Terrorist Semantics

Terrorist Semantics by vagabond ©

“In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics.’ All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.”
 - George Orwell

With the reported discovery, attempted capture and assassination of Osama Bin Laden, the attacks on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya and the recent terrorist attacks in Boston, questions left lingering in the shadows since the terrorist attacks on the US on 9/11/2001 have once again stepped into the light. Questions that have not been answered and that haunt us not on a conscious level, but on a subconscious level. Questions like what lead to the US 9/11/2001 attacks. The exploration of those questions leads to other questions about American foreign policy and hegemony. Those questions lead to who and how are the terms “terrorism” and “terrorists” reshaped and to whose benefit. Those questions open up a whole new round of examination and each level of inquiry seems to only lead us further down the rabbit hole.

i was living in Harlem when the attacks took place. i watched the television news cameras trained to the aftermath of the first plane hitting the World Trade Center and thought it to be a horrible accident. When the second plane hit it became clear that this was an attack of epic proportions. Whoever planned this knew that with the first plane hitting there would speculation as to what happened, judgement would be withheld on whether or not it was an attack or an accident. In the process of trying to figure out what happened, every available camera would be trained on the World Trade Center and when that second plane hit all the hope of a horrible accident would be drained from us and there would be no doubt that this was an attack.

The second plane hitting the World Trade Center just a few minutes after the first would change the world. In the moment that second plane hit, the US would experience the fear, vulnerability and insecurity that is common place around the world due in large part  to US foreign policy. This is a lesson that the US never heeded when Malcolm X commented on the assassination of President Kennedy with his famous “chickens coming home to roost.” The same can be said of the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001. The terrorism sponsored by the US to achieve its own dominance in the world was coming back to haunt us. What kind of terrorism? The Iran-Contra Affair that lead to the crack cocaine epidemic in the US. The overthrow of governments who put their own interests ahead of US interests. The backing of dictators who put the interests of the US ahead of the interests of their own country. The use of torture in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo and other CIA black sites around the world. The karma laundry list goes on and on…

In the years following those attacks i struggled with the questions of defining “terrorism” and “terrorists” and how those terms are defined and by who and to what benefit. This is the question that you chase down into the rabbit hole. It was something that would not leave me alone because these were terms that i was already wrestling with in terms of the way US political prisoners and prisoners of war (PP & POW) are treated.  People like Oscar Lopez Rivera, Russell Maroon Shoatz, Leonard Peltier, Sundiata Acoli, Herman Bell, Marshall Eddie Conway, David Gilbert, and many others who had decided that they couldn’t stand by and allow US hegemony to exercise its will over Puerto Rican, African-American and Native American Peoples. They stood up in defiance to US empire within its own “borders” and in doing so their actions were often labeled as “terrorism” and they were often labeled as “terrorists”. With these recent terrorist attacks on the US the definition of these words “terrorism” and “terrorist” changed.

Within the zeitgeist of 1970 – 1980 the terms “terrorism” and “terrorist” didn’t hold the same kind of weight that it does in a post US 9/11 world. The US government and corporate media had refined and redefined “terrorism” and “terrorist” to now encompass anyone who disagreed with the American empire. The US was drawing a line in the sand and it couldn’t be more clear than when President Bush declared “You’re either with us or you’re with the terrorists”. The US government and the corporate media had now found a way to compress all dissent to American Empire by expanding the definition of “terrorism” and “terrorists”.  As an added bonus this new refinement of the definition of “terrorism” and “terrorist” now seemed to remove any doubt that the actions that US PP & POW’s were accused of, convicted of and were serving incredibly long sentences for, were anything but “terrorist” actions and that they couldn’t be anything but “terrorists”.

In the days, weeks, months and years following those attacks the supporters of members of the Black Liberation Army, Weather Underground, American Indian Movement and Puerto Rican separatists groups languishing for three and four decades in the US now had to fight to keep them from being categorized in this new expanded definition of “terrorism” and terrorist”. We were saddled with the responsibility of having to explain that they were not terrorist’s, because their actions were not acts of terrorism. They were freedom fighters who fought against US oppression.

This issue of “grandfathering” in US PP & POW’s was one that led me to the writing of my film MACHETERO. It was this expansion of the terminology of “terrorism” and “terrorist” in the post US 9/11 attacks that inspired me to make a clear delineation that would exclude US PP & POW’s from the new “terrorism” and the new “terrorist” definition. The film takes a stand against including US PP & POW’s within this all-encompassing and ever-expanding terminology. In trying to get people to think about how and who defines these terms i needed to stay away from the US 9/11 attacks because they were so polarizing so i used a different approach to begin a dialogue that would get people to think outside of the parameters that were being defined within this post US 9/11 zeitgeist.

The issue of US imperialism in Puerto Rico is an issue that unfortunately most people don’t know about. Oddly enough it was the fact that many people didn’t know about the colonial relationship that the US has with Puerto Rico that allowed me to bring up the issues of how and who defines “terrorism” and “terrorist” in a kind of hermetically sealed bubble that could possibly circumvent post US 9/11 polarization. Within that hermetically sealed bubble these issues could spark a potential dialogue that could safely allow that to re-think the issues of 9/11/2001 while at the same time educating them on the US colonial relationship with Puerto Rico.

Now that the issues of terrorism and terrorist are on the minds of many once again i invite you to explore some of these issues through the prism of my film MACHETERO…

MACHETERO Poster by vagabond ©

MACHETERO opens in New York City for a one week limited theatrical run.

