Building Bridges: Your Community and Labor Report
National Edition
Produced by Ken Nash and Mimi Rosenberg
**************************
Puerto Rico:
Trapped Amidst the Perilous Winds of Colonialism and Hurricanes
with
Nelson Denis, a former New York State assemblyman, is the author of
“War Against All Puerto Ricans: Revolution and Terror in America’s
Colony” and joins us now as we examine Puerto Rico between a rock
and a hard place: between colonialism and hurricanes
and
David Galarza, Puerto Rican Independence and labor activist
Puerto Rico is no stranger to crisis. Before Maria’s rampage through the
archipelago, Puerto Rico was already in the midst of one of the most
devastating financial and socio-political crises in its recent history, with an
unaudited $74 billion debt under its belt, $49 billion in pension obligations,
and several decades’ worth of illegal bond issuances and trading related
to its status as an overly-advertised tax haven. Neoliberal policies such as
draconian budget cuts and extreme austerity measures had already been
rendered life in Puerto Rico quite precarious. And the whole thing was
being overseen and managed simultaneously by Governor Rosselló, an
unelected and antidemocratic Fiscal Control Board, and judge Laura
Taylor Swain, all of whom were going back and forth on the country’s fiscal
management and debt restructuring processes. Now, first Irma’s and then
Maria’s passing and aftermath have once again brought to light Puerto
Rico’s primordial conundrum: colonialism. Nelson Denis and David
Galarza discuss the humanitarian crisis that is exploding in Puerto Rico,
the consequences of the Jones Act and “the junta” and how nullification
of the Jones Act, cancellation of the multi-billion dollar debt and the
implementation of environmentally conscious sustainability planning are
imperative for Puerto Rico to rebuild for its native inhabitants.
**************************
To Download or listen to this 27:40 minute program,
Pacifica Stations only go to:
*********** ********
Building Bridges is regularly broadcast live over WBAI,
99.5 FM in the N.Y.C Metropolitan area on Mondays from
7-8pm EST and is streamed, and archived cast at
www.wbai.org
We are syndicated weekly to over 50 broadcast and internet radio stations
in the US, Canada and UK