Saturday, May 19, 2012

***Ancient dreams, dreamed-A New World A-Borning - Magical Realism 101

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Barry McGuire performing his generation of ’68 classic, Eve Of Destruction.

CD Review

1965: The Beat Goes On, various artists, 1988; Classic Rock 1965, various artists, 1987: Classic Rock 1965: Blow Your Mind, various artists, 1990: 1965:Shakin’ All Over, various artists, 1989, Time-Life Music.

North Adamsville teenage hometown mucks break-out, crying to be broken out of, desperately crying to be broken out of, aided and abetted by break-out musical sensibilities where the message and the messenger were at one. And who were trying to break out of, desperately trying to break-out of the piddle paddle language and the paddle piddle beaten note formulae that had been solid gold guaranteed to thrill, thrill to the marrow, every red-blooded generation of ’68 parent. The kids, well, the kids fell asleep, fell transistor blazing asleep in the cool night dreaming of adventure car hop hostesses, james dean shadow boys, and seaside lore pillowed back seat fogged window noche siestas.

Only at that moment, just that confused and unformed moment, break-out worthy or not, maybe unformed or not, others were trail-blazing after all we were, truth, clueless as to how far that music would take us, and how many acid-etched Dixie cup magic elixirs would have to be consumed before the music died, died of old age, old age at five or ten, and hubris, queen of the downfall night. And we danced, hampton beach surf danced, high building new york city tenement danced, iowa cornfield danced, some tulsa good night two-step danced, rockymountainhigh danced, taos caverns ancient flame shadow ghost-danced, and slipped in oblivion big sur danced, and danced, and died of old age and hubris at five or ten.

That break-out by the way, maybe not so much the physical break-out as getting mentally de-rutted, you know box out get ahead, go ahead, don’t make many waves, maybe a couple of faux waves for laughs, nothing serious and not taken so, just kid’s stuff done since kids eternity, get schooled, get married, get white picket fence housed, make fewer waves, have two point three kids, make fewer waves, have them do likewise and fade into that tepid splash apologetic wave of some long ago, ancient battered to smithereens clam shell stone cold night at Adamsville beach edge. So, yes, maybe not physical far break-out but far psychic break-out from small town, really small neighborhood, irish neighborhood, and ever those don’t air your dirty linen in public grapevine tap-tapping before the larcenies, adulteries, christ, using the lord’s name in vain, and you know what and whose lord, and worst, not church-going non-scared sacred heart parish show-ups that had the “shawlies” in a stew, gone done.

Gone, strangely gone, that minute anyway gone, as well was last year’s beat, really faux-beat style- which played to the rubes (and inflamed the ”shawlies”) AND fit very nicely, very nicely indeed, with midnight Harvard Square journey haunts, but that was last year, and big cloud puff imitation james dean shadow teen angst and alienation was the style. So gone also, like I said, this minute gone, were those all-weather, all-season (ya, summer too) brown-checkered flannel shirts, those mandatory, Frankie Larkin mandatory, king hell king of the schoolboy beat, ah faux-beat night, black chinos, uncuffed, of course, and those hades-bent work boots, clodhoppers really, although not gone, gone gone, those midnight sunglasses to protect against angst, alienation and barbs.

New age aborning new look. New minute look, so be forewarned. Multi-colored schoolboy jock, okay, okay, faux-jock, jacket worn, raider red and black, black and red, some combination reflecting old time glories, or promises of glory, won by default for long running service and not for glory, not for glory but for slows, but keep that between us, plaid shirt, all the possible shades of plaid if they exist purchased in the bargain center, pre-Wal-Mart night by frugal Ma but for once she hit it right, slacks, with cuffs, thank you, and loafers (sans pennies). Ya, strictly a college guy and no more mister nobody from nowhere but a guy who fit in, and he did, all the girls, all the blue-eyed, blond eight-million people weary Long Island transplants, all the dark-eyed senoritas tired of their own backwater small town grapevine whispers, all the Philly somebodies from somewhere out of a John O’Hara high society novel, were crazy to “check out” this specimen, this talk all night rap, rap irish boyo. And most importantly, most importantly for this boyos, check out or not, they were all not North Adamsville and shames, hidden desires and blunt candid-less-ness Irish girls.

New inner look too, cool, not beat cool but joe college cool, disaffected, looking off to far reaches and not suffering fools gladly cool, learned at Humphrey Bogart’s knee and perfected by some cat on a hot tin roof Paul Newman puffing madly to forget lost dreams of youth but who knew, although the newspapers were full of warning, hell we were going to live forever, cigarette, Winston or Marlboro, filtered, natch, just in case, just in case we were not going to live forever, not by mortality but by bomb boom boom in the cold war night. Yes, cool man jack cigarette, hanging from off the lip at some jagged angle, drawn deeply in and circles and smoke dreams created. More, amused girls also puffing to prove some equality, and some reflected man cool in that sexed-up, sex- maddened free time.

And get this, a cup of coffee, if coffee was the drink, black, black against all advise, black since late schoolboy Hayes-Bickford Harvard Square drowses searching for that next word, and the next break-out, literary, political, hell, even social, in hand, a glad hand either way, look right, look left, a gentle nod, a hard stare, a gentle snarl if such a thing is possible beyond the page. But mainly a look, a look of cool distain, of remove, of next please in the never-ending look game. Soon wearied of, very wearied, although not of looks, and glances.

One’s act, fitfully, artlessly but rightly was thereafter moved onto Boston fresh streets, and a little fame. Joe College minute gone, vanished like so much train smoke, and bad dreams. Dressed in blue flannel shirt, blue denim, moccasins and midnight, eternal midnight sunglasses, and dressed, ah, in freedom but no one saw that. Finally, that one minute, no not fifteen, not fifteen at all, and not necessarily of the fame game, local fame, always local fame but fame. And then the music stopped, the crowds thinned out, the hardened Long Island transplants kept looking at guys in multi-colored jackets (although not always red and black), the Philly girls turned inward to their own crowd and began to dream of stockbroker mansions and riviera suntans, and the dark-eyed senoritas only knew of one night remembrances, and lust. Then sunk in the abyss of non-fame, non- recognition and not seen snarls, gentle or otherwise. A tough life lesson learned, very tough. And not yet twenty.

And all this very big build-up to “sell” this compilation to those who want to know what music drove us on, how the music and the break-out meshed and how, frankly, we kept this side of paradise before the veil came down and we, one by one, got further schooled, got white picket fence housed and were satisfied, just a little too satisfied, to watch tepid apologetic waves hit the stone cold shore. But also for just one minute knew deep down in our collective spines, and it was collective from Beatles-crazed British invasion teenage be-bopper throngs trying to storm heaven when they touched down at some trembling New York airport to sweet-bitter summers of love rollicking in city commons to the great rural tribal gathering before the storm burst Woodstock Nation gluing to the Stones-etched Altamont flame-out crash and the ebb, what it was like for women and men to play rock and roll music for keeps. Ya.

Out In The 1920s Blues Harp Night- “Harmonica Blues: Great Harmonica Performances Of The 1920s And 1930s”- A CD Review

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of old time blues harmonica player Junior Gillum performing his classic The Devil’s Blues.

CD Review

Harmonica Blues: Great Harmonica Performances Of The 1920s And 1930s, various artists, Yazoo Records, 1991

I have endlessly mentioned the old time pre-city blues (cities, mainly upriver Memphis, Chicago and Detroit) migration (and electrification) of the blues as it came out of the Mississippi Delta (and other southern ports of call like Alabama and North Carolina but centrally Mississippi burning country in jim crow days. Back in those days it was played, among other places like hellhole Parchman’s Farm prison and the like, in hard-bitten, hard drinking, hard lovin’ and hard repentin’ Saturday nights at juke joints. Joints which due to a little electrical problem (none) meant that you have to drink your whisky in the dark (or kind of), doing your lovin’, well you know what I mean, in the dark and your two-fisted fighting over some roaming –eyed woman in the darks as well.

What you also needed to do, if you were a musical performer, was set your instruments to that non-electric night. And hence the guitar (primitive or National Steel), the fiddle, and the instrument featured in this review, Harmonica Blues: Great Harmonica Performances Of The 1920s And 1930s,
had their heyday as weapons of choice for those who ventured into the 1920s blues night.

And this nice little treasure trove CD compilation gives you the best of the bunch who were recorded in those late 1920s and early 1930s days (before the great storm depression blew what little discretionary income there was all away) and one, if one so chooses can hear the long forgotten, for the most part, harmonica players, who influenced later legends like James Cotton, Junior Wells and, of course, Sonny Boy Williamson. The harmonica work is obviously as not as powerful as later when someone like Howlin’ Wolf practically devours the damn thing putting up against a jacked-up microphone on a song like “How Many More Years” but the basic configurations are in place here. Moreover this CD has a roll call of the best, including Jazz Gillum, Jaybird Coleman , and Deford Bailey. And, as always with a Yazoo production, an informative sheet with all kind of interesting facts about the performers and the milieu is included.

Yes, You Better Boot That Thing- Early Women Blues Singers From The 1920s

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Victoria Spivey performing "TB Blues". Wow.

CD REVIEW

Better Boot That Thing: Great Women Blues Singers Of The 1920’s, BMG Music, 1992

One of the interesting facts about the development of the blues is that in the early days the recorded music and the bulk of the live performances were done by women, at least they were the most popular exponents of the genre. That time, the early 1920's to the 1930's, was the classic age of women blues performers. Of course, when one thinks about that period the name that comes up is the legendary Bessie Smith. Beyond that, maybe some know Ethel Waters. And beyond that-a blank.

I have tried elsewhere in this space to redress that grievance by reviewing the works of the likes of Memphis Minnie, Ida Cox and Ivy Anderson, among others. I also have scheduled a separate appreciation of one of the four women featured on this CD, Alberta Hunter. This CD format thus falls rather nicely in line with my overall intention to continue to highlight some of these lesser known women artists. Moreover, as fate would have it, this compilation included the work of Victoria Spivey, a singer that I have mentioned elsewhere and have wanted to discuss further. Finally, the conception of the producers here is enhanced by breaking up the CD into two parts-the urban blues part represented by Hunter and Spivey and the country blues part represented by Bessie Tucker and Ida May Mack. While both this trends have always shared some common roots and musicality they also represent two distinct trends in blues music as reflected in the increasing urbanization of the American black population in the 20th century.

