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Finally, there are many Puerto Ricans, stateside who would prefer Independence. Under no circumstances can we conclude that with the 23% favoring that this a resounding NO for independence. If that number was more like 45% we might be able to conclude that the majority want statehood. Twenty three percent doesn't meet a major threshold relative to the population of the country.
Well if they don't live in Puerto Rico they can't vote in Puerto Rican elections and referendums. Only those who are registered to vote in Puerto Rico get to have a say in the island's future. Should we allow people who move from New York to North Carolina to continue voting in New York elections? Of course not. Same principle applies to Puerto Rico. It doesn't matter what some Nuyorican plastic Boricua wants or thinks. If he/she is not registered to vote in Puerto Rico than their position is irreverent.
I just came upon an interesting article that discusses a little bit of history surrounding the Flag.
The discussion begins when talking about how the Puerto Rican Day Parade evolved in NYC. Further, it went on to talk about why the Puerto Rico Flag is so prominently displayed during the Parades over the years.
But even as the National Puerto Rican Day Parade has become one of the nation’s largest and best-known outdoor celebrations, there is a secret that few people suspect…a secret that reaches into the heart of every Puerto Rican, without their even knowing it.
It is the secret of the Puerto Rican flag.
Have you ever noticed the passionate, over-the-top, surrealistic display of Puerto Rican flags at every Puerto Rican Day Parade?
Everywhere you look, it is an ocean of flags!
This is no accident.
There is a reason for this emotional attachment.
There is a reason why Que Bonita Bandera and Preciosa bring tears to our eyes…and sometimes we don’t even know why.
It is because this flag represents an ideal…the ideal of lost youth and forgotten illusions…much like last night’s dream…or the prayers we once heard, at our grandmothers’ feet.
But there is one more reason, why this flag is the emotional heart of the parade.
It is the secret which explains everything.
We are crazy about this flag because for many years, any Puerto Rican who owned one, would go to jail for ten years.
WHEN OWNING A FLAG WAS A FELONY
For many years, the United States wanted only one flag in Puerto Rico. (American Flag)
Here is that flag, in the inauguration of the first US Governor of Puerto Rico, in April 1900:
Pedro Albizu Campos refused to salute this flag (American Flag)
In order to crush Don Pedro and the Nationalist movement, a law was passed in 1948, right after Don Pedro got out of jail.
It was called Public Law 53, and also known as La Ley de la Mordaza…the Gag Law.
Law 53 made it a felony to sing a song, whistle a tune, or utter one word against the US government, or in favor of Puerto Rican independence.
This included singing La Borinqueña, or owning a Puerto Rican flag.
Own a flag…ten years in jail.
My God, you believe anything you read on the internet? LOL.......Nobody in Puerto Rico went to Prison for 10 years for singing songs or waiving a flag, that is just a lie. Have you actually read the law? not what others have falsely told you, have you actually read the law? It's in spanish, since it was a law passed by Puerto Rican Governor Jesús T. Piñero and by the majority of Puerto Rican legislative branch......you have know what was going on at the time and why they passed that law which I will explain down further.
If you want translation its the same Federal law WISH2006 put links in his post....the difference is the penalties, the Puerto Rican LAW was a lighter version than the Federal one in penalties.
Law 53 that was passed in 1948 in Puerto Rico, it was a lighter version of the federal law we have today in the books and every country in the world has it . It makes illegal for anybody to promote, organize and recruit a militia to take down the government by force and violence and commit violence on government employees and civilians and government buildings federal or local....the LAW 53 penalty was 10 years max (which nobody did the max not even Albizu who ordered the assasination of President Truman and the first democratic elected governor of Puerto Rico Luis Munoz Marin and other criminal acts)....the federal law today is 20 years min.
I will get to the Puerto Rican flag and the history of flags in Puerto Rico since the Spanish Crown arrived in the island in another post. Again, you were fed wrong information by this agitator Nelson with his "WAR On Puerto Ricans" which is half truths, lies and rewriting history since he is an anti-american socialist/marxist.
1948 is the year that Puerto Ricans were allow to elect their governor in the first democratic elections. Albizu and his militia decided NOT to participate and wanted an arm guerilla war against the U.S. and the governmet of Puerto Rico by violence against government employees and government buildings. 99% of all Puerto Ricans were against that, even the majority in the Independence party which didn't want nothing to do with Albizu and his militia were against him and his militia tactics . Albizu wanted chaos and violence because he wanted to be the King of the ashes.......so the U.S. wanted Puerto Ricans to control their internal affairs and let the Puerto Rican government handle Albizu and his militia and wanted the local police to handle the threat instead of the U.S. Marines or the FBI. That's why LAW 53 was allow to pass, to show that Puerto Ricans in government had control of their internal affairs.
