Naci en Alamo

Nací en Alamo / "I was born in Alamo!" ... a sad song from the times when the Jews were kicked out of the only homeland they knew, Spain: it's an irony that Israel did to many Palestinians the same thing that was done to them.

Abraham stayed in THE LAND OF THE PHILISTINES for a long time. - Genesis 21:34

 

Puerto Rico changes its status ... to "It's Complicated"

Puerto Rico became a US territory in 1898 as a result of the Spanish-American War.  Its islands (Borinquen, Vieques, Culebra, Mona and several others) sit at the very heart of the Caribbean, adjacent to another American territory: the US Virgin Islands.

Slowly, over the generations, the territory has inched closer to the US: in 1917 the residents were made US citizens in order to fulfill the demand for soldiers, in the 1950's the commonwealth status was created in order to allow Puerto Rico to have a constitution and a government system based on the American one and to vote for its governor, and in recent decades as the Puerto Rican population in the continental US has increased to numbers greater than that of the islands, the islands themselves have nurtured a robust pro-statehood movement.

Several referendums have been held, but on the historical elections of November 6, 2012, just as Obama was reelected, the territory citizens for the first time voted in favor of statehood.  Immediately, imagery of the American flag with 51 stars went viral on the internet ... but as I hope to argue in this piece, people should not rush to welcome the State of Puerto Rico just yet.

The referendum included two questions.  First, citizens were asked whether they agreed to continue with Puerto Rico's territorial status and, secondly, asked to indicate the political status they preferred from three possibilities: statehood, independence, and a sovereign country in close association with the US (so-called 'Free Association').

A total of 943,094 (54%) voted "No" on the first question, indicating that the people no longer support the colonial status of the island.

Secretary of State Kenneth McClintock-Hernandez (D-PR) interpreted the vote as a serious challenge to the legitimacy of the commonwealth which expedites the moral and political imperative to decolonize Puerto Rico.  The Declaration of Independence declares that government derives its legitimacy from the consent of the governed, and the people of Puerto Rico no longer consent to be governed as a colony.  Ergo, the commonwealth now goes against America's foundational documents.  What now?

As for the second question, statehood won 809,652 (61.13%) of the votes while Free Association got 441,505 (33.33%) of the votes, and full independence only got 73,362 (5.54%).

The commonwealth status evolved organically as a happy medium after half a century of American hegemony.  It was the result of the labor struggles in the sugarcane plantations in the mid-20th century and was, for the most part, great for the people of the islands.  A new deal was brokered where the economy would exhibit the progressive ideals of the American dream and where the local culture would be respected.  Prior to that, Puerto Rico's school system was entirely American and only English was spoken in the classrooms: now, English would be taught as a second language and Spanish would be the language in which all other subjects would be taught.

Puerto Rico in the 60's and 70's became "a reluctant part of America" and "a capitalist paradise", to cite from the movie The Rum Diary which is set in the Puerto Rico of the early period of the Commonwealth.  It provided tax loopholes for pharmaceutical corporations which created thousands of jobs and led to Puerto Rico becoming the largest producer and exporter of drugs in the world.

Today, Big Pharma is still a major employer.  These loopholes (known as the 936 Section of the Tax Code), however, expired.  As a result, the islands entered the recent recession a couple of years prior to the rest of the United States.

The pro-statehood establishment, which has on-and-off governed the island in recent decades, has been relentless in moving the island toward statehood.  Residents used to not have to pay a sales tax before, but in recent years the sales tax was introduced and some pro-statehood mayors have changed street signs to English or bilingual.  Critics of the statehood movement argue that the statehooders have been trying to make the islands so much like a federated state that, when status is up for vote, people will see no benefit with continuing as a commonwealth.

But with the expiration of Section 936 and the undeniable fiscal crisis, in the midst of which hundreds of thousands of island residents have moved to Florida and elsewhere in recent years, it does seem that the days of the commonwealth are coming to an end and that the status that helped turn the islands into a capitalist paradise in the latter 20th century has very little to offer residents.

The next step now is for Congress to enact a Puerto Rico Enabling Act, which would provide the guidelines and requirements for the island to transition into statehood.  This may or may not happen.  A new constitution, probably based on the Commonwealth one, will then have to be drafted and most likely voted on by the people ... but this would require a pro-statehood administration in Puerto Rico.  And so it also may or may not happen.

And now we must add to the complicated status equation the fact that a new pro-commonwealth governor was voted into office and the current pro-statehood governor, Fortuño, voted out of office in 2012.  Many Puerto Ricans wanted statehood, but not with a Republican anti-labor governor that destroyed thousands of jobs.  Private sector growth has not come even close to fulfilling the workers' needs.

