[annatar1914]

The American Revolution was justified.
The Civil War was justified.
World War II was justified.

In all these cases, there was no peaceful alternative. I can imagine circumstances where Trump may go so far as to justify a miltary coup — not to create a military dictatorship but to defend the Constitution. As general Kelly said, “I took an oath to defend the Constitution, not Donald Trump.” I hope that isn’t necessary, but one way or another, the current Republican Party must go the way of the Whig Party. It is too dangerous to exist, but I’d rather vote them out than kill them.

@Hakeer :

I note that you didnt mention the French or Russian Revolutions.

One has to scientifically examine and analyze all the shifting and fluid subjective and objective factors when looking at the political and socio economic situation, to determine the proper course of action. That is, the perfect wedding of Theory and Action.

This happened with the October Revolution of 1917,

The October 1917 Russian Revolution was confounding to the bought off reformists and opportunists who sold out the common laboring people, as they do always and everywhere, the labor bureaucrats in the unions and social democratic and liberal political organizations whose theories were and are adulterated by a right goodly sum of money in their bank accounts, and whose actions are anything but transformative for regular people.

So there was no peaceful alternatives in the French and Russian Revolutions either.

[Hakeer]

@Hakeer :

I note that you didnt mention the French or Russian Revolutions.

One has to scientifically examine and analyze all the shifting and fluid subjective and objective factors when looking at the political and socio economic situation, to determine the proper course of action. That is, the perfect wedding of Theory and Action.

This happened with the October Revolution of 1917,

The October 1917 Russian Revolution was confounding to the bought off reformists and opportunists who sold out the common laboring people, as they do always and everywhere, the labor bureaucrats in the unions and social democratic and liberal political organizations whose theories were and are adulterated by a right goodly sum of money in their bank accounts, and whose actions are anything but transformative for regular people.

So there was no peaceful alternatives in the French and Russian Revolutions either.

I was just naming the wars involving the U.S.
I opposed all the wars of my lifetime — Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan.

I don’t know what will happen in Syria, but I want our military out of there and let the people of Syria control their own country. I wish the same for Ukraine and Puerto Rico. Every country.

[Tainari88]

I was just naming the wars involving the U.S.
I opposed all the wars of my lifetime — Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan.

I don’t know what will happen in Syria, but I want our military out of there and let the people of Syria control their own country. I wish the same for Ukraine and Puerto Rico. Every country.

But, you liked Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon? The Republican MAGA conservative woman for the corrupt PNP party? How could you dump her so quickly? She represents statehood for Puerto Rico. A noble cause? She is going to get it done with her fucked up English and her non-vote by sucking up to Southern racist MAGAs in the US congress right? She will beg, plead and lie her way in there.

No, Puerto Rico wasn't invaded by the US Troops just when Spain was letting Puerto Rico gain independence and rights...and they lied and said they were liberating PR when they were chaining her up once more for another century and more....but she says they are liberators!! Damn it. And if Jenniffer said it? It has to be true. And if I say it? You need to fact check. Yes, fact check it all. Gonzalez affiliation is the Republican Party. A party that refuses to make Puerto Rico a state. It does not matter what Gonzalez represents. They won't go for it. But she will moan and plead. Like the dignified puppet woman that she is. Puppet people are great at advocating for their people's rights to the more powerful group in charge. Yep, they are well known for getting their agenda done. NOT.



Gonzalez Colon is going to whine and scream if it does not become a state because the vast majority of Boricuas are on her side. And if the people of the island go for independence? The Communists in the Caribbean and in Venezuela, and Nicaragua and Cuba are going to ruin Puerto Rico and everyone will be starving out waiting for some expensive imported food from the US Merchant Marine that was imposed on Puerto Rico during the Jones Act of 1920, and some privatized electricity company called LUMA (see the electricity company Whitefish that was booted out for corruption from Montana USA first) to fix our issue. Not solar panels and renewable energy because, because the USA we got to buy fuel from their oil companies and not from Venezuela or Mexico because their special magic fuel is better for us in the long run.

No, Hakeer you obviously did not know much about Puerto Rico. That much was obvious. You know a little more now.

And independence is the best option. But your government will try to manipulate the outcome. If it can't they will give us the Cuban treatment. Squeeze the island to the point of collapse. And say see? We told you guys you can't do it on your own. We need the old relationship back. You can't live without us. Now you get even less rights this time around. And here you sit Hakeer, talking about free speech and respecting rights. Where did your nation go wrong there? When it started mistreating every other nation struggling for some basic rights.

I never believed the myth that Puerto Ricans are dumb and savage, inferior and stupid, incapable of self rule. My parents were brilliant people. They were living examples of the poorest people of the island becoming incredibly powerful through knowledge, and work and analyzing things the way smart people often do. We have a lot of successful people in every field. The arts, science, math, STEM, engineering, medicine, law, and every field in the world. So that theory is bullshit. We have some of the most greatest people in the world. So why does the US government keep insisting that we need them to live or to rule then? It is easy. Because they need to justify something unjust and immoral. And they can go straight to hell with their lies, and bullshit and violence and hatred.

