No Tropic Care this year a ‘great loss’
No Tropic Care this year a ‘great loss’
Our congressional delegation is awfully silent on RIMPAC 2020 — now just six weeks away, if it happens.
Hawai‘i is doing a good job denying the virus a purchase in the islands. So why on earth are 20 navies with 25,000 sailors being invited to come here? They will all stay on their ships? I don’t believe that. What if there’s a COVID-19 outbreak on a ship while it’s berthed in Pearl Harbor?
There will be no economic windfall this time. All the businesses are closed.
This is a test of just how militarized Hawai‘i is. No other state allows the military to bomb land it owns. The military dismisses the imminent danger to Honolulu’s freshwater source with its jet fuel tanks, that have leaked, buried just a few feet above the aquifer.
How do these acts, and now this massive exercise that threatens to undo the sacrifice being made by residents, square with the Navy’s professed mission to defend Americans? Governor Ige has called for postponement or cancellation. Where are Hirono, Schatz, Case and Gabbard’s voices in this health emergency?
As a corollary, Tropic Care, the popular free dental, optometry and primary-care clinic that has provided a public-relations bump for RIMPAC in the past, was scheduled to occur April 27; right now. It’s a great loss for the many on Kaua‘i who go without health care. It is also a view of what universal health care could look like.
Kip Goodwin, Wailua
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