cocaine cowboys gang

The Cocaine Cowboys I is one of the most interesting crime documentaries ever filmed. And the main reason for this relays on real story behind the scenes and their real protagonists. This is the story of how cocaine first entered the United States in huge amounts, substituted the widely spread consume of pot and became what it is today, a multibillion dollar business, a large scale industry to satisfy the needs of greedy traffickers at both sides of the border and the lust of the consumers. How it eventually became a blood thirsty business, on how this industry kept relocating itself once the heat was too much to handle in some centers, on how smoking guns were the ones settling the terms in this business, on how technology was an organic part of smuggling the substance into USA and on how the traffickers on all parts saw their lives changed at first to become millionaires in months and latter on to see themselves staring the 2 by 2 square meters of a federal penitentiary if they were lucky enough to make it that far and negotiate with the state a deal.

In this documentary review I will go over art and reality, on the film itself and add some critics on my own as well, while mentioning as well other sources that add more information into the facts. I sometimes wonder is www.whentheshipcomesin.com is more of a documentaries blog or a movies blog, for more and more I get my hicks from the real thing, that happens to be more creative and more drastic than the invented stuff in some movies.

The set of all this heat was Miami, Florida. A quiet and peaceful community for the elderly in the sixties, where marihuana was already accepted as the drug of the people, but it reached to the point where there was so much of it that the dealer couldn’t sell it all. This city, filled with people from Spanish speaking countries, became the capital of cocaine in the United States.

Jon Roberts

Small gangsters, traffickers and couriers witnessed how cocaine could transform your life in a matter of months; these new cocaine lords will make much more amounts of cash in a much shorter time than the Italian mafia. Teamed with the best lawyers, accountants, technology, they will reach rich and famous and average consumers alike and serve them with the white powder to a point where selling 100 weekly kilos wouldn’t satisfy the local demand.

In Colombia everyone had a cut into it, so the Americans coming to Medellin to get the drugs on planes were never troubled, never had a problem. The favorite way back would be from the east side of Cuba, for the patrolling activity was around the Bahamas. So the plane would head North through Georgia and make a turn to the South into Miami, and thus, nobody would suspect from a plane coming from the North.

Another tactic implemented by traffickers, according to this documentary, was to through the cargo into the sea so speedy boats would take it. It took several attempts until it run smoothly for the Colombians wouldn’t rap the cocaine in a water proof fashion. The boat would make it into the Miami harbor through the “front door”, from there into the cars under surveillance of another team member, the spotter, up in a tall building, supervising no coast guards or cops were in the area at the time of the disembark of the substance.

Rivi Ayala - Main Enforcer

The trafficker would use working men looking for extra cash as transporter and rent numerous numbers of houses where to store the large amounts of cocaine. From there to the whole sellers, who would break into smaller packages as per retailer’s request. They could make $40-50 k of a single kilo in the street; the transport from Medellin to Miami was paid at a fee of $3500/kilo. The tactic was “keep everybody away from everybody”, this way there is no tracing back.

Money was kept in different locations away from the cocaine houses. Once the sell completed, the same us citizens that carried the drug into USA, would carry back Ochoa, Rafa and Escobar their money (no less than 10 million dollars per plane).The planes won’t fly back straight to Colombia, but into the money laundry paradise of Panama. The Panamanian army would take the money into a bank in the country where they have their accounts. The delivery guys were making 1 million dollar each per trip.

Everybody was doing cocaine back in the Miami of the 80’s, at every party, clubs, restaurants; it was everywhere, at the hand of regular middle class hand, as coca cola or pop corn, it was the cool thing to do. At every bathroom there were lines and people pushing shit up their nose.

Persuasive tools

The authorities and law enforcement, used to catch here and there 500 grams, 1 kilo packages, found it hard to cope with the more common tone of powder. District attorney was hitting new records case by case with the amounts of coke apprehended.
Colombia-Miami cocaine industry (Cocaine Inc.), represented 80% of the cocaine activities in the US, and were hitting figures of up to 7 billion dollars a year only in Miami, meaning each householder was expending $12,000/year. So much was the use of cocaine that the chances to find cocaine leftovers in a random dollar bill were pretty high.

Cocaine overdose increased into 88%, two a week casualties was the rate. People started smoking it.

Main cocaine traffickers in Miami could make 50 grants a week while the country wide recession, unemployment was huge, but in Miami there were not enough gold Rolex watches stores to supply the local market, likewise with fancy cars, real estate and boats. No sign of recession in Miami. Millions of dollars from the cocaine industry were pouring into Miami’s economy. Retailers, as anyone else, closed their eyes as per where was the money pouring from: “Don’t ask, don’t tell, take the money and run”. Dozens of night clubs opened, were fed by the powder money. Horse races became a fashionable sport, having a private “heli” was not something reserved to the high society anymore. The guys moving the cables of this business had so much cash, they didn’t know where to put it.

Everybody had a price, from Noriega, to city managers, police departments. If stopped by a cop and found 50 kilos of cocaine in the trunk, a settlement was establish so both the cop and the trafficker would get away with it.

Four Miami mayors indicted, most of them convicted of corruption, contributions were made to the politicians through their parties, no questions asked.

The city was painted with new banks, when all knew Miami had no such volume of business or industry. These banks were reported to take in 6 billion dollars in extra cash from depositors a certain year, this made law enforcement suspicious.

Michael Munday, pilot

Banks invested in huge counting machines. Numbers coming from authorities, expected a mid size Miami bank to send the Federal Reserve 12 million dollars in cash, while in one year this bank sent $600 million to the reserve. The Miami Federal Reserve Bank was entering more money than the whole of the country Federal Reserve banks combined.

Miami flourished with construction sites, new cranes building new skyscrapers, new condos, etc,..
But this happy Eden garden had a turning point of never return at the Dadeland Mall on july 11th, 1979 at 14:28 hrs: two Latin males entered a liquor store in the mall and started to spit fire from the barrels of 14 different weapons (shotguns, carbines, Uzis, mag 10, assorted hand guns,etc,…) into other 4 Latin guys. We all hear in movies that violence is bad for “business”, and this was it, the powder was now becoming responsible for dead bodies and for an unprecedented level of violence. All Colombian murders would result in an open/pending (not resolved case).

