PRIMER

CATCHING UP REAL QUICK
>>> Weird how my last posting dealt with imperialism in South America, and a week later there is an attempted coup in Bolivia and the US Ambassador, Philip Goldberg is expelled (the same man, known for instigating division in Bosnia) from Bolivia for agitating 'seperatist' forces. << >>> Also very interresting how in the posting before that one, i focused largely on the deregulation of the economy and how it has allowed corporations to exploit us . And now EvEN THE REPUBLICANS WHO fATHERED AND ARE THE ENFORCERS OF fREE MARKET DEREGULATION are blaming de-reglation for the crash of insurance giants <<<>But anyway. Speaking in the "I",

'maybe i just need to finally get that steady/ or maybe its just another commitment to make; Im Not Ready!//'

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S E P T E M B E R 23rd
(by no means rooted second seed to the above/ just deeper sown into my blood)





So i was navigating wikipedia.com to gather some information i may be able to share here about Puerto Rico being September 23rd is the anniversary of an 1868 uprising against the Spanish Empire which had Puerto Rico under colonial rule: Meaning Spain allowed Puerto Rico no political, economic, or even cultural self-determination/ sovereignty. It was an attempted coup planned by a cadre of great revolutionary, including Ramon Emeterio Betances whom among other revolutionary deeds was responsible for buying children out of slavery. Back then in PR if you bought a slave you can free them. And that is what he did. He was a fascinating man whom also assisted Gregorio Luperon win independance for the Dominican Republic, and faught to help Cuba in their fight to separate from Spain.
And in doing this research i came across the page somebody set up for "Notable Puerto Ricans" and noticed that on that page there included a list of notable Puerto Rican criminals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_notable_Puerto_Ricans#Criminals_and_outlaws

What immediately strikes me is how offensive this is if it is a person who is not Puerto Rican posting this information. But what is more hurtful is what it indicates about the person if they actually ARE a fellow Boricua! Because if i google ANY other race, ethnicity, nation of people there wouldn't be a section for criminals. This is a clear reminder to me of how our people are unfortunatelly awashed (as in brain washed to the 10th cycle) in our negative self perception. It is the colonized mentality, which is not very much different from a slave mentality.
What nation DOESNT have 'criminals'? Every nation does. But as Puerto Ricans we have SO internalized the stereotypes that we do things like this, almost as if to walk into a room with our head ducked, reminding others, "By the way, i know i dont have to be here, because i am a bad guy. But i am gracious at your invitation" FUCK THAT!
We need to have pride and to begin to build a more positive sense of self. The negative is so little in comparison to the positive. Yet by the same token i recognize i have to have some level of understanding for the fact that as a colony, our history has been hidden and slowly omitted from the books. If we become a state, there goes the language, there goes the customs. Sad truth is that it didnt have to become a state for that process to begin. In the diaspora we 2nd and 3rd generations have already lost our language and at times names. We reject the notion that we are any different than any other 'American'. That being from PR is a bit different but not too different than being from Texas, or New York. On the island, old customs are relegated in large part to entertaining tourists, like in Hawaii where they do a traditional dance for you at a resort.

Some call this progress. But when you look at the big picture from the outside you begin to realize that this is not normal. You see how in our parade we celebrate Goya, Bacardi, the Spanish Radio Station, and the Beauty Queen WAYYYY too much, and emphasize our cultural roots WAY too little. It's not the same in the Greek parade, in the Columbian parade, in the Pakistani parade, in the Brazilian parade, in the Carribean parade... These parades have a clear and STRONG sense of national pride while we fiddle in the consumerism and the celebrity fluff. It is a pitty to ask a young Puerto Rican why they are proud and they tell you what makes a Puerto Rican is
---We can Fuck
--------We can party
---------------We hard body

We are lost.. that's what the fuck we are! I'm not saying we are not those things! I can surely Fuck and i love doing it! I enjoy partying and the atmosphere of being around people! I don't backdown ESPECIALLY from my freedom to speak what i feel. But there are deeper reasons for why we are those things, and they draw to historical and societal circumstances that we fail to recognize. Because we have a colonized mentality. NOT an *independant* one. And colonized people are conditioned NOT to think. We are historically, politically, economically in a position of DEPENDANCE. And the examples i have shown are exactly how they play out.

We need to begin to build a deeper sense of pride. There have been movements to try and save our historical memory and enlighten our fellow brothers and sisters on some of the great things we have done which merit us as great people, in the sciences, in the arts, in philosophy and government and religion. Not just music and baseball. But to the united states these movements posed a threat because they give people a sense of pride in our NATION and thus, an urge to be independant.

And as we recognize the uprising against Spain on this day, it is telling how amongst those listed 'criminals' is Filiberto Ojeda Rios, whom was the leader of the Puerto Rican Revolutionary group Los Macheteros. A controversial group that have fought to bring the case of U.S. colonization of PR to the attention of the international community, by any means neccessary. They have been branded terrorists but only by a media which then goes and puts Tibetan Seperatists, Georgian Seperatists, Taiwan Seperatists, Bolivian Seperatists, Myanmar Seperatists in a positive light: And these groups themselves have committed armed offenses against their governments. Ojeda on the other hand is branded a common criminal.
Well... i respect different points of view which may be against using any violence to achieve political gains. But you tell me who pulled the criminal act when he was assiassinated on SEPTEMBER 23rd, 2005, by the FBI. Even if you believe say, that maybe he fired the first shot... Why did they show up on the anniversary of Puerto Ricos uprising against the SPANISH empire? Why couldn't that day be respected? It wasnt some passive coincidence. In Puerto Rico that day is recognized. Which is why thousands took to the streets, and mainstream media persons and politicans on the island, including the governor spoke out against it.
**You may be asking: But why would the governor speak against it when he ordered it? hahaha... see... there we go... now we realize.. COLONY. The decision came from Washington and he wasn't even consulted about it**

Filibertos murder was a clear warning to any Puerto Rican fighting for independance from the U.S. And throughout the history of the U.S.'s occupation of the island there have been many incidences of repression such as this. At one point they so feared the rise of an independance sentiment (in the 50's) that a Gag Law was implemented 'La Ley de Murdasa' in which if you were caught speaking about independance you would be arrested. And for a time it was even illegal to wave the Puerto Rican flag in public.

There is so much i want to pour on this page right now, but i recognize that for those i want to reach with this information: The youth. We must build a sense of confidence and the itch to want to learn more, before stuffing it down their throats. Because for someone not used to organic meals, McDonalds tastes better. And i do not want to lose you.
But on this day it would at least put me to bed fairly well if i can have you consider that maybe you HAVE been blanked out and a society which views you as a criminal HAS been constructed around you. And that you somehow now find yourself in it, hopefully, realizing you must find your way out or at least with your proper defenses in tact ON YOUR TONGUE, IN YOUR MIND, IN YOUR HEART and INTENTIONS!



Before the uprising of 1868 this was a letter written to the Spanish Queen by Puerto Rican representatives of the movement to get rid of the Spanish Empire:

...It states that we are bad Spaniards.
The government defames us.
We don't want separation, we want peace,
the union to Spain; however, it is fair that we also add conditions to the contract.

They are rather easy, here they are:
The abolition of slavery
The right to vote on all impositions
Freedom of religion
Freedom of speech
Freedom of the press
Freedom of trade
The right to assembly
Right to bear arms
Inviolability of the citizen
The right to choose our own authorities

These are the Ten Commandments of Free Men.
If Spain feels capable of granting us,
and gives us, those rights and liberties,
they may then send us a General Captain, a governor...
made of straw, that we will burn in effigy

-"Ten Commandments of Free Men" (translated), November 1867



Their demands were not some kind of TERROR! But shit... If Spain is exploiting the island they surely were going to Print papers for the citizens of Spain to 'be wary of a terrorist uprising in the Puerto Rican colony'. Because of the fear of losing us. Many of these same demands made in 1867 in this letter, are demands we haven't received from the U.S. over the course of its century long occupation. Puerto Rico does not control its own trade, Puerto Rico does not get to vote for it's authority (yes it can vote in a governor but what does that mean when the governor must hand in a petition to the U.S. congress asking if they approve to get most laws passed? Thats more like a representative than an authority!), and Puerto Rico does not have freedom of the press because the press in Puerto Rico is not owned by Puerto Ricans, it is run by American corporations, because the fact that Puerto Rico is indeed a colony means that there can be no such thing as a puerto Rican owned corporation. All business endeavors are incorporated by U.S. law. So whose interests will mainstream propoganda play up to?

