Vieques Development Plans Stir Concern

Vieques environmentalists say a government-planned recreational area on the small island's south coast threatens the heart of a unique and fragile ecosystem and a rare bioluminescent bay.

But while activists voice their concerns about potential environmental danger there, the Puerto Rican government, it seems, is listening.

The Puerto Rico National Parks Department aims to develop a "vacation center" targeted at middle-class families at the Sun Bay public beach.

The plan consists of a two-part process, according to National Parks Executive Director Ramon Nieves. First, the existing public beach facilities, about a half mile east of Esperanza, will be renovated, and its septic system will be hooked up with that of Vieques' main sewer system.

The second step of the project involves, in part, the construction of 50 cabanas, 30 additional parking spaces, a shop, 20 beachside gazebos, 56 new camping areas along the beach, lifeguard towers, an observatory and an elevated boardwalk.

Environmentalists worry that the development will destroy mangrove forests, disrupt endangered turtles' nesting sites in Sun Bay and, most alarmingly, damage or kill what the Puerto Rico Tourism Company calls "the most spectacular phosphorescent bay in the world" - Mosquito Bay, which lies within a protected nature reserve bordering the area National Parks plans to develop.

"We are very concerned," the Biobay Conservation Group said in a recent newsletter. "It seems they are trying to fit a very large project into a small, fragile space."

The work that has started in the area, Biobay says, has already damaged mangroves and animal habitats.

The group is also concerned that increased erosion and polluted runoff from expanded paved areas will poison crab habitat, damage flora and turtle nesting grounds, and pollute water that will eventually wind up in Mosquito Bay.

The proposed parking, Biobay said, is not needed: "Why must our precious green areas be paved when the present 240 spaces are never used?"

Furthermore, additional lighting for the cabanas will shine on turtle nesting sites on Sun Bay beach, disorienting hatchlings and possibly inhibiting their ability to imprint the area and return to the beach as adults to lay their eggs, according to Biobay. The lighting could also ruin the effect of Mosquito's main attraction, the glowing lagoon.

A bioluminescent, or phosphorescent, bay is created by dynoflagellates, one-celled organisms with the scientific name Pyrodinium bahamense, or "rotating fire of the Bahamas." When the organisms are disturbed by, for example, a passing fish or human hand, a chemical reaction takes place within the organisms that produces a greenish-blue flash. Dynoflagellates thrive in enclosed mangrove bays, where narrow channels keep the organisms from being washed out to sea, but also prevent any pollution that enters the lagoons from being flushed out.

The bioluminescent bay at La Parguera, in the muncipality of Lajas, was once as fiery as Mosquito Bay, but nearby development and concomitant pollution seriously damaged the bay. It's brightness has become only a fraction of it's original intensity, leaving Mosquito Bay as the finest bioluminescent bay in Puerto Rico and, perhaps, the world.

But Nieves said National Parks is "quite concerned" with potential environmental impact in Sun and Mosquito bays.

"We will do everything possible" to make sure the issues are addressed, said Nieves. Prompted by the concern of Biobay, the the government will see that the planned cabins will be moved, "really far away from Mosquito Bay" to a bare area, to protect mangroves and the sensitive one-celled organisms that give the Mosquito Bay its glow.

National Parks is conducting environmental impact studies on the development proposal, and while renovation work on the public beach facilities continues, the department will wait until the studies are completed, in about six months, to begin work on the new facilities.

Meanwhile, Nieves said, National Parks is working closely with U.S. agencies such as the Geological Survey and Fish and Wildlife, and meeting with Biobay, to ensure that steps are taken to protect the area's ecosystem.

While providing a destination for nature lovers, Nieves said, the "unobtrusive" vacation center at Sun Bay will be a boon to the Vieques economy by "encouraging people who would not have visited" the small island to spend their much needed tourist dollars in local stores.

Increased human traffic in the area, Nieves said, will be minimum and will have a minor impact on the ecosystem while creating about 50 jobs during the high tourist season.

Sharron Grasso, the executive director of Biobay, who also runs a business guiding boat tours into Mosquito, is not opposed to tourism projects, and applauded the government for taking an interest in the small island's economic needs.

"We need some development to benefit the economy," which for decades has staggered under colossal unemployment rates. However, development should occur responsibly, she said, to keep the bioluminescent bay thriving and keep tourists coming back. Rampant construction could destroy the very attraction the government aims to promote, she said.