You want to know how an Empire comes tumbling down Hakeer? By violating its own principles and being incapable of taking responsibility for their lack of just behavior and moral behavior and by being incapable of realizing when their country is incapable of logical and rational choices. It is all about power and control only and abuses committed by them on others. Incapable of modifying in time. A very human thing to do.

But the reality is that these are not the 1960s anymore.

The US government can continue to rant about Castro in Cuba. He died in 2016. Raul Castro is soon going to die as well. The Castro brothers are dead and buried politically and the real issue is that they have to CONTROL from afar or KILL everything that Latin America tries to build.

Stop comparing Puerto Rico to Mexico. Mexico is an independent nation with horrible capitalist exploitation mainly by US corporations for centuries now. But they are an independent nation.

PR never had the chance to make a single decision for its own benefit. We are slaves. Slaves do not decide a damn thing. Not their economies, their financial gains, the land, their politics or policies. We control nothing. Zero. The statehood vote is fake. It is based on bombarding the Puerto Rican public with fear tactics. You will starve without the USA. You will not be able to go to the USA when unemployment is high in PR. You will not be able to pay your bills, or go to school, or go to a clinic, or do a damn thing, without the US government and the US based rich corporations telling you what to do. Obey us and all is well. Vote statehood. Then we jail your corrupt local leaders. See? You can't do it on your own. You are corrupt, ignorant, dirty, inferior, you do not deserve the land you have lived in for centuries. Too bumbling, dumb, inferior and corrupt to run it right.

They blast that fucking message on the psyche of every single Puerto Rican from the cradle onward.

It is their way of blocking our natural need for self agency and self rule.

The tired racist shit from the late 19th century of 1898 no longer is acceptable. As an excuse for saying we can't rule ourselves.

@QatzelOk though made a very valid point. The Banksters have imprisoned almost all of Latin America, Africa and many other nations. There is no true freedom with those people in charge of economics worldwide. They are doing some serious damage in the USA as we speak.

But you got to start somewhere.

And you have to start democratizing the workplace. Pooling all the labor power of the many and distributing it in an equitable fashion. Allow the workers themselves control of all the resources they have in their sphere of influence.

Localize and then grow out into cooperative units. Switch to sustainable energy.

The reality is that relying on some greedy imperialists and capitalists and Crypto currency nightmare people to care about your country as a whole and the communities who's culture was developed there the way that you care about it? Is foolish. They have no skin in the game. They have no morals telling them to stop destroying other societies in order for them to get richer off of disaster and anguish and misery.

That is where you need to start.

Make it communal and democratize the workplaces. Grow it out in cooperation. And then lock them out of the equation. They will try to genocide you in the process. Q is right about that as well.

But it is either a brave new way of being human in the future....or the same old shit and everyone sinking into despondency, pollution, wars and crap. Death.

I choose life. After all that is my name.

[annatar1914]

I was just naming the wars involving the U.S.
I opposed all the wars of my lifetime — Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan.

I don’t know what will happen in Syria, but I want our military out of there and let the people of Syria control their own country. I wish the same for Ukraine and Puerto Rico. Every country.

@Hakeer :

The Ukraine as a militarized and fascistic state armed by the West and as a springboard for attacks into Russia, as well as an attacker of people in the Ukraine who identify as Russian and/or Soviet, isnt controlled by the people of the Ukraine. Hasn't been since the Ukrainian SSR voted to remain as part of the Soviet Union back in the day, in our lifetime.

When it comes to politics, while i have emotions about this or that event, the best i or anyone else can do is look at the whole picture of material facts and subject it to analysis. Its not enough to have an opinion on say, the national debt or be " anti war" one has to look at all the relevant factors.

So in the case of the national debt, one easily can understand the issue when it isnt taken in isolation from other considerations:

Debt isnt a problem for Finance Capital, it knows that Capitalism could no longer exist without the infusion of funds created ex nihilio for that purpose, to finance the resource wars that bring in the loot that maintains the class structure. Its all connected.

[Hakeer]

@Hakeer :

The Ukraine as a militarized and fascistic state armed by the West and as a springboard for attacks into Russia, as well as an attacker of people in the Ukraine who identify as Russian and/or Soviet, isnt controlled by the people of the Ukraine. Hasn't been since the Ukrainian SSR voted to remain as part of the Soviet Union back in the day, in our lifetime.

When it comes to politics, while i have emotions about this or that event, the best i or anyone else can do is look at the whole picture of material facts and subject it to analysis. Its not enough to have an opinion on say, the national debt or be " anti war" one has to look at all the relevant factors.

So in the case of the national debt, one easily can understand the issue when it isnt taken in isolation from other considerations:

Debt isnt a problem for Finance Capital, it knows that Capitalism could no longer exist without the infusion of funds created ex nihilio for that purpose, to finance the resource wars that bring in the loot that maintains the class structure. Its all connected.

