AOC:Puerto Rico is a Neo Colony? - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15229076
AOC introduces bill to help bring some resolution to Puerto Rico's state of dependency and lack of full rights.

I think it is way past time for the USA to evaluate how they treat many of their unincorporated territories. If they spout bullshit about democracy all over the world and spend money on defending other nations independence (because independence is worth dying for in many countries it is essential to self determination and not being some puppet to people and governments who don't care about the people they invade and destroy). If independence is not important? Then why is it that so many ex-colonies want OUT of the bad relationships they engaged in with colonizer nations? Like France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany, Russia, Japan, and a whole lot more. People are tired of these shitty relationships that are one way streets that only benefit one side in most issues. People need full rights. Not half rights. Not being ignored for 120 plus years.

Here is the video interview:



What is your opinion? Will Puerto Rico be a unique case and love being in a half way limbo status for another 120 years more into the future? Or will the entire house of cards go down and eventually violence and mayhem become inevitable? Many people just think? Move to a state in the USA. Forget about staying in Puerto Rico. Learn English and become a mainlander and leave that mess behind. Let the rich crypto people from the states that like good weather have the majority power in all things.

No one asked the USA to come in and impose the US citizenship. Puerto Rico never chose that in 1917. It was imposed from congress. Can you force your will on a group of people who had a different history for hundreds of years? What about Palau and other nations who have pulled away from former colonizing nations?

I think if the colonization is the best to expect in a lot of nations? All that European ousting of Africa, and Latin America and even the first 13 colonies of the USA would have not ended with a kicking out of the European powers. If it was a great arrangement why did historically the results were? Kick them out. They are not our friends. Because they are not.

What is your opinion on this?
#15229079
If Puerto Ricans vote for independence that should be respected. If they don't, I agree PR should be at least seriously considered up for statehood if they vote for that instead (which I think they've done already, am I correct?).

If statehood is denied, I'd once again ask the Puerto Ricans to decide. I'd guess they'd vote for independence, but I don't know. If they did, I'd also let the federal government give them an option that is a better deal than what PR has now (in many ways, the current arrangement is a shitty one for PR, particularly the federal maritime regulations seriously harm the island's economy or so I've heard) and give voters a chance to confirm.

If I were Puerto Rican I'd probably vote to keep a relationship with the US, ideally statehood. US citizenship is just too good to pass to be honest.
#15229081
Statehood should be given IMO. Basically we have a bunch of racist in congress.

The reason the US would not want to let go of Puerto Rico is to keep influence of shitholes like China out.
#15229093
Rancid wrote:Statehood should be given IMO. Basically we have a bunch of racist in congress.

The reason the US would not want to let go of Puerto Rico is to keep influence of shitholes like China out.


I don't agree Rancid. Would you want the Dominican Republic to become a state of the USA? Then Haiti? Then US Virgin islands? Then Guam? American Samoa? In fact, why has it not become a state of the USA in any of these cases? Simple. Because the USA doesn't want it to happen. They want limbo shit status without any rights.

If the nation doesn't want real status with real votes to happen? Let it go. It is like the rest of the European powers? France had to let go of many African nations. Cote d'Ivoire, among others...why? Because the Africans got sick of the bad status. Why did the USA have to tell England to let the original 13 colonies in the Americas to go for an independent status? Because in general the high taxes and the lack of being able to control its trade and its laws got to be problematic. It is the same Rancid. Let the country go!

If you criticize other nations for aggressive invasions of their neighbors who don't have nukes and don't have ways of defending themselves....because you want to use them for ports and geo-political positions? Then you got issues. Equality is not just lip service. It is behavior. Treat other nations like you would like other nations to treat your own nation. You don't believe in that? Then you and I will forever not agree.

I don't believe in Might is Right. I never will. In the end, all that colonialism doesn't work. Name me @Rancid one nation that has mistreated another nation and given it a bad deal that in the end is going to end in a happy resolution? It doesn't exist.

Don't wait for the USA to get into trouble with China and decide to sell us off to the PRC to save its own ass with debt. Because it is capable of doing it. Why? If you never respected it as an equal place why should you not treat is as some war booty island who's people who don't give a shit about? If you cared? You would have let us vote.

