From The American Left History Blog Archives (2007) - On American Political Discourse- On Joseph Stalin  

Markin comment:

In the period 2006-2008 I, in vain, attempted to put some energy into analyzing the blossoming American presidential campaign since it was to be, as advertised at least, a watershed election, for women, blacks, old white anglos, latinos, youth, etc. In the event I had to abandon the efforts in about May of 2008 when it became obvious, in my face obvious, that the election would be a watershed only for those who really believed that it would be a watershed election. The four years of the Obama presidency, the 2012 American presidential election campaign, and world politics have only confirmed in my eyes that that abandonment was essentially the right decision at the right time. In short, let the well- paid bourgeois commentators go on and on with their twitter. I, we, had (have) better things to do like fighting against the permanent wars, the permanent war economies, the struggle for more and better jobs, and for a workers party that fights for a workers government . More than enough to do, right? Still a look back at some of the stuff I wrote then does not a bad feel to it. Read on.

************

On Joseph Stalin

An October 5, 2007 Associated Press news item out of Moscow concerning discovery of some long buried bodies that had been shot caught my eye. It seems that some workers on a reconstruction site in that city have unearthed a few dozen bodies buried since the 1930’s, many of them showing signs of having been shot in the head. The newsworthy point is that this building was adjacent to the infamous KGB headquarters at the Lubiyanka Prison, site of many political executions during the time of the Stalinist reign of terror at that time. The unearthed bodies are presumed victims of those purges. It brought to my mind that this is the 70^th Anniversary of the height of that madness. This is hardly an anniversary occasion for celebration, except for those few unreconstructed Stalinists who are muttering in their mush about Trotskyite conspiracies, agents of Hitler and the Mikado and other such babble. It is an appropriate time, however, to make a few comments about what all that evil time meant politically and on the destructive nature of Stalinism as the ‘face ‘of socialism that still has ramifications for the international working class these many years later.

Many years  ago I read British historian Robert Conquest’ s study The Great Terror that vividly describes the arbitrariness of the prosecutions and executions, their extent and the chilling atmosphere on the political life, such as it was, of the times. The book is still worthwhile reading with the following caution in order to get a partial flavor of the bleakness of the times and the extent of the political freeze placed on Russian society. Conquest had his own axe to grind and was using his study as prima facie evidence that Stalinist ‘socialism in one country’ was a retrograde step in the fight for human progress. He thus comfortably took his place as an active anti-communist agent on behalf of Western imperialism. Alas, he was not alone in such endeavors.  A virtual cottage industry grew up around that premise, especially at the height of the Cold War in the 1950’s and especially by the ‘god that failed’ crowd. I would only add that anti-Stalinist, pro-communist militants, led during the 1930’s by the Bolshevik revolutionary Leon Trotsky and others, did,  and today can, quote chapter and verse  the crimes, high and low, of Stalinism with the best of the anti-communist cottage artisans. The difference, and no small matter, is that we did not ‘outsource’ this fight to international imperialism.   

One cannot mention the Stalinist purges without mentioning the name of Leon Trotsky, a central figure in this drama. Yes, there was a general mopping up of any and all previous political oppositions, including a significant number of former Stalinist factionists (particularly from the so-called “Congress of Victors” of 1934). Yes, anyone conceivably political, or who knew anyone conceivably political, or who just ran afoul of the KGB was rounded up. And beyond that anyone who, for the most bizarre and arbitrary reasons, including wrong nationality was suspect. But in the end it was the three well-known political trials that not only captured the headlines but can serve today as an explanation for the rationale, if that is the word, of those events. And at the center was the hated figure of Trotsky, who also faced the Stalinist executioner’s blade later. I might add that the vaunted Western press of the times, notably in America, the New York Times and the liberal Nation magazine took the accusations at the trials as good coin. They were more than willing to give Vyshinsky a prosecutorial good conduct certificate.  Of course, those were the ‘popular front against fascism days’ of blessed liberal memory and they were all good fellows and true- Stalinists included. Oh well, the names change but some things never change.

Let us be clear Zinoviev, Kamenev, Radek, Rykov, Bukharin and the other lesser prisoners in the dock for the most part were at that time political opponents of Trotsky’s who, for the most part, had capitulated more than once to Stalin. But they were also the core of the Bolshevik Party that made the revolution in 1917. To suspect that cadre who had spent their whole lives in the service of the revolution to have really spent that time trying to destroy the revolution defies description. Even the editors of the Nation, in their more lucid moments, should have been able to fathom that. But here is the point- these may not have been our people, but they were our people. It may be not be important today to most people but these were in no need of good conduct certifications by a later generation of Stalinists, like Khrushchev and Gorbachev. Particularly not Trotsky, who fought Stalinism to the end.