Let’s use the urban/country divide as a frame of reference. The smoother style of Hunter and Spivey obviously reflected the need to entertain a more sophisticated audience that was looking for music that was different from that country stuff down home. And that laid back style was seemingly passé in the hectic urban world. Tucker and Mack reflect that old time country hard work on the farm, hard scrabble for daily existence found, as well, in the songs of their country blues male counterparts. What unites the two strands is the personal nature of the subject matter- you know, mistreating’ men, cheatin’ guys, two-timing fellas, money taking cads, squeakin’ man-stealing women friends, the dusty road out of town, and just below the surface violence and mayhem, threaten or completed. And that is just an average day’s misery.

So what is good here? I won’t spend much time on Alberta because I have looked at her work elsewhere but please give a listen to “My Daddy’s Got A Brand New Way To Love,” the title tells everything you need to know about this song and is classic Alberta. Of course for Bessie Tucker you need, and I mean need, to hear the title track “Better Boot That Thing” and then you will agree that you, man or woman, best stay home and take care of business. As for Ida May I flipped when I heard her saga of a fallen woman as she moans out on “Elm Street Blues” and her lament on “Wrong Doin’ Daddy”. However, what you really want to do is skip to the final track and listen to “Good-bye Rider” which for the nth time concerns the subject of that previously mentioned advice about “not advertising your man.” to your friends.

Victoria is just too much on “Telephoning The Blues,” again on that two timing man, wronged woman theme. “Blood Hound Blues” demonstrates that she was not afraid to tackle some thorny issues, including a reverse twist here about a woman driven to kill her hard-hearted physically abusive man, was jailed, escaped and is on the lam as she sings this song. The song that knocked me out on this more socially-oriented theme is her “Dirty Tee Bee Blues” about the tragic suffering of a gal who went the wrong way looking for love and adventure and now must pay the price. Powerful stuff.

A special note on Victoria Spivey. I have mentioned, in a review of some film documentaries (four altogether) entitled “American Folk Blues Festival, 1962-1966” that were retrieved a few years ago by German Cinema and featured many of the great blues artist still alive at that time on tour in Europe, that Victoria Spivey had a special place in the blues scene not only as a performer and writer (of songs and goings-on in the music business) but that she was a record producer as well (Spivey Records).

Back in the days when music was on vinyl (you remember them, right?) I used to rummage through a second hand- record store in Cambridge (talk about ancient history). One of my treasured finds there was a Spivey Records platter featuring Victoria, the legendary Otis Spann (of Muddy Waters’ band), Luther “Guitar” Johnson, and a host of other blues luminaries. She, like her black male counterpart impresario Willie Dixon (who she occasionally performed with), was a pioneer in this business end of the blues business, a business that left more than its fair share of horror stories about the financial shenanigans done to “rob” blues performers of their just desserts. That, however, is a tale for another day.

Out Of The Golden Age Of Electric Blues Harp Night- “Blues Harp”-A CD Review

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Sonny Boy Williamson (number II but that is a long blues story) playing with Muddy Waters.

Blues Harp, various artists, Ace Records, 1999

Recently in a CD review of “Harmonica Blues: Great Harmonica Performances Of The 1920s And 1930s” I noted that the great harmonica players of that period were hamstrung (at least out in the country) by the lack of electricity in the Saturday juke joints and so the sound was somewhat tinny. However I also noted that the basic configurations produced in that period would be transformed by later harp greats into magic by electrification. And the album under review, Blues Harp, is proof positive of that assertion.

No question the post-World War II (and before too) black migration north to the cities and city industrial jobs (especially during the war) changed the slow back country beat music in profound ways. The electric “juice” provided at urban Saturday night (and Sunday morning, Sunday morning before repentance, okay) played a great role in bringing the harmonica (through close mouth association with the microphone) to its central place in the great golden age of the electric blues (part one) before rock and roll blew everyone away (for a while, and then we hungered back again for roots music, for that primordial connection with ancient times, and ancient lusts).

And they are all here, or almost all, the great ones that is, although the classic one that I keep coming back to is Howlin’ Wolf fooling around with
“How Many More Year” down at early years Newport Folk Festival when he practically inhales the harmonica. Wow. Crank up YouTube for that one. In the meantime the cast here will give you the role of honor in the golden age night, Sonny Boy Williamson, Junior Wells, James Cotton, Snooky Pryor, the Wolf Man, of course, and some others who history had previously left in the shadows, How many more years, indeed.

Who Will Fill The 2000s Blues Night Air, Part Two? - “Skunkmello” –A Guy Davis CD Review

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Guy Davis performing Shaky Pudding.

Skunkmello, Guy Davis, Red House Records, 2000

A couple of years ago I spent no little cyberspace “ink” on the question of who would carry on the folk tradition that the folk revival artists of my generation, the generation of ’68, “discovered” back in the day. You know artists like Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Tom Paxton, Eric Von Schmidt and Dave Van Ronk and others digging into the American song book provided by Harry Smith, the Lomaxes and the Seegers to preserve Woody Guthrie and stuff even further back down to the hills and hollows of Appalachia (I know I am supposed to write hollas but there you have it), down to the southern delta plantation moans, down to backwater Mississippi juke joint groans after a hard Saturday night of love, fights and headaches, and out west, out west where as Thomas Wolfe stated, the states are square to gather in the cowboy and farm traditions found in the great migrations to the coast, west coast of course. I came up with a few candidates like Keb Mo’ and Carol Hemmings then just to make my point.

I am now trying to take that basic point and pose the question here of who will carry out the great American blues night tradition started back in the early part of the 20th century (as least the part we know about from recordings and radio) and which produced great music from Charley Patton, Son House, Skip James, Mississippi John Hurt and the like on through to Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf , Ike Turner, and Taj Majal. That last name mentioned not by accident as the artist under review, Guy Davis, consciously or not, and I think consciously, owns at least a debt of gratitude to Taj for breaking some ground for him in the blues milieu.

Needless to say Brother Davis (Guy, not the late great Reverend Gary, okay) plays a mean guitar as on Shaky Pudding and Natural Born, can use his vocal abilities to belt out such songs as Chocolate Man and Shooing Star and get down to that gospel church, Jehovah we are coming root of the blues on It Takes Love To Make A Homewith the best of them. Eric Clapton, Mick and Keith and the rest of the British invasion guys mad to the high heavens for American blues move over a little. Guy Davis is in the house. And make that the Red House always on the lookout for guys like Guy Davis.

Friday, May 18, 2012

Ancient dreams, dreamed-An Explained Interlude - Magical Realism 101

Shaved-head, close anyway, too close to distinguish that head, mine, or rather private soldier government- issue mine on loan after drafted 1969 drafted purgatories and anguishes, go, not go, go, not go, not go, go, jail, not jail, go, from the ten-thousand, no one hundred-thousand other heads, all shave-headed. No way that close-cropped head, or those ten thousand, no, one hundred thousand others , would survive the Harvard Square (square is right), Village, burned-over Haight-Ashbury night as anything but soldier tourists looking at long-haired freaks smoking dope in some impromptu Kasbah or some vagrant common lawn.

But that wistful thought is so much ancient history, so much bad karma, ghost danced against ancient painted cavern-etched shamanic bad karmic night, as the certitude, the absolute certitude, after only three, hell one for truth but three, on more, half-humid, half ground frozen (and I know, know from close observation just minutes ago after having “done ten” that half frozen) southern winter days (Georgia, hell-bent segregated Georgia places like Albany and Augusta, if not Atlanta) that go, no go, jail, not jail was decided the wrong way and that life from here on in would get quirky (nice way to put it, right, put it just short of facing phantom firing squads).

Start. Four in the morning madness but this time not falling into too much to dream sweet good night but cursing some stoolie “orderlie” who has just kicked off my blanket cover and yelled, yelled if you can believe that, right in my ear that if I was not up before he turned his head to yell at some other shaved head across from my bunk that I would be “doing ten (or was it one hundred, or one thousand)” in front of the whole company of fellow raw recruits on some sweet red clay Georgia earth, frozen okay, when the sun came up. Naturally the trap was set as he could turn his ugly government-issue head bunk away before I could even uncover that frizzy green blanket and so I was to be parlayed, relayed, surveyed and displayed before a motley of bleary eyed raws and done. An example, a horribly example of slovenliness that would get some rolling hills hayseed Ohio farm boy too scared to say yessir or no sir, some Kentucky un-shoed hills and hollows (ya, I know hollas) toothless illiterate dragged from mother womb coal veins, or some jet black ebony angel New York City street corner boy caught up in the court system, some petty larceny count to his credit, and warned, judge-warned, into the service, killed for lack of speed. Yes, that go, no go thing went the wrong way, way wrong, as I sensed those phantom firing squads closing in.

At peek of light, no food in stomach, no eyes, no open eyes, and in bare tee-shirt, white government-issued and two sizes two big just then, I fall down to the earth, spitting mud-flecked red clay, spitting dust, spitting, spitting out the stars over Alabama (oops Georgia, all these southern red clays seem so very much the same, or would on further inspection) that portent no good, no earthy good. Cold, cold cold as only a day time hot winter place can be night cold.
And I do “ten.” And then that ten, or the cold red clay doing of that ten, started a mental civil war between one government-issued private soldier and one warring government. Of such incidents great wars, and great struggles against war, swarm the earth, although the latter less frequently than one would suspect. Or hope.