WED. JUNE 12TH – TUES JUNE 19TH
CLEMENTE SOTO VELEZ
KABAYITO’S THEATER (2ND FLOOR)
107 SUFFOLK STREET
NY NY 10002
(BTWN RIVINGTON & DELANCEY)

TICKETS $10 http://machetero.bpt.me
SCREENING TIMES • 1PM • 3PM • 5PM • 7PM • 9PM
F Train to Delancey Street or J , M , or Z Trains to Essex Street.
Walk to Suffolk Street, make a left.

Shortlink: http://wp.me/p1eniL-13T

From Kandahar To Kindergarten

America Opens Pandora’s Box by vagabond

“In defense of humans
Lay down your sticks and stones
Weapons and violence are better off left alone
Cause you don’t rise when people fall

I see you rot this world
I see you ride this world
I see you rape this world
On, off, on, off, on, off
And I don’t like what I see
Greed
You don’t rise when people fall“
- Fugazi – from the song In Defense Of Humans

From its inception America decided to open Pandora’s box in the name of financial profit… They opened Pandora’s box and out came the genocide of Native people for their land. The Trans-Atlantic slave trade to profit off the lives and labor of others also came out of the box. The flimsy excuses to go to wars that line the pockets of the military industrial complex also came out of that box. The zombie capitalism that allowed profit to be a guiding cultural principal in America also came rushing out of that box.

These ills that came streaming out of Pandora’s box were opened because financial benefit was to be made and to hell with whatever consequences followed… And when the naked horror of the consequences rears up its ugly head we search for ways to close the box without ever trying to put what came out, back in… But there is no closing Pandora’s box… Not without a paradigm shift in thinking from capitalism (which is profit, at any cost) to something humane, something sustainable… Something that works for the many instead of something that works for the few…

While we reflect on the recent tragedy in Newton, Connecticut, and search our souls for some solace i propose that surest way to go about that is to investigate the history of violence that has shaped America into a death culture and it’s connection to making a profit at any cost. This country has a long history of placing financial profit over life. It was founded on that principle with the Native American genocide for land. Built upon with the enslavement of Africans. Expanded with war into imperialistic adventurism from Mexico to Puerto Rico and continues today in places like Afghanistan. i’m not trying to belittle or set side the Newton massacre, on the contrary, i’m trying to expand it, to have it be thought of and included within a larger context of ongoing tragedy’s that we have refused to either connect or recognize.

The occasional outburst of random senseless violence that bursts forth into our consciousness like the recent Aurora, Colorado movie theater shooting and the Wisconsin Sikh temple shooting and this latest tragedy in Newtown Connecticut should be a wake up call to us. There’s writing on the wall in each of these incidents. A writing on the wall that we’re refusing to read because of the unease it’ll bring. The issue isn’t about gun control or gun laws it’s about placing the desire of financial profit above everything else. The problem is that laws created to control gun ownership curb the profits of gun corporations. Capitalism is God in America and nothing gets in the way of God in America.

Nothing is allowed to get in the way of making a dollar in America, not the delicate balance of the eco-system, not the unlivable wages paid by corporations at the expense of obscene profits, not the homelessness that is created by banks foreclosing on homes, not the maiming or death of soldiers that comes from the profiteering of the military industrial complex, not the privatization of prisons for profit and the link to increased prison population in times of low crime, nothing gets in the way of making a dollar in America. The guiding principle of placing profit above people in America is what makes the culture of America a death culture. The examples of this death culture abound…

The BP oil disaster placed profit above the lives of people. The government can’t afford to oversee these oil rigs properly but it can afford to subsidize the fossil fuel industry at the cost of billions to create record making profits for oil companies. Eleven people died on that BP oil rig, and untold number of wildlife, not to mention the destruction of an entire eco-system.

The company with the most employees on federal assistance programs in the US, like Food Stamps, is the low wage, part-time employment machine known as Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart pays its employees a substandard wage forcing them to seek federal assistance to survive. In essence, the federal government is subsidizing the billions of dollars in profits made by Wal-Mart by helping to feed its low wage employees.

The banks who became to big to fail capitalize their profits and socialize their risks. Their failures become our responsibility, we absorb their risk and bail them out. Our reward for that, is to be turned out of our homes in foreclosures and made homeless so that the bank ledger turns from red to black. Our misery quickly becomes their profit.

Nobody loves a war like the military industrial complex because it means multi-billion dollar profits. For the soldiers who are fighting that war it means asking their families for money to get the body armor they lack. In the meantime the federal money used for war that could have been spent on domestic needs like education or infrastructure or health care is fattening the pockets of private military contractors who seem to never lack for body armor or anything else…

The privatization of prisons all across the country for profit has seen an explosion in prison construction and in the prison population. The fact that the crime rate all across the country is at an all time statistical low is of no consequence. Crime statistics are ignored in order to fill the coffers of the prison industrial complex.

There’s money to be made at every turn in this death culture, even in these shootings that take place from time to time. In 1999 at Columbine thirteen were shot and killed, in 2007 thirty-two were shot and killed at Virginia Tech, in 2008 five were shot and killed at Northern Illinois University, in that same year thirteen were shot and killed in an immigrant center in Binghamton NY. In 2011 in Arizona a congress woman and six others were shot and killed, including a child. In April of 2012 seven were shot and killed at Oikos University, in July of 2012 twelve were shot and killed in a movie theater in Aurora and in August of 2012, six were shot and killed in a Sikh temple in Wisconsin. Each time there is a massacre there’s talk of gun control but no talk of the death culture that permeates American society… No discussion on limiting the ability to procure profits that are built on tragedy, in massacre, in war, in prison, in homelessness, in unsustainable wages, in hunger… Meanwhile there are 310 million guns in America and 312 million Americans… There’s money to be made in guns and the price we pay for these massacres could just be the price of doing business for gun manufacturers…

