A SCREENING FOR AVELINO

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 23:40:19 -0400

Join ProLibertad for our "Avelino Gonzalez Claudio Film Night" in El Barrio!

As part of ProLibertad’s FREEDOM MONTH for the Puerto Rican Political Prisoners, we are screening the film, “MACHETERO” by artist/filmmaker Vagabond; who will join us for Q&A! Join us for a night of film, discussion, letter writing, food and fun!

Suggested donation:
$10 NO ONE WILL BE TURNED AWAY FOR LACK OF $

CASA DE LAS AMERICAS
182 East 111th Street
NY NY 10028

AVELINO CLAUDIO GONZALEZ
In August of 1985, Avelino González Claudio was accused of participating in the planning and authorization of an operation to secure $7,117,000 from a Wells Fargo armored truck in Hartford, Connecticut on September 12, 1983, along with other Puerto Ricans and two North Americans. The operation was carried out by a clandestine organization fighting for the independence of Puerto Rico, the PRTP-Macheteros. Avelino was not arrested at the time. However, more than 20 years later, he was arrested in Manatí, Puerto Rico, on February 7, 2008.

Avelino was born in the town of Vega Baja on October 8, 1942. As a student at the University of Puerto Rico, he became a member and then vice-president of the Pro-Independence University Federation (Federación Universitaria Pro Independencia-FUPI). In the mid-1960’s, he married and moved to New York City, earning his living on Wall Street, and working with the Puerto Rican community, joining and then leading the Vito Marcantonio Mission of the Movemiento Pro-Independencia (MPI) in New York. He and his family of four children returned to Puerto Rico, where he worked in the independence movement, including administering the political journal Pensamiento Crítico (Critical Thought).

When the arrests of 1985 took place, and Avelino was not arrested, he assumed the identity of José Ortega, and, while the FBI pursued him, he lived a quiet life, working as a computer teacher to support his family and contributing constructively to his nation, seeking to improve the services provided by the Department of Education.

The charges against those arrested in 1985 had various results: Carlos Ayes, Filiberto Ojeda, Juan Segarra, Norman Ramirez and Roberto Maldonado went to trial in 1989; Ivonne Meléndez Carrión also went to trial—some were acquitted, others convicted and sentenced to terms ranging from one year to 55 years; while Orlando González, Hilton Fernández Diamante, Jorge A. Farinacci, Isaac Camacho, Elías Castro and Angel Días Ruiz negotiated a plea agreement in 1992. They were sentenced to terms of five years in prison. Two others have never been arrested: Avelino’s brother Norberto and Victor Gerena, and are being sought by the FBI.

Avelino is currently being held in Somers, the state of Connecticut’s supermax prison, far from his family and his nation, where he is locked down 23 hours a day, with no access to family visits or phone calls, in conditions which are calculated not only to interfere with his ability to prepare a defense, but which are tantamount to torture. He was sentenced to 7 years.

PAWNSHOP DREAM

Sat, 24 Dec 2011 02:37:40 -0500

PAWNSHOP DREAM is a my next film project and in a way is a follow up to MACHETERO... It’s a surreal comedy inspired by former US held Puerto Rican political prisoner and prisoner of war Dylcia Pagan. Stylistically the film is informed by surreal Nuyorican Poet Rev. Pedro Pietri.

We are trying to raise funds to get the film made... We’re doing this using a website called Indiegogo... There’s more info on the Indiegogo site... Please donate a few dollars to get the film made if times are tight then please send out an email, post it on your Facebook page, send out a tweet (#PAWNSHOPDREAM)... The more poeple know about the campaign the better our chances we have of getting the film funded...

Any amount is humbly appreciated...

THE CRITERIA OF TERRORISM AND TERRORISTS

Thu, 5 May 2011 00:13:08 -0400

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 being announced last night questions that have been lingering in the shadows since the terrorist attacks on the US on 9/11/2001 have stepped into the light. Questions like what lead to the US 9/11 attacks. The exploration of those questions leads to questions of 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 new round of examination and each level of inquiry seems to only lead 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 the US has not felt since it announced the Monroe Doctrine in 1823 to the European powers and backed up with its imperial adventure in 1898 with the Spanish-American War.
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 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 Schoatz, Leonard Peltier, Sundiata Acoli, Herman Bell, Marshall Eddie Conway and David Gilbert, 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 this recent terrorist attack on the US how did these words "terrorism" and "terrorist" change?
Within the zeitgeist of 1970 - 1980 the terms "terrorism" and "terrorist" didn't hold the same kind of weight that they do 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.
Now the issues of terrorism and terrorist are on the minds of many once again and so i invite you to explore some of these issues through the prism of my film MACHETERO. Although the film has not yet been released on DVD. There is plenty to entice your thoughts on theses issue on the here on the website, on Facebook Page, and with YouTube clips and reviews from film festivals to get the wheels turning until the film is released later this year.

NOTHING TO BE GAINED HERE

Wed, 4 May 2011 00:36:14 -0400

Just a heads up that i have started a new blog called Nothing To Be Gained Here... 
http://nothingtobegainedhere.wordpress.com/

It’s a blog of less than ideal art, ideas and ideals in a less than ideal... 
Feel free to check it out and share it with others...

FEEDING INTO THE MESSAGE

Thu, 14 Apr 2011 00:45:00 -0400

Sam Greenlee is the author of the controversial fictional novel The Spook Who Sat By The Door. He is also one of the producers and co-screenwriter of the film adaption of the novel directed by Ivan Dixon. Sam explored the theme of an long overdue Black revolution in America in Spook. It was a bold and dangerous work. The film was released in 1973 and was a top box office earner for a number of weeks until the FBI went on a campaign to try and ban the film out of fear that the film would incite race riots. The film would later became a cult classic of the Blaxploitation even though The Spook Who Sat By The Door was anything but an exploitation film.

The book and the film were a huge influence on MACHETERO. i first came in contact with Sam Greenlee when i called him in Chicago to send him a copy of MACHETERO before he came to NYC on a tour he was doing with Spook. When he came to NYC i went to four of the five screenings he held. We hung out and got to know each other. He had seen MACHETERO and really liked it. It was a huge compliment for me.

Sam was recently in the Northeast doing another tour with Spook and promoting his new book Baghdad Blues. i asked if Sam would do an interview about his work and he graciously agreed. At the end of the interview i asked him about my film MACHETERO and this is what Sam had to say. Naturally i was humbled and ecstatic by his insights into the film.