The word colony is one we avoid, but in overcoming any presumed colonial miseducation (and lets presume for a moment that we are miseducated__you will have to anyway, when you are faced with the following fact) we must must address the reality with a language which speaks truth to power. In other words: REAL TALK!
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Real Talk: The U.S. began it's occupation of PR in 1898 and didnt grant citizenship to Puerto Rican's until March 2nd 1917, a year after Luis Munoz Rivera (PR's Representative in Congress at the time) ASKED:

"Give us now the field of experiment which we ask of you. . . . It is easy for us to set up a stable republican government with all possible guarantees for all possible interests. And afterwards, when you . . . give us our independence . . . you will stand before humanity as a great creator of new nationalities and a great liberator of oppressed people."

-AND ONLY A MONTH BEFORE THE U.S. ENTERED World War 1 (April 6th, 1918)......

(((Please re-read what i just wrote and think about that))) First off what it goes to show is that you can't simply ASK to eventually be GIVEN Independance, as Luis Munoz Rivera did in his statement (obviously it didn't work) **which is a reason it is important we dont forget the uprising: El Grito De Lares**.
And Secondly it goes to show that the Empire of Any colony will make moves to grant priveledges only based on getting something in return, because i honestly dont think its a coincidence that after twenty years Puerto Ricans were finally given citizenship, and then a month later they are being asked, as citizens to fight a war!
The U.S. granted Puerto Rico the title of CommonWealth in 1952, only after a resolution by the United Nations calling for the outlawing of Colonies in the international community. Bascially it was a change in the language. The governor of PR at the time along with his cabinet were allowed to draw up a constitution for the island, yet it had to go through the U.S. congress to get passed, and a clause was implemented which states that the U.S. will allow plecibites/ or votes, by islanders as to whether they want Statehood, Independance, or Commonwealth Status, -YET- it must be signed by the U.S. So how does that make it any different than a colony? Historically colonies have always had local governing bodies. It doesn't.. just the language.
More recently the governor has blasted Condoleeza Rice and the Bush administration for stating about the islands political status in the annual President's Task Force Report that:
the U.S. may dispose of Puerto Rico by transferring it to any other sovereign country as a mere disposition of property.
So JUST like PR was given to the U.S. by Spain, the U.S. is in such a position of control over PR that it can, under U.S. imposed law, be given to another nation.


Hell if that doesn't mean P.R. needs to take responsibility over it's self than i don't know what does! Nobody is going to care for us the way we will care for ourselves, in a position to make our own decisions according to our own interests.



September 23, 1868 - September 23, 2008

-Tone.Are

___911___

9/11/2001 was a brisk morning in Queens, clear as the leaves presented before me by sidewalk trees moving by as i coasted my way past lawns crystal with dew, on my way to school. It was the beginning of what was supposed to be my Junior year at St. John's University and along with four other young men, i had just moved a good walk off campus. At Spring Semester's end i had been elected News Editor of The Torch, the official publication of St. John's University, and coming into the '01-'02 class faced the next order of business in preparing for the coming issue as students traveled between classes with the special summer edition (produced by me) folded under the arm or spread wide about their faces.

It was on my way into the breakfast/coffee before The Torch office routine that morning that i encountered the friend of a friend whom recognized and elected to stop me with a block and a half to go. "Morning classes have been canceled," she warned me. "An airplane flew into the World Trade Center." ...Giving a tip of the cap and a word of gratitude for the looks i proceeded anyway, past the outflux of students i began taking notice of at that point. Straight to the University Center i headed, nestling between a tightening crowd into the UC room where i planted myself amongst about three hundred people staring stone faced over my head, then turned around to see what they were watching in placing a screen with the newscasters statement that: "a second plane has hit the towers". Before long the reality sunk in: "Ladies and gentleman, we have been attacked", etc...


_?$%+.-?_*all along the watch tower*_?$%+.-?_


Fade to my eyes a few months later and they were most probably crimson red. Not a month after the attacks i had dropped out of school. A 3.4 student, News Editor of the school paper, a room in an off campus upper classman stud pad! I couldn't tell you if it was the culture of the house, in which we smoked at least four blunts a day, like, EVERYday :: Or the stress of the worlds events weighing upon me, but i fell into a deep depression. I'm sure it was a combination of everything, on top of the fact that i just felt a general sense of being alone and empty, stagnant, not knowing where to begin, not having an idea of where i wanted to be or what i wanted to be doing. I had lost interest in Journalism because i found myself pigeonholed as a news reporter/writer, which we learn and then perpetuate as a strict conveyer of information to stand on the principle that we aren't to interject our own voice/opinions into our stories. That was dead to me. My spirit is that of an artist and it needed to be unconstrained.
So i left school figuring that maybe i needed some time off. And being in depression, i isolated myself in that very house with a roomate or two who like me just kind of slumped around. No job, wake up in the morning and throw the clips from the night before into a bong, play video games and wait for the others to get home with more weed to mooch off of. It would get to the point where i was smoking and drinking so much that some months after recovering from this depression i recall looking back on some writings that had words missing letters and ilegiable sentences missing words!
This image of Tony Rivera was quite a revalation to those coming through the house whom may have been meeting me for the first time yet knew of me as the guy who actually wrote a story on the rise of marijuana use on campuses across the nation. Just as it was a revelation for one of my roomates, whom had been expelled from campus for selling, when i offered to/and there-upon assumed the assignment of writing a letter of apology and plea making the case for reinstatement.

But in that time i also found myself reading alternative sources of information, and presenting liberal and even radical points of view to my roomates, who at times looked at me quite skeptically and at other times built with me. On one occasion for example a heavy white child who frequented our spot with his own stash to share and whose name i've since forgotten was rambling off to a boy of his he had brought along, about how drugs serve as an underground economy and fill a void left by a capitalist system which is dependant on a limited supply and excessive demand to thrive. So lack of jobs = poor folk with no money = less consumption (ADD DRUGS) now the jobless deal = have money = buy cars, buy homes, buy food. Economy is sustained.
I couldn't stop myself from laughing because like a week earlier he was very resistant to this argument. Particularly my theory that the government is well aware of how and through whom drugs get in, and that at times even plays a hand in managing its enterance into our communities (whether through a complicated web of relations or a simple agreement) >This was before Traffic by the way, and i still hadn't even heard of Iran Contra and the politics of the crack era... it was just common sense to me<. But then there he was rehashing the conversation. After some time though i begun to quiet down and fall back from all the politiking because once i found myself thinking outloud about race things got uncomfortable in the house. Two of the gentlemen were white, one was Chinese and the other Indian, but every one of us had more white friends than anything else and these conversations often stifled the mood. I was not yet confident enough or proud enough to bring this conversation up even amongst my own, much less them. And when one day i ravaged the house to realize a new book i had bought (Michael Moore's "Stupid White Men") was missing, i knew things had gotten too cold. There was one fellow in particular who was a life long friend of the Chinese brother (they were from Long Island) whom began giving me a threatening gaze in a straight face when we'd see each other. This was in contrast to the first couple of times we met in which we were totally fine and there were smiles and daps. Apparently i wasn't playing my role. Oh well!

Geo-Politics aside it was only a matter of time before race sparked a friction in the house. Because it was around this time that my venture into a calling to understand myself and whom/ where i was coming from culturally, historically... to reclaim my OWN family's/people's story about how we arrived here in the U.S. and our conditions, and to even trace back before that so that i know a little more about being Puerto Rican than that we can fly without a passport, eat rice and beans, and have a flag with one star on it,... began. The year before was BIG in my development as a person, which makes sense! Freshman year i was timid and just trying to get into the swing of things. It wound up being a big party. But sophomore year i found myself slowly aligning with more of my own kind, and feeling more and more alienated from the white folks i had immersed myself amongst since entering college as 'a free man'. Began noticing that for as much as i had fun drinking with them, those in my circle didn't listen as intently when i spoke as they did when speaking between one another. For example it was common for us to all be walking on our way to the bar and for me to be speaking on some shit, THINKING the group is listening, when before long i'd wind up lagging behind, hosting the ear of ONE person nodding incessantly, yet clearly not paying attention to what i'm saying. All of this before instantaneously placing my sights ahead and noticing another conversation commensing amongst the group. I began to realize there was more love when a brother Boricua Marcus for example, would come over, or when i'd cross the hall to chill with brothers. It was more intimate.


My transformation was further instigated, ironically, by an experience i had on our Spring Break of '01. It was a group of five. My brother and I, and three of my closest friends up until that point (all white). Our destination: PUERTO RICO. While there several instances occured that stand out in my memory like my mothers lips speaking.
- One of my friends stops us midway a walking bridge and decides to pee off of it. The police pull up __ one holds a stick to his neck and begins spitting obscenities in Spanish and the other stands aback before finally stepping in to calm him as he begun getting more aggressive __ "We don't like that over here!" he shouts.

