Of, for, and by the people—CNMI impotency! (Part 3)
Last of a three-part series
The truth of the matter is “politics-poli-tricks and more politics” we have to suffer under and a great example is CPA and MPLT. The recent resignation of Mr. Ayuyu is just more proof of the poli-ticks and poli-tricks at CPA that is run by ex-politicians and it stinks so bad they can smell it on Mars. There is one thing after another with CPA and I’m willing to bet it’s mostly “CPA politics,” as most organizations and institutions of size and power will forever have their on “inside-politics and power struggles.” Mr. Ayuyu is the only private citizen who is not tied to the GOP political party at CPA and I truly pray this gives him the fortitude to really do something about our ugly politics and poli-tricking of the GOP over the past two decades. Run for governor Mr. Ayuyu as a Democrat or independent who have never harmed the CNMI unlike the GOP who has destroyed our economy. We need leaders like you who are “of and for the people,” not GOP power-politics. The reason many citizens say “I don’t like nor trust any of them” is because of their ugly poli-tricking and impotency over the past two decades by the GOP who have been in power. “Power corrupts and absolute power absolutely corrupts” and Ralph proved it! The all-powerful GOP must end!
The GOP has tried to assassinate my character ever since I helped Bishop Camacho and the church by leading the “No to the Casino Vote” and won. But Ambrose has never been the enemy of the CNMI just an activist for the people and most citizens know it, especially those who have open objective minds with a genuine religious constitution. But given there is an enemy, it is one of our own makings like we did with Trump and Trump Jr.-Ralph. The only real cure for most of our economic and social ailments is a real change in the way of reforms. Piecemealing legislation “little by little” when we need reform legislation is like putting a Band-Aid on a broken arm and parasitic in our nature.
I’ve been warning about dangers coming over the horizon before they hit and offering social and economic solutions ever since I started writing back in 2001. But the GOP has continued to manipulate the Legislature into ignoring me preying on every politician’s desire to “be the one with the cure” and to stop the outsider. But if you look at all the election signs, I’ve only seen two by Ogomuro and Propst that actually promote them doing something, while others only say, “vote for me.” They don’t even want to promise us anything anymore, while not prioritizing voters.
The loss cure to our impotency for the people has always been the inability to create something new for the people and the CNMI beyond taxes. I wrote a long time ago that “the CNMI can never expect to receive big benefits from small-time thinking” especially in this day an age of tourism competition with our neighbors in Guam and even Hawaii. I keep reminding our leaders that “all the little fish get eaten by the big fish and we must learn to grow big” which is why Guam, the big fish, has continued to eat most of the tourism business. We’ve been following the GOP for two decades with their casino that Bishop Camacho warned us about, now it’s clear we are virtually worse off than we were two decades ago. Heck, Sen. Jude, King-Hinds, and the GOP’s idea of flights from China is not working out as predicted by Republicans, as the arrivals continue to decline like I warned, so who is the real enemy in this fight to fix our impotent economy—the real economist, me or the picknick table idealists of the GOP!
The problem is “the governor and the Legislature” have failed to deliver any new revenue sources for the people, just taxes. Guam has virtually captured the cannabis tourism market by simply declaring it legal and we are not even putting up a fight. We are so impotent leaving MVA with nothing new and exciting to sell our potential tourists’ countries and we really don’t have anything special to sell to Chinese tourists—heller! If we, as a people and leaders, don’t wake up and get a real economist to help make real economic changes/reforms, then we are doomed to continue our economic impotency, while the big fish Guam and the rest of the world continues to turn the page. After two decades of the GOP, we must give Democrats and independents a real chance in this and the next election—it’s just that simple for fertilization to end our impotency!
Ambrose M. Bennett is an economist who minored in sociology, political scientist, a retired teacher, and former CNMI Board of Education member, a James Madison Fellow (U.S. constitutional scholar), a Fulbright-Hays and lifetime humanities scholar who resides in Kagman III in the CNMI.
