Sour Grapes for Tuesday, January 29th 2008

Driving home a No
What is Taotao Tano?
I am not a spokesman for Taotao Tano but I will give you my opinion on what they stand for as I see it. I went to listen and see what they wanted. Here is what I found. They are not against foreign contract workers. They are not in league with, nor do they condone corruption in local government. They are not racist rednecks as some mainlander liberals, and mainland educated liberal locals would have you believe. They are not inarticulate boobs spouting hatred. Some big-government loving ‘liberals’, a few of our US government employees and a few other self interest oriented sympathizers of federalization call them that to try to close your mind to their message.

To me they seem to be a force trying to keep the indigenous peoples of these Islands from being screwed like the Hawaiians and the American Indians and other original native peoples around the world have been screwed. They simply want to stand up and say this is our island; come and visit…even come to stay if you want, but please remember whose islands they are. Don’t promise to give us a helping hand up, then shaft us by taking over our fledgling self government and try running the place according to your best self interest instead of ours. We don’t want to be ‘federalized’. We do not want to be taken over and ruled by you.

That seems to be their message, and if you have missed it, it is because they usually articulate it in their own sovereign language, not yours. Try listening closely with an open mind and you will hear a different message than the stereotype their opponents would have you believe.

(As I said, I am not their spokesman. If the real spokespersons of CNMI Taotao Tano think I am wrong about their message or their goals, I invite them to reply through an unedited message in this column or through a letter to the editor).
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Don’t let the Red Herrings Sway you
Proponents of ‘federalization’ (a nice way to say US takeover), will try to make you believe the recent CNMI Motorcade protest was about the new labor law (15-108), or about the plight of foreign guest workers, or about a bloated government, or about how many cars showed up to protest, or twenty other off-subject items.

Not so. That grass roots upwelling of residents both driving and watching were trying to show support for an independently governed, self sufficient CNMI. A country simply trying to govern itself as promised.

The small but vocal takeover camp wants to divert your attention into counting cars or claiming some vague discrimination because they don’t want you to focus on the real root of the issue…a big powerful country taking over a smaller, militarily helpless one. That is what it is about. That is what the motorcade and the CNMI citizens sought to bring to the attention of the Island’s leaders and the US government legislators. The motorcade was about protesting that takeover.

Those who participated and most other citizens here are opposed to a federal takeover. It’s that simple. We realize that a house that does not control who comes and who goes or how long they stay does not control its own destiny. It does not govern itself. Its controllers do.

Some of my friends in the mainlander community are in favor of the takeover. Some of them are uncomfortable with the culture here. They don’t believe the local population is capable of governing itself. They want this place to be more like their hometown back on the mainland.

But this is not the mainland. This is not their island. They, and I, are guests of the indigenous people here. Under a UN mandate, the US signed on as a helping hand ‘big brother’ to help lift the CNMI and its people into position to self rule. That promise was codified in the Covenant. Now instead, they want to become George Orwell’s version of “Big Brother” government oppressing the people and forcing its rule on those incapable of fending them off. In short, taking over control now that the UN’s attention is diverted elsewhere and they want control of these Islands for their own use.

The universal claim of the pro takeover groups is that US rule will be somehow better than what we have now. I’ve heard it 20 times at least. It’s got to be better than what we have now they say. Oh? How so? Invisible, uncaring bureaucratic authority 10,000 miles away interested only in their self interest is not my idea of better government. The spirit and the promise of the Covenant was and is self rule, not subjugation.

So don’t be fooled by the many red herring stories or by counting the cars. Focus on Anti-Federalization, on Anti-Take Over, on Pro CNMI independent self rule. That is the core idea behind the recent protest motorcade. That is the core value of the CNMI Taotao Tano and the core value of most of the CNMI’s citizens. They want to promote a free and self-governing CNMI. They try to stave off those who would steal their islands as they stole governing autonomy and land from many other indigenous peoples. It’s that simple. Most of the citizens here don’t want a federal takeover. Pass it around.
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End of an Era
It was with a great deal of sorrow that my family attended the last Sunday Brunch
hosted by the great Hotel Nikko Saipan two days ago. This hotel closure represents the passing of the last major Japanese investment in the CNMI and as such marks the beginning of a new era in our tourism industry.

There are still plenty of people, companies, and organizations that rely on and contribute to the continuation of a vibrant Japanese tourist market here on Saipan. We should all support their efforts. Other market segments, most notably Korea but China and Russia as well, are growing strong and beginning to replace some of the ground lost from our tourist base in Japan. We should support their efforts too.

I am sure UMDA, the new owners of the hotel, will find top notch operators and do an excellent job of running the hotel and attracting tourists from Japan and elsewhere. We hope they will be able to continue the employment of the gracious staff that works there.

