[MEMOIR ESSAY] DiaspoRican Manifesto: The 'Real´ Story Behind the Curtain of Colonial Life in Puerto Rico Post-Maria

by Norma Iris Lafé

"My DiaspoRican Creed"

I BELIEVE, that Mi Gente (My People) here and there, rich and poor, young and old, progressive and conservative, of mixed Spanish Criollo, African and Indigenous descent, are beholden to one another. That it is time:

We bridge the political divide for the sake of cultural self-preservation.

That we set aside the contentious statehood debate, for once.

That we band together as “One Nation” against the one common enemy.

COLONIAL SUBJUGATION.

That we be self-empowered on our own terms.

That we strive to transcend the colonial limits on our hidden potential.

Stand Up and be counted

So that together we can BRING IT!

And manifest to the world who we the Puerto Rican people truly are.

SOMOS BORICUAS.

We are the change. Vota Demócrata. And there shall be a harvest for the world from the proud seed scattered to the 50 states by Hurricane Maria.

For, there’s one thing I (now) know for certain, underneath the political discord over status, fundamentally, los buenos corazones puertorriqueños laten como uno, the good hearts of ALL Puerto Ricans beat as one.

("Es Hora De Cobrar" Video)

(Do I hear an Amen?)

A DiaspoRican (Nuyorican returnee) arriving from the San Francisco/Bay Area Latino immigrant mecca (in 1999) and becoming an “Eyewitness to a Dying Colonial Nation” over the years; I take to heart the writer’s advice of the radical African American author Alice Walker:

“You have a right to express what you see and what you feel and what you think. To be bold. To be as bold as you can possibly be. Our salvation, to the extent that we have one, will come out of people realizing the crisis of our species and of the planet and offering their deepest dreams of what’s possible.” 

That said...

My 12 Writer’s Guiding Principles (2017)

[includes19 reference links and Post-Maria Updates]

Rule #1: Your DiaspoRican viewpoint does matter here (so stop feeling like an outsider).

Amid the protracted ‘War Against all Puerto Ricans’ being waged since time immemorial,  for all intents and purposes, on the split-screen of my colonial life—here and there—I am  a messenger of solidarity on a rescue mission--‘behind enemy lines’. 

Rule #2: So be wary of being sucked into the political maelstrom.

A South Bronx avowed progressive, powerless in colonial Puerto Rico, is like a ticking time bomb waiting to explode, and spill the toxic truths about insular partisan politics, if only to cleanse the lush tropical scenery of all the mind-boggling hot air, opposition dirt and century-old (I hate to say it) White Wannabe ‘American Copycats’ syndrome (or malas mañas Americanas); and place an X on the political landmines, so as to safely maneuver and defuse the reactive core of Our Nation in crisis.  Before we self-destruct.

Rule #3: Do your own research into the conventional wisdom.
(DiaspoRican Chronicles, June 2017)—Over time, a witness for the restitution, I couldn’t help but visualize the dead founding fathers of the Commonwealth PPD, Partido Popular Democrático, los populares; the Statehood PNP, Partido Nuevo Progresista, los estadistas; and the Independence PIP, Partido Independentista Puertorriqueño, los independentistas—political factions—turning over in their graves. Their eternal rest rattled by legacies that had run afoul of Puerto Rican dignity, decency and patriotic loyalty: Where is the honor among these men who defile my venerated name? The ancient ideologues Luis Muñoz Marín, Luis A. Ferré and Gilberto Concepción de Gracia, respectively, coming face-to-face with the beastly "Three-Headed-Hydra” modern-day body politic their extremist fanatical views gave rise to (the mythical Hercules cuts off one head that grows back two). An "Estado-Libre-Asociado" (El ELA for short), an oxymoronic "Free-Associated-State" that over the course of 66 years, since the Commonwealth’s 1952 inception, and all the reckless political wrangling has left a fire-breathing tale of 'build and destroy' government in its wake. 

And just when you think for the sake of sparing La Madre Patria, the Motherland, further humiliation on the world stage, there might be a détente in the Cold War between assimilationists and Puerto Ricanists (patriotic nationalists and pro-sovereignty advocates) the pro-statehood movement capitalizes on the fall of El ELA--the fraudulent PPD commonwealth construct nullified by the 2016 dictatorial PROMESA Act--to pull another voter ballot sleight-of-hand with such alarming alacrity, the 2017 statehood plebiscite ballot (a year ago) gives one pause.