"Do your project, but don't damage your bay to do your project," she said. "It makes no sense.

Meanwhile, though Nieves said increased traffic in the area will not affect its ecosystem, Grasso said closure of the Navy's Camp Garcia and its beaches has put increased pressure on Sun Bay and nearby Navio Beach, also adjacent to the Mosquito nature reserve.

The Navy closed off the beaches almost two years ago in response to stepped up protests against Navy training and massive civil disobedience and trespassing on restricted lands.

Locals and tourists used to be spread out among beaches within Camp Garcia, like Red and Blue, when the Navy was not training, Grasso said. But now, she added, increased use of Sun Bay due to the Navy closure has already resulted in damage to coastal areas.

"The reserve has the best beaches that are open," she said. Grasses have been trampled, and the amount of trash has increased dramatically as the number of visitors has risen, she said.

"The bioluminescent bay at La Paguera, in the municipality of Lajas, was once as fiery as Mosquito Bay, but nearby development and concomitant pollution seriously damaged the bay. It's brightness has become only a fraction of it's original intensity, leaving Mosquito Bay as the finest bioluminescent bay in Puerto Rico and, perhaps, the world."

Wait a minute. How can this be? Haven't the pandering politicians of Puerto Rico been telling everyone that the Navy has laid waste to the entire island of Vieques?

Don't the people mentioned in this article realize that they make the pandering politicians of Puerto Rico appear to be talking out of the other side of their mouths, when they say the beaches on the main island of Puerto Rico are more polluted than those on Vieques?

Who's responsible for printing articles like this, that will only reinforce the U.S Taxpayer's opinion that all of these charges, that the Navy has been polluting the island of Vieques, are a pack of lies to enable the corrupt politicians of Puerto Rico to steal another 24,000 acres of land from the U.S. Taxpayers?

How dare they contradict the pandering politicians of Puerto Rico like this!

President George Bush is working hard to make a present of the land that's owned by the U.S. Taxpayers, on the island of Vieques, to the pandering politicians of Puerto Rico and articles like this are not helpful!

Except where they blame the Navy's closing of their beaches for the damage to the beaches that were left open.

Unless the U.S. Taxpayers remember that the Navy's beaches were closed, because of Molotov cocktail throwing terrorists.

4 Protesters held for allegedly throwing Molotov cocktails at Navy on Vieques!

Luckily, for the land-grabbers, the U.S. Taxpayers have short memories and don't read the local Puerto Rican newspapers. Right?

LOL!

In a not so corrupt world, that isn't filled with pandering politicians trying to buy votes while enriching themselves and their cronies to the peril of U.S. military personnel and at the U.S. Taxpayer's expense, you're right, all the U.S. would have had to do is exercise it's power of eminent domain. They've tried that several times over the last 60 or so years on Vieques.

It always comes down to political considerations and greed.

Any idea what 24,000 acres of the most pristine beachfront in Puerto Rico, by this articles own admission, that's owned by the U.S. Taxpayer's, would be worth to developers and the greedy politicians that will take it for free?

The U.S. Navy has installed $3 billion dollars of infrastructure on the island already. What do you think that's worth to politicians that want to steal it from the rest of us?

Sure they could do the right thing and stand back and let the U.S. Taxpayers buy out the remaining 3,000 families for a few dollars more than we've already spent, but where would the windfall profit for the corrupt be in doing something like that?!!

Another question is could the friendly fire accidents we've suffered in Afghanistan have been avoided, if the Navy would have been allowed to train, on Vieques, with live ammunition?

First of all, if you're going to make a comment like this, pull out your world history book. Realize that at the time of the Spanish American War Puerto Rico had LEGISLATIVELY (in the republican government of Spain)won its autonomy and had elected it's own cabinet etc.. Puerto Rico was taken as a war prize by the USA as was intended for Cuba and the Phillipines. Puerto Rico had some brief revolts that never extended out of any given municipalities (by the way .. of which Vieques IS one!) and had always been predominantly legislative in its approach towards its own sovereignty. The Puerto Ricans, so near autonomy in 1898, were told that their illiteracy was an impediment(no data but if even as high as 60%, which is unlikely as many were school in europe as children-adolescents, out of 1.1 million in the 1900 census). Yet that would represent a higher literacy (40%) than many territories admitted to the Union between 1860 and 1900. Eminent Domain of conquered territory/colony....who you kidding....there is in lies the reason the US Gov didn't exercise that card. The US, beacon of democracy, staunch supporter of self dermination.....a colony owner? Heavens !! The facts are that PR's destiny was decided and continues to be decided by congress and big money interests, generations have passed since the early 1900s autonomous expectations and two Puerto Rican societies exist: the insular and the "overseas = mainland"or ultramar. The issue is more complex so please don't point a simpple finger at the issue.

