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TMT is using Hawaiian history, social issues and half-truths to create a narrative in which the project is in harmony with Hawaiian culture. Some believe it. Many do not.
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The Corporations and individuals who support the Thirty Meter Telescope have built their justification on assumptions. Twisting and bending history and truth in an attempt to win support from those unfamiliar with the facts or unwilling to do their own research.
Astronomer George Lyon Tupman, leader of an 1874 project in Honolulu to document the transit of Venus, is pictured here with the telescope that King Kalakaua referred to favorably in a passage now being used by TMT project leaders.
Courtesy of The Hawaiian Journal of History
A prime example of this can be found on the front page of the TMT propaganda website www.maunakeaandtmt.org in this quote from King Kalakaua in 1874: “It will afford me unfeigned satisfaction if my kingdom can add its quota toward the successful accomplishment of the most important astronomical observation of the present century and assist, however humbly, the enlightened nations of the earth in these costly enterprises…”
What they don’t tell you is that the Telescope Kalakaua was referring to was only a few feet long mounted on a tripod in a small yard. The images and the full story, “Astronomy in the Sandwich Islands: The 1874 Transit of Venus” by Michael E. Chauvin, can be found online in The Hawaiian Journal of History here.
TMT makes an assumption that Kalakaua’s statement should be held in perpetuity and implies approval of any telescope regardless. In this same document, the expedition leader refers to Hawaiians as savages, but this is also not mentioned by TMT. They simply chose one statement from a historical record and twisted it to suit their needs.
The TMT is operating on the age-old assumption of “We know what you need better than you.” They are using Hawaiian history, social issues and half-truths to create a story that simply does not exist. Some believe it. Many do not. Resorting to selling their monstrosity to the Hawaiian people with dollar signs and assumed approval of a beloved Monarch is deplorable and shady.
The truth is the truth no matter how you try to twist it, and a little bit of research can easily dispel the myths TMT is spouting.
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