On the other hand Resident Commissioner Pierluisi (D-PR), who is the islands' only vote and voice in Congress, is pro-statehood.  The statehood movement now contends with its state government being a monster with two heads, with two ideologies that can not be reconciled at the top tiers.  We are left with a scenario where it's unlikely that there will be any comprehensive follow-up to the statehood vote in the next four years, even if Congress attends to the issue and even if the United Nations exerts pressure to decolonize Puerto Rico.  It's likely that statehood will not materialize unless and until the next pro-statehood governor is voted into office.

For instance, if Congress requires from Puerto Rico a public school system that operates mainly in English and treats Spanish as a second language (which it can do), the pro-commonwealth governor is almost certainly not likely to support such efforts, regardless of the pro-statehood referendum vote.  The language issue is the main source of controversy between statehooders and the rest both in the island and in the continent, with statehood dissidents raising cynical doubts as to whether America can really culturally and socially swallow a tiny Caribbean and Latin American country whole.  Not that it hasn't happened before ... there is still some pro-independence fervor in some states: Hawaii still has a tiny independence movement, and so do Texas, Vermont, and Alaska.

Statehooders are hopeful, however.  It's unlikely that the commonwealth ideologues will regain the populist support they once enjoyed and now that the ball is rolling, pro-statehood leaders understand that the process of becoming a state can take decades.  After waiting for 114 years, what's another decade or two?

One final note, however, on how the current PR political parties might align with US parties after statehood.  Three small parties have recently come into being as a result of dissatisfaction with the three established parties which had been formed along ideological lines.  The old parties are the New Progressive Party (PNP) which is pro-statehood, the Popular Democratic Party (PPD) which is pro-commonwealth and the PR Independence Party (PIP).  The new parties are the PR Workers' Party (PPT), the MUS (Movement Towards Sovereignty) and the PPR (Puerto Ricans for PR).

The old Republican establishment finds itself, invariably, in the ranks of the PNP.  The Democrats will take in the entire pro-commonwealth party as well as many politicians within the PNP.  It's likely that some independentistas will probably resonate with libertarian ideals, focused as they are on the rights of states and in gaining as much autonomy for the states of the union as is possible.  The platform for the American Green Party is almost identical to the platform of the Puerto Rican Workers' Party, and it will also attract some of the voters who are now pro-independence.

The Sands of the Sahara in the 2012 Frankenstorm

Did you know that hurricanes and storms in the New World take their baby steps as sandstorms in North Africa?

Sandy is indeed a sandy phenomenon, as are all the storms that visit us during hurricane season every year. Hurricanes originate as storms or tropical depressions just off the west coast of Africa in the Atlantic. They originally carry winds from North Africa with tons upon tons of sand from the Sahara, which are sometimes visible from the islands of the Caribbean as storms approach. The eastern horizon during hurricane season oftentimes takes on the yellowish hue of the sands.

In Defense of Seneca’s Adage

Seneca, Ancient Philosopher from Hispania

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.

- Seneca, 4 BC – AD 65

The public discourse on the role of religion in our daily lives too often lacks the voice of atheists, and mass media further silences atheists when it persistently upholds the tenet that an atheist would never be able to win the presidency in our country in spite of the fact that recent polls by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life indicate that about a fifth of the US population identifies as non-religious and that it’s the largest growing segment of society.

The claim that belief in God is universal is bogus, and to presume that the collective hypnosis of belief in deity has something to do with evidence for God or with the moral superiority of credulity is misuse of logic. Furthermore, the praising of faith and credulity as a virtue is also highly problematic. The majority of humanity believed the Earth was flat before this was proven false by people who sought empirical ways to verify the claim. Consensus has nothing to do with truth or evidence. Or with ethics, as any survivor of the holocaust would testify. A mob does not accurately dictate what is morally superior or right.

Religious apologists often accuse atheists of arrogance while exhibiting ostentatious attitudes about their unfairly assumed moral superiority. A scan through crime and census statistics in a variety of countries shows that the most secularized societies invariably exhibit some of the lowest rates of violent crime, of teen pregnancy, of divorce and other statistics associated with societal dysfunction. They are also among the most educated and liberal societies, the ones least hostile to civil and human rights whereas the most deeply religious societies are the exact opposite.