Lefrep@aol.com (husband and PR-American of one of your regular list members.

Some historian you are, Pitinkie.

Pitinkie, how do you imagine that the United States Taxpayers came to own 24,000 acres on the island of Vieques?

The U.S. exercised it's power of eminent domain and compensated, at more than fair market value, a handful of the Spanish descendants of the conquistadors, that slaughtered the Taino Indians, to get Vieques, in the first place.

All of the Taino Indians were killed, driven into the sea or out into the open sea in their little boats.

The present residents of the island of Vieques are descended from the people that toiled as, pretty much, slave laborers on the big Spanish plantations.

If Vieques had been left in the hands of the big Spanish landowners, those plantation laborers would never have owned a grain of sand except what they got buried in.

At the time, the United States was providing for the common defense of the entire free world. The German U-boat threat in the waters of the Atlantic and the Caribbean was very real.

That's about as noble a cause as you can find. The land that the American Taxpayers purchased on the island of Vieques from a handful of the descendants of the conquistadors wasn't any kind of a price for the residents of Puerto Rico to pay for being saved from the Nazi gas chambers.

What do you think would have been the fate of Puerto Rico, if the Germans had captured it?

Spain could have protected Puerto Rico?

Puerto Rico could have protected itself?

Puerto Rico was so close to autonomy in 1898, under the thumb of the puppets of the Spanish Crown and the descendants of the conquistadors and the 'Holy Spanish Inquisition'.

Give us a break.

I know my history, TRUE history, quite well. The truth is that there were NO Tainos in Vieques at the time of discovery. Vieques, Culebra (also a PR Island) as well as the Virgin Islands (plus the lesser antilles by about 90%) were occupied by the Caribe. This group was in the midst of expansion from the mainland SA and as opposed to the agrarian Tainos were a warrior society, know to cannibalize (part of a religious belief) and used the women of their conquests to propagate. The Caribe were already threatening the east coast of PR when the ships landed in 1493. The Puerto Rican Taino Extemination is only partially based on fact. The truth is (1) The spandiards DID kill off many militarily, with intentional cruelty and with disease they brought with them from europe; (2) There were very few women of european descent so soldiers, sailors and settlers took Taino women as wives so there was a large amount of assimilation; (3) There were revolts to assimilation, forced labor and indenture (a european ..and Caribe concept) but of course they eventually lost and the Tainos escaped to the central mountain range of the island (ever wonder why some puertoricans have aboriginal features...I have it in some members of my family). Vieques was annexed to Puerto Rico in 1854 and had been founded as a township in 1843 by Fernando Sainz. It has had its own municipal identity since then. The original "conquistadors" had long gone to bigger prizes ie. Mejico, South America and the Phillipine Islands.The wave of settlers there were either new spaniards of descendants of the other world powers that held transient sway over it plus pirates: English, French, Danish to names a few. At the time of the Spanish American War the government was under the nominal constitutional monarchy of Prime Minister D. Praxedes Mateo Sagasta (Liberal Fusionist with whom the counterpart PR party members had made a pact prior to his election) after the assassination of D. Canovas de Castillas.The autonomous elected government was about a week old (July 17th) when the war intervened. December 10, 1898 the Treaty of Paris released Cuba from Spain, the Phillines were surrendered to the US for $20 million and Puerto Rico plus Guam were ceded to the US "..as compensation for the losses and expenses occasioned .......by the war." ....viewed as a spoil of war not the newly autonomous homeland of about a million. As for protection against the germans.....what about Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Martineque (a french province)....thats a mute point as Spain under Franco was Fascist too (disgust)if it were still autonomous from spain. If independant it would have allied to the US. As it was there were 10s of thousands that fought in the word wars in the US Military. Who is to say what woul or could have happened but it should have been a choice of the people. As far as pandering politicians......you are what you learn.........politics is politics not but rarely the will of the people.

