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El Laberinto, 1971-1987
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-11- FROM CHILE WITH LOVE, TO AMERICA In the film The Promised Land, from Chile, the socialist leader Jose Duran, when confronted with the arrogant latifundista's ultimatum to take his communal band of workers out of occupied Huique or face death at the hands of the military, vacillates at his moment of truth. The latifundista army quickly mobilize and by the time Duran decides to fight, it is too late. Duran was a simple man of few words but strong feelings. He was the conductor of a railway, ferrying members of the upper class across the beautiful Chilean countryside, until, like the period of tyranny his passengers symbolize, the railroad ended abruptly. Seeing the itinerant band of dispossessed workers and listening to their entreaty to join the movement to regain the land for the people, he chose to become a part of their group out of the keepest sense of the affirmation of justice he was capable of intuiting. Two decisions that changed his life! The workers went on to find a settlement and live their lives in peace and utopian socialism (not without its conflicts of course) until their destruction at the hands of the military. There were really only two decisions that sum up the spirit of the workers in the film: to live together, all men and women, as equals, and to fight for what they believed--the end of human oppression. Their decisions could even be reduced to this: they always acted to love. How does anyone ever begin to take the meanings from cinema, literature, or any other art, and use them in human experience? Of all that has been said about undocumented workers in this country, there is little that reminds me of people acting out of love. The realities of this issue are like so many deadly pieces of living experience. Objects of the real! Citizens of Matter. Salient fact, brutal fact, [?]ked fact. While it is crucial to deal with the facts about "illegal immigration" and set about looking for "solutions that [hand drawn man] will work," as they say, imagine what it would be like to reach conclusions that did not take into account the very men and women who are the victims of a horrendous problem; the people themselves, who today live a kind of exemplary journey into hell once they cross the 1200-mile border into the U.S., and who will most likely gain little by the solutions posed from over and beyond their heads! Certainly no one is going to claim any truths here in the upper case letters about the logistics of "heading off 'illegal immigration.'" I wouldn't even attempt such business. And considering what is said on the other side of the issue, and what I'm saying here, who, really, is pontificating?! What I'm having such a goddamn hard time of saying is that I fear all the mechanical efforts (read, the Carter Plan) to state hard and fast solutions to a bewildering problem, might neglect a lot more. But the dilemma, I realize with a great amount of despair, is almost one that defies the decision-making process of a person's mind. It is almost making up its own mind. A stand must be taken of course, by all those who care enough to act. But what will be the outcome? What are the fealties of economics. Who or what is becoming the new henchmen of political plan?
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-11- FROM CHILE WITH LOVE, TO AMERICA In the film The Promised Land, from Chile, the socialist leader Jose Duran, when confronted with the arrogant latifundista's ultimatum to take his communal band of workers out of occupied Huique or face death at the hands of the military, vacillates at his moment of truth. The latifundista army quickly mobilize and by the time Duran decides to fight, it is too late. Duran was a simple man of few words but strong feelings. He was the conductor of a railway, ferrying members of the upper class across the beautiful Chilean countryside, until, like the period of tyranny his passengers symbolize, the railroad ended abruptly. Seeing the itinerant band of dispossessed workers and listening to their entreaty to join the movement to regain the land for the people, he chose to become a part of their group out of the keepest sense of the affirmation of justice he was capable of intuiting. Two decisions that changed his life! The workers went on to find a settlement and live their lives in peace and utopian socialism (not without its conflicts of course) until their destruction at the hands of the military. There were really only two decisions that sum up the spirit of the workers in the film: to live together, all men and women, as equals, and to fight for what they believed--the end of human oppression. Their decisions could even be reduced to this: they always acted to love. How does anyone ever begin to take the meanings from cinema, literature, or any other art, and use them in human experience? Of all that has been said about undocumented workers in this country, there is little that reminds me of people acting out of love. The realities of this issue are like so many deadly pieces of living experience. Objects of the real! Citizens of Matter. Salient fact, brutal fact, [?]ked fact. While it is crucial to deal with the facts about "illegal immigration" and set about looking for "solutions that [hand drawn man] will work," as they say, imagine what it would be like to reach conclusions that did not take into account the very men and women who are the victims of a horrendous problem; the people themselves, who today live a kind of exemplary journey into hell once they cross the 1200-mile border into the U.S., and who will most likely gain little by the solutions posed from over and beyond their heads! Certainly no one is going to claim any truths here in the upper case letters about the logistics of "heading off 'illegal immigration.'" I wouldn't even attempt such business. And considering what is said on the other side of the issue, and what I'm saying here, who, really, is pontificating?! What I'm having such a goddamn hard time of saying is that I fear all the mechanical efforts (read, the Carter Plan) to state hard and fast solutions to a bewildering problem, might neglect a lot more. But the dilemma, I realize with a great amount of despair, is almost one that defies the decision-making process of a person's mind. It is almost making up its own mind. A stand must be taken of course, by all those who care enough to act. But what will be the outcome? What are the fealties of economics. Who or what is becoming the new henchmen of political plan?
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