- Sometime after that incident (mightve been the same night) my brother and i are walking down the street when a bottle comes flying out of nowhere and bursts about a yard on front of us.

- Coming out of a strip club one early morning (2:30ish?) my friend and i are robbed by a gun poking out of a car pulling up without headlights, which my naive ass walks up to assuming maybe it pulled over to ask a question. Then we run to Old San Juan and upon arrival find some police whom ask "What do you want us to do about it?" and promise to call a cab before deserting us in the night.

By the time we arrived back on the strip which led to the hotel i was in tears. Only my closest friend of the group, whom i had gone to high school with, remained by my side (my brother didn't come out that night). The other two continued their night. I was the only one stupid enough to give my whole wallet so i had no ID no cash or card, no NOTHING! I slammed my camera full of memories, which i had at that point determined were of absolutely no value to me, into pieces.

I say it was an ironic turning point because while many would identify those as reasons to detest Puerto Rico, and reaffirmations of the notions that our people are bad, I looked within. I had been maturing. I was at the end of my Sophomore year, facing decision time in my life and changing. Time to decide what my major was going to be, time to step it up and assume responsibility as Editor rather than a measly name in the by-lines, time to get a job, opening up to new circles and making relationships which ultimately equated to a decision to clean the slate of old company. I was begining to look at myself in the mirror. Clean cut, hair gelled, silver chain and earings along with an eyebrow ring / Then longer hair with beads around the neck. The music i listened to began to change. My Korn CD began collecting dust and i had rediscovered HipHop in the form of Mos Def and Talib Kweli, Common, The Roots. I was allowing myself to navigate for whom i felt comfortable being, whom i felt substance in being: What gave me a sense of power and self-determination.

The trip to Puerto Rico led me to eventually reflect, not on how hurt i was that my experience turned out to be so... but on why my people over there were so angry? And why is it that i felt so insulted, as if, THEY SHOULDVE KNOWN to treat me better? ME.. an All-American Preppy Rican.
___And the concept of Colonialism was born in my psyche. Not because i was being oppressed in PR, but because i was being oppressed in my own existance at home despite all of my priveledges, and because i began to accept the idea that upon touching down in PR and me assuming that i'd be catered to, as if though this was some commercial, as if the people working in hotels and restaurants dont go home and struggle; As if they work to serve MY happiness; I began to accept that upon touching down in Puerto Rico, that I was acting an oppressor.
I decided that in spite of being the dismissed person back home while the dismissed person abroad, I wasn't going to just fall into the pecking order, without stepping into a journey to become whom i knew i wasn't, yet understood i needed to be! If i resisted this call with contempt for the incidences in the motherland, I knew in my soul who i'd be fighting for... and i knew well that though i was a good one to keep in company, they never cared to really know me!

.
.
I'm Sorry, ...i got caught up!
So what does this have to do with 911?
Why do i gotta drag the pulpit in
and use it to leap across topics?
.
.

This is why:
Everybody knows where they were and what they were doing when speaking in passing about the occurance of a historic event. For example when Kennedy was assassinated, many remember being in school. And by in large each person has a sense of where they were in life in terms of their mindstate and the phase of life they'd been motioning through at the time. Thus, these historic dates are subjective to the perception of whomever is telling the story. For example to many when Punk music had officially hit it mainstream and began to submerge the reign of disco alot of people stopped going to clubs to dance and perceived it the death of good music. Meanwhile, fans of Punk music perceived that time as the rise of good music. Or if you want to talk politics look at the Vietnam War. Many view it as a time in which America was at low morale, that the youth became cowardice and didn't want to fight for their flag. But there were many (some heros of mine) on the other side of that conversation who felt that if anything America had maturened and gained a consciousness. That young people took the vanguard in standing up and fighting for their rights and to have their opinions matter, even if it meant allowing yourself to consider that maybe your own country (the U.S.) was assuming the charactieristics of an oppressive imperialistic empire, and in essence, WRONG. The date of 9/11 is no different. There are millions of stories about what went on 9/11/2001, because there are millions of people whom witnessed it, and each had a chance to evaluate the situation through a lens focused by their own socio-economic condition, experience, and education.
It mattered where you were at... physically and mentally. The person i describe to you above, carrying those thoughts in the brain, was me when 9-11-2001 happend. This was the context in which 9/11/2001 happened in my life.

Still, make no mistake about it: though a 9/11 has occured for each of us, WE ARE ALL CONNECTED as our experiences! So everyone's 911 is not an isolated 911! That is what the demons doing their work on earth do not realize when they release evil through us... that it all comes back to come to light... eventually all is redeemed. So it will always strike me as eerie, yet no mystery that the the special summer issue carried under the arm and at the face of students roaming the campus those first weeks of school featured a story, written by me, about the new St. John's Manhattan campus (only blocks away from the towers), and began with me detailing in the first paragraph my exit from the Chambers Street subway station (which at that time extended beneath the towers), and scanning around to identify where i was in relation to where i was headed. I write how upon turning 180 degrees i was overwhelmed by the mammoth edifice erecting a few feet before me, raising my eyes to no end. I had to walk half a block to see the sky above it. Back then i was yet a city dweller: had never worked in the city; had been in the city but was for the most part was still one of those New Yorkers whom live here yet never ventured beyond the hood (see even here we have bumpkins!). I could think of no better way to begin talking about the new campus but to place it in their shadows.

.... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ....





.... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ....


September 11, 1973


The day the towers fell St. John's was cast in a shadow indeed. My world was cast in a shadow. The world certainly changed for me and for everybody i know. But did the world change for everybody? Was everybody in the world's life instantaneously casted into a shadow?
_____The economy began to slope and people who lost stock value in the market... a shadow was casted on them.
_____But how much lower could the family of four in Mississipi making less than $10,000 a year, have gone? Was that same shadow cast on them? *well maybe so, because it is the children of that family which will likely be sent off to fight for that money back> reguardless of whether or not his family ever has the opportunity to dig their way out of poverty in the poorest state of the union.

But you know what they say... A recession doesn't exist in the ghetto. The state of existence in the ghetto is constant depression.

_____Young men and women (god bless them each, they are young MEN, and WOMEN!) were sent off to fight a war... a shadow was indeed casted over them.
_____But the children whom carry AK-47s in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East; they see buildings blown up every day. They lose 3000 people over the course of some months and not in one day as was the case with the towers, but this is in the midst of wars that last generations. In which deaths total in the hundreds of thousands. So was a shadow casted over them?


As i've elaborated. Everyone has their own 9/11.
And what our history teachers don't teach us is about the 911 attack launched by the United States Government, through the CIA in 1973.
The motive was exactly the same as the one we propogate about why 9/11/2001 happened. We say 9/11 was launched on us because they didn't like our fr...
______free...
_________freedo...
____________freedom!


FREEDOM

The World Trade Center was the capitalist symbol for dominance. There is no coincidence as to why it was the tallest building built for a long time, it was meant to display how a nation with little natural resources (no diamonds, a tiny bit of oil, no steel, etc...) can become the wealthiest empire the world has ever come to know! I mourn the innocent lives taken on 911, but if you want to chalk me down as a traitor or evil being for caring less at this point about the actual buildings, then so be it. That type of cynicism only places you in my eyes as less empathetic about the people; probably because it wasn't a celebrity or a power broker. It was the common man and woman who died in those buildings. There are those.. some of whom are reading this.. that looked at the towers as the absolute symbol of freedom!

Then there are those.. some of whom are reading this.. that look at the will to work for a pleasant existance, befitting a humane humble existance, as baring the urge for freedom. Though they never got it. Though many of us with that same urge never get to be free and only know it as an unreachable illusion. It is not an illusion. They worked for it! Just so happens that those in power didn't work WITH them to accomplish it... because it befitted them to have the people work FOR them in scaffolding their own priveledge on the top of the hill, in first class, reguardless of whether the one ACTUALLY WORKING for the freedom came home with sore feet and calluses, and a check short of paying beyond minimum balance, while the one basically just keeping their parents contacts and connections, travels to eat at fancy places 'networking' and calling that work, doesn't know what default means!


On November 3rd, 1970 the people of Chile VOTED for what THEY believed freedom was! You couldn't tell them what freedom was or what it wasn't! They had their own experience and didn't want the old broken system back. It is the story in ANY election, held ANYWHERE around the world, involving ANY parties running!
In essence, Salvador Allende (Wiki; google; check sources; keep reading) was elected into office, becoming THE FIRST DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED Socialist Leader in the Western World. This is what the majority of the vote wanted. There were no tanks, there was no violence. See we have this phobia here in the U.S. about anything that may pose an alternative to the system we have. These were people whom understood that when your government is exploiting you you get rid of them!

