Puerto Rico Independence gaining or what?

[Jersay]

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - FBI agents in Puerto Rico on Friday searched five homes and a business to thwart what the agency said was a "domestic terrorist attack" planned by militants favoring independence for the U.S. island territory.

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The alleged attack would have involved explosives directed at "privately owned interests" and the public in Puerto Rico, according to Luis Fraticelli, special agent in charge of the FBI on the island.

Fraticelli's statement did not disclose details about the alleged attack or the investigation, which the FBI earlier said was focused on the pro-independence People's Boricua Army.

FBI spokesman Harry Rodriguez said there were no arrests, but declined to provide details.

The People's Boricua Army, also known as the Macheteros or "cane cutters," was accused of bombings and attacks in the 1970s and 1980s. The group was among three to claim responsibility for a 1979 attack in which gunmen opened fire on a U.S. Navy bus, killing two U.S. sailors.

In September, FBI agents shot and killed Filiberto Ojeda Rios, a leader of the Macheteros who was wanted for the 1983 robbery of an armored truck depot in Connecticut, after he allegedly opened fire when they came to arrest him at a farmhouse in a western town on the island.

Hundreds of protesters staged a demonstration late Friday outside the federal building in San Juan, accusing the FBI of persecuting the pro-independence movement.

They burned an American flag and chanted, "If the Yankees don't leave, they'll die in Puerto Rico!"

"I believe that this is an act of abuse and an act of persecution," said Alberto Jesus, known for leading protests against U.S. Navy bombing exercises on Vieques island. "We have here a foreign country that puts the label of terrorist on us."

As word spread of the FBI operation early Friday, protesters and reporters gathered outside an apartment building in San Juan as it was searched by agents.

A local television station broadcast images of federal agents using pepper spray on reporters and protesters.

Fraticelli said agents used "non-lethal force" when protesters and the media tried to cross a law enforcement perimeter. The move was necessary "to protect members of the media, the public and the law enforcement officers executing this lawful search warrant."

Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vila denounced the incident, saying in a statement that there was "no justification for the excessive use of force."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060211...sdvaA8F;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--

 

[FiveParadox]

You and your links, Jersay ... tsk, tsk. lol

 

[Finder]

I might be too lazy to fix my typos all the time, but I have yet to copy and paste my posts. =-D

Well I think they should either have independance or full state hood. *shrugs*

 

[Jersay]

I think independence if that is what the majority wants.

The world already believes it to be a independent country with WBC, calling the Puerto rico team and the American team.

 

[I think not]

Puerto Rico will never voluntarily go independent for one very good reason, it pays to be a US territory instead of a state, they get pumped with money from the Feds and pay no taxes back, zippo, nada, nothing.

You also have to know the interior dynamics at play, it mostly a battle between 45-50% supporting statehood and the balance the status quo (read what I wrote above)

Personally, I would say strip them of billions in dollars of aid, they offer nothing to the union with their indecisiveness, shape up or ship out.

 

[Blackleaf]

I say give them independence.

The Yankee Doodle Dandies wanted independence from Britain, so I think they should give independence to Puerto Rico.

 

[gopher]

they get pumped with money from the Feds and pay no taxes back, zippo, nada, nothing.



Correction: Puerto Rico pays a blood tax in the form of soldiers for Bush's war on Iraq as it did for all wars starting in 1917. It has suffered a disproportionate amount of casualties in the Korean, Vietnam, and Iraq war:




http://www.boston.com/news/world/la...fices_rise_puerto_rico_debates_us_tie/?page=1


The Boston Globe
As its war sacrifices rise, Puerto Rico debates US tie
Some seek more political rights
Puerto Rico's Senate president, Kenneth McClintock, at the war memorial in San Juan, is a prostatehood Democrat.
Puerto Rico's Senate president, Kenneth McClintock, at the war memorial in San Juan, is a prostatehood Democrat. (Globe Staff Photo / Bryan Bender)

By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff | February 4, 2006

TRUJILLO ALTO, Puerto Rico -- Describing the motorcycle repair shop he planned to build for his son before the 20-year-old soldier was killed in Iraq, Richard Rosada-Alejandro said, ''I still believe in America. I still believe in the dream."
Article Tools

The Alejandros, a working-class family in this industrial enclave on the island's Atlantic Coast, are among dozens in this quasi-independent commonwealth whose sacrifice has brought them closer to the United States, which has controlled their homeland for 108 years.