During much of the Cold War the ‘face’ of Stalinism to the Western public was the Gulags, the labor concentration camps. To those of us with a greater political focus the ‘face’ of Stalinism was the purge trials and political murders. Under either impression we are very, very far away from the promises held out by the socialist vision. The sad political fact is, however, that Stalinism was never politically defeated by anti-Stalinist, pro-socialist militants. Rather the demise of the Soviet Union and the other Eastern European states run by Stalinist bureaucracies imploded. The various causes of that implosion are beyond the scope of what I want to comment on here. However, we have, and we continue to pay a huge political price for the fact that we were unable to do that political task of politically defeating Stalinism. As a result the general political consciousness of the vast majority of the international working class has turned against socialism as a solution to the pressing human problems of the day. In short, we have been left with the Promethean task of putting socialism as a societal solution back on the agenda. If there is one more reason to hate the Stalinist betrayal of socialism that, my friends, says it in a nutshell.  

From The American Left History Blog Archives (2007) - On American Political Discourse  

Markin comment:

In the period 2006-2008 I, in vain, attempted to put some energy into analyzing the blossoming American presidential campaign since it was to be, as advertised at least, a watershed election, for women, blacks, old white anglos, latinos, youth, etc. In the event I had to abandon the efforts in about May of 2008 when it became obvious, in my face obvious, that the election would be a watershed only for those who really believed that it would be a watershed election. The four years of the Obama presidency, the 2012 American presidential election campaign, and world politics have only confirmed in my eyes that that abandonment was essentially the right decision at the right time. In short, let the well- paid bourgeois commentators go on and on with their twitter. I, we, had (have) better things to do like fighting against the permanent wars, the permanent war economies, the struggle for more and better jobs, and for a workers party that fights for a workers government . More than enough to do, right? Still a look back at some of the stuff I wrote then does not a bad feel to it. Read on.

************
Stalinist Bric-a-Brac

On more than one occasion in the recent past I have had to reflect on the devilish harm that Stalinism has done, and still does, to the international working class movement. Here I am not just reflecting on the political gangsterism, the labor camps, the freezing of political life in the Soviet Union and elsewhere where Stalinists had influence. Those things certainly occurred under various Stalinist regimes but I refer here to the underlying crime, from a political perspective, of the conscious effort on the part of those regimes and parties to act as a road block to an international socialist society-the only way out of the crisis facing humankind in the age of international imperialism. The net result is that the fight for socialism has been pushed back, way back, and our fight is infinitely harder than it was at the start of the last century. With that in mind here are a couple of random comments on Stalin and Stalinism.

I have been recently reading Young Stalin by Simon Sebag Montefiore (Knopf, New York, 2007), which I will review more fully later, about the early years of this much misunderstood figure in world socialist history. Misunderstood? Yes. I have long argued that the Bolshevik revolutionary Leon Trotsky, among others including myself, never took the full measure of this foe. That lack showed itself in Trotsky’s writings on Stalinism placing it as simply a counter-posed reformist trend, like post World War I social democracy, in the international workers movement. Further evidence can be found in his sense that Stalin was, in the end, merely a rather vicious representative of another reformist trend in the movement. I confess that I also have shared those same misunderstanding even at the times when I was very close ideologically to Stalinism (especially my infatuation with the ‘third period’ Stalinism of the early 1930’s).

Here is what has always perplexed me about the figure of Stalin. How did a professed follower of Marx, a Bolshevik revolutionary of some merit and ability who faced all the usual exiles and other hardships that Lenin, Trotsky and others faced under Czarism and one presumably committed to a socialist future turn all of those ideas on their heads in the process of creating what in the end was a weak national variant of ‘socialism’. The book under review delves into some of those points concerning Stalin’s personality and his not unique combination of mafia don and committed revolutionary we have found in the history of revolutionary movements. A closer look at his time at the Tiflis Russian Orthodox Seminary, seemingly a training school for atheists and revolutionaries perhaps will shed some light. Thus far in my reading though, although  Montefiore uses  recent sources opened up in various Soviet archives, most of the material about Stalin/Koba’s youth were things known to me through Trotsky’s and other writings. I will just pose the question here for now with the same quizzical feeling that I started with long ago.    I am definitely looking for comments on this issue.       

