There was never any pretense about Puerto Rico. Our corporations used its
land and its people for their own purposes. Some New Yorkers traveled to
resorts there, for vacation 50 or so years ago. And 60 years ago, I remember
a lot of Puerto Rican people coming to work and live in ghettos in New York
City. They were despised and feared by city residents. Recently, they have
become almost invisible to other Americans in comparison to people from
Central America.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Monday, August 17, 2015 10:41 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Puerto Ricos unpayable debt, is product of US
colonial rule
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.htmlPuerto Rico.
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 79/No. 30 August 24, 2015
(front page)
Puerto Ricos 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.
Its 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 Garcías 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, its 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 Ricos 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
this year and 60 in 2014.
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 islands 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
agribusiness.
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 were 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.
Some defenders of Puerto Ricos 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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