Russians voted to keep Ukraine in the USSR, and Ukrainians overwhelmingly voted in 1991 to get out. So did Georgia and all the other former USSR countries. Deal with it. Now when they further reject Russia by showing interest in the European Union and NATO, Putin’s dream of reconstituting the USSR is fading. His response is military invasion.

Let’s not get confused about who is the military aggressor here. No country is invading Russia. Russia started this war, and Russia could end it and live in peace with its neighbors.

Getting to my larger point, I believe in national self-determination for Ukraine, Syria, Afghanistan, Puerto Rico, and every country.

Wars start when one sovereign country invades another because they don’t like their political/economic system, or want control of their resources, or claim preemptive strike for self-defense (Israel, Russia), or outright lies (Iraq), or whatever other reasons. There are always the justifications offered for military imperialism.

[Hakeer]

But, you liked Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon? The Republican MAGA conservative woman for the corrupt PNP party? How could you dump her so quickly? She represents statehood for Puerto Rico. A noble cause? She is going to get it done with her fucked up English and her non-vote by sucking up to Southern racist MAGAs in the US congress right? She will beg, plead and lie her way in there.

No, Puerto Rico wasn't invaded by the US Troops just when Spain was letting Puerto Rico gain independence and rights...and they lied and said they were liberating PR when they were chaining her up once more for another century and more....but she says they are liberators!! Damn it. And if Jenniffer said it? It has to be true. And if I say it? You need to fact check. Yes, fact check it all. Gonzalez affiliation is the Republican Party. A party that refuses to make Puerto Rico a state. It does not matter what Gonzalez represents. They won't go for it. But she will moan and plead. Like the dignified puppet woman that she is. Puppet people are great at advocating for their people's rights to the more powerful group in charge. Yep, they are well known for getting their agenda done. NOT.



Gonzalez Colon is going to whine and scream if it does not become a state because the vast majority of Boricuas are on her side. And if the people of the island go for independence? The Communists in the Caribbean and in Venezuela, and Nicaragua and Cuba are going to ruin Puerto Rico and everyone will be starving out waiting for some expensive imported food from the US Merchant Marine that was imposed on Puerto Rico during the Jones Act of 1920, and some privatized electricity company called LUMA (see the electricity company Whitefish that was booted out for corruption from Montana USA first) to fix our issue. Not solar panels and renewable energy because, because the USA we got to buy fuel from their oil companies and not from Venezuela or Mexico because their special magic fuel is better for us in the long run.

No, Hakeer you obviously did not know much about Puerto Rico. That much was obvious. You know a little more now.

And independence is the best option. But your government will try to manipulate the outcome. If it can't they will give us the Cuban treatment. Squeeze the island to the point of collapse. And say see? We told you guys you can't do it on your own. We need the old relationship back. You can't live without us. Now you get even less rights this time around. And here you sit Hakeer, talking about free speech and respecting rights. Where did your nation go wrong there? When it started mistreating every other nation struggling for some basic rights.

I never believed the myth that Puerto Ricans are dumb and savage, inferior and stupid, incapable of self rule. My parents were brilliant people. They were living examples of the poorest people of the island becoming incredibly powerful through knowledge, and work and analyzing things the way smart people often do. We have a lot of successful people in every field. The arts, science, math, STEM, engineering, medicine, law, and every field in the world. So that theory is bullshit. We have some of the most greatest people in the world. So why does the US government keep insisting that we need them to live or to rule then? It is easy. Because they need to justify something unjust and immoral. And they can go straight to hell with their lies, and bullshit and violence and hatred.

You want to know how an Empire comes tumbling down Hakeer? By violating its own principles and being incapable of taking responsibility for their lack of just behavior and moral behavior and by being incapable of realizing when their country is incapable of logical and rational choices. It is all about power and control only and abuses committed by them on others. Incapable of modifying in time. A very human thing to do.

But the reality is that these are not the 1960s anymore.

The US government can continue to rant about Castro in Cuba. He died in 2016. Raul Castro is soon going to die as well. The Castro brothers are dead and buried politically and the real issue is that they have to CONTROL from afar or KILL everything that Latin America tries to build.

Stop comparing Puerto Rico to Mexico. Mexico is an independent nation with horrible capitalist exploitation mainly by US corporations for centuries now. But they are an independent nation.

PR never had the chance to make a single decision for its own benefit. We are slaves. Slaves do not decide a damn thing. Not their economies, their financial gains, the land, their politics or policies. We control nothing. Zero. The statehood vote is fake. It is based on bombarding the Puerto Rican public with fear tactics. You will starve without the USA. You will not be able to go to the USA when unemployment is high in PR. You will not be able to pay your bills, or go to school, or go to a clinic, or do a damn thing, without the US government and the US based rich corporations telling you what to do. Obey us and all is well. Vote statehood. Then we jail your corrupt local leaders. See? You can't do it on your own. You are corrupt, ignorant, dirty, inferior, you do not deserve the land you have lived in for centuries. Too bumbling, dumb, inferior and corrupt to run it right.