Welcome Home, Gorby

Recent news, reported by the Associated Press, out of Moscow is that former Soviet Premier and General Secretary of the All Russian Communist Party Mikhail Gorbachev has been elected to lead the Russian Union of Social Democrats. Well, the chickens have finally come home to roost. After doing everything in his power to hand back East Germany to the German imperialists Gorbachev  then did everything in his power to hand back the then Soviet Union to international imperialism. His milk toast theory that somehow ‘market socialism’ would save the Soviet economy rather than a necessary extensive international socialist centralized planning helped grease the skids. Yes, we  were all glad for any opening of the political scene in the last period before the demise  but in the end this combination of economic reform and de-icing of the political scene proved too little too late along the Stalinist path.

And that is exactly the point. These Stalinist bureaucrats, and third generation Soviet bureaucrats at that, could only envision some kind of social-democratic merging of the Soviet economy with Western ‘social’ capitalism. Well we know that all those convergence theories, no matter how appealing for public consumption, were houses of cards.  Christ, in the end they could not even envision saving their own hides.

When the deal went down, as Lenin and all serious Bolsheviks knew, over the long haul either socialism or imperialism had to win. We have reaped the sorrows of that defeat for the international working class.  

 

Leon Trotsky once called Stalinists Mensheviks (Social Democrats) of the second mobilization. That is, as the revolutionary energy of the Russian Revolution ebbed and the Stalinists usurped power and changed the purposes for which the Soviet Union was created their political positions resembled the old Menshevik (and post World War I  European social democratic)  positions of limiting the fight for socialism to some far away future.  I have long argued that Stalinism without state power is just another garden variety reformist façade. As an example, in America, where the Communist Party was historically weak, it was hard to tell the difference between them and an average Democrat, except for the goon squads they brought into play when they wanted to protect the ‘liberals’ from those to their left.  And that, my friends, is why Gorby’s new post is an appropriate place for him. As for us- we fight for new Octobers.           

 

From The American Left History Blog Archives (2007) - On American Political Discourse  

Markin comment:

In the period 2006-2008 I, in vain, attempted to put some energy into analyzing the blossoming American presidential campaign since it was to be, as advertised at least, a watershed election, for women, blacks, old white anglos, latinos, youth, etc. In the event I had to abandon the efforts in about May of 2008 when it became obvious, in my face obvious, that the election would be a watershed only for those who really believed that it would be a watershed election. The four years of the Obama presidency, the 2012 American presidential election campaign, and world politics have only confirmed in my eyes that that abandonment was essentially the right decision at the right time. In short, let the well- paid bourgeois commentators go on and on with their twitter. I, we, had (have) better things to do like fighting against the permanent wars, the permanent war economies, the struggle for more and better jobs, and for a workers party that fights for a workers government . More than enough to do, right? Still a look back at some of the stuff I wrote then does not a bad feel to it. Read on.

************
Hands off Cuba

Commentary

Defend the Cuban Revolution

One cannot deny that the American bourgeoisie has had a long memory in regard to their defeat in Cuba by the upstart Castro guerilla army and then the longevity of his regime. Some things, like democratic rights, they forget in flash if it suits their purposes but taking a beating from their ‘inferiors’ rankles like hell. The capitalists, at least sections of them, aided by the ‘gusano’ exiles in Miami and elsewhere who refuse to move on, salivate at the prospect of bringing that little ‘off shore luxury resort’ back within the grasp of their dirty little imperialist hands. And they believe that time is on their side as the aging, ailing Castro gets set to meet his maker. The periodic ‘dancing in the streets’ at any news on Castro’s health (or no news) in Miami bears witness to that idea. They can hardly wait to ‘liberate’ Cuba.

No one over the last period has been more in a frenzy over that possibility that the current American president. Time after time in the face of strong international pressure to the contrary he has tightened the screws on Cuba whenever possible, extending the embargoes and cutting communications between Cuban here and there. But not to worry. Although Bush will not lift a finger to deal with Cuba now (including refusal of Cuban medical aid during the Hurricane Katrina crisis) he has a ‘plan’ for the post-Castro period. In a recent pronouncement before the State Department he called for setting up a ‘‘freedom fund” to aid in the restoration of capitalist rule in Cuba after Fidel’s demise. We know from Poland, the Soviet Union and elsewhere what such ‘freedom funds’ are used for-counter revolution. It is hard to say at this point what the post Castro future looks like but rest assured we will fight those who offer the freedom funds tooth and nail to save the gains of the Cuban Revolution. And I might add that the Cuban people might just have a little to say about the issue. They are not likely to warmly greet their ‘liberators’ any more than the people of Iraq did when America came calling. Remember the Bay of Pigs.  Hands Off Cuba! Defend the Cuban Revolution! End the Embargoes!         

