 General John Kelly, who later became Chief of Staff. Welcome to what the F is going on in Latin America and the Caribbean, Code Pink's weekly YouTube program of hot news out of Latin America and the Caribbean. We, in partnership with friends of Latin America, Massachusetts Pizza Action and Task Force on the Americas, we broadcast every Wednesday at 7.30 p.m. Eastern, 4.30 p.m. Pacific on Code Pink YouTube Live. The inspiration for tonight's episode came during the sixth summit of Heads of State and Government of the Community of Latin America and the Caribbean States, also known as CELAC, C-E-L-A-C, which was held in Mexico City on September 18th of this year. A result of the summit was, one of the results of the summit was a special declaration on the question of Puerto Rico. And the declaration includes two points, those being point one, reaffirmed the Latin America and Caribbean character of Puerto Rico and recognizing the efforts made and the resolutions adopted by the special committee on decolonization of the United Nations about the situation on Puerto Rico. The most recent on June 18th, 2021, and reiterated that it is a matter of high interest to CELAC, as was emphasized at the highest level of the fifth summit in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, held January 25th, 2017. And the second point being, undertake to continue working in the framework of international law, particularly of the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1514, declaration on the granting of independence to colonial countries and people of December 14th, 1960, to put an end quickly and unconditionally to colonialism in all its forms and manifestations in Latin America and the Caribbean region. Joining us today to talk about ending US colonialism of Puerto Rico is my friend Monisha Rios. She is a Puerto Rican psychologist and social worker and I'm so pleased to have her with us today. Welcome, Monisha. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure for us to finally be talking face to face, so to speak. So I should share with our audience about an hour before we were scheduled to broadcast, Monisha sent me a WhatsApp message saying she lost electricity in Puerto Rico. And so let's just briefly tell the audience what that's about and then let's go more deeply into, because it is an example of this neocolonial form, neo, what do I want to say, neoliberal form, neoliberal form of colonialism, neocolonialism. That's a ton of cluster for me, sorry. Yeah, so Luma Energy is a Canadian and USAN company that was newly formed not that long ago and entered into a very questionable, very expensive contract with the Puerto Rican government through what they like to call a public-private partnership to basically take over our electrical grid in our country, our occupied nation of Puerto Rico. And so like what we have seen in our sister nations throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, when the privateers want to privatize, there's a systematic destabilization of essential services, a sabotage, if you will, to then try and create public support for this ridiculous expensive policy. And unfortunately, what has happened now is that with this takeover of Luma, we are constantly losing power. Hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans are without power, sometimes weeks at a time. I'm lucky that it wasn't for a long period of time and we're just having a minor thunder storm right now. But in many places in Puerto Rico, folks have been without often, and there's a lot to share about that when we get into it. Okay, so privatization is not the answer. It's glorified in the United States as the model. And here's one more, just in the past hour, one more prime example of why it doesn't work, which leads me to ask about disaster capitalism. Because what you're seeing in Puerto Rico and what the rest of the world is witnessing is that since the hurricanes, there's been no relief from the United States of which you are a part. And it's kind of your infrastructure, your people have been left with no assistance except that help or that, what do I wanna say, rebuilding coming from the private sector. I think the hurricane is the private sector a favor because even before then we had the crisis, our financial crisis happening, and that's a whole other layer of US interventionism in Puerto Rico is the fiscal control board, what we call la junta. And so the closing of universities, the lack of investment in infrastructure, our electrical grid was nationalized before this. Many of our essential services were more on the nationalized side of the spectrum and naturally when that got wiped out, it was weak already in large part because of a lack of investment on the part of the Puerto Rican government in the needs of the people and making sure that the basic needs could be met in times of disaster. And as you said, now we have this new wave of colonialism happening, these new settlers coming in, in droves to have their way with us because what defenses do we have? It's a particularly- I'm sorry, go ahead. Sorry, sorry. I need to also mention, especially because I'm via Kense, that there are Puerto Ricos, not just the big islands of Puerto Rico that everyone thinks of. There's