When the US sends out drones to “surgically” drop a bomb in order to kill a terrorist hiding in a village in Kandahar and a few others die in the process this is called “collateral damage” by the war machine profiteers and their lackeys in the media… In Kandahar they call that “collateral damage” mother, father, son, daughter, grandfather, grandmother, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, cousin, friend… The fallout of the slaughter that takes place in Columbine and Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University, and in Binghamton NY and in Arizona and in Okios University, and in Aurora and in a Sikh temple in Wisconsin and yes even in a school in Newtown Connecticut is also called mother, father, son, daughter, grandfather, grandmother, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, cousin, friend… But on the balance sheets of the military industrial complex and the gun manufacturers, the victims of these massacres is listed as “collateral damage” to the profits of a death culture…

And this may be why the questions that are posed by these massacres are so difficult to answer… When you are forced to look for an answer within the current paradigm of American death culture, where profits trump life, then there is no answer to be found… Pandora’s box can’t be closed again and what has escaped can never be put back in the box within the current paradigm of thinking… If you’re looking for an answer within the system as it’s currently designed you’ll only find it in more dead bodies… Until there is a radical shift in the legal profiting off of the misfortune and misery of others, there will be no answer that will prevent another massacre. Until there isn’t a profit in America’s death culture the body count will continue to climb from Kandahar to Kindergarten…

Shortlink: http://wp.me/p1eniL-Ti

Dylcia Pagan & Puerto Rican Independence

Dlycia Pagan – Puerto Rican Heroine by vagabond ©

Today is Dylcia Pagan’s birthday. If you don’t know who Dylcia Pagan is then that’s probably by design. To know Dlycia is to know is to know that Puerto Rico has been a colony of the United States since 1898 and this isn’t a fact that the US likes to highlight as it supposedly beats the drum for democracy and freedom around the world from North Korea to Afghanistan. So not knowing who Dylcia is, is by design, because to not know Dylcia is to not know that the US has been a colonizing power in Puerto Rico for over a hundred years. Why are Dylcia and Puerto Rico’s colonialism so inextricably linked? Because Dylcia is a former US held political prisoner of war who spent 20 years in US prisons for fighting to free Puerto Rico from US colonialism.

Dylcia was a member of the FALN (Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion Nacional  or the Armed Forces of National Liberation), a clandestine Puerto Rican group that used any and all means, including military means, to achieve the liberation of Puerto Rico from US colonialism. They were labeled a terrorist group by US law enforcement and they were hunted down as such. On April 4th of 1980, the FBI arrested a number of FALN member in Illinois and Dylcia was among those arrested. She was charged with seditious conspiracy to overthrow the US government. During her trial, she and her co-defendants chose to take a prisoner of war status as was their right under the Geneva Convention. The US legal system refused to recognize their status as Prisoners of War and Dylcia and her co-defendants refused to recognize the jurisdiction of the US government. In the end the US government found them guilty and sentenced them to incredibly long prison terms. Dylcia was sentenced to 63 years.

In September of 1999, President Clinton pardoned Dylcia and nine other Puerto Rican political prisoners of war. She’s been living in Loiza, Puerto Rico since she was release. Although Dylcia is best known as being a freedom fighter, it’s only a part of who she is, her story and the sacrifices she made for her ideals make her a heroine, not just for Puerto Ricans, not just for women, but for all of us… Check out the short film below i did of Dylcia where she’s tells her own story…

For more info on Dylcia Pagan visit her website…
www.dylciapagan.com

Connect with Dylcia on Facebook
Connect with Dylcia on Google+

Shortlink: http://wp.me/p1eniL-QL

What Is The 4th Of July To A Puerto Rican?

What Is The 4th Of July To A Puerto Rican?

This was originally posted on 7/4/11 and is reposted here as a Public Service Announcement that American freedom is still American colonialism for others…

Shortlink: http://wp.me/p1eniL-NL

A Post Racial Fraction

Treyvon Martin In Post Racial America by vagabond ©

A Post Racial Fraction

Macedonia Church Of God in Christ
Oscar Grant
Ramarley Graham
James Anderson
Raul Flores
Bresenia Flores
Osama Obama Shotgun Pool
Michael Nida
Henry Louis Gates
Jose Osvaldo Sucuzhañay
Anthony Hill
Niggerhead
Beth Humphery & Terence McKay
Alie Kamara
Troy Davis
Don’t Re-nig in 2012
Treyvon Martin
NYPD Stop & Frisk

- vagabond

Shortlink: http://wp.me/p1eniL-FP

What Is The 4th Of July To A Puerto Rican?

Independence In Resistance by vagabond ©

“Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. “

- Fredrick Douglass

Summer 1898, during the Spanish American War a rag tag volunteer force of machete wielding sugar cane working Puerto Ricans known as Macheteros fought along side the Spanish to repel the US forces that invaded Puerto Rico on July 25th. In the center of the island just outside of the mountain town of Aibonito in the mountain pass of Asomante the Macheteros fought the advancing US military to a standstill and then to a retreat. It was the greatest victory for the Macheteros. But the victory was short lived when the Spanish surrendered to the US and the fighting ceased a few days later. In the process the island nation of Puerto Rico went from 400 years of Spanish colonial rule to US colonial rule. The true shame of it is that Puerto Rico was on the verge of gaining it’s independence from Spain when the Spanish American War broke out. On December 10th of 1898 the Treaty Of Paris was signed and the US officially took control of the Spanish colonial possessions of the Philippines, Guam and Puerto Rico. The colonization of Puerto Rico is the adolescence of US foreign imperialism. So what is the 4th of July to a Puerto Rican?