Red flags raised within the U.S. Government's Chambers(not that it was REALLLY any of our business! kind of gives me a visual of the nosy neighbor who gets offended when they hear that you have something in your apartment that the landlord told them THEY couldn't have) Why did red flags raise??? Well...

The United States has a long history of policies (actually written and passed by our government) of intervention in Latin and South America! For over a century companies (sugar, fruit, minerals and natural resources industries; manufacturing and pharmaceutical, tourism and off shore corporations) have planted themselves in the region, ESPECIALLY after the exit of the Spanish and Portugal colonial powers, with the concent of these nations' currupt government regimes (for example Fulgencio Batista in Cuba who gave U.S. businessmen, politicians, and mobsters access to cheap labor and land to run casinos and a booming hotel industry while the majority of the country starved: BY THE WAY THIS IS WHY A GROUP OF LESS THAN 20 GUERILLA FIGHTERS, INCLUDING CHE GUEVARRA WAS ABLE TO WIN THE SUPPORT OF THE PEOPLE IN OUSTING THAT REGIME) For over a century these FAT KAT business men have been given a pass to exploit South America with the support of the U.S. Military which often planted ships off the coasts, ready to attack the citizens of these nations if they tried to move in and fuck with our money! And we worked in collaboration with such KNOWN dictators as:
Fulgencio Batista (Cuba)
Rafael Trujillo (Dominican Republic)
Hugo Banzer (Bolivia)
Humberto Branco (Brazil)
Roberto Suazo Cordova (Honduras)
Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez (El Salvador)
Efrain Rios Montt (Guatemala)
Manuel Noriega (Panama)
Anastasio Somoza Sr. & Jr. (Nicaragua)
Jorge Rafael Videla (Argentina)


These were brutal brutal men who massacred whole populations of dessenters! And although it relies on your doing heavy research and common sense to verify whether what i am telling you is true about the connection of our government in supporting these Dictators who suppress the FREEDOM of the people of these nations and commit genocide, *because we don't like THEIR kind of freedom... their kind of freedom means WE wouldn't be free to do what WE want on THEIR land*, the information is out there.

So just as a symbol of capitalism was attacked on 9/11/2001
A Reighteous symbol of Socialism was attacked on 9/11/1973

A Democratically Elected government, ousted by a man Augusto Pinochet whom is quoted as saying "Democracy is the breeding ground of communism"! The coup was supported by the CIA and more specifically, masterminded by Henry Kissinger and some neo-conservative economists from the Chicago School under the Nixon Administration. They saw the rising of socialism in South America as a threat just as President James Monroe did when he signed "The Monroe Doctrine" (google, wiki, read) in which the United States Government basically declairs THE RIGHT to interfere if they sense any form of government or economic system EVEN IF SUPPORTED BY THE PEOPLE OF THAT NATION, other than one approved by us, growing in the region.
...Shiiieeet if another country were to declair that same law over us and go sending secret spies and paramilitaries to fight us on this soil what might they call that?
TERRORISM!
The Monroe Doctrine was an imperialist policy OBVIOUSLY because you cannot just impose a policy on another country can you? The more cordial proposal to any nation we determined a threat from was called The Big Stick policy!
It was Monroe's way of saying that we will negotiate with you, carrying a big stick. SHIT! that sounds like some animal cruelty shit. Alot different than saying you are going to extend an olive branch.
So as you can see the U.S. hasn't always had a whole lot of respect for my people below the border!
And in helping install the Pinochet regime, which was responsible for torturing, murdering and the dissapearance of TENS of THOUSANDS of 'communists', the U.S. was carrying out an imperialist act (which is to say it lightly).


Just a couple of weeks ago i watched the documentary "The Judge and The General" on channel 13. It was about 9/11/1973 in Chile and the testimony of the families of those persecuted.
You see... We have this tendancy to omit history by giving prevailance to events we favor to celebrate, or mourn over others. So we talk about THE Holocaust, when in fact there have been plenty of holocausts in the history of the world... take Darfur for example.
And the history books leave these events out. I once asked someone, why couldn't we consider what's going on in Darfur to be a holocaust, and this person replied: "Oh that's just them killing each other" Which happens to be the same thing said about black people in America. It is one of the most racist statements that could be made about war. The war in Darfur is actually very complicated and goes beyond Muslims and Christians killing each other, but damnit, at least acknowledge that there are two sides: Muslims and Christians. When we refer to Bosnia we dont say "They're only killing each other". We say it is ethnic cleansing. There is one group of people within that mix of white people, killing another group of white people. And i bring this out just to show you about our biases, and how blind we can be and miseducated and in essence: APATHETIC! about some serious HELL going on here on earth. We are conditioned to think about things in accordance to how the media dictates. So the killing of a communist is ok, even though there is no dictionary in the world that will tell you anything other than that communism is a different system of government (AND EVEN WITHIN COMMUNISM THERE ARE DIFFERENT IDEAS AND TRADITIONS AND THEORIES SO IT IS NOT ONE BIG GROUP.) I once asked someone what communism means and they told me: "It's when a dictator takes power and abuses his power" NOOOOOOO... that is a dictatorshp! LOOK UP COMMUNISM
Actually, if anything (and by the way i am not A Communist!, but there are traditions and components in communism that to me speak of ensuring strong democratic ideals) You see the opossite of Democracy is a Dictatorship (a dictator takes power, a democracy requires people to vote) NOW THE OPPOSITE OF CAPITALISM that's a different thing. The opposite of Capitalism can be Communism or Socialism. The problem is that the United States has Usurped the notion of Capitalism and made us believe that Democracy can only co-depend on Capitalism to Survive, when the fact is that there are probably more socialist style governments (which are ELECTED IN via a Democratic Process) on this earth, throughout Europe, South America, Asia than Capitalist ones.


All i know is that i get tired of the ideological war when i settle for a moment and recognize what i am fighting for. The People (that includes myself, my family, the people with children in my community, those in love for 30 years in my community and those working their way through struggling to grow in relationships... Those who hustle with stress on their mind trying to make it out that stress and turn things around for their people... Those accomplishing alot in high places even, whom walk and talk to get where they need to be to include us on every level of playing ground that power plays out).
.
on 9/11/2001 the people here were violated by men of power fighting 4 power.
And on 9/11/1973 The People were violated by men of power fighting for power.
And it is just as much about the personal experience of each person.. of me, of you... as it is about our collective experience. Because they are one in the same.



It is in recognition of this fact that i expose what i know, and know i have the freedom to know, in a system that hides it all very well, for the sake of power over me.

IN DEDICATION:

9/11/1973

9/11/2001

And the Blue Shirts pass to the the Reds ! (Election Update)

There are so many places i can go with today

So much on my mind concerning Decision 08' in the wake of such a surreal turn of events, it has captivated the attention of anybody following the election.
Since the selection of Sarah Palin for VP on the Republican ticket last friday media coverage has been swallowed up across the board. I don't believe you if you say you haven't tuned in! YOU HAVE!
Most were most probably amused; most were most probably skeptical; most were most probably cynical; and most were moooost prooobably aggitated {In that order, or at one time or another}, and i am speaking for BOTH those on the 'Left', and those on the 'Right'!
Yessir, even the Republican faithful, who have since fell in love with this woman, were initially shocked and confused. What happened to Romney? what happened to Giuliani or Leiberman? What is JohnnyMac doing; who is this woman?
At first it was like one of those bad movies where they pick some nameless person off the street and put them in the white house: Black enough to have disqualified it in our minds (pre-Obama) as a serious film, or 'female' enough to dramatically bump MILF porn up the ranks of google search results.
That morning, as i watched Morning Joe on MSNBC over a cup of (dare i say it??..) Joe (i knooowww.. that was white), i myself began to roll out the predictions. Actually, i wasn't too far off. I had been thinking (WWF, i mean U.S. Style) McCain would try to one-up the Democrats by drafting Condoleeza Rice.
Black/ Female/ Republican; the reactionary answer to the Obama/Clinton machine.

John McCain wasn't going to play it safe for long. While he is an elite member of the Republican Party, and conservative both fiscally and socially (although more fiscally than socially), he has always been that thorn in the side of the Bushs (no pun intended) and against the grain amongst his peers on such matters as immigration, campaign finance, and up until recently abortion.

