Selling your grandkids’ future

The four smiling faces on the front page of the Saipan Tribune yesterday should be cut out, framed, and hung on every wall in every house because the governor and four Lottery Commission members have made a deal that binds the CNMI for 40 years—yes, 40 years—to Best Sunshine. This should piss you off but apparently no one realizes that these five people have bound your grandkids’ future and there is nothing you seem to want to do about it. PSS has really done a job on all of you. Dumbed you down ’til you can’t comprehend or understand simple things anymore, destroyed your curiosity, and sapped your creativity. These five nincompoops gave away the store and you didn’t get anything for it. Not even a timetable for construction, a design, a plan or a real proposal of what they are going to do.

I say again, if the CNMI could support a $2-billion resort, MGM, the Venitian and Wynns would be here bidding. The fact that the Lottery Commission only reached out to the two consulting groups, both that gave glowing reviews to BS, should have alerted you that something was stinko about this “deal.” You, the citizens of the CNMI, let five people determine the next 40 years of the CNMI’s future and, I doubt if even one of them knows squat about gambling, gaming, resorts, or the crooks that come with it. They look too young to remember what poker machines did to the community 30 years ago. Too bad for them. Too bad for the CNMI.

Democratic Party of the CNMI, you got some problems

I got your 2014 platform booklet and it is very much like the GOP’s and the two independents platforms. All of you are going to do this and that for ‘”we the people.” But, in your eight-page foldout brochure with the picture of the candidates on it, wow, this is something entirely different. This looks like something Hitler used to put out. Substitute Chamorro for Aryan and there you have it. It is seven full pages of “what about us” [Chamorros]? Even though you specify Chamorro, Carolinian, and fellow citizens 14 times in the brochure, you really are talking about Chamorros. I urge everyone to read it.

You don’t need laws to protect culture and traditions; you can do this in your house. Of the 39 items listed in this “manifesto,” at least 14 of them only benefit NMDs. I’m not a lawyer but isn’t that against the law of the United States? No wonder over half of the population has fled to greener pastures.

You say in the brochure you “would rather lose an election by being true and honest to ourselves, than pretend we are any other than who we really are—hereditary native Chamorro and Carolinian.” You really do not mean Carolinians, and you purposely exclude all the Filipinos, Japanese, Palauans, Yapese, Pohnpeians, Marshallese, haoles, Korean, Chinese, and any and all other NMDs in the CNMI. You central executive committee members that signed the 2014 Democratic Party platform, did you even read this brochure? It is racist, bigoted, and totally biased and it makes all of you look like you would support marginalizing all non-hereditary natives in their own country. It makes me wonder if this isn’t the true feelings of many “hereditary native Chamorros,” even though my friends tell me no, it’s just a small minority. On the plus side, though, you are the only team running that said thank you in Chamorro, Carolinian, English and Tagalog.

Gary DuBrall
Chalan Piao, Saipan