Then those DNA-etched righteous furies kick-assed with my brain, those old time grandmother Catholic Worker stop the goddam wars and stop them now (exactly quoting Irish “shawlie” grandma wisdom, or else) reared their pug ugly (ur-government-issued ugly) head. And that shave-headed (as if shave-headed-ness had exposed on its surface for all the world to see as if written out longhand all the quaint, if shadow, last night I had the strangest dream, stop the war madness covered up by long-haired no thoughts and no risks ancient thoughts) red clay foam-flecked private soldier dreamed of crusades and leading great crusades, and marching men back into barracks and locking doors against the killing fields. And arguing with sneer-snickering (remembering only no sir or yes sir) Ohio farm boys, Kentucky rednecks hell-bent on tunnel-rat-dom like some great cosmic chain held them together, and black as night New York City street-wise (well, half-wise)corner boys this-if this is not murder, if this is not to slay, then what is? Come and face the phantom firing squads too, come cry out to high heaven against the madness, the madness of men, and madnesses stopped by men, by little no no siring men.

The die is cast, not as usual truthfully cast, not pure warrior in the frozen ground red clay night, not massive warrior-king leading home swords turned into plowshare armies, but solitary avenging angel cast, but cast. Dreams of running away to elysian fields (or mudded Woodstock farm mires), dreams of lost love (of girls left behind and of secret betrayals), dreams of not doing this or that youth-desired thing keep rearing back and certain character flaws, certain wise guy, small town corner boy (unknown to black knight New York City corner boys all wide-eyed) know-it-all cut corners character flaws stream in the hot, humid, footsore march.
But in the end the drum beat beat his beat, and fate.

Wild dreams, senseless wild dreams follow, follow in succession, day and night. Time has no measure, no measure at all and calendars only form fear for burning red eyes. Angels rage at hell’s door to no avail. Rant, mere rant against the barb wired fix. Sweats, real human sweats, ever present sweats in small airless rooms. Rooms not picked by man, or fit. The days of rage, rage against the light, and then the glimmer of the light. Fame, maybe unearned nickel and dime fame, as poster boy for break-out soldiers crying against the high hellish anguished night and murders, murders called by their right name. Then phantom firing squads turn to dust, ashes really, and free.

From #Ur-Occupied Boston (#Ur-Tomemonos Boston)-General Assembly-The Embryo Of An Alternate Government-Learn The Lessons Of History-Lessons From The Utopian Socialists- Charles Fourier and The Phalanx Movement-“Critique of the Revolutionary Ideals”

Click on the headline to link to the archives of the Occupy Boston General Assembly minutes from the Occupy Boston website. Occupy Boston started at 6:00 PM, September 30, 2011. The General Assembly is the core political institution of the Occupy movement. Some of the minutes will reflect the growing pains of that movement and its concepts of political organization. Note that I used the word embryo in the headline and I believe that gives a fair estimate of its status, and its possibilities.
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An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend All The Occupation Sites And All The Occupiers! Drop All Charges Against All Protesters Everywhere!
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Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It, It’s Ours! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
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Below I am posting, occasionally, comments on the Occupy movement as I see or hear things of interest, or that cause alarm bells to ring in my head. The first comment directly below from October 1, which represented my first impressions of Occupy Boston, is the lead for all further postings.
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Markin comment October 1, 2011:

There is a lot of naiveté expressed about the nature of capitalism, capitalists, and the way to win in the class struggle by various participants in this occupation. Many also have attempted to make a virtue out of that naiveté, particularly around the issues of effective democratic organization (the General Assembly, its unrepresentative nature and its undemocratic consensus process) and relationships with the police (they are not our friends, no way, when the deal goes down). However, their spirit is refreshing, they are acting out of good subjective anti-capitalist motives and, most importantly, even those of us who call ourselves "reds" (communists), including this writer, started out from liberal premises as naive, if not more so, than those encountered at the occupation site. We can all learn something but in the meantime we must defend the "occupation" and the occupiers. More later as the occupation continues.
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In the recent past as part of my one of my commentaries I noted the following:

“… The idea of the General Assembly with each individual attendee acting as a “tribune of the people” is interesting and important. And, of course, it represents, for today anyway, the embryo of what the ‘new world’ we need to create might look like at the governmental level.”

A couple of the people that I have talked to lately were not quite sure what to make of that idea. The idea that what is going on in Occupy Boston at the governmental level could, should, would be a possible form of governing this society in the “new world a-borning” with the rise of the Occupy movement. Part of the problem is that there was some confusion on the part of the listeners that one of the possible aims of this movement is to create an alternative government, or at least provide a model for such a government. I will argue here now, and in the future, that it should be one of the goals. In short, we need to take power away from the Democrats and Republicans and their tired old congressional/executive/judicial doesn’t work- checks and balances-form of governing and place it at the grassroots level and work upward from there rather than, as now, have power devolve from the top. (And stop well short of the bottom.)

I will leave aside the question (the problem really) of what it would take to create such a possibility. Of course a revolutionary solution would, of necessity, have be on the table since there is no way that the current powerful interests, Democratic, Republican or those of the "one percent" having no named politics, is going to give up power without a fight. What I want to pose now is the use of the General Assembly as a deliberative executive, legislative, and judicial body all rolled into one.

Previous historical models readily come to mind; the short-lived but heroic Paris Commune of 1871 that Karl Marx tirelessly defended against the reactionaries of Europe as the prototype of a workers government; the early heroic days of the Russian October Revolution of 1917 when the workers councils (soviets in Russian parlance) acted as a true workers' government; and the period in the Spanish Revolution of 1936-39 where the Central Committee of the Anti-Fascist Militias acted, de facto, as a workers government. All the just mentioned examples had their problems and flaws, no question. However, merely mentioning the General Assembly concept in the same paragraph as these great historic examples should signal that thoughtful leftists and other militants need to investigate and study these examples.

In order to facilitate the investigation and study of those examples I will, occasionally, post works in this space that deal with these forbears from several leftist perspectives (rightist perspectives were clear- crush all the above examples ruthlessly, and with no mercy- so we need not look at them now). I started this Lessons Of History series with Karl Marx’s classic defense and critique of the Paris Commune, The Civil War In France and today’s presentation noted in the headline continues on in that same vein.
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A Five-Point Program As Talking Points

*Jobs For All Now!-“30 For 40”- A historic demand of the labor movement. Thirty hours work for forty hours pay to spread the available work around. Organize the unorganized- Organize the South- Organize Wal-Mart- Defend the right of public and private sector workers to unionize.

* Defend the working classes! No union dues for Democratic (or the stray Republican) candidates. Spent the dues on organizing the unorganized and other labor-specific causes (example, the November, 2011 anti-union recall referendum in Ohio).

*End the endless wars!- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops (And Mercenaries) From Afghanistan! Hands Off Pakistan! Hands Off Iran! Hands Off The World!

*Fight for a social agenda for working people!. Quality Healthcare For All! Nationalize the colleges and universities under student-teacher-campus worker control! Forgive student debt! Stop housing foreclosures!

*We created the wealth, let’s take it back. Take the struggle for our daily bread off the historic agenda. Build a workers party that fights for a workers government to unite all the oppressed.

Emblazon on our red banner-Labor and the oppressed must rule!
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Charles Fourier (1772-1837)

“Critique of the Revolutionary Ideals”

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Source: The Utopian Vision of Charles Fourier. Selected Texts on Work, Love, and Passionate Attraction. Translated, Edited and with an Introduction by Jonathan Beecher and Richard Bienvenu. Published by Jonathan Cape, 1972;
First Published: De la methode mixte, La Phalange, VII, 1848.
Transcribed: by Andy Blunden.


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Philosophy was right to vaunt liberty; it is the foremost desire of all creatures. But philosophy forgot that in civilised societies liberty is illusory if the common people lack wealth. When the wage-earning classes are poor, their independence is as fragile as a house without foundations. The free man who lacks wealth immediately sinks back under the yoke of the rich. The newly freed slave takes fright at the need of providing for his own subsistence and hastens to sell himself back into slavery in order to escape this new anxiety that hangs over him like Damocles’ sword. In thoughtlessly giving him liberty without wealth, you merely replace his physical torment with a mental torment. He finds life burdensome in his new state... . Thus when you give liberty to the people, it must be bolstered by two supports which are the guarantee of comfort and industrial attraction... .

Equality of rights is another chimera, praiseworthy when considered in the abstract and ridiculous from the standpoint of the means employed to introduce it in civilisation. The first right of men is the right to work and the right to a minimum. This is precisely what has gone unrecognised in all the constitutions. Their primary concern is with favoured individuals who are not in need of work. They begin with pompous lists of the elect from privileged families to whom the law guarantees an income of fifty or one hundred thousand francs for the simple task of governing the people or sitting in an upholstered seat and voting with the majority in a senate. If the first page of the constitutions serves to provide administrators with guarantees of affluence and idleness, it would be well for the second page to pay some attention to the lot of the lower classes, to the proportional minimum and the right to work, which are omitted in all constitutions, and to the right to pleasure, which is guaranteed only by the mechanism of the industrial series... .

Let’s turn to fraternity. Our discussion here will be amusing, at once loathsome and learned. It is amusing in view of the imbecility of the theories which have purported to establish fraternity. It is loathsome when one recalls the horrors that the ideal of fraternity has masked. But it is a problem which deserves particular attention from science; for societies will attain their goal, and man his dignity, only when universal fraternity has become an established fact. By universal fraternity we mean a degree of general intimacy which can only be realised if four conditions are satisfied:

Comfort for the people and the assurance of a splendid minimum;
The education and instruction of the lower classes;
General truthfulness in work relations.
The rendering of reciprocal services by unequal classes.

Once these four conditions are met, the rich Mondor will have truly fraternal relations with Irus who, despite his poverty, will have no need of a protector and no motive to deceive anyone, and whose fine education will enable him to associate with princes... . As for the present, how could there by any fraternity between sybarites steeped in refinements and our coarse, hungry peasants who are covered with rags and often with vermin and who carry contagious diseases like typhus, mange,

plica and other such fruits of civilised poverty? What sort of fraternity could ever be established between such heterogeneous classes of men?