__And he COULDNT play it safe for long! Couldn't afford to. At the DNC just the night before the Palin pick, Obama came off the top rope and hit him with a flying dizzy! (what the fuck is a flying dizzy?) And having increasingly aligned himself with Bush and Washington (with it's 9% approval), he was hurt!
___________THEN!____________tHaT'S WhEn iT HApPenEd...
McCain began to shake his fists, to quake and shiver at the cheek down on one knee ala Hulk Hogan on the come back; He stood to his feet incrimentally, a limb at a time bringing himself to attention, nose to nose with Obama's machine before waving his fingers a NO in his opponents face, then fired back with a barrage of punches.

- He picks a woman rearing four childen, who is strongly pro-life.
- She is young.
- A woman with four children; one of which is on his way to Iraq!
- A lifetime National Rifle Association member who hunts regularly.
- Someone who has worked as a sports caster and played college basketball.
- The mayor of a small town in Alaska, the state which has the attention of the oil industry for its untapped reserves. And she has a reputation for not only backing drilling, but for having attacked the special interest politicians whove monopolized the oil industry in her own party.
- Another fiscally conservative politician who promises that taxes will be low, and if you want benefits (healthcare, social security in the long run, retirement plans)you pay for them yourself *with the taxes from your check they have promised you you get to keep ALTHOUGH, when they say this it is more a promise to tax payers in the highest bracket than to you, as has been the case over the past 8 years when Bush promised the same and didn't seem to be addressing me (sh1t, taxes come out MY check)

-He elects to postpone the Republican convention, well aware that after Katrina, he was going to have to show some real focus on dealing with the possible disaster. A move that put his party in a positive light, ESPECIALLY considering a job done well.
-He steps back and remains silent in allowing the media attention to marinate on his VP selection. Something new and fresh.
-He makes the decision to let Bush speak at the convention, but is strategic in making that the 1st night, just to get him out of the way, leaving two nights ahead with Palin on the line-up, then him, to drown out any negative taste Bush leaves.


Leading up to the Palin pick McCain's choice to play it close to Bush and his vocal support of Bush's policies was doing him nothing! That day is done for the fat elephant. Anyone left in this country with allegiance to that safe, albeit failed, dynasty threw their support behind Romney (And had he not been a mormon McCain wouldn't have been in the conversation. He barely beat Romney despite the reality that Romney was dead on arrival for those voting from the religious wing.)
McCain all this time HAD a base which he neglected while being woo'd by the old elite. It was the young, independant leaning, libertarian, Ron Paul nation republican who might be gay, might be Black or Latino, might be liberal on moral issues but wish to be left alone when it comes to being taxed for the sake of sustaining federal programs; and who'd rather have decisions coming from local government as opposed to the central federal office. The Palin pick now brings these young voters back into the picture and if anything saves the Republican party from fracturing in future elections, between the old loyal to the ticket, and the young Republican swing vote willing to sway independant.


Was the Palin selection a surface level, image driven political move? You'd better believe it! I mean come on let's be honest here, had the Democrats not come with the anomoly, i find it hard to imagine the Republicans foregoing the field of good ol' old boys to pick a woman. But at the same time... though it hurts me to have to say this.. It was also a political move of great substance for the Republican Party (though not for YOU or ME, like, regular struggling people) exactly for the reasons i stated in the last paragraph.
- It certainly does leave room for attack on the fact that she wasn't vetted and he had only had a short conversation with her, having met her once in his life.
- It does leave room to expose the Republicans for trying to exploit the Hillary swing vote, being condescending in believing women would now vote McCain just because he chose a women VP.
- It leaves room to continue making folks aware that this woman was never in charge of managing legislation over any significantly large base of citizens, and has Zero foreign policy.

BUT, EXACTLY becaaause the choice of Sarah Palin (as much as she fails to represent the needs of poor working class people) IS the neo-conservative prototype these angles dont successfuly discourage Republican swing voters or even Hillary voters, and CERTAINLY NOT traditional Safe Republicans from jumping on the McCain ban wagon.
- The fact that her mantality is conditioned to cater to small town politics; meaning for the most part white, upper middle to upper class. IS IN THE INTEREST of the white, middle to upper class people who will be voting for her reguardless. If she cut taxes Alaska wont have people dying in the street due to a lack of funding for food stamps and health care that people (very often working people) rely on in big cities like NY where middle class salaries dont even match up to the cost of living. Alaska wont have gangs forming, as a big city like NY will, in low income neighborhoods where after-school and recreational programs will be cut (because these are the first things to go when taxes get cut) and more youth dont have an outlet to be as they will, youth!
- The fact that Sarah Palin is a woman with children. IS IN THE INTEREST of pro-life groups that want to abolish abortion. Because it gives them some kind of credible leg to stand on (EVEN IF it means the Republicans are now the ones, as theyve always accused liberals, using Moral Equivalence for the sake of their agenda). For years women have resented the fact that these old men have been imposing upon them reasons why THEY shouldnt have the choice. This disables that argument for many, and now makes it harder to get the masses to recognize that their liberties are being taken away, because it is a woman.

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McCain's choice was actually pretty brilliant for the Republican vote, which i am not hesitant to admit and detail because what it actually means is that the Democrats are in a whole heap of trouble! They are in a whole heap of trouble because they; the Democratic establishment, and the democratic pundits in the media are not addressing it properly!

They expose the fact that Sarah Palin has a 17 year old daughter who is pregnent, yet frame it in a shallow tabloid kind of way. They fail to draw the connections in making the point that Sarah Palin's daughter can afford to be a pregnant teen because she is well off. And that while teens will be teens, like the daughter of Sarah Palin, and make bad decisions thus some will get pregnant, the majority of teens that get pregnant are from families with little education, from areas where teen pregnancy is a problem. Where cutting taxes that will provide programs to give these teens an outlet (which Palin will do) will result in higher levels of pregnancy. And they fail to then draw the connection to abortion. And how if you are going to cut inner city programing, then abolish to right to make the choice of abortion, you are increasing the chances that the level of poverty will increase. That young mothers without the priveledge of Sarah Palin's daughter will struggle to care for their children, and with the unemployment rate now at 6.1% (a four and a half year high) and rising over the past year, with jobs leaving and young fathers and mothers resorting to crime to make money, jails filling, and now jail hardened 'çriminals' cycling in and out of jail to be the example for future generations. The media and the Democratic establishment fail to paint this picture in the minds of the voter.

They attack the Republicans for condescending on women in assuming the Hillary vote will vote McCain just because he picked a women, when the sad sad truth about the way the media manipulates politics, means that people too often DO vote on image! And DONT vote on issues! Which means MANY Hillary voters WILL switch over; ESPECIALLY those who will not be effected by Republican fiscal policies, and if anything in many cases benefit from them (im talking upper crust women). And the media makes a MAJOR mistake in trying to go at Palin for being a mother and assuming she may not be capeable to rear children while in office, because this energizes women! It makes it EVEN MORE likely that women will vote McCain because it insults their intelligence. If anything it STRENGTHENS her image as a feminist. The feminist issue alone is not a monolithic one. Feminism is not defined by whether or not you are pro-choice although that is a major issue in the discourse. Media must be careful in failing to recognize that Sarah Palin, reguardless of her political position has done as much as any man whom has done what Sarah Palin has done; and in fact has done more based on the fact that we are in a system that makes it hard for women. That Sarah Palin is just as capeable of rearing children and running office as any Male politician with children. This conversation must be obsolete in the political forum. What the media MUST do is make it clear that while she is a successful self made woman, that doesn't take away the fact that her fiscal positions equate to an ABSOLUTE RELUCTANCE to holding federal government accountable for overseeing regulations on corporations. And that this means she is against making laws that force companies to have equal pay policies for women (when statistics show that women are paid less for holding the same positions as men). She is a neo-conservative, and neo-conservative policies put 'economic freedom' (which to them means dont let government tell you how you can make money; even if it means this keeps them from being able to check corporations on exploiting people; as is the case with equal pay) over the rights of citizens to work fairly.


I say McCain's choice was brilliant because he knew it would cripple the media and the Democratic establishment from being able to respond properly. Because he knows that the Republican party has the Democratic party in its pocket! For as much as Barack talks about change, he has surrounded himself with people who have to be verrryy careful in exactly how much power they are willing to share with the people. So if the media, if the Democratic elite were to paint the pictures i painted for you above, people would be aware of exactly how the system works. And they would in essence have to make some sacrifices, would have to lean more left. And there are too many moderate and conservative Democrats who quite frankly benefit from the McCain policies, to allow it to go left. These politicians would lose their jobs or have to go republican like Leiberman did. One of these politicians is Joe Biden. Which goes to show you what Obama has done. In the end it tells you the Democrats have been unwilling to do what the Republicans have done in serving their own base. The democrats are mobilizing us to put them in office, but they are slowly distancing themselves or in the least being as vague as possible because when they get in office they dont want to have to answer to us.
Sometimes i get the sense that the Democratic party is like the Christian Church, asking that we hope, election after losing election, as each politician of the democratic establishment piles years on to their Bio Sketch. Opportunists.
NOW, certainly they are the better side of the coin when it comes to addressing my issues, our issues. But if i sit here and shit on the Republicans all day while heralding the democrats just because i hate republicans, then where is the pressure on the democrats to serve me right?
Because the Republican base who benefit from McCain KNOW he will serve them right! And by that i dont mean you my lost boricua brother/sister! You are just lost! Start loving yourself! I mean oil and upper class.