Don’t they know they’re being watched? Have they no regard for the Washington District of Columbia that put in a bid for the 51st Star as the “New Columbia State” decades ago? And Congress still has them, a majority democratic African American constituency, in the shadows? (Represented by my all-time fighter heroine Eleanor Holmes Norton.) Meaning, the Republican-based Puerto Rico statehood movement would have to either get in line, or join forces, with their democratic movement “We Are Washington DC the 51st State” to negotiate for joint admission into the Union. However, my further analysis of “What Makes an ‘Estadista’ Tick?” reveals what they may have is a “Delusion of Puerto Rican Statehood”. Realistically, what are the chances of a Republican Presidential invite to the Union for the ‘Brown-Habla Español-Would-be-51st-Junk-Bonds-State’ by the Despicable One, who would 'Make America Hate Again'.

Rule #4: Keep your eyes and ears tuned to the wavering (or some say ‘bipolar’) court of public opinion. 

Consider the mixed islander reactions to the following major news stories thrusting Puerto Rico into the national spotlight, as of late.

A. THE TRUMP TWITTER WAR WITH SAN JUAN MAYOR CARMEN YULÍN CRUZ
But first. 

WE ALL KNOW THE DRILL:

1. Natural or Manmade Disaster Strikes in the Continental US. 

2. The President declares the devastated area a ‘national disaster zone’

Should he be so inclined to avert a political liability and PR nightmare for his administration.

3. The Flood Gates to FEMA Funds are Opened 

Brown and black US territories (from the looks of it) do not matter, and must hold their own while insisting on equal treatment. ONLY 55 of Puerto Rico’s 78 Municipalities were declared disaster zones, at first. Slowing down the emergency response for the remaining 23 Pueblos cut off from their constituents in crisis, lacking electrical power, telecommunication lines, access to food, water or critical medical care. (Including my coastal town Vega Alta, where (to my dismay) my online FEMA personal disaster assistance application bounced back, "you are not in a disaster zone.")

4. First Responders Save and Succor Lives

Should the US show the good-faith decency to command US military humanitarian rescue and evacuation of imperiled islanders of the mountainous zone, in an appropriate and timely manner. (Which it did not.) Not until the San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz fired off her Mayday distress tweets; and further, broke it down for the ‘Miscommunicator-in-Chief’ during his island appearance almost 2-weeks later, that 'this is about saving lives, not about politics', keeping the plight of Puerto Ricans in the national public eye.

5. Homeless Disaster Victims Are Folded into Emergency Shelters 

Our overcrowded and contagious-disease spreading waystations (that I also experienced) did not hold the promise of FEMA blue tarps to return to our roof-torn or wrecked homes, nor was the smooth emergency housing assistance made available to regain some stability, and dignity for traumatized homeless refugees, as updated the Daily Kos. (Apparently, not reserved for second-class American citizens, either.)

6. Recovery and Reconstruction Begins

That's assuming the $125 billion disaster recovery funds needed to 'rebuild Puerto Rico stronger' don’t get mired in stricter auditing controls for the 'Whitefish corruption scandal-plagued' and discredited Rosselló administration. (Which they have.) Nearly 11 months later, Pueblos are still removing unsightly debris, and reconstruction has yet to begin, details the Hunter College Centro Rebuilding Report of 'pending' approved projects.

THERE: Insofar as anti-Trumpism fuels the narrative, the San Juan Mayor receives accolades for speaking truth to power. Whereas, the seemingly reserved Governor Rosselló was not in a diplomatic position to balk at Trump's slow response, while still negotiating FEMA emergency aid, and galvanizing American sympathy for Puerto Rico statehood.  In the process of being humiliated (in full view of all Americans) by the impromptu Presidential patronizing request of the governor, to limit the use of the USS Comfort hospital ship (chintzin’ on the ol' family recipe) as the USS Comfort sat in the San Juan harbor, bogged down in FEMA bureaucratic red tape--underutilized--when all the while, death was knocking on the doors of hurricane survivors in life and death medical emergencies. (And death was getting too close for comfort for me, too.)