The Independence movement was NEVER prohibited in Puerto Rico like you stated, it was the violent militia of any party or movement that was against the law and its still against the law today. This is very easy to verify, just look at the history of the elections in Puerto Rico and you will see the PIP (Puerto Rican Independence Party) was in every ballot for every government office in Puerto Rico from mayors, representatives, Senators and Governor after LAW 53 was passed and in every democratic referendums on the status.
in 1948 the PIP candidate on the ballot was Francisco Susoni, he campaigned for governor under the INDEPENDENCE status and got 10% of the vote, he ran again in 1952 and 1956 and got less votes.....then in 1960 the party picked Julio Garcia Diaz then in 1964 Gilberto Concepcion de Gracia ran for governor, then in 1968 was Antonio Jay Gonzalez, then in 1972 was Noel Colon Martinez, then in 1976 and 1980 was Ruben Berrios then in 1984 Fernando Martin Garcia...then Ruben Berrios ran again in 1988 then Fernando Martin Garcia ran again in 1992 then David Noruega in 1996 then Ruben Berrios again in 2000 and 2004.....then in 2008 Edwin Irrizary Mora, then Juan Dalmau Ramirez in 2012 and the last one in 2016 was Maria de Lourdes Santiago.....that kills any lies and myths that the independence movement in Puerto Rico was prohibited after LAW 53 was passed in May/1948.
Nobody went to prison in Puerto Rico under a U.S. territory for singing a song, dancing or waiving a flag.....now if you went to a government building federal or local to blow up the building or shoot at government officials with a gun with the purpose of overthrowing the govermment by violence while singing a song and waiving a flag then you will be arrested under LAW 53.....NOT for singing or waiving a Puerto Rico flag but for the other part......just commom sense.
Albizu decided to takes arms against the U.S. GOVERNMENT and the Puerto Rican government and lost. End of the story, he didn't represent 99% of the Puerto Rican people, not even the official independence party in Puerto Rico didn't want him. That tells you all because if he would have had his way of killing President Truman and killing the governor of Puerto Rico with bullets and the rest of the violence he commited to bring everything down, the U.S. would have declared martial law in Puerto Rico and sent the U.S. MARINES to mop the floor in Puerto Rico and it would have been chaos like in Latin Republics which they are always in civil wars and it would have been bad for outside insvestments and the economy but like I said, Albizu didn't care, he just wanted to be the King of the ashes and didn't care about his consequences that the Puerto Rican people would suffer under a bloody war against his own people and the U.S.......funny that when he was alive not even the independence party wanted him, he couldn't get elected dog catcher then after he dies they try to make him into this martyr and heroe and re-write history to push a dead movement which is the independence movement.
Last edited by Hellion1999; 08-16-2017 at 02:14 AM..
i disagree with your last statement. it suggests that anybody who desires pr independence is somehow bad and an enemy.
they are if they promote and commit violence against their own people and government employees like Albizu and his militia and the Macheteros and Oscar's FALN whos ideology is a one party communist state. Oscar was a leader of a violent communist movement FALN and he is a hero for many in Puerto Rico? that I don't get. This is their platform:
Directing the armed and political struggle in accordance with the Marxist-Leninist principle of a broad front including a popular sectors willing to [ join ] the armed struggle right away
Agglutination of all forces based upon the principle of coordination between political work and military work under the leadership of a party composed of combatants assigned to different tasks
Application of the principle of internal ideological debate, a study of Marxist-Leninist ideology and the use of criticism and self-criticism
Implementation of the Stalinist ideological position on the concept of "nation" with regard to American reality
Application of the principle of the priority of the struggle for independence of Puerto Rico over any question of internal solidarity, demanding concrete support for our armed struggle as a priority matter in the international struggle against colonialism
if you think Cuba, North Korea, China, Vietnam, Laos and the Soviet Union is the model you want for Puerto Rico then we are in trouble and the colleges in P.R. are doing a bad job........implementation of Stalinist ideological position???? just on that alone Oscar should be executed......did he take history and know the damage Stalin created in his country and others and they say Oscar did his crimes for the love for Puerto Rico?.....don't love us that much if your models are Stalin and Lenin and you want that for Puerto Rico.
99% of all Puerto Ricans don't want a war with the U.S. and their own people and turn P.R. into a Colombia, El Salvador or a Venezuela or worse.
i disagree with your last statement. it suggests that anybody who desires pr independence is somehow bad and an enemy.
read what I wrote again ....Nobody has a problem with the non-violent independence movement who respects the constitution and laws and the views of others ....but if you support violence and terrorism to implement a communist/marxist hell hole then yes that is bad and you are the enemy.......comprende?
