If the Spanish language triggers you, world flags anger you, and an uplifting message against hate sends you into a rage, you might be a white supremacist.

🚨 OUT TODAY: Public figures, elected officials, artists & orgs—incl. 22 NYC Council Members, Mark Ruffalo, Kal Penn, Susan Sarandon, Alice Walker, & others—have signed a Call to Conscience demanding an end to Trump’s assault on Cuba. Sign on now: letcubalive.info

Puerto Rico has long been treated as exploitable and expendable. For decades, the colony was the site of a US military base on the island of Vieques. Starting in the 1940s, naval vessels and planes conducted training missions off the coast. Thread.

In 1998 alone, 23,000 bombs were dropped on the island and live training operations took place 180 days out of the year. In the process, tons of chemicals, including mercury and lead, were dumped in the area, turning Vieques into one of the most toxic places in the Caribbean.

Over the years, the site was a frequent target of protests by locals, 50 percent of whom, on average, were unemployed. The US government refused to acknowledge that its activities were harmful until 1999, when two navy jets misfired their weapons.

In the aftermath of the accident, the military made plans to depart, finally leaving the island in 2003. Vieques residents have not recovered.

A few years later, another US-created disaster, one that would also have implications for the environment, hit Puerto Rico. This time, it was a debt crisis provoked by the 2008 collapse. As a global recession landed on its shores, Puerto Rico turned to borrowing to stay afloat.

The government began issuing tax-exempt bonds, meaning that the investors who bought them would not have to pay taxes on their profits. With the help of (surprise) Goldman Sachs, officials also issued capital appreciation bonds in which the rate of repayment increases over time.

Those payments go mostly to covering the interest (which can be up to 1000 percent), so payments increase, but the total amount owed never goes down. As early as 2009, the island was in deep financial trouble.

By 2015, debt payments had quintupled. The next year, the US Congress passed the PROMESA law, which put Puerto Rico under the authority of a body known as the Financial Oversight and Management Board.

The 7 board members, appointed by the US president, were charged with assuring that the colony’s assets were sold off to pay its debts. Then, in 2017, Hurricane Maria hit the island, killing more than three thousand people and destroying up to 80 percent of the local food crops.

An economic crisis followed by an environmental disaster has set the stage for the further financialization of Puerto Rico by plutocrats bent on privatizing public services. This scenario raises a question that is central to our organizing work: Who owes what to whom?

🔴 NEW: Israel is carrying out a targeted campaign of arrests against the wives and sisters of Palestinian detainees, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club said, condemning the latest detention and abduction of Wafaa Abu Ghlemi, wife of imprisoned leader Ahed Abu Ghlemi. She was

Exactly this. And if anyone wants to read more into the history of the sugar trade in Puerto Rico and how ex enslaved people rebuilt their lives and livelihoods as farmers, contributing to the economic growth of the country, this eye opening book is a great read

The more you know.

🔴 The Sterilization of Puerto Rican Women by the U.S. government. 🔵 Note: The same thing was done to Native women in the U.S. including Mexicanas and Chicanas. Sterilization was legalized in Puerto Rico in 1937 under Law 116, which established Eugenics Boards. The