Why go and integrate with a bunch of racists? I don't want to be hanging out with the racist Republicans who don't want statehood. But all the statehood party does is be conservative and not like Democratic shit policies. But? The Republicans are their worst enemies despite they being conservative and the most Right wing of all the Puerto Rican political parties. You see them upset that the only people busting a move for Puerto Rico are democratic socialists or liberal democrats like AOC or Nydia Velazquez. Where are the Jenniffer Gonzalez types and the Pedro Pierluisi types? They are not that. They are conservative and Republicans. But the Republicans don't want them Rancid. They want nothing to do with Hispanic poverty island people with limited English proficiency.

I think the conservative Puerto Ricans wanting statehood are shit out of luck in the Republican party of Trump. Stuck with some racist people with no tolerance for the Brown hordes. :lol: :lol:
#15229098
wat0n wrote:If Puerto Ricans vote for independence that should be respected. If they don't, I agree PR should be at least seriously considered up for statehood if they vote for that instead (which I think they've done already, am I correct?).

If statehood is denied, I'd once again ask the Puerto Ricans to decide. I'd guess they'd vote for independence, but I don't know. If they did, I'd also let the federal government give them an option that is a better deal than what PR has now (in many ways, the current arrangement is a shitty one for PR, particularly the federal maritime regulations seriously harm the island's economy or so I've heard) and give voters a chance to confirm.

If I were Puerto Rican I'd probably vote to keep a relationship with the US, ideally statehood. US citizenship is just too good to pass to be honest.


Puerto Rico's history with the USA gov't is not a pretty one. The last time nationalists were very active on the island and wanted to get more autonomy from Washington DC? Was in the 1930s. There was a massacre in Ponce. Against a peaceful march that included nationalists. What truly became trouble for the USA gov't was Riggs. Who's relatives were owners of Riggs bank in the states and who had invested heavily in Puerto Rico's sugar industry. Albizu Campos was able to get the pay of sugar cane workers doubled on the island and he had fiery speeches about Yankee oppression. So Riggs (an Anglo stateside Police chief in San Juan) gave the order to massacre a bunch of nationalists on the island. Make it illegal to speak about independence or to even allow the Puerto Rican flag to be flown or possessed on the island by any Puerto Rican. You would get 10 years jail time for that.

Why is this history unknown in the USA? Because it makes the US gov't look bad. Because it is bad. So what about democracy? Is that the way to cope with a people who want to be able to make their own laws and rules in their own land? No it is not. But that is reality. The USA disrespected Puerto Rico's rights. It still does.

The United Nations told the USA that the way they were treating Puerto Rico was not democratic and unless they coped with a strategy to make the lack of democracy in the island go away? It would be censured for it. So they came up with the bullshit Free Associated State. In the 1950s there were no pro-statehood parties in Puerto Rico. NONE. Why? Most Puerto Ricans did not want to be a part of the USA. They wanted autonomy. But not to get killed for it. How fair would have been a fight between a little island like Puerto Rico and a very large and powerful nation who went to war in WWII and beat the Axis?

All this throwing the weight around is not good in the long run Wat0n. It is fine to go to the USA and apply for USA citizen of your own free will and become a USA citizen. It is quite another to invade a nation seeking independence from Spain or wanting a vote that is equal and then imposing by force a one way relationship. Which is what congress did with the Foraker Act and the Jones Act.

Cuba, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Phillipines all were ceded to the USA through the Spanish American war of 1898. Under controversial circumstances. It was the Treaty of Versailles.
#15229102
wat0n wrote:@Tainari88 have any of those territories (USVI, Guam, American Samoa) ever voted to request to join the US as a state?


American Samoa is a horror status. The most shameful shit I have ever witnessed. Look into it. It is bad...with a capital B. Basically, they are considered US nationals the Samoans. They are not USA citizens or statutory USA congress approved ones like Puerto Ricans. They can't really work or hold public office in the USA. They are not allowed to have independence. And can't be a state. Why? Because the traditional Samoans won't sign a treaty with the USA to give up their land to the USA gov't. They won't do it. Since they won't do it? The USA denies them any rights within the system.

