Memento Mori: a Requiem for Puerto Rico

http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/09/29/memento-mori-a-requiem-for-puerto-rico/
Date Written:  2017-09-29
Publisher:  CounterPunch
Year Published:  2017
Resource Type:  Article
Cx Number:  CX21404

Puerto Rico is dying. Let those words sink in.Three and a half million people are without power, water, fuel, food, and support. This isn’t some uninhabited atoll.

Abstract: 
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Except:

How can I explain to people that Puerto Rico, my home, my island, my heart and soul, is dying?

The fear of death is an eternal companion in these situations. So as my country slowly agonizes, would it be appropriate for me to write a eulogy for its seemingly inevitable death? Perhaps some choice words as a send-off to the oldest colony in the world? As Donald Trump, the biggest psychopath to occupy the Oval Office so far, finally relents to growing public pressure and announces that federal funds will be made available in full to Puerto Rico, and as more aid slowly makes its way to the island, could I dare hope for a stay of its execution? Or is this just another delay in its pre-ordained death-by-empire?

President Trump's message to Puerto Rico was clear: pay up and drop dead. The island is expected to pay its imaginary debt for the dubious "privilege" of being an imperial colony in the way it's always done so: in blood. Wall Street's interests have priority over securing the very survival of nearly four million people. God forbid that millionaire Wall Street bondholders suffer the horror of payment forfeiture over a minor inconvenience like Hurricane María, only the worst storm in eighty years!