STATE HOOD OR COMMON-WEALTH

[keeptrying]

"We hispanics are taking the country by storm" is a reason why so many people fear hispanics. That sounds like an invaison. I don't think hispanics want to be feared. Hispanics want to be accepted. When you use language like that it seperates rather then brings us together.
When Hawai'i became a state the vote for statehood was a clear majority. Hawai'i entered as the first Asian dominant state. The first state where whites were a minority. Washinton State elected the first Asian-American governor a few years ago. He was the first Asian-American governor on the mainland.
Statehood shouldn't be about money. If Puerto Ricans want to join the union it should be because they want to be "part" of and help "shape" the future of the USA. As for "Americanization" of Puerto Rico. I think it is viewed totally different outside the island. Puerto Rico's economy is already Americanized, but it's culture, and language are still strong. My friends from Spain went to Puerto Rico and they said it was the best place in Latin America because of the "blend" of the two worlds, not because it was "Americanized". When each ethnic group comes to the USA, they bring with them their traditions and culture. They "blend" it with the Anglo culture and that is what makes the USA so wonderful. Europeans, Asians, Africans, and Latin Americans all contribute to the American Culture. We celebrate St. Patricks Day, here in NY with big parades and parties, even though many people are not Irish. We have a Puerto Rican Day parade, and many people attend, and sample the foods, even if they are not Puerto Rican. Sushi is becoming popular, and that is not an Anglo food. Columbus Day Parades in October, and the Italians march and show off their proud heritage.
What is "Americanization"? All it is, is a blend of many cultures into one. It's idea's and beliefs brough to this country from all over the world. The US constitution was based on an Native American Tribe's doctrine. There was never an Ameircan Race. "We" who choose to be "Americans" are the "American" race. There is no color, not specific requirements, just a belief, and a dream. Our history is only 200 years old. Can you compare this to China, India, France, Egypt, Turkey, Russia? No.
Puerto Ricans have to decide whether they want to join this or not. It's already been 100 years. It's time to make your future before it is made for you.

[IDeJesus]

Who's history is only 200 years old?

We're all American's - yes - this is true...

North Americans, Central Americans, South Americans, Jewish Americans, Irish Americans, Italo-Americans. But ask David Duke whether that makes us Anglo enough in his eyes.

Puerto Rico being free and sovereign ( free to rule itself ) has nothing to do with not wanting to be Americans. We will always be
Americans by virtue of our geographic location. Puerto Rico being free and sovereign has nothing to do with being Anti-US and comunist. The Cold War ERA is over. Comunism has failed. There are no comunist guerrilla factions in PR waiting for independence to declare it a Comunist Republic. That will never happen because the people of PR will not allow it.

What is wrong I ask with PR being an independent nation with diplomatic and economic ties to the US and England and France and the Netherlands and South Africa?
What is wrong with PR being free to decide with whom it does business. (We do not have that freedon now - commerce is controlled by US Trade laws).

There is nothing wrong with it. There are just too many Puertyo Ricans who have bought into the "we are too small" line that has been sold to us in the last 100 years. We suffer the effects of the "colonized mind". We are to afraid to grow up and move out of our parents home. It's time for our parent to cut the umbilical cord and yell out loud and clearly " OH Grow up ".


IDJ

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Que Viva Puerto Rico Libre.

[This message has been edited by IDeJesus (edited 13 December 1999).]

[EL_BORICUA]

