Surviving the Sharks

On June 25 I arrived at Kamaole Beach Park One at about 11 a.m., an hour before High Noon, Shark Feeding time. I wore cut-offs, slippers, a tank top, a baseball cap and a small backpack containing several bottles of red liquid. I carried the sign that I showed in the previous blog post.  

My plan was to display the sign for a half hour at the nearby traffic light where people have plenty of time to read it; then to walk 50 yards to the beach, set the sign up there and wait for the countdown. However, the place was crawling with cops and they quickly spotted me. Unfortunately, the person who had agreed to videotape all this was in the hospital due to a car accident, so I can only describe what happened.

The police played it cool. Only one of the officers approached me while the others watched from a couple hundred feet away. He stood on the other side of a short hedge and drew me into a conversation about my grievances. He said he had read some of my blog posts and sympathized with some of my points. When he asked whether I had blood in the backpack and what my intentions were, I said I choose to remain silent.

Far from doing so however, I proceeded to engage him in a spirited, angry and loud (especially on my part) argument about the county’s policy on perjury that allows false imprisonment with complete impunity. The passersby on foot and in cars seemed astonished to see a protester with a sign, waving his arms and angrily ranting at a police officer just a few feet away.

Over the years I’ve had many unpleasant run-ins with police officers who have no respect for constitutional rights and who lack common sense. I have written about some of these. However this young officer impressed me as professional and smart. He listened well, was respectful and stayed calm.

Unfortunately, toward the end of our heated discussion he disappointed me twice. First, he claimed he could arrest me for disorderly conduct because he could easily find witnesses to say my sign had alarmed them. I replied that people who hold Trump-for-President signs alarm me and others, but they aren’t arrested.

The First Amendment protects them and me. There is no legal right to never be alarmed. Anyway, good luck getting people to reserve a day for court and go to Wailuku to testify against me.

Second, he wound up his argument against my three demands by saying, “You can’t expect the county to apologize for past mistakes”. But I have always explicitly disavowed any demand for an apology or for legal accountability -- that level of justice is an impossible dream at this point. I have simply demanded that, going forward from here, the policy be changed to conform to the law, and that perjury victims be notified of their rights and police of their responsibilities.

The officer was adamant that this could not and would not happen. I’m not certain what his reasoning was, but this mule-headed attitude, this inflexibility and inability to do what is pono, what is right ethically and legally, if it might imply admission of past wrongdoing, illustrates a great deal of what is wrong with this county. You can’t fix something if you refuse to recognize that it’s broken.

It takes impressive mental gymnastics to avoid seeing that the justice system is broken when a person can be arrested and jailed for weeks and months on flimsy perjury, that the perjurer pays no price for the legal abduction when the sworn lies are exposed, and that the county government refuses to take steps to prevent such travesties in the future. Refuses to even discuss it.

It takes willful blindness not to see that the county’s policy violates due process and separation of powers, undermines the integrity of the justice system, and causes victims serious harm. It also hands criminals a weapon they can use against their victims. All this is obvious to reasonable people, but not to the police or to the county lawyers and bosses. It takes a special kind of stupid to be one of these people.    

About 11:30 I went down to the beach, lots of eyes following me. I displayed my sign as I strolled along. It was gusty and I struggled a bit with the sign. Beachgoers who read it seemed puzzled but interested. Suddenly a male police officer joined me in my stroll, placing himself between me and the ocean. We chatted in a relaxed manner. Like the other officer, he was young, smart, professional and respectful, but we didn’t get into the issues or my demands.

We joked a bit about whether he could outrun me if I made a dash for the ocean. I may be more than twice his age, but I’m barefoot while he’s wearing standard police shoes. Then he pointed to the lifeguard boat up on the beach with the rescue squad standing ready.

