American Imperialism on the March

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson was re-elected to his current post last Friday by the skin of his teeth, but Johnson's razor-thin victory wasn't the only drama to unfold during the organizing session.  Stacey Plaskett, a Democratic “delegate” to Congress from the American Virgin Islands, managed to get to a microphone and have her voice heard as well, even though she was at times drowned out by boos and cat calls from the House Adolescents (the GOP caucus), and at one time had her mic shut off.

 
Delegate Plaskett was telling members of Congress things that some of them (again, the Republicans) did not want to hear.
 
Delegate Plaskett asked pointedly why the representatives from the US Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and Washington, DC, were not allowed to vote for the Speaker.  She inquired of the House Parliamentarian as to why that was so, and was told that, according to House Rules, only members representing states could vote.   Ms. Plaskett observed:
 

“This body and this nation have a territories and colonies problem.  What was supposed to be temporary has now, effectively, become permanent.”

 
Some have observed that the “problem” with US territories and colonies would be exasperated if the President-Elect were to somehow fulfill his fantasy of adding Canada, Greenland, and the Panama Canal Zone to the United States.  He is talking in terms of making Canada the 51^st state and possibly incorporating Greenland into the state of Alaska, but is staunchly opposed to statehood for Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico, two areas that have already served their time in political purgatory.
 
Are we to be the new imperialist giant of the world and proudly proclaim that the sun never sets on the American empire? Do we need more territories and colonies when we obviously can’t fairly manage the ones we already have?
 
Plaskett noted that current territories and colonies (including Washington, DC) collectively contain over 4 million people, and they are home to the largest per capita group of veterans in the country.
 
There is strong opposition by Republicans in Congress to the notion of making the two most populous of those areas, Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico, states out of a fear that they would elect two Democratic US Senators each.
 
Delegate Plaskett's microphone was cut off during her appeal and amid the booing from some of the GOP House members, and when it came back on, Plaskett was saying, “But I have a voice!”
 
Yes, she does, and on Friday it rang out uncomfortably clear.