Cocaine Formula

This first midday assault would become a frequent thing in Miami. It was the beginning of the war between Colombians and Cuban drug dealers. The Colombians trying to push the Cubans out and gain a higher share of the market. These now violent hit-men became to be known as the cocaine cowboys. Most of them from Medellin, living in South Florida, around 100,000 illegal immigrants of them. And these guys would do the job, Colombian style, killing all living members of a family, kids, cat and dog included. The trade mark of the cocaine cowboys was machine gun fire spraying in the streets.

It became so common to turn on your tv set and news opening with dead bodies due to cocaine dealers violence that only 4 or 5 dead bodies would drive your attention, like in the Chicago of the 20’s.

Tip of the iceberg apprehended

Miami became in the early 80’s the most dangerous place on earth. Only 1976 created 104 murders, during 1979 the rate escalated into 379 dead bodies and 500 in 1980, 621 in 1981.
Then in the 80’s high numbers of Cubans were authorized to flee their country, mostly the ones with police records, and people who could not produce any profit for Castro, all were sent to Miami, doubling the homicide rate. All of a sudden everybody in Florida would carry guns to defend themselves. The Police department acknowledged their lack of man power and resources, so they went on a blind hiring frenzy: from a standard of accepting you only if you had you not used drugs in the last 10 years into the hiring you on the condition of not to be high at the time of signing the contract.

Max, second from the left

This resulted in the largest corruption crises in the Miami Police Department: the entire academy recruit literally went to jail or died. People wouldn’t trust the law officers until new anti narcotics units were formed.

All this was explained in a Time magazine article of the year 1981 called “Miami, paradise lost” that literally crushed the city with delinquency records and stats, saying bottom line that the criminals were wining and the law abiding citizen was losing this battle for Miami.

Cocaine Cowboys posters

New “enforcers” like Jorge Ayala, would make a name of their own by killing for a pay by one of the cartel families; he confessed involvement in 29 murders and suspected of another 12 during the cocaine wars. He started as a delivery boy passing cocaine for $1,000 a day. One faithful day he would meet the most important profile in the industry: Griselda Blanco.

Ayala happened to spoil a murder Griselda requested, so she met Ayala, explained to him the harm he have caused to her and that she expected from him to kill two brother she had targeted, and with this, she would call it even. Ayala was told that he had just had a chat with the godmother, and if he wouldn’t deliver, she would put a hit on him.

The main real character behind The Cocaine Cowboys was (and is?) Griselda Blanco. She was called the “madrina” or godmother. Born in Colombia at a single mother family, Griselda was frequently beated by her mother, who had to prostitute herself for a living. It was told that Griselda at her teenage years was the mastermind of the kidnapping of a wealthy family kid at Medellin and ultimately, after the negation of paying a ransom, she would murder the kid. A certain night, Griselda was so badly beaten than, bleeding and naked, left her house to never return. It was then than she will meet her first husband, and lately her second, with whom she will have three kids. She moved to New York and from there to Miami where she was known to police as a multikilo dealer and a serious threat to US. Griselda had no fear and was feared by all, and she liked it that way, she suffered so much during her childhood that she could share some of this with others.

Cocaine arriving by sea

She had to prove herself to the other male latino drug lords and show them she was the meanest you can get. She collected wealth around her. She had 3 older sons: Dixon, Uber and Osvaldo. Her last son was named Michael Corleone.
Griselda’s crew was responsible for the first Miami bloody strike related to the cocaine industry at the liquor store at the mall in ‘79. Right there she started the cocaine wars and homicides multiplied by the numbers, she killed many colombians and cubans, becoming responsible for the majority of homicides in South Florida during 1979, 1980 and 1981.

There was always a reason for her to put a hit on someone and have him hit the ground. For this she employed a wide crew of hitmen: Chucho Castro, Jaime Bravo,Oscar Bravo, Diego Escobar, Mantec, Cubamba, Velazquez, Hugo, Melanyo, Toto, Carlos Venegas,Diego Sepulveda, Paco Sepulveda,etc,…

One day Osvaldo, one of Griselda’s son, wanted to spend the night at Chucho’s house, the later would agree to it and had a small quarrel. Osvaldo told her mother and Chucho had his days numbered from then on. She assigned Chuchos murder to Jorge Ayala. Ready to kill Chucho, Jorge, together with a colleague, rampaged on the road into Chuchos runing car and pulled their trigger of the M-16s that spitted rounds into Chuchos car, with the bad luck, of deadly injuring his son,who, to all’s surprise, he was as well travelling in his father’s car. From this day on, kids were an accepted toll in the cocaine war in Florida.

Client delaying on pay day - Before

After

Chucho promised to retaliate and kill Jorge Ayala, but Jorge couldn’t care less. Jorge was the chief enforcer of Griselda, he controlled her team and during a period of years he was exclusively the only person who was making the killings.
Alfredo Lorenzo was one of Griselda’s customers, and he promised to Jorge that he will collect the money, in exchange of the 5 cocaine kilos he got from Jorge, in 2 weeks time. Griselda didn’t accepted any delays in her business and after the time that was agreed, she wouldn’t be interested in the money back to her anymore, she will take know your life, full stop.

As Jon Roberts (Coke trafficker of those days) put it: “The Italians, if you delay on payment day, they would try to figure out how to get their money back…the Colombians they act first and they think”.

CENTAC in action

Jorge Ayala says “this is not about the money, if someone rapes me of I will kill him”. He, Oscar and Miguel paid a visit to Alfredo’s house. After Alfredo opened the door Ayala placed a gun in his mouth and told him to be quiet. Alfredo’s wife together with their 3 sons were at the house aged 6, 4 and the baby son. Jorge confessed, being interviewed at the prison, that he was given orders to waste them all and that he thought only to do Alfredo, then, suddenly, while Jorge was talking with Alfredo’s wife, two shots where heard from one of the rooms: Miguel has shot Alfredo. Jorge approaches Miguel and while talking another spit of bullet were heard from an Uzi: Oscar shot 15 rounds in the wife’s body, allegedly while this tried to chop him. The wife was still dead alive with all the metal in her and Jorge took the silencer pistol and put her out of her misery with 2 rounds in the back of her head. Miguel was heading towards the children’s room for Griselda had promised him a bonus for the kids, when Jorge dissuaded him and they left the house.