Learn their shitty deals. It is eye-opening. The US Virgin Islanders don't like their status either. But? They have less power than the Puerto Ricans do. The USA purchased the USVI from the UK. There are the British Virgin Islands and the US Virgin Islands. They have unincorporated territorial status with no voting rights as well. It is a plot to control geo military etc control over small islands to keep an eye on other countries in Central and South America and to expand its influence military in the Pacific and in the Americas.

It is imperial. What is ironic is that the USA says it is a republic and a democratic representative democracy. But it acts like a European power from the 18th century. That is problematic. Those kinds of glaring contradictions undermine its premise that it has no ambitions to become like the old Empires from Europe. If you have no ambitions to do that? Then why behave like you do?

Last edited by Tainari88 on 23 May 2022 16:42, edited 1 time in total.
#15229103
Tainari88 wrote:Puerto Rico's history with the USA gov't is not a pretty one. The last time nationalists were very active on the island and wanted to get more autonomy from Washington DC? Was in the 1930s. There was a massacre in Ponce. Against a peaceful march that included nationalists. What truly became trouble for the USA gov't was Riggs. Who's relatives were owners of Riggs bank in the states and who had invested heavily in Puerto Rico's sugar industry. Albizu Campos was able to get the pay of sugar cane workers doubled on the island and he had fiery speeches about Yankee oppression. So Riggs (an Anglo stateside Police chief in San Juan) gave the order to massacre a bunch of nationalists on the island. Make it illegal to speak about independence or to even allow the Puerto Rican flag to be flown or possessed on the island by any Puerto Rican. You would get 10 years jail time for that.

Why is this history unknown in the USA? Because it makes the US gov't look bad. Because it is bad. So what about democracy? Is that the way to cope with a people who want to be able to make their own laws and rules in their own land? No it is not. But that is reality. The USA disrespected Puerto Rico's rights. It still does.

The United Nations told the USA that the way they were treating Puerto Rico was not democratic and unless they coped with a strategy to make the lack of democracy in the island go away? It would be censured for it. So they came up with the bullshit Free Associated State. In the 1950s there were no pro-statehood parties in Puerto Rico. NONE. Why? Most Puerto Ricans did not want to be a part of the USA. They wanted autonomy. But not to get killed for it. How fair would have been a fight between a little island like Puerto Rico and a very large and powerful nation who went to war in WWII and beat the Axis?

All this throwing the weight around is not good in the long run Wat0n. It is fine to go to the USA and apply for USA citizen of your own free will and become a USA citizen. It is quite another to invade a nation seeking independence from Spain or wanting a vote that is equal and then imposing by force a one way relationship. Which is what congress did with the Foraker Act and the Jones Act.

Cuba, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Phillipines all were ceded to the USA through the Spanish American war of 1898. Under controversial circumstances. It was the Treaty of Versailles.


OK, but we're in 2022, not 1950. What do Puerto Ricans want now?
#15229106
wat0n wrote:OK, but we're in 2022, not 1950. What do Puerto Ricans want now?


It is divided Wat0n. The one vote that the statehooders claimed a decisive victory for pro statehood only had a 23% voter turnout. The ones with higher turnout are evenly divided between status quo and statehood. Independence doesn't get majority votes. But it has been growing steadily in the last elections. Victoria Ciudadana led by Alexandra Lugaro got a 14% for independence. It is growing a lot the independence option. Mostly because both majority parties have been linked to corruption scandals and bad financial handlings.

By far the worst of the political parties are the PNP. Governor Ricky Rossello was forced out of office for some massive corruption scandals. And the statehood party is extremely horrible with finances, with corruption, sexism scandals, anti LGBTQ stances, inefficiency and basic incompetence of the worst sort.

An interview with Ricky Rossello by Sam Shepard (it makes him look really really bad):


Last edited by Tainari88 on 23 May 2022 21:06, edited 2 times in total.
#15229110
Rancid wrote:Ok, forget statehood. Give them independence.