They blast that fucking message on the psyche of every single Puerto Rican from the cradle onward.

It is their way of blocking our natural need for self agency and self rule.

The tired racist shit from the late 19th century of 1898 no longer is acceptable. As an excuse for saying we can't rule ourselves.

@QatzelOk though made a very valid point. The Banksters have imprisoned almost all of Latin America, Africa and many other nations. There is no true freedom with those people in charge of economics worldwide. They are doing some serious damage in the USA as we speak.

But you got to start somewhere.

And you have to start democratizing the workplace. Pooling all the labor power of the many and distributing it in an equitable fashion. Allow the workers themselves control of all the resources they have in their sphere of influence.

Localize and then grow out into cooperative units. Switch to sustainable energy.

The reality is that relying on some greedy imperialists and capitalists and Crypto currency nightmare people to care about your country as a whole and the communities who's culture was developed there the way that you care about it? Is foolish. They have no skin in the game. They have no morals telling them to stop destroying other societies in order for them to get richer off of disaster and anguish and misery.

That is where you need to start.

Make it communal and democratize the workplaces. Grow it out in cooperation. And then lock them out of the equation. They will try to genocide you in the process. Q is right about that as well.

But it is either a brave new way of being human in the future....or the same old shit and everyone sinking into despondency, pollution, wars and crap. Death.

I choose life. After all that is my name.

Before repeating everything I said about supporting the Grijalva bill on Puerto Rican self-determination which would FORCE the U.S. government to honor the results of a referendum, let’s go back here…

https://www.statista.com/statistics/106 ... caribbean/

This is the third time I have asked for your comments on these statistics.

Here is another one...

https://tradingeconomics.com/puerto-ric ... 0in%201960.

Click on MAX to see a graph of Puerto Rican GDP growth since 1960.

[QatzelOk]

If you can’t see the difference between Harris and Trump, you’re in some alternative universe...

When it comes to the USA's debt, there is no difference whatsoever. Both candidates are married to wars that will continue to bankrupt the USA, and by extension, its allies.

And because of war debts, both parties are reluctant to change the USA's anemic social programs and decaying national infrastructure.

The last few presidential "debates" were like high school parlimentary debates: lots of fire and passion, but zero content of any significance (national debt, wars and wars, genocide in Palestine ... were all evaded in order to talk about golf scores and people who are proud of lawns).

This is the DEBT thread, so you must demonstrate a difference between the two parties regarding this subject. You haven't done that so far, so your "both parties are different" belongs in another thread, far, far away.

[Hakeer]

When it comes to the USA's debt, there is no difference whatsoever. Both candidates are married to wars that will continue to bankrupt the USA, and by extension, its allies.

And because of war debts, both parties are reluctant to change the USA's anemic social programs and decaying national infrastructure.

The last few presidential "debates" were like high school parlimentary debates: lots of fire and passion, but zero content of any significance (national debt, wars and wars, genocide in Palestine ... were all evaded in order to talk about golf scores and people who are proud of lawns).

This is the DEBT thread, so you must demonstrate a difference between the two parties regarding this subject. You haven't done that so far, so your "both parties are different" belongs in another thread, far, far away.

I mentioned the problem many times. Look at national debt from end of WWII until 1980 when Reagan arrived with massive tax cuts for billionaires, which launched the graph through the roof on both national debt and income/wealth inequality in this country. More of the same with Bush and Trump. Now Trump will extend the tax cuts. Democrats have a different tax policy. Biden and Harris proposal was to increase— not cut — taxes on anyone over $400,000 annual income. Republicans will not raise taxes a dime on these people.

That’s the revenue side of debt.

Now spending: Project 2025 and DOGE propose to cut $2 trillion from the budget and make old people, poor people, and sick people pay for it. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, Obamacare, etc., etc. All these things to benefit these people were created by Democratic presidents — FDR, LBJ, Obama. Republicans have been fighting against them forever.

[QatzelOk]

I mentioned the problem many times. Look at national debt from end of WWII until 1980 when Reagan arrived with massive tax cuts for billionaires, which launched the graph through the roof on both national debt and income/wealth inequality in this country. More of the same with Bush and Trump. Now Trump will extend the tax cuts. Democrats have a different tax policy. ...

I'm not seeing this "difference" on this colorful graph.

Do you have any backup links to prove your recent claim?

[Hakeer]

I'm not seeing this "difference" on this colorful graph.

Do you have any backup links to prove your recent claim?

Here is a pretty good analysis of your graph…

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-sho ... -rcna53965

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-sho ... y-n1282276

You have to analyze the causes of deficits, not just the size.

Obama inherited the financial crisis economy from Bush that was created by bankster deregulation (mortgage-backed securities, derivatives, etc. — you recall). The Fed had to do a lot of QE to dig out of that hole. Once he got the economy back on track, Obama steadily reduced the federal deficit.