I realized that If I dashed for the water and dived in, I wouldn’t get more than a couple hundred feet before they snatched me. I’d be wet, salty, sandy and cold. I’d go to jail or a psych ward that way and not get out until Monday at the soonest. They could use the “suicidal” label as an excuse to confine me and torture me (this is standard practice, though not by police). Better I live to fight another day. I went home.

This was not a wasted effort. It showed yet again that Maui government criminals will stop at nothing to keep the illegal policy in place. Of course, the local pseudo-journalists with the local media have no interest in any of this. They will not mention, much less investigate and report on, these important issues.

I sent an email to all the council members. It said, "Does someone have to be murdered before you take a stand for the rule of law and the reinstatement of our constitutional rights?

Someday a victim of the perjury decrim policy will go into a rage and kill either the perjurer who sent him/her to jail with sworn lies (a form of abduction) or a county official he/she blames for the insane, illegal policy. Blood will be on your hands when this happens.

The Mayor's office says there is no perjury decrim, an outrageous lie, perjury on top of perjury and about perjury. If this is true, why not meet my simple demands? Why not educate the public and police officers that perjury will be treated like any other serious crime -- investigated and prosecuted? Why has the mayor refused for 15 years to do this?

To repeat my demands:  inform the public that complaints of perjury can be filed with the police; inform the police that complaints of perjury are to be treated like any other serious crime; add a black box warning about perjury on the TRO petition form.

There is no doubt the Council could pressure the mayor to abide by the law. Is there not an honest, ethical soul amongst you?"

I think they have answered this question with a resounding, "No, there is not."

Links to all my blogs: www.KurtButlerBlogs.blogspot.com. 

For more detailed critiques of various forms of quackery, including naturopathy, see my book A Consumer’s Guide to “Alternative Medicine”. It was expertly edited by legendary quack buster Stephen Barrett, MD.  The critics say:

"Superb!" -- Dr. Victor Herbert in the New England Journal of Medicine.

"Excellent" -- National Council Against Health Fraud.

"Five Stars" -- Cooking Light.

"Thought provoking; a great book" -- American Journal of Health Promotion.  

When the book was published almost 30 years ago it was strongly praised by responsible health experts and the rare responsible media, but trashed by new-age critics and even vandalized in bookstores by new-age fanatics. It is as true and relevant as ever, and has been mostly vindicated by time. Yet my courageous and far-sighted publisher, the venerable Prometheus Books, is still sitting on lots of copies. Please help validate their integrity by buying a copy. Or two or more as gifts. Perhaps 10 for your local school library and health classes. See their website for assorted discounts. Make them an offer. (My royalties are insignificant; this little promo is for the benefit of one of the world's great publishers, Prometheus Books.) 

Maui's future foretold: Barbarians In Paradise -- Terror Comes to Maui. This is a prophetic flash novel about a future police state and those who rebel against it. Available in paperback and ebook at Amazon.com. 

Human Sacrifice by Shark

The following is the text of a press release that I emailed to local and national media. It is written in the third person, as such press releases customarily are.

Press Release
For Immediate Release

You are Invited to Witness a Human Sacrifice by Sharks

A Maui writer will feed Himself to sharks unless his demands are met by the county government. 

Kurt Butler, author of the controversial futurist novel Barbarians in Paradise/Terror Comes to Maui, and long-time crusader for reform of the justice system, vows to feed himself to sharks in his ultimate protest against the illegal policies and actions of those he calls Maui government criminals.

BUTLER’S DEMANDS on County of Maui (the county government) are simple and reasonable:

1) Agree to issue a press release that informs the public that victims of perjury can file a complaint with a police officer just as they would for assault or robbery, and that they have a right to an investigation if they show probable cause and injury;

2) Agree to order the Chief of Police to issue a memo to all police officers ordering them to investigate and prosecute perjury the same as they do other crimes, which is what former Chief Phillips falsely swore they already do, in 2008 in federal court; send a similar memo to the Office of the Prosecutor; and make these memos public;

3) Agree to change, or to lobby the state to change, the standard TRO (Temporary Restraining Order) Petition form. The change shall be to add the following words, in black-box warning form, near the signature of the petitioner. [Warning: Knowingly making a false statement in this document is perjury, a serious crime that will be prosecuted to the maximum extent prescribed by law.]  These acts would simply inform the public about what the county's policy is. The only reason to refuse would be that they have no intention of complying with the law even though the police chief swore under oath that they do.