McCain was just waiting for the chance. It has all been set up perfectly for him. He networked with those embeded in the top of the global economic heirarchy here at home. Kissed Bush's ass because now bush has friends running Iraq and Israel and Georgia if he re-establishes imperial rule there. And waited for Barack to make his selection, which would up being the same old. And from the Republican paradigm won the race to the "grass roots", because she ISNT a traditional washington Republican. She IS self-made. Barack lost in that battle. If anything just imagine this. If there was no Barack Obama, how different would you say the Democratic party is now than it was 10 years ago?
Not much! It WAS looking good for the first months of the race. I am very sad about this. I really am not trying to poke at him or bring the brother down. He still has the potential to do some great things. But he must get back to making it possible to put the power in the hands of the people. He has a big job... maybe im putting too much pressure on him.
He made the speech of his life, then had the air sucked out of him the next day. And now the Republicans are riding this wave of ascension JUST as 911 approaches!


In the mean time President Bush comes on the TV the other day for a Press Conference about the Hurricane and spends the last 4 minutes of a 5 minute interview on the conditions left by the storm, talking about off-shore drilling! I dont recall him drawing any correlation between drilling and the storm. A totally opportunistic moment to pitch his sale. AND THE MEDIA NOR THE DEMOCRATIC ESTABLISHMENT MAKE NOTHING OF IT.

In the mean time Sarah Palin condescends upon the poor by insinuating Community Organizers, who get folks together to talk about issues and take action in fixing street lights, getting sanitation to clean their streets, making sure police are not brutilizing their children, mobilizing to vote and then holding politicians accountable. She says they dont have responsibility! AND THE MEDIA NOR THE DEMOCRATIC ESTABLISHMENT MAKE NOTHING OF IT.
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3 WORDS FOR YOU

Suspension
Of
Disbelief
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...






Go on! Get Mad!

It makes me mad too.

And now i am waiting for Obama's response

just_like_you

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ToneAre

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Puerto Rican Obituary



They worked
They were always on time
They were never late
They never spoke back
when they were insulted
They worked
They never took days off
that were not on the calendar
They never went on strike
without permission
They worked
ten days a week
and were only paid for five
They worked
They worked
They worked
and they died
They died broke
They died owing
They died never knowing
what the front entrance
of the first national city bank looks like



Juan
Miguel
Milagros
Olga
Manuel
All died yesterday today
and will die again tomorrow
passing their bill collectors
on to the next of kin
All died
waiting for the garden of eden
to open up again
under a new management
All died
dreaming about america
waking them up in the middle of the night
screaming: Mira Mira
your name is on the winning lottery ticket
for one hundred thousand dollars
All died
hating the grocery stores
that sold them make-believe steak
and bullet-proof rice and beans
All died waiting dreaming and hating



Dead Puerto Ricans
Who never knew they were Puerto Ricans
Who never took a coffee break
from the ten commandments
to KILL KILL KILL
the landlords of their cracked skulls
and communicate with their latino souls



Juan
Miguel
Milagros
Olga
Manuel
From the nervous breakdown streets
where the mice live like millionaires
and the people do not live at all
are dead and were never alive



Juan
died waiting for his number to hit
Miguel
died waiting for the welfare check
to come and go and come again
Milagros
died waiting for her ten children
to grow up and work
so she could quit working
Olga
died waiting for a five dollar raise
Manuel
died waiting for his supervisor to drop dead
so he could get a promotion



Is a long ride
from Spanish Harlem
to long island cemetery
where they were buried
First the train
and then the bus
and the cold cuts for lunch
and the flowers
that will be stolen
when visiting hours are over
Is very expensive
Is very expensive
But they understand
Their parents understood
Is a long non-profit ride
from Spanish Harlem
to long~sland cemetery



Juan
Miguel
Milagros
Olga
Manuel
All died yesterday today
and will die again tomorrow
Dreaming
Dreaming about queens
Clean-cut lily-white neighborhood
Puerto Ricanless scene
Thirty-thousand-dollar home
The first spics on the block
Proud to belong to a community
of gringos who want them lynched
Proud to be a long distance away
from the sacred phrase: Que Pasa



These dreams
These empty dreams
from the make-believe bedrooms
their parents left them
are the after-effects
of television programs
about the ideal
white american family
with black maids
and latino janitors
who are well train
to make everyone
and their bill collectors
laugh at them
and the people they represent



Juan
died dreaming about a new car
Miguel
died dreaming about new anti-poverty programs
Milagros
died dreaming about a trip to Puerto Rico
Olga
died dreaming about real jewelry
Manuel
died dreaming about the irish sweepstakes



They all died
like a hero sandwich dies
in the garment district
at twelve o'clock in the afternoon
social security number to ashes
union dues to dust



They knew
they were born to weep
and keep the morticians employed
as long as they pledge allegiance
to the flag that wants them destroyed
They saw their names listed
in the telephone directory of destruction
They were train to turn
the other cheek by newspapers
that mispelled mispronounced
and misunderstood their names
and celebrated when death came
and stole their final laundry ticket



They were born dead
and they died dead



Is time
to visit sister lopez again
the number one healer
and fortune card dealer
in Spanish Harlem
She can communicate
with your late relatives
for a reasonable fee
Good news is guaranteed



Rise Table Rise Table
death is not dumb and disable
Those who love you want to know
the correct number to play
Let them know this right away
Rise Table Rise Table
death is not dumb and disable
Now that your problems are over
and the world is off your shoulders
help those who you left behind
find financial peace of mind



6
Rise Table Rise Table
death is not dumb and disable
If the right number we hit
all our problems will split
and we will visit your grave
on every legal holiday
Those who love you want to know
the correct number to play
Let them know this right away
We know your spirit is able
Death is not dumb and disable
RISE TABLE RISE TABLE



Juan
Miguel
Milagros
Olga
Manuel
All died yesterday today
and will die again tomorrow
Hating fighting and stealing
broken windows from each other
Practicing a religion without a roof
The old testament
The new testament
according to the gospel
of the internal revenue
the judge and jury and executioner
protector and eternal bill collector



Secondhand shit for sale
Learn how to say Como Esta Usted
and you will make a fortune
They are dead
They are dead
and will not return from the dead
until they stop neglecting
the art of their dialogue
for broken english lessons
to impress the mister goldsteins
who keep them employed
as lavaplatos porters messenger boys
factory workers maids stock clerks
shipping clerks assistant mailroom
assistant, assisant assistant
to the assistant's assistant
assistant lavaplatos and automatic
artificial smiling doormen
for the lowest wages of the ages
and rages when you demand a raise
because is against the company policy
to promote SPICS SPICS SPICS



Juan
died hating Miguel because Miguel's
used car was in better running condition
than his used car
Miguel
died hating Milagros because Milagros
had a color television set
and he could not afford one yet
Milagros
died hating Olga because Olga
made five dollars more on the same job
Olga
died hating Manuel because Manuel
had hit the numbers more times
than she had hit the numbers
Manuel
died hating all of them
Juan
Miguel
Milagros
and Olga
because they all spoke broken english
more fluently than he did



And now they are together
in the main lobby of the void
Addicted to silence
Off limits to the wind
Confine to worm supremacy
in long island cemetery
This is the groovy hereafter
the protestant collection box
was talking so loud and proud about



Here lies Juan
Here lies Miguel
Here lies Milagros
Here lies Olga
Here lies Manuel
who died yesterday today
and will die again tomorrow
Always broke
Always owing
Never knowing
that they are beautiful people
Never knowing
the geography of their complexion



PUERTO RICO IS A BEAUTIFUL PLACE
PUERTORRIQUENOS ARE A BEAUTIFUL RACE



If only they
had turned off the television
and tune into their own imaginations
If only they
had used the white supremacy bibles
for toilet paper purpose
and make their latino souls
the only religion of their race
If only they
had return to the definition of the sun
after the first mental snowstorm
on the summer of their senses
If only they
had kept their eyes open
at the funeral of their fellow employees
who came to this country to make a fortune
and were buried without underwears



Juan
Miguel
Milagros
Olga
Manuel
will right now be doing their own thing
where beautiful people sing
and dance and work together
where the wind is a stranger
to miserable weather conditions
where you do not need a dictionary
to communicate with your people
Aqui Se Habla Espanol all the time
Aqui you salute your flag first
Aqui there are no dial soap commericals
Aqui everybody smells good
Aqui tv dinners do not have a future
Aqui the men and women admire desire
and never get tired of each other
Aqui Que Paso Power is what's happening
Aqui to be called negrito
means to be called LOVE


-Pedro Pietri
Pedro Pietri was a Puerto Rican Poet who had moved to New York in his youth and made his life and art an expression of resistance to the oppression he broke his spirit free of around him. His poetry/Prose was charactieristic of the language, images, and issues that were apart of everyday life for Puerto Rican immigrants and their children from the 50's till his death in 2004. He wrote about the workplace, the streets and prisons, the art of poetry, love, such vices as lotto and alcoholism and colonialism, often using humor and sarcasm. While he was respected by the intallectuals and acedemians, he was a respected organizer and activist as well.