PROTEST THE NATO/G8-May 20, 2012-Chicago-All Out

PROTEST THE NATO/G8-May 20, 2012-Chicago

Join Jesse Jackson, SEIU local,Health Care Illinois/Indiana (HCil),UNAC, Chicago Teachers Union, Kathy Kelly of Voices for Creative Nonviolence, National Nurses Union, United Electrical workers Western Region, Malik Mujahid of the Muslim Peace Co­alition, the Fellowship of Recon­ciliation, Veterans for Peace, Glen Ford of Black Agenda Report, Derrick O'Keefe of the Canadian Peace Alliance, Reiner Braun of the European No to NATO, No to War network and many others in Chicago to oppose the NATO and G8 war and poverty agenda.

At the invitation of the White House, the 28-nation US-commanded and largely US-financed North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is meeting in Chicago, May 20-21,2012. The G8 world economic powers, originally planned to also meet the same week in Chicago, are now meeting at Camp David.

The NATO generals and G8 heads of state and finance ministers are the team that is imposing austerity on the working people of the world in the interest of expanding profits. In many places, economic "reform" is enforced at the point of a gun - by drones, armies, and police.

In May, those of us struggling against the tyranny of the banks and the corporate elite, those of us fighting against job loss, foreclosure, cuts to education, and the restriction of our democratic rights, will march in Chicago. The authorities hope to deny us our constitutional right to legally and peacefully protest. We have begun a campaign to win back our democratic right to mobilize tens of thousands who will stand in solidarity with all those fighting U.S.-backed austerity drives and war around the globe.

Join us for a Mass demonstration on Sunday, May 20, the opening day of the NATO summit 9 am, march with veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan war who will return their medals to NATO. Noon, join the mass march and rally against the NATO and G8 war and poverty agenda. Noon rally at Petrillo Band-shell (corner of Jackson and Coumbus), then march to Mc-Cormick Place. Speakers will include: Jesse Jackson, Malalai Joya, Reiner Braun, Kathy Kelly, Vijay Prashad - author of Arab Spring, Libyan Winter, and more™

People's Summit

Saturday, May I2 and Sunday May 13 at Occupy Chicago.
There will be plenary and work­shop sessions and panels.
Speakers will include: Malalai
Joya, Keiaer Braun, Malik Muja-
Md, Kathy Eelly, Col. Ann Wright,
Medea Benjamin, a message from
Mumia Abu Jamal, and more*

Coalition Against NATO/G8 War & Poverty Agenda

www.cang8.org

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Ancient dreams, dreamed-A New World A-Borning - Magical Realism 101

North Adamsville teenage hometown mucks break-out, crying to be broken out of, desperately crying to be broken out of, aided and abetted by break-out musical sensibilities where the message and the messenger were at one. And who were trying to break out of, desperately trying to break-out of the piddle paddle language and the paddle piddle beaten note formulae that had been solid gold guaranteed to thrill, thrill to the marrow, every red-blooded generation of ’68 parent. The kids, well, the kids fell asleep, fell transistor blazing asleep in the cool night dreaming of adventure car hop hostesses, james dean shadow boys, and seaside lore pillowed back seat fogged window noche siestas.

Only at that moment, just that confused and unformed moment, break-out worthy or not, maybe unformed or not, others were trail-blazing after all we were, truth, clueless as to how far that music would take us, and how many acid-etched Dixie cup magic elixirs would have to be consumed before the music died, died of old age, old age at five or ten, and hubris, queen of the downfall night. And we danced, hampton beach surf danced, high building new york city tenement danced, iowa cornfield danced, some tulsa good night two-step danced, rockymountainhigh danced, taos caverns ancient flame shadow ghost-danced, and slipped in oblivion big sur danced, and danced, and died of old age and hubris at five or ten.

That break-out by the way, maybe not so much the physical break-out as getting mentally de-rutted, you know box out get ahead, go ahead, don’t make many waves, maybe a couple of faux waves for laughs, nothing serious and not taken so, just kid’s stuff done since kids eternity, get schooled, get married, get white picket fence housed, make fewer waves, have two point three kids, make fewer waves, have them do likewise and fade into that tepid splash apologetic wave of some long ago, ancient battered to smithereens clam shell stone cold night at Adamsville beach edge. So, yes, maybe not physical far break-out but far psychic break-out from small town, really small neighborhood, irish neighborhood, and ever those don’t air your dirty linen in public grapevine tap-tapping before the larcenies, adulteries, christ, using the lord’s name in vain , and you know what and whose lord, and worst, not church-going non-scared sacred heart parish show-ups that had the “shawlies” in a stew, gone done.

Gone, strangely gone, that minute anyway gone, as well was last year’s beat, really faux-beat style- which played to the rubes (and inflamed the ”shawlies”) AND fit very nicely, very nicely indeed, with midnight Harvard Square journey haunts, but that was last year, and big cloud puff imitation james dean shadow teen angst and alienation was the style. So gone also, like I said, this minute gone, were those all-weather, all-season (ya, summer too) brown-checkered flannel shirts, those mandatory, Frankie Larkin mandatory, king hell king of the schoolboy beat, ah faux-beat night, black chinos, uncuffed, of course, and those hades-bent work boots, clodhoppers really, although not gone, gone gone, those midnight sunglasses to protect against angst, alienation and barbs.

New age aborning new look. New minute look, so be forewarned. Multi-colored schoolboy jock, okay, okay, faux-jock, jacket worn, raider red and black, black and red, some combination reflecting old time glories, or promises of glory, won by default for long running service and not for glory, not for glory but for slows, but keep that between us, plaid shirt, all the possible shades of plaid if they exist purchased in the bargain center, pre-Wal-mart night by frugal Ma but for once she hit it right, slacks, with cuffs, thank you, and loafers (sans pennies). Ya, strictly a college guy and no more mister nobody from nowhere but a guy who fit in, and he did, all the girls, all the blue-eyed, blond eight-million people weary Long Island transplants, all the dark-eyed senoritas tired of their own backwater small town grapevine whispers, all the Philly somebodies from somewhere out of a John O’Hara high society novel, were crazy to “check out” this specimen, this talk all night rap,rap irish boyo. And most importantly, most importantly for this boyos, check out or not, they were all not North Adamsville and shames, hidden desires and blunt candid-less-ness Irish girls.

New inner look too, cool, not beat cool but joe college cool, disaffected, looking off to far reaches and not suffering fools gladly cool, learned at Humphrey Bogart’s knee and perfected by some cat on a hot tin roof Paul Newman puffing madly to forget lost dreams of youth but who knew, although the newspapers were full of warning, hell we were going to live forever, cigarette, Winston or Marlboro, filtered, natch, just in case, just in case we were not going to live forever, not by mortality but by bomb boom boom in the cold war night. Yes, cool man jack cigarette, hanging from off the lip at some jagged angle, drawn deeply in and circles and smoke dreams created. More, amused girls also puffing to prove some equality, and some reflected man cool in that sexed-up, sex- maddened free time.

And get this, a cup of coffee, if coffee was the drink, black, black against all advise, black since late schoolboy Hayes-Bickford Harvard Square drowses searching for that next word, and the next break-out, literary, political, hell, even social, in hand, a glad hand either way, look right, look left, a gentle nod, a hard stare, a gentle snarl if such a thing is possible beyond the page. But mainly a look, a look of cool distain, of remove, of next please in the never-ending look game. Soon wearied of, very wearied, although not of looks, and glances.

One’s act, fitfully, artlessly but rightly was thereafter moved onto Boston fresh streets, and a little fame. Joe College minute gone, vanished like so much train smoke, and bad dreams. Dressed in blue flannel shirt, blue denim, mocassins and midnight, eternal midnight sunglasses, and dressed, ah, in freedom but no one saw that. Finally, that one minute, no not fifteen, not fifteen at all, and not necessarily of the fame game, local fame, always local fame but fame. And then the music stopped, the crowds thinned out, the hardened Long Island transplants kept looking at guys in multi-colored jackets (although not always red and black), the Philly girls turned inward to their own crowd and began to dream of stockbroker mansions and rivera suntans, and the dark-eyed senoritas only knew of one night remembrances, and lust. Then sunk in the abyss of non-fame, non- recognition and not seen snarls, gentle or otherwise. A tough life lesson learned, very tough. And not yet twenty.

The Latest From The United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC) Website- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops, Mercenaries, Contractors, Etc, From Afghanistan! Hands Off Iran! -Mawrch On Chicago May 20th

Click on the headline to link to the United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC) Website for more information about various anti-war, anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist actions around the country.

March and Rally

Chicago May 20, 2012

Markin comment:

Every once in a while it is necessary, if for not other reason than to proclaim from the public square that we are alive, and fighting, to show “the colors,” our anti-war colors. While, as I have mentioned many times in this space, endless marches are not going to end any war the street opposition to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as protests against other imperialist adventures has been under the radar of late. It is time for anti-warriors to get back where we belong in the struggle against Obama’s wars. The UNAC appears to be the umbrella clearing house these days for many anti-war, anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist actions. Not all the demands of this coalition are ones that I would raise but the key one is enough to take to the streets. Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops, Mercenaries, Contractors, Etc, From Afghanistan! Hands Off Iran!

BostonUNAC.org | 781-285-8622 | BostonUNAC(S)gmail.com

From The "Budget For All" Coalition- A Public Policy Question To Be Placed On The Massachusetts November 2012 Election Ballot

Markin comment:

I place some material in this space which may be of interest to the radical public that I do not necessarily agree with or support. Off hand, as I have mentioned before, I think it would be easier, infinitely easier, to fight for the socialist revolution straight up than some of the “remedies” provided by the commentators in these entries. But part of that struggle for the socialist revolution is to sort out the “real” stuff from the fluff as we struggle for that more just world that animates our efforts.
***************
Commonwealth of Massachusetts

APPLICATION FOR A PUBLIC POLICY QUESTION

DATE and TIME received by Board of Registrars

Name

District Type (Check one): \ {Senatorial \ | Representative

ATTENTION REGISTRARS: Before certifying names see "Instructions to Registrars" on reverse side of paper. QUESTION to be submitted to the voters of the above district:

Shall the state Representative from this district be instructed to vote in favor of a resolution calling upon Congress and the President to:

Prevent cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Veterans benefits, or to housing, food and unemployment assistance;

Create and protect jobs by investing in manufacturing, schools, housing, renewable energy, transportation and other public services;

Provide new revenues for these purposes and to reduce the long-term federal deficit by closing corporate tax loopholes, ending
offshore tax havens, and raising taxes on incomes over $250,000; and

Redirect military spending to these domestic needs by reducing the military budget, ending the war in Afghanistan and bringing U.S.
troops home safely now.

