Jubilee for Puerto Rico

Last updated on: September 29, 2017 at 10:52 am by Fred Clark

Jubilee for Puerto Rico 2017-09-29T10:52:29-04:00 Fred Clark

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The situation in Puerto Rico is very, very bad. Hurricane Maria devastated the island and it is running out of basic necessities.

Four days after a major hurricane battered Puerto Rico, leaving the entire island in a communications and power blackout, regions outside San Juan remained disconnected from the rest of the island — and the world. Juncos, in a mountainous region southeast of the capital that was slammed with Maria’s most powerful winds, remains isolated, alone, afraid.

For many residents, the challenge of accessing the essentials of modern life — gasoline, cash, food, water — began to sink in. And government officials had no answers for them. Estimates for the return of electricity and basic services will be measured not in days but in weeks and months. For those most vulnerable, far too long.

Many have been openly wondering when help will arrive, whether from local officials or from the federal government. The first thing some people ask when they see outsiders: “Are you FEMA?”

Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló is warning that his government needs broader assistance from the federal government, calling on the Pentagon especially to provide more aid for law enforcement and transportation. Rosselló said he’s also worried that Congress will shortchange his island once the initial wave of emergency relief is gone.

“We still need some more help. This is clearly a critical disaster in Puerto Rico,” he said Sunday night. “It can’t be minimized and we can’t start overlooking us now that the storm passed, because the danger lurks.”

Rescue, recovery and rebuilding in Puerto Rico would be a major challenge even if we had a capable government that was interested in the task of governing — one that saw itself as responsive and responsible to all of the people of America. But we do not have such a government.

Puerto Rico is home to more than 3 million American citizens, but despite that legal, constitutional status, residents of the territory have never been treated as equals to those on the mainland, even in the best of times. And these are not the best of times. We have a white nationalist president whose “America First” motto explicitly diminishes the citizenship and humanity of nonwhite citizens — particularly of Spanish-speaking American citizens like the residents of Puerto Rico. The Trump Effect can be seen on social media, where every post pleading for the swift, proportionate assistance Puerto Rico needs right now prompts dismissive MAGA sloganeering based on the ignorant (at best) claim that Puerto Ricans are not real Americans and that assistance for those “here in America” should take priority over any afterthought of crumbs for those in the colonial territory.

AmericanFlags

Massive natural disasters do not require a “hot take.” They don’t require a “take” of any kind. Joe Romm and Joy-Ann Reid both make a compelling case that Maria’s destruction in Puerto Rico is shaping up to be “Trump’s Katrina.” The president’s belated, begrudging response has revealed him to be unconcerned and incompetent — unable to rise to the kind of leadership that this crisis requires.

But then we already knew that about Donald Trump.

Compounding the current crisis on the island, and barring any hope of near-term recovery, is Puerto Rico’s current debt crisis. It’s twisted, but Wikipedia provides a helpful overview. The territory owes, and is unable to repay, more than $70 billion. That odious debt has begun to be restructured, with a kind of bankruptcy arrangement, but it all imposes a stifling austerity on the island. The logic guiding all of this has been the contradictory moralistic nonsense that seems to guide all discussion of non-corporate bankruptcy — the claim that creditors have a moral right to profit from the risk of lending, and also a moral right to lend without risk.

That Wikipedia article attributes Puerto Rico’s debt to “decades of mismanagement” — implying the territory’s government has always practiced a form of full sovereignty that it has never been allowed to enjoy. I would say that, yes, Puerto Rico has been “mismanaged” for decades, but that the source of that mismanagement has mostly been Washington in service of Wall Street rather than San Juan in service of its people.

Assigning blame for that debt, though, is a pointless exercise now. There was some debate last year during the PROMESA negotiations as to whether Puerto Rico might ever be capable of repaying that debt — whether the billions might, over time, be carved out of the island’s schools and streets and hospitals and transferred back to Wall Street. Most thought then that it could never be repaid, but a few disagreed. No one can disagree now. Any possibility of Puerto Rico’s bondholders one day profiting from those debts was washed away in the hurricane.

So it’s time for Jubilee. Cancel the debt. Erase it from the books.

What about those creditors? Don’t they deserve to be repaid? Well, I have bad news for them. There was a hurricane. A big one. An act of God. Their investment just got blown away. That’s always a possibility and, unfortunately for them, it just happened.

Of course, that’s just the practical, pragmatic argument for debt cancellation — based, in this case, on the sheer fact of the recent storm. But the essential idea of Jubilee is more than that. Jubilee says that while, yes, creditors have a claim to repayment, debt must never be perpetual and permanent. A creditor’s claim of perpetual obligation is illegitimate. It is untrue, unreal. A lie. There is a limit on how much can be squeezed, forever, from the indebted.

Jubilee is what’s needed now. But whether or not you believe in the moral or theological case for it, Jubilee is what’s needed now because there no longer exists any real alternative.

“And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down.”

class warfare

jubilee

Trump

Previous Post

September 25, 2017

A story about stories

Next Post

September 27, 2017 The Face of White Christian Nationalism

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category class warfare evangelicals Iraq Left Behind Mammon music Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which Gospel was written by a doctor?

Select your answer to see how you score.

John Matthew Mark Luke