Recommended reading list:

The Puerto Ricans: a Documentary History.

Puerto Rico: A Political and Cultural History.

Puerto Rico: A Study in Democratic Development.

Records of the Bureau of Insular Affairs Relating to Puerto Rico, 1898-1934.

Puerto Rico, Freedom and Power int the Carribean.

The United States in Puerto Rico: 1898-1900.

Read....then lets talk..............

LEFREP@AOL>COM

"I know my history, TRUE history, quite well. The truth is that there were no Tainos in Vieques at the time of discovery."

I presume you mean when the Spanish discovered it as opposed to the people that were already living there, when the Spanish arrived, discovered it?

Let's see how this brief, but surely untrue and misguided, History of Vieques island, Puerto Rico, by Wanda Bermudez, 1998 compares with your "TRUE historical account.

Ms. Bermudez says:

"The little we know about the pre-Columbian inhabitants (of Vieques that were slaughtered by the Spanish conquistadors) is derived from archaeological findings."

"The most important to date is the one at La Hueca where artifacts made in amethyst, agate, turquoise and jade were shaped like South American condors."

Well, of course, thanks to you, we know that someone else must have buried that Taino/Cacique stuff on Vieques to make your expert sources look bad.

"Two brave brother Caciques in Vieques, Cacimar and Yaureibo, lead separate revolts against the Spaniards. They were soon defeated and killed. What was left of the Indian population was reduced to slavery and taken to Puerto Rico."

I much prefer your "TRUE" historical, romantic tale of the necessary killing of the cannibalistic Taino men and the freeing of their captive women to marry and live a blissful life of equality, love and assimilation with their Spanish conquistador saviors.

Your "TRUE" historical account is much more pleasant to read than the horror stories that abound, throughout the 'New World', of the Spanish conquistadors that would, search for "wives" and have their 4 groomsmen hold the willing, blissful, blushing, bride-to-be down, while the proud groom consumated the marriage.

How could so many have been so misguided as to believe those native indian accounts?

"Once the Indians were expelled from the island a succession of attempted colonizations by the English, French and Danish failed. The Puerto Rico Spaniards drove them out every time.

Ms Bermudez says, "Black slaves were brought in from the neighbor British islands."

"By the time the USA took over the island in 1898, after the Hispanic (more PC) American War, there were 4 big Centrales. Sugar milling made a few families rich while most of the population worked on the fields."

Ahh, more un-TRUE history and it just keeps coming.

"When the Navy arrived in 1941, there were 10,362 inhabitants in Vieques..."

Ms. Bermudez doesn't say how many were adults or children.

"The Navy EXPROPRIATED (there's that word you don't like, again) two thirds of the land ..."

To use as a base to train for a war to save the whole free world from the Axis. How selfish!

Ms. Bermudez' bibliography includes:

Vieques en la Historia de Puerto Rico by Dr. Juan Amedee Bonnett Benitez

Vieques: History of a Small Island by Elizabeth Langhorne

Vieques Antiguo y Moderno by J. Pastor Ruiz

Hmmm, way different than your list of suggested readings. When the PIP/Marxists take over they can burn these books and keep the ones you recommended. Maybe the nazis wouldn't have gased the entire population of Puerto Rico, after all.

You can also take a look at:

History of the Navy in Vieques.

The Navy's own Vieques site.

Then there's a site created by Juan Guisti-Cordero on 8/17/2000. Guisti-Cordero doesn't list any of his credentials, but he sure sounds like one of those Marxist/Independentistas to me.

One-Stop Shopping For Navy Facts: A Response To The Navy's Vieques Website

Nothing I read there really sounded like substantiated "facts". His ramblings sounded more like histerical opinions.

For example, "the extent of the ecological damage the Navy has wreaked on Vieques."

Oh now, I guess that just depends on who you ask. It sounds like the Bio-bay group would take the condition of any beach on Vieques over any on the main island of Puerto Rico.

Which bay do they say is in better shape? Is the phosphorescent bay on Vieques healthier or the one in Lajas, Puerto Rico?

You said, "Who is to say what would or could have happened, but it should have been the choice of the people."

That's not how a 'Representative Republic' works. That's what we have, you know? It's not majority rules.