 

From The American Left History Blog Archives (2007) - On American Political Discourse  

Markin comment:

In the period 2006-2008 I, in vain, attempted to put some energy into analyzing the blossoming American presidential campaign since it was to be, as advertised at least, a watershed election, for women, blacks, old white anglos, latinos, youth, etc. In the event I had to abandon the efforts in about May of 2008 when it became obvious, in my face obvious, that the election would be a watershed only for those who really believed that it would be a watershed election. The four years of the Obama presidency, the 2012 American presidential election campaign, and world politics have only confirmed in my eyes that that abandonment was essentially the right decision at the right time. In short, let the well- paid bourgeois commentators go on and on with their twitter. I, we, had (have) better things to do like fighting against the permanent wars, the permanent war economies, the struggle for more and better jobs, and for a workers party that fights for a workers government . More than enough to do, right? Still a look back at some of the stuff I wrote then does not a bad feel to it. Read on.

************

THE CULTURE WARS- PART 247-WOODSTOCK 2007

COMMENTARY

As a political writer who stands well outside the traditional political parties in this country I do not generally comment on specific politicians or candidates, unless they make themselves into moving target. Come on now, this politics after all how can I justify not taking a poke at someone who has a sign on his chest saying –Hit Me. Lately Republican presidential hopeful Arizona Senator John McCain has fallen all over himself to meet that requirement.

And what is the fuss about. Studied differences about how to withdraw from Iraq?  No. Finding ways to rein in the out of control budgets deficits? No. A user friendly universal health care program? No. What has sent the good Senator into spasms is a little one million dollar funding proposal (since killed in the Senate) that would have partially funded a museum at Woodstock, site of the famous 1969 counter-cultural festival. His view is that the federal government should not be funding projects that commemorate drug, sex and rock and roll. Well so be it. However, the topper is this. In order to sharply draw the cultural war line in the sand he mentioned (just in passing, I’m sure) to the Republican audience that he was speaking to that he did not attend that event as he was ‘tied up’ elsewhere.

Unlike his draft dodging fellows, like Bush Cheney, Wolfowitz, et. al in the Bush Administration McCain saw action in Vietnam. Of course that action was as a naval pilot whose job it was to attempt to bomb North Vietnam back into the Stone Age, a task in which they very nearly succeeded. Through the fortunes of war he was shot down and spent several years in a POW camp. That comes with the territory. In the summer of 1969 this writer also had other commitments. He was under orders to report to Fort Lewis, Washington in order to head to Vietnam as a foot soldier. That too comes with the territory. The point is why rain on someone else’s parade just because you want to be a hero. Moreover, it is somewhat less than candid to almost forty years later belly ache about it.

A note on Woodstock as an icon of the 1960’s.   The slogan- Drugs, sex, and rock and roll. We liked that idea then, even those of us who were rank and file soldiers.  Not everyone made it. Some recoiled in horror later, including some of those today on the right wing of the culture wars. And others who did not inhale or hang around with people who did.  Those experiments and others like communal living, alternative lifestyles and ‘dropping out’ were part of the price we felt we had to pay if we were going to be free. And creative. Even the most political among us felt those cultural winds and counted those who espoused this vision as part of the chosen. Those who believed that we could have a far-reaching positive cultural change without a fundamental political change in society proved to be wrong long ago. But, these were still our people.

Note this well. Whatever excesses were committed by the generation of ’68, and there were many, were mainly made out of ignorance and foolishness. Our opponents, exemplified by one Richard M. Nixon, President of the United States and common criminal, and today by John McCain spent every day of their lives as a matter of conscious, deliberate policy raining hell down on the peoples of the world, the minorities in this country, and anyone else who got in their way. Forty years of ‘cultural wars’ in revenge by them and their protégés is a heavy price to pay for our youthful errors. Enough.   