Jorge’s next mission would be to kill all the crew of Paco Mejilla, who allegedly stole from Griselda, a full cargo of cocaine destined for Miami and finally reached New York. Jorge did 11 people. In less than 24 hours. He was supposed to have wasted a 12ve person,but he left him go.
Griselda was creating more and more enemies by the hours.

Griselda Blando - la madrina

Pablo Mejilla, Paco’s father, was in Miami, at the Mall of the Americas, when seven gunman fired at him and killed him. Papo, Pablo’s son was in the car waiting for him and he was now also a target, that this time Jorge will try to eliminate with the help of 200 sticks of dynamite. The explosives tore the roof, all the neighbors car windows were blasted, but, once again,Jorge missed: … the house was empty.

Two weeks later, Jorge’s team found out that Paco Mejilla was to arrive to Miami airport. They decided to kill him at the airport with a bayonet inside the airport in return, Jorge would get half million dollars. Jorge rejected for this was a suicide mission, for the whole building was filled with cops (he explained). Griselda then decided that Miguelito would do it.  Miguelito was the kind of person that would go on a mission to kill the president if the money was right.

As Paco Mejilla arrived, Miguelito approached him form behind and started to stab him with the bayonet 6 or 7 times, with no by standards reacting, Miguel dropped it and started to run. In moments the police had him surrounded and took him into custody.

Paco survived the stabbing, and that was the end of Mejilla-Griselda war.
A special police group was formed, the CENTAC, to fight cocaine violence while Reagan had just been elected. The president decided to flood the city streets with federal agents, customs officers, coast guards, policemen and not to save in resources.
Homestead military airport was at the service of fighting clandestine vessels and aircraft who tried to smuggler narcotics into Florida.

This represented the beginning of the end of the cocaine cowboys era. Murders decreased in 50% and Griselda was thinking on moving the whole thing to California. And she did, in 1984, she left Miami and started a new at California.In order to get the drugs, Griselda started to make friends with Marta Ochoa, a member of the Ochoa’s family. Her plan was to,after having requested drugs from Marta, kill her,so Griselda could accuse her of having taking her money. And so she did, and by that she put a price on her own head.

Cocaine Cowboys Poster

In the meantime, Max, a part of the local cocaine industry, felt that he had some heat, and next thing he sees is 40 guns were pointed in his head, that was the last time he was spotted. Jon Roberts had millions of dollars buried in his lawn, and after the Feds got Max, Jon wants to hide the greens, but nobody paid a visit to Jon.

On September the 28th, 1986, Jon, awaken, went to the house where they had the radio transmitter and the landing pad and saw one of their planes loaded with dope, landed in the field and though everything went on wheels as usual, and all of a sudden, from all directions, the Feds stormed, Jon thought he was back in Nam for a moment.

Mike and his plane

Later the agents would acknowledge that they didn’t expected to find also Jon in there and his made the job easier for them, to catch all the fish at one spot. But Micky won´t be an easy catch: he headed the swamp after he blowed one of the planes in flames.
Max, after being caught, rolled on all of his ex colleagues and started collaborating with the authorities. Without Max, the Feds would have never closed the case. The Feds and he DEA were not aware of anything during the 5 years of the gang trafficking with cocaine: they had no clue where the landing field was, or which high tech transmitters they were using, …

DEA storming

All the confiscating properties of the whole gang summed around 130 millions dollars.
Law enforcement dismantled the organization and as their members were being held in custody and prosecuted, all the businesses, night clubs that they frequented started to drying up, car dealerships as well, jewelry shops, real state values, etc,…Cocaine money actually built half the city of Miami.

"We are in the jailhouse now"

Miami was in the mouth of everybody those day, at Time magazine, “Paradise Lost”, and there were as well two movies that really placed Miami on the center: “Scarface” of Al Pacino and ¨Miami Vice¨ tv series, both movies focused totally on the drug industry that flourished in Miami.

Miami Vice

Scarface

Mike and Jon spent a decade in jail. Jon would return to Florida on 2000, as a condition for his parole and Mike was released in 1999, after he was a fugitive for 6 years and served 7 at jail.
Rafa Cardona Salazar got killed in Medellin on 1987.
Max entered after his arrest in 85, the Federal Witness Protection Program: to this day he remains hiding. He reportedly has a $3 million on his head.
Rivi avoided the death row by testifying against his own boss, Griselda Blanco, and plead guilty on three murders and gave details on another 14 murders by Griselda´s organization.

Griselda Blanco on the papers

So Griselda was in custody waiting for trial, when Rivi was involved in a phone sex scandal with secretaries at the State Attorney´s Office, that after humiliated, the state dropped Rivi as a witness against Griselda and offered her a plea bargain.

Griselda made a lot of enemies during this time, that resulted in the assassination of Uber and Osvaldo, her two sons, in Colombia. Griselda was released from jail on June 2004. The very same day she saw the outside world again, Rivi was stabbed in a Miami prison, he survived…coincidence?

Griselda was deported to Colombia…

white light black rain

A thrilling documentary with testimonies of the small numbers of survivors from the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the Americans in ´45 in which 140,000 victims perished in Hiroshima and 70,000 in Nagasaki. All survivors are now at the last days of their lives, only now have received a sort of indemnification from the Japanese government. As in other societies, those symbol of defeat, are consciously put aside, left behind, not wanting to be remembered. Those talking in this doc were then young child and they still today carry the physical and psychological wounds caused not only by the bomb but also by their own coreligionists, Japanese that don’t know their suffering, don’t remember what happened and definitely could place themselves into the same situation by not acknowledging what hit their country then. As you all know, the war came to an end as consequence of  plutonium 21 kilotons ¨Fat man¨ and uranium 15 kilotons ¨Little boy¨. The two bombs were carried out by 3 bombers, the Enola Gay and two others, one filled with observers in charged of filming the whole thing and another filled with scientists to measure the explosion. Today humans have risen our destructive capacity to an astonishing 400,000 Hiroshima´s bombs. Well known are Einsteins words about the 4rth World War where weapons will be rocks.

