As I've often said, Puerto Rico is the Canary in the Cage, a warning
of things to come for All American Working Class People. Already the
Empire Rulers are covering the poor recovery from our more recent
Depression in 2006-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14-15-16-17.
In less than ten years, 2006 to 2016, the earnings of the "average
American" has dropped, not risen, dropped from around $120 thousand to
$78 thousand. The 12 richest Americans have more wealth than over
half of the rest of us. And they "Must" have more. Prisons
occupancy, a reflection on a nation's health, are at an all time high,
creating a very cheap captive labor force for the mega
corporations...at the expense of us taxpayers. Worst of all, our
economy is totally dependent upon our Military Might, our far-flung
military bases and our massive weapons production with its eager
buyers. How do we get out of such a nightmarish horror? There may be
only two choices. We might try replacing our entrenched Ruling Class,
with all that such an effort will bring, or we might go back to
sticking our heads in the sand...sniff sniff, smells a bit
polluted...but what the Hell...
Carl Jarvis
On 1/14/18, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
http://themilitant.com/2018/8203/820305.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 82/No. 3 January 22, 2018
(front page)
Puerto Rican protests say, ‘Stop abuse of the poor’
BY SETH GALINSKY
“The upper and middle class neighborhoods are getting electricity
restored, but most poorer neighborhoods don’t have light,” Rufino
Carrión told the Militant by phone Jan. 6 from Gurabo in the center of
Puerto Rico. A few days before, Carrión, a pastor at a local church,
organized a demonstration of dozens of residents of this small town to
protest the slow pace of recovery efforts.
“I don’t blame the electrical workers,” Carrión said. “They have to do
what their supervisors tell them. Sometimes they are working in a poor
sector and they’re ordered to stop and go to a wealthier neighborhood.
“I stood up and organized the protest because nobody was doing anything
for the people, no political party, no government official,” he said.
“Enough already of the abuse of the poor!”
The protest in Gurabo is just one of many that have taken place across
the island recently.
Protests were “really strong” at one of the public housing complexes,
Ivan Vargas, a member of the union at the Aqueduct and Sewer Authority,
said by phone from Mayagüez Jan. 5. “Not only didn’t they have
electricity, housing authorities wouldn’t let them use gas stoves,
saying it was too dangerous. Residents there don’t have money to eat out
every day.” After several demonstrations they finally got power restored.
More than three months after Hurricane Maria ravaged the U.S. colony
more than a million people are still without power.
Electrical workers at the state-owned power company are working
overtime, Sundays and holidays, Ángel Figueroa Jaramillo, president of
the electrical workers union UTIER, said Jan. 5. Less than half the
50,000 poles needed to restring electrical cables and less than half the
6,500 miles of cable needed have arrived from the U.S.
And the U.S. government has refused to respond to the offer of
revolutionary Cuba to send four brigades of electrical workers to pitch in.
“They even rejected the offer of Mexico to send workers,” Jaramillo said.
The crisis in Puerto Rico — and in the U.S. colony of the Virgin Islands
— flows from more than 100 years of U.S. colonial exploitation of the
island’s people and resources. Intertwined with this, today’s worldwide
capitalist economic crisis has meant that production in Puerto Rico has
dropped almost every year since 2006.
Pushed by Washington, the Puerto Rican government made paying its $74
billion debt to capitalist bondholders its top priority, while laying
off tens of thousands of public workers, cutting pensions, raising sales
taxes, closing schools and skimping on maintenance of the electrical
grid. Under legislation passed by the U.S. Congress last year, the
Puerto Rican government has declared bankruptcy and its economy was
placed under the control of an all-powerful board, appointed by
President Barack Obama.
U.S. District Court Judge Laura Taylor Swain, who oversees Puerto Rico’s
bankruptcy case, ruled Dec. 20 that the island’s government must keep
paying some $13.9 million a month in interest on pension bonds alone.
The delays in restoring power have had repercussions in the U.S.
Hospital officials say a nationwide shortage of intravenous bags has
worsened, the Wall Street Journal reported Jan. 7. The Puerto Rican
plants of Baxter International, which makes the bags are still getting
only intermittent power.
“After more than 106 days, there are still people dying, because they
don’t have electricity to keep medicines cool, or for oxygen,” veteran
independence fighter Rafael Cancel Miranda told the Militant Jan. 6 from
San Juan. “That’s not the fault of Hurricane Maria. It’s colonialism
that’s responsible.
“I’m in solidarity with the protests. It’s been the people in each
neighborhood taking to the streets,” he said. “We saw a picture here of
homeless people living in a tunnel in New York. And among them were
Puerto Ricans. That’s what association with Washington offers us — the
equal right to be homeless.”
Cancel Miranda said that unlike in Puerto Rico, revolutionary Cuba has
recovered rapidly from damage caused by Hurricane Irma. “It’s different
in Cuba, because they had a revolution and the government looks out for
the people,” he said. “Under capitalism the government just looks out
for capital.”
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