Butler says that by agreeing to these demands the Maui government criminals would not have to admit their subversion of the law and obstruction of justice for the last several decades, or apologize to people like him who have been harmed by their illegal policy; they would not be put in legal jeopardy. But the Prison Industrial Complex would lose one of its favorite tools for undermining due process and the rule of law. He says, “I, for one, would forgo revenge and retribution if we could get real reform.”

If County of Maui does not meet all three of the demands by his deadline:

Noon, June 25, 2016,

Butler will begin his final, desperate, Hail Mary protest.

Where:  The beach at Kamaole Beach Park I, across from Chevron/ABC at 2349 S. Kihei Rd, Kihei, Maui.

He will strap on a small backpack containing several aluminum water bottles filled with fresh bovine blood. Their plastic screw tops will be tightly closed at first. He will enter the water and start swimming straight for the island of Lanai. See picture below. 

At about 100 yards, well past the paddle boarders and others, he will open the backpack zipper and loosen the bottle lids so blood oozes and sloshes out and he leaves a trail of it as he resumes swimming. He will continue to swim until he is exhausted, at which point he will stop, open the bottles all the way, and pour their remaining contents over his head. (End of press release)

The sharks most likely to get me:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oiWFbDEe6I

BACKGROUND

For 15 years I have protested County of Maui’s policy whereby an innocent person, even a crime victim, can be arrested and jailed indefinitely on the words of a lying accuser who later, when fully exposed as a perjurer, pays no price for the crime. It is self-evident that there can be no rule of law and no integrity in the justice system when perjury and false reporting are “free crimes,” and the county insists on lying about its policy.

The result of this illegal policy is routine violation of due process rights and arbitrary injustice. No one knows how many people have been unjustly arrested, jailed, defamed, and burdened with legal expenses on the basis of perjury or false reporting to police. The police don’t log victims’ attempts to file complaints or their own refusals to investigate, so there is no way of counting. Nor is there any way to count those who might go to the police but don’t because they have heard the police and prosecutors won’t do anything.

Moreover, the county has a policy (or a bad habit, which is legally the same thing) of lying about this policy. For example, former Police Chief Thomas Phillips lied while under oath (committed perjury) in federal court in 2008 (Kurt Butler vs County of Maui, et al) when he swore that his department prosecutes perjury the same as it does other crimes. Here is a copy of that sworn declaration.

Phillips swore to this even though he knew that the county had never prosecuted a single case of perjury (and still hasn’t); that his officers routinely told people who complained of perjury that the county has a policy of not investigating such complaints; and that throughout the months of those very court proceedings in which he swore that perjury is prosecuted the same as other crimes, his department had continued to refuse my repeated requests that they investigate my complaints about the perjury and false reporting that had unjustly landed me in jail for a month and cost the taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars.

I gave them ironclad proof on a silver platter, but they refused to prosecute. We simply cannot believe a word these people say, even when they say it while under oath in federal court.

The chief’s brazen, cynical, criminal lie shows how far County of Maui has strayed from the state and federal constitutions, as well as from common sense and common decency. These Maui government criminals heap lie upon lie, perjury upon perjury, and perjury about perjury, thereby making the whole system a farce. They deliberately undermine the integrity of the justice system and the rule of law while they prosecute others for far less serious crimes.

The de facto veto by the county government of the anti-perjury law passed by the state legislature is patently unconstitutional, a violation of separation of powers. The mayor, the police chief and the prosecutor take oaths to uphold and enforce the law. They have no right to pick and choose which laws to enforce.