<embed src=”http://www.metacafe.com/fplayer/5350758/White_Light_Black_Rain__2007_.swf” width=”400″ height=”345″ wmode=”transparent” pluginspage=”http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowFullScreen=”true” allowScriptAccess=”always” name=”Metacafe_5350758″> </embed><br /><font size=”1″><a href=”http://www.metacafe.com/w/5350758″>White Light/Black Rain (2007)</a> – <a href=”http://www.metacafe.com/”>The best home videos are here</a></font>

Vietnam Crucible

Vietnam Crucible is a documentary out from the US Army, totally censored I reckon as a response to the social despair and dis-conform felt in the american streets during this 10.000 days indo china conflict.

The real jewel of this piece of filmography relays on the rich footage of a powerful entity like the us army produced for the Office of  the Chief of Information by the Army Pictorial Center, in a documentary called “The Big picture”. During my many tours through the Vietnam War films and documentaries, I found it hard to find in one piece a really one of a kind wide angle on many of the US Army activities in South Vietnam.

Hueys in Vietnam

The millitary here pulls its best archive images to try to convince the antagonist US public on the necessity of this war and of the wide range of helping missions of US personnel for the benefit of vietnamese army and civilians alike.

This doc will take you through the training centers in the US prior sending the kids to the jungle, what kind of training rookies would go through and the tactics they exercised = no one was prepared to fight in the jungle (like the song says “the real prison is the jungle”), the real enemy of this war together with the booby traps.

GIs in Vietnam War

10.000 days were the days expended in the first war for the US to loose, after the three main victories of WWI, WWII and Korea. From the time the first penny reached french army pockets in colonial Indochina, followed by the delivery of advisors, military trainners and finally red blooded american soldiers as well.

Touching the void

Touching the Void is a 2003 documentary based on the book with the same title (1989 NCR Book Award) written by Joe Simpson.
Both book and documentary narrates the real tribulations of three Brits, two of them mountaineers: Joe Simpson and Simon Yate, and Richard Hawking, during their 1985 attempt on the conquering of an untouched mountain so far then: Peruvian Siula Grande (20,813 ft/ 6344 m.) by its West side.

Big mountain mama - Siula Grande

This peak was attempted by others in the past with no success and was The doc,was actually reconstructing the events by 3 actors representing the protagonists of the real voyage together with the
interviews of the mountaineers. Both Joe and Simon really came back to the famous mountain chain in order to do the documentary.

The Glacier Hell

And this is what really happened:
Joe Simpson, Simon Yate and Richard Hawking parted on 1985 on a climbing journey into the heart of the Huayhuash mountain range. Donkeys take them 5 miles from the base of the mountain and Simon and Joe leave Richard at base camp and the two began climbing the pick, first the rocky slopes, then passing by the lake, geting into the glacier and finally hitting the vertical icy walls of this beauty of nature. Joe leades, Simon folows, as in the old days: one rope connecting both and no staring back. They actually did fairly well on their ascent, though they were surprised of the dimension of the mountain and its peculiar shapes created by the icy snow.

Joe Simpson descending

The ascend took, due to the bad weather, more than the expected and they run out of gas for their stove = they couldn’t melt snow and in order to drink water. Finally the two of them made it into the top, where they could see the other neighbor peaks composing the Cordillera (mountain range) Huayhuash of the Peruvian Andes:
the tallest Yerupaja of 6617 m., Sarapo, Carnicero, etc,…

Joe Simpson during the slow descending

The weather wouldn’t let a lot of space for mistakes for it was very foggy and there was a snow storm while they began to descend the top. Joe was leading the way and on a decisive instant, committed the mistake of stepping forward without actually seeing what was before him and he felt and in consequent broke his leg. In a situation like that, the low temperatures could make your body freeze under the absent of movement.

Siula Grande area map

Mountaineering history was filled with cases of one partner leaving the injury climber behind so the fit one could get some help and go back to the mountain but Simon decided to take Joe on his descend by using a 300 m rope to let Joe slowly slip down hill. During this process, Simon let accidentally Joe slip to fast into the mouth of a deep cliff without knowing it.

Into the frozen cave

There there was Joe, holding with his whole body weight from the rope, watching the cliff and the 60 m of free falling and could not let Simon know what was happening. Simon, on the other hand, was anchored with his feet into a snow hole made with his feet and feeling the stress of the rope fruit of his partner whole wait pending on air, but Simon didn’t know it; what he knew was that his strength to keep the situation as it will soon reach to an end in which he would be left with only two options: either joining Joe in the free falling into the high cliff or cutting the rope so at least one mountaineer could make it and tell the story.

The base of the mountain

Simon made up his mind and extracted his Swiss knife from his pocket and used it. Here is where Joe’s adventure started with the free falling of tens of meters that must have killed him already, during his several days of solo descending though frozen caves, snowy slopes, rocky areas and all without water and a broken leg, very little odds to make it alive.

Through the glacier

In hindsight however, Simon, after descending till the place where Joe felt, he would even looked into it and search for his partner for he it was clear to him Joe could never have made it from that fall and continued towards the camp.

The three Britons + Joe way back on donkeys and rehabilitating

Finally a 2/3 less of body weight Joe will make it into the base camp after three days and five miles, delusional, thirsty to death and cold as hell to joing his two other partners that were preparing to leave the camp after several days of waiting for Joe, convinced Joe died.

Siula Grande + the lake

The film director, Kevin MacDonald, actually took the two mountaineers during the filming days in the mountain and Joe
experienced post traumatic stress syndrome.The film was release on 2004 and made during its first week 96 k usd and a global total of 13 mil usd to date. Touching the void won the Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film at the 2003 BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) Awards and was featured at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival.

Siula Grande map

After news arrived to England of the happenings in the mountain, the climbing community was furious with Simon but these news were not accurate and the real story was cleared out by Joe and Simon and both continue to this day, Joe after 6 surgical interventions, to climb worldwide. Joe always supported Simon on the decision he took at all moments.

