No kidding. Remember, half of America thinks Gore is a genius, and we elected Clinton twice. Twice.
So if half of Puerto Rico is leftist, that would only be par for the course.
And it is primarily the left that is complaining about Vieques, and mainly it is non-Puerto Ricans that are leading the charge. Puerto Ricans work there, and are dependent on the base for their employment.
The good governor is the equivalent to a US Democrat, and so has been trying to have it both ways, as Democrats normally do. The island's Republicans proudly display the flag, the US flag that is. It is only a small leftist sliver of mostly academics and similar types who are advocating independence, and even they are hedging their bets, telling people that they would be able to vote independence and retain their US citizenship, an obvious lie. Which should tell you that there is no real support for independence, and no real anti-Americanism there. Quite the contrary. They are very comfortable with their American citizenship. They are not going anywhere. They can easily look across the sound at the Dominican Republic, or south to Venezuela, to see where but by the grace of God go I... so to speak.
Don't make the mistake of buying into the left's propaganda. We are at this website because we know the press can't be trusted. Why believe them where Puerto Rico is concerned?
Puerto Rico has a vibrant economy, it is heavily industrialized, and most of the tax breaks that drew industry there years ago have been discontinued. They now face tough competition from Mexico as a result of NAFTA. NAFTA wasn't intended to hurt Puerto Rico, but that has been the effect. Still, the island flourishes, it is not anti-American (outside of college campuses), and it is a living rebuke to the rest of Latin America.
You have some good points. However I am gringo and grew up in DC and have lived in PR now for 6 yrs.
Your perception that the Popular party here is like US democrats is wrong. They do try to project that political image, but they are anti US socialists, not democrats.
This island became a US territory because people were starving to death en masse and they asked for help. Due to current media being owned and controlled by the Red Party scumbags, they retell the story now via the media and college campus propaganda, hence turning the majority of Ricans against the US by blaming them for all the governemnt corruption here, instead of going after the real culprits, the Red Party. What Sila wanted was to reconstruct who was getting the money, and it backfired. She wanted in her constituaents hands. Their goal is just like castro's. Poverty and the ignorance that comes with it, while blaming someone else for their own idiocies.
Here the people are being told a farce for island history, and believe every lie anti US haters invent.
The Red Party(Sila's party) started and owns the telephone company, the water company, the power company, agricultural conglomorates, shipping companies, and many other industries they totally monopolize. I am opening a small fish farm here and they have pulled every trick int ehbook to keep a gringo from succeeding, i have never seen such abuse of power. They don't repsond to my requests for permits, and agricutlure dep. involvement, they cut my power, tried to charge me for water use when I didn't live here and cut my water supply, and r flat corrupt. Meanwhile a corrupt constituent of theirs in the same business makes fish forum posts to mock at me for it. In other words, another red party illegal monopoly. Now is that democracy??? Do they stand for what they decry in others??? Hell no. My family is 2/3 puerto rican. Os right now they are opressing their own thinking they r opressing an american only. I hate them and despise all they stand for. I wish ricans in the US would stnad up and lobby against this corrupt crap. enuf is friggin enuf. Which is nicer, the states or this island???? Which would you trather be??? enuf bs already, let's become a state, support the armed forces, and kick out the anti US scumbags.
The people here are economically opressed due to it, and they use the media and a corrupt court system they own to project the blame for that onto US or Blue party corruption, when the problem is right here in their own backyard, wearing a red dress. Ever heard the song "Devil in the Red Dress"?
Her successor, anabel, is even worse. The guy's smile is so fake it has to glued on. He spends most of his time meeting with utilities companies to arrange $$$$ for his party. Power prices have tripeld since the Red party took over in 2000. My meter charges me for almost triple what I use.(I am an electricla engineer and measured it myself). If I dont pay they cut it off. If I call the utilities commission here noone answers and no calls get returned. Yet they take home paychecks. Phone prices have almost doubled. Water more than doubled, and tolls have tripled. Yet they had to close the public schools due to no funds, and that was blamed on the US and blue party folks somehow.
This island has been taken over by sociliasts wearing a red dress, and most of the inhabitants here want to be a state, but get duped in the campaigns. Last governor election one green party candidate gave all his votes to the losing red party candidate (illegal) and they won over the winning blue party official. The courts here determined that that was legal???? WTF?????!!!!!!! They own the local courts, that is why the FBI and CIA get such a hard time. Even the DEA can't do it's job with these scumbags in power. It would be no different that in the closing moments of a US election the independent party leader taking all the votes he got and giving them to another party. Would that be legal? Hell no! The red party leaders are criminals and we need hlep down here to put them in jail where they belong. 30% of the economy here is owned by the government via red party scnadals and abuse of power. the result is the people here are abused and it gets blamed on US corruption. the people here believe those lies.
I was tlkaing to rican friend, who lives in arizona, and the topic of the power ocmpany corruption came up,a nd he said, "Yeah but you know all that is US politicians???" I was shocked. what an idiot. It is his own people who are corrupt and lying thru their teeth.
The new governor, has sold off public park land to his business freinds liek his own personal property, and recently sold the UPR theater (a community owned thaeter for decades) to his buddies. Yet it is getting blamed on the US somehow in the twisted news here. The ricna people r decent people and don't deserve this crap, the vast majority of them would prefer statehood to independence, but when they have to run against two parties who can combine votes, what can they do?????