We’ll be going back to try the food and the service when the new Palms Resort gets up and running. Meanwhile I want to personally say thank you to the many pleasant staff persons at the Nikko who, over the years, have made our visits there a wonderful experience.
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Quotes of the week: Who can protest and does not, is an accomplice in the act. The Talmud

Power always has to be kept in check; power exercised in secret, especially under the cloak of national security, is doubly dangerous. –William Proxmire, US senator, reformer (1915-2005)

Sour Grapes for Tuesday, January 1st 2008

Working on the Railroad
Labor Abuse
I and a few hundred other people were at the Labor Department Processing Office last week standing in interminable lines. The reasons for the lengthy wait for service are twofold:

First, there are lots of contract workers trying to get in under the deadline to be consensually or otherwise transferred before the new labor regulations come into effect on Jan. 1st. 2008. Many hundreds of them, perhaps a couple of thousand have come forward in the past few weeks to beat that deadline, after which they cannot transfer without an administrative order and some serious hoop jumping.

Second, a couple of months ago Labor Department management decided to reallocate manpower to reduce the then large backlog of labor processing applications. Because of a lack of funds and a lack of manpower it was decided to split the workday into mornings during which Labor Department employees work on clearing the backlog of applications and afternoons when the service windows open up allowing new applications and other business to be transacted.

The second of these reasons brings us around to the subject of this article, labor abuse. The ones being abused here are the Labor Department employees. They are required to come to work at the regular time early in the morning and work for half a day on the paperwork backlog mentioned above. Then after a lunch break they are tasked to come back to work and do another entire days work of accepting and verifying new applications and all other window service tasks but have only the afternoon hours to accomplish it. In other words they must do another whole days work in half a day.

The right way to clear this big backlog might be to hire temporary manpower to do the grunt work. 10 or 15 data entry and filing clerks could do the drudgery while a couple of knowledgeable Labor Department employees could oversee and check their work. Another possibility would be to allow overtime for the entire staff, say 2 to 4 hours per day until the backlog is cleared. I’m sure management thought about these solutions and said “nice options but where do we get the money to pay the salaries or the overtime?”

So what it all boils down to is a group of hard pressed individuals down there in Processing are working doubletime and regular hours ‘overtime’ without benefit of being paid for the extra work. I’ve been there transacting applications two or three times in the last couple of months and saw these folks gamely trying to keep up with this pace and doing so with a great deal of skill and with smiles on their faces. The other sections like JVA and Records and Enforcement and Hearings are also in for a lot of extra work in the coming months as new labor regulations go into effect and contract workers shuffle to try to stay here in the CNMI.

Labor Department employees’ jobs are not likely to become easier in the coming months, and the workload will probably increase instead of decrease. Add to this the looming possibility that a federal takeover of Labor and Immigration may be imposed by the US causing some or all of them to lose their jobs altogether. Both are tough on morale.

I for one am amazed at the show of good spirit shown by these hard working individuals and I salute them for their diligent efforts. If the workload without overtime doesn’t ease up soon maybe they should walk across the hallway and file a labor case. (Kidding there).
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Omnibus Railroad
If you are watching right now you can see from current events how the US system of government works. Lobbyists and other paid special interest groups suggest a course of action. Some of these special interests are from inside the government, others come from outside. Closed-door inner sanctum committee meetings are held where other insider special interest government groups, committees, staffers and others draft the legislation, often with a self interest agenda to push or a chip on their shoulder to avenge. Bills are then packaged together, dozens sometimes, seldom if ever read by lawmakers, claimed by their sponsors to be uncontested then passed while most members are back in their home states diddling the wife and vacationing on the taxpayers dime. Four senators and a sticky dress aide are often enough to get the legislation passed.

In our case they disguise a federal takeover of the CNMI as a tree hugger/feel good package of “uncontested” environmental measures. Seriously, the bill designed to terminate self government in the Marianas is hidden inside a package called the National Parks, Forests, Parks, Public Land and Reclamation Act of 2007. Does that sound like a federal takeover bill to you? Want to guess how many US Senators will actually read even part of even one of the ‘nearly 60’ bills packaged inside S.2483? My guess is zero. Want to guess how many even realize they will be voting on a measure to nullify government autonomy in the CNMI? I wonder who else is being screwed to the wall by other bills hidden in this ‘uncontested omnibus’ package?

This is sadly, not an unusual strategy. Committee chairman Sen. Bingaman is ‘delighted’ and hopes for speedy passage of the unread bills. I bet he is. I wonder what his cut will be?

So American History and Civics teachers take note. If you are still giving kids in your government school classes the party line egalitarian, citizen-representative, bills passed on their merits story; you are doing them a huge disservice. Tell them how the system really works. Wake them up to reality. The system touted as a measure to facilitate flow of legislation is really a system of pat-my-back-I’ll-pat-yours patronage where US Senate and Congressional votes are traded like cattle at auction to the highest bidder. Nothing new there, it just happens to be affecting us directly this time.
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Quotes of the week: A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad. Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919)

The history of an oppressed people is hidden in the lies and the agreed myth of its conquerors. Meridel Le Sueur (1900-1996)