Joe Simpson

In 1999, Carlos Buhler (US) and Mark Price climbed the Siula Grande by the west face and made it into the top, returning to the bottom by rappeling. Not many other climbers actually made it into this mountain due, among other factors, to the political dangerous situation created by the Sendero Luminoso (Maoist guerrilla terrorist movement).

“…3 guys will slide into your cell, wrap your ass into that blanket, and I don’t care how tough you think you are or how strong you might be, they are gonna kick your ass over the side of that bed and do bounty of your asshole by sticking a dick in it. So what do you do? I am gonna give you five options you can take: One, you go to the cop, you tell the officer three guys just ripped me off and you come back with the cop and say: that white guy, that black guy, that black guy…these three guys are going to the hole for 30-60 days and then the’ll be back in population, but the administration won’t let you into population for one of these guys associates will cut your ass from A to Z, so they gotta do something to protect you. Right up there on floor 2, there is a place called P.C., Protected Custody, we call it punk city, and there is were you are going to be all your time, and when you are in PC, you are locked 23 of the 24 hrs a day, you got 1 hr for exercise, and that’s it.But I can see a lot of tough guys right here, and when you are ripped off, the first thing you wanna do is to get even and after you cut one of them and you kill him, you are getting life in prison. Number three is deciding to shut up and keeping that to yourself, but these 3 guys have associates and these will also want to rip you off, and the associates of these associates also. Number four is the one that you all are gonna take, in the 10 years I’ve been here, I’ve seen it a thousand times: you are gonna walk around this joint or any joint you may be in, and you’re gonna find the guys that is real quite nobody bothers him and he don’t bothers nobody, he’s got all the respect in the world, you are gonna approach this guy and say hey my man, I got a very serious problem, Can you help me?

And after you …he is gonna tell you yeah, and you’ll see that five minutes after he said yeah,  after he said yeah, like somebody got in the P.A. system and told 1300 wild maniacs not to bother you. And now you’re telling you something, hey, this guy was alright, he got all this pressure off from you, and now he only did nothing, the only thing this guy did was to tell the whole population that you are his property, you are his kid, and when you become somebody’s kid in one of these joints, there are some things you will do: you gotta get up in the morning and get his coffee, you gotta clean his cell, you are gonna wash his drawers and sucks, and if he want some head, you are gonna give it to him, and if he wanna fuck you in your ass, you’ll let him, and if he wanna sell you to another prisoner, he’ll do that too…and he is here over a week, and became somebody’s kid, and did it for over a year,and the pressure of day to day living in one of these stinking joints crushed in it, makes him get into his cell, took his sheet and one around the pipe and another around his dumb mother fucker neck and he hangs himself, so now he is even, he ain’t gotta do that life beat, he ain’t gotta deal with this police and he ain’t gotta put up with his pimp…”

Scared Straight is a documentary from the seventies directed by A. Shapiro and narrated by Peter Falk.
This documentary takes place in the Rahway, New Jersey’s maximum security prison, a well known penitentiary establishment due to its dome on top of the building, visible from many places around.

The producers of Scared Straight gathered several youngsters from bad neighborhoods of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut and took them to pay a visit to the well known prison. The purpose of the visit was to sit the juvenile delinquents in front of some of the most dangerous inmates and try to straighten them so they won’t end up in a cell block.

The youngsters were interviewed right before their visit to the penitentiary in order to tell a thing or two about themselves . They would introduced themselves and explain about their past felonies and what their expectations and plans for the future were. All of the teenagers seemed very amused with breaking the law and getting on with it, were self secure and had low expectations from the future.

The inmates to be, at the time they were conducted into the prison’s strolls and were placed for several seconds inside of a real cell, after they had been eyed raped and verbally molested (“gimme that one over there, I wanna do that one real nasty”) by the real inmates. Now you could tell they were not that comfortable with it, but this was just the beginning of their experience at Rahway.

The real lesson came when the young offenders were placed in a hall filled with high risk, high profile crime offenders: a drug dealer from Westchester County by the name of Mikie C., an arsonist and bomb builder from Bridgeport (Jon Shipiro), a gang member from Jersey City (Jerome Watts) and car thief from the Bronx (Jesus Rodriguez), among others, and life and death were the price they would pay for it. These inmates were the “lifers”, a group of hard core delinquents who made themselves into a program which goal was to deter potentially high risk youngsters to become themselves.

Once in the hall, the lifers would tell their horrific stories and their insides about hell in prison, waving their hands and shouting in order to scare the hell out of the kids, but this was nothing but the real thing, this was not acting, that was the scary part of it, these lifers were telling truths one again the other, no theater. The would explain about their stupid decisions who took them to dead roads and ultimately into the prison they are in, the real crime and hatred school were you don’t want to step. The real punishment are not the walls, the wardens or the conditions, the real hell is: the other humans, filled with depression, anger, hatred and in such high levels, that they need to share it with you, their victim.

After the visit the kids were really scared and were again asked about making that turn in life 180 degrees from that jail: all of them acknowledged to do so so they don’t have to see neither that dreaded place again nor their grotesque tenants.

At the second part of the documentary, after 20 years of lapse, again the cameras visit the once youngster in order to check on their whereabouts, whether the effect of the program was still vivid in their minds and more importantly, whether the program has preventing them from breaking the law. The results were still quite amazing: most of the youngsters then had no families of their own, were law abiding citizens and still kept a solid residue of the first part of the shooting. And I said most, for some were to become long term prison visitors and even find there his old “lifer”. Both teacher and student had failed.

This doc was released in 1978 uncensored, causing a big impact in viewers, the academy (this piece got its ward from the academy in 1979 for best documentary and 1 Emmy for Outstanding Individual Achievement – Informational Program to the film editor, Bob Niemack and another one for Outstanding Informational Program to the producer A. Shapiro) and even the law enforcement community, for many states introduced the scared straight program to many other high risk areas.

