people, entire neighborhoods were wiped out by this week’s historic wildfires, including the Na 'Aikane o Maui Cultural Center
Janine Jackson takes a quick look back at recent press coverage of the Maui fires and the climate crisis.
Ch. 8: Wildfires - This is Democracy - Air Date 9-5-23
This week, Jeremi and Zachary are joined by guests Randy Denzer and Dr. Alison Alter to discuss the increasing incidence of wildfires in the United States and what efforts have been made to mitigate them.
MEMBERS-ONLY BONUS CLIP(S)
Ch. 9: Relationships, Money, and Maui Tourism - The Amanda Seales Show - Air Date 8-18-23
Is Tourism helpful to the Hawaiian Islands? Is the tourism industry a byproduct of the colonization of Hawaii?
Ch. 10: How Native Hawaiians have been pushed out of Hawai'i - Bianca Graulau - Air Date 2-7-23
Native Hawaiians are struggling to afford to live on the land that was once stolen from their ancestors.
FINAL COMMENTS
Ch. 11: Final comments on the need for better systems to respond to predictable disasters
MUSIC (Blue Dot Sessions)
Produced by Jay! Tomlinson
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of the Left podcast in which we shall |
| 0:07.2 | take a look at the complex web of colonialism, disaster capitalism, and climate change, |
| 0:13.3 | and how it's ravaging native Hawaiian communities. |
| 0:16.5 | We explore how corporations and privatization going back to annexation have exacerbated |
| 0:21.6 | wildfires, water scarcity, and housing issues, and discuss the role of tourism and its |
| 0:27.2 | impact on local culture and resources. |
| 0:30.1 | But we also look at community-led mutual aid efforts that are offering a glimmer of hope |
| 0:35.2 | for the unhoused in Hawaii and those struggling to reclaim their ancestral lands. |
| 0:40.4 | Sources today include Democracy Now, Today Explained, Read Joy on TikTok, Native America Calling, |
| 0:48.0 | Counter-Spin, and this is Democracy with Additional Members Only Clips from The Amanda Seals Show, |
| 0:54.7 | and Bianca Grovo. |
| 1:02.3 | Things are pretty brutal right now in Maui-Komahana or in West Maui. |
| 1:06.4 | People are still trying desperately to find ways forward from this disaster of untold proportions. |
| 1:12.5 | And I'm not on Maui, I'm actually on the island of Kauai, so a couple islands over, |
| 1:18.4 | and I have not been there since the fire, but that's also absolutely appropriate, |
| 1:22.1 | because people who don't need to be there should stay away, but send support from afar. |
| 1:27.1 | Regardless of what that looks like, whether that means making an ascending |
| 1:30.4 | boy or writing opinion pieces or sending money, whatever is the best way people can support from |
| 1:35.3 | where they are, I think is really important. |
| 1:38.3 | But the word from our network of folks on the ground is that people are really struggling. |
| 1:42.8 | I mean, our community has rallied in amazing ways, and I think that that's |
| 1:46.7 | part of the message that we want to get out. |
... |
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