also Culebra and Vieca, two little islands to the east of the bigger island My family comes from the little one called Vieques, which the US happens to bomb for 60 years and prior to that the US bombed Culebra for that many decades as well until we've resisted. What that means for us now in terms of disaster relief, we have no hospital. We haven't had a hospital since the hurricanes and prior to that the healthcare there was minimal and inadequate anyway. So that's a whole other follow-up to get into at some point. Well, so, gosh, I have like 10 things I want to ask you simultaneously. So Vieques was a naval proving ground, testing ground basically, yeah. And then as far as Puerto Rico, being a colony is so clearly called out in this recent declaration coming out of Salak. Let's talk a little, can you give our audience just a, I know this is a huge question to ask you to condense, but a really quick background as to Puerto Rico and how Puerto Rico came in to, came to be colonized by the United States or as a commonwealth I think is the nice word that, like Guam, yeah, the commonwealth. Exactly. So the US as we know has always had its eyes on our region, the Latin American Caribbean region. And when all of the disturbance in the Spanish empire was taking place, you had the Bolivarian revolution, you had the Cuban revolution taking place, you had Puerto Ricans wanting independence from Spain as well. We actually had four days of being independent from Spain before the US invaded in 1898, July 25th to be exact. So essentially, because the US wanted the gateway into Latin America through the Caribbean, which is us here in Puerto Rico, and they also wanted the sugar industry, they wanted what Spain had. They created this illusion as always of coming in as saviors, we're going to help liberate you. There was- It's been the same narrative for 200 years. Yeah, I mean, switch it up, you guys, come on. But so long story short, there was a small group of Puerto Ricans who, like all ruling classes have proven to be their economic interests aligned with the United States. So they made the invitation to come. Please come liberate us and make us a part of you. All of this, of course, occurred without the consent and the will of the people of Puerto Rico. And unlike Cuba, there was never an intention of making Puerto Rico its own country. There was always the intention of holding on to us because we are the, what do they call it, the pearl of the Caribbean or something stupid thing like that. Yeah. And so then leading up to the Commonwealth status, this is like a complete falsehood. It's just a way of when classic colonialism became unfashionable in the world, suddenly here's the United States, supposedly the bastion of human rights and they have a colony, a blatant colony. And so then putting this so-called partial sovereignty in place by saying that we have like a somewhat independent nation that's freely associated with the United States, that moved us off of the UN's list of actually colonized countries into the self-governing list of countries. So that's why most of the world forgets that, oh yeah, that we still have this colony of the United States. Well, you and I have spent a lot of time in Venezuela and other parts of the Americas in almost every country I've been in and this may be your experience as well. The United, Puerto Rico is referred to when we say the United States and Puerto Rico. And I think that that's super important on and from an independence international standpoint but it also can infer, yeah, the United States and then there's Puerto Rico which is not a state which is like in verbosity and language it's no longer a colony quote unquote, it's a common word. So it's, so what are you? What is Puerto Rico? What is Puerto Rico? How do the people of Puerto Rico identify? And maybe this digs into some of your psychology. Maybe this is it. Yeah. So getting into the psychology of colonialism and psychological warfare which is actually my specialty is we can look at this through the lens of US hybrid warfare in the context of Puerto Rico, in the context of classic colonialism. The narratives that have been sort of cultivated within the minds of many Puerto Ricans is that they're happy to be part of the United States. Many are happy to remain in this limbo status that we have. Many like myself would prefer complete total sovereignty and independence and then there are also some who would like to go the way of Palau and enter into a compact of free association which is very similar to what we already have where in the US we control our foreign policy and basically dominate us as a neo colony instead of a purely classical colony. So for me, speaking for myself and other independent thesis, we are an occupied sovereign nation. We are a sovereign nation that has occupied politically, economically and continues to be occupied militarily, although the landscape of that particular type of occupation has shifted over time. Wow, so free association, that's a new term for me in relation to Puerto Rico, free association. That's basically what you are now or what the... Yeah, that's what they call it, a free associated state. Wow, so meaning it's like your choice, it's free, you're free, I see, okay. But