Rancid, all of us--the unincorporated territories of the USA have challenged our status all the way through the SCOTUS. The reason none of us have been able to get any legal relief of such an unfair status? The Insular Cases. It is based on very racist laws. They don't change them because it is not what the government (the military and the corporations) want to happen in these territories.

Read this for American Samoa:

https://www.equalrightsnow.org/why_peop ... 20citizens.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insular_C ... 0as%201979.

If you read @Rancid and @wat0n the second link? It basically boils down to the USA has no intention of making us a state. So if it has no intention of making us a state? How can the pro-statehood Puerto Ricans change the minds of both the Supreme Court of the United States and the US Congress and the US Senate? How? The American Samoans expected US citizenship for letting the USA rule over their laws and etc. They did not respect the will of the Samoans even though they voted in favor of statehood and US citizenship. So if you vote? And they still say no? What is next?

You are dealing with tyranny. Nothing less than that. And to think that US American patriots in the fifty states think they have a democracy that respects majority votes? They don't. So don't be surprised if they don't respect majority US stateside votes if it doesn't favor the plutocrats, the military elite and the corporate briber lobbyists who has all those dirty politicians in the Democratic and Republican party in their pockets.

All that democracy fiction was only fiction. Change the unfair shit from the bottom up or you are in deep, deep trouble folks.
Last edited by Tainari88 on 23 May 2022 21:07, edited 1 time in total.
#15229113
wat0n wrote:@Tainari88 have any of those territories (USVI, Guam, American Samoa) ever voted to request to join the US as a state?


Yes they did. They were denied. By the US Congress. Read this detailed document if you are truly interested. It basically lets you know? They don't care about votes. It is about imperialism and power. Nothing else.

When it is about imperialism and not democracy? What makes the USA different than the other European powers they have tried to break away from here in the Americas? Nothing. The USA is hypocritical in the extreme. Two faced liars. So? What does one do about betrayers to their own founding principles eh?

In human history the ones with unresolved horrible contradictions in foundational principles all collapse. Mostly from their own internal contradictions. Can you see that happening?

https://docs.house.gov/meetings/II/II00 ... SD3043.pdf
#15229115
wat0n wrote:@Tainari88 thanks. I'll give those a read.


I have read them all. All the histories of all the unincorporated territories. Including American Samoa's.

They have a lot in common. Also if you study it well? All of us fall into the Department of the Interior. The same governmental department in Washington DC as the Native American reservations fall under. We are considered (conquered territories but not considered white. So they try and continue to be successful to exclude us from any real political power or land rulings that are independent of the government in DC).

Most people don't know anything about it because it makes the USA government look extremely racist and extremely unfair. It is that. Racist and unfair. But what else is new in this world?

Excerpt from the link about American Samoa:

Samoans had an interest in U.S. annexation for protection from German and
British imperialism in the area—for example, Samoan chiefs wrote to President
Grant in 1873 asking him to formally annex Samoa—but Congress was not committed to formally acquiring islands outside of the contiguous United States that were
inhabited by majority non-white populations.19 The reason for Congress’ reluctance


This is not in the 1950s @wat0n it is still happening recently using the same tired racist shit excuses.

Why? Because you are dealing with two faced liars.

But the Republican Party or the Democratic party are gonna respect majority votes. They don't really. You are dealing with entrenched people who will manipulate everything to hold on to power. Even if it means denying rightful citizens their rights to vote and to be duly represented. The reason they gerrymander and the reason they denied the African Americans the freedom to vote in heavily black states in the 1960s and so on like Mississippi or Alabama? Is about control of land and territory and making sure the class system in the USA is respected. The entire problem is about that. Back then, now and in the future. If you don't resolve this racist encoded shit now in 2022? It will eventually become an internal tyranny. It already is that in the outlying territories that are unincorporated.