People in deeply religious societies are oftentimes routinely denied basic human rights. Saudi Arabia denies women even the right to drive. Uganda almost passed a Kill the Gays bill recently. Afghani and Pakistani girls who attend schools have to fear for their lives. An atheist should expect to be executed in many Muslim lands. Nigeria is plagued daily by the most barbaric and obscene Christian-Muslim conflict, as well as killings of “witches” and slaying of children by their own Christian parents and pastors for witchcraft. In heavily secularized and peaceful Sweden, a recent wave of rapes is tied to recent Muslim immigrants who feel that if women aren’t modestly dressed, they deserve to be raped.

Atheists are happier and saner than theists. A report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) found that Danish people, the majority of whom are atheists, are the happiest among 40 countries that were studied. Other developed countries with high standards of living exhibit similar rates of disbelief, including Sweden where only 23% of the citizens say they positively believe in a God.

The statistical link between prevalence of religion and societal dysfunction in human societies is more than demonstrated in census data. Gregory Paul has published several peer-reviewed papers on this, including The Chronic Dependence of Popular Religiosity upon Dysfunctional Psychosociological Conditions (Evolutionary Psychology Journal) and his Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies, which was published in the Journal of Religion and Society. In it, he found:

… high rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy, and abortion in prosperous democracies. Higher rates of non-theism and acceptance of human evolution usually correlate with lower rates of dysfunction, and the least theistic nations are usually the least dysfunctional.

He concludes,

… data examined in this study demonstrates that only the more secular, pro-evolution democracies have, for the first time in history, come closest to achieving practical ”cultures of life” that feature low rates of lethal crime, juvenile-adult mortality, sex related dysfunction, and even abortion. The least theistic secular developed democracies such as Japan, France, and Scandinavia have been most successful in these regards. The non-religious, pro-evolution democracies contradict the dictum that a society cannot enjoy good conditions unless most citizens ardently believe in a moral creator. The widely held fear that a Godless citizenry must experience societal disaster is therefore refuted. Contradicting these conclusions requires demonstrating a positive link between theism and societal conditions in the first world with a similarly large body of data – a doubtful possibility in view of the observable trends.

Although no causal relationship can be proven, a statistical correlation clearly does exist. Afollow up study carried out by Tom Rees concluded:

I pulled together data on frequency of prayer from over 50 countries, and found that countries where people prayed more frequently had lower life expectancy and scored lower on the Peace Index. They also had higher infant mortality, homicide rates, and levels of corruption, and had more AIDS and more abortion. That’s pretty conclusive.

What’s more, countries with worse societal health also had more income inequality. In fact, the relationship between income inequality and societal health was similar to that between religiosity and societal health. Income inequality can indeed serve as a ‘barometer’ of overall societal health, as it relates to religiosity.

- Tom Rees, from the article Why some countries are more religious than others

The Global Peace Index (GPI) measures nations’ levels of peacefulness or violence. Statistical data related to the U.S. states reveal similar correlations between religiosity and high crime rates, teen pregnancy rates, school dropout rates, etc. where the more secular states invariably exhibit more societal health than the more religious states. Prison and divorce statistics also shed light on the prevalence of societal dysfunction in religious communities. Atheists are much less likely to divorce than Christians and Jews.

Perhaps the correlation between religion and poverty can be linked to lack of access, at times even hostility, to traditional education among religious groups. In heavily-atheistic Denmark citizens can become doctors, courtesy of the state, thanks to free universal education up to college level whereas in the more religious U.S.A. anyone wanting to become a doctor would have to acquire tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. 93 percent of the members of the Academy of the Sciences –some of our most brilliant minds– are atheists.

All of the above statistical data demonstrates that the bigoted religious claim that infidels are amoral and angry, or the insulting accusation that they lack a moral compass, all have no factual base. People who realize that they can not honestly say that there is a divine being, don’t lose their moral compass and start killing, raping and pillaging. What are we to make of the Crusades, the glorification of violence in the tradition of jihad, Jephthah’s sacrifice of his own daughter as a burnt offering to God in the Old Testament, the genocide of the indigenous during the invasion of the Americas, and other great historical acts of religion-inspired murder or genocide, in view of these tired, insulting accusations of amorality coming from the religious?

And what are we make of slavery, if religion or fear of God makes people moral? Up until the 19th Century the Bible, in Leviticus 25:44-46, acted as a property deed that allowed humans to enslave others and turn them into commodities. Slave owners argued: if God ordered slavery, how can slavery be immoral? Even in the New Testament slaves were advised by Paul in Ephesians 6 to be obedient to their masters as if their masters were Christ, to treat their masters as gods, and then he not-very-humbly praised his own teaching regarding slavery calling it ‘a sane doctrine’ in 1 Timothy 6.

