From Hollywood, it's time now for... Johnny Daller. Mr. Daller, the investigator. That's right, insurance investigating. Yes, well, my name is Frank Skinner, Mr. Daller. Yes? You see, my wife and I run the Sunny Dream Home up here at Buckton Center. All folks home, it is. I see. Well, now, what can I do for you, Mr. Skinner? Well, I'm afraid there's something wrong here, Mr. Daller. You see, we've never had anything like this before. Like what, sir? Well, to begin with, all our clients are pretty well insured. Yes. All our guests here at the home these past months, too many, Mr. Daller. Well, after all, if your clients are all very old people... Yes, sir, they are, but you see, these have all been accidental deaths. Yeah, well, don't forget, sir, that older people are very often quite prone to accidents. Yes, sir, that's true, but if you want the truth, I don't think they've been accidents. All? No, sir. And if something isn't done to stop this... Mr. Skinner, I think you're right. The exciting adventures of a man with the action-packed expense account. America's fabulous freelance insurance investigator. Yes, truly, Johnny Daller. Act one of yours truly, Johnny Daller. My special investigator, Johnny Daller. To the Universal Adjustment Bureau, Hartford, Connecticut. Following is an account of expenses incurred during my investigation of the sunny dream matter. Expense account item 110 cents for a phone call to Pat McCracken, my old friend in contact at Universal Adjustment Bureau. Oh, say I'm glad you called, Johnny. Yeah, well, Pat, I just want you to know I won't be available for a couple of days. Oh, yes, you will. And it isn't because of any insurance matter. Yes, it is. What's happened is that I've just received a phone call. It surrounds my curiosity. And while at any rate, any assignments you may have for me will have to wait until I get... Yeah, that's where you're wrong, Johnny. I said we'll have to wait until...what? Just happens you have an assignment right now. As a matter of fact, I was just about to call you. Well, can't await a couple of days? No, no. The sunny dream home for the agent? No. Never mind that. What's wrong over there that you know about? Well, they're all separate companies, huh? Yeah. Any particular reason for thinking something's wrong, aside from the unusual number of deaths? Yes. What? Step my jalopy at the side of the flying red horse that's item 2-425 and drove some 30 miles south and east on Highway 2. I found the sunny dream home just north of Buckland Center. It consisted of a huge old frame house surrounded by trees and well-kept gardens. Incomfortable chairs scattered here and there on the wide porch and lawn. Nice-looking, well-dressed older folks sat around reading, chatting, playing cards, enjoying the late afternoon sun. The whole place looked clean, quiet, and restful. After parking my car, I walked slowly up the long, flower-boarded walk under the trees toward the entrance. And as I did so, a little wizened old man in a wheelchair detached himself from a group of the old folks and wheeled over to me. Mr. Dollar? Yeah, that's right. I'm Frank Skinner, the one that called you. Oh, how are you, Mr. Skinner? Come right along in the office where we can talk. Yeah, sure. Oh, may I give you a hand with that chair? Nope, don't need it. I must say you handled it well. Sure, haven't been on my feet in over five years now. You can help me up this little ramp, though, if you don't mind. Oh, sure. My stepson built me that ramp. Good idea. Yes, sir. It's a big help to a man that can't use his legs. Now, right around the side of the porch here. Oh, evening, Miss Baker. Good evening, Mr. Skinner. Ah, here we are. If you just open the door. Sure. You just sit down there and I'll get right to the point. Okay, fine. Now, if you listen to me, I'd appreciate it if you'd let the folks here think that you've just come to look over the place like maybe you've got some old relative you'd like a nice home for. In other words, you don't want to alarm your clients. Guests, Mr. Dollar, they are honored guests. All happy and with no worries. Uh-huh. Well, I must say that those I saw outside looked perfectly content, but now about those so-called accidents. Five of our people have died within the last six months, Mr. Dollar. Five of them. Terrible. And like I told you on the telephone, they looked like accidents. What kind of accidents? Well, now the first one. Well, maybe it was. That was old Miss Epp. Lived in the little guest cottage out back. What happened? Small fire. Must have started in the waste basket or something by the time we got to her. Well, she'd suffocated. And I suppose Mr. Purley might have been accidental too. Food poisoning, it was. At least that's what the doctor called it.  Who was the doctor? Old Doc Cherry from town. Of course, Mr. Purley was the only one that had three helpings of them. But my wife never had trouble with her canning before. Well, go on, Mr. Skinner. Well, old Miss Charmley fell down the main stairs to the living. Look through the door there. You can see the stairs. Well, that's a long stairway for elderly folks. Then Miss Lizzie Bell. We called her Miss Lizzie Bell, though her real name was... What happened to her? She fell out the window of her bedroom. And Mr. Dollar, she just wasn't strong enough to get her window open that wide she was 94. Then poor old Miss Betzler, she fell down the stairs too. Well, Mr. Skinner, if those people aren't able to negotiate a stairway like that, you're at fault for requiring them to do it. Well, most of them are. The others had their rooms here on the first floor like I have to. How about Miss Lizzie Bell, who was 94? Well, she never left her room until she fell, or until she was pushed by somebody younger and stronger than she was. Well, unless you can prove something like that. I have to prove that those others were pushed down the stairs. Great so.  Even so many of them, all within a space of only six months. Unless, as I say, you can come up with some concrete evidence to indicate otherwise. All right, then. You can tell me this. Why did all those things happen late at night when those poor old folks wouldn't have any reason to be up and around when there wasn't anybody around who could help them until it was too late? Well, so far as that's concerned. Oh, sure, sure. Folks have got to get up at night sometimes, one reason or another. But they all had their own private bars, and if they want anything from downstairs, like something to read or some hot milk, something like that, all they have to do is room the push button in their room, and my wife gets it for them. We do that all the time. Where is your wife, by the way? Martha, why she's so lucky. Right here, Frank.  Well, Martha, this is Mr. Johnny Dollar Insurance Investigator. Investigator, huh? Well, you can march yourself right out of here. Well, not just a minute, Mrs. Skinner. Just a minute, nothing.  Mrs. Skinner. And if you don't, I'll throw you out. If you don't think I'm young and strong enough, then I'll show you. Strong enough to throw a little old lady out of a window? Or shove a couple of people downstairs?  Act two of yours truly, Johnny Dollar, in a moment. And now for another episode in the life of Sergeant Donald Bellwether, my husband. Well, good dinner, Eva. Oh, that was delicious. Well, I'm glad to hear that, dear. More coffee? Uh, yeah, just about a half a cup, please. All right. There you are. Now, tell me all about your safety class.  Oh, yeah, sure did. Thanks to you, I did quite well. My lieutenant complimented me afterwards. Oh, good. Yeah, but that same lieutenant threw me a curve, too. Oh, dear. Well, after I gave my talk, he asked the men if there were any questions. Well, I did it. One of the guys stood up and said, uh, said, look, Sarge, you claim there were over 95,000 deaths and over 9.5 million people injured in accidents in the U.S. last year. Uh, it looks to me like all those safety campaigns and slogans are doing no good at all. Oh, how did you answer it? I couldn't think of an answer. I got out of it by saying I'd have more facts and figures at the next meeting. All right, let's see now. Oh, yeah, here it is. Now, first, Sergeant Bellweather, you start off by telling the boys that since 1913, the accidental death rate has been reduced 35%. Mm-hmm. Or in other words, if there hadn't been campaigns and safety measures put into effect to reduce accidents, almost a million more people would have been killed in the last 46 years. Hmm, that's all right. It certainly is. I'm reading it right out of a National Safety Council record book. Oh, and another thing, accidents in the farming areas are much higher than in the city. But you know why? Why? Because in rural areas, there are fewer policemen enforcing safety laws and less traffic signs and signals to guide the motorists. Mm-hmm. You know, many more cars travel the city streets, and yet the per capita rate of accident is much higher in the rural areas. Of course, the reason is obvious. In the city, more safety measures are instituted and obeyed. Reba, you are wonderful. That's a good logical answer. I don't know what I'd do with that. Oh, that's my Donald. That's my Donald. Act two of yours truly, Johnny Dollar and the Sunny Dream Matter. Martha Skinner, co-owner and the real manager of the Sunny Dream Home for the Aged, was a big woman, tall, muscular, and a lot younger than her husband.  