March 2nd, 1917, the Jones-Sahforth Act made Puerto Ricans citizens of the US without any consultation on the part of Puerto Ricans. Two months after that 18,000 Puerto Rican men were conscripted into the US military to fight in WWI. The US military needed to swell the ranks of it’s African-American canon fodder with Puerto Ricans where they were put to fight in segregated regiments. Many of these Puerto Rican troops were sent to Panama to be human guinea pigs in US chemical gas experiments where 335 of them were wounded. The Pentagon and the War Department never kept data on how many Puerto Ricans were killed or wounded in the war. So what is the 4th of July to a Puerto Rican?

Post World War I the US government began a wide spread program of population control in Puerto Rico. They began sterilizing Puerto Rican women. The sterilization of these women was done without their knowledge and consent or was done by misinforming the women of the permanence of the sterilization procedure. By 1965 one third of Puerto Rican women were systematically sterilized. The imperial design of the US was that they wanted Puerto Rico but not Puerto Ricans. So what is the 4th of July to Puerto Ricans?

October 20th, 1935 the founder and leader of the Nationalist Party Don Pedro Albizu Campos gives a radio address in which he criticizes a program to “Americanize” the University Of Puerto Rico that is being instituted by US colonial interests. A group of students in support of the measure want Albizu declared “Student Enemy Number One”. On October 24th Albizu is declared “persona non-grata” at a university demonstration. Students supporting Albizu respond in protest. Four Nationalists are killed by the police on that day which becomes forever etched into the history of Puerto Rico as the Rio Piedras Massacre. Eye witness evidence of the massacre is ignored and the police involved in the killing are promoted. So what is the 4th of July to a Puerto Rican?

February 23rd, 1936 Colonel Francis Riggs who is the commanding officer of the police on the island is assassinated by Nationalists Hiram Rosado and Elias Beauchamp in retaliation of the Rio Piedras Massacre. The two Nationalists are caught by the police and executed without a trial right after the press takes their picture. So what is the 4th of July to a Puerto Rican?

March 12, 1937 Palm Sunday several hundred Puerto Ricans gathered in the city of Ponce to celebrate the abolition of slavery and to protest the incarceration of independence leader Pedro Albizu Campos on charges of sedition. Hours before the protest was to take place the Governor of the island Blanton Winship (installed by President Roosevelt) revoked the permit they had received from Ponce’s Puerto Rican mayor. In defiance to the revoked permit they marched anyway. Lines of policemen with rifles and machine guns were set up to meet the protesters in their defiance. The demonstrators would not be turned around by the threat of violence. They marched forward singing “La Boriqueña” the Puerto Rican national anthem. The police fired on the crowd then chased and clubbed them as they tried to escape the violence, 235 were wounded and 19 killed. So what is the 4th of July to a Puerto Rican?

June 11th, 1948 a law known as “Ley de la Mordaza” banned the display of the Puerto Rican flag, banned the speaking of independence and outlawed the struggle for independence. On October 30th in response to that and other indignities that Puerto Ricans suffered under, a woman named Blanca Canales led an armed uprising of Nationalists in the mountain town of Jayuya in an effort to free Puerto Rico from the clutches of US colonial rule. The uprising was put down and thousands of Puerto Ricans were rounded up and arrested and given long harsh prison terms. So what is the 4th of July to a Puerto Rican?

November 1st , 1950 Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola made an attempt to assassinate President Truman. Griselio Torresola was killed in the attempt. Oscar Collazo was caught tried and sentenced to death. In 1952 the US renamed their colonial relationship with Puerto Rico a “Free Associated State” so that the US would not seem like an imperial power in the eyes of the world. Once again this was all done without the consultation of the Puerto Rican people. Oscar Collazo’s sentence was then commuted to life imprisonment, he served 27 years before an international people’s movement succeeded in freeing him and four other Nationalists. So what is the 4th of July to a Puerto Rican?

March 1st of 1954 four Nationalists Andres Figueroa, Irving Flores, Raphael Cancel Miranda and Lolita Lebron fired shots into the US House of Congress while it was in session. They unfurled a Puerto Rican flag and yelled “¡Viva Puerto Rico Libre!”. The goal of the operation was to bring international attention to the fact that the US was an imperial power in Puerto Rico. Some 30 shots were fired and five congressmen wounded in the attack. They were caught and served 25 years in prison for fighting for the independence of their country. So what is the 4th of July to a Puerto Rican?

April 21, 1965 Don Pedro Albizu Campos the Nationalist leader dies of injuries he sustained from the radiation experiments that were conducted on him while he was serving a second prison term that held him responsible for the US House of Congress shooting. After 11 years of serving his sentence he is pardoned only to pass away a few months later in his home. So what is the 4th of July to a Puerto Rican?

April 4th, 1980 a group of 11 Puerto Rican members of the FALN (Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion Nacional – Armed Forces of National Liberation) a clandestine organization fighting for the freedom of Puerto Rico using military means and labeled by US law enforcement as a terrorist group, are arrested in Evanston Illinois. The 11 are brought up on various state and federal charges but are all charged with seditious conspiracy to overthrow the US government. In their trials they choose to take prisoner of war status under the United Nations Geneva Convention. As prisoners of war they refuse to recognize the US as having any legitimate power over them and because they chose this status they refuse to take part in their trials other than giving opening and closing statements. They are each found guilty and are sentenced to long harsh prison sentences. After 20 years some are pardoned and released. So what is the 4th Of July to a Puerto Rican?