IDEJESUS YOU ARE CORRECT THESE STATEHOODERS
SEE COMMUNIST IN EVERY SHADOW THEY TRY TO
MAKE PEOPLE FEAR INDEPENDENCE BY SAYING ITS
A COMMIE PLOT,THEY ARE AFRAID OF THE UNKNOWN
THEY SAY WE CANT MAKE IT WITHOUT AMERICA.
I AM AFRAID OF WHAT I KNOW HOW I SEE HAWAII
ONCE ITS OWN COUNTRY NOW VERY AMERICANIZED
IT ORIGINAL CULTURE DISPLAYED FOR TOURIST
BY FILIPINO,WHITE,JAPANESE HULA DANCERS.
THEY NOW HAVE A SECESSIONIST MOVEMENT GOING
BUT ONCE A STATE ALWAYS A STATE.
WE MUST KEEP FIGHTING AGAINST STATEHOOD LET
THESE RADICAL STATEHOODERS RANT AND RAVE
PEOPLE WILL SEE THEY ARE JUST AFRAID TO BE
WITHOUT THE U.S.A. THEY WANT WELFARE & FOOD
STAMPS AND THEY ARE WILLING TO SURRENDER
THEIR LANGUAGE AND CULTURE AND THEIR BROTHERS
IN VIEQUES FOR IT!!!!!
QUE VIVA PUERTO RICO LIBRE Y SOBERANO!!!

[ABEJORRO]

QUE VIVA LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS Y PUERTO RICO!!!

QUE VIVA ESTA GRAN NACION Y LA TIERRA DEL COQUI.

I GAVE MY WORD TO DEFEND THIS COUNTRY FROM FOREIN AND DOMESTIC ENEMIES AND THAT INCLUDES YOU INDEPENDENTISTAS (2%). YOU ARE A ENEMY OF THE DESIRE OF THE SUPER MAYORITY AND THAT IS TO BE PART OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AS ARE OVER ALL NATION.
I WILL OBEY ALL MY ODERS TO DEFEND AND DESTROY ALL THE ENEMIES OF THIS GREAT COUNTRY ON A MOMENTS NOTICE. MY PEOPLE WILL NOT HAVE TO GIVE UP THEIR TRUE FREEDOM FOR CULTURAL IGNORANCE YOU AND ME WERE BORN UNDER THE OLD GLORY AND WEL WILL DIE UNDER IT.



[This message has been edited by ABEJORRO (edited 13 December 1999).]

[keeptrying]

The USA's history is 200 years old. Before 1776, they were seperate states. Seperate governments, laws, etc. After 1776 they merged and that is when the US as a nation came into existance. So the USA's history is 223 years old to be exact.
As for David Duke, who cares what he thinks. He has never held office. He can run all he wants, but he has no backing behind him. He comes from Louisiana. He may be of French background and the word "Anglo" means "English speaking northern Europeans". French, Italian, and Spanish are all latin languages. He is only one man, you can't label all white people David Duke. There are racists in all races in every part of the world.
What is wrong with Puerto Rico being an independent nation? Nothing. If this is what they want. It is easy for you and I to tell them what they should do. We both live here on the mainland. We vote in State elections, pay state taxes, and are represented in Washington. So if PR did become independent it must be their choice to make, not ours. They are the ones who must vote for their future. So even if independence is achived and things are hard for them, we still have our comfortable jobs, and our nice apartments/houses here. I admire the support you have for a free Puerto Rico, but you speak from the heart, not the head. No one knows what independence will bring to the island. On the last referendum the parties involved were all promising things that the US government will never agree to, like duel citizenship. You can't have two countries and one citizenship. Washington will never agree to it. If PR did become independent they will have their own citizenship, there would have to be passport controls set up, and PR would have to join NAFTA unless there was something worked out. So it is easy to say PR will be better off because you aren't living there. Puerto Ricans would have to go to the US Embassy in order to move here because there is not going to be a free flow of people as they say. Because we both know it will only flow one way. The quota for immigrants is 20,000 a year.
As for this communist thing. I agree. It will never happen. Communism has been falling all over the place. Even China is working in a market economy, and some tools of diplomacy. Castro knows his system is a failure but is too stuborn to be the "father" of a democratic Cuba rather then a communist/socialist one. I also think Puerto Rico would never let it happen because it would ruin everything they have developed and worked hard on. Their skilled labor would leave, and investment would cease. An independent PR will not be communist. However it won't be a powerhouse either. PR already does have trade and investment from Europe, and Latin America. Spain just bought the telephone company a year or two ago. The Dominican Republic is also PR's second biggest trading partner. Being a commonwealth has not prevented PR from trade and investment.
As I stated earlier, I don't know which I would give moral support to: Independence or Statehood. Both have their plus' and minus'. To be honest, that is something the islanders have to deal with. They have to decide what is best for them. What we have to do is support what ever choice they make.
I know you are not going to give up on your dream of an Independent PR, but it has to be their dream as well. They need to get that 3-5% who support independence up to 55% or more. So you have your work cut out for you!