Your husband seems to think those deaths here in your home for the Aged weren't so accidental, Mrs. Skinner. No, he does. Yes, I, uh, that's what I told him, dear. If you'd keep that mouth of yours shut, Frank, we wouldn't have this sort of thing. Why don't you and that wheelchair get out of here? You sound as though you have something to hide, Mrs. Skinner. I have nothing to hide. Don't you see what you're coming around here will do to our nice place? It'll give us a bad name. That's what it'll do. Folks, come here on the recommendation of the folks that live here. If your sort starts prowling around, it'll make our nice home for them sound like a murder factory, and I won't have it. Oh, now just calm down a moment. Those poor old folks, Miss Lizzie Bell and Mr. Perley and the rest, were accidental, that's all. Have you got any reason to think they weren't? Well, I didn't have until a minute ago. What do you mean by that? If they weren't accidents, well, it certainly took somebody younger and stronger to push them down those stairs. You mean me? Well... No. No, Mr. Dollar, you're wrong. And if anybody started that talk about not being accidents, I guess I did. Yes, you did, but... I was so upset those fine old people passing away while they were like family to me. I guess I said a lot of things that didn't make sense. Until the doctor and the police came around and told me I was wrong. The police investigated? Yes, and they made quite a stir. I guess that's why you were being here, as you're upset, Martha. Well, of course, if they found nothing. Mr. Dollar, do you think that I could do anything like what you would... that I could harm a single hair of any of these nice old people? What possible reason could I have? And what sense would it make by we're being paid for their living here and if anything happens to them? Yeah.  You know about that. Insurance investigator, remember? No. No, you're wrong. It was their idea to name us and their policies. Now, wasn't it Frank? Yes, Martha. He's searching anyway. Well, let's not talk about it anymore now. It's getting late, so I think I'll drive back to Buckland Center and have some dinner. Well, you do no such thing. Now, you'll have your supper, your dinner, right here. And if you wish to stay overnight. Oh, no. You mean I'll have another room to fix up? Well, I'll help you, of course. Walter, this is Mr. Johnny Dollar. Dollar? The insurance investigator I hear about all the time on the radio? That's right, sir. What's your business here, Dollar? Frank called in, son. Yes. About those accidents? That's right. What do you think about them, Walter? Look, Dollar, mother's got enough trouble without you coming around here. Walter. Well, it's true, ma. You know it. First it's a police making a big racket. We've been through all that, Walter. I asked you a question. Well, why don't you get out of here and leave us alone?   Oh, well, sir. Year after year, working like a dog for a lot of old fogies. Are there only the three of you to take care of this place? That's right, old one. Of course, Frank here is a lot of help tied down to that wheelchair. Well, I do all the office work. Oh, sure. Big deal. Handle all the money, too. Well, what about the talk that as soon as we get enough money, we can sell out and get away from here? Hey, look, Dollar, what difference is it to you who keeps this place up?  Yeah. Yeah. Would you like a little demonstration on you? What do you mean by that? Well, maybe I'll tell you after I've had a look around. Then you will stay. Oh, yeah, I'll stay until I'm satisfied. Well, you won't be here for long if I've got anything to do with it. Understand? Is that a threat, Walter?  I'm sorry, Mr. Dollar. I'm sure he didn't mean that the way it sounded. Well, tell me, do you two have joint ownership of this place? You and Mr. Skinner? Well, uh... Well, it's really in my name. And if anything were to happen to you? It would go to Frank and Walter. I see. Walter said that you've talked about getting enough money to sell out and leave this place. He certainly did. Is that what you're planning to do? Yes, sir. Well, I'm not so sure. Of course you are. I've grown to love this place. And all the nice people who... Mr. Dollar. Yeah? Enough money, you said. Like a lot of insurance money from... Oh, no. You can't think that Walter would... Oh, no, no. He's spoiled and fresh and impetuous and talks a lot, but... Surely you don't think it. Mr. Skinner, what would you think? Act three of yours truly, Johnny Dollar, in a moment. Do you know who said, eternal vigilance is the price of liberty? Those famous words were written by Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson knew that human nature tends to cause us to take for granted the freedoms for which others have fought valiantly. He knew that Americans had to be alert, or the essential freedoms of democracy would be taken away. That's why Jefferson gave his warning to the Americans of his era and to their descendants. He set the price for liberty as eternal vigilance. And Americans, through the years, have heated Jefferson's warning. They have been alert to detect and resist the enemies of liberty. Remember the words of Thomas Jefferson. They are part of your American heritage. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.  At dinner that evening, I made a point of chatting with as many guests of the Sunny Dream Home for the age it is possible. Sweet old Mrs. Baker, who must have been in her 80s, pretty much summed things up as we talked together in the porch in the cool of the evening. You're all really kind of sorry for Walter, Mr. Donna. A young man like that doesn't really have a place here among all of us old ones. Yeah, I wonder why he doesn't go out on his own then, Mrs. Baker. Because in spite of his brash, noisy way, he loves his mother Martha. And since she has so much to do taking care of us, why, he just stays and helps her. Isn't she one of the loveliest people you ever met? Well, she certainly seems devoted to you, folks. And she is.  And Mr. Skinner? Very nice. Handles the business affairs of the home real good too. Doesn't generally know, but he's the one who gave us the idea of making out our insurance to the Sunny Dream. Oh. Of course, we never told Martha. Oh, there you are. Evening, Miss Baker. What a nice young man this is, Mr. Skinner. We've been having a wonderful time talking away about this and that. That's fine. They make you a comfortable room upstairs, Mr. Donna. Yeah. Right at the head of the stairs. Very comfortable. Good. Well, don't let me interrupt. I'd like to talk to you a minute if Mrs. Baker will excuse us. Why, of course. Thank you. And we'll talk again tomorrow, won't we? Sure, of course you won't. Good night. Mr. Skinner, when was the last accident when someone fell down those long stairs? Eh? Why, uh, that was Miss Bedstra early this month. Why? Well, at the head of them as I came out of my room, I found something that, well, they were marks that looked to me as though they'd been made by some kind of struggle up there. Oh.  From a man's suit caught in a splinter on the new post. Well, uh, what are you going to do about it? Oh, just leave it there. Tomorrow I'll get somebody from the police, the police laboratory, over here to look at it. Well, whoever suit that was must have a tire. Oh, no, not necessarily. It was really just a few threads that had been pulled out. But they might be the clue to a killer. I see. Well, good luck, Mr. Dollar. Yeah. Thanks. In my room, I waited until long after the big home was quiet. And wondered, wondered if my hunch was going to pay off. Hunch? Sitting there in the porch talking with old Mrs. Baker, I'd suddenly remembered something Pat McCracken had told me in the very beginning. He had notified the home I was coming here to investigate. That meant he'd notified Frank Skinner. Could that have been why Skinner phoned me? To allay any suspicion the insurance companies might have? Yeah, I wondered. Finally, about midnight, I heard a noise at the head of the stairway. Quietly, I opened my door. And there, at the top of the stairs, armed with a flashlight and standing solidly on his own two feet was the man who said he was confined to a wheelchair. Mr. Dollar! You won't find anything there, Mr. Skinner, because there isn't anything. See? You lied to me. It got you up out of that phony wheelchair, didn't it? To see if you'd left some trace of your last murder, didn't it? Now listen, darling. Pretty rotten racket, Skinner. You and only you handle all the finances of this place. You've persuaded the old folks to name you as beneficiary of their insurance policies. Then you proceeded to shove them down those stairs. Would you like to see how? Yes, Skinner. Then I'll... Show you! No, you don't. Whatever sentence they hand him, will be much too short. The sunny dream home... Well, I hope it'll be the quiet, peaceful place his wife wants to be. Expensive count total, including incidentals, $12 even. Yours truly? Johnny Dollar. Nate's in Hollywood and is produced and directed by Jack Johnstone, who also wrote tonight's story. Heard in our cast were Virginia Gregg, Peggy Weber, Junius Matthews, Larry Dobkin, and Bert Holland. Be sure to join us next week. Same time and station for another exciting story of yours truly, Johnny Dollar. Is Dan Cumberley speaking? Quiet facilities of the United States Armed Forces Radio and Television Service.