April 19th, 1999 David Sanes a security guard was mistakenly killed by the US military during a bombing exercise on the island of Vieques that the US military used as a live exercise training area since 1941. His death galvanizes a successful peoples movement and Puerto Ricans go out into the military bombing zone to become human shields to get the US military out of Vieques. Although the US military has left Vieques it has not cleaned up the unexploded ordinance that litters the island. Among that ordinance is depleted uranium. The cancer rate in Vieques is 50% higher than it is in Puerto Rico. So what is the 4th of July to Puerto Ricans?

September 23rd, 2005, Puerto Rican independence leader Filiberto Ojeda Rios is assassinated by the FBI on a what is considered a national holiday to Puerto Ricans. On September 23rd of 1868 an uprising against Spanish colonial rule is fought in an effort to gain independence. Puerto Ricans remember and commemorate the uprising as the birth of the Puerto Rican nation. Filiberto Ojeda Rios was the father of the clandestine armed movement in Puerto Rico, he founded the Ejercito Popular Boricua the EPB, the Popular Puerto Rican Army affectionately known as Los Macheteros and labeled a terrorist group by US law enforcement. He had been a fugitive and one of the most wanted men by the FBI for fifteen years. When the FBI assassinated Filiberto they shot and wounded him but purposely decided to deny him medical attention as he bled to death for over 24 hours. So what is the 4th of July to Puerto Ricans?

This is only a select list of transgressions. This is only a random sampling of the wrong done to a people who have rightfully sought their independence as Malcolm said “By any means necessary”. This is only a small taste of the last hundred years of struggle in a nation that has fought for it’s freedom since 1493 when Columbus “discovered the Americas”. These are the fragments of a hidden history, of an ongoing struggle, for independence intentionally kept from us (both Puerto Ricans and non-Puerto Ricans alike) so that we can celebrate the independence of a nation that stands in the way of another nation’s independence. As a point of clarity we Puerto Ricans are not asking for our freedom. We are trying to take it in much the same way that the US took it’s independence. The difference is that the British Empire did not pretend to be an advocate of global democracy and freedom it was an openly imperialist nation. The US on the other hand preens and primps itself as a global bastion of democracy and freedom while in the same breath holding a colony and denying the self-determination of the Puerto Rican people for over a century. Puerto Rico is the oldest colony in the Western hemisphere so again I ask you what is the 4th of July to Puerto Rico? What is the 4th of July to a Puerto Rican?

For more information on the struggle for Puerto Rican independence and the history that was hidden from you… September23.org

Shortlink: http://wp.me/p1eniL-9P

The hidden history of a century of a peoples rebellion for freedom – What Is The 4th Of July To A Puerto Rican?
nothingtobegainedhere.wordpress.com/2011/07/04/wha…—
vagabond (@vgbnd) July 04, 2011

FALN – Struggle Until Victory

FALN Luchar Hasta Vencer (FALN Rifle Logo)

“You have released a storm by which you comfortable Yankis cannot escape.”
- FALN Communique #3 

In a continuing series of posts about the latest designs for my design company RICANSTRUCTED (a design company dedicated to supporting the Puerto Rican independence movement) here is a set of designs that can be directly attributed to the FALN. The FALN – Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional or the Armed Forces of National Liberation was an armed clandestine organization that fought for the liberation of Puerto Rico in the United States.

FALN LUCHAR HASTA VENCER LOGO

The FALN was founded in 1974 by Filiberto Ojeda Rios who also founded the first armed clandestine group in Puerto Rico MIRA - Movimiento Independentista Revolucionario Armado or the Armed Revolutionary Independence Movement in 1967. Comandante Filiberto also founded the EPB – Ejercito Popular Boricua or the Popular Boricua Army more affectionately known as Los Macheteros. The FALN fought for Puerto Rican independence attacking over 100 corporate, military, political targets within the United States. The FALN were considered a terrorist group by the United States but as my grandfather (who was an independentista) said one mans terrorist is another mans revolutionary.

FALN Star Logo

These two designs were logos that the FALN used in their official communiques and in their propaganda. Now these designs are a part of RICANSTRUCTED in an effort to keep the history of struggle for Puerto Rican independence alive.

FALN STAR LOGO

Remember you don’t have to be Puerto Rican to support Puerto Rican independence…

For more information on the Puerto Rican independence movement check out the September23 website.
http://www.september23.org

-vagabond

Related blog entries
A Record Of Empire
Enjoy Colonialism?
Are You RICANSTRUCTED?

FALN – Struggle Until Victory http://bit.ly/m1K7y3—
vagabond (@vgbnd) June 04, 2011

A Rejection Of American Mythology (Part Two)

UNEQUAL AGAIN by vagabond ©

A Rejection Of American Mythology (Part Two)

“Puerto Rico has a history that is very heroic and prolific. Naturally, as a colony, there exists a history of double interpretation; the colony, and the history of the anti-colonial struggle. In reality, the colonial history does not apply to us. It is more fitting for the colonizer. Ours, the only one, is the anti-colonial history because it is the history of our native people who survived and are in constant battle to defeat the powerful colonial forces. It is the history of puertorriqueñidad.”
- Comandante Filiberto Ojeda Ríos

Imperialism is an ideology and an ideology needs a mythology to shape its culture. It’s the creation of an American mythology that cloaks US imperialism both abroad and domestically in a desire to “spread democracy” or “freedom” to those who are supposedly “struggling” to be free . It’s an American mythology that trumpets the hard won freedom from the British empire and mumbles the fact that it was only for white land owning men. It’s the American mythology that leads people to believe that Abraham Lincoln fought the Civil War to free the slaves. It’s American mythology that justifies war in Afghanistan to free women from the Taliban.