INSTRUCTIONS TO PETITIONERS

Fill in the Public Policy Question above before collecting any signatures on this application.

The wording of the question should be identical on each sheet used to collect signatures in a particular district and must be on the petitions before any signatures are collected.

Do not alter papers in any way. Additional markings on the paper MAY disqualify any signatures on the paper.

Prior to filing the applications with the Secretary of the Com­monwealth have the required number of signatures certified by a majority of the Board of Registrars or Election Commissioners.

TWELVE HUNDRED (1,200) certified voter signatures are required in any Senatorial District, TWO HUNDRED (200) in any Representative District.
DEADLINE REQUIREMENTS

Submit applications to the Registrars of Voters or Election Commissioners for certification of signatures by 5:00 p. m., Wednesday, July 3, 2012.

File certified applications with the Secretary of the Commonwealth by 5:00 p m., "Wednesday, August 1, 2012.

NOTE: Only three public policy questions may be placed on the ballot in any district at one election. The questions will appear on the ballot in the order in which the qualified applications were filed. Questions which are substantially the same as those which appear on the ballot may not be submitted again for three years.

INSTRUCTIONS TO SIGNERS

For your signature to be valid, you must be a registered voter in the city or town named below and your signature should be written substantially as registered.

If you are prevented by physical disability from writing, you may authorize some person to write your name and residence in your presence.

SIGNERS' STATEMENT

We, the undersigned, are qualified voters of the commonwealth and of the above district, and in accordance with the provisions of the law, we request that the above question be submitted to the voters of our district in the next state election so that our Senator or Representative may be instructed.

From Occupy Quincy (Ma)- Bank Of America Saturday Weekly Stand-Out Beginning May 19, 2012-Join Us-Banks Got Bailed Out We Got Sold Out

Click on headline to link to Occupy Quincy website.

If you enjoy protesting the Bank of America, here's your chance to do it on a regular basis!

Starting every Saturday from May 19th, Occupy Quincy will be protesting outside Bank of America from 11 to 12 noon.

That's 1400 Hancock St., Quincy Center. Bring yourself, your spirit
and your signs.

The blood sucking Bankers of A
Make the working class struggle to pay.
Their greed's a disgrace,
Their intentions most base.
Join the protest to sweep them away.

For info about us, check out our website at occupyquincy.org

http://occupyquincy.org/

All Out In Defense Of The Harvard Clerical And Technical Workers Union (HCTWU)-NO LAYOFFS @ HARVARD'S COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES!-Thursday May 24th

Click on the headline to link to the No Layoffs At Harvard event page

Thursday, May 24, 2012.

11:00am until 2:00pm.

Holyoke Center, 1350 Mass. Ave. Cambridge

Despite months of protests & bad press, Harvard's Grand Poohbahs refuse to back off from their layoff threats against hundreds of workers, particularly in the libraries. 65 library staff members already took a miserly early-retirement deal, in the face of administrators' announcements that their ranks would soon shrink, either by "voluntary or involuntary" means. The library workforce is nearly 1/3 smaller than it was in 2009, leading to a marked deterioration of library assistance and services. There is a clear danger that managers will act to cut jobs once students leave town. PLEASE HELP US SEND THE MESSAGE THAT ANY FURTHER CUTS WILL JUST LEAD TO MORE DAMAGE TO HARVARD'S PRECIOUS BRAND!

A Remembrance Worthy Of The Day- A Memorial Day for Peace-Join The Smedley Butler Brigade-Veterans For Peace In Boston-May 28, 2012, 1:00 - 3:00 pm

Click on the headline to link to the Smedley Butler Brigade VFP Facebookpage.


To The Fallen-In Lieu Of A Letter

The mere mention of the name Veterans For Peace evokes images of hard-bitten ex-servicemen and women, many old, ramrod straight holding their beloved black and white peace dove-emblazoned banners flying proudly in all weathers. Of urgent and militant calls for withdrawal of American military personnel from conflicts somewhere in the bewildering number of places that this government has planted its forces. And of relentless exposure of the thousand and one ways that this government (and not just this government) tries to hide its atrocities against overwhelmed opponents and the innocent civilians who get caught up in the juggernaut. Those exercises of our democratic and moral obligations are what drive us most days but I want to put politics aside this day, or put them aside at least long enough to speak of another role that we have taken on over the past several years here in Boston on Memorial Day, a day of remembrance for our fallen.

Others can address, and eloquently, the origins and purposes of the day, a task that usually would come easily to this writer. Others will throw symbolic flowers into our beloved homeland the sea to give somber recognition to the fallen of current conflicts. Still others in other commemorations can, and will, speak of valor, honor, duty and unquestioned obedience to orders accompanied by the far-away tattoo of drums, the echo of the distant roar of cannon, cannon headed to some unmarked destination, and the whish and whirl as an unseen overhead airplane unloads it sacrilegious payload.

Today I choose though to speak of long ago but not forgotten personal remembrance, and to give name to that remembrance. To give name, James Earl Jenkins, old North Quincy rough-house Irish neighborhoods friend and fellow of many boyhood adventures not all fit for public mention, a name now blood-stone etched in black marble down in Washington, D.C. To give name, Kenneth Edward Johnson, my brother and James’ friend also, a name not etched in black stone but a causality of war nevertheless who, despite his fervent desire, “never made it back to the real world” and spent his shortened lonely life reliving the past.

James and Kenneth, what happened to each of them and why, take on special meaning today as I utter their names publicly from the misty past for the first time in a long time because those names link to those we remember today. Not just those, like James, who served under whatever conditions and for whatever personal reasons, those seem beside the point just now, or like my brother, those who do not show up in any official casuality report but all those nevertheless damaged by the close-hand experience of war.

But enough of this, as it only brings another saddened tear. But, as well, enough of war.

****************
Memorial Day for Peace

May 28, 2012, 1:00 - 3:00 pm

Christopher Columbus Park, Boston, Massachusetts
(near the Long Wharf Marriott on the waterfront - Aquarium stop on the MBTA Blue Line and a short walk from Haymarket on the Orange Line)

Please join us

Please join Veterans For Peace, Smedley Butler Brigade, Chapter 9 and Samantha Smith, Chapter 45, Military Families Speak Out, Mass Peace Action, United for Justice with Peace as we commemorate Memorial Day on Monday May 28, 2012

There will be no parade, no marching band, no military equipment, no guns and drums, no Air Force fly-overs.

There will be veterans and supporters who have lost friends and loved ones. Veterans who know the horrors of war and the pain and anguish of loss. There will be friends and families of soldiers, remembering their loved ones. There will be Iraqi Refugees who have suffered terrible losses and will join with us as we remember and show respect for their loss.

There will be flowers dropped into the harbor for each fallen U.S. soldier from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Flowers will also be also be dropped into the harbor remembering the loss of Iraqi family and friends.

Additional information will follow
as the program is finalized

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

From The “West Coast Port Shutdown” Website-This Is Class War, We Say No More!- Support The Defense Of The Longview, Washington Longshoremen!

Click on the headline to link to the West Coast Port Shutdown website.

Markin comment:

We know that we are only at the very start of an upsurge in the labor movement as witness the stellar exemplary actions by the West Coast activists back on December 12, 2011and the subsequent defense of the longshoremen’s union at Longview, Washington and the beating back of the anti-union drives by the bosses there. As I have pointed out in remarks previously made as part of the Boston solidarity rally with the West Coast Port Shutdown on December 12th this is the way forward as we struggle against the ruling class for a very different, more equitable society.

Not everything has gone as well, or as well-attended, as expected including at our rally in solidarity in Boston on the afternoon of December 12th but we are still exhibiting growing pains in the struggle against the bosses, including plenty of illusions or misunderstandings about who our friends, and our enemies, are. Some of that will get sorted out in the future as we get a better grip of the importance of the labor movement in winning victories in our overall social struggles. May Day can be the start of that new offensive in order to gain our demands
******
An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Labor Movement And Its Allies! Defend All Those Who Defend The Labor Movement! Defend All May Day Protesters Everywhere!

*******
Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
*******
A Five-Point Program As Talking Points

*Jobs For All Now!-“30 For 40”- A historic demand of the labor movement going back to the 1930s Great Depression the last time that unemployment, under-employment, and those who have just plain quit looking for work was this high in the American labor force. Thirty hours work for forty hours pay is a formula to spread the available work around. This is no mere propaganda point but shows the way forward toward a more equitable distribution of available work. Work that would be divided through local representative workers’ councils which would act, in one of its capacities, as a giant hiring hall where the jobs would be parceled out. This would be a simpler task now than when it was when first proposed in the 1930s with the vast increase in modern technology that could fairly accurately, via computers, target jobs that need filling and equitably divide up current work. Without the key capitalist necessity of keeping up the rate of profit the social surplus created by that work could be used to redistribute the available work at the same agreed upon rate rather than go into the capitalists’ pockets. The only catch, a big catch one must admit, is that no capitalist, and no capitalist system, is going to do any such thing as implement “30 for 40” so that it will, in the end, be necessary to fight for and win a workers government to implement this demand.

Organize the unorganized is a demand that cries out for solution today now that the organized sectors of the labor movement, both public and private, in America are at historic lows, just over ten percent of the workforce. Part of the task is to reorganize some of the old industries like the automobile industry, now mainly unorganized as new plants come on line and others are abandoned, which used to provide a massive amount of decent jobs with decent benefits but which now have fallen to globalization and the “race to the bottom” bad times. The other sector that desperately need to be organized is to ratchet up the efforts to organize the service industries, hospitals, hotels, hi-tech, restaurants and the like, that have become a dominant aspect of the American economy.

