As Guahan addresses status

It is perfectly within the rights of the indigenous people of Guahan to insist that the disposition of any negotiated political relationship with Uncle Sam be limited to the permanent host of the island.

The issue boils down to the future of the indigenous people and shouldn’t be derailed by arguments pertaining to the rights of citizens. In fact, Uncles Sam and Carlos (Spain) definitely owe the indigenous Chamorros an official apology for the treatment of historic condescension when they engaged in the sale of the island and people of Guahan.

Does it take a journey into historical rectitude to discern the obvious indignity rendered the Chamorros in Guam? But it was done for purposes of military acquisition at the expense of the indigenous people, wasn’t it? Their fate never mattered insofar as the military industrial complex is concerned. It did it in Hawaii and elsewhere in the Pacific, including complete fortification of Saipan after the war.

The pace of these acquisitions never leaves room for the indigenous people to engage in harmonious and deliberative discussions to map out their future as islanders or permanent host. Military acquisition was a wholesale condemnation of indigenous culture, riddled with persistent derogatory denigration of our foundational tradition that makes us unique as a people.

I liken it to the permanent, though failed, silencing of the lamb that came roaring back in the powerful and indefatigable spirit of the indigenous people today! Is it egregiously wrong to extol the virtues of the indigenous people who are equally a permanent part of the human race? Are we supposed to be simple cogs supporting the role of the military that hardly assimilates into the indigenous community?

Cultural derailment simply annihilated a way of life into the dawn of military rule. It robbed the people of the opportunity to live within established tradition “gradually developed over centuries that allows for an inborn sense of their ancestry, religion, social customs, language, literature, music, etc.” It’s core values established and passed on becoming a way of life that is both “virtuous and enduring.”

The military’s intrusive command and control only played into the Achilles heel of submission pounded against the indigenous people since the Spanish era, further robbing the islanders of what’s rightfully theirs. It created a huge ocean of emptiness that was never filled by the indigenous people in that they were corralled into further submission. This is the void that needs to be resolved full square.

In the words of a professor of Pacific Studies, University of Hawaii, “In all of us there is a hunger marrow deeply rooted searching for who we are and where we came from. Without this enriching knowledge there is a hollow yearning. No matter what our attainments in life, there is still a vacuum, an emptiness, and the most disquieting loneliness.”

For now, the least that non-indigenous U.S. citizens could do is step aside out of common decency and respect for the permanent hosts of Guahan by granting their unalienable rights to self-determination. After all, they’ve never displaced others in the global village anywhere.

Pathway bill derailed

It’s good to know the Ogumuro resolution has sought “elimination” of Kilili’s pathway measure. It is met perfectly by a decision of the U.S. House of Representatives to shelve any Senate immigration bill until next year, according to a Washington Times story yesterday morning. It means Kilili’s pathway measure stands a fat chance of trailing back for positive review, saddled by the lack of unanimity from the people of these isles.

The GOP in the U.S. House of Representatives isn’t ready to take up any immigration measure and not without a realistic fight on major reform to ease the country’s $17 trillion debt. Its interest focuses on the complete change on Obamacare, a massive fraud perpetrated by President Obama.

My salute to Rep. Trenton Conner for justifying why the Kilili pathway runs contrary to another law on federalization of immigration. He did an exemplary job catching the inconsistency. He stopped Kilili from shoving bones down the throat of the indigenous people. Outstanding, Rep. Conner!

Though Kilili alluded to the immigration provision under the Covenant agreement, the greater question is his assessment of how such takeover has literally annihilated the local economy. Furthermore, did he and other liberal progressives offer substantive legislation for purposes of transition to the new arrangement? Or is he too busy with his newfound cottage industry and unsolicited cocktails of presents from Obama and freebies to turn the NMI into a permanent welfare state?

Why push the agenda of involuntary servitude against folks who prefer working for their dues to dependency on freebies paid for by productive American taxpayers? Why build a burden against posterity who eventually must pay for what were initially deceitful freebies, i.e., Medicaid? Do we do away with scholarships and ask our kids to line up for NAP and SNAP? The latter isn’t going anywhere either without major reform.

These concerns merit answers and I’d like to see what the illustrious delegate has to say of measures he’s worked and introduced at the national level to assist the CNMI exit the deafening miseries of economic dystopia here. Or are these substantive issues strictly local matters? But not the takeover of immigration federal policy, sir?

There’s got to be more meaningful paradigms than serving as the chief leech funneling all leftover freebies from across the Pacific Divide. No wonder the humiliating laughingstock of the NMI now famous in Washington as the “welfare country.” How about more meaningful issues other than SNAP cultural marginalization?