HERE: The unusual national attention is seen through a de-facto partisan lens. Fearing their personal disaster relief assistance could be jeopardized, pro-statehood critics lambasted La Alcaldesa for biting the FEMA hand that feeds us. The presumption being the nationalist (who ran for mayor under the PPD party ticket) must be gunning for the PNP Governor’s chair. (And heaven forbid that a nationalist demonstrates the political finesse and backbone to lead her colonized people out of bondage!) One must give credit where credit is due. 

The San Juan mayor’s twitter face-off with the clueless and remiss President, finally puts La Colonia on the American social justice map, by triggering an unprecedented chain reaction of external investigations into the goings-on in colonial Puerto Rico (where transparency has never been an operative word in island government):  

1. Congressional delegations start streaming in like clockwork to examine firsthand their damaged prized territorial possession (the 'Goose No Longer Laying Golden Eggs');
2. The Harvard New England Journal of Medicine shocking death toll study ;
3. The behind-the-scenes Frontline investigation Blackout in Puerto Rico ;
4. The call by Democrats for an official Congressional probe into the Trump administration's Hurricane Maria federal response, and
5. Yet another UN Puerto Rico Decolonization Committee resolution returning the unresolved international debate, addressing Puerto Rico's lack of self-governance, back to the highest forum: the United Nations General Assembly. (37 UN committee resolutions citing U.S.violations of international law--that come with the penalty of hefty fines--have been to no avail, documents the activist/historian José López Sierra of Puerto Ricans United for a Decolonized Puerto Rico, Todos Unidos Para Descolonizar A Puerto Rico.) 

As wonders never cease, while it's true that all the bad press has cast a pall over the seat-of-the-pants Rosselló administration (that doesn't bode well for his 2020 reelection), it's also true, that Mayor Cruz has since tossed her hat into the ring. Should she prevail in the PPD primary, this could be the first-time ever runoff between a statehooder and a nationalist for the Fortaleza Governor's Mansion. 

B. THE DYSFUNCTIONAL LOVE-HATE RELATIONSHIP WITH THE PROMESA BOARD

(6 colonial overlords, referred to (interchangeably) as either “La Junta de ‘Control’ Fiscal or La Junta de ‘Supervisión’ Fiscal). 

THERE: Justice-seekers can be counted on to call a spade a spade. The PR Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA) passed by the US Congress  (in 2016) amounts to an aggressive "colonial takeover" by Wall Street predators, who PROMISE to bleed islanders dry as cruel and unjust punishment for the past sins of our ‘inept and undisciplined administrations'. Effectively, turning a blind eye to their own complicity in Puerto Rico's dismal state of affairs, having been the Masters of our fate for over a century, since the US military invasion on July 25, 1898, and the obstructionist governance that followed throughout 120 years of colonial rule (recapped in this nifty Cartoon History by journalist Ed Morales).

1ero de mayo International Workers Day, May 1, 2018  protesting the anti-democratic rollback Labor and Education Reforms by PROMESA

HERE: In poll after poll, notwithstanding the infamous austerity measures dictated by the PROMESA board's 'Master Fiscal Plan', many myopic islanders view La Junta de ‘Supervisión’ Fiscal as though this  Parallel Government of Bankruptcy Lawyers and Consultants [fleecing the island's bankrupt coffers to the tune of $60 million per year in lawyer and executive fees] were the heaven-sent solution to decades of fiscal mismanagement and freewheeling corruption; implying that Puerto Ricans have been--and will always be--incapable stewards of some $20 billion in annual 'commonwealth' transfers without the Empire's supervision.  
A subjugated colonial mentality (fatalistic attitude) that in my estimation belies Puerto Rico's prodigious ‘Brain Trust’ (academics, economists, sociologists, and expert researchers) whose potential contributions are continually hamstrung by the pendulum swing partisan politics and failed economic development policies focused on attracting and awarding incentives to 'foreign capital' investors to the detriment of our 'human capital'. Take for example, the alternative economic development policies recommended by the Boricua Intelligentsia in their recently-released United Nations Human Development Index Report El desarrollo desde la gente para encarar la pobreza y la desigualdad" / People-centered development for tackling poverty and inequality" (ENDI, May 13, 2018).Their research over several years shows that many Boricuas have access to education, health and employment, having capitalized on the third world aid, and yet:

• 21% of the working class operates at a poverty level (three times the US)
  

"Social Inequality Exposed" 

The Puerto Rican Paradox

• Puerto Rico has one of the strongest human development indexes in the world and ranks #30 out of 187 world countries
• Our United Nations Human Development Index at [.851] ranks #1 in all of Latin America, 
• And yet, when measured against income inequality, drops to #65, below Argentina, Chile, Venezuela, and Costa Rica 

 L to R: Mareia Quintero, Marcia Rivera, Mario Marazzi, Ethel Ríos Orlandi, Orville M. Disdier y Manuel Torres Márquez present the Human Development Index of Puerto Rico to El Colegio de Abogados. 