Welcome to things three things cell phones turn them off please second there are more feedback forms on the membership table if you want to pick one up on your way out the program committee really really values your input and speaking of the program committee we know that our the head of the committee Beth is not with us right for this semester she'll be back next semester but she is very much with us in as far as planning for the next semester and being involved in everything that's going on so she's still with us at the end of November the week after Thanksgiving is our lunch and we have a wonderful lunch there is a cost it's $15 and it's going to happen right in here we set up tables and it starts at 1230 in the back of the room is a sign-up sheet you can sign up and bring your money next week and after the luncheon it will be at 2 o'clock a regular lecture so now where is our yes here she is going to introduce our speaker my name is Sandy and I'm here and I'm happy to introduce Professor John Waldron from the Department of Romance Languages at UVM Professor Waldron graduated from universities in California he has his PhD from the University of California at Irvine correct and his undergraduate degrees and master's degree degrees from the University of California at Santa Barbara he is the author of many books and articles he has recently done a book on globalism globalization edited a volume globalization in Mexico and he is also a teacher of film studies and this spring we hope he will be teaching a film class in Havana Cuba at the University of Havana so if anybody's interested in that please sign up and come with us and under the continuing ed program here's Professor Waldron know to speak about the other wing of the bird Puerto Rico the two wings are Puerto Rico and Cuba hello I'm not used to using one of these and I'm also not used to lecturing usually my when I talk to my students it's a lot more interactive so if you feel you know like asking me a question or something feel free to you know jump in so thanks for that introduction that was fantastic and thanks for this invitation I really appreciate the opportunity to come and talk to people outside the UVM bubble maybe it'll you know make a difference and it's also a beautiful fall day love the the leaves the late fall we're having so when I talked to Sandy about this I think she I don't remember exactly what she wanted but it was something about port something about Puerto Rico she said and because Maria had just happened and I'm teaching a course kind of on this topic I thought well let me talk about Puerto Rico Maria Maria and a thing called coloniality like coloniality is not exactly colonialism for many people for most of us colonialism is over it was over a long time ago but Puerto Rico as some of you may know is considered the law the oldest colony in the world from the time of Columbus's arrival in 1493 until many people would consider legally it still is a colony today but coloniality is the continuation of colonialist practices in the present day so it's the continuation of the imposition of capitalist structures the imposition of racist gender bias and in short heteronormative practices throughout the world and so the subtitle is the shock doctrine and the oldest colony in the world and some of you may be familiar with Naomi Klein's work on the environment and shock doctrine she came to Puerto Rico shortly after Maria and gave several talks did a lot of work there she has a great book if you're interested in more about Puerto Rico the shock doctrine called the battle for paradise the shock doctrine is essentially what we see happening in Puerto Rico which is after a collapse after an event that causes an extreme disruption in society neoliberal governments and other entities move in and try to impose neoliberal reforms and that's precisely what's happening in Puerto Rico today the governor took it who's a Republican governor took took the the tragedy of Maria as the time to begin to try to privatize everything from education to the electric system to the telephone system public works etc so this is what the shock doctrine is and anyway so let me get started here as some of you may know Puerto Rico was inhabited by a group of indigenous peoples before the arrival of Columbus this group of indigenous peoples and inhabited most of the islands of the greater Antilles and some of the lesser Antilles and these people were called tahinos if you go to Puerto Rico you can still see places like this this is considered a ceremonial ground but they and on these rocks a lot of times you'll see carved images from I guess the gods and the Spanish keeps coming out sorry the gods and other entities of their of their religion not but not much is known about them because for the most part they were they and their culture were eradicated because of disease overwork etc that happened as a result of the invasion of the Spaniards into in Puerto Rico the other thing that but but recently they've done a lot of genetic studies on people who are of Puerto Rican descent and they found that I think something like 60% of all Puerto Ricans have some genetic genetic linkage to the Taino Indian so they're you know the argument is oh no they're still here so you know whatever you want to do with that so so here's where Puerto Rico is located in terms of you know geographically and so one of the reasons I mean Puerto Rico is kind of an interesting thing be interesting in a lot of different ways but one of the things is is that you know it's a small and kind of forgotten island and yet it ends up being super important there's some reason why the Spaniards wanted to conquer it and wanted to keep it even though it didn't have vast reserves of gold or other types of things that they could extract for easy wealth the same thing Theodore Roosevelt prior to 1898 when the United States invaded Puerto Rico during the Spanish-American War Theodore Roosevelt said the United States must have Puerto Rico we have to have it and one of the reasons for this is that Puerto Rico occupies a strategically important point in the Caribbean Theodore Roosevelt had as his you know theater what I'm sorry about the sound it was Theodore Roosevelt wanted to you know they were constructing the Panama Canal at that time and Puerto Rico was seen as the gateway to the Caribbean for that and also you know and for the same reasons the Spaniards wanted it I mean it's a very small island so you can't really grow tons of sugar or coffee on it it didn't have a lot of gold but strategically it's always been seen as of military importance and so if you go to Puerto Rico if you haven't already been there yeah I'm sure you will take a visit of this incredible place which has actually been renovated recently in the last 10 years or so when I first went there longer ago than I care to admit it was not it was not it was cool but it wasn't as great as it is now it's a really incredible historical site to see but this is called El Morro and this sits out on the point that guards the entrance to this is the bay the entrance to the bay over here but that's sort of I put that there is sort of a symbol right of Puerto Rico is is usually seen as a military base by the people who own it and want it and for no other reasons so what happened so the Spaniards in you know they colonized Latin America they controlled most of Latin America except for Brazil and Haiti and other places and then in the early part of the 1800s there were independence movements throughout Latin America for a lot of different reasons Spain began to lose power the Napoleonic invasions in Spain etc and and so the Spanish Empire begins to lose power and the Criollos the the wealthy ruling class in Latin America say well why are we paying money to this crown that doesn't really have any power and they took over that's kind of a very simplistic version of what happened so the result the result of this and also the and also this is you know after the Haitian Revolution which was also very important the result of this is to fold in Puerto Rico one thing that happens is that the more conservative people in Latin America who did not want to become free from the Spanish Crown migrated to Puerto Rico because Puerto Rico and Cuba were the only two colonies in Latin America that did not become independent the result of the Haitian Revolution which happened earlier was that there was a decline in sugar production so you know Haiti was for a lot of different reasons the most productive colony in the world for sugar in part because the French were such brutal colonists they went through they worked their slaves literally to death and they also had you know vast extensions of land that they used for sugarcane production and so after after the Haitian Revolution and after the Haitian Revolution in Latin America you have an influx of more conservative typed people and also an increase in sugar production so you have an increase in sugar production and also an increase in coffee production so what what happens as a result of this is Puerto Rico becomes more wealthy but at the same time it's it's no longer just a military base it's now the lands of Puerto Rico which you know some historians say people Puerto Rico was sort of self-sufficient in terms of agriculture it now becomes a monoculture or a bicultural entity and their their economy becomes more and more dependent on export so they become kind of dependent on this sort of colonial capitalist relation with Europe right being able to export sugar export coffee and so they then need to import slaves where before Puerto Rico did not have that many slaves the they increase substantially the number of slaves so so what happens in around the during the middle to late part of the 1800s is we have independence movements one of the independence movements is led by this guy who I'm sure most people may know already Jose Marti who was exiled from Cuba was a Cuban independence leader and he met up actually with these other two guys over here this is a material bethances Ramona material bethances and Eugenio Maria de Ostos both independence leaders in Puerto Rico and they devised a plan to what they wanted to do was to unite the Caribbean or at least unite the Spanish-speaking Caribbean under the same flag so they devised a thing called they were going to have their own screams or gritos right el grito de lares and el grito de yares yares in Cuba the Cuban one was a little bit more respect a little bit more successful I think it lasted it it it resulted in what what's called the ten years war the one in Puerto Rico lasted only a few months and impart and part of that is in part because of the you know the more conservative people who came to Puerto Rico didn't want Puerto Rico to be independent and so they were they were outed they were you know by spies here we have this is the flag from el grito de lares and it's also a flag that a lot of the people in favor of independence today will use so this is so in 1898 in 1898 the United States invades Puerto Rico and Cuba and here we have a picture of that invasion the invasion was not met with a lot of resistance in Puerto Rico was not was not met with a lot of resistance in Puerto Rico in part because Puerto Rico a lot of people in Puerto Rico at the time had looked to what had happened when the United States had invaded other lands and territories for example just recently historically just maybe 50 years before they had invaded huge extensions of Mexico what was then