Where's the outrage, MV 2

My second installation of Bold is Beautiful is out.

A story appeared in this paper last week putting the pay of 1,080 PSS employees up in the air, and no one much flinched. Another appeared about a woman who was basically used as a slave locked in her barracks lacking the freedom to even go to her church -- maybe a shrug was offered. Another story appeared about a rotting canine corpse on the road heading toward our most scenic area in Marpi -- a mere ripple at best. These things may seem unrelated, but what they tell me is that we have lost our outrage, and when horrible things happen, we half expect them and aren't surprised anymore, and that's not a good way to live. There are two approaches to these events, to surrender or to fight.

I can't say I was shocked at the casual approach the vast majority of my peers took to the statement from the chief financial officer of PSS that the money was not there to pay teachers. Most teachers have long been a bunch of comatose lumps in terms of standing up for themselves --even while being threatened with a crime called theft of services, which most every teacher I talked to blew off and dismissed as a ploy. It probably was a ploy, but it is bad for morale and we have come to the point where the government can basically threaten a crime on its citizens and it doesn't matter -- it's barely news. By the end of the week there still were no assurances that teachers would not be cheated, and the Saipan Tribune didn't even think this event newsworthy. I did eventually get an email from ACT President Betty Miller quoting Commissioner David Borja saying PSS found a way to make payroll, but a $36.7 million budget is needed to avert a crisis during the school year. I presume the details on that are forthcoming from the commissioner.

Secondly, this government talks about our problems about human trafficking being in the past, but then we read another story about a woman being locked in her barracks and forced into prostitution. I don't think the Stardust allegations, soon to go to trial, were very different. This event doesn't mean Saipan is an evil place any more than the U.S. mainland is an evil place because of all the horrible violent incidents there from Virginia Tech to Abu Gharib, but it does say there is a problem. This event shouldn't be used as an excuse for federalization -- there are better reasons than this alleged act. Federalization should happen because it is immoral to exploit the third world on American territory to create an inflated labor supply that leaves an unsustainable, bloated, inefficient government as the sole provider of living wages. Those indigenous citizens not in the bureaucracy are left in the cold as few private sector jobs pay a living wage and too many politicians wield power over a vile patronage system run amok.

Jane Mack, an attorney for Micronesian Legal Services, a non-profit law office that represents the poor in civil litigation, is part of a group playing a role in trying to fix this trafficking problem. She noted that the first step in fixing this problem is acknowledging the problem exists given all the emotion about the federalization debate. "It's not just old news. The women from Karidat who testified in Washington D.C. weren't making up numbers. And the girls and women who are trafficked into the CNMI are, in fact, victims. It is important that politics not get in the way of referrals of victims to Karidat. We shouldn't sweep any current situations under the rug to hide them in the hopes that we'll somehow look better while we argue about federalization."

There was also a letter from PAWS President Katie Busenkell about seeing a charred dog on the road up to Marpi, followed by another suffering dog with a chain collar imbedded in its neck ridden with flies. No tourist is going to enjoy the canine Sunni Triangle for vacation, and what can be a bigger turn off than a charred animal corpse? Busenkell said she sees the same tolerance for the awful, but doesn't think it is an acceptable reaction. "I think people are numbed, but rather than do something, they revert to a convenient blindness. PAWS wanted to do a slogan that says open your eyes, open your heart, save a life. Don't just pass by and do nothing. See that suffering and do something about it. When you take action, you have a positive impact on the community. Stop just driving by."

PAWS is doing something by rescuing as many of these dogs as it can and raising awareness by educating the public. Beautify CNMI is also doing something. Just this weekend a group of volunteers fought back against hoodlums who disrespected the lighthouse and began painting what was a vile, graffiti laden monument. All of these groups are private organizations, yet all get a tremendous amount done without a huge government apparatus. Perhaps there is a lesson there. We should keep up the fight and keep our outrage.


Editor's note: This time I butchered a few transitions. This column thing is harder than I thought it would be, as I'm not making the sweet music I expect of myself just yet. This one is liberal enough to piss off a few people I suppose.

Citizen participation needed

After years of poor planning and mismanagement, this community is facing some drastic decisions that will have enormous implications for many CNMI citizens. The more the community participates in these decisions, the wiser I believe these decisions will be. The less the community participates in these decisions, the more likely the usual factors of nepotism, re-election interests or just "bending over" for whatever the garment factories want will influence these decisions. I hope it is not the latter.

There are several community groups sprouting up, growing or reforming that will assist in this democratic process. These five groups and entities are all operating with different focuses and in different ways, but all of them are doing work that will benefit the CNMI and lead to more citizen participation and better decisions. I do not speak for any of them, but have participated in each in some small way, very small actually, but I would like to support them all.

After Tina Sablan’s manifesto was published, she followed through and has had open forums at various locations to solicit and organize ordinary citizen input into fixing the many problems with our government. This group is currently putting together voter’s guides for November that hopefully will lead to educated voters making decisions on issues, not on lawn signs and waving. This group is actively soliciting signatures to establish a run off election so the next governor will be elected by a clear majority and will have a clear mandate. Beyond that, this group is trying to make sure the Open Government Act applies to the legislature. Right now, the legislature is exempted. I can't imagine that anyone could read the minutes of the past meetings, on the website, and not come away convinced that ninety percent of the positions and suggestions by the public are infinitely better than anything that ever came out of Capitol Hill. There is a lot more information available at http://www.thecnmi.com/.

Next, there is a rise in the number of bloggers here in the CNMI. There are at least twenty different people writing about the CNMI from many different perspectives such as school principal, environmentalist, legislator, scuba instructor, lawyer, teacher and even student. There are many links to these blogs at http://www.welovesaipan.com/ or my own blog at http://turbittj.blogspot.com/.

Third, Beautify CNMI continues to grow and has received many awards for their efforts to clean up the island. The next cleanup will be on Saturday May 26th at 8:00 am at the Okinawa War Memorial. People can find much more about this group at http://beautifycnmi.blogspot.com/.

Beautify CNMI is also working with PAWS, the Pet Assistance and Welfare Service. Improving the plight of suffering animals isn’t just a moral issue, it is an issue of health, safety and economics. My friend Katie Busenkell recently wrote an extremely sensible, well reasoned opinion article on why solving the issues of our animals is in our economic and health interests, as the current state of the dog population lowers property values and is a turn off to tourists. More can be read here at http://www.paws-saipan.com/.

Finally, after a long period of indifference and infighting, the Association of Commonwealth Teachers has a set of new officers paving the way for a greater voice in education for actual teachers. ACT is meeting on Thursdays at San Vicente Elementary School at 6:00 pm and a new website is currently under construction. Inquiries can be made at cnmiactnow@aol.com.

All of these entities need and deserve more community involvement. The mechanisms are in place for more citizen involvement and more democracy. The people of this commonwealth need to get together to turn around and fix the many problems we face. Don't leave it just to our elected officials. They've had their turn and the reverse Midas Touch is evident.