It has also stoked their desire for a chance to decide their own political destiny.

The 3.9 million residents of Puerto Rico are losing a disproportionately high number of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan -- at least 48, including those who lived in Puerto Rico but signed up for the military on the US mainland.

Puerto Ricans enlist in the military at higher rates, according to local officials, and while some see the military as a way out of poverty, others enlist out of a deep sense of patriotism. Since World War II, Puerto Rico has suffered more casualties per capita than any other US jurisdiction, and the rate is among the highest in the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Pentagon statistics.

But their latest military sacrifice has given new impetus to Puerto Ricans here who want to resolve their complicated status as US citizens who can fight and die for their country, but do not have the right to help choose the commander in chief.

''I back Bush all the way, even though it's the wrong cause," Alejandro said. But the second-class status of his home is intolerable.

''I'd love this place to be a state, but if it doesn't, I am out of here," said Alejandro, newspaper clippings about his son's death in 2004 spread out in front of him and an Army National Guard flag hanging in his woodshop. ''This 'colony' thing is driving me crazy."

Next week, Puerto Rican leaders plan to lobby Congress to act on a recent White House task force that recommends giving Puerto Ricans the chance to decide, through a referendum mandated by Congress, whether they want Puerto Rico to remain a commonwealth or to change its political status. And if Puerto Ricans want a change, the panel recommended, Congress should set up another plebiscite to let them choose full independence or becoming the 51st state.

''The popular will of the people should be ascertained in a way that provides clear guidance for future action by Congress," the President's Task Force on Puerto Rico's Status concluded in December.

As a US commonwealth, Puerto Rico is self-governing, with its own legislature and governor, but its citizens cannot vote in national elections and they do not have a voting representative in Congress.

The question of Puerto Rico's political status is not new. The island has held several nonbinding referendums on the issue, most recently in 1998. In that referendum, 50.2 percent of voters chose not to decide, but the statehood option received 46.5 percent of the votes, far more than the other options, including independence.

But such referendums are ultimately meaningless unless Congress acts on the results. Under the Constitution, both the House and the Senate must agree to change Puerto Rico's political status. And despite past rhetoric from politicians -- in 2004, Senator John F. Kerry pledged to be the first US president to visit Puerto Rico in four decades if he was elected -- Congress is not likely to change the status quo.

But many Puerto Ricans say the wartime sacrifices justify an opportunity from Washington to have a say in their political future.

''We have served disproportionately in conflicts for the last 100 years. That's just how it is," Representative Luis Fortuño, the nonvoting Republican member of Congress from Puerto Rico and a leader of the prostatehood New Progressive Party, said in an interview in his Capitol Hill office Thursday. When he visits with wounded Puerto Rican soldiers at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, Fortuño said, ''I think, 'They can't vote for president.' That's morally wrong. If we are providing democracy and freedom 5,000 miles away [in Iraq], the least we can do is look in our own backyard."

Though Puerto Rico's political status is not at the top of the congressional agenda, it remains a central principle in Puerto Rican politics. ''Everywhere else in the world you associate politically, based on your socioeconomic philosophy," Kenneth McClintock, a prostatehood Democrat and president of Puerto Rico's Senate, said in an interview last month in the Capitolio, the island's grand state house.

''In Puerto Rico, we don't associate politically based on whether we are liberal, moderate, or conservative," he added, a sheaf of letters on his desk urging Congress to give Puerto Rico a referendum. The political parties, he said, break along lines of pro-statehood, pro-independence, or those who prefer to remain a commonwealth: ''We do it strictly on the basis of our political status preference."