Organize the South-this low wage area, this consciously low-wage area, where many industries land before heading off-shore to even lower wage places cries out for organizing, especially among black and Hispanic workers who form the bulk of this industrial workforce. A corollary to organizing the South is obviously to organize internationally to keep the “race to the bottom” from continually occurring short of being resolved in favor of an international commonwealth of workers’ governments. Nobody said it was going to be easy.

Organize Wal-Mart- millions of workers, thousands of trucks, hundreds of distribution centers. A victory here would be the springboard to a revitalized organized labor movement just as auto and steel lead the industrial union movements of the 1930s. To give an idea of how hard this task might be though someone once argued that it would be easier to organize a workers’ revolution that organize this giant. Well, that’s a thought.

Defend the right of public and private workers to unionize. Simple-No more Wisconsins, no more attacks on collective bargaining the hallmark of a union contract. No reliance on labor boards, arbitration, or bourgeois recall elections either. Unions must keep their independent from government interference. Period.

Guest Commentary

From The Transitional Program Of The Leon Trotsky-Led Fourth International In 1938Sliding Scale of Wages and Sliding Scale of Hours

Under the conditions of disintegrating capitalism, the masses continue to live the meagerized life of the oppressed, threatened now more than at any other time with the danger of being cast into the pit of pauperism. They must defend their mouthful of bread, if they cannot increase or better it. There is neither the need nor the opportunity to enumerate here those separate, partial demands which time and again arise on the basis of concrete circumstances – national, local, trade union. But two basic economic afflictions, in which is summarized the increasing absurdity of the capitalist system, that is, unemployment and high prices, demand generalized slogans and methods of struggle.

The Fourth International declares uncompromising war on the politics of the capitalists which, to a considerable degree, like the politics of their agents, the reformists, aims to place the whole burden of militarism, the crisis, the disorganization of the monetary system and all other scourges stemming from capitalism’s death agony upon the backs of the toilers. The Fourth International demands employment and decent living conditions for all.

Neither monetary inflation nor stabilization can serve as slogans for the proletariat because these are but two ends of the same stick. Against a bounding rise in prices, which with the approach of war will assume an ever more unbridled character, one can fight only under the slogan of a sliding scale of wages. This means that collective agreements should assure an automatic rise in wages in relation to the increase in price of consumer goods.

Under the menace of its own disintegration, the proletariat cannot permit the transformation of an increasing section of the workers into chronically unemployed paupers, living off the slops of a crumbling society. The right to employment is the only serious right left to the worker in a society based upon exploitation. This right today is left to the worker in a society based upon exploitation. This right today is being shorn from him at every step. Against unemployment, “structural” as well as “conjunctural,” the time is ripe to advance along with the slogan of public works, the slogan of a sliding scale of working hours. Trade unions and other mass organizations should bind the workers and the unemployed together in the solidarity of mutual responsibility. On this basis all the work on hand would then be divided among all existing workers in accordance with how the extent of the working week is defined. The average wage of every worker remains the same as it was under the old working week. Wages, under a strictly guaranteed minimum, would follow the movement of prices. It is impossible to accept any other program for the present catastrophic period.

Property owners and their lawyers will prove the “unrealizability” of these demands. Smaller, especially ruined capitalists, in addition will refer to their account ledgers. The workers categorically denounce such conclusions and references. The question is not one of a “normal” collision between opposing material interests. The question is one of guarding the proletariat from decay, demoralization and ruin. The question is one of life or death of the only creative and progressive class, and by that token of the future of mankind. If capitalism is incapable of satisfying the demands inevitably arising from the calamities generated by itself, then let it perish. “Realizability” or “unrealizability” is in the given instance a question of the relationship of forces, which can be decided only by the struggle. By means of this struggle, no matter what immediate practical successes may be, the workers will best come to understand the necessity of liquidating capitalist slavery.

* Defend the independence of the working classes! No union dues for Democratic (or the stray Republican) candidates. In 2008 labor, organized labor, spent around 450 million dollars trying to elect Barack Obama and other Democrats (mainly). The results speak for themselves. For those bogus efforts the labor skates should have been sent packing long ago. The idea then was (and is, as we come up to another presidential election cycle) that the Democrats (mainly) were “friends of labor.” The past period of cuts-backs, cut-in-the back give backs should put paid to that notion. Although anyone who is politically savvy at all knows that is not true, not true for the labor skates at the top of the movement.

The hard reality is that the labor skates, not used to any form of class struggle or any kind of struggle, know no other way than class-collaboration, arbitration, courts, and every other way to avoid the appearance of strife, strife in defense of the bosses’ profits. The most egregious recent example- the return of the Verizon workers to work after two weeks last summer when they had the company on the run and the subsequent announcement by the company of record profits. That sellout strategy may have worked for the bureaucrats, or rather their “fathers” for a time back in the 1950s “golden age” of labor, but now we are in a very hard and open class war. The rank and file must demand an end to using their precious dues payments period for bourgeois candidates all of whom have turned out to be sworn enemies of labor from Obama on down.

This does not mean not using union dues for political purposes though. On the contrary we need to use them now more than ever in the class battles ahead. Spent the dough on organizing the unorganized, organizing the South, organizing Wal-Mart, and other pro-labor causes. Think, for example, of the dough spent on the successful November, 2011 anti-union recall referendum in Ohio. That type of activity is where labor’s money and other resources should go.

*End the endless wars!- As the so-called draw-down of American and Allied troops in Iraq reaches it final stages, the draw down of non-mercenary forces anyway, we must recognize that we anti-warriors failed, and failed rather spectacularly, to affect that withdrawal after a promising start to our opposition in late 2002 and early 2003 (and a little in 2006). As the endless American-led wars (even if behind the scenes, as in Libya) continue we had better straighten out our anti-war, anti-imperialist front quickly if we are to have any effect on the troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops (And Mercenaries) From Afghanistan! Hands Off Pakistan!

U.S. Hands Off Iran!- American (and world) imperialists are ratcheting up their propaganda war (right now) and increased economic sanctions that are a prelude to war well before the dust has settled on the now unsettled situation in Iraq and well before they have even sniffed at an Afghan withdrawal of any import. We will hold our noses, as we did with the Saddam leadership in Iraq and on other occasions, and call for the defense of Iran against the American imperial monster. A victory for the Americans (and their junior partner, Israel) in Iran is not in the interests of the international working class. Especially here in the “belly of the beast” we are duty-bound to call not just for non-intervention but for defense of Iran. We will, believe me we will, deal with the mullahs, the Revolutionary Guards, and the Islamic fundamentalist in our own way in our own time.


U.S. Hands Off The World!- With the number of “hot spots” that the American imperialists, or one or another of their junior allies, have their hands on in this wicked old world this generic slogan would seem to fill the bill.


Down With The War Budget! Not One Penny, Not One Person For The Wars! Honor World War I German Social-Democratic Party MP, Karl Liebknecht, who did just that. The litmus test for every political candidate must be first opposition to the war budgets (let’s see, right now winding up Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran preparations, China preparations, etc. you get my drift). Then that big leap. The whole damn imperialist military budget. Again, no one said it would be simple. Revolution may be easier that depriving the imperialists of their military money. Well….okay.

*Fight for a social agenda for working people!. Free Quality Healthcare For All! This would be a no-brainer in any rationally based society. The health and welfare of any society’s citizenry is the simple glue that holds that society together. It is no accident that one of the prime concerns of workers states like Cuba, whatever their other political problems, has been to place health care and education front and center and to provide to the best of their capacity for free, quality healthcare and education for all. Even the hide-bound social-democratic-run capitalist governments of Europe have, until recently anyway, placed the “welfare state” protections central to their programs.

Free, quality higher education for all! Nationalize the colleges and universities under student-teacher-campus worker control! One Hundred, Two Hundred, Many Harvards!
This would again be a no-brainer in any rationally based society. The struggle to increase the educational level of a society’s citizenry is another part of the simple glue that holds that society together. Today higher education is being placed out of reach for many working-class and minority families. Hell, it is getting tough for the middle class as well.
Moreover the whole higher educational system is increasing skewed toward those who have better formal preparation and family lives leaving many deserving students in the wilderness. Take the resources of the private institutions and spread them around, throw in hundreds of billions from the government (take from the military budget and the bank bail-out money), get rid of the top heavy and useless college administration apparatuses, mix it up, and let students, teachers, and campus workers run the thing through councils on a democratic basis.

Forgive student debt! The latest reports indicate that college student debt is something like a trillion dollars, give or take a few billion but who is counting. The price of tuition and expenses has gone up dramatically while services have not kept pace. What has happened is that the future highly educated workforce that a modern society, and certainly a socialist society, desperately needs is going to be cast in some form of indentured servitude to the banks or other lending agencies for much of their young working lives. Let the banks take a “hit” for a change!

Stop housing foreclosures now! Hey, everybody, everywhere in the world not just in America should have a safe, clean roof over their heads. Hell, even a single family home that is part of the “American dream,” if that is what they want. We didn’t make the housing crisis in America (or elsewhere, like in Ireland, where the bubble has also burst). The banks did. Their predatory lending practices and slip-shot application processes were out of control. Let them take the “hit” here as well.

*We created the wealth, let’s take it back. Karl Marx was right way back in the 19th century on his labor theory of value, the workers do produce the social surplus appropriated by the capitalists. Capitalism tends to immiserate the mass of society for the few. Most importantly capitalism, a system that at one time was historically progressive in the fight against feudalism and other ancient forms of production, has turned into its opposite and now is a fetter on production. The current multiple crises spawned by this system show there is no way forward, except that unless we push them out, push them out fast, they will muddle through, again.

Take the struggle for our daily bread off the historic agenda. Socialism is the only serious answer to the human crisis we face economically, socially, culturally and politically. This socialist system is the only one calculated to take one of the great tragedies of life, the struggle for daily survival in a world that we did not create, and replace it with more co-operative human endeavors.