that's not exactly true because now you as those of you who are citizens of Puerto Rico are US citizens but not fully. And so what does that mean? So the Jones Act of 1917 imposed citizenship on Puerto Ricans in order for the US to then draft us into World War I. And so there are some benefits that go with this partial citizenship. When we reside here in the homeland, we cannot vote for president, we have limited rights, there are certain benefits of US citizenship and benefits of imperialism that we don't get. But then when we cross the upon to the empire, then you can vote for president, you have a, I have a US passport, I have a social security number. So if you move to Washington, well, I know that wouldn't count in Washington, so you see they don't have full, you move to like, you know, Burlington, Vermont, where I'm from, you could vote for president. If you establish that as your principal residence, but you could not do that with your principal residence being on vacation, vacation case. Correct. Oh, wow, okay. Oh, this is getting worse. Yes, I mean, you know, I'm embarrassed that I don't know this in more detail. I mean, you know, I know all these things on a more surface level, but not to this detail as to how they affect like your actual daily life, even though you have a- That's my design. Yeah, no, clearly, clearly, clearly. I didn't know about, you know, the drafting for World War I purposes and that's, yeah. But yeah, wow. It's more convoluted and more oppressive than I, you know, really realized actually. So earlier you brought up, you know, hybrid war in connection with colonialism. So let's talk about the various forms of hybrid war being placed on Puerto Rico. Thank you so much for the opportunity to talk about that because generally when, you know, those of us who are against imperialism, who are against U.S. interventionism, speak about hybrid war. We speak about it in relationship to America, Latina and other countries. So in relationship to Puerto Rico, it helps to understand hybrid warfare as we know it today in modern times as just the evolution of total war, which has always existed. And total war begins with narrative. Hybrid war begins with narrative and then all other aspects such as kinetic warfare, lawfare, the diplomatic warfare, economic warfare, all of that then gets imposed on Puerto Rico through this colonial narrative. So it looks different than what's being done to our relatives in Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, et cetera. With us, our colonial condition leads us to live in sanction-like conditions. So it's an economic sanction of its own type. It's a diplomatic- And what does that look like? So that- Because when we say this, we think of like, for you and me, our work we do with Venezuela, Cuba, Iran and other countries and soon to be Nicaragua, hopefully not, but for our audience, that means, you know, cutting off access to the US overnight banking system, to international financial institutions and freezing assets held overseas and on and on and on. And so is that similar to Puerto Rico as well? No, so certain features of the neocolonial economic warfare is different than the colonial hybrid warfare. So what we have now is that fiscal control board enacted by President Obama. It's the PROMESA Act, which is essentially due to the effects of settler colonialism, due to the collaboration between our ruling political and economic elite and the US ruling political and economic elite. Puerto Ricans in the lower classes have always struggled in many ways that poor citizens of the US struggle in many ways that poor citizens of Latin America and the Caribbean struggle. So what it looks like right now under the control of this fiscal control board, which was appointed by the president of the United States, not voted in by the weekend. The president you couldn't vote for. The president you cannot vote for has appointed now these overseers over your government they can veto any law that's created by the Puerto Rican government. Natalie Giresco whose name might sound familiar from Ukraine who was one of the top dogs in the International Monetary Fund World Bank. She is in charge of our fiscal control board. So all of these austerity measures that we see happening in our neighboring countries are happening to us. The privatization is happening to us. The limited access is happening to us. When I say limited access, I mean, obviously we don't control our foreign policy. We don't control trade with other nations. We can only do what the US tells us we are allowed to do. So we cannot enjoy the solidarity of Cuba. We cannot trade with Venezuela. There's no chance. And then in the case of the Echizen Culebra, the two islands that resisted US militarism and colonial rule the most, the living conditions there are closer to what they are in Cuba and closer to what they are in Venezuela than the rest of Puerto Rico. Because you have the punishment of the US government and this punishment isn't necessarily in the same vein as it is against Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba where they've resisted. And so now, just like an abusive spouse, I'm going to steal all of your money and threaten to kill your children. This is instead for