President Trump jokes about the possibility of trading Puerto Rico for Greenland. If this shocks you, host Andrew Mercado-Vázquez wants you to know that the US Government has already looked at the option, or at least has acknowledged the option, of ceding Puerto Rico to another nation state in a 2005 Presidential Task Force Report. That's part of the reality of Puerto Rico's colonial condition.
"When President Trump apparently jokes about the possibility of trading Puerto Rico for Greenland, it's a real possibility. That really is a possibility and that is the insanity that is fostered by a colonial condition... We really need to inform the general population of the US about what the colonial condition allows, the injustices that are fostered under such a a colonial condition. The ignorance of the US voting population is one of the main contributors to sustaining Puerto Rico's colonial situation." - Andrew Mercado-Vázquez
The mentioned episode 5 of Puerto Rico Forward: The Closest There Is To Limitless Power
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But the reality is that the bigger fear in Washington is the idea of adding two more Democratic senators from Puerto Rico if it chooses to become a state. Would Congress allow that? I am not sure but that Congress wouldn’t bend over backwards with the ,intent of avoiding such a thing in some illicit maneuver.
The truth about gerrymandering is that it creates a situation highly reminiscent of what was once called ’the slave power.; It is the ability to control the vote to the benefit of a highly wealthy minority. It has a long and continuous history from the writing of the Constitution in 1789 through to the Civil War and beyond in the form of Jim Crow and now the extensive Republican gerrymandering that produces Republican victories with Democratic Party voting majorities.
Puerto Rico isn’t going anywhere, but neither is there much hope at all of it improving, either with help or without help. However, given its past history, its best chance for improvement is going at it without help from either the government or the banks.