Build a workers party that fights for a workers government to unite all the oppressed. None of the nice things mentioned above can be accomplished without as serious struggle for political power. We need to struggle for an independent working-class-centered political party that we can call our own and where our leaders act as “tribunes of the people” not hacks. The creation of that workers party, however, will get us nowhere unless it fights for a workers government to begin the transition to the next level of human progress on a world-wide scale.

Emblazon on our red banner-Labor and the oppressed must rule!

Guest Commentary from the IWW (Industrial Workers Of The World, Wobblies) website http://www.iww.org/en/culture/official/preamble.shtml


Preamble to the IWW Constitution (1905)

Posted Sun, 05/01/2005 - 8:34am by IWW.org Editor

The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of the working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life.

Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the means of production, abolish the wage system, and live in harmony with the Earth.

We find that the centering of the management of industries into fewer and fewer hands makes the trade unions unable to cope with the ever growing power of the employing class. The trade unions foster a state of affairs which allows one set of workers to be pitted against another set of workers in the same industry, thereby helping defeat one another in wage wars. Moreover, the trade unions aid the employing class to mislead the workers into the belief that the working class have interests in common with their employers.

These conditions can be changed and the interest of the working class upheld only by an organization formed in such a way that all its members in any one industry, or in all industries if necessary, cease work whenever a strike or lockout is on in any department thereof, thus making an injury to one an injury to all.

Instead of the conservative motto, "A fair day's wage for a fair day's work," we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, "Abolition of the wage system."

It is the historic mission of the working class to do away with capitalism. The army of production must be organized, not only for everyday struggle with capitalists, but also to carry on production when capitalism shall have been overthrown. By organizing industrially we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old.

The Latest From The United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC) Website- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops, Mercenaries, Contractors, Etc, From Afghanistan! Hands Off Iran!-Protest NATO In Chicago May 20th

Click on the headline to link to the United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC) Website for more information about various anti-war, anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist actions around the country.

Markin comment:

Every once in a while it is necessary, if for not other reason than to proclaim from the public square that we are alive, and fighting, to show “the colors,” our anti-war colors. While, as I have mentioned many times in this space, endless marches are not going to end any war the street opposition to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as protests against other imperialist adventures has been under the radar of late. It is time for anti-warriors to get back where we belong in the struggle against Obama’s wars. The UNAC appears to be the umbrella clearing house these days for many anti-war, anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist actions. Not all the demands of this coalition are ones that I would raise but the key one is enough to take to the streets. Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops, Mercenaries, Contractors, Etc, From Afghanistan and Iraq!

BostonUNAC.org | 781-285-8622 | BostonUNAC(S)gmail.com

Let’s Redouble Our Efforts To Save Private Bradley Manning-Make Every Town Square A Bradley Manning Square From Boston To Berkeley

Click on the headline to link to a the Private Bradley Manning Petition website page.

Markin comment:

The Private Bradley Manning case is headed toward a fall trial. Those of us who support his cause should redouble our efforts to secure his freedom. For the past several months there has been a weekly vigil in Greater Boston across from the Davis Square Redline MBTA stop (renamed Bradley Manning Square for the vigil’s duration) in Somerville from 1:00-2:00 PM on Fridays. This vigil has, to say the least, been very sparsely attended. We need to build it up with more supporters present. Please join us when you can. Or better yet if you can’t join us start a Support Bradley Manning weekly vigil in some location in your town whether it is in the Boston area or Berkeley. And please sign the petition for his release. I have placed links to the Manning Network and Manning Square website below.

Bradley Manning Support Network

http://www.bradleymanning.org/

Manning Square website

http://freemanz.com/2012/01/20/somerville_paper_photo-bradmanningsquare/bradleymanningsquare-2011_01_13/

The following are remarks that I have been focusing on of late to build support for Bradley Manning’s cause.

Veterans for Peace proudly stands in solidarity with, and defense of, Private Bradley Manning.

We of the anti-war movement were not able to do much to affect the Bush- Obama Iraq War timetable but we can save the one hero of that war, Bradley Manning.

I stand in solidarity with the alleged actions of Private Bradley Manning in bringing to light, just a little light, some of the nefarious war-related doings of this government, under Bush and Obama. If he did such acts they are no crime. No crime at all in my eyes or in the eyes of the vast majority of people who know of the case and of its importance as an individual act of resistance to the unjust and barbaric American-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I sleep just a shade bit easier these days knowing that Private Manning may have exposed what we all knew, or should have known- the Iraq war and the Afghan war justifications rested on a house of cards. American imperialism’s gun-toting house of cards, but cards nevertheless.

I am standing in solidarity with Private Bradley Manning because I am outraged by the treatment meted out to Private Manning, presumably an innocent man, by a government who alleges itself to be some “beacon” of the civilized world. Bradley Manning had been held in solidarity at Quantico and other locales for over 500 days, and has been held without trial for much longer, as the government and its military try to glue a case together. The military, and its henchmen in the Justice Department, have gotten more devious although not smarter since I was a soldier in their crosshairs over forty years ago.

These are more than sufficient reasons to stand in solidarity with Private Manning and will be until the day he is freed by his jailers. And I will continue to stand in proud solidarity with Private Manning until that great day.

Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal of All U.S./Allied Troops And Mercenaries From Afghanistan! Hands Off Iran! Free Bradley Manning Now!

************
"God knows what happens now. Hopefully worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms...

I want people to see the truth... because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public."

—online chat attributed to Army RFC Bradley Manning

Accused Wikileaks Whistleblower Bradley Manning,

a 23-year-old US Army intelligence analyst, is accused of sharing a video of the killing of civilians— including two Reuters journalists—by a US helicopter in Baghdad, Iraq with the Wikileaks website.

He is also charged with blowing the whistle on the Afghan War Diary, the Iraq War Logs, and revealing US diplomatic cables. In short, he's been charged with telling us the truth.

The video and documents have illuminated the true number and cause of civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, human rights abuses by U.S.-funded contractors and foreign militaries, and the role that spying and brines play in international diplomacy.

Half of every edition of The New York Times has cited one or more of these documents during the past year. The leaks have caused Amnesty International to hail Wikileaks for catalyzing the democratic middle eastern revolutions and changing journalism forever.

What happens now is up to YOU!

Never before in U.S. history has someone been charged with "Aiding the enemy through indirect means" by making information public.

A massive; popular outpouring of support for Bradley Manning is needed to save his life.

We are at a turning point in our nation's history. Will we as a public demand greater transparency and accountability from pur elected leaders? Will we be governed by fear and secrecy? Will we accept endless war fought with our tax dollars? Or, will we demand the right to know the truth—the real foundation of democracy.

Here are some actions you should take now to support Bradley:

» Visitwww.standwithbrad.org to sign the petition. Then join our photo petition at iam.bradleymanning.org

» Join our facebook page, savebradley,
to receive campaign updates, and follow SaveBradley on twitter

» Visitwww.bradleymanning.org and
download our Organizer Toolkit to learn howyou can educate community members, gain media attention, and donate toward Bradley's defense.

The People Have the Right to Know...

Visit wvwv.braclleymaiiniiig.org to learn howyou can take action!

************
What did WikiLeaks reveal?
.
"In no case shall information be classified... in order to: conceal violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error; prevent embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency... or prevent or delay the release of information that does not require protection in the interest of the national security."

—Executive Order 13526, Sec. 7.7. Classification Prohibitions and Limitations

"Is this embarrassing? Yes. Is this awkward? Yes. Consequences for U.S. foreign policy? I think fairly modest."

—Robert Gates, Unites States Secretary of Defense

PFC Bradley Manning is a US Army intelligence specialist who is accused of releasing classified information to WikiLeaks, an organization that he allegedly understood would release portions of the information to news organizations and ultimately to the public.

Was the information that PFC Manning is accused of leaking classified for our protection and national security, as government officials contend? Or do the revelations provide the American public with information that we should have had access to in the first place? Just

what are these revelations? Below are some key facts that PFC Manning is accused of making public.

There is an official policy to ignore torture in Iraq.

The "Iraq War Logs" published by WikiLeaks revealed that thousands of reports of prisoner abuse and torture had been filed against the Iraqi Security Forces. Medical evidence detailed how prisoners had been whipped with heavy cables across the feet, hung from ceiling hooks, suffered holes being bored into their legs with electric drills, urinated upon, and sexually assaulted. These logs also revealed the existence of "Frago 242,"an order implemented in 2004 not to investigate allegations of abuse against the. Iraqi government This order is a direct violation of the UN Convention Against Torture, which was ratified by the United States in 1994. The Convention prohibits the Armed Forces from transferring a detainee to other countries "where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture." According to the State Department's own reports, the U.S. government was already aware that the Iraqi Security Forces engaged in torture (1).

U.S. officials were told to cover up evidence of child abuse by contractors in Afghanistan.

U.S. defense contractors were brought under much tighter supervision after leaked diplomatic cables revealed that they had been complicit in child trafficking activities. DynCorp — a powerful defense contracting firm that claims almost $2 billion per year in revenue from U.S. tax dollars — threw a party for Afghan security recruits featuring boys purchased from child traffickers for entertainment. DynCorp had already faced human trafficking charges before this incident took place. According to the cables, Afghan Interior minister HanifAtmar urged the assistant US ambassadorto"quash"the story.These revelations have been a driving factor behind recent calls for the removal of all U.S. defense contractors from Afghanistan (2).

Guantanamo prison has held mostly innocent people and low-level operatives.

The Guantanamo Files describe how detainees were arrested based on what the New York Times referred to as highly subjective evidence. For example, some poor farmers were captured after they were found wearing a common watch or a jacket that was the same as those also worn by Al Queda operatives. How quickly innocent prisoners were released was heavily dependent on their country of origin. Because the evidence collected against Guantanamo prisoners is not permissible in U.S. courts, the U.S. State Department has offered millions of dollars to other countries to take and try our prisoners. According to a U.S. diplomatic cable written on April 17, 2009, the Association for the Dignity of Spanish Prisoners requested that the National Court indict six former U.S. officials for creating a legal framework that allegedly permitted torture against five Spanish prisoners. However,"Senator Mel Martinez... met Acting FM [Foreign Minister] AngelLossada... on April 15. Martinez... -underscored that the prosecutions would not be understood or accepted in the U.S. and would have an enormous impact on the bilateral relationship"(3).