maintenance. It is to control the colony. It is to suppress any type of resistance. It's to destabilize our independence movement and anything that we might do to live in our full sovereignty to have control over our natural resources. Anything that we try to do to enjoy food sovereignty, to cut off our dependency on imported goods from the US. It gets killed that way. That's what's been done to hate as well. Yeah, importing, yeah. Wow. So creating markets. Creating markets for the private sector. Creating markets for the private sector and then using that to protect the imperial project as well as the imperial project as well. So in many ways we're like Colombia or the Israel of the Caribbean. Yeah, you're that base from which everything. Well, I remember, there's a military airstrip in Puerto Rico that I think was being refurbished as the sanctions regime against Venezuela has been getting more and more stringent, and now Venezuela has surrounded Colombia to the west and for a while had a right wing government in Bolivia to the south. And then this Puerto Rican US airstrip to the north, it was pretty obvious if you looked at the map, what the intention, when I was a young person, we called that containment. And maybe it's still, that term is still used, but yeah. So other forms of hybrid warfare. So going back to the, oh, sorry, sorry. No, no, go ahead. So, I'm talking over years, so I apologize. Oh, Josh, it was a great conversation. The SELAC statement that you read in the beginning. So when we talk about the diplomatic warfare that relates to the colonial condition of Puerto Rico, the way that Puerto Rico is discussed in the international community matters, the way that Puerto Rico is discussed inside the United States also matters. And so you can see, as you were saying before, the difference in those two narratives. So what our sister nations and SELAC have done with their statement is affirm our sovereignty. Which is incredible. Which is 33 nations. Well, I think 31 participated, yeah. Yeah. Affirm our sovereignty. 33 of the 35 that make up the Americas. Yeah, is SELAC, yeah. Minus two this year, Brazil and Columbia. So it was 31 nations that signed that declaration out of 35. Minus the two back of state. Yeah, that's understandable. And but it's still necessary. So when we talk about the diplomatic warfare elements of colonial hybrid warfare and how that narrative works, for example, there's a good reason why you don't know the specifics of the Puerto Rican struggle over time as well as let's say we do our sister nations in Latin America and Cuba. And it's because how is Puerto Rico talked about in the United States? Especially within the anti-war movement the anti-imperialist movement. How is it discussed? We don't talk about it enough which is why you're joining us tonight. Yeah. Yeah. Which is why we're doing this episode is no, we do not talk about it enough. I mean, we really don't. And there's a reason for that. Yeah, because you're, I, it's, and it may be different. You know, I grew up on the West coast to the United States. So perhaps, so, you know, our orientation was a lot more to what was happening with people on the islands of Hawaii. Maybe it's more common for people on the Gulf coast of the United States and the East coast to look, you know, to Puerto Rico. But it's really almost a nebulous thing. It's like, well, yeah, they're part of us. They're not a state. I, you know, at one point when I was younger there was an election to vote for statehood. It didn't pass. I want to say that was in the 70s. 1967. Okay. So I was a lot of ventures. No, I was, I was, I was already born by then too. So I don't remember. Yeah. So I think it's hot, you know, and then a lot of us know the struggle of, you know, Oscar Lopez, Oscar Roberto Lopez. And of course he was labeled a terrorist on mainland United States. So, you know, it's a really, I would say in general, you've been silenced. Yeah. Yeah. I would say in general, it's been, you know, a silent, a silencing or kind of swept under the carpet, so to speak. Yeah. I would say that's probably, unfortunately that's probably the, the general perception. And part of it too, so if we, sometime I hope maybe there's a chance for us to really dive into that, because it fascinates me at the same time that it terrifies me. Yeah. Because when you look at like how people who are anti-imperialists in aspiration yet are pro-colonial in action and behavior discuss Puerto Rico, it's a matter of, in part, it's a matter of there's this mirror that one needs to look into as a resident of the Imperial Corps, as someone who was directly involved in settler colonialism. I have to ask myself these questions and confront these things in myself all the time too, because Puerto Rico also has its own colonial history to contend with and make a mentor. Being part of the Spanish Empire at one point. Right. Yeah. But annihilating, almost annihilating the indigenous, my ancestors, the indigenous people here and then participating willingly in slavery. So some of the ways that I found in my own experience of being involved in the US based movements for anti-war, anti-imperialism, et cetera, is that when it comes to the moments that we can really talk about Puerto