Politics

A) The USVI is overwhelmingly democrat. If you do not register democrat, you will not have a meaningful vote in primaries.

B) You can research statehood issues online; it doesn't take local knowledge to investigate.

C) Most West Indians complain about the same things continentals complain about, but West Indians seem averse to change, and continentals are encouraged to refrain from suggesting anything here might benefit from change.

Sounds like your doing a paper for school! Hit the search button and type in the topic. the info is in there.

Wow! What a fast response time!

Sorry, I haven't been in school for 20 years so its not a paper. 🙂 Its just an aspect of the culture that interests me and not something I've generally noticed without living in an area.

As for statehood, maybe I'm not using the right terms because Google and searching the forum gives me nothing of use. USVI, statehood, us statehood, advantages, state, etc -- squat. I did get one link for PR but figured that might not be applicable.

I'm not wanting to, or expecting to, walk in and dictate policy to folks. I'm just curious how the internal system works. My current state is signature gathered referendum heavy, the high population cities dictate to the other 90% of the state and have opposite political leanings, and corporations buy elections with misleading advertising, etc. Musing while gardening made me curious about the microcosms among the islands and I couldn't find such details though other sources. Like is F'stead a bunch of red necks and St John hippies (totally made up there) or is everyone really jumbled up.

Artifact

The VI is democrat on the socialist/communist end of the liberal spectrum.
I doubt that the people who own the villas in St John are registered voters.
Check out the constitutional convention info that is available now through the Source and ? other sites.

Statehood? And lose all of the benefits of being a downtrodden territory? 😉

michael moore would feel quite at home here,bill o'reilly would not

Bingo. That was my thought also--a student looking for some info for an assignment. Apologies if I've got this wrong--maybe the questioner is just curious.

Ilo

dntw8up said:

"A) The USVI is overwhelmingly democrat. If you do not register democrat, you will not have a meaningful vote in primaries."

I beg to differ. Your vote always is meaningful, even if you do not vote for the "winner" - that is what voting is about; putting forth your opinion.

Besides, how can your vote be meaningful if you only vote for the "sure thing" anyways?

I can see why the natives are democrat and for social programs, and continentals are republican. Now you too see why the natives generally (I know I am going to catch heat for this, and do not mean to say all natives are the same) do not like continentals 🙂

Good Night/Morning (which is 2am?),

I'm feeling defensive for some reason (must be that potential neighbor aspect) so will chirp up again :).

I'm just curious as has been suggested. I was looking into/thinking about potential 'culture shock' aspects of a move to VI. Politics popped into my had as something that I don't think can be gauged very well on a vacation or a PMV and has an impact on my quality of life. And the processes of how and what folks vote on have varied in different areas I've lived on the mainland so I am curious about the VI way of doing things. I suppose my question should have been more what issues are of concern to VI politicians, what do the people care about, and what are the hot local issues. Or where to go to find out this stuff (looks like the Source is a good start.)

Thanks EastEnder for the pointer to the Source.

Artifact

The issues of concern for a lot of politicians are how much they can line their pockets & how many retirement checks they can collect.

http://www.virginislandsdailynews.com/

no0ne said:

"I beg to differ. Your vote always is meaningful, even if you do not vote for the "winner" - that is what voting is about; putting forth your opinion.

Besides, how can your vote be meaningful if you only vote for the "sure thing" anyways? "

I spoke of a meaningful vote in PRIMARIES. Democrats are the only party that has anything of substance to vote on in local PRIMARIES, which is why your vote in local PRIMARIES is only meaningful if you're a registered democrat.

http://www.demmansay.com is a good site to start with about all things corrupt and local

I will point out that while the Virgin Islands is "vastly democratic," the majority of the population is morally conservative. This is largely due to the strong Christian influence in the territory.

lol ok i'll buy that one, but answer me this why does the usvi have one of the highest rates of new hiv infections among women and men if it is such a morally conservative place,why are the projects overflowing with single mothers and why do they keep building new ones and adding on to existing ones and why would you put a project on water island of all places? drive down any street and you see church bar bar church church bar bar bar church bar church bar they may say they are morally conservative but actions speak louder than words.

Politics in the VI from my opinion is very complicated. There is more than normal graft and corruption. Also since the LBJ years of the great society a couple of generations of people on the dole has created an attitude of " the govt. owes me. A lot of the people of these generations have grown up without a father figure and just a mother who live in subsidised housing and gets Aid to Dependant Children and food stamps so they don't have aclear and positive example of a work ethic or the road map of how to support themselves or have any life or career goals.
Every thing is political in the VI. The govt. has 10-12000 employees.that's something like 10% of the population The once small town in Maine with a population of @ 50,000 had less than 150 employees. A govt. worker can find himself losing his job over his political endorsements and beliefs.
The VI is aligned with the Democrats because they are the great providers of welfare and social services plain and simple. Politics in the VI is so much more exciting than in the states. Listen to AM 100 radio and you'll get a crash course of the political concerns of the islands.

Hi Bombi, where are you from? You said "on the dole" a term I don't remember hearing in the USA, so I ran it by an American friend, and they didn't have a clue what it meant!( if anyone hasn't figured it out, it means collecting unemployment from the government) There definitely needs to be some kind of "job creation" scheme, where people are required to perform community service in return for their government cheque. It might actually scare some people into getting a job!
What are the "LBJ years"?

LBJ- Lyndon B. Johnson

You cannot deny that the population has strong religious beliefs. No matter where you go, there is "sin" (drinking, sex outside of marriage, etc). Maybe it is more the middle-aged to older generations who are very religious, but just because children are having sex and people are using & abusing drugs and alcohol does not mean it is not widely unaccepted.

"C) Most West Indians complain about the same things continentals complain about, but West Indians seem averse to change, and continentals are encouraged to refrain from suggesting anything here might benefit from change.'

Just change the names and that fits anywhere.

And don't even get me started on the West Indian view point of homosexuality...

The LBJ years was a program called The Great Society in which those who have will subsidize those who have not. Food stamps, welfare , unemployment compensation, and on. I was born in Boston, lived in Maine vacationed in Stx 30 years and lived her for 2+and STX is now my home.

And that's different from the mainland, how???

i dunno know liz we've been here for 14 years and have never had a problem and we live in a crucian neighborhood,i work with about 25 "locals"between my 2 jobs and never a problem, any problem we've ever encountered here has been from statesider ,we had a gay governor for 8 yrs and no one cared we have 2 gay people on the vi constitution and no one cares, the statesiders are the ones with the uptight attitudes about sex not the locals.

Sabrina: Here is what I found for "on the dole": http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/266900.html although honestly, I thought it came from an earlier presidential era: that of FDR.

Thanks East Ender, that was a really interesting website. When I saw your name "East Ender", I always thought you were from the east end of London.....I guess it must be the east of STT?!!

On the Dole is a term I recognized immediately. I think it is an older term.