Porto-Rico, d’une fa\u00e7on g\u00e9n\u00e9rale, on tendrait \u00e0 s’en ficher. Qu’elle soit Syst\u00e8me ou antiSyst\u00e8me, la communication n’est pas tourn\u00e9e vers cette petite île des Cara\u00efbes qui vient d’\u00eatre ravag\u00e9e par l’ouragan Maria<\/em>, malgr\u00e9 sa situation d’int\u00e9gration dans le cadre constitutionnel des Etats-Unis (*). <\/em>La situation de l’île et le traitement qui lui est appliqu\u00e9 par Trump sont \u00e9galement extraordinaires, selon des consid\u00e9rations oppos\u00e9es où le mim\u00e9tisme s’exprime pat l’antagonisme.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Dans le texte de WSWS.org<\/em>, qui suit l’affaire<\/a> avec la plume critique qu’on imagine, on lit une description apocalyptique de la situation et une attitude, \u00e0 la fois de Trump et de la direction US, qui ressort aussi bien des pratiques colonialistes que des pratiques capitalistes, toutes les deux les plus viles et dans leur sens les plus ex\u00e9crables. Face \u00e0 cela se m\u00ealent des attitudes mitig\u00e9es, qui sont gouvern\u00e9es par des querelles compl\u00e8tement \u00e9trang\u00e8res \u00e0 l’\u00e9v\u00e9nement. Ainsi et par exemple du c\u00f4t\u00e9 de ceux des antiSyst\u00e8me qui ne manquent pas d’\u00eatre climatosceptiques et bataillent dans ce domaine, l’int\u00e9r\u00eat assez sceptique pour l’\u00e9valuation de la situation de Porto-Rico d\u00e9pend beaucoup de leur d\u00e9nonciation des th\u00e8ses des climatocrisiques qui tendraient \u00e0 faire de l’ouragan et de sa puissance affirm\u00e9e comme consid\u00e9rable un effet du d\u00e9r\u00e8glement climatique.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Il n’emp\u00eache qu’il y a les faits, ceux qui semblent bien \u00eatre dissimul\u00e9s par la dynamique de la communication, et qui pourraient bien \u00eatre rapport\u00e9s par certains acteurs. Le bilan officiel des perte humaines fait \u00e9tat de 15-19 morts, tandis que le CPI (Center for Investigative Journalism<\/em>) \u00e9crit qu’il devrait se d\u00e9compter en centaines sinon plus, avec des t\u00e9moignages faisant \u00e9tat d’« empilements de corps<\/em> » dans les morgues et les h\u00f4pitaux. Le reste est \u00e0 l’avenant, selon la description de l’article. Alors que Trump fait grand bruit autour de son nouveau syst\u00e8me fiscal dont on s’aper\u00e7oit \u00e0 l’analyse, – surprise, surprise, – qu’il favorise plus les 1% de super-riches que le reste, la maire de San-Juan, Carmen Yulin Cruz, parle pour Porto-Rico de « quelque chose qui est proche d’un g\u00e9nocide<\/em> ».<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Cette crise de Porto-Rico semble s’annoncer comme devant nous donner plusieurs sujets de r\u00e9flexion concernant les tendances fondamentales de la dynamique surpuissante du Syst\u00e8me et de la fa\u00e7on dont on l’appr\u00e9cie, y compris chez nombre d’antiSyst\u00e8me (ou soi-disant antiSyst\u00e8me). Le texte de WSWS.org est donc du 30 septembre 2017<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n (*) … Formule assez vague pour r\u00e9sumer l’extraordinaire complexit\u00e9 du statut de l’île par rapport aux USA. Il s’agit d’un statut \u00e0 la fois d’une colonie de seconde classe ne m\u00e9ritant aucune attention, \u00e0 la fois d’un territoire qui doit recevoir certaines marques de l’aura d\u00e9mocratique de la grande R\u00e9publique dont il ferait partie. Voir le Wikip\u00e9dia<\/a><\/em> et noter ceci comme exemple de cette complexit\u00e9 significative :<\/p>\n<\/p>\n « La situation juridique et diplomatique de Porto Rico est complexe :<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n » • non repr\u00e9sent\u00e9e aux Nations unies<\/a>, l’île a un comit\u00e9 national olympique<\/a> sous le nom de Comit\u00e9 olympique de Porto Rico<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n » • État libre, mais associ\u00e9<\/a> aux États-Unis<\/a>, Porto Rico n’a aucune obligation vis-\u00e0-vis du fisc f\u00e9d\u00e9ral am\u00e9ricain (ses habitants ne payent que des imp\u00f4ts locaux).<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n » • les Portoricains ont la nationalit\u00e9 am\u00e9ricaine<\/a> depuis la signature du Jones-Shafroth Act par Woodrow Wilson (2 mars 1917) , mais ils ne poss\u00e8dent pas la citoyennet\u00e9 am\u00e9ricaine. De ce fait, ils n’ont pas le droit de vote \u00e0 l’\u00e9lection pr\u00e9sidentielle am\u00e9ricaine<\/a>. Paradoxalement, ils peuvent voter pour la d\u00e9signation des candidats d\u00e9mocrates et r\u00e9publicains \u00e0 cette \u00e9lection lors des primaires. Ainsi, Hillary Clinton y remporta un de ses derniers succ\u00e8s \u00e9lectoraux<\/a> lors des primaires de 2008. Ils \u00e9lisent un seul repr\u00e9sentant (qui n’a pas le droit de vote) \u00e0 la Chambre des repr\u00e9sentants des États-Unis<\/a>, (mais aucun au S\u00e9nat<\/a> où seuls les États am\u00e9ricains<\/a> sont repr\u00e9sent\u00e9s).