Rico, like people get nervous, there's this hesitation, part of it is the relationship we all have with settler colonialism, but then part of it too, is the way that you've been taught and groomed to react and to treat the conversation about Puerto Rico, because going back to that vote you mentioned, the first plebiscite for whether or not we become a state, the same or become independent was in 1967, on the tail end of Cuban Revolution, when the US is desperately needing to control narratives about liberation in Latin America and the Caribbean, and when there's this mythology around choice. The mythology that is fed to US citizens is that Puerto Ricans make a choice, that it's a free choice. Right. And in the more recent years, that choice was, the ballot was completely manipulated to intentionally confuse people. Well, I would say that happens on pretty much every ballot when you vote in the United States, but I remember there was an intentional omission or language manipulation, so people would not vote for independence. Yeah. Am I remembering that correctly? Yeah. Yep, you are correct. So... Yeah, and that, yeah. So when it comes to our plebiscites, it's helpful, I think, and maybe you can help me encourage our colleagues in these movements to view how we, how our politics take place here and particularly how the colonial politics take place is to think about the electoral interference that the US is doing in other countries. We're having the same thing. It's just a different question. To US citizens. Yeah. Yeah. It's to stop us from not being property of the United States anymore and it's to create the illusion of choice and it is to manipulate a narrative. So there have always been boycotts from that first vote in 1967 and there have been I think six, if I'm remembering correctly since then, the most recent in the past year in 2020. And each time, each time there's direct interference and indirect interference from the United States who is our master, right? Our slave owner, our dominant abuser. Your colonizer. Holding our colonizer, holding our children over our heads, holding our health over our heads, holding our economics over our heads, holding it all over our heads with this narrative that you will not survive without us. You have to stay married to us. Even though it's abusive. Even though it's abusive. And our ruling class, which benefits from this arrangement is carrying the narrative out and they profit so much. They profit so much. So there are sectors of the independence movement who rightfully boycott because they understand and they see that this is a whole farce. This whole concept of voting yes or no to independence or statehood or this or that, it's just a farce, right? It's a game that they play with us to keep us sort of focused on that instead of fighting for our liberation. And thinking you want to have a choice. The mirage of having a choice, yeah. Because no matter what, no matter what, so it was more like a 50-50 vote in this last one. So even if the votes for independence had surpassed even by 1%, then it doesn't matter. If we voted 100% for independence because the ones who really have the power to make that decision according to that political and electoral method of achieving our liberty is the United States Congress. Right. So the only thing that the plebiscite does for us is supposedly amplifies the voices, the majority of Puerto Ricans to Congress and it's like a recommendation. It's like a registration of public opinion. That's all. That's it. It's just a very corrupt survey. It's a corrupt survey, I like that's good. Yeah, one of the majority of the people want, okay, independence, well, it doesn't matter. Yeah. And you have a representation. This is a really naive question of mine. You cannot vote for president. So the president doesn't represent you, but does make decisions for what happens to you as Puerto Rican citizens. And you do have representation in Congress sort of like DC has representation, but nothing that's actually capable of voting and influencing, yeah. We have a puppet in DC. A puppet, yeah, or a name and a face, yeah, but no actually a power. Yeah, a name and a face that's directly and in line with imperialism and it's just there as another farce. Yeah, a token. So, you know, when you and I first talked about doing this episode, we had like a laundry list of things that we wanted to talk about. So what do we need to talk about next? Hybrid warfare and we should, what's the future for Puerto Rico? What are the people that you live with? What's, assuming the majority want independence, how is that possible? Is that, do you see that as a greater possibility now as the global economy and as politics become more multilateral? Is it a greater possibility? And I really, our audience here is multilateral almost every episode, but it is the way, it is the way the majority of the world outside of the United States. Is the paradigm that the majority of nations function in? Is the United States that's still functioning in a unilateral paradigm? Right, that they create. Yes, so there is more hope now. There's more tangible hope and tangible reasons to be hopeful now than there ever has been before. A lot of it has to do with those austerity measures