WE note that the Chamorro Nation is now trolling the Internet for support for their “Anti Bases Campaign,” apparently hoping to dredge up lip service from other disaffected and dysfunctional elements worldwide. They’ll probably have more success there than at home, as it appears that the local campaign has pretty much fizzled. Their posting on PetitionsOnline.com contains the same old unsupported and unsupportable claims of oppression and abuse, apparently in the expectation that someone, somewhere, will accept it as gospel. We note the addition of a couple of new activist spin-offs: “Citizens for Peace and Justice for Guam” and the “ Guahan Indigenous Collective.” They just don’t get it. They can’t accept that (a) they don’t speak for the “People of Guam,” (b) they don’t speak for “The Chamorro People,” and (c) aside from their little band of malcontents, the residents of Guam in general, and especially Chamorros, have little interest in abandoning the benefits, privileges and protections they enjoy as United States citizens in favor of banana republic status. Whine as they may about colonized status and “second class citizenship,” they live in a community that towers head and shoulders above every non-U.S. Pacific insular venue in all things that really matter. This latest effort to stir unrest will likely be recognized by most who chance upon it as exactly what it is, and may well do their movement more harm than good.

DAVE DAVIS
Yigo, Guam