[This message has been edited by keeptrying (edited 15 December 1999).]

[J_Vargas]

Hi El Boricua! Have you been to Puerto Rico lately? Wel-fare is rampant in that small little country. People trying to collect SSI at an early age of 40. People collecting unemployment who didn't work one ounce in that wonderful country. They went to the united states to work 6 months out of the year so they could go home and kick back for six months to a years pending on the unemployment percentage. Are you saying we don't need USA? We are dependent on all the help they give us. Yea,I guess you are right we should be independent. We should go on our own and not be dependent on no one. Yea, we should take care of our own people. Oh! wait a minute! Does that mean taking away my welfare check. Well let's think about it first, let's not make hasty decision. I got rent to pay, and food to put on my table!!!
There is a lot more to indepence than meets the eye. They don't want to be independent. They want thing to go as they are right now!!! Which is fine with me also!!! God bless you El Boricua.

[El_Jibaro]

If Puerto Rico were Independent…

I guess that we would have to print our own money; no problem with that, if there is a good economy to back it up. However, since I lived most of my life in the Island, I know how corrupt our politicians and business leaders are, I wouldn’t be surprised if we had hyper-inflation like in Mexico and Brazil.

Without having a prior Death Penalty we would either have to become a Police State or an Anarchic Paradise (a la “Escape from L. A.”) , where only the strong get Justice from their own fist [and gun]. And if our Puerto Rican Police Force becomes corrupt [we do have a tendency to tie up their hands and treat them like dirt], who is going to keep an eye on them? – Right now the FBI keeps an eye on our PR Police.

Having more than 500,000 Dominicans in the Island, and knowing we do have a definite bent on Racism [otherwise there would be not so many Dominican Jokes], I have a feeling that genocide a la Kosovo is a definite possibility.

The Catholic Clergy swears that 98 percent of Puerto Ricans are Catholic, not facing the truth that nearly 50 percent of the Island is Evangelical of one kind or another (with a majority of them Pentecostals). Never mind that most of the rest of the people who say are Catholic don’t practice their religion at all. Seeing how Catholic Persecutions have happened in Mexico and Colombia, where the priests have led mobs in killing Protestants, what is there to stop that from happening in Puerto Rico? An Atheist Government (I’m sorry, I should have said a “Secular Government”)?

The Problem with the proponents of Independence is that they DELIBERATELY IGNORE Human Nature. If our culture were disciplined, frugal and responsible I would be there to fight for our Independence. But it is not. And if you read the history books (Fray Iñigo Abbad and other old books), you would notice that our inclination towards Indolence and Vice (back then it was rum, sex [particularly sodomy] and cockfights) dates from the days when we were a Spanish Crown Colony. That is the Independentistas, they stick their heads in the sand and DELIBERATELY IGNORE the facts. They make an Ideological Construct in their minds, filled with Utopian fervor, totally devoid of Reality, and then they claim that they are the sole representatives of the Wellbeing of Our People. And these are extremely loud in making those claims, drowning out with their loud rhetoric anyone who opposes them. A tiny political minority in our Island (not even 10%), but they don’t care if they have to push their ideology by force. They use Democracy to attain their Un-Democratic aims, and what will we do when they have their way? They, like most of their ideological progenitors (Communism, Anarchism, Fascism, National Socialism, Khmer Rouge, Sendero Luminoso, Frente Farabundo Marti, los Macheteros…) don’t have any qualms about taking power by force. They do not have any qualms about establishing a dictatorship. Remember, they know better than the rest of us how to run our own lives; or so they think.

Just a thought from someone who has to drive 100 miles a day to feed his family (and spends half of what he earns paying taxes jus so that a heroin addict in Puerto Rico can turn his Cupones into the "fix" of the day).

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Manuel Alonso