Along with other territorial gains such as Hawaii, the 50th state, Puerto Rico came under American control after the Spanish-American War of 1898. The relationship has been turbulent at times: In the 1950s, a group of Puerto Rican nationalists tried to assassinate President Harry S. Truman, and revolutionaries later opened fire from the gallery in the House chamber.

Puerto Ricans were granted US citizenship in 1917, but they lack other trappings of full statehood. Puerto Ricans do not pay federal taxes on locally generated income, have little clout in Congress, and often lose out on federal funding other states take for granted, such as money for highway construction and infrastructure. If the island became a state, it would be the poorest in the union, with a per capita income about a third of the US average. But some of Puerto Rico's political leaders say they believe the time has come for the island to speak to its destiny, and they say the recent White House report is proof.

''For the first time, the executive branch has spoken," said Fortuño, who is proposing a bill in the House to adopt the task force recommendations. He added that the national political landscape has changed as well: Hispanic voters, actively courted by the GOP, make up about 15 percent of the electorate, and nearly 4 million Puerto Ricans live on the US mainland. Puerto Ricans also comprise a key voting bloc in political battleground states, he said.

But the war dead, freshly etched names on Puerto Rico's national military memorial behind El Capitolio, could make the most compelling argument for a federally sponsored referendum.

''One, two, three, four, five, six, seven," said McClintock, counting the new names. ''It's a sad commentary of our situation."

The true number of Puerto Rican casualties may be higher than estimates. ''Since we don't have a separate sovereign state and citizenship, there are many borderline cases" of soldiers born in Puerto Rico who have addresses or who enlisted on the mainland, said Eugenio Hopgood Davila, an editor at El Nuevo Dia, the island's largest daily newspaper.

Indeed, Alejandro's son, Daryl A. Davis, was not added to the Puerto Rican war memorial. He joined the National Guard in Florida, to help pay his way through motorcycle repair school, and he previously lived in Iowa with his mother. But his father wrote letters to the Army and said he has been assured his son's name will be added next year.

Pedro Rossello, a former governor of Puerto Rico and author of ''The Unfinished Business of American Democracy," compares the plight of Puerto Ricans serving in Iraq and Afghanistan with black soldiers who fought in two world wars, Korea, and Vietnam, but had to fight for civil rights in their own country. ''When black soldiers came back, there was this very dramatic recognition that their civil rights weren't being recognized," he said in a telephone interview yesterday. ''That led to a very strong reaction and a push in the 1960s that saw the adoption of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts. This time we need a final resolution of our civil rights."

Bryan Bender can be reached at bender@globe.com.

 

[jimmoyer]

This is a non-issue for most Americans.

Puerto Rico has always been quite free to decide
its own status, and most Americans care little either
way.

Puerto Rico is relatively poor, and the military has
long been the way for the poor in every nation around
the world, even in your country, to excercise their
chance at a more disciplined productive life taking
the risk as all soldiers do to be pawns in a much
larger machine.

 

[gopher]

But it sure belies the myth that they pay "zero, zilch, nada".

 

[jimmoyer]

But my post belies your myth that the poor who pay taxes everywhere else are, to use your premise, even
worse off than the Puerto Ricans.

 

[gopher]

You misunderstood my post. It was in reply to the myth that they pay nothing. Not that they are worse off than the poor in the mainland. Also the article points out that many poor PR's in the mainland also are disproportinately in the miltary.

As for paying "nothing" in the way of taxes, that statement is more apropos for corporate fat cats who pay nothing and who never serve in the military so that they never pay a blood tax.

 

[jimmoyer]

Well, between the two of us, we got a better
description of the whole truth with all its various
angles.

I did not misunderstand your post, I wanted to extend
the implications of your premise, regarding the poor
everywhere else.

And you too extended the implications of your premise
on your comments on the rich.

But I wonder of this rich vs poor thing.

It seems to be highly under-analyzed in politics
without the deeper guideliness of psychology and
philosophy and of the idea that each generation wants
to give its children a leg up, and why some can't
do this when others can given the same rules and
same circumstances.