<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n » • les compagnies a\u00e9riennes am\u00e9ricaines la consid\u00e8rent comme une \u00ab\u00a0destination internationale\u00a0\u00bb, alors que les avions des compagnies portoricaines doivent porter un num\u00e9ro de registre am\u00e9ricain.<\/em> »<\/p>\n<\/p>\n ____________________<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Almost two weeks after Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, all basic forms of social infrastructure in the US territory have completely collapsed.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Addressing the press yesterday, San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz said that she watched in horror as Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Acting Secretary Elaine Duke called the government’s response to the hurricane a \u00ab\u00a0good news story.\u00a0\u00bb Duke added that she was "very satisfied" with the government response and praised the "limited number of deaths."<\/p>\n<\/p>\n To the contrary, Cruz warned, \u00ab\u00a0something close to a genocide\u00a0\u00bb is unfolding in Puerto Rico due to the government’s failed response. She \u00ab\u00a0begged\u00a0\u00bb Trump to fix the botched relief effort, adding, \u00ab\u00a0We are dying here.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n That such a state of affairs could exist in a territory of the world’s wealthiest country is another unanswerable indictment of American capitalism, which has proven itself again and again incapable of addressing the most basic social needs of the population.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The financial aristocracy has responded with total indifference to the immediate needs of millions of desperate, impoverished people fighting for their lives on the island territory. Its primary concern is not saving lives in Puerto Rico but passing tax cuts in Washington. To the extent that Puerto Rico registers on its political radar, it is for the purpose of using the disaster to secure debt payments for the island’s Wall Street creditors and advance its austerity regime both in Puerto Rico and on the US mainland.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n President Trump called the response \u00ab\u00a0amazing\u00a0\u00bb on Thursday and added on Friday, \u00ab\u00a0It’s been incredible the results we’ve had with respect to loss of life. People can’t believe how successful that has been, relatively speaking.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The contrast between these callous statements and the terrible reality exposes the oligarchic character of American social life. Aloof from and unconcerned with the needs of the masses of people, the ruling elite evinces a total disdain for human life.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Details of the disaster zone are beginning to emerge more clearly. One hundred percent of the power grid is inoperable and will not be fixed for six months. Ninety percent of homes are damaged. Forty-four percent of the population of 3.5 million is without drinking water.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Most of the island has no cell phone reception. Hospitals are running out of medications, diesel for generators and clean water. Food reserves are running low. Pumps for toilets and bathing have failed. Eighty percent of crops were destroyed.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The sewage system is broken and floodwaters have spread human and chemical waste across the island. Instances of waterborne diseases are growing and the mosquito population is exploding. Officials and relatives have not been able to make contact with many impoverished villages inland. ATMs and credit cards do not work, making it practically impossible to buy food without cash.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The relief effort has been a grotesque display of indifference and incompetence. A government capable of moving trillions of dollars worth of manpower and equipment across the world to wage war has proven unwilling and unable to mobilize emergency aid to an island less than three hours from New York City by plane. The American ruling class is far better at killing than at saving lives.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The government blocked the delivery of tons of foreign shipments of food and medical aid on the basis of the Jones Act, which restricts foreign ships from transporting goods between US ports. Only on Thursday—a week and a half after the storm hit—did the Trump administration waive the Jones Act restrictions for Puerto Rico, and even then only for a brief ten-day window.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Up to 10,000 shipping crates full of food, fuel, water and medical aid have sat for days in Puerto Rico’s ports. The Department of Homeland Security, the agency responsible for dispersing the goods through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), had no plan to disburse these items.