Word: statehood
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...minute they stood in solemn silence in memory of those who have died for the cause of Palestinian statehood. Then the delegates to the plenary session of the 178-member Palestinian National Council, which convened late last week in the Arab League's blue and green tiled headquarters in Cairo, got down to business. As the Palestinians' de facto parliament, the plenary was promising to be-as Palestine Liberation Organization Leader Yasser Arafat had earlier described it-"one of the most important meetings in Palestinian history...
...things, are relative. Often an idea seems rather commonplace until you take a look at who it comes from, and where he or she said it. Like the idea to enlist women deacons for the Roman Catholic Church, which came from the Pope, not Daniel Berrigan. Or statehood for Puerto Rico, which could surpass Washington D.C. as a Democratic Party stronghold, which came, most recently, from then-President Ford...
...hard to argue, if anyone does, that statehood would profit the rest of the United States. The system of tax incentives and cheap labor that has attracted investors up to now would have to go; there are no grounds for supposing the economy would improve, except through some massive welfare program. Per capita income in Puerto Rico is about $2300, while in Mississippi, the poorest state, it is over $4000. Though every state contains pockets of misery that are worse off, no single administrative unit is so depressed. The island's geographic isolation would make any renewed private investment unlikely...
...recent election of a pro-statehood candidate, Carlos Romero Barcelo, did not send Washington a mandate for statehood. The vote was probably more a rejection of the incumbent's failure to solve the economic problems, than a positive reaction to Romero's talents. In fact, despite the deep penetration of American styles and institutions and goods into Puerto Rico, there was a minority majority against statehood in the plebescite ten years ago, and there has always been a sizeable majority of intransigent opponents of any association with the United States...
THIS SPECULATION leads to the prophecies of a Cassandra, but the prospect of statehood does evoke ghoulish images. The cruellest trick for exterminating coyotes on the western ranges is to freeze a compressed spring inside a chunk of horsemeat. When the greedy animal gulps it down, his body heat melts the ice and the spring expands, piercing his stomach. It may seem expedient now to offer statehood to Puerto Rico rather than be discredited internationally as colonialists; to many Puerto Ricans it seems equally comfortable to be swallowed by the wealthiest best on earth. Ford could go down in history...