THE HORROR COMES HOME

 

So attacks in Brussels by ISIS or ISIL or so-called affiliates or whoever the fuck is todays boogeyman are all over the news today… And the faux shock of chickens coming home to roost begins one more time… How could this happen…? How could our white superiority be attacked yet again…? And the talking head faces of white supremacy all say the same thing… Don’t these sand niggers know there place is beneath our heel…? Don’t these camel jockeys know that we can blow them back to the stone age…? Don’t these A-rabs know who they are fucking with…? Of course they don’t use those words but the effect is the same…

How many people on Facebook will change their profile picture to a Belgian flag in solidarity…? Will there be an app that Facebook will make for it…? Will we all feel better now that there is…? Will it assuage the guilt of living off the constant and consistent misery of almost everywhere outside the US, UK and Europe…? Will you donate to the GoFundMe page…? Or send out a tweet with whatever hashtag that comes with each and every act of first world terrorism …?

Every terror attack in London or Madrid or Paris or San Bernardino California is just an occasional appetizer in comparison to the constant feast of violence that London and Madrid and Paris and San Bernardino are serving up in places like Syria or Libya or Nigeria… Terrorism is just another tactic of political negotiation… And the US, UK and Europe have set the terms… They set the terms in 1492 with their racism and their slavery and their imperialism… They set the terms with their settler colonial mentality of white supremacy as their politic… And when that supremacy is challenged using the same tactics that created that very same supremacy the surprise is overdone to to insure that no one sees past the shock to see the guilt…

And for over half an eon the blood bath has been clogging the pipes and overflowing onto a killing floor… And when we try and get out of the tub to reach for a towel to wipe away the horror we slip and stub our toe and scream, ‘who left this blood on the floor where you can slip’…? And then we blame Bin Laden or the Taliban or Al Qaeda or ISIS for stubbing our toe on the history we spilled with the horror we let our democracy create…

In less poetic terms and to make it plain… We vote for Cameron and Bush and Berlusconi and Merkel and Putin and we toy with the idea now of voting for Trump or Clinton (again) and we wonder why they hate our bullshit democracy… We wonder why they hate our capitalist thirst for more than we can need and more than we can hold… We wonder why 99.9999% of them want us to get the fuck out of their country and just just leave them the fuck alone…? And you wonder why 0.00001% of them strap a bulletproof vest on with a thousand armor piercing rounds or drive a car full of explosives into into a cafe, a subway, an airport, a nightclub, a restaurant…

The problem with our bewilderment is that it’s only awakened by acts of terrorism that are close enough to ring in our ears, close enough for us to smell, close enough to choke on the smoke of burning rubber and plastic, close enough to mop up, close enough to bury… Our bewilderment is only shaken when the terrorism is visceral for us… When it’s around our corner, when it’s at our door, when it’s in the cloud of smoke that just won’t clear outside our broken windows, when it’s the sirens we can only see because our ear drums are shattered and we have to pick glass and shrapnel from our body before we bandage our wounds… This is the only time we wonder why… This is the only time the veil of our bewilderment can be lifted…

When the news cameras showed us the refugee grandmother carrying all that she could of her belongings while she held the hand of a child or the crying baby being pulled from the rubble in Libya, or the father in Iraq covered in blood carrying his son into the street, the veil that protected our bewilderment could not be lifted… When Boko Haram slaughtered 2000 Nigerians that was Nigeria, not us, when 147 Kenyans were killed at Garissa University College that was Kenya, not us, when 142 were killed in Sana’a in Yemen that was Yemen, not us, when 22 were killed in the Ivory Coast were slaughtered that was Ivory Coast, not us … The Facebook app to change flags doesn’t come in “African” and the hashtag never went viral on twitter…

Do we remember Aylan Kurdi…? No…? We don’t remember the name of the lifeless three year old refugee boy from Kobanî, Syria, found washed up on the shore of Turkey…? Then i guess we won’t remember Gelani or Rheana..? His five year old brother and his mother who also drowned off the coast of Turkey either… But we remember the Eagles Of Death Metal…? The american rock band that was playing in Paris the night of the attacks… Of course we do… The Eagles Of Death Metal were able to lift that veil that kept our bewilderment under wraps but when the Muslim Mandera Heroes of Kenya stood up to protect Christians on a bus from slaughter by Al Shabab the veil of bewilderment remained because it’s  Kenya… It’s over there… It’s how things are over there…