There is an official tally of civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Even though the Bush and Obama Administrations maintained publicly that there was no official count of civilian casualties, the Iraq and Afghanistan War Logs showed that this claim was false. Between 2004 and 2009, the U.S. government counted a total of 109,000 deaths in Iraq, with 66,081 classified as non-combatants. This means that for every Iraqi death that is classified as a combatant, two innocent men, women or children are also killed (4),

FOOTNOTES:

(1)Alex Spillius, "Wikileaks: Iraq War Logs show US ignored torture allega-
tions,"Telegraph, October 22,2010. http://www.telegrapti.co.uk/news/
woridnews/middleeast/iraq/8082223/WiMleab-lraq-War-Logs-show-US-
ignored-torture-allegations.html.

(2)foreign contractors hired Afghan 'dancing boys; WikiLeaks cable
reveals'guanJian.co.uk, December 2,2010, http://www.guardian.co.tik/
world/2010/dec/02/foreign-contractors-hired-dancing-boys

(3) Scott Shane and Benjamin Weiser.The Guatanamo Files: Judging De­tainees'Risk, Often With Rawed Evidence'New York Times, April 24,2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/2S/world/guantanamo-files-flawed-evidence-for-assessing-risk.html;'US embassy cables: Don't pursue Guantanamo criminal case, says Spanish attorney general'guardian.co.uk, December 1,2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/202776.

(4) Iraq War Logs Reveal 15,000 Previously Unlisted Civilian Deaths,' guard-ian.co.uk, October 22,2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/won'd/2010/ oct/22/true-civilian-body-count-iraq

PROTEST THE NATO/G8-May 20, 2012-Chicago

PROTEST THE NATO/G8-May 20, 2012-Chicago

Join Jesse Jackson, SEIU local,Health Care Illinois/Indiana (HCil),UNAC, Chicago Teachers Union, Kathy Kelly of Voices for Creative Nonviolence, National Nurses Union, United Electrical workers Western Region, Malik Mujahid of the Muslim Peace Co­alition, the Fellowship of Recon­ciliation, Veterans for Peace, Glen Ford of Black Agenda Report, Derrick O'Keefe of the Canadian Peace Alliance, Reiner Braun of the European No to NATO, No to War network and many others in Chicago to oppose the NATO and G8 war and poverty agenda.

At the invitation of the White House, the 28-nation US-commanded and largely US-financed North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is meeting in Chicago, May 20-21,2012. The G8 world economic powers, originally planned to also meet the same week in Chicago, are now meeting at Camp David.

The NATO generals and G8 heads of state and finance ministers are the team that is imposing austerity on the working people of the world in the interest of expanding profits. In many places, economic "reform" is enforced at the point of a gun - by drones, armies, and police.

In May, those of us struggling against the tyranny of the banks and the corporate elite, those of us fighting against job loss, foreclosure, cuts to education, and the restriction of our democratic rights, will march in Chicago. The authorities hope to deny us our constitutional right to legally and peacefully protest. We have begun a campaign to win back our democratic right to mobilize tens of thousands who will stand in solidarity with all those fighting U.S.-backed austerity drives and war around the globe.

Join us for a Mass demonstration on Sunday, May 20, the opening day of the NATO summit 9 am, march with veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan war who will return their medals to NATO. Noon, join the mass march and rally against the NATO and G8 war and poverty agenda. Noon rally at Petrillo Band-shell (corner of Jackson and Coumbus), then march to Mc-Cormick Place. Speakers will include: Jesse Jackson, Malalai Joya, Reiner Braun, Kathy Kelly, Vijay Prashad - author of Arab Spring, Libyan Winter, and more™

People's Summit

Saturday, May I2 and Sunday May 13 at Occupy Chicago.
There will be plenary and work­shop sessions and panels.
Speakers will include: Malalai
Joya, Keiaer Braun, Malik Muja-
Md, Kathy Eelly, Col. Ann Wright,
Medea Benjamin, a message from
Mumia Abu Jamal, and more*

Coalition Against NATO/G8 War & Poverty Agenda

www.cang8.org

Stop Violence Against Women!-Please go online and sign the pledge supporting Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) Reauthorization.

Stop Violence Against Women!
Please go online and sign the pledge supporting Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) Reauthorization.

http://www.change.org/petitions/us-congress-10-000-men-supporting-the-violence-against-women-act

All are encouraged to sign, especially
men. Please post the petition on

Facebook and other sites.
Thanks so much! - Ben Atherton-Zeman, www.voicesofmen.org ©

From The Smedley Butler Brigade-Veterans For Peace- In Boston- Memorial Day for Peace-May 28, 2012, 1:00 - 3:00 pm

Click on the headline to link to the Smedley Butler Brigade VFP Facebook page.

Memorial Day for Peace
May 28, 2012, 1:00 - 3:00 pm
Christopher Columbus Park
Boston, Massachusetts
Please join us

Please join Veterans For Peace, Smedley Butler Brigade, Chapter 9 and Samantha Smith, Chapter 45, Military Families Speak Out, Mass Peace Action, United for Justice with Peace as we commemorate Memorial Day on Monday May 28, 2012

There will be no parade, no marching band, no military equipment, no guns and drums, no Air Force fly-overs.

There will be veterans and supporters who have lost friends and loved ones. Veterans who know the horrors of war and the pain and anguish of loss. There will be friends and families of soldiers, remembering their loved ones. There will be Iraqi Refugees who have suffered terrible losses and will join with us as we remember and show respect for their loss.

There will be flowers dropped into the harbor for each fallen U.S. soldier from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Flowers will also be also be dropped into the harbor remembering the loss of Iraqi family and friends.

Additional information will follow
as the program is finalized

Smedley Butler Chapter -Veterans For Peace endorses (and has become part of )the Stop The BU Bio Terror Lab Coalition

Click on headline to link to the Stop The BioTerror Lab Coalition website.

Smedley Butler Chapter -Veterans For Peace endorses (and has become part of )the Stop The BU Bio Terror Lab Coalition(motion passed at May 14, 2012). Mor einforamtion/actions to follow as this issue progresses. Posted by Al Johnson

The following is background FYI:

Pat and the Executive Council,

I tend to get carried away when I am preparing a message. I am sending this as background for your consideration as to asking Smedley to work in solidarity with Klare.

Klare Allen, of Stop the BU Bio Terror Lab Coalition and Roxbury Safety Net fame, would like to invite VFP presence at an as yet unscheduled organizers meeting to organize a rally of people opposed to the lab. The demand will be to ask Deval/State and the Mayor what they are waiting for before simply banning Level 3 and Level 4 labs in the City of Boston. It is amazing that it has been ten years already that this charade has been going on. In Klare's words: "The government thought someone was making weapons of Mass destruction. We sent hundreds of thousand of our children to fight for their country who came back in coffins, dismantled, unemployed and homeless for weapons of mass destruction? Now the US, in our face, want to create possible weapons of mass destruction!! Then our kids died for WHAT!!!!.
People should be making the connection between the BU biolab and the "war" both mentally and visually. I can't do it but the Vets can. Have the vets think about how they want to talk about the connection and what they've faced already due to weapons of mass destruction. This is my reason for asking our vets to get involved. We'd like to know if they will join us in solidarity in GETTING OUR MESSAGES ACROSS!!!!"

A "simple" summary for background collected by Alice: For almost ten years, the Safety Net (a Roxbury-based community group) and the Stop the BU Bio terror Lab Coalition have successfully fought to prevent this dangerous high containment biological laboratory from being opened in the densely populated Roxbury/South End neighborhood. High-level containment laboratories do research on pathogens that can cause severe illness and death. The highest level (BSL-4) labs study lethal diseases that can be transmitted by air and for which there are no vaccines or treatments. The lab is located in an Environmental Justice neighborhood which already faces significant health and environmental hazards.

Three previous risk assessments have been severely criticized by the courts and by a National Research Council panel of experts.

The short answer to why it has taken ten years is that the Mayor told us "it is a done deal." Politics is politics, or you can't fight City Hall?
One of Ted Kennedy's last gifts to Massachusetts was this "defense" plum. A contract from the Defense Department and Homeland Security. BU had kept silent a lab outbreak until Menino had designated that institution as winner. In fact if it had not been for a whistleblower, we would never have known something had gone wrong in BU's lab. When an official from DC spoke over a tele-connection to a federal courtroom, the judge asked about the heavily redacted-blacked out parts of the proposal. An arrogant voice said in essence-it is national security and none of your business. The judge, to her eternal credit, said well, I do not put my OK to any court case unless I feel I am doing the right thing. You will have to provide a risk assessment that will prove to me that this lab is safe for Boston or you will have simply built an expensive Level 1 and 2 lab. So far we are wining in the courts.

The current political reality is not on the side of the people. When Chuck Turner asked this high powered Blue Ribbon panel where the statistics that related to Boston were for this assessment, he received the incredulous reply that the Blue Ribbon Panel of Experts, were not convened to address risks for Boston but to sell you people on the safety of Level 4 research. That is public record. Unless it was edited, of course. A short list of the happenings that still shadow the proceedings include:
transfer of land before a mandated risk assessment was done

BU whistleblower pointed out BU's sloppy work and unreported accident

highly redacted Defense Dept paid for proposal

court cases

NIH and Blue Ribbon non-communication

Menino -done deal don't talk to me

media lies and distortions

hamstrung City Council afraid of Mayor

this area is an Environmental Justice neighborhood and never qualified for
consideration

the issue of racial injustice

no attempt was made to find a different location risks transporting the pathogens.

UJP members were talking about direct action,

support for a move to confront Menino with an Occupy City Hall action.

VFP represents the voice of integrity and trust to many people. Klare Allen personally asked me to approach the Smedley Brigade of VFP and is looking forward to hearing from you. All this message is "according to the understanding of Alice" and I am no expert so don't hold her to anything I have said.

And thank you for considering this sincerely, Alice K.