They will also grumble about the bombing of Farallon de Medenilla.
As U.S. citizens, however, they can vote for president. They just have to move to any of the states, or D.C., and register as a voter there.
Moreover, no land was “taken” from the NMI. In fact, when the islands joined the U.S., their land area of 179.01 square miles became 3.79 million square miles. From 15 small islands, the homeland of the local people suddenly became this huge nation, the third or fourth largest in the world.
As for FDM, the NMI leased it to the feds for 50 years for $20,600. See Section 803 of the 1976 Covenant, which was negotiated by the leaders of the NMI and overwhelmingly ratified by local voters. (Voter turnout was 95 percent and close to 80 percent of those who voted were in favor of the Covenant.) The NMI negotiating team was the Marianas Political Status Commission whose members represented Saipan, Tinian, Rota, the Northern Islands, the Carolinians, the two local political parties (Popular and Territorial, which are now the Democratic and Republican parties), the NMI legislature and the islands’ delegation to the Congress of Micronesia.
Besides the lease of FDM, the Covenant also included a provision allowing the U.S. Congress to one day extend federal immigration law to these islands.
When the plebiscite on the Covenant was held in the summer of the 1975, the local people voted with their eyes wide open. As then-District Administrator Frank Ada would put it, “Chamorros are the most well-educated political beings per capita in the whole world. Name me a place that can equal the political awareness and the political interest [found here]. Go down to the campaign and you will see [the] people. If during the program of political education before the plebiscite, the series of meetings and the news coverage during the course of the status commission, if you cannot educate anyone in that time, and we’re not talking about weeks, we’re talking about years…then you can never educate anyone.”
The local people were asked if they wanted to be citizens of the world’s richest and most powerful nation. Do we honestly believe they were “duped” into saying yes please?
What about the 51 percent who re-elected this disastrous administration? Despite broken promises, the worsening economy, clear and unmistakable evidence of utter incompetence and blatant corruption, the administration was given five more years by these voters. It was as if the CNMI was flipped out of the pan into the fire. Can we say that these voters were duped? Or were they just plain stupid? Or, which is most likely the case, they, like other voters in other democracies, voted based on their interests as they saw them?
I’m also perplexed by the status-quo defenders’ incoherent insistence on local control over immigration. That control resulted in the influx of thousands of despicable alien workers who then proceeded to mass produce U.S. citizen babies slash future CNMI voters. The pro-NMD camp and the governor basically want to bring in more foreign workers while claiming that they are for the “protection of local culture.”
Which brings us back to FDM. It was the “haole” Center for Biological Diversity, represented by another “haole” group, EarthJustice, that sued the Pentagon in 2002 over the bombing of that uninhabited 200-acre island. And it was a U.S. court in the U.S. capital that ordered the military to cease its activities on FDM until it complied with the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The U.S. Department of Defense, however, succeeded in getting exemptions from that law. At any rate, Saipan leaders, according to GlobalSecurity.org, “don’t want the [FDM] range to close because it would mean a loss of millions of dollars generated by port visits.”
Nothing prevents the NMI from renegotiating its status with the U.S. But except for the handful of TT relics and one or two commentators on MV online hiding behind eight or 10 usernames, where is the clamor in the local community for renouncing U.S. citizenship and refusing a wide array of federal assistance and doleouts?
As an American, you have the right to whine and pity yourself for imaginary grievances, refuse to read history or learn anything about it — or you can take advantage of the wealth of opportunities provided by your nation’s federal government and be like the other locals who have excelled in their chosen careers or professions and have become productive citizens who care about their community.
But it’s all a matter of perspective. Some would prefer to consider themselves as “victims” of history and second class citizens, if not “colonials.” I guess if you want to look at something in a certain way, you will eventually see what you want to see, even if it’s not there. As Goebbels supposedly said, if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. I should also point, however, that Goebbels was an evil scumbag, and he was dead wrong.
If you keep believing a lie you’ll go insane.
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