PUERTO RICO IN CRISIS! / MACHETERO

PUERTO RICO IN CRISIS!

Puerto Rico is experiencing very difficult times. Puerto Ricans of the mainland
cannot remain idle while Luis Fortuño’s administration moves forward with its widespread
lay-off policy.
This constitutes social and economic barbarism that will only serve to worsen the
crisis in whichthe country is submerged. It will promote privatization of basic
infrastructural services to thousands of Puerto Ricans, mostly the poor. Almost
20,000 civil servants already have or will be laid-off their jobs, putting at risk
and hopelessness thousands of families affected directly and indirectly by this effort.

The colonial administrations, statehood and commonwealth supporters equally, are
guilty of today’s suffocating working-class high taxes, the imposition of a sales
tax and the partial or complete privatization of our national patrimonies. We cannot
forget Pedro Rosselló’s administration, which privatized great part of our country,
including fifty one percent (51%) of Puerto Rico Telephone Company and almost all
health services providers throughout the Island. The Calderón Administration
privatized the Authority of Aqueducts and Sewage, patrimony that we managed to
rescue. To top it all, previous administrations efforts to sell Puerto Rico
Telephone Company were concluded by the Acevedo Vilá administration. The
transnational Mexican company America Mobil bought it. This unleashed a teacher’s
strike, and an attempt to curtail workers rights and a few of the combatant unions
in the Island.

That same administration, along with the Legislative Assembly of the PNP, imposed
the IVU tax and raised taxes to the working-class while exempting special interests
from paying taxes. To make matters worse, certain North American unions, with the
aim of inter-nationalizing their businesses, have come down to the Island and have
started negotiating
our constitutional rights, curtailing the working class struggle that has always
been a reflection of our people. Undoubtedly, it is the moment work towards a
sincere united front made up of all the progressive and social sectors in struggle
to engage the colonial and capitalist crossroads that are facing Puerto Rico.

On the Island, on October 15 , diverse workers unions, community and student
organizations will unite to invoke a NATIONAL GENERAL STRIKE. New York cannot lie
back without demanding justice. We call upon the different organizations,
individuals, and activists in the United States to help us fight and support Puerto
Rico’s poor, working, and middle classes struggle to demand its socioeconomic
rights. At the moment, different activists, together with the Puerto Rican
Independence Party, Committee of NY we have decided to meet to organize the required
support with the NATIONAL GENERAL STRIKE to be carried out in Puerto Rico. Reason
why, we invite you to partake on the protest to take place on October 15th in front
of the Offices of Puerto Rico in New York (PRFAA).

JOIN US, THE MOMENT DEMANDS IT! STOP PRIVITIZATION !
WHEN: Thursday, October 15 th , 2009
TIME: 5 p.m.
WHERE: (PRFAA) 135 WEST 50th street (between 6th & 7th Avenues)
apoyotrabajadorespr@gmail.com



Machetero/In the End

Thursday, Oct 29, 2009 8:10 PM EDT
at City Cinemas Village East
in New York, NY

Greetings All,

MACHETERO is back in NYC after the Irish premiere and award last month. It will be
playing as a part of the New York International Independent Film And Video Festival
Thursday, October 29th @ 8PM.

i just received word that if we sell out the MACHETERO screening on Thurs. Oct. 29th
@ 8PM we will get a 2nd screening. However we need to sell out the theater by this
Fri. Oct. 9th. The theater seats 150 people... Can we do it?

Let's try! Buy your tickets now to this 1st screening and let's gets a 2nd screening
of MACHETERO scheduled! Let's show and prove NYC that self-financed, independent,
artistic, politically minded films about the de-colonization of a Latin American
nation has an audience in NYC...

If 75 people could step up and bring someone else with them to the screening... (who
likes going to the movies alone?) we could make this goal of selling out this
screening (150 seats) of MACHETERO before Friday the 9th.

The image above is linked to the website that is selling tickets... click on it to
take you to the page... or

BUY TICKETS HERE

Much thanx for all of your support in the past and for the support of the present
and for the support i know i will receive from all of you in the future...

All the best,
vagabond









MACHETERO
In the tradition of Gillo Pontecorvo’s Battle Of Algiers, Melvin Van Peebles Sweet
Sweetback’s Badasssss Song and Sam Greenlee’s The Spook Who Sat By The Door,
Vagabond’s MACHETERO is a meditation on violence as a means toward liberation. Post
9/11 definitions, ideas and notions of terrorism are challenged in this highly
controversial and experimental film. Machetero is an allegorical narrative that
follows French journalist Jean Dumont, played by Isaach de Bankolé (The Keeper,
Ghost Dog, Manderlay, Casino Royale, The Limits Of Control), to a New York prison
where he interviews Pedro Taino, a so-called "Puerto Rican Terrorist" played by
Not4Prophet (lead singer of the Puerto Punk band RICANSTRUCTION). Pedro is a
self-described Machetero fighting to free Puerto Rico from the yoke of United States
colonialism. He is obsessed with freedom, freedom for his country, his people and
for himself. Jean questions Pedro about his decisions to use violence as a means to
achieve that freedom. Jean utilizes a global perspective in questioning Pedro,
referencing examples of achieving his goals through more peaceful means.  However
Jean soon finds that Pedro is well versed in liberation struggles from around the
world and their debate over the use of violence as a catalyst for change escalates.

As Jean and Pedro speak, another story unfolds. A ghetto youth played by Kelvin
Fernandez (in his first starring role) grows up in the streets doing what he has to
do to survive. The ghetto youth crosses paths with Pedro who sees the potential in
him. Pedro tries to provide the means for him to grow into the next generation of
Machetero by giving him a pamphlet he wrote called the Anti-Manifesto. The ghetto
youth reads the Anti-Manifesto and it reawakens a revolutionary spirit instilled in
him from childhood by a mentor in Puerto Rico (played by former Puerto Rican
Prisoner of War Dylcia Pagan, who served 20 years in US prisons). The ghetto youth
develops into a young rebel driven by the cause to liberate his people. As Jean and
Pedro’s debate rages on, the cycle of violence that begins in the exploitation and
subjugation of imperialism becomes complete in the life of another ghetto youth
turned revolutionary.

The structure of Machetero is built around songs from “Liberation Day”, a concept
album centered on the liberation struggle of Puerto Rico, written and preformed by
RICANSTRUCTION. The songs in the film took on the quality of a narrative voice
becoming a modern day Greek chorus. RICANSTRUCTION also provides a completely
improvised original score that moves from hardcore be-bop punk to layered haunting
and abstract Afro-Rican rhythms.
Machetero is about terrorism and terrorists, how they are defined and by whom. It
is a film that asks us to challenge the way in which we view the events that play
out in the world. It is a film about the cyclical nature of violence that is
perpetuated by those who choose to oppress and those who no longer wish to be
oppressed.