Furthermore, to generalize when speaking about atheists is always a mistake. The great minds of both the right and left sides of the political spectrum, from Marx to Ayn Rand, were atheists also: they shared a superior intellect, but in the service of opposing worldviews. Buddhism is an atheistic religion and the Dalai Lama does not believe in a personal god. Curiously, of all the mainstream religions, Buddhism has historically also been among the least violent.

Some theists claim that the burden of proof lies with the atheists and not with the theists. This is an absurd claim. It’s hard to begin to imagine what scientific experiment one would have to carry out to prove the infantile and imaginative events in the book of Genesis: would a scientist have to breathe into a man made out of mud in a lab and document whether it comes to life? Create a woman out of a man’s rib? If a woman could be cloned from a man’s rib, would that constitute proof of God? There are so many problems with the assertion that the burden of empirical proof lies with the atheists that it’s hardly worth considering.

Atheists have nothing to prove, it is the many flavors of theists who are proposing a hypothesis that does, indeed, require extraordinary evidence, aggravated by the fact that their supernatural claims are all mutually contradictory. Hindus believe in reincarnation, Christians believe in heaven but only if you believe in Christ, Muslims only if you believe in Allah, and then Mormons believe they’re getting their own planet with multiple wives in the afterlife … and that God is a man who lives with his many wives in planet Kolob. They cannot all be true, and if they all have been used by good people to perform good deeds then this only proves that 1. the wrong belief may inspire good and bad deeds and 2. good deeds have nothing to do with the right belief.

Here, atheist author Christopher Hitchens added an interesting point on how good deeds serve as promotional tools. He argued that Hamas, a terrorist organization, is also responsible for most of the charity work that takes place in the Gaza strip with orphans and widows. Mormon charities after Katrina also sought great publicity in spite of the fact that the Book of Mormon literally calls black people filthy and loathsome (Mormon 5:15). Atheists like Hitchens argue that the wholesomeness of these religious organizations can and should be debated, that the good deeds that they are so ostentatious of should not serve as an excuse to erase and forget the less noble episodes in the history of a religion, or to avoid rigor in studying the validity of its supernatural claims.

The idea that religion is what keeps people moral is not only false but it’s also dangerous as long as society continues assuming that religious leaders and institutions are above reproach, that we are not to require transparency of them as we do of other people and institutions. It’s this assertion that has allowed Catholic priests to rape and later silence thousands of innocent children over generations while their followers and even authorities try to not see what is going on under their noses, afraid to insult the sensitivities of deeply sincere Catholics.

It is here that the role of atheists in the public discourse on religion becomes more crucial. Atheists argue that it’s not only fair, but IMPERATIVE, to require transparency from religious leaders, that people do not have to be docile and fear religious authorities, that people can raise objections if necessary, that this is healthy.

Lack of visibility for atheists and prevalence of deference to religious authorities has contributed to a generally passive and docile attitude that is too often mistaken for humility and for a virtue. This false humility, and the false arrogance that atheists are often accused of, reveal a system of values that has little respect for empirical and scientific evidence and too much undeserved respect for religions that are ostentatious about a moral superiority that they sorely lack.

A final note on anti-atheist sentiment: social scientists have recently been studying the death denial principle, an underlying and mostly unrecognized tendency in humans characterized by attempts to hide, deny or re-imagine death.  It was first proposed by anthropologist and philosopher Ernest Becker, who argued that denial of death was behind most of human activity.

Studies demonstrate that, when faced with the reality of their own mortality, people tend to hang on to that which is familiar and to exhibit hostility towards the unfamiliar, and religious people in specific tend to express hostility towards atheists and people of religions that deny their fantasies about the afterlife.  Christians, for instance, exhibited more anti-Jewish and anti-atheist behavior when reminded of their mortality.

In another study, when judges were reminded of their own mortality and were given cases to judge, they also judged more harshly whereas a group of judges that was not reminded of their own death gave considerably less severe sentences.

These studies suggest that people’s bias against atheists, who according to recent studies are the most distrusted and hated minority in America, invariably have to do with the people that have the bias and their unconscious unresolved issues, not with the atheists. When theists assume their own moral superiority, it’s quite insulting for non-religious people, it’s tired and it’s baseless. Seneca was right. Credulity is not a virtue. It’s dehumanizing and it’s no facsimile for true ethics.

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do not pre-occupy yourself

Occupy Your Self

 - Enrique Barrios

THE REVOLUTION STARTS WITHIN

Be Yourself.
Everyone else is already taken.

- Oscar Wilde

Alex Parene, of Alternet, has written a New Declaration of Independence addressing the concerns of the 99%.  It's a great article, so I decided I'd share it here in solidarity with Occupy.