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<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><em><span
style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-size: 18pt;"><b>No Means No:</b></span></em><span
style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-size: 18pt;"><b> A People's
Victory in Puerto Rico </b></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span
style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-size: 10pt;">By Ed Morales</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><a shape="rect"
href="http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001WhzMcReIP7aH_z8_mKh-OnAi6uYI-jtCWwfWa_JIrXoIMRM4nFc_FxOKNnh-IEQc4XGWS_gE0yNssLvLq2NSFBIFiKzx5jF8zgZVNtuQ5ZScWr8kcFIUikwghUABL-GjsWUiEfh_gD1xw_o5eI7oOZ7UF_VJcrj77Hp0fWuqFCoKFw-S1r3YIbxbM12lhrjqhoYTw8NeYqtsTOWr_rUYBg=="
target="_blank"><span
style="font-family: 'Georgia'; color: rgb(0, 0, 255); font-size: 10pt;">edmorales.net</span></a><span
style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-size: 10pt;"> (August 20, 2012)<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://emorales7.wordpress.com/2012/08/20/no-means-no-a-peoples-victory-in-puerto-rico/">http://emorales7.wordpress.com/2012/08/20/no-means-no-a-peoples-victory-in-puerto-rico/</a><br>
</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span
style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span
style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-size: 10pt;">All
month long the people of Puerto Rico have been assaulted by a barrage
of advertising on television, radio, and billboards urging them to vote
for two constitutional amendments that would eliminate the absolute
right to bail for the accused and decrease the size of the legislature
by 30 per cent. They were told these changes to the constitution, which
had not been amended for nearly 50 years, were not political in nature
--- they merely were intended to address the increasing problem of
violent crime on the island and save the government some money by
cutting back on the costs of voter representation.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span
style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span
style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-size: 10pt;">But
Puerto Ricans knew different --- they saw the proposed amendments in
their proper political contexts and voted them down 54% to 46%, causing
a stunning political defeat for not only the ruling New Progressive
Party, but electoral politics as usual on the island. They knew that
Governor Luis Fortuño's administration was engaged in a demagogic
campaign to manipulate the fear factor among citizens weary of the
daily reports of murder, mayhem, and domestic abuse and the failure of
a corrupt and deficient police department to contain it. They
understood that the elimination of absolute right to bail, a provision
of a constitution more progressive and humane than the U.S.
constitution it was based on, was a threat to the sacred right to the
presumption of innocence, and that poor people and people of color
would be most vulnerable. They understood that the reduction of the
size of the legislature, currently the pet project of ALEC devotee,
Republican Representative Sam Smith in his own state of Pennsylvania,
would result in a contraction of democracy. So they went to the polls
in massive numbers as they do in Puerto Rico on Sundays, the way they
vote in the rest of Latin America, and they said No and No. Loudly.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span
style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span
style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-size: 10pt;">All
month long, the common wisdom would be that the referenda would be
passed, that the people were too cowed by the relentless domination of
the New Progressive Party, which controls both houses of the
legislature, the executive branch, and by virtue of expanding the
number of judges in its Supreme Court, the judicial branch as well.
They had control over the political system and seemed to have control
over most of the established media, and in their arrogance they pushed
this vote to happen less than three months before the election,
seemingly </span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-size: 10pt;">part
of a strategy to all but assure victory in November.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span
style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span
style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-size: 10pt;">Part
of that arrogance was fueled by the fact that the current candidate for
the opposition Popular Democratic Party, Alejandro García Padilla, is
perceived as so ineffectual that even though most of the body politic
is dying to excise the cancer of Fortuño and his henchmen, they would
not be energized enough to go out and do so because García Padilla's
current profile is a little bit below buffoon status. He even proved
his craven nature by refusing to oppose the referenda, for all intents
and purposes going into hiding when he had the opportunity to take a
courageous stand that might finally energize the PPD base. His
appearance tonight on local television was so stilted and absurd in
claiming "victory" over two amendments he voted for that it could go
down in history as the night the PPD began its irreversible decline
into irrelevance.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span
style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span
style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-size: 10pt;">Tonight
belonged to the people, even though the media focused on the two major
political parties, and even though there were several PPD members
celebrating at the <em>Colegio de Abogados</em> in Miramar, it was
almost as if that party didn't mean anything anymore, that the politics
of status, long rumored to be in decline, didn't mean anything anymore,
and what meant something was saving democracy and a sense of dignity
among the people. It was about the chance to address social, political,
and economic crises long neglected. It was a chance to restore a
national and cultural identity that somehow is carefully protected at
this institution that is ostensibly about the law, but is ultimately a
bastion of the arts, philosophy, and culture. An institution under
attack by the PNP, whose members belong to both the Republican and
Democratic parties.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span
style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span
style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-size: 10pt;">This is where the
President of the <em>Colegio</em>,
Osvaldo Toledo, stood next to Carmen Yulín Cruz, progressive PDP
candidate for mayor of San Juan, and union leader José Rodriguez Báez,
not extolling the virtues of the nebulous Commonwealth, but chanting,
with the gathering throng, "El pueblo, unido, jámas será vencido!"
That's when the television cameras shut down, and there was a pause for
a commercial, and when we returned, it was to reveal the angry
authoritarian sneer of Senate President Tomás Rivera Schatz, who looked
like an annoyed car wash owner forced to come into work on the weekend,
chastising García Padilla for being a loser for voting for the
amendments his own party had just been humiliated over.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span
style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span
style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-size: 10pt;">No,
as much as the media tried to avoid it, the people were gathered around
Toledo, Yulín, Rodríguez, three passionate Puerto Ricans who just over
two years ago were tear-gassed and clubbed by the NPP's storm troopers
at the <em>Capitolio</em> and the Sheraton Hotel. Last summer all
three of them told me, sometimes, haltingly, others defiantly, always
with an incredulity of what they had experienced, that, for exercising
their constitutional right to protest, or in Toledo's case, observe and
offer to negotiate between parties in a protest, they were met with the
most crude violence seen here in years, orchestrated by a party whose
leader claims to bring peace to this island's citizens, and who instead
is presiding over a corrupt and violent dismantling of a democracy that
again and again outdoes that of a country that despite its claim to
being the leader of democratic ideals continues to hold this island and
its people as a colonial possession.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span
style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span
style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-size: 10pt;">They
were not swayed by the cowardly displays of the steel baton, or those
who would try to use fear and demagoguery to manipulate the people.
That is why this is a night to celebrate. <i>Ganó el pueblo.</i></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span
style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-size: 10pt;"><i> </i></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span
style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-size: 10pt;"><i>Puñeta.</i></span></p>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
Freedom Archives
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San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863.9977
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.freedomarchives.org">www.freedomarchives.org</a>
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