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State Of The Union PT 2

Before i write on i have a confession... I am actually not a reader. I HATE reading because i actually do have trouble concentrating. I profess to be a writer in some capacity but in the same light, i find it hard to write.

So that is just to get that out for a couple of reasons. One being that in the last post i advised you to read. The reality is that i have read little, but drawn a whole lot back to my experience and the common sense that comes when you have allowed yourself to share in valuing the experience told of others. In essence, i can attribute any knowledge i have to my love for life and people. And my WILL to trust my conscience and follow the wynding road.

When you FEEL people strengthening themselves and accepting their capacity to grow, you know that you are being someone special. So i do what i do because it is the only way i can exist and feel real. The only way i can tolerate taking up life, time and space in a humble enough manner to understand that i am doing it as an extension of all three, more so than for just me. Therefore i am eternal. You are eternal as well.
And the struggle is just something passed on to you for you to pass along the same...
as we shape-shift and mold ourselves a nature which is truelly a reflection of our creator. For just like a work of art you may create, and how you understand that if up to par with the finest of the fine, that it will inspire art to branch from it forever before it dies. We will someday find ourselves having escaped the notion of an end. I truelly believe that before that day we would have formed to perfection.

whether in 50-100-150 or 50,100,150 years!


That being said, it is apparent that i have a utopic vision. It may take awhile because nobody is going to take us there. We will rise and fall as we slide along learning and building through trial and error; losing it all on the ground and gaining that much more as we confront the challenge to build and destroy again. Over and over. You are powerful beyond words. So if you do not understand exactly what the fuck i am talking about it is because what i am saying may not be strong enough to penetrate your senses. But just know that if you allow yourself to listen enough you would have found yourself having transcended a couple of lifetimes within a year, ten years, or three decades. Because i am speaking of responsibility not only over self but of your kind. And there is nothing ordinary about that in these times.
Someday you will bring it back to me... in some conversation that will make me feel absolutely stupid. And then that is when finally.. finnnnalllyy... i will tell myself "Cono, i'd better go back and read again"

Haha

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Anyway.
Moving right along.

We pass another Labor Day and although the name is self-explanitory i checked wikipedia to see exactly what the holiday was all about. And indeed it is a celebration of the working man, specifically the labor movements of unions and workers uniting to implement measures that will celebrate their work as well as set standards for workers rights (establishing the 8 hour workday for example). So the last blog was entirely fitting. As will be this one. I figured i continue on in this theme and drop another little history lesson, to sort of take advantage of the current events.
THIS TIME
I am bringing it closer to home.
I can recall learning this all in an Urban Studies class at Hunter College. The teacher was one who spoke a mile a minute, dropping dates, occasions, Acts/Bills, people in lectures that went on for an hour. Im pretty sure the guy contributed to what someday will result in carpel tunnel, then athritis in my wrists (AND I KNOW SOME OF YOU ARE BEING PERVERTED AT THIS POINT, like: "Naaaah nigga, that's not what gave you arthritis" JUST STOP!)
I scored 100 on his midterm and finished the class with a B+, mostly because i lost focus to the point where i wound up taking an incomplete for failing to hand in the term paper (which i eventually did hand in).

Anyway.

As people of color it becomes easy for us to look down upon ourselves as violent, as lazy, as stupid when we walk down the block between projects and witness the poverty and all the bullshit. All the images are negative, while on television sh!t is squeeky clean.
I KNOW! Up until the age of 7 i was raised in Fort Greene Brooklyn *BEFORE THE YUPPIES SPREAD FROM PRATT LIKE A BAD CASE OF THE CRABS. This was the Fort Greene you hear about in tales of the origional 50 Cent (a Fort Greene folk figure) robbing celebrity rappers. My memories are of a man named Micky who was shot and left a chunk of meat for me to stand over on the side walk... Of the Ocasio boys which became a negative allusion to be compared to in my home if we begun to misbehave. Of the public City Pool across the street from the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where we once had to jet from when i was like 6 because my step father was being chased.
After Fort Greene we moved to Sunset Park, where between the years of 1989 and 1997 i lived the majority of my rearing under an over protective mother, yet still got to witness murder which in the real hood sense means actually knowing who the murderED was and knowing who the murderER was and doing no justice by having to keep that shit to yourself, reguardless of the fact that you were practically best friends with the children of the dead. I witnessed like half a dozen people on my block contract HIV and wither away! Then we moved to Coney Island.

This is not some kind of claim to hood credibility. It is just so that you know that i have been there, in that mind state of wanting to get the fuck out the hood and of acting all proper around white people to over compensate for what i looked at at the time as a savage existance. Also it is an admission in the face of my own incompetances; incompetances i forever challenge to overcome. Like i said, i have to always be extra vigilant to keep from falling off of my plan. And my upbringing (constantly moving, going from emergency state to emergency state with the gas going off today and the light tomorrow) is indication of why it is extra hard for me. I along with my siblings have had to build the discipline within us. And they have done a better job at it than i have.

But yea... if you are Black or Latino or Southeast Asian or even Ethnic White in some cases you may have felt like you didn't stack up. We have internalized our oppression. To the point where some stop eating their ethnic food because it might sound weird to others, stopped wearing your hair a certain way or have become over conscious of your facial expressions and accent because it feels dirty to be yourself. To the point where you deny that ever was you, that you have found the real you, and that you are finally comfortable.. because now you pass.

Well check this out.
I am about to list specific events and people
that engineered the conditions under which we cultivated
this sense of self denial. And hatred for our own.

If there is any sense of value in your people it is in the elderly, am i not right? It is in your sweet grandmother who couldn't have done wrong! Not this woman who cooks for the fam.. Not this woman who sheds such wisdom and sense and makes you feel easy when the shit gets tough. It's in your grandfather who never means harm, and is as warm as milk in a babys stomach when you sit by him.
What is your image of your grand parents?
Well i can basically go straight for the head by putting it in the words of a great Puerto Rican poet (yes we have a few) named Pedro Pietri in his poem "Puerto Rican Obituary" which opens:
They Worked!
They broke their backs and read the bible and while yes they had their vices and drunk their spirits and had their dirty laundry as we do today, they as a community served the suits and shiny shoes that roamed this city. They hustled and bustled under the watchful eye of the old jewish supervisor lulling around with hands folded behind the back in the factory.


So what happend?
Have you never wondered?
What happend to get us to a point where
our communities assumed what we've viewed as an ugly reality.
When did we begin to set the conditions that make such tongue and cheek jokes as:
"15 minutes late: Puerto Rican time"
"carrying a knife"
"stealing hubb caps"
"babys out of wedlock"
"beating their wives"
etc...
That wasn't the dear abuela and abuelo we see!


If you read the last blog posting i wrote you get a headstart into the story. I encourage you to read it because i will not do so much to repeat, but i will be touching on some things. Let me start here though by reminding you if you do not remember or do not already know, that before WWII we had a VERY different culture than we have today. There was no such thing as a teenage culture! Teenagers worked. So much so that eventually the government had to pass child labor laws to make sure they at least didn't work as much. Eventually though, teenagers stopped working entirelly (for the most part). Only then was there a vested interest in creating movies for teenagers, in creating MUSIC for teenagers to dance to at proms, in creating teenage fashion, cool burger joints and drive ins. Before this of course the teenagers didn't have too much time on their hands.
So what happens after 5, 10 years of teenagers kind of sitting around waiting for parents to get home? They hang out, and this is when small neighborhood gangs begin getting popular in the 50's. Now.. im not necessarily talking about the Bloods and Crips. These were just a bunch of boys who ran with each other and set up a heiarchy in their hoods which they warned people from other hoods to respect. In fact, we are talking to a large degree: young white people, which might sound crazy because we are made to believe gang means mexican, black... but look at the wiseguys movies (like Bronx Tales) and it will occur to you what time i am talking about.