For years I have complained to county officials and council members about the policy and the harm it does to innocent people and to the justice system itself. I have written dozens of letters to county officials, protested with large signs on the roadside, and posted several blogs online about the problem. I have received no replies or comments from county officials or council members.

I demonstrated with posters like the one below accusing the chief, the mayor, and various county attorneys and council members of heinous crimes, trying to give the mayor and his bullies a taste of what perjury victims endure, to show them that perjury can wreck lives. I demonstrated with signs like this all over Wailuku for several hours a day for several weeks. The mayor’s private goons attacked me a couple times and his cops threatened to arrest me and tried to intimidate me into stopping, but I was not hurt or arrested.

Unfortunately all my efforts have been for nothing. After more than a decade of failing to inspire the government to take this basic step toward the rule of law, I realized I had to do something dramatic to get their attention. So I protested by attempting self-immolation.

I emptied the gas on my head and torso, but just as I struck the lighter I was tased and subdued. The county managed to censor the video of this on my website (now inactive until I can get my own server) and it remains committed to the illegal perjury decrim policy as well as to lying about it. Later I pulled a prank on the mayor (I filed a fraudulent TRO petition accusing him of threatening to kill me) that proves beyond any doubt that these people are liars and criminals. For details go to http://mauifascism.blogspot.com/2014/11/hunger-strike-to-expose-mauis-broken.html

Later I protested by fasting (water only plus a couple sheets of nori each day for minerals) for 28 days in front of the courthouse in Wailuku. This is longer than Gandhi’s longest fast, but the county still would not budge and the local media would not report it. After losing  26 pounds, and suffering memory, cognition, vision, muscle, bone and heart problems, and realizing I could die, I threw in the towel. It took six months to fully recover my health.

Again, it was all for nothing. The mayor and his henchmen would let me die in public rather than end the illegal policy, but local “journalists” are not the least bit curious about why the policy is so important to them or concerned about the county’s criminal behavior. And they’re afraid to expose the mayor and the phony, corrupt justice system, just as the editors of Pravda are afraid to expose Putin and his cops and courts.

So now I’m forced to try something dramatic enough to get the attention of the national and international press so the world will finally start learning the truth about this corrupt little police state.  Vacationers should go elsewhere until Maui government criminals, predators and sharks are reigned in.

For more on the issues see:

www.MauiFascism.blogspot.com

www.BarbariansInParadise.blogspot.com

www.SueMauiTyrants.blogspot.com

also, twitter.com / @MauiLiberty.  

Links to all my blogs: www.KurtButlerBlogs.blogspot.com. 

For more detailed critiques of various forms of quackery, including naturopathy, see my book A Consumer’s Guide to “Alternative Medicine”. It was expertly edited by legendary quack buster Stephen Barrett, MD.  The critics say:

"Superb!" -- Dr. Victor Herbert in the New England Journal of Medicine.

"Excellent" -- National Council Against Health Fraud.

"Five Stars" -- Cooking Light.

"Thought provoking; a great book" -- American Journal of Health Promotion.  

When the book was published almost 30 years ago it was strongly praised by responsible health experts and the rare responsible media, but trashed by new-age critics and even vandalized in bookstores by new-age fanatics. It is as true and relevant as ever, and has been mostly vindicated by time. Yet my courageous and far-sighted publisher, the venerable Prometheus Books, is still sitting on lots of copies. Please help validate their integrity by buying a copy. Or two or more as gifts. Perhaps 10 for your local school library and health classes. See their website for assorted discounts. Make them an offer. (My royalties are insignificant; this little promo is for the benefit of one of the world's great publishers, Prometheus Books.) 

Maui's future foretold: Barbarians In Paradise -- Terror Comes to Maui. This is a prophetic flash novel about a future police state and those who rebel against it. Available in paperback and ebook at Amazon.com.