When the dust settles on the fallen American empire and archeologists sift through the rubble they’ll find that nothing has shaped American culture more than imperialism and that the mythology that was been built up to support that ideology was it’s greatest export. The difference between US imperialism and other empires is that it’s mythology is constructed around the deception that it’s “bringing democracy and freedom” to the world. It’s a mythology shaped around the idea that “US democracy” is democracy perfected and because the US built this perfected democracy from the ground up it is burdened to build US democracy for other nations and peoples around the world.

In affect US imperialism is a continuation of the European ideology of the White Mans Burden that justified the colonization of Africa, Asia and the Americas as well as the attempted genocide of those peoples. The White Mans Burden to educate and elevate non-whites to “civilization” is the template for US imperialism’s desire to “nation build” in non-white countries like El Salvador or Nicaragua or Guatemala or Vietnam or Korea or Somalia or Libya. US imperialism will bring democracy and freedom to our little lost brown brothers. It’s this thinking that has justified the wholesale destruction of nations in an attempt to bring freedom and democracy. The whole of US imperialism can be summed up in one statement during the Vietnam War, “It became necessary to destroy the town, in order to save it”. Whereas other empires had no clothes, were naked in their aggression, US imperialism clothes its ambitions in “nation building”. Meet the new imperialism, the same as the old imperialism.

In the wake of the US attacks on 9/11 the US government went into it’s shallow bag of tricks and dusted off the old divide and conquer techniques it had been using since the 1840′s. One of the greatest ramifications to come out of the US attacks on 9/11 was the redefining of terrorism to encompass all forms of violence against empire. It also did wonders for the evolution of the American mythology in creating a firm foundation for US imperialism’s credentials in the eyes of the world as judge jury and executioner of democracy. This American mythology that began some 160 years ago with Manifest Destiny was a foundation and the US attacks on 9/11 allowed the US to build on that mythology by becoming the defenders of democracy as it was defined by US imperialism. In defending US imperialist defined democracy it had the privilege of also defining its enemies. It gave US imperialists the latitude of labeling all those who fought against democracy, as it was defined by US imperialists, as terrorists. In essence if your struggle didn’t synch up with US imperialism then you were labeled a terrorist.

Former president Bush defined this new American mythology in one short mantra “You’re either with us or you’re with the terrorists” this was the theme of the new Manifest Destiny in the age of terrorism, condensed into a soundbite. This put struggles like that of Northern Ireland with Britain, the Basque with Spain and the Palestinians with Israel between rock and a hard place. The machine of American mythology had now incorporated and equated anyone who was not “with us” as “with the terrorists”. The struggles for freedom and democracy in Northern Ireland and in the Basque country and in the Palestinian territories didn’t fit the criteria of US imperialism and so they were relegated to being “terrorists”. The fact that that there is a a world of difference between the terrorist attacks on 9/11 in the US and the struggles for self-determination in Ireland, the Basque country and Palestine was of little concern to anyone outside of those struggles. The good will and sympathy that the world had for the US after the terrorist attacks on 9/11 allowed the US to strip away dialectical critical thinking on these struggles. There was now only the polarities of “us” and “them”.

As the US feasted upon it’s new found ability to turn the whole world upside down. The bones of it were thrown to countries like Britain, Spain and Israel. The ability to take the US imperial definition of democracy and terrorism as their own and apply it to their own imperial quandaries was a godsend to them. In Ireland the IRA felt the world looking at their actions for self-determination through the prism of the post US 9/11 terrorist attacks, as defined by the US. The ETA of Basque (a clandestine Basque separatist group) also felt the affect of this new “terrorist” paradigm. While Hamas in Palestine got the rudest awakening to the new parameters of democracy.

The IRA announced that it would put it’s arms aside because of the US terrorist attacks on 9/11, fearing that the world equate the tactics of their struggle with the US terrorist attacks on 9/11. Spain used the newly defined “with us” or “with the terrorists” paradigm as an excuse to go on massive raids rounding up and arresting hundreds of Basque independence sympathizers which decimated the ETA both financially and in terms of recruitment. Hamas set aside armed struggle to politically campaigning for power in the Palestinian territory, winning that political power in an overwhelming mandate, only to find that their democracy was one that didn’t fit the definition of either Israeli or US imperialists. Putting Hamas and the Palestinians backs against a different wall and leaving them with few choices in defending themselves.

These are the unrecognized and unspoken affects of the American mythology in the post US 9/11 terrorist attacks, as that mythology adapts itself to a new zeitgeist where people are rising up and taking the freedom that was always theirs as they’re doing in Iran, Algeria, Egypt, Syria and Yemen. It’s this adaption of American mythology that further buries the naked imperialism of the US in regard to the small Caribbean nation of Puerto Rico. While the US can pretend to negotiate peace between its British ally and their Northern Irish problem and condemn the ETA for their “terrorist” tactics against their Spanish ally and feign a neutrality in negotiating a solution between their Israeli ally and the Palestinians, the US has quietly done its best, to keep the dirty little secret of a colonial relationship it has forcibly maintained with Puerto Rico for well over a century, out of the limelight in all of these situations.

The story of Puerto Rico’s colonization goes back to 1493 with the Spanish. In 1898 it went from negotiating its autonomy from Spain to being a colony of the US the after the Spanish – American War. So while the new American mythology postures itself as the generous harbinger of freedom and democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan it harbors its own colonial dilemma. What the US doesn’t want you to know is that there has always been a strong and often times violent resistance to US colonialism in Puerto Rico. A resistance it labels “terrorism”.

