Hall of Famer Ditka Labels Faleomavaega an “Idiot”

Although he did not specifically mention Faleomavaega by name, it is clear that Pro Football Hall of Fame Coach Mike Ditka, now a broadcaster, was including the American Samoa delegate among those he had in mind when he dismissed the drive to get the Redskins owner to change the name of the team.  Faleomavaega has been in the forefront of those in Congress who want to force the team to adopt a new nickname because, he argues, the current name is a slur on Native Americans.

This has long been a cause for the delegate who in July, 2013 before his debilitating illness, decked out in his best Indian string tie (the only kind of tie he has worn for years, now—when he wears a tie at all), delivered an emotional speech on the Floor of the House on the subject with his voice quivering and cracking as he spoke.  He also cosponsored a bill that would cancel the team’s federal trademarks but it has gone nowhere.

Faleomavaega was prompted to speak in part to respond to conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh, who had said earlier in July that the team’s name isn’t a government issue. Limbaugh said if fans were offended by the name, they wouldn’t go to FedEx Field, but because they do, “it obviously isn’t upsetting too many people.”

When he emerged from seclusion this past March to receive his first office visitor, the ASG director of Homeland Security, he said that, while continuing his rehabilitation, he would be concentrating his efforts on American Samoa issues, like establishment of a National Guard unit in the territory.  Yet, in late May, making his first appearance on the Floor for a five-minute substantive speech (he appeared briefly in April to acknowledge American Samoa Flag Day), he again chose the Redskins’ name as his subject, not the National Guard or any other American Samoa issue.

Now, as the NFL is in the midst of its preseason exhibition game schedule, the spotlight has returned to this issue and Ditka was asked about it during a recent interview.

“What’s all the stink . . . ,” asked Ditka?  “It’s so much [expletive] it’s incredible . . .  This is so stupid it’s appalling  . . . We’re going to let the liberals of the world run this world . . . “It’s all the political[ly] correct idiots in America, that’s all it is,” he continued.  “It’s got nothing to do with anything else. We’re going to change something because we can.”  Faleomavaega was a founding member of the ultra-liberal Congressional Progressive Caucus, although he since has left the group.

While team owner Dan Snyder says he will never change the name (and vigorous at age 49, he most likely will outlive the very sick 70-year-old Faleomavaega), there is no question that public sentiment to have him do so has picked up steam.  There is no doubt that were Congress in session, Faleomavaega once again would have been prompted to take to the Floor, perhaps even to call upon ESPN to suspend Ditka from his broadcast duties. 

This blog takes no position on the Redskins’ name but, given his limited strength and energy, wouldn’t Faleomavaega better serve his constituency by concentrating on American Samoa issues, as he promised he would?  If he must take to the Floor when Congress returns in September, how about an emotional speech on the poverty his island may face if President Obama goes ahead with his plan to create a huge Pacific conservation zone that could force the underpinning of American Samoa’s economy to collapse?

Redskins’ name, Kazakhstan nuclear waste, Cambodian debt relief, Korean comfort women, Bahraini protesters, Hawaiian sovereignty, Easter Island land tenure, West Papua Independence, Armenian genocide.  These are the kinds of issues that have dominated Faleomavaega’s agenda over the years when he hasn’t been traveling.  But, no, Coach Ditka, we wouldn’t describe Faleomavaega as an idiot.  However, we would be harder pressed to refute those who might dismiss him as a buffoon. 

Election time again

Well folks, it's election time again, so we are opening up our survey to give you a chance to choose who you prefer to replace Faleomavaega as delegate to Congress. The choices this year are Aumua Amata begin_of_the_skype_highlighting     end_of_the_skype_highlighting, who has contested the seat several times in the past and Tuika Tuika, Jr., who has run for congress once before.

The good news for a lot of governments around the world is that they are safe from Eni's wrath for three weeks while he confines himself to the territory to face the voters. So, he will have to put aside his two main, seemingly contradictory preoccupations: coddling dictators and championing the oppressed. In the former categories are such people as Frank Bainamarama (Fiji), Nursultan Nazarbayev (Kazakhstan), the late Ho Chi Minh (Vietnam) and Bouasone Bouphavanh (Laos). The oppressed people include West Papua's Melanesians, French Polynesian separatists, Armenians, Koren comfort women, Cambodian Agent Orange sufferers, Native Hawaiians, American Indians on reservations and low-wage cannery workers.

