Neil Abercrombie Quotes

You’re talking serious money already in the bank, and millions of dollars coming in every year.

When there wasn’t any money involved, for all intents and purposes, nobody gave a damn. But now the land, supposedly worthless, is seen for what it really is: an incredibly valuable asset.

Western concepts of ownership and privatization came in and clashed with that. So land began to be exchanged.

There was a queen that was overthrown here. So I was affected by all of that and felt profoundly grateful for the opportunity to live in Hawaii, and I set out at once to try to fit in.

So there’s always been this clash between what is the public good – that which belongs to all of us in common – and what can be exploited for a private interest.

Land in Hawaii is money. What I’m talking about here is ceded land – land that belonged to the kingdom and was ceded to the republic and then to the state when we achieved statehood.