Mexico that resulted in the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Helgo which gave the United States what is now Texas California Nevada color all those western states with sort of Spanish sounding names that that was all part of Mexico and after the invasion of 1848 those all became well after you know many years of course they all became states so Puerto Rico thought well you know won't be so bad you know we'll have a demo we'll become a democracy you know it'll be alright this didn't happen and I'll talk about more I'll talk about that a little bit later for about reasons why but here is kind of an interesting thing so there was actually you know they say that Puerto Rico is the longest oldest colony in the world but there's actually you know a couple weeks when it wasn't right there's a week or two in between the invasion of the United States and the Treaty of Paris that gave Puerto Rico to the United States's war prize when it was not it was not a colony it was actually in terms of hostos free so here is my really awful translation of what hostos says in his diary during those weeks he says I missed the fervent play place a good job I miss I miss the fervent pleasure with which I breathed what I called the breeze of the nation which seemed the purist to me the most regenerative of all the possible breezes I miss the effective force that I loved from my land in reality I missed the patria I was disgraced at the same time after years of efforts when I thought I would see the force of native society native society raised them I saw them faint and fall by the same force I had believed in so he here is talking about that you know and here we see this you know the transition here he's feeling free you know this incredible regenerative breeze my I loved my land I missed my homeland but then I was disgraced instead of my people raising up and fighting the way that I thought they would they were fallen by by the same force I had believed in which I'm not sure exactly what that means but but they fall and he's really upset so there's a period of time there's a period of time that that happens between 1898 and 1917 when Puerto Ricans essentially have no recognized identity so there were their stories of people of an artist for example who's in Paris and he can't travel he can't leave France because he doesn't have an officially recognized passport nobody knows who we officially has no status there are other stories like that like people who are living in New York at the time and they can't leave the United States because they don't have papers that let them leave so this became a problem for the US they didn't know what to do with these people all of a sudden they have you know this whole island of people and they don't they they're trying to figure out what to what to do so this resulted in a really really weird thing and I have Tim you're out to thank thank for this because many years ago he directed me toward a book called foreign in a domestic sense which is it resulted in this in this series of things of court cases called the insular cases so these cases were used to determine what the status of Puerto Rico would be like would would they become citizens would they not become citizens would Puerto Rico become a state would it remain independent and the problem was because people I think constitutionally we can't have a colony it's illegal for us to have a colony or at least people thought so so this resulted in a decision that's really weird and resulted in kind of the weird political status status that Puerto Rico occupies until today called foreign in a domestic sense if anybody can figure out what that means exactly please let me know I'd love to hear it but but essentially what happened was that Puerto Rico Puerto Ricans were given US citizenship and this happened in 1917 with a thing called the Jones law but they were not considered the Puerto Rico itself is not considered part of the United States so it's part of the United States in some respects but not part of it and others one of the reasons why they were given citizenship precisely during that year was because you need a United States needed people to go to war right they're involved in World War one and they needed people to conscript so the deal was okay we'll give you a citizenship you'll be able to travel but you have to send your men to the war so that's that's kind of what happened so one of the questions that comes up a lot is well why like why was it that that before you know for Puerto Ricans and everybody else is like well why was it that before you were you know you invaded these other lands but you and you let them become states and why not us what's the deal why are we so special and part of the thing that happened it has to do with some really complex stuff that's happening in the United States at the time and it's kind of led by this guy Henry Cabot Lodge who you the name may ring a bell and he he and others I mean it seemed kind of hard to believe but maybe not that that the that the Civil War was still on everybody's mind and so they were trying to figure out ways to bring the country together ways to unite the country and one of the ways they came up with was with this sort of myth that they created called the two two tonic consult consitutionalism which was this idea that people and that's why I have a picture that of the German forests here that people who emerged from the German forests were genetically predisposed to democracy I'll send you the article it's there I mean it's it's written down he argues this legally and he got other people to believe him Henry Adams was actually the first proponent of this idea so it was an idea that that like okay so we can we you know people who come out of the emerged from these forests we are capable of democracy but these other people aren't right and so that's what that's different that's what separates us from them so Cabot Lodge's argument for keeping Puerto Rico out of the United States was we can't have all these these people who aren't from two tonic forests coming into our country because they don't know what democracy is they will not be able to participate in a democracy right are there any questions it's weird it's weird and my students I mean I taught about this in my class and they're just like this is science fiction right and I'm like no look it's there and and one of the reasons I teach this is because I'm not a history teacher I'm a literature teacher and one of the reasons I teach this is to show the importance of literature and show the importance of cultural images that we use right so they created they use this myth right a fantasy a story and this fantasy or story became law and it shaped law and it shaped the ways that laws were written it also resulted in a couple of severe things so in Puerto Rico in 1938 Puerto Ricans are like I don't like this a lot of them were I this is not good I don't know I want to be independent and so there was a group of nationalists people who were in favor of the independence of the country who are in favor of nationalism and they had a march in Ponce in south of Puerto Rico on the day of come on Sunday so and they're just walking I mean that some of them I think may have had wooden guns I don't know they're walking and at the time the you during that time the US decided who would be the rule the governor of the island during that time this guy Blanton Winship who's got you know if you read his history he's really well known for you know having a very hard hand and putting down any kind of opposition he called in the military and the police and told them to open fire so this resulted in a thing called a masacre the masacre in Ponce which is a really important moment in Puerto Rican history but it is also a moment curiously enough that if you talk to a lot of Puerto Ricans of the gender of certain generations many of them don't know about it because it wasn't something normally taught in school and it isn't taught in our schools of course but and here interesting talk about the way news you know we're all worried about fake news these days and how you know news is kind of manipulated here is the the man himself Blanton Winship who goes to Ponce because the the story that they developed was oh there were snipers up on the balcony and they were shooting at us and that's why we we started fire so here he is looking up at the balcony from which they fired which and you know it was a total fabrication that did not happen but here we see you know the dead you know the bloodied police officer who was killed no I wasn't pleased though that's a protester there were no police officers killed there we have it fake news so so in in this you know environment emerges this person don Pedro Pedro Vizucampos who's in favor of nationalism he's in favor of Puerto Rico becoming independent and he becomes a very sort of stern and even sometimes violent voice in favor of Puerto Rican independence he has a connection to Vermont he went to the University of Vermont for for a semester and then and then went to Harvard after that and became a lawyer so here's don Pedro and then we have the other person the other pole is Luis Muñoz Marine so if you ever go to Puerto Rico you probably fly into the Luis Muñoz Marine Airport the airports named after him he was in favor of he was in favor of sort of the status quo of Puerto Rico his his philosophy was one that Puerto Rico is not yet economically ready to be independent we aren't you know because and also I mean Puerto Rico had a lot of economic problems they illiteracy rate was very high etc because of all their years of coloniality under Spain so he's like well Puerto we're not ready yet so we need to develop ourselves economically and socially culturally before we can be independent so those are the two people who sort of duked it out so in 1948 they have a very key election the election will be to decide who is going to be the first elected governor of Puerto Rico who ends up being Luis Muñoz Marine and whether what Puerto Rico's status should be should be so Puerto Ricans were actually going to vote and they do sometimes from time to time in a thing called a plebiscite to decide should they be be independent or should they should the status quo of I think it's now officially called Estado Libre Asociado a free associated state should they do that so that's great right they're gonna have a democratic election fantastic that's good we like democracy but what was happening at the time was also McCarthyism starting to rise Pedro Alviso Campos along with his nationalism is in contact with quote-unquote rebel quote-unquote revolutionaries throughout Latin America the US sees him as a threat because they think he's communist and so they want to put it they don't want him to win obviously so they institute a law called la de Mordaza a gag law this law makes it illegal to speak in favor of independence it makes it illegal to speak against the United States it makes it illegal to speak in against for the free associated state it makes it illegal to have a Puerto Rican flag a man was actually arrested for having a Puerto Rican flag inside his house a poet who I actually had the opportunity to meet Francisco Matos Paoli was imprisoned in this place ironically called La Princesa or the princess and he wrote poetry on the walls of his prison cell which were later whitewashed over by the guards and then he wrote the paper he wrote them on like rice paper that was secreted into him and they folded it up