Putting the blame where it belongs

Sounds like Keith Brook is hoping for a job with Uncle Ben once we get rid of all these pesky aliens. News flash for you and Ben: What people do with their money is their business. You both have blinders on when it comes to the economy, immigrants, and aliens. If you are so worried about all this money leaving the islands, have you given any thought to the millions of dollars folks in the CNMI spend shopping online? That’s a lot of money going out as well. Thought about the many foreign held companies sending their cash out of the CNMI?

Here’s a crazy idea right up your alley: What about all the CNMI retirees living outside of the Commonwealth? Why not make them move back home, so they have to spend all their retirement money here? I guess for folks like you and Ben, the easiest target to blame for the CNMI problems are forces outside, aliens, and immigrants. Find one group to blame and ignore all the rest. As in typical Ben fashion, we can all logically assume there hasn’t been any research conducted, no polls taken, no government studies performed, no reports issued, no nothing, to back up any of these insane ideas.

Another issue that has been visited long before is this: Have you thought about the tour companies in the CNMI? All that cash flowing out of the CNMI or did you just feel the need to place the blame and zero in on aliens and immigrants? Japanese tourists fly in on Japanese airlines, stay at Japanese hotels, and are managed by Japanese tour companies. How much of that money makes a U-turn right out of the CNMI? Does anyone in the government even know the numbers? This applies to Korean, Chinese, and Russian tourists as well. Hawaii had the same problem in the ’70s and ’80s—the only difference is that the politicians there managed to solve that problem instead of finding other folks to just blame for the situation. The CNMI government is responsible for this economic mess. It’s time to stop using aliens and others inside and out of the CNMI as your scapegoats for a failed economy. Where on earth do you guys get your rationale?

Mr. Brook, you seem to be of the idea that the CNMI economy will suddenly fix itself once all the aliens are out of the islands. Again, where is your rationale? During the years when the CNMI economy was still strong and the coffers were full and hadn’t yet been raided to depletion by the Governor’s Office to pay for pet projects or never-ending junkets, the amount being remitted overseas was astronomical! Yet the CNMI economy thrived. What about the uncollected, misspent, misused, and wasted millions by all the various government agencies? The uncollected millions lost from the garment factories? It would add up to an incredibly huge amount of money that could have been used to address all of the issues you are attributing to contract workers and other aliens.

Here’s a thought: How about we just get Uncle Ben to do his job? Like, say for instance, holding accountable every government agency that collects monies from the community? Focus on getting agencies like Tax & Rev to just do their jobs correctly? It would be downright frightful to see the result of an audit performed on that agency alone and see where millions upon millions have gone uncollected. Or CHC. That’s a scary thought for sure…

In your letter you blame the aliens for the following: No tax money, no repairs on the roads, austerity, lack of services, high CUC bills, dirty beaches, bad economy, the minimum wage of $5.05, etc., etc. I fail to see how the aliens in the CNMI could possibly be responsible for any of that. Wait! Hold the phone! I’ve got it! It must be some kind of alien conspiracy! Yeah, that’s it! The aliens are here working for the lowest wages in the United States of America and yet, they have the ability to cause all the ills you indicate in your letter. Which, by the way, smacks of a heavy dose of racism.

Mr. Brooks, you assign a huge amount of economical and political power to a grossly underpaid and highly disenfranchised group of people, my friend. You are also forgetting the No. 1 all-important fact here—the folks you and Ben keep harping about? They are more than likely directly related to, and or are, U.S. citizens. I don’t think you would take kindly, Mr. Brooks, to someone trying to break up your family or screwing with your citizenship. I know I certainly wouldn’t.

A more important question you might ask yourself, Keith, is why on earth would aliens want to invest or keep their money in the CNMI in the first place when it is clear that folks like yourself don’t want them here? This, especially after contributing to the cultural, physical, and financial growth of our islands after all these years. If I were them, I’d send all my money out too (see my letters regarding Art. 12). Have you given any serious thought to the idea that if all the Korean, Chinese, Filipino, etc., foreign storeowners packed up and left? Another scary thought.