Then Trump arrived and the deficit shot up due to the usual Republican tax cuts. Then it really went to hell with Trump’s slow response to COVID.

So Biden inherited the economy in a mess from Trump, and again needed to do stimulus spending to prevent an even deeper recession. Then he reduced the deficit by $1 trillion in one year, as the article says. It would have been even better if Congress approved his tax proposal for billionaires.

Now Trump is back for another round, and you will see the deficit reverse again just like in the transition from Obama to Trump. I expect it will be even worse than last time, considering all these clowns he is appointing to run the country.

[Rancid]

DOGE cannot cut 2 Trillion a year, even if it successfully makes massive cuts.

I hope they do it

[annatar1914]

@Hakeer :

You said;

Russians voted to keep Ukraine in the USSR, and Ukrainians overwhelmingly voted in 1991 to get out

.

That's simply not true. In the 1991 Soviet Union referendum:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_So ... referendum

Over 70 percent of Ukrainians voted to stay in the USSR, you can see the percentages. Anything else was rigged and unconstitutional; there's no way those same people voted for an independent Ukraine.

So did Georgia and all the other former USSR countries. Deal with it

Again, look at the percentages.

Now when they further reject Russia by showing interest in the European Union and NATO, Putin’s dream of reconstituting the USSR is fading. His response is military invasion

That is one of the patently absurd things i hear from people in the West, downright moronic even lunatic, sorry. Putin is pathologically Capitalist and Anti Communist and was one of the people who changed things so they could try to bury the USSR. He is a Russian patriot however, thank God. He doesnt want to reconstitute the USSR.

I myself dont want the old USSR, but a better one

Let’s not get confused about who is the military aggressor here. No country is invading Russia. Russia started this war, and Russia could end it and live in peace with its neighbors.

There's no repeating over and over again the rebuttals to this nonsense you regurgitate. Your generation of western Me Generation coddled baby boomers, privleged and entitled, will never learn, a generation lost in collective mental onanism.

Getting to my larger point, I believe in national self-determination for Ukraine, Syria, Afghanistan, Puerto Rico, and every country.

I believe that you believe in fracturing all other countries outside of the USA into as small of pieces as possible, so that they never can realistically challenge American Global Hegemony. You're being disingenuous i think about Puerto Rico.

Wars start when one sovereign country invades another because they don’t like their political/economic system, or want control of their resources, or claim preemptive strike for self-defense (Israel, Russia), or outright lies (Iraq), or whatever other reasons. There are always the justifications offered for military imperialism.

Sometimes those justifications are true and not Imperialistic. And even the immoral seizures have a certain logic to them. Take Syria for example. American troops have occupied a third of the country for years, the third with all the agriculture and oil and natural gas, not coincidentally. Trump said the quiet part out loud about that, to his detriment, but he understood better than you how the Capitalist system has to operate in order to continue: he wasnt disapproving.

This is all about Capitalism, its about the Money. That's why the Democrats ran an designated Idiot loser after it became obvious to everyone that their previous idiot was too demented to keep up the charade: Trump will be given his chance.

[Tainari88]

Before repeating everything I said about supporting the Grijalva bill on Puerto Rican self-determination which would FORCE the U.S. government to honor the results of a referendum, let’s go back here…

https://www.statista.com/statistics/106 ... caribbean/

This is the third time I have asked for your comments on these statistics.

Here is another one...

https://tradingeconomics.com/puerto-ric ... 0in%201960.

Click on MAX to see a graph of Puerto Rican GDP growth since 1960.

Puerto Rico has enormous debt. And unlike a US state or city like Detroit, Michigan USA when the big four and others pulled out to exploit Mexican labor, we can't declare bankruptcy. It is a very fast and easy way to buy a nation without dealing with political wrangling first. You load it up with debt.

The money never got trickled down to the Puerto Rican worker.

The GDP growth is better than other nations where? Do comparisons that make sense. We make less than half the income of Mississippi the poorest state of the union. Mississippi has a long history of slavery and Black Americans being lynched and shot. So, not even half of the wealth of Mississippi we have as a state. Because we are not a state. We are in limbo.

Are you proposing that I demonstrate gratitude for the pittance the US government has invested in the local Puerto Rican economy in a real way? Rosario Rivera a PhD in economics on the island already demonstrated in my video in Spanish how much the US sucks out of the Puerto Rican economy. Surprise, surprise it favors themselves. Not us.

So if you are expecting me to be grateful for being exploited and blocked by the USA government for Puerto Ricans stagnant economic state and the fleeing of millions of Puerto Ricans to other countries looking for bread and a chance to live decently I have one sentence for you--Hell will freeze over before I will be grateful to some murdering pig capitalists who want to see the island ruined for their benefit.

Do you think all that 'growth' was for free Hakeer? Do you think I am some naive dumb Puerto Rican woman here on PoFo writing fluff pieces for years and years? I am not.