in rice and coffee bags out to his wife who then ironed the poems and later published them I actually got to see those that was really fantastic and he eventually kind of slowly became you know mentally unstable and remained so for the rest of his life the other thing that happened was that because of court he was imprisoned because he gave a speech in favor of independence the other thing that happened of course is that Pedro Alviso Campos of course he's imprisoned for many many years and subjected in the prison in a prison in Georgia to radiological experiments so we see the effects of those experiments here on his body so he died shortly after being released from prison so here's some key I guess historical moments the 1917 Jones law the 1938 Massacre de Ponce 1948 Le Mordazza Luis Muñoz Maninas elected the first government Puerto Rican government by the Puerto Rican people and in 1950 Operation Bootstrap before I talk about Operation Bootstrap I'd like to talk like to talk about another thing that happened with not the 17 Jones law but a one I think was in 1924 also called the Jones law excuse me that affected what happened in Maria and that is that and also has an incredible economic effect on the people of Puerto Rico and that is that anything that is imported into Puerto Rico has to come to Puerto Rico on a US flagged ship so that means it has to pass through a port usually passes through a port in Savannah and so everything has to be offloaded then unloaded this drives up you can imagine the price of anything that's coming to Puerto Rico is driven up incredibly it also after Maria had an incredible effect because other countries wanted to send aid to Puerto Rico but were unable to because the things they wanted to send had to be loaded on to American flagged ships Trump suspended that lie I think for maybe three weeks and then because of the shipping law he got so upset he let it go back so that's what okay now Operation Bootstrap operations Bootstrap is really important as it happens in 1950s 50s is a real pivotal year so the thing with Operation Bootstrap is it begins a thing called developmentalism or disarrayismo and it is in order to solve the grinding so Puerto Rico suffered the same effects of the Great Depression as anybody else suffered about worse and they didn't end it was still going on in the 1950s so they Institute Munoz mining institutes a thing called Operation Bootstrap with the United States Teodoro Moscow so if you go across this bridge after leaving the airport that has Puerto Rican flags on either side I think that's the Puente Moscow so named after him and Operation Bootstrap brought factories to the United to Puerto Rico it brought industry it brought technology it made it easier for for factories to do work because they you know they had tax breaks and things like this and it completely in many ways it completely transforms the landscape of Puerto Rico because now the Puerto Rican laborer rather than working his plot of land or her plot of land is now encouraged to go to the city and work in the factories Ray Marquez has an incredible play called La Carreta which details this this movement of the Puerto Rican people into the city it didn't really do a whole lot I mean there are a lot of studies about it and it essentially what the effect was was to move people from the country to the city in terms but the people weren't really paid a livable wage working circumstances were very difficult so it didn't do a whole lot as far as helping the environment of the economic environment but it did do some things this model up and this is another thing that happens like if you study Puerto Rican culture a lot the model of Operation Bootstrap is then employed by the United States and other and not the United States but companies throughout Latin America and throughout the global South and we see one of the the effects in Mexico with the Machiadoras the Machiadoras is an idea that that's spraying from Operation Bootstrap and this is something that that happens in Puerto Rican Puerto Rico is as many times seen as sort of this experiment a laboratory for things that the United States and companies want to see if they'll work there and then they go and use them elsewhere so another really important thing is the island of Vecas so this is kind of very symbolic in many ways so you have this incredible island and you'll notice that this half has roads on it but this half doesn't and it's called restricted area anybody know why the United States all the military people over there right what bombing range yeah it was a bombing range it was used the US used it for to practice to practice air land air land and sea assaults yep so that happened that was that way for many years until until the early 2000s when people protested and got rid of the the Marina got rid of the Navy so here's some other really important historical events the mass sterilization of women to reduce population and therefore economic problems in the 1970s El Caso Cerro Maravilla in 1978 there was a thing called the Cerro Maravilla case where these two young kids both of them were actually sons of famous writers were part of a group called the macheteros and they were convinced by a spy or a like a double agent that they needed to go up to this mountain called Maravilla and bomb a communications tower that this would be a revolutionary act and they really needed to do that and they went up there and did it and the police of course were waiting for them right because they were you know the police were kind of involved in it even happening to begin with and they killed them killed the two kids and this was called a this was called a terrorist act and it happened again during a time when the governor at the time Barcelo who was in favor of statehood was kind of losing in popularity so there was some in the most people to this day believe that he had a hand in orchestrating it because it gave him it kind of created this panic in the people that oh no we can't go for independence or we can't you know we need to go to go for statehood because you know Barcelo's in favor of statehoods we have to vote for him because of these terrorists that want to destroy our country and we're afraid of them kind of you know the same kind of thing we see happening all the time so in 1998 David Sanchez Rodriguez was killed by a quote-unquote fatal mistake in Vieques and this resulted in a worldwide actually protest people from all over the world came to Vieques to protest it resulting in the the Navy leaving and in 2005 these are just some highlight so this is in 2005 Filiberto Jeda Rios who was a leader of the Macheteros was assassinated in Lares, Puerto Rico, near Lares, Puerto Rico on precisely the anniversary of El Grito de Lares by the FBI he was and admittedly he was a criminal he was a fugitive from justice he was given a an ankle bracelet that he cut off and he had been on the run for many years and they found him in his home they surrounded his home and waited for him to come outside and killed him the person in charge of that operation was Robert Mueller so here I don't really I'm not an economist but I know people and they try to explain to me exactly what happened but essentially in the years in the especially in the later later 90s in the 2000s Puerto Rican economy started to tank precipitously as we can see from these graphs part of the problem was is that they weren't bringing in enough money to pay off bond holders so their bonds were reduced to junk status and then there's something with a with one of these yeah so and that and that kind of resulted in and so they had they can't pay off their debt they and they have all these people who are retiring they have pensions they have to pay they're not bringing enough money and the bonds aren't bringing them any money either so they're incredibly awful economic status so that was going on right before Maria struck so there's Maria flying over Puerto Rico and then of course I'm sure you all know this picture and then here's some pictures that I took in January after Maria so a year ago January this was many months after Maria this Maria hidden September October November December January so four or five months later this is a major intersection the lights aren't working there's nobody out there directing traffic this is a shot from my in-laws house looking out so San Juan the city of San Juan has power but you can see how dark it is we only have light here because he had a generator they were without power until May they are just telling some people in the back they were without internet service which you know like I guess it sounds like I mean I think of that as kind of a luxury but I it's so we need it so badly now they were without internet service until August electricity and water is still very intermittent as a result one of the things that he and other people did was they started putting solar panels up but one of the things that's happening because the governor wants to privatize the electric electric company and he wants to make the electric company look like it has value so somebody will buy it they actually charge them for producing solar power so like if they're not like like in California it used to be that I don't know if it's still that way but when a long time ago when I live there if you produce produce enough solar power you kind of fed it back out on the grid it would make your electric bill go down in this case it's like if your bill goes too far below what you normally pay they charge you so it's really not very great these are some more pictures this is this is Louisa so this is probably a place where not many people go this is a community that's historically a community of runaway slaves that is now very Afro-Portoican community but you can see these are cement electric poles that were fallen like toothpicks here is this was in July of this year this is heading out to Luquillo Beach which is up by a Yulke the rainforest impassable roads still so in this in this environment right so it was already economically Puerto Rico is already in really tough shape and then things got really worse well much worse after the hurricane and in this environment what's happening on one side you have a bunch of people like the governor and a lot of others who are very in favor of privatization right and Obama put in during the economic crisis that was before the hurricane a thing with the ironic name in Spanish called promesa which means promise which was basically they they I think there's might be one Puerto Rican on the board but they're they're deciding you know how to make Puerto Rico more economically viable and so this results in a lot of you know extreme cuts like they're cutting public public education they're reducing the payments to police and things like you know any kind of public service that they can to save money so this got even worse after the hurricane but I also kind of wanted to end on a note of hope there are a lot of great responses to what's happened one of them is this fantastic place which was an amazing place even before the hurricane called Casa Pueblo and Arjunas Puerto Rico they make some of the best coffee in the island and this guy Arturo Masol what they did even before the hurricane is they had this idea of self-sustainability so they they you know have read their history books and read at least what to many today may seem a myth that Puerto Rico can be self-sustainable and they thought well let's see if it's true so they started growing their own