Mario Marazzi, Executive Director of the Institute for Puerto Rico Statistics (the independent statistics gathering agency has been under privatization attack by the Rosselló administration) explains 'the human development index, measuring education, health and income levels, is centered on the development of the human being, rather than on wealth, the gross national product or infrastructure. The more holistic approach is based on the theory that developed humans will result in a developed economy, focused on economies of solidarity, environmental sustainability and investment in the human capital rather than in things." 

One wonders. Faced with the declining population, seeking better-paying opportunities elsewhere, who will be left to govern of the PPD base, the PNP base, the PIP base?  And how will the swing vote of soberanistas (independent voters) play out? (insert LP status questionnaire?)

And so...the status plot thickens. We are closer to ascertaining (once and for all) the 'real' will of the Puerto Rican people.  However, the race is on to shape public opinion in favor of statehood, vis-à-vis fear mongering opposition parties [Puerto Rican patriots] as radical ‘socialistas’ and Marxist 'comunistas'.

(In other words, let the smear campaigns begin!)

Rule #5: Pay special attention to the provincial media’s fairness (or bias) in reporting, the expert analyses of their political pundits, how they 'spin it'—and what not.

Our disaffected voters--largely people of a certain age  (like moi) with the more productive and proactive younger generation being overlooked--are up for grabs ahead of Elections 2020. In contrast with the Pre-Junta years (I wrote about) of wearing your red, blue or green party colors like a badge of honor, after decades of ineffective partisan leadership, there appears to be an unwritten rule, journalists and analysts not show their political party sympathies(simply too embarrassed to admit their poor partisan election choices).  One must necessarily read between the lines of their political discourse (apart from the slant coverage by raging fanáticos for Trump, that is.)

Ranting Fox News Copycats (believe it or not!) preaching the neoliberal values backed by the billionaire Koch brothers, who are hell bent on wiping out--with the stroke of a pen--the very same 'social safety net' programs--Obamacare, food stamps, Social Security, Medicare, labor rights, EPA environmental protections--our climate-vulnerable Puerto Rico, poverty-stricken islanders and displaced migrants have come to depend on. Libertarian foes of the disenfranchised who have extracted a worrisome 'Laundry List' of Victories from the Trump Administration, reports Lee Fang, Investigative Reporter forThe Intercept during his in-depth interview on Democracy Now: 

"They (the Kochs) are very worried about the upcoming census, that will redraw the political maps in every single state just in two years. So, whoever controls the legislatures after this midterm elections will draw the maps over the next decade. They’re also concerned that Republicans will lose control of the Senate. So they’re going on offense for a lot of Democratic senators who are incumbents right now. We already see TV ads all across the country, places like Indiana and Missouri, where there are vulnerable Democratic senators, you know, in states where Trump won the election. They’re already on air. They’re hiring staffers to go out and organize efforts, you know, using groups like Americans for Prosperity. But they’re playing offense, hoping to pick up some Democratic seats while protecting the Republican majority."

And I am frantic about who let thisTrojan Horse inside 'Our House Divided' to poison the well? To rail against teacher unions, UPR protestors and those 'meddlesome socialistas' who would banish La Junta from the island altogether (and rightly so).  There's nothing worse than when your own people sell you down the river. Correction.  What's worse is the unnerving disclaimer for a top-rated morning show that (interestingly) premiered at the same time as the arrival of La Junta in 2016: "NotiUno no necesariamente se solidariza con las expresiones del siguiente programa."
One day, my night-owl thirty-something daughter walks in on me during my AM radio listening hours, and comments on the political pundit's uncivil brand of grandstanding. Mami, why are you listening to that dude? He sounds like one of those Fox News guys. Let me tell you something Mija. You keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. 

