The only just future for my home is not statehood, but full independence from the United States. But the future of a free Puerto Rico doesn’t need to be utopian, or easy, to be just.
How do we manage that rage and indignation and re-channel them as something liberatory against systems of oppression, not in a way that reinforces those systems?
Last month, Puerto Rico’s federally imposed Fiscal Oversight and Management Board announced its debt-restructuring plan that predictably will expand draconian austerity measures while ignoring policies that would promote economic sustainability.
All candidates for political office in 2020 must speak to the issues of Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans for a terrible injustice continues unabated.
Some warn that the radical overhaul of Puerto Rico’s prison system – which was badly affected by Maria – may have dire consequences for inmates’ civil rights.
Puerto Ricans on the island are the most heavily taxed of all U.S. citizens. From 2013 to 2014, 105 different taxes were raised in Puerto Rico. Over a 19-year period, from 1990 to 2009, Puerto Rico paid more federal taxes than six U.S. states. Puerto Rico is projected to have the worst economy on the entire planet in 2018.
As economist Michael Hudson says, “Debts that can’t be paid won’t be paid.” Puerto Rico is bankrupt, its economy destroyed. In fact it is currently in bankruptcy proceedings with its creditors. Which suggests its time for some more out-of-the-box thinking . . . .
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