BOOM!
So now what do we have: Parents that work, their children (in some cases) looking for trouble.

Now just to give you a CRAZY moment of clarity, if you can even imagine it. SUBURBS haven't always existed! You heard it right! Before WWII the only ones who lived in the suburbs were pretty much hunters and hermits. It was Woods. It was not developed. They hadn't cut trees down to build anything because there was no reason to be out there. Factories, military bases, bars, churches and schools, offices, were all in urban areas, urban centers. There WAS something like an outer ring of meager suburban housing right outside the urban centers, which grew after the 1934 National Housing Act was created, but it wasn't until the Housing Acts of 1949 and and 1954 along with the the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 that America really spread out. After the highways were built people had access to vacant land far away and trees were cleared to build up property.
SO NOW YOU MAY BE ASKING: OK.. WHY DO I NEED TO KNOW THIS?
Well. Here is why. You may have spoken to your grandpa and grandma and they may have told you how back when they were your age their neighborhood was mostly German, or Jewish, or Dutch or Irish... ACTUALLY public housing (Projects) before the 60's were filled not with Black or Latino people, but with ethnic europeans such as the ones i have just listed. But eventually, your poor abuela and abuelo wound up surrounded by their own people and all of the people with white skin had disappered. And you need to know that this was no coincidence. This was ENGINEEREd by the Federal Government.
((By the way, if at any time you find yourself saying: SHUTT UPP.. here you go with that shit! Do yourself a favor, and google the Acts and Bills i list and read about them. What i do is i use Wikipedia just to give me a general idea. And after i read i scroll to the bottom to see what sources they have that prove whether or not there was good research done. If at the bottom there are links to credible sites and articles from recognized scholars -shit i google the scholars too- then i know that i have just learned something valuable!))

The Federal Housing Administration in the 1930's and 40's was giving loans to subsidize people who wanted to move to the suburbs. Namely, loans were given to solders, and cheap mortgages were given to regular citizens. ONE PROBLEM though... It is a problem that history treats as a minor one but is a major one for any of us who know what a crack head looks like because the gates that let the zombies in would soon open! These loans and mortgages were only given to Whites! History shows that at the time the Federal Housing Administration was practicing racism and actually stated in one of its manuals one year that racial integration would cause disharmony! Such practices as Redlining (in which real estate uses maps marked with red lines separating black neighborhoods from white neighborhoods) was used to promote segregation. Redlining along with Restrictive Covenants (which were agreements between real estate agencies to keep minorities away).

Slowly whites moved out and minorities would remain stuck where they were. What happened next would take jobs away, as factories, businesses and politicians loyal to their white base would follow them to the suburbs. Along with them went the Large Tax-Base they generated. So now you have minorities living on top of one another, fighting for jobs that have left, with the few who actually have jobs only combining for a small tax base. The tax-base is where money is pulled from to fund schools, sanitation and police, public hospitals, etc... What does this mean? That the schools get worse, the garbage doesn't get picked up, the police dont get paid enough to care and if anything become stressed and begin having fun brutilizing the people (take this you lowly Spic!), and hospitals deteriorate. It was the Housing Act of 1949 that gave money for Slum Clearance, which used eminent domain to move people from their residences, often times into public housing, for the sake of development *Urban Renewal* or as Iconic Writer James Baldwin called it "Negro Removal". A famous case was Lincoln Center, which is now a luxurious entity above midtown manhattan. Residents were moved to the South Bronx from that area (which was the area West Side Story was about), creating further poverty as minorities were squeezed together, and more projects were built to squeeze them in **and if you research to find out when most those projects in the Bronx were built you will see the years being in the mid 50's to late 60's**.

So where are we at? It's 1960 and people who a generation earlier had the priveledge of moving to the suburbs are now sending their kids to colleges, and building up wealth in the family. While minorities stuck in urban decay see their kids doing things that people do when they live stressed, with access to bad education and little work opportunity under poverty: They began selling drugs which were brought in and controlled by the Mafia who saw an opportunity to cash in, And so that the police don't fuck with their business the Mafia pays them off, And ultimately people begin fighting over turf and guns are introduced so that while only 10 years prior people settled beef with a fist fight, now they were shooting!

Bobby Kennedy would come along recognizing that the nation had failed us and promised to address poverty, but was assassinated! (by the mafia?)
Lyndan B. Johnson would come along with The Great Society which poured money into such programs as Head Start and Job Corps, and created Medicaid and Medicare. But couldnt afford to continue putting money into Vietnam and the ghetto at the same time so when inflation happend it was blamed on The War On Poverty rather than the War in Vietnam and those funds got cut. Besides that, the programs were a quick fix. The policies of the prior decades had not only generated poverty, they had INSTITUTIONALIZED racism and poverty and poverty became generational. You had children whose parents could not read, and whom could not read themselves, now being introduced to programs that were SUPPOSED to funnel them into the mainstream...
like colleges and wall street were just going to open the flood gates because a law that has been passed tells them to lol! No sweety racism doesnt just vanish like that. So we were STILL denied opportunity and the few who made it out to the suburbs were the few 'disciplined' enough to stay in their place. Just enough were let through so that things didn't get uncomfortable.
Meanwhile the drug trade is growing and basically keeping people alive while killing others. It was more than an underground economy, it was a supplimental economy, as the 1970's saw factories that left the urban centers in the 40's leave AMERICA all together for Asia and Latin America. And things get out of control. Prisons become a place to warehouse those in the 'slums' caught breaking the law, as such laws as the Rockafeller Laws which gave extremely harsh sentances for small amounts of drugs, were implemented, along with laws that arrested anyone packed up in a group of any certain amount of people.

Measures became Reactionary rather than Preventative! The focus switched from "We set them back by discriminating so lets create initiatives to get them back on their feet" to "Just punish them and send them to jail" ...Let's remember how i mentioned the police working with the mafia. These guys were REALLY CURRUPT back then, making money off the struggle and countless movies, from 'Serpico' to 'American Gangster' depict that.
As a result families were broken up, and a cycle of young black and latino children were raised throughout the late 70's and early 80's in single parent homes. And the worst was yet to come as the 80's would bring the crack era. And all you have to do is watch the movie "Traffic" to get a sense of what that might have been the result of. Or a wonderful documentary called "Bastards of the Party" which you can watch on Youtube in parts.


These are historical facts!
Not everybody got to be Obama. I was raised on welfare myself and can tell you that because of that i can NEVER look down on someone who receives it. Because i would be in aweful shape if the tax dollars of my fellow citizen didn't give me a chance. It kept us juusssst above water enough to give us a chance. And i should hope if anyone reading this whom is in their 40's or 50's are not resentful but proud for contributing a bit to my development.
That is not to say that i do not get frustrated with my people at times when i see that in fact they ARE taking advantage, ARE NOT trying the way they could. But i feel more sad about that than mad. And more determined to do what i do. Because that person has given up. That person was a child who dreamed of lights and some form of power. But for too long that person has been powerless. Most of the time in fact, they watched their parents, who faced much of the forms of disenfranchisement i listed above, give up and didn't have the best role models. So they dont realize they must Fight when their eyelids get heavy
as i have realized it and continue to fight through procrastination...
That they must come back to work the next day with a plan to get over the hump they faced yesterday, adapting continuously,
as i have done when i recognized that i was falling behind and becoming dependant on someone or something else to do my job...


Poverty is material
but it is also psychological
It is a mentality! That a child can only silence slowly..
it is a delicate mind state that can take over when you shoot that young man/woman down and reaffirm his belief that he or she is not able!
Because they WILL fail... as i HAVE failed!
and telling them that THAT IS TOO BAD FOR THEM... is like telling them they should have known, that coming where they're from, and being whom they are... that they would fail.
At the end of the day i do not wish to have a system which provides entitlements and money for nothing! I wish to be in a system where money IS nothing!
I do not believe it is a good idea to be dependant on anyone or for anyone to be dependant on me. But i do believe it is essential for us to understand that we are Co-Dependant on one another.
I will not follow any type of 'leader' which rises from the depths to 'save' me or my people. I will follow a code of solidarity/involvement in building resources together and sharing spaces where we can collaborate on plans for community development.

I will work
hard
to get others to work
for our collective youth and elders
for our collective self


*****
___Happly Labor Day___