food and they put solar panels on their roofs and started producing their own electricity and they put cisterns many people in Puerto Rico already have cisterns but they put cisterns up to collect rain water and just regular water and so they become it's kind of more or less self sustainable Naomi Klein calls these things happening in Puerto Rico he's not the only one he they call them she calls them islands of sovereignty so like these little groups these sort of micro units of people and groups sort of become self-sustainable and they start interacting with each other like Masol has you know some products that say another group doesn't have so they sort of trade products right so one of the great things that happened not great things but one of the interesting things that happened after after after the hurricane was of course the it wasn't interesting but awful that they lost electricity but one of the things that happened in Arjunas is the people came to Casa Pueblo it's like if people with with you know medical machinery that they needed to use for whatever reason whether respirators or I don't know what else they came to Casa Pueblo and could plug them in and use them whereas if they lived in other parts of the island if they're without solar energy a lot of people died because of that because hospitals didn't have power they couldn't get to hospitals and this is why the death toll is so high from Puerto Rico wasn't you know that what happened immediately after but it was the result of the loss of all these facilities they also have a solar cinema so people come in and watch movies right they give them coffee they give them water and things like this and so it kind of creates this really lovely kind of community of hope I would say that people you know if they can come together and work together the way that muscle is doing that you know there could be a positive thing that comes out of this muscle a couple I think it was in September was arrested by the police he he had picked his daughter up from I think band practice or dance practice something like that and they had a pizza a piece of pizza in the local pizza parlor and he got in his truck and drove away and immediately he was pulled over by the police and he said he admitted you know it's an old truck everybody knows it's my truck everybody the town knows me by my truck and he had let the Marbet they the the registration and so he thought oh that's why they're pulling me over the cop pulls him over and says you're drunk did not he had not had a beer the guy in the pizza parlor testifies he know he doesn't drink much at all and he definitely didn't have anything that night and my soul's like I'm not drunk I didn't I'm not signing anything and so he tried to give him a breathalyzer there and it didn't function the cop said so they took him into the police station and gave him a test and I think he was the test resulted in what's the legal limit like point yeah I think it was point five oh point five oh yeah exactly he should be dead yeah resulted in point five oh and he said that this is just something just just sort of the the culmination of sort of an ongoing harassment that he's feeling from the local authorities from the governmental representations the police and he doesn't know why that's happening but that's what I want to end with which is hope I mean I think that there are many reasons to hope Puerto Rico could be a better place I think maybe the destruction of Maria could you know create these you know networks islands of sovereign sovereignty there's another fantastic group called junta gente if you're interested I can send you the website that are also creating these types of islands of sovereignty so anyway thank you very much for paying attention hello I just wondered what you know about US faith-based organizations of various denominations who are trying to work in Puerto Rico and relative success or lack I haven't heard of any I'm sure there are but I I mean the the groups that I've heard of are the ones that I've already mentioned I'm sure there are I'm sure there are there I just there are so many that it's hard to keep track and I'm sorry I don't know about them sorry is there one that you know of that I should know of but give her the microphone she's gonna ignore me well just the only one I have personal knowledge of is the American Baptist Church's USA who operate in the United States and and Puerto Rico in terms of their own home missions and they're sending quite a lot of relief and have been since the storm that's fantastic and I know that there are a lot of organizations right here in in Burlington who are doing that also that's that's great thanks for telling me that great what's the what's the status of Puerto Ricans as to US income tax do you mean what do you mean do you mean personal income tax or I remember reading somewhere of that there was some controversy over whether Puerto Ricans would be subject to US income tax and I don't know whether they are or aren't but there was some controversy about that and I don't know what the outcome was well from my understanding they're not I mean on the island they're not but if you if you take that in the context to the I mean what happens as a result of of the Jones law the things being you know having to come to Puerto Rico on US flagged ships I and there are other ways that they that also kind of you know cuts into you know maybe they don't pay personal income tax but that's one way that I think they are taxed yeah I believe that they don't pay personal income tax and that's why they're not allowed to vote when they're on the island okay and then as soon as they you know move somewhere else then they are pay tax and are given the right to vote right question is what exactly was the beef with who the last gentleman that you showed oh with my soul like what's hit what's the beef with him yeah like what did the government exactly have against him besides you know he doesn't even he doesn't even know I mean he I would I mean you know read in the content I mean I don't want to get all conspiracy theory on people here but but I think that you know he's not doing he's he's having tremendous success doing what he does which is not which kind of goes against what the government wants to happen which is instead of privatization he's making people independent and self-sufficient and so that's a result you know that's kind of not what the government wants to happen the government wants privatization from what people are telling me yeah that's that's what's happening yeah good afternoon my question is I'm right here I just wanted to ask if those sanctuaries that you had mentioned except volunteers yes some of them are overrun so you might want to I mean you could if you went there's a there's one called junta gente so Ju NTA GE NTE they that's the one that everybody knows about so everybody's going to them but if you got in touch with them they might be able to tell you where else you could go and also I don't know what the ladies name I mean that might be another great great way that I didn't know about that that you could also work and also if you contacted Casa Pueblo they might be able to they'd be maybe happy to accept your help or you know feed it into somebody else who they know of who needs the help thank you yeah in 1998 the world you know that's the that's the really that's the really kind of strange thing that I haven't completely unraveled yet because the relation why was it not okay with Puerto Rico but you know their attitude to the Hawaiian Islands was also different why did we make Hawaii a state and also our relationship with the Philippines I think is somewhat different and I haven't fully unraveled those questions yet so maybe looks like somebody here has so oh okay what I yeah well that's the beauty of teaching is I always learn how much I don't know so that's great it may not be on okay so in 1898 when the Spanish-American war happened why was not Cuba considered the same way as Puerto Rico how did Cuba end up on their own Sandy I mean mostly this is my opinion but I think Cuba was in a very unusual status after the war of 1898 as well they were a little more free than Puerto Rico and they established a little bit more of a national domestic system however they had to agree to certain restrictions in order to win that and one of them was the Platte amendment and the Platte amendment was put on Cuba which meant that they could not determine for instance their own foreign policy they had to submit to the foreign policy of the United States which is one of the reasons that they got in trouble when they made a quasi-alliance with the Soviet Union so and they had to accept all those restrictions and they had to accept really the fact that their economy and the corporations of the United States basically took over the economy of Cuba so Cuba was not really independent at all although slight it wasn't like Puerto Rico it wasn't totally a colony but it wasn't free either and it isn't really to the day this day really because they suffer under the embargo of the United States at one point during that period when Cuban or the Puerto Rican economy had growth and manufacturing drug manufacturers really were a significant part of that growth and the home of I agrar I mean yeah yeah and I my understanding is that growth has stopped and actually reduced the move to off-island do you have any sense about what the circumstances or conditions are that that would happen yeah I'm there was I think was the law I think was the law 128 which gave corporations huge tax breaks to exist in in Puerto Rico and that law was rescinded and as a reason and that was another way that that that was another sort of hit to the Puerto Rican economy and to labor yeah in my estimation or a recollection the Puerto Ricans voted many times whether they wanted to become US citizens or not you mean a state a state a state of us yeah and what are you still doing that what's the reason one okay one of them was extremely close well most of them been very close the the the one they just had one recently but the one before that there was a thing on the ballot there so usually they have three options that the option is statehood status quo or independence and on this particular ballot there was also another option called none of the above and and I believe none of the above one and in the last in the last election in the last election most people who were not in favor of statehood did not vote because they felt that it was a complete travesty what the governor was trying to pull off so statehood one and people who are in favor of independence generally don't vote because they feel that you because if going back to the the gag law in 48 they feel that they are not in a in a situation that is allows for a free and independent vote so they think it's a complete ruse and a sham so they don't vote so it's hard to say I mean some people there's some authors who write about this very complicated situation because during during the whole thing that happened with Vieques during the protest that happened in Vieques there was a the governor at the time was in favor of statehood but he came out in favor of the protesters in Vieques which who were mostly you know was run and promoted by the independentistas the people in favor of freedom and so some poets started writing these interesting lines about how if you scratch a Puerto Rican deeply enough you'll find in an independentista you'll find somebody in favor of independence