Which is to say, in this digital age, mainland Boricuas nostalgic for homeland news, are also tuned in to this propagandist hour supporting the pro-statehood Republican machinery. Even as Florida Boricua voters are on the receiving end of racist insults from Ron de Santis, the leading GOP candidate for governor. Who also looks down his nose at the democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio Cortez as if La Boricua from the Bronx were not a real congressional contender. Racial biases by 'the haves' opposed to a fairer distribution of income for the 'have nots'. That a Boricua vote for Republicans would put the nails on the coffin of Puerto Rico's poor working underclass.

Thus, I applaud the island’s major news engine El Nuevo Día (ENDI)—our New York Times— for balancing the political hot topics (of the day or week) in their provocative Tribuna Invitada, Invited Guest Editorial pages. 

(In that, there is more than meets the eye.)

Rule #6: Remember, external business interests are pulling the colonial strings and you never know what kind of ‘puppet regime?’ we may get next (or may be under).

Elected officials (merely administrators of the Colony and their overpriced contractual employees) are notorious among islanders for doing more harm than good in their four-year terms [with impunity] as evidenced by the central government’s rollover $73 billion debt crisis and deficit spending pattern, dragging the 2006 recession ad infinitum. (And there were no auditing controls or managerial oversight to speak of at the time!?) That today, spells untold disaster for the island’s 78 Pueblos--ghost towns of hollowed-out communities in the making.  Major population hubs boasting untapped goldmine cultural attractions and geographical diversity, struggling to stay afloat in their respective jurisdictions; resisting the ‘indiscriminate’ pressures (by La Junta) to consolidate operations; or else. Potentially losing their municipal autonomy when residents need direct access to services the most.  

In the same way, the arbitrary fiscal policies of the Rosselló-Junta-Education Czar,  'Triumvirate of Oppression', fast-tracked the mass closures of public schools  for a $300 million annual budget savings. Without so much as holding impact reviews with school boards, parents and administrators (as required by law) to explain the shutdown criteria used, and soften the blow of being summarily stripped of their community control and local access to education. Autocratic decisions by the hugely unpopular Secretary of Education Julia Keleher that have been successfully overturned in court. In the Arecibo District one presiding judge ruled (in the story below), "the State's case borders on an act of 'prestidigitación', or sleight-of-hand. 

"Sadly, it is incomprehensible to this court" the judge states, "that with all the advanced notice, they failed to present an excel spreadsheet" detailing the 265 schools slated for el machete. How thoughtless is that for a 6-digit salaried hot shot education administrator? Who gets her marching orders from the billionaire US Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. Whose National School Reform policies are intended to 'break public schools' reveals the New Yorker. 

(To be continued)

 after the chaos expected on back-to-school day August 13, 2018 for a new school year that has islanders up in arms. 

Rule #7: Identify the Nation Builders: highlight and support them.

This writer’s rule hearkens back to one of those self-defining moments many, many moons ago...

(Manhattan New York, Circa 1970s) The Hunter College halls of higher learning are asphalt city stifling hot. And I’m 1970s psychedelic cool, my humongous red-brassy-brillo Angela Davis Afro is safely tucked away in the back row of my classroom: "The Puerto Rican Community in New York." Avantgarde professors of the nascent Black and Puerto Rican Studies Department are basking in their eloquent and righteous glory, transmitting the “Arts of Resistance” to bright-eyed South Bronx know-nothings like me. Powerful liberation language I had never heard nor seen before in books. Even though at the Lillie White Bronx Science campus we used to eat highfalutin words for lunch, prepping for the frequent and onerous vocabulary pop quizzes. But none had ever spoken to my ghetto reality, nor the rural island world of my beleaguered Puerto Rican migrant parents—not even remotely. I am enthralled.

One day, after class, I waylaid my professor, the distinguished anthro-political linguist Dr. Ana Celia Zentella, with a question I was too timid to ask in front of my classmates, for fear of looking dumb (or dumber).   “Ana Celia, I don’t get it.  So, Puerto Ricans are US citizens, we can come and go as we please, why not just make La Isla a State? “Because that would end us, our language and culture. And anyway, they don’t want us.” She says. Getting down to the nitty gritty of ethno-racial subjugation in her usual piquant professorial manner, that seemingly suggests, you want more answers, hit the syllabus books.  You’re about to get armored for La Lucha, the struggle to write the wrongs committed against Mi Gente. Looking back, Mi Profa may not have known: that was the day she sparked the eternal flames of my rebel heart—or maybe she did.)