And now the delayed shock and the bewilderment of the war as it comes home… The karma comes home to nest… The horror that we sent into the world with our democracy, the same democracy that brought us Cameron and Bush and Berlusconi and Merkel and Putin and even our beloved Obama… The most advanced democracies in the world that can only find solutions in misery and terror… The horror returns home like a prodigal son, and we shun it, bewildered at how something like this could exist, unable to recognize that which we created…

We gave birth to this horror… What can we expect when it comes home…? Instead of taking ownership of it we turn it back out into the world to reek more havoc thinking surely this horror doesn’t belong here, surely this horror isn’t ours, surely that belongs somewhere else, surely that belongs to someone else…

Shortlink: http://wp.me/p1eniL-1Dp

The Orphans Of Terrorists

AVT PSC#1 by vagabond ©

Legal Disclaimer: The following is a Public Service Communique from Audio Visual Terrorism (AVT). AVT has not been and is not affiliated with the Orphans Of Terrorists and does not take responsibility for the message or any actions taken by the Orphans Of Terrorists. At this time AVT is simply a conduit of Public Relations, a messenger boy delivering a message. AVT has not edited or altered the content of the message. The message comes to you intact as it was received. AVT must stress that it is a semi-neutral party delivering a message. Do not attempt to take the head of the messenger should you not like the message, this would prove fruitless because AVT has no head. AVT would like to stress that it is not affiliated with the Orphans Of Terrorists but does however reserve the right to join the Orphans Of Terrorists at a future date. If the relationship of AVT to the Orphans Of Terrorists changes no mention of it will be made. That decision will remain secret. And now without any further delay the message from the Orphans Of Terrorists…

to the war
profiteers STOP

yesterday’s war
was yours
those of us who survive it
will learn our lessons
and apply them accordingly STOP

tomorrow’s war
will be ours
and we expect
something in return
for the price we paid STOP

enjoy the profits
of suffering
while you can and
consider this
your final warning STOP

sincerely
the orphans
of terrorists

– vagabond ©

Shortlink: http://wp.me/p1eniL-19R

Radical Politics Radical Filmmaking On The Streets Of NY

Isaach de Bankholé as Jean Dumont The Journalist

“Machetero, is a film whose guerrilla production matches both the film’s visual aesthetic and its narrative. It tells two stories concurrently: one in which imprisoned revolutionary Pedro Taino (Not4Prophet) is interviewed by a journalist (Jarmush regular Isaach De Bankolé, pictured), and the other about the political awakening of a young man (Kelvin Fernandez) on the streets of New York. As directed and written by Vagabond, Machetero’s radical politics extend to the film’s non-linear narrative, and its use of on-screen titles, foregrounding the revolutionary literature passed amongst the characters, as well as lyrics from the soundtrack by the NYC-based band Ricanstruction (of which Not4Prophet is the lead singer). Recently, I spoke to Vagabond about the film’s intersections of art and politics.” – Cullen Gallagher

Could you say a little about the word “Machetero,” where it comes from, and why you chose it as your title?
The direct Spanish translation of the word “machetero” is someone who works with a machete. However, there is a cultural definition to the word that is unique to Puerto Rico. The “Macheteros” were sugarcane field workers who fought against Spanish colonial rule, and when the US invaded Puerto Rico in 1898 during the Spanish-American war, they fought against the Americans as well. In the late 1960s, Puerto Rican independence leader Filiberto Ojeda Rios started a clandestine armed organization called “Ejercito Popular Boricua” (“Popular Puerto Rican Army”). Puerto Ricans throughout the Diaspora called them “Macheteros”.

The title of the film comes from a saying the Macheteros had, “¡Todo Boricua Machetero!” (“All Puerto Ricans Are Machetero!”) which connected Puerto Ricans to their revolutionary past. When I thought more about that saying, it seemed to me that what the EPB was trying to do was to create this idea of the Machetero as warrior and protector of the Puerto Rican people in much the same way that the Samurai is in Japan.