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Many roads, long neglected by cuts to infrastructure spending on the island, are impassible. The wind wiped out aboveground phone lines and cell towers and destroyed Puerto Rico’s power plants, which are a median 44 years old. Trucks cannot deliver fuel to power generators because they do not have enough fuel to make the drive.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Local officials in rural towns complain that the government is not delivering necessary relief even where the roads are intact. Roberto Ramirez Kurtz, Mayor of Cabo Rojo, told National Public Radio, \u00ab\u00a0The Roads are open. I’ve been able to come here. So why haven’t we used this to [transport goods]?\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n As a result, the death toll continues to rise. Though the official total is between 15 and 19, the Center for Investigative Journalism (CPI) wrote that this drastically underreports the number of fatalities. It puts the figure in the hundreds or higher. Sources told the CPI that \u00ab\u00a0bodies are piling up\u00a0\u00bb at morgues and hospitals across the island.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Again and again, storms and natural disasters lay bare the irreconcilable antagonism between the social needs of the population and the money-grubbing parasitism of the rich. While trillions are made available for war, surveillance, police militarization and corporate giveaways, the ruling class claims there is \u00ab\u00a0no money\u00a0\u00bb to protect the poor and working class from being killed en masse by wind and rain.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Never letting an opportunity go to waste, Trump shrugged off the growing death toll and threatened to withhold emergency funding as a bargaining chip to demand that Puerto Rico pay a higher proportion of its debts to Wall Street creditors in ongoing bankruptcy proceedings.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n In a speech Friday before a room of corporate CEOs salivating over his proposed tax cuts, Trump said: \u00ab\u00a0Ultimately, the Puerto Rican government will have to work with us to determine how this massive rebuilding effort [that] will end up being one of the biggest ever will be funded and organized. And what we will do with the tremendous amount of existing debt already on the island.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Trump expresses in a more explicitly thuggish form what the financial aristocracy is thinking. While the Democrats raise token opposition to Trump’s handling of relief efforts on the grounds that the administration is moving \u00ab\u00a0too slowly,\u00a0\u00bb it is not just one presidential administration that is to blame, but the entire for-profit capitalist system.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Though the military is ostensibly being mobilized to help with the relief effort, the real purpose is to intimidate or crush social opposition fueled both by the storm and the austerity plan imposed by Wall Street in the island’s bankruptcy proceeding. This has been the US military’s basic role for 119 years as an occupation force on the Island.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The destruction of Puerto Rico raises the need for the immediate expenditure of billions of dollars to save the lives of those at risk of death and disease, and hundreds of billions more to provide resources such as food, water, fuel and medical supplies and rebuild and modernize the social infrastructure. All those who have lost their homes or jobs must be fully compensated and made whole.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n This cannot be accomplished under capitalism. It requires confiscating the wealth of the financial aristocracy, nationalizing the banks and corporations to place them under public ownership and democratic control, and reorganizing the US and world economy not for profit, but to meet the needs of the human race.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Porto-Rico, cas d’\u00e9cole ? Porto-Rico, d’une fa\u00e7on g\u00e9n\u00e9rale, on tendrait \u00e0 s’en ficher. Qu’elle soit Syst\u00e8me ou antiSyst\u00e8me, la communication n’est pas tourn\u00e9e vers cette petite île des Cara\u00efbes qui vient d’\u00eatre ravag\u00e9e par l’ouragan Maria, malgr\u00e9 sa situation d’int\u00e9gration dans le cadre constitutionnel des Etats-Unis (*). La situation de l’île et le traitement qui… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[4363,13457,11304,11889,4757,13456,13371,2639],"class_list":["post-77523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ouverture-libre","tag-capitalisme","tag-climatocrisiques","tag-climatosceptiques","tag-colonialisme","tag-genocide","tag-maria","tag-ouragan","tag-trump"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77523\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}dde.org<\/em><\/h4>\n<\/p>\n
Note<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
Trump to Puerto Rico: Your lives don’t matter<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
Eric London, WSWS.org<\/em><\/h4><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"