If Americans didn't get the message when Detroit went belly up, Puerto
Rico should sound the alarm. Our "Ship of State" is sailing straight
toward the reefs of our hapless colony, Puerto Rico. Look closely as
our captain desperately struggles to change course. What lies before
us is the result of more than a century of plundering and raping of
Puerto Rico's resources by that great American Experiment, Democracy.
Democracy as defined by the men who owned the Land. The men who
drafted the constitution and created the laws. The White men who
determined who could enjoy First Class Citizenship and who could do
the grunt work. And when Spain, who had been abusing the Island for
years, was kicked out, Puerto Rico was not encouraged to become a
Democracy. Puerto Rico merely saw its yoke transferred from one cruel
master to another. And while we average working class slobs skip off
to our beaches and mountain retreats, or push our way into our
favorite teams stadiums, or gather in our back yards and suck up a few
beers, do a joint or two and giggle about the latest reality show on
TV, those same plunderers and rapists are drooling over our meager
possessions, and plotting ways of taking it all. A few tweaks of a
law here and there, a tightening of our national security,
militarization of our local police, the list is endless, and the
result will be on us before we have time to say, "Grab another brew
while you're in there."
And of course we'll blame our corrupt, incompetent government, the
same government that is efficiently serving our Masters.
Some call it, "The American Empire", some say it's an Oligarchy. I
call it a, "Military Dictatorship". We have undergone one of the
cleverest, most cunning military takeover ever devised. Rather than
General Whatshisname parading before the world in his smart dress
uniform with all it's ribbons and medals, the Pentagon sits quietly
behind a facade of posturing "elected" officials. Do you disagree?
Fine. But consider this, we were once a nation that publicly
proclaimed our belief in free speech, independence and the American
Dream of a job, a home and a family. Today we have abandoned this
facade in order to support our world-wide, eternal war. We are held
captive by our military's efforts to "protect" us from Terrorists.
All we had to do was to sacrifice a little bit of our personal
freedom. Of course we need to be careful what words we speak in
public or on our iPhones, or what we write in our emails or face book
or tweets. But of course that's no problem for all of us Loyal
Citizens who want to protect the world against Terror. And we'll do
it at all costs.
Carl Jarvis
On 8/15/15, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
http://themilitant.com/2015/7930/793005.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 79/No. 30 August 24, 2015
(front page)
Puerto Rico’s unpayable debt
is product of US colonial rule
BY SETH GALINSKY
Hoping to push bondholders to grant Puerto Rico more favorable terms to
repay $73 billion in loans, the government of the U.S. colony defaulted
for the first time ever, paying just $628,000 of a $58 million payment
due Aug. 3.
“It’s obvious that this crisis is the result of colonialism,” longtime
Puerto Rican independence fighter Rafael Cancel Miranda said by phone
Aug. 8. “The Puerto Rican government has no real power, not even to
declare bankruptcy. The real government here is the Yankee government.”
Puerto Rico Gov. Alejandro García Padilla, backed by the Wall Street
Journal and some politicians in the U.S., is supporting legislation
before the U.S. Congress that would allow the 18 different Puerto Rican
agencies and state-owned utilities that issued the bonds to declare
bankruptcy — supervised by a federal court.
The Journal called García’s July admission that the debt is unpayable an
“open secret.” The paper said in a July 2 editorial that the 2013
Chapter 9 bankruptcy of Detroit should be a model because it allowed the
courts to “rewrite labor contracts, trim pensions, restructure public
agencies.” In other words, it’s a model for making the working class
bear the brunt of “restructuring.”
The paper also backed key proposals in the Krueger report, which was
commissioned by the Puerto Rican government and released in late June.
These include not applying the federal minimum wage, currently at $7.25
an hour, on the island and exempting Puerto Rico from the 1920 Jones
Act, which requires all maritime trade to be carried on U.S.-flagged
ships, doubling shipping costs.
Over the last five years the colonial government has cut pensions, laid
off thousands of government workers, raised sales taxes and slashed
social programs.
Since 2005 Puerto Rico’s gross national product has shrunk by some 10
percent. Labor participation is only 40 percent of the adult population,
compared to 63 percent in the United States. Mississippi, the poorest
U.S. state, has a per capita income nearly double that of Puerto Rico.
Some 300,000 residents of Puerto Rico, especially youth, have fled the
island over the last decade, with most heading to the U.S. More than
3,000 doctors left over the last five years, with a devastating impact
on health care. More than 60 percent of the island’s residents receive
Medicare or Medicaid, while reimbursement rates for doctors are 40
percent lower than in the U.S., the New York Times said, and more cuts
are on the way.
In San Juan, the paper notes, “beds in hospital emergency rooms line the
hallways. There are so few nurses that people often hire their own
private nurses during hospital stays.”
A July report paid for by 34 hedge funds titled “For Puerto Rico, There
is a Better Way” called for more drastic cuts in government spending to
ensure full payment of the debt. Co-author Jose Fajgenbaum, a former
International Monetary Fund economist, told the Guardian newspaper that
the Puerto Rican government had been “massively overspending on
education” while attendance had been falling. The Puerto Rican
government has already closed nearly 100 schools this year and 60 in 2014.
U.S. colonial rule
Puerto Rico has been a U.S. colony ever since U.S. troops landed in
1898, wresting control of the island from Spain.
Bourgeois economists and capitalist politicians often claim that
Washington “sustains” Puerto Rico, because of the high percentage of
people there who depend on food stamps and other welfare programs to
survive.
“But we’re the ones who sustain the financial vultures and multinational
corporations,” Cancel Miranda told the Militant. U.S. pharmaceutical
companies, hotels and agribusiness have made hundreds of billions of
dollars of profits from Puerto Rico. Annual interest on bonds is
currently at 12 percent.
In the early decades of the U.S. occupation, thousands of small farmers
were pushed off the land, and a once-diversified harvest was replaced by
sugar. Today Puerto Rico — with three or four growing seasons per year
compared to just one or two in most of the U.S. — imports nearly 90
percent of its food, lining the pockets of U.S. agribusiness.
Some defenders of Puerto Rico’s colonial condition used to say “the
Island of Enchantment had the best of both worlds,” Cancel Miranda said.
“But even they are now opening their eyes.”
Related articles:
Independence for Puerto Rico!
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