What's your opinion on the "Nacionalistas Puertorriquenos" beeing freed

[joseuno]

Carlos the 1rst:
I had a similar situation growing up. They did not want me to grow up so fast and I did! My solution? I left home at 19 and never came back except for two week visits at a time. I do try to keep away from those that want to tell me what to do except those that I can learn from! Life is a learning process but listen to the best! I believe Puerto Rico has had great international influence.We have had and continue to invite international teachers to our universities and colleges being the Universidad de Puerto Rico and La Catolica some of them.Two weeks ago I met a profesor from Spain on a plane from New York to Barcelona returning from giving a class in Ponce about human rights. We have the advantage of Global influence in our little Island and I believe we have a higher level of sophistication than most States of U.S. therefore sometimes I think we are better off as Status Quo but I dont know. How do we weight what opportunities we get by "defining" our status. What do we really achieve as a state, Independents or Commonwealth? Any thoughts? They all ( the parties) promise us a paradize but... On the issue of violence I believe what is achieved with killing and violence is minimal as opposed to debating, discussing, negociating like civilized human beings, but you know human nature! Greedy,stubborn, agressive, etc. and I dont even have the energy to discuss indoctrination, RELIGION, and mass "brainwashing", powerfull tactics, no! You know what scares me? Fascism, totalitarian governments, police and military states, the loss of vote, all that happened in the history of Germany and Hitler and I see the return of those tactics. Look at what`s happening in New York. Who would think the citizens of that progressive thinking city would be loosing their right to protest their fascist mayors silly fits and not be angry about it? Loss of freedom, censorship, police state, not being able to debate on the governing of our city? Scary! Thanks for the opportunity to put my two cents!

[JackieF]

Freedom, What is it? It doesn't matter what political party wins the election, we will always have some one setting the rules and telling us what to do. To be a terrorist is nothing but beeing selfish and wanting to take the power away from others just so they can have it.

Puerto Rico is Free, not matter how you look at it. We are better off than any other country out there, as a matter of fact we just may have a little too much freedom and that is why our society is loosing the battle against what's right.

I can not think of a reason why we should depart from the US. The US has been nothing but good to us. Take the power away from US and I am afraid to think who will take the power over. You know someone will, the question is who.

About the guns and kids, who do you rather teach your kids about guns?. The are not going to go away, the have been around since humanity is humanity. Just like Sex and Drugs, we need to be talking to our kids about it, don't wait till they learn it out on the street.

If more parents took the responsability of talking to their kids about sex, drugs and guns our society would not be such a mess.

Some people think if you just don't talk about I'll go away, WAKE UP, it will not. My kids don't have toy guns, they know guns are not toys, my kids don't have video games that kill people, they know killing is wrong. What you teach your children today is what they will become later.

[IDeJesus]

JackieF;

Your logic is circular. You can only hope that your children grow up to renounce violence and drugs. But the fact is that children are not raised in a cocoon, they are influenced as much by the world around them, if not more, as by their parents. You are right about violence, sex and drugs being around since the beginning of time, but society is supposed to become more civil as it evolves and not thge reverse.

About PR and Freedom I would ask, do any of the people posting their thought about the future of PR on this site actually live there? Have you spent anytime there as anything other than a tourist? Have any of you studied sociology, specifically the effects of colonization, the colonized mind, etc. I would encourage all of you to read, seek knowledge, it is the only true form of freedom.

Take care.

[SaudadePR]

It was about time that our political prisoners went free. After being in prison for 19 years, paying for the "normal" crimes they commited, all that remained was paying for the "moral" crime for being independentist. In a democracy (a *real* democracy), people never go to jail for believing in something, of for having an ideal. That' why ther're free.
And for those who are afraid of these people to do something, be afraid no more. Nothing is going to happen. The only violence is coming from the congressmen who insists in calling them criminals.
Just for remember:
George Washington and many of his friends joined together to fight the British to make the US an independent country. And those early Americans killed many of their enemies for obtain it. Will you call them terrorist?
The situation of our patriots is not different. The difference is that we are not at the streets everyday killing Americans and being at total war with the US. Today, there is no need for that.

Live Puerto Rico free!

And another thing... This is a Puerto Rico current events... Así que empecemos a escribir en español.

SaudadePR

[IDeJesus]

SaudaddePR:

Te apoyo.