Another thing you obviously didn’t take into account: Not all the money aliens earn leaves the Commonwealth. They pay rent, utilities, cable, Internet, buy gas, food, beer, clothes, diapers, phones, cars, tires, electronics, eat at restaurants, go to the movies, take classes, use various other services, etc. Once they all leave, then what?

And seriously? I wouldn’t want to live in a place that doesn’t have the racial and cultural diversity that the Commonwealth currently enjoys. We have people here from everywhere on the globe. Together with the strong Chamorro, Carolinian, and Micronesian cultures, the mix of what everyone else has brought with them from their home countries, that is what makes the CNMI the truly great place to live that it is today. All this, in spite of the terrible economy. It will definitely not be as rich a cultural community if all the aliens you speak of were to leave the islands. In my opinion, it would be a downright boring and uninteresting place to live.

You talk about folks standing up and refusing to accept $5.05 an hour. OK, you first. Then, when they turn off your power, your water, your cable, and Internet, because you had to make that painful decision to pay this or that bill and then, instead, decided that you will feed your children, see how long it will take before you go grab that $5.05-an-hour job. You would be surprised at how many people who live in a world based on reality who would take that job today, because that is all that is available, unless of course, you’ve been lucky enough to get a government job that actually pays a living. (Well, that is, when the checks actually come out)

Again, put the blame for the low minimum wage firmly where it belongs—with the politicians who have refused to implement a fair minimum wage for the CNMI. You can’t possibly blame the person who accepts a low wage job for the wage offered. They have no control over that whatsoever. I don’t know about you, but when I apply for a job, I accept their offer; I don’t tell them how much they are going to pay me. You take the offer or leave it. But you can bet the next guy in line will take it. I think it would be a good idea to start posting all the open government jobs in the newspaper together with the private sector, showing the total compensation and see how many applicants toss their resumes on the pile. The disparity of wages between what is offered in the private sector and what the government pays is comical, if not downright criminal.

Keith, you and folks who think like you do have jumped on the Uncle Ben bandwagon: that all the problems and ills of the CNMI were created by forces outside of our shores: the U.S. government, Homeland Security, non-locals, 9/11, aliens, etc. This is the very same tactic used by failed countries, politicos, and dictators to draw any attention away from their misdeeds and criminal activity. We need to find someone to blame for all our problems and make them the enemy. This will make our people look the other way. This way they won’t see what we are doing and blame us. The Nazis and George W. Bush both did it and look how that turned out for everyone involved. Millions of people died in WWII and the American people, we lost many of our constitutional rights and ended up with the Patriot Act and the Department of Homeland Security (your current nemesis, Ben). Ben, Keith, I’ll let you guys in on a little secret: Denial is not a river in Egypt, but that rather large parking lot at the government offices on Capital Hill. The real enemies here are the deeply entrenched, ineffective politicians of the CNMI.

Mr. Brook, you are making the bold assumption, together with Uncle Ben and his notoriously inept AG, that everyone in line to get USCIS parole status is either unemployed or will become a financial burden to the CNMI in some shape or form. That is highly doubtful at best. Where did you get your information supporting this crazy notion? Do you have any stats or hard facts to back this up? The only burden on the CNMI that anyone can plainly see is the exorbitant salaries and the inflated number of politicians with their discretionary funds, housing allowances, and travel expenses.

Mr. David M. Sablan Sr. said it perfectly in his letter the other day—the current CNMI government has to downsize, has to take salary cuts, and has to get out of office and let the next generation of our best and brightest, intelligent free thinkers steer our beautiful islands in the right direction. The economy of the CNMI is in dire straits because of one thing and one thing only: inept, incompetent leadership! Most of these folks it seems can’t even run their personal lives effectively and yet they are firmly in office and in control of the downward spiral of our economy. I would bet it’s doubtful our elected officials could even balance their personal checkbooks without help from their wives. The people of the CNMI elect and re-elect these incompetent politicians time and time again. It’s time to break the never-ending cycle of nepotism and favoritism. Next time vote for the smartest and brightest! (We all know who they are.)