How did the revolutionary politics of the film affect your aesthetic approach to the film?
The film had to be radically unconventional in the same way that guerrilla warfare is radically unconventional. The reason revolutionaries use guerrilla tactics is because they don’t have access to fighter jets or tanks, so they make do with what they have. They become resourceful with their tactics in order to achieve their goals. It was the same with making Machetero. The structure of the film was devised in a way to make the shooing of the film easier. The use of voice-over in the film allowed us to shoot most of the film without having to worry or rely too much on shooting sync sound. The voice-over dialogue was recorded first so that we could juxtapose images against it. As a result, we could shift images and timelines around because the voice-over dialogue was the foundation from which the rest of the film was built on. As long as the voice-over dialogue had some sense of continuity, the images that accompany it had a freedom that could not otherwise be afforded to us if we shot the film conventionally. Since the film thematically is about finding a way to achieve freedom, it only enhanced the theme to have a certain freedom in the narrative structure to the film. The on-screen titles were also another way of playing with the narrative structure in the film, since many of them either allude to character and time or thematic issues the film raises. The subject matter of revolution doesn’t allow for conventional filmmaking or conventional storytelling.

How do you see your film fitting into the larger framework of politicized cinema? You mention Solanas and Getino’s essay “Towards a Third Cinema” on your website, but I was also reminded of Paradise Now.
I actually read Solanas and Getino’s “Towards A Third Cinema” toward the end of making Machetero. I came across the essay and immediately thought that this is what Machetero is. For those not familiar with Third Cinema, First Cinema is Hollywood commercial film and Second Cinema is the European art film or the European auteur film. Third Cinema is a response from the third world to create a cinema that would reflect the reality of poor and struggling people and inspire them to extricate themselves from whatever situation oppresses them. When the essay was initially written, it was calling for third world filmmakers to create a cinema that was reflective of their reality. Although I was born in Brooklyn and have lived in the US all my life, and a majority of Machetero was made here in the US, the colonial condition that Puerto Ricans have lived under both on the island and in the US has been one of third world proportions, so I felt comfortable relating Machetero to Third Cinema.

I made Machetero to raise questions about the way in which the labels like “terrorist” and “terrorism” are used and what that means to people who may feel that the only means to free themselves from these oppressive situations is to use violence. That violence is often described and defined by the state and its media apparatus as “terrorism”. One of the ideas that I’m trying to put forward in Machetero is that violence is a language that oppressors choose to use and that those who struggle against it and respond in kind are speaking the same language as their oppressors in an effort to get them to use another means of communication. However this decision to use violence as a means of communication is not a decision that oppressed people come to easily. This may be where you see a parallel to Hany Abu Assad’s film Paradise Now, which was definitely a source of inspiration for Machetero.

In recent years there has been much controversy surrounding rights of filmmakers to shoot on the streets of New York. As an independent filmmaker, what was your experience like?
One of the things I do to make a living is provide location services to production companies, so I know what I can get away with and what I can’t get away with or at least how much of a risk I’m taking if I do decide to work outside “the regulations” or “the law.” I shot everything but one scene in Machetero without permits or permission. That doesn’t mean I didn’t have problems with the police. There were five different encounters with law enforcement that varied from simply hiding from the cops to being arrested. Before I madeMachetero I wrote a manifesto called “Illegalist Cinema: The Cinema of Cine-automatic” that put art before legality in the filmmaking process.

Over the years I’ve seen the tightening restrictions that the Mayor’s Office of Film, Theatre & Broadcasting has put on independent filmmakers. It used to be easier to make a film in this town but lately it’s been getting harder and harder. That being said the Mayor’s Office still needs to make it easy enough for larger productions to come to the city and shoot, and as an independent filmmaker it’s important to exploit some of those incentives to our own benefit.

This interview was first published in L Magazine here…

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
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.

If you’re on Facebook Check out our MACHETERO Facebook Page and check out the Facebook Event page… 

Shortlink: http://wp.me/p1eniL-16z

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
Trayvon Martin
NYPD Stop & Frisk
Eric Garner
Ezell Ford
Mike Brown

– 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?

MACHETERO from Audio Visual Terrorism on Vimeo.

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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?

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