In broad daylight, a garbage truck pulled up to the state Capitol and, in a move meant to protest the destruction of Hawai'i's beautiful land, dumped a pile of 'opala right on the front lawn. The message was that state leaders were allowing big business and mega-moneymakers to foul up the Islands.

That was a scene from a 1971 episode of "Hawaii Five-0," of all things. That sort of civil disobedience and guerrilla theater never happens in real life in our Islands. Other than water lines on Moloka'i, we're just too ... too gentle and good at being long-suffering for that sort of dramatic gesture.

In the early 1970s, writers for the TV show employed environmental themes and (clumsily handled) Native Hawaiian issues to drive several episodes. These story lines were based on real issues and actual sentiments, but took off in wild, fictional fashion.

In the episode entitled "Is This Any Way to Run a Paradise?" an environmental activist with a flair for the dramatic leads McGarrett and the boys on a chaotic chase. Calling himself "Ku Ka'ili Moku" after Kamehameha's war image, the protester pulled off some clever vandalism — capping a huge smoke-belching incinerator stack with a metal plate, shooting down a pesticide-spreading crop duster without injuring the pilot and dumping all that garbage on the front lawn of the state Legislature. Good stuff.

However, the trouble-making takes a turn and "Ka'ili" gets mean. He writes out a hit list of big business owners he believes are polluting the environment. The Five-0 squad has to go on high alert to prevent any bloodshed. In the end, Ka'ili, played by a striking frequent featured player and now-mayoral brother Nephi Hannemann, takes his own life in a cane fire rather than surrender to authorities. Very dramatic.

Too dramatic for real life, of course. Nobody wants that sort of thing.

But we're pretty far on the other end of the spectrum. We're not violent activists, but we're not very active, either.

Sure, there are daylong protests that end up more free-concert-in-the-park than anything else, sit-ins where the protesters order in pizza dinner and long news releases from the same professional protesters. But for the most part, we're so practiced at the low grumble and the orderly organized protest that no one even thinks about a dramatic gesture.

Or maybe we've weighed our options and decided that those kinds of acts, while they may blow off some steam, don't ultimately achieve the desired result.

Indeed, in that "Five-0" episode, the vandalism didn't work. In fact, it backfired. Public sentiment turned against environmental concerns because of the perception that those who support such things are freaks who go around jacking rubbish trucks, sabotaging incinerators and shooting planes.

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.