Scared Straight was only one of the many juvenile awareness programs for preventing juvenile delinquency and it was hardly criticized by A. Petrosino by gathering data in his study to prove that Scared Straight’s effects on youngsters were just the opposite of what it intended to be: it was in fact attracting the teenagers to commit more crimes.

http://www.mininova.org/tor/2738095

People, this is the “real” hurricane that Bob Dylan talked about in his song of the same title, John Arthur Johnson (March 31, 1878 – June 10, 1946) or better known as Jack Johnson or nicknamed the “Galveston Giant”.
This African American fighter, born in Texas, lived during some troubled times where America was ruled and leaded by an all white regime, for which the “free negroes” where to be kept still apart, totally segregated from the white folks, even in the northern cities. Those northern cities, where the white folks have not even cohabited with the African Americans, where extremely anti black. But, hey, congressmen and even the president of the united states, in fact where quoted using prejudice comments, and the papers were not exception. Looks like Lincoln and the fathers of this nation meant “you are free to live where the white folk tells you to”; liberty under today’s understanding was not existent for an African american during the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century.

Jack started his career in a world where you couldn’t fight a Caucasian boxer, he had to make himself into the boxing scenario by fighting other African Americans pugilists, which they were actually tougher that their white colleagues. He reached the point where he had no opponent to fight, he won them all.

The white public worked extra hours trying to figure out how no member of the “supreme” white race was as strong, agile and smart in the ring as Jack was. Nevertheless, what really irritated the whites was not only the fact that Jack was becoming rich, and for a black person that wasn’t very common in those days, but it was the fact that Jack Johnson had a taste for white women. Jack commented many times that he is not to tell whom he can be with or not, he is no slave.

He received critics from both whites and blacks. Other African Americans criticized him for being extravagant, not humble,  dressing all those fancy clothes, speeding expensive cars and being all the time surrounded by white women. his own kind thought that this black figure could bring them only harm and tears with the white institutions. And they were not far from what unfolded.

This Ken Burns´s documentary is almost 100% composed of  black and white stills of the time  while some actual and original film footage is also used. Samuel L. Jackson plays Jack Johnson’s voice reading Jack’s diary and other textual sources of the time, mostly papers.  The camera moves around the old black and white pictures of the time to give the documentary a motin effect. Interviews are also part of this feature, where boxing experts and black celebrities comment on the times, Jack and his career.

Mr. Johnson was not a revolutionary, he was simply a man that lived before his time, he was not prejudiced against other races and colors, he just thought to be natural for any individual, to do his will in a free US, especially if you are rich and famous. He would travel the country with his manager and white companions fighting other boxers, most of them black as well and being generously paid for a night fight, what could take weeks to earn to an average colored man.

Jack was a calm, strong and smart fighter and this caught the eyes of the press. This fighter would not storm into the ring aggressively like many Irish boxers; he would take his time to avoid being punished at all time and deceived you, intelligently, to strike you at the right moment. He was undefeated, had a great smile and he was “cool”.
After his all American trip in search for the next contingent ended and he was the all black world champion, he had naturally to face white fighters and this he tried for a long time, being rejected by these, for they were sure they would be defeated and with them, the title would be lost to the “inferior”black race.

In a totally racist white America, by 1902, Jack won at least in 27 occasions, against white and black contingents until, at least, his first real chance to win the world title when he was 24: in L.A., against Jack Jeffries, the younger brother of at the time current World Champion, Jim Jeffries. Five rounds took Johnson to take down Jack Jeffries, at the end of which Jack Johnson said to Jim Jeffries: “I could take you too”. But Jim F. many times admitted that he would never fight J. Johnson for he didn’t want the title to go to a black man. Jeffries would retire to his ranch and hanged the gloves.

Jack ultimately took the World title from Canadian Tommy Burns in Australia in 1908 in front of an almost all white racist stadium. Knowing that the fight will make it to the american theaters, the police  stopped the camera man from continuing filming the fight in the midst of the 14th round, right at he moment were Mr. Johnson was to knock out the whit boxer in order to avoid more white race humiliation. At the age of 30, Jack Johnson was the heavyweight champion of the world. But the white supremacists will not accept his victory arguing that Burns had never held the title and that Jim Jeffries still was undefeated World champion.

Johnson moved to Chicago and started a new period in his live participating in shows in theaters where he would perform doing physical tricks showing his athletic capabilities. Later on, he would find himself other fighters to be defeated until Jim Jeffries agreed to come back to the ring for a $101.000 price and 2/3 of the filmographic rights. The chosen city to hold the fight would be Reno, Nevada, one of the cities where still boxing was legal. Jeffries had to get himself fit to the fight and managed to loose 25 pounds gained during the retirement years at his farm. In return, Johnson made big Jeffrie hit the ground in the 15th round, and later on Jeffrei would declare to his friends: “I could never win Jack Johnson at my best”.

Riots would follow all over the US, started by bitter white folks, taken the lives of many black people. A white fellow would try to assassinate Johnson at his house in Chicago.

The white public and authorities couldn’t digest interracial marriage and passed a bill prohibiting white women slavery and prostitution. The fact that Johnson had some prostitutes as personal companions, drove the FBI to open a case against Johnson, sent teams to look for someone to stand against the champion in a court of law and since they couldn’t defeat him in the ring, the did it in the court: an all white jury agreed (like Bob dylan would put it) and gave him 1 year in prison. Johnson scape and spent some time in foreign countries till he voluntarily accepted to spend the year in an american jail.

I will leave the rest for you to see.

Two links to nowadays issues on the topic of the documentary
1.- At this time congressman McCain presses Obama to pardon black boxer? and right this wrong made in the past.
2.- Judge refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple.
See this extracted from usatoday Posted by Doug Stanglin October 17, 2009:

Louisiana JP has no regrets over denying marriage license

Baton Rouge’s WAFB-TV reports that state Rep. Regina Barrow of the Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus has has signed off on a formal complaint requesting that the judiciary commission review the actions of the justice of the peace.
The justice of the peace at the center of the controversy tells WAFB TV in an exlcusive interview that he has no regrets over his actions and would do it again.
“It’s kind of hard to apologize for something that really and truly down in your heart you don’t feel you’ve done wrong,” Keith Bardwell told WAFB’s David Spunt on Saturday.
“I don’t regret what I did and if it ever came up again, I’d have to do the same thing,” Bardwell tells WAFB.
U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., said in a statement Bardwell’s practices and comments were deeply disturbing.
Not only does his decision directly contradict Supreme Court rulings, it is an example of the ugly bigotry that divided our country for too long,” she said.
Louisiana’s governor and a U.S. senator today have called for the ouster of the justice of the peace who refused to marry an interracial couple, saying his actions clearly broke the law, the Associated Press reports.
The state’s Legislative Black Caucus and constitutional rights groups have also called for an investigation of Bardwell or his resignation.
Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal said in a statement a nine-member commission that reviews lawyers and judges in the state should investigate, the AP reports.
“Disciplinary action should be taken immediately — including the revoking of his license,” Jindal said.