[joseuno]

Me alegro que este foro esté adquiriendo nuevas opiniones y que este debate sigue activo y podamos discutir este tema inteligentemente. Por el momento estoy fuera de mi isla aunque regreso a menudo y me preocupa el estado de la politica alla pues tengo intereses emocionales y de raices natales. En el futuro pienso vivir a tiempo medio y me preocupa la politica local. He vivido en Puerto Rico la mitad de mi vida pero deseo la experiencia de otros paises pues vivimos en un mundo inmenso y mientras mas aprenda de otros paises civilizados mejor! Vivimos en un"globo". He tenido la experiencia de paises donde no se pueden adquirir armas de fuego como juguetes y los ciudadanos sobreviven maravillosamente asi que obviamente esto es posible! Pero estos paises llevan muchos siglos en lo de convivencia humana. Para mi que la "libertad" es algo tan sagrado que vale la pena luchar, pero quien soy yó, un idealista ignorante o un soñador? Paz y felicidad a todos!
I De Jesus: Algunos libros que me puedas recomendar te lo apreciare. Para empesar?

[This message has been edited by joseuno (edited 20 October 1999).]

[IDeJesus]

New York Daily News-Juan Gonzalez
Friday, October 22, 1999

Vieques Battle Brewing

When this year began, few Americans outside the military
had ever heard of Vieques, a tiny inhabited island off
the coast of Puerto Rico, even though the U.S. Navy
and our allies have used it for live bombing practice
for the past 50 years.

But that is rapidly changing.

A Senate hearing this week over Vieques
erupted in an unusually bitter exchange.

North Carolina's powerful Republican Sen. Jesse Helms stormed out,
and Puerto Rico's feisty governor, Pedro Rossello, defiantly declared
that Puerto Ricans would not permit any more Navy bombing on
Vieques.

Rossello further stunned the members of the
Armed Services Committee by warning the
august panel, "Don't push it."

Why, a Puerto Rican governor had never
spoken to Congress that way.

If Rossello, a conservative pro-statehood governor,
used strong words, he was only mirroring
how Puerto Ricans feel about Vieques, and how
out of touch Congress is with the sentiment of
Puerto Rico's 3.8 million people.

Ignorance in this country over Puerto Rico is not surprising.

Anything that happens there gets routinely ignored
by our national press - except when the occasional
hurricane bedevils the tourist trade.

But even network television news finally woke up
this week to the gathering crisis that Vieques represents.

Simply put, Puerto Rico and the Navy are hurtling
toward a December showdown that could lead to
thousands of arrests for civil disobedience,
to a whole U.S. territory in open rebellion against
the federal government, and to Vieques becoming
a major issue in next year's presidential campaign.

Puerto Ricans are fed up with being treated as colonials
by the federal government.

The Navy's bombing of Vieques, an island inhabited by
9,300 Puerto Ricans, has emerged as the most flagrant example
of the second-class citizenship Puerto Ricans endure.

The Navy claims that national security and the
combat-readiness of the U.S. military are being
hurt because our troops have been unable to
conduct live-fire practice on Vieques since April,
when protesters started camping out on the Vieques
practice range.

The range is the only one in the Atlantic Ocean,
and the Navy says it is irreplaceable.

The Puerto Rican government and most religious,
civic and political organizations on the island
insist the target practice end.

Even the way the issue has been framed in this
country inflames Puerto Rican passions.

Republicans in Congress and some press reports have
suggested the only reason President Clinton is considering
an end to the bombing is to curry favor with New York's large
Puerto Rican community for his wife Hillary's expected Senate run next year,
as if the facts, of themselves, did not warrant immediate action.

But there's no real disagreement on Vieques among New York politicians.

Mayor Giuliani, Hillary's likely Republican opponent,
followed the First Lady's lead this week in calling
for the Navy to get out.

And then there is Sen. Pat Moynihan, the man both
of them hope to succeed. Like New York's other senator,
Chuck Schumer, Moynihan opposes the Navy's presence.

In a letter to the President last July, he wrote:

"I was a gunnery office a half-century and more back,
and sailed those waters. I remember even then wondering
how on Earth we could be shelling an inhabited island

. ... Put out buoys in the South Atlantic, and shell, bomb
the ocean to bits.

But not American territory inhabited by American citizens."

During the Senate hearing this week, Navy officials said the
Eisenhower and its battle group are scheduled for training in
Vieques in early December and the Navy must have use of the
island by then.

A presidential panel is suggesting removing
the Navy in five years, but not now.

Clinton has the last word, and could
go along with the recommendation.

In Puerto Rico, five years is not good enough.

Everybody there knows that if George W. Bush
gets elected President next year, the promises
of a Democratic President mean nothing.

That's why scores of Puerto Rican mayors, legislators,
bishops and civic leaders and thousands of ordinary
people are threatening to engage in civil disobedience
if the Navy tries to resume bombing.

Gov. Rossello told the Senate this week he will do
nothing to arrest any protesters.

The federal government will have to do the job itself.

Not since George Wallace defied the federal government
over integration has the governor of an American territory been so defiant.

But Wallace was defending second-class citizenship
in his state; Rossello is opposing it in Puerto Rico.

Whatever happens, Americans are about to learn
more about Puerto Rico and about colonialism in
the next few months than they have in the last hundred years.

It's about time.