How do the Puerto Ricans pay for Costco warehouses and Sam's Clubs, and giant Supermarkets, and car dependencies only instead of good mass and cheap public transportation? How does it work when every decision is about favoring the pockets of some rich corporations stateside and internationally?

How do we pay our dues to not be a Cuba or a Haiti?

By our blood. Dying in every US war in disporpionate numbers. My father used to be a mailman in the sixties. He would deliver boxes of dead veterans who were Puerto Ricans who died in Vietnam to their mothers and fathers. He said he knew which were the boxes. One was a woman who's nineteen year old son was killed and she opened the box and screamed and pulled her hair out. Her other son had also died two weeks earlier. Both she said had been drafted. They did not want to go but faced jail if they did not go. Lost her two sons to the cause of Anti-Communism in Vietnam. For what? Vietnam became a socialist republic despite the efforts of the USA government to thwart it all. They wanted to be free and were a nationalist group trying to free Vietnam from the French, the Americans and others. Always like sharks wanting to control nations for their wealth.

Yes, we paid that price. We also pay through the nose for imported goods. The USA has the highest Merchant Marine delivery system and cabotage laws in the world. We are not allowed to negotiate with other nations.

Same for fuel, same for cars. We actually have to pay more taxes for cars than if we bought a car in Florida or New York.

Loan rates higher. Electricity higher. Water higher. Trash collection higher. Wages is where the Puerto Rican left has been a hard cookie to crumble. But the US congress wants to lower our wages to $4.25 an hour for Puerto Rican youth between the ages of 17-24. When everything in San Juan is more expensive to afford than Mississippi by a lot. We are far prettier a city. Old San Juan is lovely. Old and beautiful and in front of a really lovely harbor and beach. Perfect for Aussies, Mainland Americans, Canadians and Europeans of wealth and prestige to make their permanent vacation homes in. Hardly any native Puerto Ricans live in Old San Juan anymore. I was born in the old part of the city. They tell me no one who is Boricua can afford to live there any more. Airbnb and gentrification has happened.

Puerto Ricans can't rent anywhere. Priced out by Airbnb people. Also crypto tax dodgers buying uber expensive properties in Dorado, San Juan, etc. Pricing out the locals. Who gives a fuck about them right? Have them pack their bags and go to Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Orlando, Boston, Miami, etc and go rent in some ghetto and fight it out with the Blacks and the dumbasses who can't tell the difference between the Puerto Ricans and the Mexicans. Because hell, everyone knows those people are all the same right?

Yes, having to deal with the racists too in the USA. MAGA galore ignorant, dumb, racist people in the fifty states. And people like you Hakeer who keep harping on how much the USA has lifted us up from our deep poverty and ignorance. Bringing the light of civilization. That is why an Anglo Education appointee in PR by the name of Julia Kehlerer or something was convicted of corruption. She took money and so on to enrich herself by closing hundreds of Puerto Rican public schools. The new alternative to educating Puerto Ricans. Starve out the schools, universities and etc. Take away the socialist reforms of the FDR years in PR.

Do you want me to tell you how my uncle, father and many relatives all served in the US Air Force, Army, etc because they said they needed a job, and a way of paying for college? Yes, we paid that price of 'wealth'. Of how great the fucking US is in giving us some opportunities to die in those stupid wars for control of the world.

Got to pay for that privilege. Of being an American in name only but not in power. My grandparents working for shit wages in the garment district in NYC and my grandfather being a guy washing dishes and short order cook in the Wall Street district for years. Six days a week for 35 years. My granny also for 25 years in a sweat shop in NYC. My father's brothers working for peanuts too in restaurants and working class jobs for years and years. Because it is all FREE. Yes, in capitalism you get to buy a toaster and a couch and that makes you special and better than the Cubans. Who can't consume because the US blockade and sanctions for not being their puppets got to be imposed. Even though the UN all disagree with the US.


So how am I supposed to be grateful for the GDP or something now? I got to be grateful for the position we are in. Because we are not Haiti or Cuba.

Grateful. Can you tell me what I got to be grateful for again? I am all ears....

[Hakeer]

@Tainari88

Puerto Rico has enormous debt. And unlike a US state or city like Detroit, Michigan USA when the big four and others pulled out to exploit Mexican labor, we can't declare bankruptcy. It is a very fast and easy way to buy a nation without dealing with political wrangling first. You load it up with debt.

We have the largest GDP in the world and $35 trillion in debt. National debt is a function of fiscal IRRESPONSIBILITY of the government, not a lack of economic production. The same principle applies to the government in Puerto Rico. Section 936 was a huge boost to the Puerto Rican economy, bringing in manufacturing jobs. Many of those jobs were lost when 936 ended, leading to a major recession. The Constitution of Puerto Rico allows the government to issue bonds to balance the budget. Those "triple-exempt" bonds were attractive to investors, and the government sold more than they could afford. That was a self-inflicted wound.

The money never got trickled down to the Puerto Rican worker.