Original post:
A Louisiana justice of the peace who refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple last week says he’s no racist but has drawn a sharp rebuke from civil rights organizations in the state, The Daily Star reports.
The couple say they plan to consult the U.S. Justice Department about filing a discrimination complaint.
Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, defends his actions by saying that it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long, The Star says.
“I’m not a racist,” Bardwell says. “I do ceremonies for black couples right here in my house. My main concern is for the children.”
Beth Humphrey, 30, and her boyfriend, Terence McKay, 32, both of Hammond, said they tried to get a marriage license last week but were told the JP will not sign licenses for interracial marriages.
“I simply can’t believe he can do that. That’s blatant discrimination,” Humphrey says, according to the newspaper.
Louisiana ACLU Executive Director Marjorie R. Esman called Bardwell’s move both “tragic and illegal,” the newspaper says.
Pat Morris, local NAACP president, says she was shocked to hear that the choice of a spouse is still an issue in the parish.
Bardwell, who has been a JP for 34 years, says the state attorney general told him years ago that he would eventually get into trouble for not performing interracial marriages, The Star says.
“I told him if I do, I’ll resign,” Bardwell says. “I have rights too. I’m not obligated to do that just because I’m a justice of the peace.”

http://www.mininova.org/get/721692

Ralph Nader, this is the name we are dealing here at this doc. To be sincere, he was a complete unknown to me, as a non US citizen, I knew of the existence of presidential candidates and public figures like Pat Buchanan or who run as independent candidates to the presidency of the United States several time but not Ralph.

Ralph Nader strikes me as the quintessential american, the kind of person that truly believes in the american values, dream, myths and democracy.
Coming from a unknown family of well educated with Cristian Lebanese origin, Ralph must be the most influential person in the US that has caused so much benefit to the little american man. He is a fighter for justice, for your rights, he was responsible to implement the security belts in cars, something that huge corporations like general motors were totally against, but they finally had to give in to Mr. Nader because Ralph was actually right in his arguments, no security belt = you raise the probability of not making it after the road accident.

Well, security belts is something we take for granted
today, it is by default a part of nowadays vehicles, well it wasn’t in the fifties, and there had to be a man who fought so we can actually live, that man was Ralph Nader.
He was also the person behind the implementation of regulations sucha as the obligation to print in cigarettes packages a label warning you that you are increasing your risk to develop illnesses like lung cancer.

He was as well the person pushing work place rights such as being the right to be told in advance by your boss whether a task or work position could harm your health by any specific reason such as gas inhalation, radiation exposure, etc,..
This guy expended his whole life to fight for the little men category, the one that 99.9 % of the people belong to and against the ones that by buying our politicians and later making pass laws more beneficial to their stocks, obviously in detriment to all citizens rights.

During his life of service to the public he organized, established and founded many organizations and institutions with the sole purpose of defending our environment, fighting for medic care, high taxes for the corporations and lower those of the less wealthy, the kind of things that many people leave behind for they are too scared or lack of energies to keep fighting all your life. Well Ralph has gained already a place in Paradise no doubts, for he is not corrupted, for he is not evil, for he is not egoist.

On the other side of the sphere, we have, as the doc depicts, not only the corporations who wouldn’t doubt it to play dirty against this exemplary citizen, but their best allies, the republican party. For when some “third party” agent, pays a visit to the right congressman, senator or even president, and places a certain amount of “zeros” in a certain account, the person behind the 3rd person is definitely getting something in return: help to make a law pass in congress, help to make a law fail,…in either case all is numerable and can be sum up in how many dollars I get from it.

Hey, do not forget, the republicans are not there along, they run, pass, push the same actions all together, the send troops to protect corporations oil in middle east, they don’t give a fuck for the middle american man, they care less for the soldiers who bravely fight for what their government tell them to.
The same republicans and democrats, the two truly representatives of corporations, they go side by side an stand behind the Commission of Presidential Debates, what? didn’t you  know who these guys are? Well they are one democrat and one republican deciding who can and cannot show up in televised election candidates debates, and guess who these two guys are going to let you view in the screen? Only their 2 candidates, other are not invited, very democratic…indeed.

After 2000 elections in the states, after the looser democrats lost it in Florida with Al Gore, lacking all minimal decency and self respect, they go and accused another candidate of their lose, very mature, very manipulating, very evil, what? you thought that only republicans use these shitty techniques? They are as power greedy as their republicans brothers, but they all attack the “bad example” given by Ralph Nader, because they dont want to have anybody ethical enough to fight for those that cannot, to speak for those that would never be heard, to spend his private time for “the others” without expecting in return.

As I said, after the 2000 campaign, democrats accused Nader of their own lose, pathetic! Nevertheless this extraordinary human being stays focused even at his 75 against those who curse them and would like him to step aside from the social consciousness, well fellas, if you democrats are afraid of this individual it’s because he reminds you of how you should be and behave, and
that is a menace to you. The fact is that Ralph Nader was the only candidate of the 2000 that was capable of filling the Madison Square Garden of people that actually paid to see him, no stripers, no band, no monkey jingle jangle like the huge 2 parties are used to, after they pay their “followers” to come to their rallies.
Everybody knows how democracies treat ethical and straight mind that speak what they think and mean what they say, they kill these, like any dictatorship, either physically or socially.

http://www.nader.org/

http://www.mininova.org/get/2651204

This is the story of a noble people, the Navajo, native Americans, and how time and again they were deceived by greed and evil, personalized by the White man, as usual. The documentary will examine the events surrounding the pass of the law PL 93-531 in 1974 that had in mind to relocate some 10.000 Dine (Navajo) native Americans from the land they lived in peace at with their Hopi neighbours. This is an Oscar winning Award documentary related by Martin Sheen and beautifully dressed by the music of Laura Nyro. The story comes way before the seventies, it actually did begin when Europeans came into the land and conquered by the sword every peace of it, with no sensitivity about its resources and peoples in it cohabiting. Ever since then till these days the white man, its governments and corporations gain control of these lands through deception and lies, dishonor and treason, for exploitation and greed for any transcendent things is all that the white cares about, and if in the process he has to starve to death woman, children and elders he will do, and in this process he will kill himself also and every drop of humanity and decency that could have been existed in him. And then, after he gathered the courage to kill himself as an ethical human being, he will show no mercy when he has to take with him as many other humans as he can, for nothing will cause him more pain than the one he has already inflicted in himself.