Jones Act 100th Anniversary 

(DiaspoRican Chronicles, 2017)--It’s been 100 Years of American Citizenship, and still no ring? Seems to me, the statehood debate is the never-ending story of unrequited love between Puerto Rican assimilationists and Anglo-American separatists that dates back 100 years. I took a moment to revisit the spirit of the law that relegated Boricuas to second class citizenship status, denied equal footing with our mainland USA counterparts, due to the color of our skin and criollo mixed race—la mancha del plátano (as the colloquial saying goes).

After the 1898 US invasion, the 1917 Jones Act passed by the President Woodrow Wilson Republican-controlled Congress, staking legal claim to the Spanish Caribbean territory, simultaneously imposes (mind you, not awards, grants, confers or extends) American citizenship on the “natives” of Puerto Rico against the majority will of islanders, the “inferior and dependent masses” incapable of the civilized self-governance of the “master race” (so write the rebel historians countering the historical fiction written by the ‘benevolent’ conqueror).

During the 1914 Senate floor debates, then-Resident Commissioner Luis Muñoz Marín—future architect of the 1952 Commonwealth Accord—states for the US Congressional Record:

“A bill declaring [Porto Ricans] collectively citizens of the United States, is now before Congress…While rendering just and sincere homage to your citizenship, we firmly and loyally maintain our opposition to being declared, in defiance of our express wish or without our express consent, citizens of any country whatsoever other than our own beloved soil that God has given us as an inalienable gift and incoercible right.”

Naturally, White Supremacists hated the idea too, as testified the Southern Sen. James Kimble Vardaman (Democrat-MS) on the Senate floor:

“I really had rather that [Porto Ricans] would not become citizens of the United States. I think that we have enough of that element in the body politic already to menace the nation with MONGRELIZATION…

(Tell me this isn’t enough to resort to a few choice words?

And unlike the smaller in-corporated territories of Alaska State #49 (population 800,000) and Hawaii State #50 (population 1.5 million, at the time) the US never intended for the more populous and prolific Puerto Rico (population peaked at 3.8 million, Census 2000) to become a state, that could potentially rock the WASPM (White Anglo Saxon Protestant Male) Congressional electoral boat. After more groveling for acceptance by disgruntled annexationists of the time, “the Republican-dominated US Supreme Court ruled in 1922 that citizenship did not imply incorporation of Puerto Rico as a territory…therefore it was not one step closer to statehood.”)

(Sound familiar?)

And so, what have we got to show for the century of "token" American Citizenship?  Very little affirms the nationalist Nelson Denis, bestselling author War Against All Puerto Ricans, in his centennial retrospective for The Nation. (March 2, 2017)

Rule #8: Do not take at face value the politically-motivated corruption scandals.

That mysteriously pop up during an election cycle (or soon thereafter) to 'make or break' each successive administration, as if Los Federales (or FBI) were waiting in the wings for the right time to strike and topple the regime, by defaming partisan leaders—”House of Cards” Criollo-Style—guilty or not.

I take no pleasure in airing the dirty laundry of the unscrupulous elected official, whose illicit activities and improprieties have caused federal funds to fall into abeyance for the 'fallen' Rosselló administration.

Suffice it to say, Olivia Pope (of the Scandal) would have her hands full fixing the American Copycat scandals implicating high-profile Rosselló cabinet members: the #WhatsApp Gate chat room elections tampering during the 2016 gubernatorial campaign, and the #MeToo sexual harassment cases in the workplace are only two of several federal criminal investigations running simultaneously. Add to that, the opposition research and smear campaigns of gubernatorial and mayoral candidates (that are par for the course) and the sundry malfeasance schemes--malas mañas--that have disgraced all hard-working and decent Boricuas by giving Puerto Rico a bad name.

All of which has called into question the electoral process itself, in a democracy where the integrity of the oversight State Elections Commission, La Comisión Estatal de Elecciones (CEE) is compromised by bad apples too.

(And the beat goes on...)

Rule #9: Be mindful of the ulterior designs of the new Trump era.

That has given the Republican Congressional PROMESA Board the license to kill all manner of hope for a just and viable island economic recovery. Because it’s not in their territorial economic interests to do so. At least, not for the next 26 years  (or so) the municipal bonds debt collector will be on the scene executing its congressional mandate to clean up the fiscal mess brought on by the disjointed politicized governing bodies in Our House Divided. (In this regard, the Wall Street debt vultures have been ‘outed’ in the new Hedge Clippers report Pain and Profit After Maria Companies Taking Puerto Rico By $torm.)