Yes, it did. There just was not enough to provide the taxes required to meet the government's obligations on the oversold bonds. You are supposed to the expert here, so I thought you knew this.

The GDP growth is better than other nations where? Do comparisons that make sense. We make less than half the income of Mississippi the poorest state of the union. Mississippi has a long history of slavery and Black Americans being lynched and shot. So, not even half of the wealth of Mississippi we have as a state. Because we are not a state. We are in limbo.

Better than other Carribean countries and all countries in South America. Not better than Mississippi, because MS has the advantage of being on the mainland and getting much more support from federal government as a state. If Puerto Rico were not a territory, it would have even less federal aid.

Are you proposing that I demonstrate gratitude for the pittance the US government has invested in the local Puerto Rican economy in a real way? Rosario Rivera a PhD in economics on the island already demonstrated in my video in Spanish how much the US sucks out of the Puerto Rican economy. Surprise, surprise it favors themselves. Not us.

Basic economic principles apply to Puerto Rico the same as anywhere else. For example, Washington state made huge concessions to Amazon to get them to locate here. That provides an economic boost to the local economy. The direct employment for workers as well as local and state taxes. Nobody cares that the giant Fortune 500 company generates more revenue from this arrangement than we do. Same for Boeing and other major corporations in Seattle.

So if you are expecting me to be grateful for being exploited and blocked by the USA government for Puerto Ricans stagnant economic state and the fleeing of millions of Puerto Ricans to other countries looking for bread and a chance to live decently I have one sentence for you--Hell will freeze over before I will be grateful to some murdering pig capitalists who want to see the island ruined for their benefit.

The GDP growth chart shows the economic benefits of U.S. government and pig capitalist investment in Puerto Rico. Millions of Puerto Ricans since 2006 migrated to the mainland mostly for better economic opportunity, as their manufacturing jobs went to Mexico with the expiration of 936.

By our blood. Dying in every US war in disporpionate numbers. My father used to be a mailman in the sixties. He would deliver boxes of dead veterans who were Puerto Ricans who died in Vietnam to their mothers and fathers.

"Be the first one on your block to have your boy shipped home in a box." Country Joe and the Fish, if you don't know the song. I grew up with that war. I hated it. 55,000 Americans dead, and God knows how many Vietnamese.

Loan rates higher. Electricity higher. Water higher. Trash collection higher. Wages is where the Puerto Rican left has been a hard cookie to crumble. But the US congress wants to lower our wages to $4.25 an hour for Puerto Rican youth between the ages of 17-24. When everything in San Juan is more expensive to afford than Mississippi by a lot. We are far prettier a city. Old San Juan is lovely. Old and beautiful and in front of a really lovely harbor and beach. Perfect for Aussies, Mainland Americans, Canadians and Europeans of wealth and prestige to make their permanent vacation homes in. Hardly any native Puerto Ricans live in Old San Juan anymore. I was born in the old part of the city. They tell me no one who is Boricua can afford to live there any more. Airbnb and gentrification has happened.

Puerto Ricans can't rent anywhere. Priced out by Airbnb people. Also crypto tax dodgers buying uber expensive properties in Dorado, San Juan, etc. Pricing out the locals. Who gives a fuck about them right? Have them pack their bags and go to Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Orlando, Boston, Miami, etc and go rent in some ghetto and fight it out with the Blacks and the dumbasses who can't tell the difference between the Puerto Ricans and the Mexicans. Because hell, everyone knows those people are all the same right?

This is another fact of basic economics. The cost of living in a city that is prosperous is more expensive than in a poor city. This is true for San Francisco vs. Mississippi and also for San Juan vs. Haiti.

Yes, having to deal with the racists too in the USA. MAGA galore ignorant, dumb, racist people in the fifty states. And people like you Hakeer who keep harping on how much the USA has lifted us up from our deep poverty and ignorance. Bringing the light of civilization. That is why an Anglo Education appointee in PR by the name of Julia Kehlerer or something was convicted of corruption. She took money and so on to enrich herself by closing hundreds of Puerto Rican public schools. The new alternative to educating Puerto Ricans. Starve out the schools, universities and etc. Take away the socialist reforms of the FDR years in PR.

The Republicans in Project 2025 want to shut down the Dept. of Education and replace public schools with private schools. They send their kids to private schools already and do not want to pay property tax to support public schools. Do not associate me or Democrats with that shit, or with school racial segregation.

[Deutschmania]

Then stop playing the Game. It’s rigged. The Wheel keeps turning. Don’t just stop the Wheel, break it.

I am reminded of this presidential campaign song , from the Progressive , Henry Wallace . This is my political party alignment . I am a Progressive , or whatever the current American iteration of this might be said to be .

[Hakeer]

@Hakeer :

You said;

.

That's simply not true. In the 1991 Soviet Union referendum:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_So ... referendum

Over 70 percent of Ukrainians voted to stay in the USSR, you can see the percentages. Anything else was rigged and unconstitutional; there's no way those same people voted for an independent Ukraine.