What have been the results of every referendum, that the U.S. Taxpayers have been forced to pay for, on Puerto Rico? Have a majority of the residents of Puerto Rico ever voted for anything other than the U.S. Taxpayers continued support and to pay all of Puerto Rico's bills?

What's your concept of "AUTONOMY" you keep referring to so longingly?

Is this like ungrateful teenagers wanting mommy and daddy to keep paying all their bills, but to let their non-self-supporting teenagers run the family?

Is that how it works in your family?

The U.S Taxpayers still own 22,000 acres on Vieques and 11,000 acres in Roosevelt Roads in Ceiba. We gifted 4,000 acres to the whinning marxists, already.

They want the rest? The marxists can buy it back from the U.S Taxpayers at today's fair market value.

Sound fair, or do you work for free and give your family's possessions away to anybody that demands them?

I know her work and again it is a synopsis .....as was my little diatribe. The pre-columbian history of Puerto Rico and theislands immediately around it is known to every 5th grade student on the Island. Of course there were people thereprior to the Tainos. Latest data ventures to describe two prior cultures before that of the Taino. The facts are ....the taino civilization of the lesser antilles were practically killed off or assimilated by the Caribe. The "war front was that of the Culebra, Vieques and the cayos around it to the eastern coast of the main island Boriken (Puerto Rico). These cultures have been theorized to migrated up from the S.A. mainland as did the Tainos and the Caribes. Yes there were settlements on Vieques as the Caribe warfare was a small war-party thing not mass invasion (it took decades to come up from the mainland S.A..The caciques on vieques, if they were or men who assumed leadership, were independent of the big caciques on PR but still subservient to some extent.The population on Vieques was tiny in comparison because of the marauding Caribes. The few that were there got welcome relief of the se by the spaniard incursion...yes short lived as the spaniards quickly proved. Glad you are reading !! Since when is cannabalism romantic ? ....and the life of the captives was far from idyllic...that was part of that culture.Are you confused about the Taino (agrarian) and the Caribe (warlike-predatory) cultures ? The conquistadors had little to do with settling Vieques...they moved on but the spaniard settlers did all that you said and worse. Actually the black slave trade was very small coming from the Brit islands and later...1600's and up. The larger scale traders were the slave merchants from the west african shores. The plantation economy on Vieques was no different than any other island in the carribean and the southern US, slaves or no slaves.The top of the socioeconomic ladder was always the pennisulares or their "unblemished" blood descendants....same in every town in Puerto Rico. Vieques was ceded to PR in the 1850s before that an independant COLONY much like other plantation supporting islands. 10 - 20, 000 is about the size of the average smaller country municipalities in Puerto Rico at the time of the S-A War.
As far as Marxism...I'm probably more of a capitalist than you are....since you presume to know my political and socioeconomic philosophies. If you bother to check out the bibliography I listed you would find textbooks, documentary type papers,theses, US State Department and Interior Department documents and non-Puerto Rican (academic) midstream American authors. A far as the referendum goes....it should be paid for by tax dollars9as opposed to some of the ridiculus things our tax dollars are used for....including supporting foreign economies and the PLO terrorists.The money made by the federal government in tax base and the money of big private business (the vast majority of which comes back to the states) in PR more than compensates that pittens.In fact just the lives of the PR soldiers that died for their sovereign nation in WW i and WW II compensates. The % turn out for voting in PR is higher than most states. I never said the voters were any more intelligent than ours and they are just as easily malleable.There are too many lazy people on the island and the original concepts of political identity have blurred with economic privelege (or perceived privelege). Nature meant PR to be coffee , sugar cane, lesser veggies and precious wood based in economy with a smattering of light industry and responsible heavy industry. Overpopulation and too much heavy industry coupled with the average persons acceptance of the status quo will ruin it for them, family, visitors ...etc..>
My contention is that the issue of the right to acquiring that land on Vieques, for the common defense, is secondary to the issue of why PR wasn't treated like Cuba after 1898 and the Phillipines after the bloody Phillipine-American Expeditionary Conflict of the first decades of 1900s.

Plus.......the referendums are purely a poll...and a very scripted one at that. The real deal in congress....would they even consider giving up a territory without if it came to that...can they agree on anything that has to do with the well being of a people they clearly consider beneath them. How bad will it hurt their pockets and the pockets of their business constituency. The lessons in capitalism, economics and resource utilization is not lost on the few PRs who have sat up to take notice.

