The fiasco in Florida wasn't Bush's fault. It was Cheney's. It was Jeb's. It was the heiress Harris'.

Politics

MAY 1, 2001. George W. Bush stumbled onto the side of the angels, last week, publicly pledging "Whatever it took" to help Taiwan defend itself against a greedy China.

While Taiwan's inhabitants are divided between independence supporters, and others who would welcome a peaceful Ebony and Ivory reunification, no one there wants to dump the newly democratic political system. They've grown to enjoy their free market, free speech, and free association of the kind favorable to queers, environmentalists, and the indigenous.

Predictably, Dick Cheney was quick to clip Georgie's wings on CNN, signalling to a Beijing increasingly disgruntled by spy planes and arms packages to Taiwan, that this is not a new U.S. position.

In the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, the U.S. agreed to provide weapons for Taiwan's defense, and take the ambiguous "appropriate action," if Taiwan is actually attacked. All in the name of democracy, of course, not the strategic location of the island.

But no matter what Dick says, George's "Whatever it took" to help Taiwan is a great leap forward, and I applaud him for it. George shouldn't be ashamed of his love of Lady Liberty, and his secret fondness for the self-determination of a free people. The fiasco in Florida wasn't his fault. It was Cheney's. It was Jeb's. It was the heiress Harris'.

Any day now, my main hermano Georgie'll be speaking out on behalf of Puerto Rico, that modest Caribbean island which has been waiting since 1898 for the self-determination promised by the United States when it "liberated" the place from Spain.

C'mon, Georgie, leap right in. A whole island will thank you. And though in Puerto Rico, as in Taiwan, there are mixed feelings about whether or not to join forces with the local big brother, all Puerto Ricans agree they should have the ABC's of a democracy. Like a vote that actually counts for something.

You can start with Vieques. Over the ongoing protests of most Puerto Ricans, the U.S. Navy has resumed dropping bombs on a practice range in this small Puerto Rican island. Sure, the Navy owns about two-thirds of the island, but it summarily expropriated the land from residents in 1941.

Imagine, George, if the bumbling Navy had swiped your ranch. Imagine if they had swiped all of Texas. And you had no recourse, like this island which is neither a state nor independent. And you had no U.S. Senators to protest, or protect your interests.

Imagine no power to break off relations. No representation in the United Nations, no separate economy. No court, honest, upstanding (or otherwise) to appeal to.

As if you were Black in Florida in November, without even the NAACP, or nice, white liberals on your side.

Oh, big-hearted, righteous, free-thinking, plain-spoken, democracy-loving Bush, Puerto Rico awaits you.

The Gully In Depth

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All about Puerto Rico, U.S.-Puerto Rico colonial history past and present, and the struggle to evict the U.S. Navy from Vieques. ¡Viva Borinquen!

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Taiwan has done what Cuba hasn't, turned a dictatorship into a promising democracy.

Bush Plus
All about George W. Bush, Dems, Greens, GOPs, and the morass of U.S. politics.

New World
Our Americas. Politics, democracies, failed utopias, and the sullen heirs of colonialism: from Canada to Argentina.

Gay Mundo
The Gully's ultragay coverage. Includes musings on activism, info on queers from Taiwan to Puerto Rico and more.