right so it's hard to say I mean it's also kind of psychotic because even the people who like Rosario who's in favor of independence he'll say oh no we can become a state but we can still maintain our traditions so we can still maintain our language you know all of our cultural traditions that make us who we are which I don't see that I don't know how that would happen but so it's kind of thanks what do you see as the future of Puerto Rico considering how unpopular self-determination is I try to be hopeful I try to be hopeful about a lot of things these days and finding it more and more difficult I think ultimately I think if if Trump our I mean our current administration if they were fully aware that Puerto Rico existed I think you know that it's not just a place covered around surrounded by big water that that they that they would they would probably cut it loose I don't really see any reason I don't see any reason for Puerto Rico to be part of the United from the US perspective I don't see any reason for Puerto Rico to be part of the United States and Patrick Buchanan many years ago who's very much you know to the right has written wrote several essays saying that Puerto Rico should be independent so I that's I mean but I have no idea I you know it's probably just gonna continue the way it is for you know forever I don't know given everything that's happened to Puerto Rico both economically and by other by us and the weather and whatnot do you think an independent Puerto Rico would be economically viable see that's always the problem isn't it I mean I mean that's you know I mean would it end up like like Haiti would it end up like the Dominican Republic I don't know is it but what I mean also to be on the island now to look at the way things are now economically it's not in very good shape I mean and culturally is not I mean culturally is fine but I mean in terms of economics I mean most of it used to be that 50% of the Puerto Ricans 50% of Puerto Ricans lived on the island 50% lived here that was another thing I didn't mention was that another tactic used by politicians to sort of in the 50s especially but throughout time and we see it happening again in the in the 2000s to sort of ameliorate the the difficulties that they're having is to use this thing called an escape valve which is to encourage people to to leave the island and the example I always like to give is West Side Story right because when Bernstein when Bernstein and Sondheim originally imagined that play that musical which I love they imagine it between Irish and Italians and then Bernstein went and visited the the neighborhood again that he wanted to write about and the and it was Puerto Ricans why well because they had left the island they were you know it was cheap to come to the United States the flights were very inexpensive the boat rides are very inexpensive manufacturing there were jobs were more plentiful so people were encouraged actually by Luis Muñoz money to leave the island same thing was happening in the 2000s people were leaving the island in droves to come to Orlando right and everybody's talking about how's was how's this gonna affect the elections right and then after the after the hurricane was even worse so so if you take that into consideration and then you drive around the island and you see the how devastated it is and how nothing's happening I mean nothing very little is happening to make things better I mean if you go to old San Juan or the tourist areas things are starting to come back I had actually almost cried when I was there in January because I walked through the streets of old San Juan and I had it felt like I was in a ghost town but things now are much better but in the tourist areas so I don't I mean it's hard to say what things are so bad now I'm not sure if becoming independent would make things that much worse I don't know I was just wondering if you would recommend a book about the history of Puerto Rico yes there's a really hair-raising book by called the war against all Puerto Ricans which will curl your hair if it isn't already and that one is pretty good up until 1950 there's one another one by Jose Trias Monke called Puerto Rico the oldest colony in the world and if you can't find those you can any of you can email me and I'd be more than happy to yeah I've got something that's positive as people in New England could be very proud of the fact that some of the best baseball players in the world come from Puerto Rico I think I'm not sure if I fell in love with Puerto Rico because my wife's Puerto Rican or because my favorite baseball player growing up was Roberto Clemente I'm not really sure but um I have a I've actually had another funny story about that when right after 9-11 my in-laws mother came to visit and we went to Montreal and we're coming across and and she didn't have a passport all she had was a burst not a birth certificate either then she had a baptismal certificate which is something that counts down there and we're trying to get across the border when they had just changed the law that you need a passport and she's from a little town called Cuamo now Roberto Clemente is from Rio Piedras which is not Cuamo so we're coming across the border and they gave us a hard time and she's getting all upset because she's thinking oh my you know the first time she'd ever left the country in her life you know and and you see she was shaken and the guy comes back and he said well my boss says that that you can come in to the country as long as you tell me the most famous baseball player from your from your town not from your country your town and so she's like I don't even know no baseball player ever came out of my town and I looked at her I said Roberto Clemente and that's what she said and we got we were able to come in the United States because of because of that yeah thank you so very much


We're disappointed that the team lost yesterday. You must be personally pleased with your contribution with the battle. Yeah, we're disappointed that we lost and today we had a bomb session where we gawered and we knew we were capable of putting South Africa up to a good game. Brilliant. You seemed quite comfortable at the crease. How were you feeling and how was the pitch playing? Yeah, I felt good at the crease. I felt like I was in a battle ready to play and the crease was playing very well. But I never was on my slot. I knew how to go for it. Brilliant. And there were two sublime sixes that you hit. Were they pre-meditated shots or just natural instinct? No, they were an instinct. Whenever they were on my slot, I was confident enough to try and hit them. I knew there was no fiddles on the boundary. Brilliant. Overall, how have you found the experience around the tournament and what have you been enjoying the most? Yeah, I've enjoyed the tournament a lot and my favorite part has been being around the team and the volume of cricket we've been playing over the last two, three weeks.


The movie Fight Club starring Edward Norton and Brad Pitt is a cult classic from the 1990s that's based on a novel by Chuck Palinuck. Although I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, I only remember bits and pieces. There is one scene that sticks out of my mind though, and that's when the narrator first meets Tyler Durden on the plane. In this scene, Tyler Durden has a monologue in which he explains the illusion of safety that airlines give you with seatbelts and their other safety precautions. In the event of a plane plummeting to the ground, how helpful is that seatbelt really going to be? When we think about it, the world is filled with illusions of safety that are meant to psychologically put us at ease even when they're not doing much to keep us any safer. While there isn't much an airline can do to ensure your safety aside from simply not crashing, this illusion of safety is an issue when it comes to things like police reform. In the wake of the death of George Floyd, which was followed by protests around the world, there's been a lot of discussion about police reform. Recently, John Oliver on Last Week Tonight discussed the somewhat controversial topic of abolishing and defunding the police, but others have just looked for better rules and regulations for our officers. Recently, the Minneapolis Police Department announced that their now banning chokeholds from the repertoire of tactics cops used to subdue a suspect. President Trump even signed an executive order calling for the ban of police chokeholds. The problem with these reforms is that the devil is in the details, and unless we look at what scientific studies have to say about implicit bias and trauma, these reforms are no better than seatbelts on planes. A direct quote from President Donald Trump after signing the executive order was, As part of this new credentialing process, chokeholds will be banned except if an officer's life is at risk. Today, we're going to be focusing on that last exception, which says, except if an officer's life is at risk. This exception isn't a black and white rule, it's purely subjective, and when an officer of the law has the power to end a life based on their inner experience, we need to have a serious talk about what that inner experience looks like. Numerous studies show that black men are perceived as far more dangerous and violent than white men purely based on the color of their skin. When you combine that with the fact that many police officers are on edge, it's a recipe for disaster. Recently, a police officer who has been nicknamed McMuffin Cop is in tears as she shares the story that how her McDonald's breakfast was late and it threw her into a full-blown panic attack. Regardless of whether you believe her panic is justified or not, the reality is that her inner experience is that her life is at risk, and that's a reality that thousands of officers are facing. If we're going to talk about police reform and try to put an end to overt police brutality and the killing of innocent black men, we need to better understand the inner experience of officers so we can start finding solutions that are better than an airplane seatbelt. After the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and so many other innocent black people, I've been obsessively reading books trying to understand what's going on and what we can do. Thankfully, there are brilliant men and women out there who have dedicated their lives to analyzing this problem and trying to find solutions. Dr. Jennifer Eberhardt is a black woman who graduated at the top of her class at Harvard and now she's a professor of psychology at Stanford University. Over years, she's been studying racial biases in the criminal justice system and she's put her findings together beautifully in her new book, Biased, uncovering the hidden prejudice that shapes what we see, think, and do. Once I started reading this book, I couldn't stop. Dr. Eberhardt has conducted numerous studies on biases and this is something that everyone needs to be educated on. Honestly, as I read this book and learned about how black people are perceived and made it difficult for me to even find a logical reason for police officers to be able to carry guns. Now, you're probably thinking, police officers need guns. They encounter dangerous people and life-threatening situations on a regular basis. While it's true that police officers do sign up to put their lives at risk, we're actually living in the least dangerous time in history. And we also need to understand that when you