Now, I’m not saying all of the CNMI’s politicians are incompetent or dishonest. That wouldn’t be fair by a long shot. We all know that there are many on the Hill who truly work hard, who are honest, and really want to do a good job for their constituents. But they are the folks who get bullied and marginalized by the corrupt ones who couldn’t care less about the people, thereby making them ineffectual at best. Case in point: Look at how Uncle Ben treats Kilili or anyone for that matter who is working at getting positive things done and trying to find solutions. All Ben can do is knock them down and interfere every chance he gets. That’s business as usual for his group on Capital Hill. This is not just a do-the-right-thing because it’s the right thing to do, but because it is what each and every one of you swore to do when you put your hand on the Bible and took your oaths of office: to work for your constituents and toward the betterment of the Commonwealth. Pretty simple it would seem.

Can you imagine if everyone on Capital Hill were to take all that negative energy they use to put each other down and put aside all the BS, park their egos, and come together to seek positive solutions to the myriad of problems the CNMI faces? …And they all lived happily ever after, right? Too bad this is a nightmare and not a cute fairytale. Nice thought, though, but sadly we all know that will never happen, especially with the current administration.

The CNMI government, this current administration especially, has ignored fresh ideas from all areas and various folks like Tony Pellegrino, Joe Ayuyu, and others, while continuing to tax to death and ignore its only viable industry, tourism. They have failed to maintain our roads and tourist sites, failed to back new tourist related businesses (not more casinos either) failed to provide security for our tourist friends, failed to catch (and keep locked up) a majority of the career criminals who make their living preying on tourists, failed to back MVA and most of all, failed the people of the CNMI to make their island home better and better each year, not worse.

For Ben and all who think he is on the right track by placing all the blame for the CNMI’s ills and failed economy on outside forces, including immigrants and aliens: Wake up and smell the cow dung. You are wrong and don’t have a leg to stand on, with absolutely nothing to back up these claims that it is anyone else’s fault except their own. The current members of the Fitial administration need to look themselves in the eye when they look in the mirror and accept the fact that they have no clue as to what they are doing and that they have no idea what to do next or even where to start. Time to put the blame squarely where it belongs: on yourselves and the previous administrations for their failure to have the intelligence, foresight, mental creativity, and integrity to run the CNMI as it can and should be. As I’ve said in letters to the editor previously, some Third World countries are run better than the CNMI.

The biggest issue here seems to be that the folks on Capital Hill can’t, won’t, or refuse to work and play well with each other. Who cares who gets the credit or acknowledged for fixing things and working out issues? Our politicians need to put aside their giant egos, selfish attitudes and start coming up with ideas and put our island community first. This isn’t a case where if you don’t like what’s happening, you can take your ball and go home. The ball in this instance is the Commonwealth economy and its not going to fix itself. (I know I’ll get hammered by my friends for this statement, but as self-serving and crazy as they may seem to most of us at times, at least Stanley and Froilan keep throwing stuff out there. Maybe they think if they throw out enough ideas, some of them will stick. Hopefully not, but the point I’m trying to make here is that they keep coming up with ideas. Whether we like them or not, they keep trying.)

I’ll take a leap here and assume that all of you are Catholics or Christians in some form or another. Isn’t it about time for a big, fat helping of Christian attitude toward each other on Capital Hill? Don’t you think it’s time to start working together to find solutions? Don’t you think its time to stop the never-ending CNMI political saga of fighting and finger pointing? Aren’t you folks on the Hill embarrassed by your behavior yet? Why not start the change today? Stop looking for people and places to blame and start accepting your political responsibility for this sad and terrible economic mess that we call home.