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halloween
11-08-2012, 01:17 PM
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-campaign-puertoricobre8a629k-20121107,0,472478.story


Puerto Ricans faced two questions in a status vote on Tuesday, with the first asking if Puerto Rico should keep its current status as a self-governing commonwealth.
Even though 54 percent voted "No" on the first question,

The second question asked voters, regardless of their answer to the first question, to choose their preference among three non-territorial options - U.S. statehood, independence, or a sovereign free association with ties to the United States. [...] But nearly one-third of the total votes cast left the answer to the second question blank and were not included in the vote tally. With those ballots counted, support for statehood was calculated to be closer to 45 percent, analysts said.

Despite the news reporting that ultimately/technically it was a vote for Statehood, there does seem to be a lot of people out there who just don't know what they would prefer. I know nothing about what their level of conversation has been about this issue there currently, but I wonder if this is a result from people not really debating their options and if this will spur a conversation on a new level? I know my friend who has family in Puerto Rico has been highly invested in this issue and I have yet to hear what her opinion is about the vote.

If they do become a new state, it would be exciting! It would officially make Spanish a second national language and definitely add a new dimension to our politics perhaps.

Lunatica
11-08-2012, 11:35 PM
Hola/Hello!

Puerto Rican from Puerto Rico here, (who grudgingly voted Yes on Tuesday) this is my opinion:

That ballot was completely fucked up and I was going to leave it blank but I honestly didn't want the pro-state hood (PNP) party to win. Yes, I'm part of the MANY who where disappointed by the lack of choices we where given.

Let me explain myself:

First Question on the ballot was:

1. Are you OK with P.R.'s current status? YES/NO

NO won because NOBODY is really OK with the current status. Even those who voted YES are not OK with the current status. The current status is fucked up.

2. The second question is where it got tricky, It basically put the 3 major parties up against each other which was COMPLETELY retarded (or brilliant if you really want to get your way)

This is why many people left it blank. And in my opinion this should count as I (and A LOT of other people on the island) don't want the Pro-State hood party to lord over everyone and finally solve this delicate issue.

Do I want Puerto Rico's status to remain as it is? Hell no.

But I'm happy this is getting a lot of attention and I'm hopeful that something concrete might be done this time. This is one of the reasons why the current governor Fortuņo lost (from the Pro-Statehood party) he wasn't really offering anything new just dividing people on the issues to get what he wanted as usual. The Pro-Statehood party are FILLED with corrupt people, not the most intelligent Puertoricans and most of them don't even speak English all that well (if at all), this ballot was their cluster fuck monster.

For God sakes Fortuņo is Republican!! WTF?!

Alejandro actually met with Obama and promised he will fix this by reuniting both the Comon-Wealth and Sate-Hood parties and come up with the best solution. This should have been done AGES ago, let's hope he can make it happen. (I doubt it)

(I didn't vote for Alejandro, I vote green party because, choices)

I believe this is why he ultimately won. Many people where also confused about why we voted NO but Fortuņo lost the re-election. This, and the fact that he fired a lot of people and gave private corporations freedom to just do whatever the hell they wanted, the crime rate has been the worst ever too.

Lunatica
11-08-2012, 11:58 PM
To explain myself and most of Puerto Rico's point of view a bit better:

The reason why the second question was mostly left unanswered was because the majority does want a change BUT the majority does not like the Statehood PARTY.

Statehood is the most obviously reasonable choice right now because Common-Wealth is just not working out (Wayyy too open for corruption) and Independence is a nice dream but lets be honest here, we are pretty much a state already. I mean It's been 114 years, come on.

halloween
11-09-2012, 12:20 AM
Wow, thank you for that! They really haven't been reporting those crucial details so I'm glad you did. My friend who has family in Puerto Rico didn't know much about that aspect of things considering she's in Boston, but she says she's honestly a bit scared. She had told me her hopes to move there after college but the crime rate is so bad she felt it would probably be a bad idea. She's also a photographer, so her tendency is to go out and about in public to take photographs...She thought she'd probably get shot that way.

Lunatica
11-09-2012, 12:32 AM
Not really, but photography is a pretty over saturated profession here. This coming from me, an extremely frustrated photographer but if she has the talent, contacts and money I'm sure she'll be alright. There's LOTS to photograph here, if only to practice, it's so totally worth it.

Lunatica
11-09-2012, 01:20 AM
There was this other important detail I forgot to add:

The crime rate and unemployment has hit an all time high. This also affected this year's vote. People are fucking leaving the island in droves and droves. The PNP party did A LOT of damage these past 4 years.

As I said Fortuņo fired key security and government jobs for political reasons, he sided with a lot of private American companies to produce "Jobs" that where mostly temporary with absolutely no security or benefits. I know this for a fact because I was one of those people, I was a temp for 4 years and my old production line is currently in the Dominican Republic. The company is still in P.R. though, this is because they can still claim their products are made in the U.S. and guess what? the owners are (surprise!) Republicans. If this was an actual State they would take the rest of the plant and just move it out to D.R. completely.

Also my boyfriend was one of the millions he fired off of government jobs too. He was re-instated a year later but not without a lot of hurdles, (he's a train conductor so it was a major WTF moment for him)

This is why I think congress will leave this in limbo again, this island is bought and sold already. Those bunch of lazy people in well-fare and unemployment? The working environment is so bad it's just become a part of living. And you really can't live off of that anyway, that's why people are just leaving the island all together.

And don't get me started on education that's another thing he fucked up. Out of all my friends and family I have right now, last year I lost literally like half of those. And not the bad ones either, the good, educated ones. It's become the norm to just leave for the States now.

Those are the options

Get fired>Go on wellfare>Get laid off>Unemployment>Get a Seasonal Job>Get laid off>Unemplyment>No more Unemploymen?>Get Welfare>Some education? Thank good you speak both English and Spanish>Move the fuck out of the island

Lunatica
11-09-2012, 01:26 AM
Those claiming that all we want are better benefits are right. Sure we still have some manufacturing that's more than most States can claim right now but really the level of greediness from these American companies has reached an all time high. We would just like to join this fight against them too.