If there is any doubt as to how the US equates those fighting for freedom and justice with terrorism, as it has in Northern Ireland and in the Basque country and in the Paletinian territories look at the how the recent capture or kill operation on Osama Bin Laden is eerily similar to another operation that took place in 2005 with Puerto Rican independence leader Comandante Filiberto Ojeda Rios. Filiberto is considered the founder of the armed underground clandestine movement to free Puerto Rico from US colonial rule. He was the leader of the EPB (Popular Boricua Army) also known as Los Macheteros.

On September 23rd of 1990 while awaiting trial for the $7 million Wells Fargo robbery of 1985 and he cut off the the electronic shackle on his ankle to live a life of clandestinity. While in clandestinity Filiberto mocked the FBI, CIA and other law enforcement agencies by giving television, radio and newspaper interviews. While these law enforcement agenices searched the 100 by 35 mile island of Puerto Rico for him, Filiberto was creating a mythology of resistance by living clandestinely in the open. He publishied articles in newspapers and issued statements on the ongoing Puerto Rican colonial condition from clandestinity. He lived among his people as he evaded the most powerful law enforcement agencies in the world. In doing so Filiberto was creating an alternate mythology to the dominant American mythology. It was a Puerto Rican mythology of resistance that could be used to shape a culture of resistance to the culture of imperialism.

In 2005 the FBI found Filiberto and they set up an operation to capture or kill him. Hundreds of FBI agents surrounded his house. Filiberto defended himself in a shoot out that ensued and Filiberto was wounded but the FBI refused to give him medical attention and let him bleed to death for over 24 hours. The fact that this took place on September 23rd, a day that Puerto Ricans celebrate an armed uprising against Spanish colonial rule that led to the abolition of slavery and 15 years to the day that he had escaped did not go unnoticed by Puerto Ricans. Former Puerto Rican political prisoner and prisoner of war Dylcia Pagan said it best when she said “…this is not just an attack on a leader of our movement but an attack on our very Puerto Rican-ness”.

When Osama Bin Laden was killed by the US government the similarities to the assassination of Comandante Filiberto were numerous. In the case of Pakistan the government was unaware of the operation on Bin Laden using the excuse that to do so might tip Bin Laden off to the operation. In Puerto Rico the FBI gave no warning to the colonial government of the island on their attack plans on Filiberto out of the same fear that doing so would compromise the operation. Both situations ended in what can only be described as murder. The latest story now, is that Bin Laden was unarmed and shot in the head. Filiberto was armed but wounded and unable to continue being a threat but the FBI saw fit to wait for him to bleed to death. The US equated the actions of these men because that is the paradigm of the new American mythology.

However just like there is a chasm of difference that exists between equating Bin Laden with Geronimo as the US military did in their operation to capture and kill Bin Laden, there is an equally large distance to between Comandante Filiberto and Bin Laden. That chasm of distance between Geronimo and Filiberto as freedom fighters and Bin Laden as terrorist is something that the new post 9/11 American mythology can choose to bridge. What we need to recognize is that, it is a bridge to far. What we need to do is reject the polarity and reclaim the dialectic. What we need to do is reject the development of this new American mythology with a counter mythology. One that doesn’t equate freedom fighters with terrorists.

- vagabond

For a quick background on the life of Comandante Filiberto Ojeda Rios check out the video i edited below. To hear Filiberto’s views on the colonial situation in Puerto Rico check out the series of YouTube videos FILIBERTO: THE CLANDESTINE INTERVIEW

A Rejection Of American Mythology (Part One)

UNEQUAL by vagabond ©

A Rejection Of American Mythology (Part One)

“Whether it was intended only to name the military operation to kill or capture Osama Bin Laden or to give Osama Bin Laden himself the code name Geronimo, either was an outrageous insult and mistake. And it is clear from the military records released that the name Geronimo was used at times by military personnel involved for both the military operation and for Osama Bin Laden himself.

 Obviously to equate Geronimo with Osama Bin Laden is an unpardonable slander of Native America and its most famous leader in history.

 And to call the operation to kill or capture Osama Bin Laden by the name Geronimo is such a subversion of history that it also defames a great human spirit and Native American leader. For Geronimo himself was the focus of precisely such an operation by the U.S. military, an operation that assured Geronimo a lasting place in American and human history.”
 - Harlyn Geronimo
Geronimo’s great-grandson, Senate Commission on Indian Affairs
for a hearing on racist stereotypes of Native Americans, May 5, 2011

The US militaries use of the famous Apache warrior “Geronimo” as the code name in the military operation “to capture and or kill” Osama Bin Laden is a continuation of the Manifest Destiny theory that was first put forth in the US in the 1840′s. The theory of Manifest Destiny dictated that it was the destiny of the US to expand across the North American continent. It was this thinking of Manifest Destiny that brought about the US – Mexican War in 1846 that led to the annexation of northern Mexico to the US. With the success of Manifest Destiny in the North America it was expanded. It was Manifest Destiny that declared to the European powers in the 1840′s that European imperialism would not be tolerated in the “American backyard” of Central and South America. It was Manifest Destiny that led the US into war with Spain in 1898 and brought Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines under US colonial rule. It was Manifest Destiny that justified the overthrow of Queen Lili’uokalani in 1893 that eventually led to Hawaii becoming a state. If you think that Manifest Destiny somehow ended in the beginning of the 20th century then look at the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and Libya. In the minds of people who were the victims of this US Manifest Destiny there is a chasm of difference between Osama Bin Laden and “Geronimo” but in the minds of the US military it’s just the same old imperialist story.