The only place where he has had any impact, as far as we can tell, is with the low wage cannery workers. He fought for and won for them an increase in the minimum wage, forcing one cannery to close and the other to downsize, so that now he can champion a new group: the no-wage ex-cannery workers. Atta boy, Eni, way to go in your never-ending search for "social justice."

The good news for Eni is that if he wins again, he is likely to have a whole lot more time to devote to his pet causes because if Republicans take control of Congress, as many analysts now believe they will, he won't need to show up in Washington every once in a while to chair hearings or cast committee votes at the direction of his party to give cover to real members. As was the case for the 12 years Republicans controlled the House between 1995 and 2007, he will be largely irrelevant as a member of the minority. Even though Republicans will control travel budgets, they do like to have Democrats on their fact-finding delegations abroad to show "bipartisanship," and Eni has proved useful for that purpose because he never refuses a trip he is offered.

He seems to have adopted a strategy of flying under the radar this election, as he made no formal announcement of his candidacy, just quietly filing his petitions to activate his candidacy. And he can count on Samoa News, where his sister-in-law is one of the editors, to play his little game of keeping controversy out of print. There are only 22 days left in the campaign and so far there have been exactly NO stories in the paper about the campaign. The candidates each made the first of their customary television presentations last week and Samoa News did not even bother to cover them. nor have any of the media taken the simple step of going on-line to the Federal Election Committee website to see how much money has been raised any from whom. Virtually every other newspaper in the country does this for their local congressional races but apparently not Samoa News. Maybe his sister-in-law won't like what she sees: massive contributions from people with Asian names with addresses in the U.S. No one seems to care or wonder why all these people would be so interested in a congressional race on a small, remote Pacific Island. As long as the voters are fed on Election Day, why bother, I suppose?

Over Obama, Clinton Objections, Faleomavaega Casts Deciding Vote on Genocide

Faleomavaega has continued to stake out his maverick course in dealing with the Obama administration by recently voted for a House Foreign Affairs Committee resolution that, if passed by the full House, would put Congress on record calling for Turkey to acknowledge and apology for a genocide imposed on its Armenian minority during World War I. Turkey over the years has refused to accept that it conducted such a genocide.

Although Faleomavaega is not very influential in Congress, he does have a full vote in committee and in this case his vote turned out to be very influential, because it was the tie breaker in a 23-22 vote in favor of the resolution. President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have signaled to House speaker Nancy Pelosi that they hope the resolution will not be put to a test on the Floor of the House.

For someone who represents a constituency that is so reliant on the federal government for assistance, Faleomavaega is either very brave or very foolish to buck the White House so often. His genocide vote comes only weeks after he condemned the very same Obama and Clinton for failing to include meetings with Pacific Island leaders on her maiden trip to the region. That trip was truncated in Hawaii because of the Haiti earthquake and despite promises by Kurt Campbell, the assistant secretary for the region, at a recent Foreign Affairs Committee hearing that Clinton would include island leaders on her rescheduled trip, it is by no means certain she will do so, especially if Faleomavaega continues to pummel the administration.

In addition to the genocide vote and the criticism of the Clinton trip, at the same hearing Faleomavaega complained to Campbell that the 176,000 dollars U.S. has given Communist Laos to clear around 80 million bombs that failed to detonate during the Vietnam was grossly insufficient. "This is absolutely outrageous,” ranted Faleomavaega, “and it's not the America that I would think of." He continued: "They never declared war against us. We're the ones that just simply went over there and bombed the heck out of them." But Campbell stood his ground, insisting that while both Vietnam and Laos want better relations with the U.S., much needs to be done in the area of human rights and democracy before real progress can be made. Once again, the ultra liberal Faleomavaega seems to turn a blind eye to such matters when it comes to his favorite left-wing and right-wing dictatorships.

Meanwhile, there has been no word out of the White House as to whether Obama will accept Faleomavaega’s invitation to visit American Samoa on his return from Indonesia-Australia trip later this month. He leaves for the Pacific in just nine days’ time: March 18. Rahm “The Enforcer” Emanuel no doubt is weighing Faleomavaega’s behavior towards Obama in the deliberations. Perhaps that is what Faleomavaega hopes to achieve: carve out an independent course and use that as an excuse if Obama declines to visit the territory. It’s all part of the Washington game. And the voters likely will rally around Faleomavaega for the discourtesy Obama would have shown. Never mind any discourtesies Faleomavaega might have shown the White House.