Rule #10: Bear in mind, status plebiscites do not work, as they are designed to give an unfair advantage to the ruling political party in power. 

(DiaspoRican Chronicles, Plebiscite Day) When all is said and done about the June 2017 plebiscite, the PNP statehood party finally gets the jump on the crippled commonwealth opposition (lobbing off the head of El ELA) before the PPD party could regroup (from PROMESA imposition) and negotiate new terms of non-territorial bilateral association, the logical next step for a nation on its knees. Such human folly, to put the needs of ‘the party’ before the needs of ‘the people’ or El Pueblo Puertorriqueño. A vivid example of the recalcitrant lawmakers’ refusal to find common ground for the greater good. That renders La Isla vulnerable to the devious tactics of divide and conquer (as in the case of Hawaii State #50). All the while, instilling enmity, in place of solidarity, between stateside Boricuas and islanders, and making mortal enemies of the Lovers of Puerto Rico (in my opinion).

Disregarding that the press was scrutinizing the machinations of the statehood movement, on her website the Republican DC Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González spins the party line:

"Democracy belongs to those who vote. It is clear that the majority of Puerto Ricans want statehood. That is why leaders of certain factions urged people not to vote, as they knew that the current territorial status and nationhood were going to lose badly." (...) In every vote, the election is called for who received the greater number of votes, regardless of turnout.’

(NOT SO FAST!) 

“Many observers believe that the statehood movement is, in fact, in decline and that the current leaders of the Partido Nuevo Progresista (PNP) realize this waning. This may explain these current aggressive and somewhat desperate moves by the PNP while they are in control” analyzes Professor Basilio Serrano in his treatise “Annexationists Move Forward With Plan Tenesí".  (NiLP blog) The Tennessee Plan Commission on Equality comprised of 7 delegates, arbitrarily appointed (not democratically elected) dispatched by the Governor to Washington DC to lobby members of the Trump Republican-controlled Congress for statehood, using plebiscite results that don’t jive with the facts.

And “facts are stubborn things,” cautions the philosopher activist Noam Chomsky, citing these anti-democratic trends in the US that we the people must defy.

FACT: “federal policy requires “that the popular will of the people of Puerto Rico should be ascertained in a way that provides a clear result.”  “the June plebiscite ballot did not meet this standard (...)

FACT: Independence partisans objected to the inclusion of the colonial territory option.

FACT: the “commonwealth” party wanted the territory option to include the discredited “enhanced commonwealth” rather than the actual territory status, as it is described in the U.S. constitution.

FACT:  The “Free Association” option on the ballot was also questioned by the Department of Justice as not being “clear that a vote for ‘Free Association’ is a vote for complete and unencumbered independence. (…) that “voters may misperceive this difference to suggest that Free Association is an ‘enhanced Commonwealth” option, when the reality is that both choices would result in complete and unencumbered independence and both would require an assessment of a variety of issues related to citizenship.”

FACT: DOJ reaches a deadlock with opposition parties and instructs the Governor to postpone the plebiscite to a later date to work things through.  Pre-empting the voter education campaign that was promised in conjunction with the Obama administration’s $2.5 million set aside in federal plebiscite funds.

FACT: 77% of registered voters were then opposed to the plebiscite as planned and expressed their popular will by calling for an electoral boycott. 

By bulldozing ahead (for all intents and purposes) the statehood Governor Rosselló WENT ROGUE! No doubt it was part of his strategic plan to cut off La Junta at the pass, analysts said. In anticipation of La Junta’s imposition of massive budget cuts for (current FY 2018) that were sure to lower the boom on his bankrupt administration, adversely affecting his tenuous voter endorsement. Close to 100,000 public servants (all of them voters) were facing the potential loss of 20% of their weekly wages and annual bono de Navidad, Christmas bonus, a boost to the stagnant local economy.

The Guardian confirms the Governor's act of political expediency, “Rosselló dismisses the boycott as a ruse on the part of the opposition to disguise their own political weakness. He says $8m (from the bankrupt public coffers) is small change (my emphasis) if it addresses the much greater cost of being a colony.”