believe danger is lurking around every corner, you become a hammer and everything starts looking like a nail. And in this case, people of color are that nail. Going back to the police reform exception that allows lethal force if a cop feels his or her life is in danger, we must look at Dr. Eberhardt's findings when it comes to the bias of black people. In 2014, a black man named Eric Garner was killed by police via a chokehold and much like George Floyd, he begged for his life while saying he couldn't breathe. The police officers involved in the death of Eric Garner kept referring to how big he was in their statements. So they tried to justify their excessive force by pointing to Eric Garner's size. Although Eric Garner was a bigger man, multiple officers were involved in his death and Garner was unarmed. So what made Eric Garner's body so dangerous? Well, part of that danger is the perception that black men are bigger than they actually are. In her book, Dr. Eberhardt points to a 2017 study which states the following. Black men tend to be stereotyped as threatening and as a result may be disproportionately targeted by police even when unarmed. Here, we find evidence that biased perceptions of young black men's physical size may play a role in this process. The result of seven studies showed that people have bias to perceiving young black men as bigger, taller, heavier, more muscular and physically more threatening, stronger, more capable of harm than young white men. Aside from being perceived as taller, heavier and more muscular, black men are also perceived as being more violent. In a 2011 study, participants were shown one of two videos. In both videos, a black man and white man are having a discussion, which escalates into an argument. For one group, the video shows the white man shoving the black man. In the other, the video shows the black man shoving the white man. The authors of the study stated this.  That is the concept of violence was more accessible when viewing a black than viewing a white committing the same act. Other studies show that black men are also more likely to be presumed to have a dangerous weapon on them. In the 1999 case of Amadou Diallo, this young black man was shot 41 times after reaching for his wallet because one of the officers yelled gun. More recently in 2014, 12 year old Tamir Rice was shot and killed by police officers for carrying a toy gun. According to the science, this is far less likely to happen to white people. In a University of North Carolina study titled Weapon Bias, split second decisions and unintended stereotyping, participants were primed by being shown either a picture of a white man or a black man. Then there was shown an extremely fuzzy picture that slowly came into focus. Sometimes the picture would be of a harmless item like a cell phone and other times it would be something more dangerous like a gun. This graph shows the probability of error they found between white and black faces and what they were holding. As you can see, there was a much larger margin of error when it came to believing the black person was holding a gun. This means that people wait longer to see if a white person is really holding a weapon than they do a black person. Now, I'm hoping you're starting to see the problem with the illusion of safety when it comes to police reform. When there's an exception that police officers can use deadly force if their life is in danger, we must take a look at these studies to take them into account. When police officers encounter black people and instinctually believe that the black person is bigger, more violent and more likely to have a deadly weapon, officers are far more likely to feel like their life is being threatened. Finally, we need to talk about mental illness within police departments because if implicit bias is a fire that's kindling at all times, PTSD is the fuel that can make it explode. Recently, my girlfriend talked me into checking out the show Sons of Anarchy, and we've been binging it over the last few weeks. In season six, the show introduced a character by the name of Lee Torek. He's a retired U.S. martial, but we soon find out that he's got a lot of psychological issues and clearly suffers from PTSD. In one episode, he just finished sleeping with an escort and when someone pulled up to the hotel, you can see Torek's trauma response get triggered. In this triggered state, Torek is holding his gun so when the escort harmlessly says something from behind him, he gets startled and shoots her. My girlfriend and I watched this episode right around the time McMuffin Cop was trending and I couldn't help but see the relation. When Torek was triggered, his fight-or-flight response kicked in, which resulted in him shooting and killing an innocent woman. In a different episode, Gemma's trauma causes her to accidentally elbow Terra in the face. Although this show is fiction, trauma responses and anxiety are real. One of the common comments we saw about McMuffin Cop was that this is someone who should not have a gun if she's in this mental state. Obviously, I can't diagnose her, but I'd assume that she might be struggling with vicarious trauma with all of the news of protests and riots. Even when civil unrest isn't happening, PTSD is a major issue among police officers. According to Dr. John Villante from the University of Buffalo, many police officers need to work on their mental health because it could lead to fatal mistakes. In one article, Villante says the following. Post-traumatic stress disorder may occur when a person is exposed to traumatic events. Person so exposed may experience symptoms such as distressing memories of the event, avoidance of any reminders of the event, and psychological emotional difficulties. Police officers are often exposed to traumatic events such as seeing abused children or dead bodies, severe assaults and involvement in shootings, and are therefore at risk for PTSD. Such exposure can impair the mental well-being of police officers and affect their ability to perform duties to the public. The potential long-term effects of PTSD in police officers may additionally lead to behavioral dysfunction such as substance abuse, aggression, and suicide. It is estimated that on average approximately 15% of officers in the United States experience PTSD symptoms. Unfortunately, it is not definitively known what the true scope of this problem is among police. With thousands of police officers suffering from PTSD while also having implicit biases, police reform is yet another illusion of safety and we need some real solutions. If I'm being absolutely honest, I had to take a break from reading these books about bias because it's so heartbreaking. As I continue to learn more about this subject, I discover how many biases we all have. I think the saddest part about the research is that black people aren't immune to these biases. In just about every study I reference, these biases weren't strictly found in white people. Black people also perceive other black people as potentially more dangerous. In fact, Dr. Eberhardt has a story in her book about being arrested by a black police officer based on bias. What we come to find out is that the systemic issues we face as well as the portrayal of black people in the news and media is playing a role in our biases. Although we have a difficult long road ahead of us, hope is not lost. Even though I had to take a mental break from learning about this subject, Dr. Eberhardt and many others have given me hope through their studies because they also have solutions. If you've made it this far through this video, you've already taken the first step, which is self-awareness. Studies show that when people are educated about their biases, they're much more likely to pay attention to them. When they react to situations, they have a better ability to pause and ask themselves if bias is playing any role in their thoughts or behaviors. In his book, Mindfulness for Fidgety Skeptics, author Dan Harris discusses how mindfulness training has been extremely helpful for police officers when it comes to decreasing violence. Mindfulness is scientifically proven to improve emotional regulation and our natural ability to pause and make better decisions. Now, what about PTSD? Well, the good news is that mindfulness-based stress reduction, also known as MBSR, has also been proven to be very helpful for people to overcome PTSD. It's time the police departments start taking the mental health of police officers way more seriously. Police officers are in a high stress environment and sometimes witness horrors that we can't even imagine. This is why therapists and psychologists need to be an integral part of each police department. And police officers need to be able to take paid leaves of absence after going through a traumatizing experience. But it's not just a personnel issue, it's also a culture issue. Police officers are trained to believe that talking about feelings and emotions is a sign of weakness. Many officers don't get help for their mental health because they fear how they'll be judged. To get where we need to be, officers need to support one another getting help for their mental health when people see that the mental health is deteriorating. Until we're able to address the implicit biases and mental illness of our police officers, President Trump's executive orders and other forms of police reform aren't going to work. As long as we base policies off of the subjective experience of officers who suffer from biases and trauma, Black men and women will continue to die. So, we need to get rid of the illusion of safety of police reform and start implementing scientifically proven solutions. Alright everybody, thank you again so much for watching this entire video. Like I said in this video, I think it's extremely important to educate ourselves about these subjects. Like, we can't fix things if we don't even know where the problem is. And I know something that helps me with my mental health and just addressing all these issues as a whole is learning about these and being able to pause and think and say, oh okay, here's maybe why I'm reacting this way or here's maybe why this is happening. And then we start to understand the things that are happening in the world and then we can start going towards better solutions. Alright, and in this video we did talk a bit about trauma. So, if you're somebody who is struggling with trauma, make sure that you get some help. I always recommend seeing a therapist. If you have health insurance, talk to your doctor, talk to your insurance company, see if there's a therapist within your network. Personally, I use BetterHelp online therapy and I have an affiliate link for BetterHelp online therapy. So, if you want affordable online therapy, check out the description and the pinned comment down below. And basically what that means is you get affordable online therapy and a little bit comes back supports the channel and all the work that I put into these videos that usually get demonetized. Alright, anyways, that's all I got for this video. If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up. If you're new, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. And a huge, huge thank you to everybody supporting the channel over on Patreon. As well as everybody who supports the channel by buying my mental health books at therewiretole.com and the Rewiretole merch from the merch store. You're all awesome. Alright, thanks again for watching. I'll see you next time.