with the way that especially our youth are living in our current material conditions and our setups, they're angry. And through their credit, I really admire them because their perception is perfect for the most part. So you see, for example, in the last elections that took place, there were more votes than ever before for the Puerto Rican Independence Party. So there are some destabilizing forces. So you know how the U.S. will create political parties to disrupt and destabilize what could be democratic processes in other countries? The same happens here. So, you know, with the whole feminist imperialist Benz that the U.S. has now. Yeah, we take advantage of those, yeah. Yeah. And then fund the parties, yeah. We see that all over the Americas. And fund the parties. Within the United States as well. Yeah, so we have that too. So right now there's a party that is kind of like a destabilizing force to shake things up. Again, it's multi-tendency. There are really good people involved in it who are caught up and then there are people of that who know exactly what they're doing. So many of the people that would have put their trust and faith in the Puerto Rican Independence Party, for example, voting for a peep candidate for governor did not. They voted for the identity politic queen. Yeah. See, isn't that, that's one of the things and yeah, that's really disconcerting and something that we all need to be aware of is just, is the identity politics because just because someone looks a certain way, dresses a certain way, identifies a certain way doesn't mean that they're not neoliberal. I mean, it's like, right, we've basically have, we've changed the face of neoliberalism, but we haven't changed the project. Change or much less destroy it. We've changed the face of it. And that actually to me makes it more scary and more threatening because now it can appear to be more palpable to more people. And I just wish we could just become, for lack of a better term, a melting pot politically. We like to say in the United States that we are a melting pot of people from all over the world. And somehow we've chosen to put ourselves back into these individual silos. And it's obscuring our vision on a lot of things. Yeah. Yeah. I learn a lot from the Red Nation and I really pay attention to what indigenous elders and indigenous youth are teaching us, especially now, they're the people that we really need to be listening to and following the lead of. There's a vanguard of humanity as far as I'm concerned. Yeah. They're gonna save the planet and the humans if we let them. If we let them, once we get out of the way. And when I say indigenous, I also mean indigenous African. And so something that has occurred to me recently and it's really one of the reasons why I focus so much on narratives and on psychological warfare because that is the basis of all the other things. The narratives that we're taught about one another, they come from colonialism, they come from imperialism, they come from the capitalist project and they're there specifically, as you know, to divide us. And something that was said recently is that we would still be coming together, trading together, living together from our different nations, societies and cultures, even if colonialism did not exist because that is the natural way of humanity to migrate, to fall in love, to create new societies together, to share art, to share culture, to build together. And so that's where we can really focus our energies is that, yes, we've all been socialized in the US especially toward colonialism, toward a mentality and a worldview that maybe we don't want, it isn't natural for us but it's what we've been raised in. So there's that whole unlearning work but in terms of how we build relationship with one another as now it's an imperative for us to come together and learn how to work together and be relatives to save the planet from ourselves or from capitalism, from, yeah. Well, it's a divide and conquer thing. I mean, it's very Machiavellian, very simple, I mean, all the way back to the art of war that divide and conquer and keep people separate versus the same as one species, which we are. We just happen to have different physical afters. I remember when I was still living on the California coast in West Marin, I used to do a lot of hiking and I was out one day with some friends of mine and we walked past this meadow filled with deer of all ages and sizes and some were reddish, some were kind of whiteish some were little, some were big, some were old, some were young. And one of the people I was walking with said, I have to take this picture of this meadow and I said, well, what's it gonna be called? Colorblind, because here they were all sharing the same food source, the same space, no problem. Nobody pushing someone out, nobody, yeah. And I just so, when I have these conversations, I just so, just remember that afternoon because it was so, I don't think I realized how poignant it was. I mean, we knew it was a special moment and a special title for that moment, but it just, it keeps recurring. That moment keeps coming back to me so many times. It's been like 10 years since I've had that walk. Yeah, colorblind. So now here are these, these animals as are we