Many of you don't see it as a cancer. That spreads if you don't identify the behavior for what it is. Undemocratic, racist and exploitative. But? This is the chance. Get rid of the ones supporting undemocratic shit laws and codes and rulings and get rid of any semblance of minority rules by manipulation in these crisis moments. Because if you don't? January 6th is the beginning of an expansion of minority enforcement of their will over a majority population that doesn't agree. It won't matter what people vote for. They will do something that is not the majority will. Why? Because no one STOPPED THEM with the Puerto Ricans, the Guamanians (los chamorros), the American Samoans, the Filipinos, the Cubans way back in the last of the 19th century. It is an ongoing ignoring of democracy.
#15229124
wat0n wrote:Then I think Puerto Ricans need to reach a clear agreement on the matter. I don't think independence is feasible if there's not a clear majority for it.


That is not the issue. The issue is that the congress refuses to be held accountable to the vote that the Puerto Ricans do want. They want to be able to deny the majority will of the Puerto Ricans.

Why do they want to do that? Study the documents on American Samoa. The congress doesn't want to give political power to territories that are controlled by non white voters. Period. Why? If you make all these tiny islands filled with non white peoples? Who speak Spanish, Guamanian, Samoan, etc. and they have senators and congresspeople? Who vote? The racist ones lose. So do the corporations making money off of Dole pineapples or tuna canning or the military folks who have interests in using them for jumping off points if they have to go and invade Panama or Venezuela. Lol.

The mask comes off. It is about aggression. Not democracy.
#15229138
Unthinking Majority wrote:They're kind of like both quasi-colonies and also dependents.




Not quasi colonies but colonies. In fact the Japanese invaded but the US military whisked out the white military families and abandoned the Guamanians to the rapists and the killers and torturers from the Japanese invasion.

The US also abandoned the Filipinos to the Japanese invasions as well. The Philippines became independent from the USA in 1946.

Why are so many US citizens so IGNORANT of all these histories? Because it is unflattering and undemocratic.

It is not one or two random shit behavior from Washington DC. it is systemic and racist and undemocratic. Understand this well. Because if you don't you will be under the impression that the USA respects democracy above their racism, classism, and profit motives. It doesn't respect democracy above racism, classism, and profit motives.

Samoa was divided by the German imperialists and British imperialists. They wound up with American imperialists. The Puerto Ricans and the Guamanians were fleeing Spanish imperialism. So were the Filipinos. They wound up with American imperialists.
#15263008
@Potemkin
The content of this thread is not evolving much. The legislation is introduced. It all dies in the senate. Not much has changed from the last time AOC introduced the bill.

People continue with the lies about respecting democratic votes. They don't. When the USA government becomes a stale and undemocratic mess with some racists and other people who refuse to expand the rights of ordinary voters and it becomes a really hard to cope with has been ex imperial power like the UK is now?

Don't say I did not warn the people living in the Power of Myth about American democracy. I gave you the context. If you refused to accept it and are worried about living in some kind of undemocratic corporate plutocratic hypermilitarized dystopia of the USA? You were not reading historical reality well. I did my job.

Some more AOC speeches on PR status.



https://youtube.com/shorts/t5dvCMWrItk?feature=share
#15263015
Rancid wrote:Statehood should be given IMO. Basically we have a bunch of racist in congress.

The reason the US would not want to let go of Puerto Rico is to keep influence of shitholes like China out.

I agree, but unlikely to happen. Nothing to do with neocolonialism, it is simpler than that, republicans would never allow for this because of the perception that this would only rock the votes in favor of democrats. Not unlike D.C. statehood.
I don't think it is fair.

@Tainari88 Like I always say, I don't know enough about PR's internal politics to even pretend to know what they want or not. Based on the reports of polls I am not even convinced that Puerto Ricans actually know what they want (aka 2020 referendum with ~ 50:50 split with a slight edge for statehood but rather shitty turnout). But the idea that PR as a small island is going to ever be "independent" is laughable. Puerto rico imports most of its energy and food. You might achieve political independence, but real independence is not even in the cards.

I personally don't have a say on the matter, again I am not very familiar with PR's people's wishes. But I have a sense that proper statehood would be more beneficial for puerto ricans and would give you the representation that PR is entittled to.

As a side note, be careful for what you wish, you might get it and I am not certain that you will like it. For all its defects, the US is a great country, and at least PR get a US passport, that is more than cubans get. See how happy cubans are with their "independence".
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