The USA treatment of Hawaii was one of the earliest examples of the USA shift after the USCivil War to imperialism. President
Grover Cleveland was raised in USA before the shift began, so he understood what a free USA was like.
The Hawaiians did a great job of maintaining their independence by playing off the British vs the Americans (look at the Hawaiian flag today, they are naturals at it...) but eventually USA imperial interests organized a committee of safety (sound familiar?) to protect Hawaii (from whom?) and overthrew the Queen.
Rather than allow a war to break out, which no doubt unarmed Hawaiians would have lost badly to the well-armed US Marines, Queen Lili'uokalani abdicated. This was too much for Grover Cleveland, who tried to undo the criminal act. But the victorious US imperial interests refused to back down, and the end of the Cleveland presidency was replaced by McKinley who supported the take-over. President McKinley was he imperialists' man as president and led the government in the Spanish-American war that gave us Cuba, the Philippines and so many other "properties."
As an aside, Cleveland was the last US president to veto a spending bill for lack of constitutional warrant. He and Jimmy Carter are my two favorite US presidents.
But go forward 50 years. From Japan's view, the attack on the US Military in Hawaii was in order to liberate Hawaii from the American colonists. Regardless of suspect motivations by all government plans, what is fascinating is how the USA governor at the time refused to follow the orders of Washingnton DC. Instead of rounding up those of Japanese on the Islands, as was done on the mainland, he left them unmolested. By treating people well and fairly, he had internal security.
What happens to Hawaii is largely up to the Hawaiian people. But I will note, as they say, pride before the fall. As at that time around the world monarchs in their fine palaces were being overthrown, King David Kalakaua built the first royal palace to have electricity and modern plumbing. That necessarily had to be paid for by imperial business practices. If the missionaries who first came to teach Christianity had done a better job, they might have pointed out that the "David" that the King was named after was not allowed to even build a palace for God.
If there was to be a palace, it ought to have been built by Hawaiians. Once you take credit from imperialists, they own you. Says
so in the bible.
Something tells me Hawaii was much closer to a free market before imperialists showed up. Maybe Hawaii is another candidate for a free market, one country two systems zone.
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