Ah, but look at all we get in return.
<< snicker >>
Posted on 03/13/2003 5:16:00 AM PST by 4Freedom
The article by Andrew Cockburn entitled "True Colors: Divided Loyalties in Puerto Rico," published in the March 2003 issue of the National Geographic Magazine, which has a world-wide readership of over seven million, has sparked much commotion in Puerto Rico and the United States.
In his article, the author, who based his damaging characterization of Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans on interviews with members of pro-independence, anti-U.S., and Leftists sectors, portrays Puerto Ricans as a bunch of drug addicts, alcoholics, and disloyal to the U.S., who live at the expense of the U.S. taxpayers, and that the economy of the island is dependent on the gifts of the U.S. Treasury.
This is not the first time a devastating and exaggerated picture of Puerto Rico and its people is given. It should be remembered that on July 14, 1997, an evidently tailor-made editorial in the New York Post, presented an unfair and prejudiced picture of Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans in an effort to tarnish statehood for Puerto Rico. The editorial presented a negative image and portrayed Puerto Ricans as essentially an underclass or subcultured species, not to be trusted. It gave the impression that Puerto Rico is unworthy of becoming a state of the union, much to the delight of the separatists here.
Equally damaging, and coinciding with the publication of the New York Post's editorial, was a blast leveled against Puerto Rico and statehood for the island by Jim Boulet Jr., Executive Secretary of "English First" on the mainland. It was transmitted via the internet to the nation a week or so before the Post's editorial.
Not to be forgotten either are articles published not so long ago in the New York Times and Time Magazine saying, respectively, that Puerto Rico is reeling under a scourge of drugs and rising gang violence and is the drug center of the Caribbean. It should also be remembered that ignorance about Puerto Rico was evident at the Feb. 7, 1991 hearings held by Senate's Energy and Natural Resources Committee on the proposed status legislation. Senator Don Nickles (R-Okla) said that, as in the case of indian tribes in Oklahoma, Puerto Rico has made little progress. Ignoring that most of the federal funds received by Puerto Ricans were rightfully earned, Nickels stated that the billions of dollars received annually here from the federal government were handouts! He also said the federal minimum wage law did not apply to Puerto Rico!
It would be absurd to say that everything in Puerto Rico is rosy and that we don't have any flaws. It is quite evident that for many years we have been confronting serious social and economic problems, in addition to the political status limbo that we live in, and that has been and still is essentially responsible for many of our ills. But what we cannot accept and admit are vicious, irresponsible, and biased attacks against us aimed at accomplishing political objectives, disregarding what is positive about Puerto Rico and its people.
I have pointed out this in the past and repeat it again in light of the present wave of attacks against us. We are mainly to blame for the existing ignorance about the island and Puerto Ricans. It is our responsibility to inform others about Puerto Rico and exercise a more aggressive effort to, as much as possible, eradicate the negative image we have.
It is, therefore, imperative to carry out an information program (creation of a Puerto Rico information agency) to tell Congress, the nation and, for that matter, the rest of the world that not all is negative about Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans and that:
A. Puerto Rico has come a long way from being the "poorhouse of the Caribbean" that it was some 60 years ago. Today we have the highest per capita income in Latin America, although still less than the lowest on the mainland, reportedly Mississippi.
B. Puerto Rico is among the 10 largest United States customers worldwide, making annual purchases of some $10 billion in U.S. products, which represent over 250,000 mainland jobs. Puerto Rico remains strategically important to the United States.
C. The participation of Puerto Ricans in the wars the United States has been involved in has been greater than that of 22 states.
D. Puerto Ricans have and still occupy key posts in the U.S. Government. For example, the current Under-Secretary of the U.S. Navy for Manpower and Reserve Affairs is Puerto Rican William A. Navas and the past Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston, was Puerto Rican Juan R. Torruella.
E. Hundreds of Puerto Ricans on the mainland and other parts of the world have excelled in education, science, medicine, law, literature, music, arts, and sports.
Puerto Rico's economy is centered on the $18.8 billion U.S. Taxpayer's dollars they receive in "HANDOUTS" every year. Our government has diverted THOUSANDS of federal and private sector jobs to Puerto Rico with tax dodging schemes for U.S. corporations that move there.
Take away the $18.8 billion U.S. Taxpayer's dollars yearly and those thousands of U.S. federal and private sector jobs, unfairly and deliberately diverted to Puerto Rico, and their economy crumbles like a sandcastle hit by a Tsunami!
B. We gift Puerto Rico $18.8 billion U.S. Taxpayer's dollars each year and they buy $10 billion dollars of our stuff with it and pocket the rest.
I wonder, if there's a Humvee dealer in Puerto Rico that will give me $200,000 to buy a $100,000 Humvee from him?
Hey, if he'll give me $400,000, I'll buy two!
C. Nazi U-boats were prowling the Caribbean and threatening to starve Puerto Rico and the rest of the islands. The United States came to their rescue. We fed them, clothed them, trained them and gave them weapons to join us in the World's War against the Nazis and we owe them???
D. Liberal/Socialists from Puerto Rico or anywhere else, in our government and courts, don't go into the plus column in my book. You keep 'em. Thanks all the same, but we don't want 'em.
E. Keep your thousands of Puerto Ricans mooching our U.S. Taxpayer's Education dollars, too.
Ah, but look at all we get in return.
<< snicker >>
Puerto Rico @ National Geographic Magazine
If anything, this guy Cockburn is too kind.
And, if they're serious about statehood, they have to move to English as the official language: in the schools, in the government, in the courts, and in commerce. Congress should make it clear that we need to see reliable evidence that 90%+ of the population speak reasonably good English, such that a citizen of any other state can go there without a word of Spanish and encounter no difficulties.
I can't enjoy a picture of a freakin' tree frog anymore without being scolded on global warming.
I had a friend unlucky enough to land in a hospital in Puerto Rico. Patients have to bring their own sheets, pillows, blankets, soap, water pitchers, cups, bedpans, urinals, you name it.
You have to watch the medical personnel that wasn't deemed fit to be recruited by mainland hospitals like a hawk.
One doctor started to remove my friends stitches by beginning to pull over 6 inches of a bloody, filthy length of thread through the wound that may have had all manner of germs on it after all that time.
I suggested that that may not be such a good idea what with all the antibiotic resistant Staph bacteria around by knocking him off his chair.
That also gave him some time to wash his own hands before he made a second attempt to remove my friends stitches. He was reluctant, but he conceded since I now held the scalpel. :^)
Puerto Rico will forever be a welfare state and an extreme burden on the U.S. Taxpayers.
As a state, Puerto Rico would send 2 Liberal/Socialist Senators and 4 to 6 Representatives to the Congress of the United States.
Puerto Rico would vote for every Socialist scheme that the Liberals could concoct.
What would giving Puerto Rico 10 more years on top of the 100 they've already had accomplish?
All they'd do is rob us of an additional $200 billion dollars or more.
Especially on or around the base when they're trying to keep their job or get you to spend your money?
I believe that they were a little more honest with this National Geographic writer.
You're right, as long as the Puerto Rican electorate continues to be so predominately Liberal, we're all screwed and not just any conservative Hispanics.
A good friend of mine taught in Puerto Rico at one of the universities for a couple of years. He loved the people and climate as well. But, because he was not fluent in Spanish, and was not prepared to teach in Spanish, they would not give him tenure. He was rather sad about it, but felt the people were their own worst enemies about the language stuff.
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