Politics_Observer wrote:@Tainari88
He says that most Puerto Ricans want the benefits of being a commonwealth where they don't pay taxes (I am assuming he is referring to federal taxes), but also want to be able to vote in U.S. elections. He said you can't have it both ways. He says he doesn't take a position on statehood and hasn't lived on "the island" for a long time given his time in the U.S. Army and then later on getting a job here in the United States after his discharge from the army. He regards himself as a Puerto Rican with American citizenship. So, he is obviously proud of his Puerto Rican roots. He has done very well for himself here stateside and it's easy for me to see why given his work ethic.
Everything you quoted is about lies the American media has spouted. Puerto Rico pays taxes galore but they are not federal taxes. They come from the merchant marine and the Jones Act. Established in 1920. Ley de cabotaje. The USA has sucked out billions from Puerto Rico, from 1898-2021. It has been over 120+ years of sucking out profits. He repeats false information. The USA doesn't become paupered by doing federal fund transfers to Puerto Rico. If Puerto Rico were a state of the union it would be receiving half of what the poorest and blackest (African American citizen state receives--the poorest state is Mississippi. Puerto Rico received half of Mississippi's benefits). They have huge amounts of enlisted men because they had high unemployment for many many decades. The most popular politician was Luis Munoz Rivera and his son Luis Munoz Marin. The founder of the PPD. Los Populares. Pro Autonomy advocates.
He doesn't know jack shit about Puerto Rican politics and will lose all the arguments. That doesn't surprise me at all Politics Observer. The people who leave to Georgia and become Republicans and identify as American in militarism and how wonderful they do? All of them think there is not a difference between them and the American citizens. If they are born on the island? We are statutory citizens Politics. Not the constitutionally guaranteed ones. Or the naturalized ones. That means if your buddy was born in Puerto Rico like I was? He can be stripped of his US citizenship by an act of Congress without an immigration hearing. it is a one-way street.
He won't know this at all. Why? It is all secrets. But a senator and some politicians did a tour of the island with the pro-statehood party there and he told them to their faces how limited their rights were as statutory USA citizens. They were mad as hornets. Do they discuss the worse deal the American Samoans get? No. All of it is a damn mystery because they are LIED to for years and years. Total lies.
All these empires come up with schemes to take over resources and lands that belong to other nations or governments. Why do they do this? Because of investments. Laws about capitalism and dominating raw materials, enlisted men and women, and so on.
if you study the history of former colonies and if they become part of nations who colonized them? Does it happen? Palau was a tiny island that belonged to the USA too...and it sought its independence from the USA. It happened in 1993. Former colonies of the USA do and can become independent. Does your buddy know this information? How former colonies in the United Nations Decolonization Committee negotiate these things?
He needs to come and argue. He is going to lose. I dedicated years and years and years of work on getting the lies and cover ups and false fronts uncovered. Puerto Rican politics are TOUGH as hell because the USA dirty lying ways in Latin America are long and massive.
The USA made enormous amounts of profit from the acquisitions during the Spanish American war. They acquired the last of the colonies left in the Americas belonging to Spain. Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Guam, and the Phillipines. They lost the Phillipines in 1946. They had issues with Cuba due to their bloody wars with the Spanish crown pre 1898 with Jose Marti. Lucky Luciano had the mafia investments in Havana for years.
The USA has an ugly Imperial history in the Caribbean islands and in Panama, Colombia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chile, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, and we could be here discussing the amount of HORROR they have visited on these tiny nations full of poverty stricken people of humble origins. Full of ex black slaves, enslaved Indians who survived the Spanish onslaught of diseases and problems only to find the American Manifest Destiny people full of greed and racism taking things by FORCE. Not asking. Not helping. Just a blood filled nightmare of ugliness. Helping rapacious corporations. After their long battles with the Spanish crown and the cortes de la corona espanola and their desperation to hold on to their slave nations.
I have no respect for their two faced shit history. No real democratic loving person would if you study it in depth.
Ukraine and Russia have a long history together and have fissures and disagreements, and hatreds. Mismanagement and horrors. But the Americans thought of Latin America as their personal backyard, and if Russia thinks Ukraine is their personal backyard...they CRY...."Foul!" Imperialism. You can't be some man screaming about morality in your damn underwear showing your lack of morality with your bullshit.
Focus on your own issues. You are close to having a fifty fifty split between Trump tin pot dictator Putin lover Republican traitors in your midst and some Neoliberal warmongering build up the wall to keep the immigrants out....and we hate the Bernie supporters only rightists passing as liberals when they are anything but.
The USA better stop interfering and get out of the pandemic in one piece. Because the Russian Bear and the Chinese Dragon? If those two authoritarian states decide to cooperate with coups and plots against the USA's weak and fractured domestic politics?
WWIII is just the beginning.