Six Shooter

Six ways Puerto Rico shoots itself in the collective foot:

1) We let politicians create their own world. Beginning in the 1980s, accelerating rapidly in the 1990s and absolutely gone berserk since Y2K, The Fools have been walling themselves off from the rest of Us, sometimes literally, as in creating enclosed neighborhoods for themselves and their ilk. The Fools act like they own the whole shooting match, and to a large extent they do, simply because We let them get away with that idiocy.

2) We focus on grades rather than learning. Oooh, Our kids have straight A averages, but they're learning less and less of what's needed to be a success in the globalized chaos of the 21st century. They can answer tests, but they can't read to learn. They can spew the required facts to get a grade, but they can't digest those same facts and come to a conclusion. Instead of improving teachers (and there's PLENTY of room for improvement,) We tweak tests. If you're not going to do it right because you're looking for an easy shortcut, then you're cheating. And that's what We're doing: Cheating Ourselves.

3) We think "Us" doesn't include anybody else. From "international news" that aren't to "social studies" that focus on only one society (and not even Ours!), We are as ignorant of the the rest of the planet as a Fool is about ethics. (Okay, maybe not that bad, but We're definitely not good at this.) Insularity is a combination of insecurity (fear) and lack of imagination. We don't lack empathy, but Our collective lack of imagination and fear of "strangers" is undoubtedly an obstacle We can--We need--to remove. Quickly.

4) We dream small dreams. Probably a result more than a trait, what with deficient education, insularity and bad examples crowding out imagination. Where's Our NASA? Where's Our Aswan Dam? Where's Our island-airport-in-the-bay? In other words, where's Our Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal, at any level? Some of Us have them, but We're by far the few exceptions. The rest of Us aim for retirement, play the lottery and hope--hope feebly--that somebody, somehow, will give Us the Moon. Makes for an easily-manipulated crowd, that does.

5) We'd rather ignore Our situation than analyze it. Indifference breeds ignorance and We've been breeding that like Viagra-hopped rabbits (pun intended.) Meanwhile, The Fools have used irrelevance to breed indifference to breed ignorance. The way to end this particular abortion is to sterilize The Fools. Literally.

6) We'd rather be safe than sorry. And We're neither.


The Jenius Has Spoken.