FILIBERTO VIVE!

I feel, or have heard, many puerto ricans do not desire freedom and instead want to keep their U.S. connection. There seems to be a significant difference of opinion between boricuas living in the states (who are kind of unaffected by the problems in pr) and those living on the island. I wonder if there are any PR’s reading this from the island and not the states.

@goaldecolombia

Indeed, support for Puerto Rico’s independence can be measured (badly I think) at only 1% of the population. Which is the percent of voters that manage to keep the one leftish party barely alive.

The rest are divided about evenly between keeping the colonial status quo, and the right-wing anexionists. I have posted on my blog, however that the choice of statehood/anexionism is merely an illussion used as a “hot issue” for politicians to get elected.

I believe that no USA government, not even the most liberal one if one should manage to gain power ever again, would ever grant Puerto Rico statehood.

As the island is more profitable to the US and it’s corporations the US will simply keep the status quo while sometimes dangling that satehood carrot ever out of reach.

please read my blog posts here – spanish, here and here .

here’s the basic devil’s advocate argument: hasn’t PR done extremely well compared to its “free” neighbors in terms of standard of living, freedoms, violence, turmoil, etc?

Well yeah, its not blockaded, it gets remittances by the bucketload and has income from all the US military stationed there. Empire has some benefits.

S: exactly, and that’s why a lot of locals don’t want to give up the US association. they say the benefits of empire outweigh rolling alone. frankly, i don’t know much at all about PR politics. but i do know how screwed up the rest of the carribean is. not just cuba. as for your list, you could say the same about most of the region, expect for the bases part.

It’s hard to tell how they would do in a fairer Caribbean.

The US has also been trying to screw over banana farmers on some islands in the recent past, perhaps incidentally, by taking the EU to court over preferential (fair) trade terms that ensured a market for Caribbean grown crops. That’s a difference, another benefit of Empire.

Nobody would rationally choose a form of independence which changed Puerto Rico into a Cuba like pariah state, and shut off trade/aid with the U.S. What does Puerto Rico produce, apart from sportsmen and rubbish pop stars? Maybe US colonialism has left PC in a dependency situation that precludes an independence movement?

I have to admit that i’m no more knowledgeable here than you. Nice to think around it though. The UK could be heading Puerto Rico’s way if Tony’s wet dreams come true.

THE BENEFITS OF EMPIRE?
Empire may have some benefits but cancer rates in Vieques is not one of them, the sterilization of women is not one of them either, or the unemployment, or the damage to the enviornment, or the destablization of Puerto Rico’s economy. Those aren’t the benefits of empire. Nor are political prisoners or assasinations.

The benefits of empire were put into place solely to benefit empire so let’s not get it twisted. The fact that PR’s have found a way to squeeze something out of the nothing that empire offers is more a testament to PR’s than anything else.

The assassination of Filiberto for Puerto Ricans was like the death of Che Guevara to Cubans. Filiberto was the FBI’s number on fugitive unbtil 9/11 for a reason. And it’s not because of the benefits that empire has brought. (Or maybe it is?)

1% FOR INDEPENDENCE?
If you are basing this figure on the plebiscites done every once in a while as some sort of “democratic spectacle” to prove to the world that the US isn’t colonizing PR then you need to know the facts.

The reason that independence gets approximately 5% (not 1%) of the vote in PR when these plebiscites come around is because no matter what way PR’s decide to de-colonize themselves the US congress ultimately decides what it will do with PR. In other words if the whole islands voted for independence then the US congress could say we don’t want to give you independence and. So the vote is not binding and since it’s not binding then “indepedentistas” (supporters of independence) don’t vote in those plebiscites. As a result the numbers you are quoting are not an accurate representation of the independence movement in PR.

The other problem with those plebiscites is that they are not held to the standards of the UN’s De-colonization Resolution 1514.

IRAQUI FREEDOM BUT NOT PURTO RICAN FREEDOM?
The reason so many of you are taking this issue of US imperialism in PR so lightly is because you don’t see a resistance movement in PR and why don’t you? Because the US gov’t doesn’t want you to. How does it look that the bastion of democracry and freedom in the world can lay claim to the oldest colony on the planet? The very same almighty US of A can bring democracry and freedom to Afghanistan and Iraq but can’t see its way to freeing the oldest colony on the planet?

A HISTORY OF STRUGGLE
PR’s Nationalist Party attempted to kill President Truman in the 50’s in an effort to gain their freedom and shot up the house of Congress while it was in session. The FALN (Fuerzas Armads de Liberacion Nationalista) an underground armed resistance movement in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s claimed responsibility for over 108 bombings and actions for the liberation of their nation. The Macheteros blew up 10 fighter jets in the 80’s on the island of PR. Fighter jets that were going on bombing missions in Nicaragua. There is a long history of struggle with the PR independence issue.

Some of you need to research before you opinonate.

For more info check
www.ricanstruction.net