Ambrose M. Bennett
THE TRUTH of the matter is most adults have heard of the wisdom in “beating a dead horse or throwing good money after bad,” which is what WE the People continue experiencing with the IPI fiasco! Like most citizens I KNOW that gambling is NOT the direction we should be pursuing ever since it surfaced under the leadership of the late Most Reverend Bishop Thomas Camacho’s teachings. I was honored & glad to have helped him fight against the casino and I was even more glad to see the Chinese Government ordering the dismantling of IPI’s mother company and their previous statement that “the Chinese Government was NOT going to allow their citizens to travel to the CNMI for the purpose of gambling.” Now if I’m missing something, I hope someone will speak up and rectify what I see as pure political & economic dichotomies (contradictions) with IPI determined to continue with a casino and the Chinese Government is virtually saying NO! The question is WHAT is our government going to do and I pray not to just sit, watch & wait for someone in China to decide our fate for us AGAIN! When are WE going to be the Masters-of-our-economic-fate, which is what we teach children to do in school — duh!!!
The Casino Commission has also claimed to “suspended their services until further notice” and I want to know along with other citizens is “can We the People also suspend the Casino Commissioner’s salaries of 74,000 a year until further notice” given the fact that our government is literally counting pennies. If WE the people are to pay these commissioners, it is truly a WASTE of throwing our money away like We have witnessed with other Casino Commissioners on Rota & Tinian who were being paid for NOTHING — it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up to think about this kind of waste of OUR money in the hundreds of thousands! I Told Readers So nearly two years ago when it was obvious to me that the casino was dead in the water, that these commissioners were just going to extend the life of their jobs by playing legal games with IPI. Our Governor even knows IPI is dead and that WE need to change our sailing direction for better economic opportunities, especially when one of the companies that was supplying workers for IPI was partly owned by the Chinese Government that is part of the still pending RICO Case. I’ve always been ahead of the times and I know WE still have a lot to settle-up with Ralph.
The CNMI needs to be DONE with IPI like the Governor said given all the trouble IPI has caused so WE can have a plan to “Start-A-New,” like a “Convention Center that can attract large numbers of group tourists” and serve as the premier location for Local events. But whatever is done, it needs to be in a different direction from gambling, as you would think that a society which is predominantly Catholic that gambling would be suppressed instead of being “our politicians’ economic staple” but that’s a story for another day. However, Republicans have RUINED Tinian’s Casino and the CNMI with their Saipan casino idea and they continue sabotaging the CNMI’s politics. Just look at what they did to sabotage Democrats and what WE are learning Ralph did to us and now what just happened with Mr. Gonzales which is why I’m no longer involved in our dirty politics. But I pray for the CNMI’s future that voters will seriously think about giving Democrats & Independents a chance and “to-you-know-where with Republicans” even those in D.C. who are messed-up rooting for Trump facing 88 Indictments!!!
But the main thing is WE must stop beating the dead-horse-casino that has literally taken up almost an entire decade while the People have very little to show from IPI. No one said a word about OUR 77- million owed to the People and now it may be too late, as I was telling the CC two years ago to acquire IPI stock for their debts to the CNMI in case IPI filed Bankruptcy, but who listens to me. I was the only one complaining about our 77-million and bringing other issues to the forefront, but they (our leaders) pretend to have never read the op-ed nor heard of what I wrote, which most of us with common sense know is a LIE! They hate my “Ali-style” in the newspaper and not being a local led to “kill the messenger and to hell with his message” — for TRUE! But Local people pay the cost while time has proved me and many others to be right about the casino and only time will tell when our leaders & voters will change for the better — as Time has always been on my side to prove me RIGHT!
One People, One Direction.
Ambrose M. Bennett is an Economist who minored in Sociology, a Political Scientist, a retired teacher & former CNMI Board of Education Member, a James Madison Fellow (U.S. Constitutional Scholar), a Fulbright-Hays & lifetime Humanities Scholar who resides in Kagman III.