Again, look at the percentages.



That is one of the patently absurd things i hear from people in the West, downright moronic even lunatic, sorry. Putin is pathologically Capitalist and Anti Communist and was one of the people who changed things so they could try to bury the USSR. He is a Russian patriot however, thank God. He doesnt want to reconstitute the USSR.

I myself dont want the old USSR, but a better one



There's no repeating over and over again the rebuttals to this nonsense you regurgitate. Your generation of western Me Generation coddled baby boomers, privleged and entitled, will never learn, a generation lost in collective mental onanism.




I believe that you believe in fracturing all other countries outside of the USA into as small of pieces as possible, so that they never can realistically challenge American Global Hegemony. You're being disingenuous i think about Puerto Rico.



Sometimes those justifications are true and not Imperialistic. And even the immoral seizures have a certain logic to them. Take Syria for example. American troops have occupied a third of the country for years, the third with all the agriculture and oil and natural gas, not coincidentally. Trump said the quiet part out loud about that, to his detriment, but he understood better than you how the Capitalist system has to operate in order to continue: he wasnt disapproving.

This is all about Capitalism, its about the Money. That's why the Democrats ran a designated Idiot loser after it became obvious to everyone that their previous idiot was too demented to keep up the charade: Trump will be given his chance.

Like I said, the Russians voted to keep Ukraine in the USSR. When the people of Ukraine themselves voted on the Declaration of Independence December 1, 1991 92% voted to get out. All the other former Soviet countries did, too. You can’t accept that, but that’s your problem. The U.N. and the rest of the world has long-since recognized the sovereignty of all these countries.

I want self-determination for Syria, Ukraine, and Puerto Rico. I support democracy around the world, but not via military imperialism by U.S., Russia, or any other country. That’s been my political conviction my entire life. You can’t accept that, either. I don’t care.

[annatar1914]

Like I said, the Russians voted to keep Ukraine in the USSR. When the people of Ukraine themselves voted on the Declaration of Independence December 1, 1991 92% voted to get out. All the other former Soviet countries did, too. You can’t accept that, but that’s your problem. The U.N. and the rest of the world has long-since recognized the sovereignty of all these countries.

@Hakeer :

I guess you have a problem with reading and facts. In 1991 with the referendum on remaining Soviet, the inhabitants of the Ukrainian SSR voted by 71.48 percentage points to remain. It was by force and fraud that the will of the people was thwarted, as is usual.

You are fundamentally dishonest, whether to yourself even i dont know but i can't have further conversations with people if they will ignore or deny the information i give them and sheepishly repeat the standard propaganda.

[Hakeer]

@Hakeer :

I guess you have a problem with reading and facts. In 1991 with the referendum on remaining Soviet, the inhabitants of the Ukrainian SSR voted by 71.48 percentage points to remain. It was by force and fraud that the will of the people was thwarted, as is usual.

You are fundamentally dishonest, whether to yourself even i dont know but i can't have further conversations with people if they will ignore or deny the information i give them and sheepishly repeat the standard propaganda.

Read this…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Ukra ... referendum

The vote was 92%. Their declaration of independence was ratified by the Ukrainian parliament, and every country globally (even Russia!) acknowledged the independence of Ukraine on December 2, 1991 and ever since then.

I don’t think you are dishonest. You are just wrong.

[annatar1914]

Read this…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Ukra ... referendum

The vote was 92%. Their declaration of independence was ratified by the Ukrainian parliament, and every country globally (even Russia!) acknowledged the independence of Ukraine on December 2, 1991 and ever since then.

I don’t think you are dishonest. You are just wrong.

@Hakeer :

Do you seriously think that in the space of one year people can go from 71.48% for the Union to 92% against? 92 % sounds dishonest too doesnt it?

The Yeltsinite Oligarchical Russian Federation was also against the USSR, of course they approved of its breakup.

I'm not saying that you're dishonest. I suspect that you are very wedded to a narrative that is very familiar to you, comforting even.

But its a different era for everyone, isnt it?

[Tainari88]

@Hakeer you now think independence is an option that is viable. Good. Improvement.

I am interested in debt as a means to oppress and exploit people in general. It is an old way of controlling people.

The current US debt is astronomical. A lot of it was due to the wars it has engaged in over the years. Also just creating student loan debt, consumer debt, medical debt, inflated housing prices and bubbles, and debts that have to do with unequal wealth distribution.

You can fix these problems. But you can't do it with people being ignorant, denying realities that exist, and bad power imbalances and injustices and immoral behaviors and just bad policy.

Got to get to the truth of the matter. And stop believing in propaganda, lies and bullshit. It does a lot of damage.

I have to go to bed. Spent the day cleaning and organizing mostly and sneaking in a new bike for my son for Christmas morning. I am dead tired.

Time to get a gentle song...from Cuba for beddy bye time. Rabo de nube translates into tail of a cloud. It sure is heavenly that song.