While sitting in front of my computer this morning with MSNBC on in the back ground just in case they announce the sealed indictments and arrests of members of the corrupt and treasonous Trump regime becomes breaking news, I came across this justified rant from the diaspora in the United States. Puerto Ricans are seething on how their families and friends are being treated by Trump.
The intensity of both the article and the video (posted below) will prove without a doubt that Puerto Rican’s evacuating to the mainland will not be red voters. They are livid, seething and want justice for their island. They will be blue voters, say goodbye to Florida GOP. Here are some excerpts from Javier Morillo who posted this must read article on The Other 98.
My fellow Americans, it feels downright surreal these days, being the kind of Americans we Puerto Ricans are. I cannot give dispassionate analysis. I am constantly reading, digesting information from the island, talking to my mother when she has a signal, working with fellow diaspora Boricuas to get aid to Puerto Rico from our small community in Minnesota, racing back and forth, keeping busy to keep from panicking about what is unfolding on the island.
My mind is its own Twitter feed, where moments of despair, hope, loneliness and rage scroll quickly by, changing minute to minute. I stay up late and wake up early, prepare the Yaucono coffee my dad sends my husband and me regularly, read, write and worry. I worry our catastrophe is fading from the news. Are you still paying attention, my fellow Americans?
snip
This newest outrage adds to the stream of the past few weeks, a cacophony of horror I review with my morning coffee: The president visits the island, pats himself on the back and throws towels at people; a tweet from the former governor of the island, Alejandro Garcia Padilla, goes viral: an image of doctors performing surgery using the flashlights from their cell phones; Puerto Ricans flood social media of images of sparse aid packs they are given to eat that include Skittles and other candies. Snopes writes up a fact-check that, despite the documented images, goes no farther than “he said/FEMA said.” Hedge fund billionaire Seth Klarman of the Baupost Group, one of the vulture capitalists who bet on the misery of the Puerto Rican people by providing payday (and, in many cases, likely illegal) loans they knew the island could not pay back, declared in a letter to his investors that debt forgiveness for Puerto Rico was “impractical.”
This last one makes me want to throw my coffee cup against a wall. Impractical, Mr. Klarman?
It is impractical that our people are hungry, and there is not enough assistance, that celebrity chefs are doing the work of relief, that people are receiving FEMA meal packets filled with Halloween candy.
It is impractical that our people are thirsty, and they are being given water from wells designated by the EPA as toxic waste superfund cleanup sites.
It is impractical that our people need power, the electric grid is gone, and they are power-less for weeks and months to come, because corrupt island politicians and corrupt federal officials need to make a profit off all this powerlessness.
It is impractical that the outdated and overtly colonial Jones Act of 1920 is still in place, forbidding entry into Puerto Rican ports to any ships other than those flying the US flag, impeding recovery efforts and making island goods more expensive.
It is impractical that this is the moment our island’s misery has become the place where Disaster Capitalism meets Crony Capitalism.
It is impractical that, just weeks into the disaster and in the midst of criminal incompetence, the president of the United States threatens to withdraw aid to Puerto Rico. Sorry, that one is not impractical. It is cruel, it is insane. Like the State of Our Union.
The video below is yet another biting rant.
x xYouTube VideoDONATION LINKS
Here’s some great agencies with aid-workers hard at work on the ground in PR right now:
www.internationalmedicalrelief.org
You can donate right to the José Andrés’s Chef’s group at https://www.worldcentralkitchen.org
Hurricane Maria Community Recovery Fund
Catholic Relief Services Hurricane Relief (Caribbean-wide)
Here is a GoFundMe we can get behind as well. To help those in the most need, celebrities and others started sending their private planes to pick up cancer patients, elderly, people needing medical care, etc.
More donation sites worthy of contributions. Thanks for posting them bfitzinAR
DK ACT BLUE (and other) DISASTER RELIEF DONATION LINKS:
Hurricane Harvey relief organizationsHurricane Irma relief organizationsHere’s a link from Bill McKibben for an org to help Puerto Rico:
Hurricane Maria Community Recovery FundFrom Vetwife, Former Presidents Working for All Americans:
One America AppealAnother choice, from Denise Oliver Velez:
Unidos Fund, from the Hispanic Federation (After you click the orange DONATE button on the Unidos page, you’ll see a dropdown below your name & address. You can choose to donate to hurricane relief for PR, and also to Mexican earthquake relief.)And of course, h/t TexMex:
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