I will leave the last word to you (as O'Reilly says) and hopefully it won't be derogatory.

Fell free to communicate with me if it is worth your while .. Lefrep@aol.com

"I know her (Wanda Bermudez) work and again it's a synopsis ... as was my little diatribe."

The point is her synopsis is correct and yours isn't.

"Are you confused about the Taino (agrarian) and the Caribe (war-like predatory) cultures?"

That has No Bearing on this discussion.

The Point is the inhabitants of Vieques, when the conquistadors arrived, were MERCILESSLY SLAUGHTERED by the Spaniards and the survivors reduced to SLAVERY.

"Actually the black slave trade was very small coming from British Islands."

So, you say that most of the slaves in Puerto Rico came from Africa. So what?

The point is the Spaniards were slavers.

The "TRUE, Historical Facts" are when the U.S. Navy expropriated 26,000 acres on Vieques and paid for them with U.S. Taxpayer's, hard earned dollars, they bought these acres from 4 wealthy, Spanish families.

The rest of your "the people", that inhabited Vieques, were still little more than slaves, didn't own any of the land the Navy bought, never had any RIGHT TO A SAY IN THE PURCHASE and still don't have a RIGHT TO SAY WHAT HAPPENS TO U.S. TAXPAYER, OWNED PROPERTY, unless you're some kind of MARXIST.

"The money made by the Federal Government in tax base (???) and the money of big private business (the vast majority of which comes to the States) in PR more than compensates that pittens."

You're either being deliberately deceptive, on this point, or you really don't know what you're talking about.

Have you ever heard of Section 936 and all of it's prior incarnations?

The U.S. Taxpayers and the Federal Government lose on Puerto Rico, BIG TIME!

Those are the terms of Section 936 and the proposed Section 956. American companies must invest their profits, in Puerto Rico, that would have been brought back to the United States or paid in federal taxes, in order to receive a 90% tax break when, what's left of, their profits are repatriated to the United States.

For example, Pepsi Cola, Coke and all those pharmaceutical companies are in Puerto Rico, specifically, because they AVOID!!! $350 thousand dollars in Federal taxes for every employee they have in Puerto Rico, EACH YEAR!

Read the articles I've posted, on the proposed SECTION 956 TAX WINDFALL SCHEME, on FR.

If those jobs would have stayed in the United States, those workers would have paid U.S. INCOME TAXES and spent their income in a State!

Puerto Rico gets all of that money!

The American Taxpayers send $16.5 billion dollars, IN CASH, billions more in FREE Federal Goverment services to Puerto Rico, each year, and receive NOTHING of value in return.

The U.S. Taxpayers are getting the shaft in this deal with Puerto Rico!

Our pandering politicians, in both parties, are buying Stateside Puerto Rican votes with our tax dollars. It's just that simple!

Why don't you sign up for a Free Republic screen name of your own, if you want to continue these discussions?

"Plus.....the referendums are purely a poll...very scripted at that. The real deal in Congress...give up a territory...agree on anything that has to do with the well being of a people they consider beneath them?

That's just simply ridiculous.

No more than 3% !!! of the residents of Puerto Rico have ever voted for independence in the referendums held in Puerto Rico.

How can you sit there and seriously discuss what the Congress HAS NEVER AND WILL NEVER !!! be asked to do by the residents of Puerto Rico?????

The residents of Puerto Rico will never vote to give up $10s of billions of U.S. Taxpayer's dollars that they get FOR FREE!!!

If what you say is true and Congress doesn't care for the well being of the residents of Puerto Rico and considers them BENEATH them, WHAT DO THEY CONSIDER THE RESIDENTS OF THE 26 REAL STATES THAT THEY GIVE LESS MONEY to, THAN THE $16.5 BILLION U.S. TAXPAYER'S DOLLARS THEY GIVE PUERTO RICO EACH YEAR, AND FORCE TO PAY FOR THEIR GOVERNMENT SERVICES IN FEDERAL TAXES???? How can you say anything so crazy, untrue and ungrateful?

"... the lessons in capitalism, economics and resource utilization is not lost on the few PRs who have sat up to take notice."

I don't know what to make of this last bit of Marxist/Independentista, race-baiting drivel, but the pandering PR politicians sure have learned lessons in extortion, vote-buying, race-baiting and obfuscating the truth.

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