Lessons from recent experiences

At Issue: The Asian Crisis, coupled with instability fueled by a vicious agenda for a federal takeover of immigration.

Our View: NMI must ensure such plan doesn’t receive approval in the US House of Representatives or kiss it adios.

If there’s any single issue that would render the fragile economy of this American Archipelago its permanent death or ruination, it is the approval of a capricious federal agenda to takeover immigration and other instrumental policies that have allowed these isles to forge its economic foundation over the last 22 years.

We often engage in endless soul-searching whether such ruinous agenda is part and whole of “American Values”. Definitely the answer is in the negative and it would be irresponsible to leave such notion at a level when in fact it’s all a game of wits by our detractors who must answer to special interest groups who have bankrolled their political careers for years.

We need not despair but fuel our determination to defend our economic freedom so abundantly given all communities across the country under the Clinton administration who trumpets “wealth and jobs creation” for ALL Americans. Perhaps President Clinton has listened to all the wrong advice from his helmsmen at both the White House and Interior. Frankly, he doesn’t deserve exiting the presidency with sore views from this group of US Citizens.

The assaults of the Asian Crisis has sufficiently sent our tourism industry deep south. Whether it will recover soon is largely dependent upon economic recovery from Japan and Asian countries and most importantly, the ability of the NMI and its friends in the US House of Representatives to slam the brakes on a capricious agenda to rob our people of their livelihood during the first quarter of this millennium. If we may say so, such an agenda is very un-American.

Indeed, labor unions have bundles of greenbags to fuel the re-election of liberal social democrats who have, since 1993, fought long and hard to force repeal of local control of immigration under the Covenant Agreement for it is the surest ticket to destroying the NMI’s apparel and tourism sectors, the two largest industries here.

The net effect of such capricious plan is two fold: 1). Economic ruination of the livelihood of Indigenous US Citizens 2). Forcing US mainland taxpayers to shoulder the added burden of forking out more of their hard earned income to defray what social liberal democrats would have ruined under such shortsighted plan.

Local leadership must take proactive approach to dealing with two such towering challenges: 1). Fight every inch of the way to sustain our economic freedoms. 2). Reassess investment incentives to lure lasting investments into the NMI. It’s a do or die situation but must first secure the former. Si Yuus Maase`!