sharing, sharing, sharing the space, sharing the food, you know, sharing each other's friendship. And yeah, it was a really special thing. I want to ask you before I let you go, gosh, I feel like we could just talk all evening quite frankly. And so you're going to have to come back. Thank you. But one of the things I'm sure our audience is begging for me to ask you about, because this has come up the past year. You know, every country that we've touched on. What's the situation with COVID-19 in Puerto Rico? It's, it's, it's hard to tell, to be honest. Sometimes we don't have data. Is that intentional? I think it is. Or just lack of infrastructure. Or. I think it's an intentional lack of infrastructure and lack of support for the people who are ethical. In, in doing their jobs. We, I mean. Because we could not close. Our borders, essentially. And we had to continue receiving tortures. We had to continue receiving tortures. We had to continue receiving tortures. And we had to continue receiving tortures. And we had to continue receiving tortures. We had to continue receiving tortures from our borders essentially. And we had to continue receiving tourism from the United States. And whoever the United States decided to, to allow. We've had many. Escalations as cases. More recently we had a really bad one. Although. Again, the data. But see, isn't this, this is just amazing to me because we don't hear this in the mainland United States. What we do hear is how bad it is in Cuba and how they're not responding. How bad it is in all these other places, particularly countries not aligned with the United States. So I would argue many of them have done a far better job addressing the pandemic. But yeah, I mean, it's really, it's a sin actually that we're, yeah, you know, our own citizens. The vaccination rates have been good. Okay. So you've had access. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's incredible. Yeah. And so, so thankfully there's that, but then, you know, the same things that were happening in the more right-wing, so some things to definitely understand about Puerto Rico is our current government, like the statehood party is fascist. And there are a couple other parties that are very fascist. And so under their control, I mean, we've had openings before we should have opened. This last outbreak, they should have closed everything down again, but didn't instead there became this, this really kind of hateful dehumanizing campaign against people who haven't been vaccinated. Instead of meeting human need. Once again, it was all about putting people back to work. Put the economy first, the private sector first and then people second, yeah, yeah. Wow. And that's really, oh, well, I'm happy to hear about the vaccination rate, the access to vaccines and the vaccination rate. That's, yeah, that's encouraging, my hopeful. So I don't need to think of Puerto Rico as an island. It would be very good, it would have been very, very easy to literally shut down access, yeah, yeah. And just get everybody healthy and vaccinated and then reopen, which is what Cuba is planning to do. Get everybody healthy, get 90% of the country vaccinated, and then they'll reopen and they themselves will be safe for tourists, and the tourists will be safe too. I mean, it's a win-win for everybody, yeah. And with an island, it's, you know, logistically so much easier to do than any of the states sitting in the middle of the United States or the continental United States. Yeah, so what else should we talk about? What point do you wanna make sure we raise the same before I let you go? So I know that a common conversation you've been having lately on your show has been around cryptocurrency. Yes. And that is- And you and I talked about that actually after one or while I was preparing for one episode. Yeah, yeah. Yes, yes, yep. I think the El Salvador episode, you know, when we were talking about that. Because it is controversial. It is, I'm so thankful too that you've dialogued with me about it because as soon as I saw what the subject matter or as I felt this pain in my chest, like, oh, God, not El Salvador. But so, yeah, so, yes, on the one hand, cryptocurrency is saving the lives of many of our relatives in Sanction Nation, right? We see that as we work around and- We work around this with the banking system and the U.S. petrol dollar and all of those things, yeah. Which is my orientation to cryptocurrency and Bitcoin and, you know, being able to use it on PayPal now. So when, so obviously like all money is just a tool, right? No matter what form it takes, digital or paper, it doesn't have any meaning until you give it meaning and it has no action until you give it action, right? So the meaning and the action of cryptocurrency in Puerto Rico is colonialism. It's not a salvation for us. It is another, yet another imposition and it is another form of disaster capitalism that we have been imposed upon with Brock Pierce, who is a child star who was in the Mighty Ducks, came here after the hurricanes trying to save Puerto Rico with Bitcoin. And all he's done is act like a colonizer. He's buying up buildings left and right, his stores buildings, he walks himself around like he's the president of Puerto Rico. And then after