How the US treats its own: Puerto Rico still in the stone age 8 months after Hurricane

We can spend dozens of millions of US dollars to blow up empty warehouses half the world away, but we can’t put anything into drinkable water for Americans

by 

FRANK SELLERS

April 29, 2018, 11:34

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For all those peoples around the world, who worship America as the land of milk and honey, and believe that adopting its principles and aligning their political policies with those of America will somehow mean that they will suddenly experience a comprehensive national renaissance, or that America will reward them by exporting to them massive prosperity, just take a look at how America treats its own. Let’s take a brief look at Puerto Rico.

Around eight months ago, Hurricane Maria struck the Caribbean island, one of America’s colonies, leaving it ‘totally destroyed’. In the aftermath, with so much destruction, one might expect that the Feds would be putting together an aid package to rebuild the island’s infrastructure.

Puerto Rico, by and large, still looks and operates much as though it were still stuck in the dark ages, and at night, it definitely is, as the power grid, damaged by Hurricane Maria, remains an unreliable public infrastructure all these months later. The water situation isn’t much better as the citizenry must additionally filter the water that comes from the tap, since its quality can’t be taken for granted.

Typically, after major disasters like this one, when the local population and/or government can’t respond to the needs of the community all at once, the Federal government steps in to provide assistance, both in man power and in funding recovery efforts.

However, Trump decided that he wasn’t going to invest much of America’s money into rebuilding the island because, as President Trump says, it has too much debt.

Hence, it’s just not worth plowing money into. Especially when America has over 1,000 military bases to pay for, and some expensive war efforts that are currently ongoing, and which haven’t yet achieved their goals, although, Mattis says we are ‘very close’.

As of the writing of this article, Puerto Rico still has tens of thousands of American citizens who paid their taxes but who are not seeing America provide the benefit of being an American. They don’t have power or running water, in effect, tax paying American citizens, find themselves in a worse condition that the citizens of many in the third world, or ‘shithole countries’.

The Puerto Rican Senate is now giving the US federal government four days to explain just why their citizens remain without basic living necessities and having to live out of shelters, especially this long since the disaster.

Radio Havanna Cuba reports:

San Juan, April 27 (RHC)– The United States government has four days to explain to the Puerto Rican senate why tens of thousands of residents continue to live in shelters without basic necessities, according to island officials.

After almost eight months since the Hurricanes Maria and Irma crashed into the island last September, dozens of the cities remain dark and abandoned without running water or electricity.

Island government officials gave an ultimatum to federal agencies to provide a plan detailing exactly how they intend to meet the needs of the rural mountain towns and bring the U.S. colony back to its feet.

Protests have engaged hundreds of people who, together with the support of municipal administrators, continue the push for equal rights as American citizens.

“It’s really unfair. I have no problem that other peoples receive electricity because it is a national need, but we’re also in need,” said Rafael Jiménez, a 62-year-old resident of Las Piedras which is still without power.

Puerto Rico experienced an island-wide blackout on April 18th and crews were deployed to investigate the source of the power outage which was the first major fall back of this magnitude since the Category 4 storm hit September 20. One week later, over 33,000 island residents remain without power.

Several labor unions and social organizations from Puerto Rico challenged the Promesa bill that imposed a Federal Oversight Board on the territory at a U.S. court on Wednesday.

According to reports from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, full power should be restored by the end of May.

Puerto Ricans are Americans, who technically shouldn’t have to worry about debt, since they’re Americans, and since prosperity and economic opportunity are just every where, the American’s don’t have to worry about lacking either of them. Since, in America, the land of opportunity, if you are experiencing these problems, then it must be your fault.

Someone needs to explain this to the Puerto Rican Senate.

Dropping some bombs and arming and funding our ‘moderate’ friends half the world away is just so much more important than making sure that American citizens actually get the benefit of the taxes they pay or their slice of the American pie.

We can even afford to spend dozens of millions of US dollars to blow up some empty warehouses half the world away, but we can’t put anything into drinkable water for Americans. Doesn’t sound too ‘America first’, does it?