It’s difficult to disassociate what this country did to the Native Americans with this hunting and assassination of Osama Bin Laden since in the minds of the those who are eager to continue their Manifest Destiny adventure they are the same thing. This latest military operation by the US is an effort to further solidify it’s mythology of American frontier justice. The hunt for Osama Bin Laden fits a classic motif in American mythology. Osama Bin Laden is a uncivilized brown savage, hell bent on not allowing Americans to spread their hegemony. There is only one way to deal with this brown savage and that is to hunt him down and meet out some American frontier justice. Think back to former President Bush’s language with wanting to ‘smoke them out of hiding’. The US militaries use of “Geronimo” as the code name in the military operation “to capture and or kill” Osama Bin Laden is a continuation of the Manifest Destiny theory.

The parallels could be not drawn more clearly by the US military in it’s use of this classic American mythology. Osama Bin Laden was the “Chief” architect of the US attack on 9/11 and he was in “wild lawless enemy Injun territory” (Pakistan) surrounded by non-white vicious fanatical “Injun warriors” who would “fight to the death” rather than be captured. So the US military made it plans to go into “Injun enemy territory” and either “smoke him out” or “take him out”.

In the over 160 years of this Manifest Destiny a mythology has developed to help sell imperialism as freedom, a mythology that goes back to the equating Native peoples as “savages”, Mexicans as “savages”, Puerto Ricans, Cubans and Philippinos as “savages” that all need saving, that all need to be freed from themselves because they are incapable of doing it themselves. This mythological narrative seems to have changed very little for the US military. The Afghans needed saving from the Taliban, the Iraqi’s needed saving from the Saddam Hussein, the Libyans need saving from Quaddafi. You can see the continuation of the narrative. The fact that the sitting US president is a Black man who’s father was of African descent (which add it’s own surreal texture when one thinks of European imperialism and it’s brand of violence in Africa) is of no consequence to the continuous shaping of this expansionist mythology. For us as victims of this American mythology, it makes a world of difference. In our minds President Obama should have spoken up and out against the equating of someone like Osama Bin Laden with “Geronimo”.

Geronimo was an Apache war chief whose original Chiricahua name was Goyathlay. Mexican and US troops led expansionist raids on the Apache tribes in an effort to colonize their lands. Geronimo fought back against this expansion into his peoples lands. He gained a reputation amongst the Mexican and US troops as fierce, intelligent, fearless warrior who attacked despite overwhelming odds against him and escaped both certain death and certain capture on more than one occasion. Geronimo and his tribe refused to recognize either the US or Mexico as having any jurisdiction in Apache lands and they were among the last Native peoples to acquiesce to US expansion in the American West.

Geronimo was labeled “the worst Indian who ever lived” because of his defiance. The credit to his capture and surrender in 1886 goes to General Nelson A. Miles who sent Captain Henry Lawton to bring back Geronimo. The same General Nelson A. Miles who years later would personally lead the attack on Spain in Guanica, Puerto Rico during the Spanish – American War. However it was Lt. Charles B. Gatewood who pursued Geronimo with a tenacity and a harassment that wore Geronimo and his tribe down. It was Lt. Gatewood who negotiated Geronimo’s surrender and brought him back to General Nelson A. Miles for official surrender.

Geronimo’s being “the worst Indian who ever lived” is what makes him a hero for Native peoples, it makes him a hero for those of us who oppose this Manifest Destiny that has taken on a new form in this war against terrorism. To equate Geronimo to someone like Osama Bin Laden only makes sense to those who are locked into the Manifest Destiny theory of the US. It also falls into another mythologic motif that former President Bush so aptly put when he said “You’re either with us or you are with the terrorists” which leaves little room for those of us for are neither with the US or the terrorists. This lack of space for dialectic thinking, this either-or posturing is a classic means of polarizing in an effort to divide and conquer. It removes the threat of critical thinking since to be critical would mean to be with “the terrorists”. It simplifies the affects of whatever means justifying whatever ends whether that be the attacks on the US on 9/11 or the recent death of Osama Bin Laden.

On one hand Osama Bin Laden was a hinderance to US plans for US neocolonialism in Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries throughout the resource rich Middle East and North Africa. On the other hand the threat of Osama Bin Laden was just what the US needed to justify it’s involvement in that part of the world. As much of a thorn in the side that Osama Bin Laden may have been to US neocolonial interests in the Middle East he was not a hero for people who are looking to stop this ongoing Manifest Destiny. This continuation of that American mythology that polarizes dissent to American hegemony with Osama Bin Laden as “Geronimo” was used as a means to dilute the resistance of Geronimo and others like him. It was a two fold attack on “terrorism on US interests” and “resistance to US interests”. The two are not the same unless of course you believe “You’re either with us or you’re with the terrorists” and for those of us who are with neither are now put in a position of having to explain our way out of such polarities.

The diluting of our mythology of resistance, that includes hero’s like Geronimo, was attacked with Osama Bin Laden. “Operation Geronimo” was not just a military operation it was also a psychological operation on the alternate mythology of resistance that is necessary to have as a counter story to their story as oppressors, as an ongoing resistance to their ongoing violence, as a counter history to the history as temporary victors . The US military may have renamed or claimed to have always called the military operation to capture Osama Bin Laden “Operation Neptune’s Spear” but the wound to our resistance remains. The result of that wound is that in the minds of many, the mythology of resistance to US hegemony from anyone who “is not with us” is now “with the terrorists”. Those of us who are of a third mind need to recognize and reject this new continuation of American mythology.

- vagabond

In a few days i’ll be posting Part Two of A Rejection Of American Mythology as it concerns the assassination of Puerto Rican freedom fighter Comandante Filiberto Ojeda Rios, and the affects of this continuing American Mythology on anti-imperial struggles across the globe…

The Real Threat

Osama Bin Laden - The Real Threat?

Efrain Ortiz Jr. has questions about a “post” Osama Bin Laden world and what that might mean to the struggle for Puerto Rican independence.

The Real Threat