him came this influx of crypto colonizers and the way that your guest from El Salvador explained that was very good. That essentially, you know, this is just the new money. This is just the new wave of colonizers coming here, mostly from the United States, mostly coming here because Puerto Rico is a tax haven, because it is an island because there are so many incentives. So there's the act 2022 and then there's another one 61, I believe, I hope someone will correct me on that if I'm wrong, I'm sure they will. But there's all these real estate incentives, there's all these business incentives to encourage more and more settlers to come here. Because always. I mean, in Bitcoin, but what was the, why did this, why was it, why is it being done via Bitcoin and not US dollars? What's the, what's the- I think it's- Thinking behind that. I think it's just because it happened to be the crypto, the Bitcoin bros, as we call them, that came. And they're the ones with the money right now. There's a new- But it's the same system. It's just a different coinage, basically. It's the same system, it's still disaster capitalism. And yeah, I mean, just using a different currency versus the US dollar, yeah. I would also argue it's a generational thing too. Yeah. In part. Gold and silver, then it became paper money. Now it's digital money, but it's the same people, the same type of person doing the same type of thing. And then when, you know, we talk about the electrical grid, how on earth, so let's just hypothetically suppose that cryptocurrency could help Puerto Rican around the colonial sanctions that we're living under, if it could help us reduce our dependency on the United States in some way. There's no way that the majority of Puerto Ricans who live under the poverty line is established by the United States, who many live in the mountains, many live without internet. There's no way- Also, there's no way to use an electronic wallet if you don't have the internet. Which was the argument made against the introduction of cryptocurrency in El Salvador too was the access. And that guest, I should just remind our audience that this was Yacinia Portillo from Sispis in Washington, DC, she was very knowledgeable about it. Yeah. And so it's similar for us here. And it's really done just again as another neoliberal colonial project is not delivered. It's the same model we're not talking about, dismantling neoliberalism. Right. Yeah. It's just a new, it's the same model, new tool. Not even a new tool, it's still money. It's just new coinage, it's new coinage. It's just new coinage, it's new coinage. So the other question is, what is the environmental impact actually? And have we had enough time to assess that? And is there an ethical way of using it? And this is something that I would love to hear from our indigenous relatives on what they think is, what is their perspective on this? Because knowing that the US and those who love to control the monetary system of the world will definitely put out a particular narrative to draw people away from anything that counters that. So that challenges their domination, right? Cryptocurrency now. So it's hard for the average person like myself to know when we look at this article that's maybe from a reputable source, a trusted source about the ecological impact of cryptocurrency, crypto mining. And those of us who have climate change in the forefront of our minds, how do we move forward with this new technology responsibly, ethically, and in a way that's not actually putting us backwards in the fight to save the planet, but will propel us forward? So it's another big question that comes up in Puerto Rico a lot. Yeah. Well, it's a big, we will have to have a conversation just on that as we watch it evolve, unfortunately in Puerto Rico and see what it's doing. So Monisha, I wanna thank you so much for joining us this evening. And I'm so happy the audience should know that the lights stayed on for you. We weren't sure. The privatized electrical grid that was once public infrastructure doesn't function on any surface and doesn't service the majority of citizens either. Which is, yeah. So I'm glad that we were able to talk. I want you to come back. And I'd also think that we should talk about a delegation to Puerto Rico. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. We should do that. Early next year, I think it would be a good exploration and study to really dig deep into what's going on there. I think it'd be enormously educational for a wide variety of people from the mainland United States. But yeah, so thank you again. And I wanna remind our audience that you've been watching what the F is going on in Latin America in the Caribbean, Code Pink's weekly YouTube program. We broadcast every Wednesday night, 7.30 p.m. Eastern, 4.30 p.m. Pacific. And also I should remind all of you that of Code Pink Radio, which broadcasts on Thursday mornings 11 a.m. Eastern, 8 a.m. Pacific out of WBAI, New York City, simulcasting on WPFW out of Washington, D.C. And you can find both episodes of what the F is going on in Latin America and Code Pink Radio on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. So, there's like two, so okay everyone. Thank you for joining us. Thank you everybody.