That's interesting. My point of discontent is the jail time levied against those who wanted to have their own country flag. Propaganda at work and we see the mainland US offers no help in Puerto Rico's governmental affairs, despite all that "one flag" ideology.
This has nothing to do with the Dominican or Cuban flags in the way this information is portrayed. Ten years in prison for owning your country's flag awful. I never knew this and am now ready to do more reading up on this Law that was implemented.
again, stop repeating lies and believig anything you read on the internet,.....nobody in Puerto Rico went to prison for 10 years for a flag. If you know a person in Puerto Rico that did 10 years in prison for a flag let me know his name and court case. It doesn't exist.
Puerto Rico didn't have officially a flag until 1952, when the democratic elected government of Puerto Rico adopted officially the Puerto Rican flag and the new constitution.
Under 400 years of Spain, the official flag of Puerto Rico was the Spanish flag and of course the 78 municipios had ther own flags which was common under Spanish rule. (Europeans love their flags and banners, too many if you ask me) .....from 1873 to 1898, the official flag of Puerto Rico was the province flag of Puerto Rico which doesn't look anything like the Puerto Rican flag of today........you had the Lares Revoluntion flag of 1868 but that was just a flag made up by a rebellion group that was easily put down and defeated , that doesn't make it the official flag.
then when the U.S took over in 1898, the official flag was the U.S. ..........the current design of today's Puerto Rican flag started in 1892 way before the U.S. arrived in Puerto Rico in New York City by exiles from the Lares revolt who joined the Cuban Revolutionary Committee to design a flag for the independence cause. Francisco Gonzalo Marin a Puerto Rican who was serving as a Lieutanent in the Cuban Liberation Army basically copied the flag design from the Cuban flag, he just change the colors....but that didn't make it official since that movement were not the official government of Puerto Rico. There are different accounts in how the design of the Puerto Rican flag came about and who should get credit but is not coincidence that its the same as the Cuban flag except the colors were switched.
The reason those flags weren't the "official" flag of Puerto Rico until 1952, its because not everbody in Puerto Rico supported the independence movement in P.R. in particular the leaders of the rebellion....NOT in Lares or after. They were a fraction of a segment in Puerto Rico. So its impossible to say what is "official" and what is not. The Puerto Rican militia put those rebellions out quickly.
If I start an indepedence rebellion and make my own flag that doesn't make it the "official" flag of Puerto Rico.
Last edited by Hellion1999; 08-16-2017 at 12:09 PM..
1950 - that's the same year the PR nationalist tried to kill President Truman in Washington D.C.
yeah...also they tried to assasinate the the fist ever democratic elected governor of Puerto Rico.......they invaded with arms the San Juan Prison and let 112 criminals escaped that resulted in the deaths of 2 prison guards and others severe injured. They went to 30 towns and tried to take them hostage by force that the U.S. declared martial law and sent in the National Guard and a shootout with the police to restore order.
in the town of Jayuya they took control of the Alcaldia and attacked the police department and set fire to the station and had control of the town for a few hours and declared it THE NEW REPUBLIC before they got shot down by the National Guard.
of course the leaders and every member of the nationalist group were arrested and investigated all the time. They weren't angels....they wanted to bring everything down by violence and be the Kings of the ashes.
That's the time when the U.S. was investing in Puerto Rico in roads, highways, hospitals, schools, housing and American companies were investing in Puerto Rico in the private sector to lift the economy and help many Puerto Rican families go from poor to the middle class and Albizu and the nationalists didn't want that and wanted to destroy all that so they can have their Marxist Republic hell hole at the cost of all Puerto Ricans.
the better people's lives improved the less support the Independence movement got.............their down fall was mistakes and arrogance like declaring war against the U.S. and the Puerto Rican government and their attempts to tear down government institutions in Puerto Rico and the other main reason the economy improved for the majority, Puerto Rico had a real middle class after the booming economy after WW 2.
that was the downfall of the independence movement,,,,,they underestimated the Puerto Rican voter that they will always choose their best economic interests above symbols and poems and the majority of the Puerto Rican people are not violent rebellious people overall looking to fight endless civil wars like in other Latin Republics.. It was proven under Spain and the U.S.
Last edited by Hellion1999; 08-16-2017 at 06:09 PM..
And what about the 95% of Puerto Ricans who don't want independence? Should we just install Jill Stein or Gary Johnson as president simply because some people think the 2 party system doesn't work even though practically nobody voted for them?
Please provide PROOF that 95% of Puerto Ricans don't want Independence.
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