 

[gopher]

under-analyzed


You might have a point there.

Why someone would say "they offer nothing to the union " but conveniently ignore the tremendous blood tax paid is beyond all comprehension. If one were to extend this comment then all wealthy suburbanites should be exiled like the poster is suggesting
as well because they pay no form of tax (especially the blood tax) at all.

 

[jimmoyer]

Actually if you look at the weird fact that the top 10 percent
income earners pay over 30 percent
of all income tax revenue
to your government, you will find your point is untrue.

This too shows how rich the rich really are.

Although the percent of their wealth that is taxed seems small in
comparison to their earnings, they are truly paying
the lion's share of all revenue
to your government.

In addition we run into a philosophical dispute about
who should have to pay taxes, and I posit the theory
that nontaxpayers are less responsible for their theories
and opinions if they bare none of the burden.

This oughta start you googling, and let's see when
all the stats fly that the whole picture is seen.

 

[gopher]

Actually it is far less than that:

http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache...xes&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=9&client=firefox-a

and getting lower. This doesn't even include off shore tax shelters, subsidies, and other forms of corporate welfare.

 

[gopher]

The corporate welfare budget: bigger than ever -

http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-415es.html


note that the link is from a conservative source.

 

[I think not]

Gopher, Puerto Ricans join the army, they aren't drafted, you make it sound as if they are being dragged out of their homes and forced into service. I'll say it again, they pay "nothing, zilch, nada"

 

[gopher]

They were drafted in WW I, WW II, Korea, and Vietnam.

"they pay "nothing, zilch, nada" --- you are referring to wealthy elitists, of course.

 

[I think not]

Cry me a river gopher, Canada was drafted into the British wars since the 16th century. Besides, who is keeping them? They can go anytime they like.

 

[jimmoyer]

Your article speaks of corporate taxes, the kind of
cost handed down to you the consumer.

If you notice, I was referring to income tax revenue,
where the individual pays out of his own pocket,
not some shell game which defines corporate taxes
that ultimately get paid by you the consumer.

---------------------------------------------

Top 50% of Wage Earners Pay 96.03% of Income Taxes
They pay a paltry 3.97% of all income taxes. The top 1% is paying more than ten
... 1997 Washington Post Op-Ed, "Most of the rich have earned their wealth. ...

--------------------------------------------------


FACT SHEET:

Who Pays the Most Individual Income Taxes?
The individual income tax is highly progressive – a small group of higher-income
taxpayers pay most of the individual income taxes each year.

-------------------------------------------------------------
• In 2002 the latest year of available data, the top 5 percent of taxpayers paid more than
one-half (53.8 percent) of all individual income taxes, but reported roughly one-third
(30.6 percent) of income.
--------------------------------------------------------

• The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid 33.7 percent of all individual income taxes in
2002. This group of taxpayers has paid more than 30 percent of individual income
taxes since 1995. Moreover, since 1990 this group’s tax share has grown faster than
their income share.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
• Taxpayers who rank in the top 50 percent of taxpayers by income pay virtually all
individual income taxes. In all years since 1990, taxpayers in this group have paid
over 94 percent of all individual income taxes. In 2000, 2001, and 2002, this group
paid over 96 percent of the total.
In 2005, when most of the tax cut provisions are fully in effect
----------------------------------------------------------------------


(e.g., lower tax rates, the $1,000 child credit, marriage penalty relief), the projected tax
share for lower-income taxpayers will fall, while the tax share for higher-income taxpayers
will rise.

---------------------------------------------------------------
• The share of taxes paid by the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers will fall from 4.1
percent to 3.6 percent.

• The share of taxes paid by the top 1 percent of taxpayers will rise from 32.3 percent to
33.7 percent.

• The average tax rate for the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers falls by 27 percent as
compared to a 13 percent decline for taxpayers in the top 1 percent.



http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/reports/factsheetwhopaysmostindividualincometaxes.update.pdf