At first the white man came in and took the fertile lands for himself leaving the arid ones for the Indians, killing in the process as much Indians as he could, mixed with the thrill of a legal carnage, for there is nothing the white man likes the most than killing with a license. Then obliged the Indians to drop their weapons and promise never to fight and so they did the natives, for unlike the white man, they do believe in honor, truth and the power of your word.

Later on the white man inducted the natives to take the tomahawk and fight, when it served the interest of Washington, for they wanted them to be the code people in WWII and latter Vietnam.
But when they came back, the white man again discovered an interest in the lands of the Indians, now for what lied beneath it: gas, uranium, coal and oil. As in the way Washington acts, they sold the right to exploit these sacred land for low prices, Interior Secretary James Watt gave the order in 1983, bought the rights of exploiting the resources, giving the owners a mere 2-3 % of its value, and in exchange they left a polluted environment filled with toxic substances and wastes to totally destroy the land from its roots, to show others that there where the white man passes no root will ever thrive.

Most of the labor in the tribes had to finally work for the mines, like the Peabody Coal, and would end their days with lung cancer and raise their children raise of malformation to twice the US average due to all the toxic agents left behind.
This is only one of the examples where the white man in order to raise his children and send them to the best universities, he has to buy the politicians and journalists silence so they close their eyes when the white men annihilates all the good and gentleness. Peter La Farge, a native american songwriter, put in words and Johnny Cash and latter Bob Dylan put it in accords with “The Ballad of Ira Hayes”, where the war hero comes back to meet his slow death in the land dried by the white man.

Down the ditches for a thousand years
The water grew Ira’s peoples’ crops
‘Till the white man stole the water rights
And the sparklin’ water stopped.

http://www.mininova.org/tor/2499297

Mars Underground tells the tale of a group of people – in this particular case – of scientists, that isn’t accepted by the mainstream decision-makers of their institutional (in this case, scientific) community.  This is the story of the quest for Mars and of the plan’s forefather, Dr. Robert Zubrin. After the Apollo mission to the moon, it was clear to Zubrin that NASA works better if it is entrusted with a mission that has only one, clear, objective – as was the case when they had to master a plan to conquer the moon. Unfortunately for Zubrin, there are politics involved in the NASA budgeting and high position egos are also at stake. How will someone come up with the plan, then?

The main idea is easy: Wasting money on pending space stations or on a second tour to the moon should be halted – and instead, a tour to the only known planet that
has the required resources for humanity to thrive, Mars – should be expedited.

Zubrin’s plan was already given a chance during the Bush senior administration, when NASA asked for $450 billions in expenses in order to finance a second visit to the moon and a first visit to Mars. As expected, the plan was not approved by the US Congress. Zubrin then stepped in and recalculated the whole visit to Mars and concluded that only $25 billions would actually be necessary. He tried to harness support for this plan in NASA and other scientific institutions was actually successful in doing so, until some high positioned NASA big-shots rejected his plan again.

The plan’s key, stated briefly, is to spend more time 0n researching Mars instead of 0n the combustibles to get there. Sticking a flag in the planet’s surface, as was done with the moon, will not suffice or be satisfactory this time around. The first cargo would wait until the orbits of Mars and Earth orbits are closest to each other and would then enter Mar’s atmosphere, saving astronomic sums in combustibles. The first cargo would also include only one space shuttle, that will produce – using a small nuclear  reactor – the sufficient amount of combustible needed for trip back from Mars to planet earth, from the moment it lands on Mars. In the meantime, a second space shuttle will take off from earth, with cosmonauts aboard, who will be expected to stay in Mars for 6 months – thus, dividing the space cargo into 2 parts, which will rotate and be connected to one another and allowing for the needed gravity to be created, with all of its beneficial implications.

The expedition of scientists would eventually set a record for staying in Mars for 1 year,   and will have sufficient time to conduct all warranted researches. Among them, is to try to recover any proof of earlier life that supposedly existed on Mars, another test would be to pollute the planet atmosphere so as to bring about a rise in temperature that will lead the iced waters to melt and water the soil. However, some in NASA still object to the whole idea and claim that staying on Mars will expose the astronauts to great danger emanating from radiation and raise the probability that they will be afflicted with cancer.
In response to this matter, Zubrin suggested that a centered area inside the spaceship will be built, in order to protect the passengers from the extreme radiation caused either by the Sun or other particles traveling in space. Zubrin also pointed out that  “These  cancer odds are greater for smokers, only a 1% increase in the chances of developing cancer would grow for those members of the crew.

http://www.mininova.org/get/2130283

Planet B-Boy is an excellent documentary about Hip-Hop dancing, music, the hip-hop protagonists and their life style. The guys in the doc are, no doubt, completely sporty, dedicated youngsters, that burn long hours every day on rehearsing movements, jingle jangling and choreography which originated in athletics, breakdance, martial arts and disco.

People from all over the planet gather in Germany and push themselves to get the title of Best Hip Hop group in the world, as representatives of their home countries. The prize is not monetary, the drive is purely honor – to go back to their countries of origin, and let the world know who is simply the best at this field. Many may think that this is a western “thing”, but it is amazing to see how this culture impregnated many young kids of Japan and Korea. It is also astonishing to see the amounts of adrenaline and energy that the dancers convey to the spectators, how esthetically they perform, with rhythm being primordial and acrobatics crucial. Be ready to feel the thrill.