Flashback #2:
1959 Senate hearings, Annexation of the Hawaii territory (US invaded in 1893)
Sen. Alice Kamokila, a descendant of Hawaiian royalty, echoes my patriotic sentiments exactly and those of my fellow Nationhood protagonists (among my status choices) populares, independentistas and soberanistas, the new kids on the pro-sovereignty bloc:

“I do not feel we should forfeit the traditional rights and privileges of the natives of our islands for a mere thimble full of votes in Congress, that we the lovers of Hawaii, from long association with it, should sacrifice our birth right for the greed of alien desires to remain on our shores.”

(By Jove! This would also explain why behind the scenes of the politically-sanitized TV crime show Hawaii Five-O, there are “natives” who today denounce “The Fake State of Hawaii” and fly the 50-Star Flag upside down in protest of the “history of theft” and “how living with a (US) military presence is not normal.”) At the same time, condemning the fraudulent outcome of the “1959 Plebiscite to Ratify Congressional Vote for Statehood” under President Dwight D. Eisenhower:

Do you favor Hawaii’s annexation? Yes or No
YES: 132,773 (94.3%)* (includes military personnel)
NO: 7,371 (5.7%)

FACT is: Out of 474,580 eligible voters, 341,800 (or roughly 64%) did not participate, as “they were unaware of the issues” (the US obviating its obligation to educate the people) or for some other reason were unable to vote, falling into the “snooze you lose” trap, and being marginalized by the process. LINK: marginalized

Hawaii illustrates the lessons to be learned from “plebiscites designed for totalitarian democracies to achieve legitimacy” of their exploitative aims. 

And so (quiet as it’s kept) Statehood was not a mandate of the Hawaiian people.

Accordingly, in the face of this prolonged unsolved crime against humanity, citing the futility of Puerto Rico status plebiscites on the Enclave web site, the incisive Columbia University scholar Frances Negrón-Muntaner strikes back at "The Empire", and places the burden of proof where it belongs: 

“If indeed the U.S. is democratic and sovereign, there should be nothing stopping the country from ending its status as a colonial power. Americans can decide to start their own decolonization by immediately abolishing the racist unincorporated territory doctrine annulling Congressional plenary powers over all territorial political communities…”

Along comes the wunderkind statehood Puerto Rico Governor (only 6 months in office) Dr. Ricardo Rosselló Nevarez with his “Plan Wannabe” (Plan Tenesí wordplay coined by the independence party leader Senator Juan Dalmau) strategy to fast track his “2017 Plebiscite for the ‘Immediate’ Decolonization of Puerto Rico;” and make good on his 2016 election campaign promise to implement the Tennessee Plan for gaining admission into the Union as the 51st State. 

On Election 2012, I sat (aghast) through one previous status referendum, that categorically denies the Puerto Rican Diaspora (and still does) their inalienable rights to have a say in the future of La Patria, despite their forced displacement from their beloved homeland to begin with. Easily construed (by me) as an act of cultural warfare on The Boricua Nation that effectively penalizes those of the 5.4 million+ descendants and Exodus expatriates, forced to migrate to mainland USA, through no fault of their own. 

Moreover, despite the case for including the rising number of Exodus emigres to the States under "dual citizenship" status (let’s say) giving Diasporans equal rights to have a say in Puerto Rico’s future by absentee plebiscite ballot; there is no political will to do so. (One wonders: whose bright idea was that, and who stands to gain by excluding the burgeoning Diaspora? Many of whom still own island properties and have families to attend to here.)

Rule #11: Never mark an “X” in any status referendum boxes presenting half-baked formulas for decolonization.
That could bring more unimaginable tragedy for La Patria; that time after time, we the Puerto Rican people have betrayed at the polls, by placing the public trust in the wrong hands. 
(To be continued)

Rule #12: And always, keep your finger on the pulse of the people by staying abreast of the 'Word on the Street'

The 'Word on the Street' in Post-Maria Puerto Rico is best encapsulated by one island dicho, or wise folk saying, from our Book of Puerto Rican Proverbs—a sort of Murphy’s Law—"No hay mal que por bien no venga.” Literally, every bad situation yields a beneficial outcome; or figuratively, every bad situation can bring a blessing (or miracles) in disguise…

Next: 
On Saving Disaster Island: 'Isla Bendita' or Blessed Island:The Backdrop

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