From The American Left History Blog Archives (2007) - On American Political Discourse  

 

 

Markin comment:

 

In the period 2006-2008 I, in vain, attempted to put some energy into analyzing the blossoming American presidential campaign since it was to be, as advertised at least, a watershed election, for women, blacks, old white anglos, latinos, youth, etc. In the event I had to abandon the efforts in about May of 2008 when it became obvious, in my face obvious, that the election would be a watershed only for those who really believed that it would be a watershed election. The four years of the Obama presidency, the 2012 American presidential election campaign, and world politics have only confirmed in my eyes that that abandonment was essentially the right decision at the right time. In short, let the well- paid bourgeois commentators go on and on with their twitter. I, we, had (have) better things to do like fighting against the permanent wars, the permanent war economies, the struggle for more and better jobs, and for a workers party that fights for a workers government . More than enough to do, right? Still a look back at some of the stuff I wrote then does not a bad feel to it. Read on.

************

On Mitt Romney

A recent announcement out of the Mitt Romney presidential campaign, apparently forced out of his vanishing prospects in Iowa, has it that he will make a speech about his Mormon faith. This prospect evokes, at least formally, the idea Jack Kennedy used in the 1960 presidential campaign about his Roman Catholicism as a way to cut across anti-Catholic bigotry in a mainly Protestant country and to affirm his commitment to a secular democratic state. Romney’s play is another kettle of fish entirely. He WANTS to affirm that his Mormon beliefs rather than being rather esoteric are in line with mainstream Protestant fundamentalist tenets. In short, Jesus is his guide. Christ what hell, yes hell,  have we come to when a major political party in a democratic secular state has for all intents and purposes a religious test for its nominee for president. A cursory glance at the history of 18^th century England and its exclusion clauses for Catholics and dissenters demonstrates why our forbears rejected that notion. In any case, here is a little commentary written earlier in the year that gives some thought into the Mormons and particularly Brother Romney’s forbears. DOWN WITH RELIGIOUS TESTS FOR POLITICAL OFFICE- DEFEND THE ENLIGHTENMENT  

FIVE WIVES AT THE SAME TIME SHOW REAL EXECUTIVE ABILITY-RIGHT?

 In a recent interview on CBS's Sixty Minutes Republican presidential hopeful ex- Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, a professed Mormon, declared that he thought that the fact that his great-grandfather took (or was ordered to take) five wives was ‘terrible’. As the fiercely persecuted Mormons settled in Utah apparently the numerical balance between men and women was off and polygamy was therefore encouraged. Naturally, being a male-dominated religious variant of Christianity that necessary was couched in theological terms, as well. The practice was officially banned by that denomination in 1890. However, the practice, as witnessed by some recent court cases in the West, still flourishes in some areas amount Old Style Mormons.  

One can see that for someone who is running on a ‘family values’ platform highlighted by support for the proposition that marriage is between one man-one woman and is touting personal fidelity to one wife and children in order to grab the brass ring of the presidency that such a family history may in fact be 'terrible'.  But step back a minute Mitt, aside from being very disrespectful to your family line, what is the harm of having five, or for that matter, ten wives? Or a woman having ten husbands? As long a there is effective consent among and between the parties whose business is it anyway? And why be ashamed of that ‘skeleton’ in the family closet?

We socialists are not as squeamish as brother Romney appears to be about either the details of his family history or about how people arrange their personal lives. There has been a great hue and cry lately in the West over some Old Style Mormon instances of polygamy, including the usual allegations of coercion. Coercion or forcing “shot gun” weddings, singly or in multiples, is not what we mean by effective consent. However, absent coercion it is not the state’s business to interfere. We may have a different take than Mormons on what we think personal relationships will look like under socialism once the nuclear family (or what today stands for that proposition) recedes into the background as the basis unit of society but for now the variety of human experiences in interpersonal relationships is way beyond the scope of what the state needs to interfere in.

 I, personally, want to learn more about old Great-Grandpa Romney and Joseph Smith-the founder of Mormonism and a Free Soiler candidate for office before he was murdered in the 1840’s. On the face of it those individuals seem, unlike Mitt, interesting personalities.  Certainly everyone must concede that old Great-Grandfather Romney seems more interesting than his progeny. And had to have more real executive ability than latter monogamous Romneys. Hell, I had my hands full when, back in the days, I had two girlfriends at one time.  Hands Off the Old Style Mormons! Government Out of the Bedrooms!

 

***Reflections on May Day 2012 In Boston- Forward To May Day 2013

An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It, It’s Ours! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

I have noted on several previous occasions (including in an article in the April 2012 “Boston Occupier, Number 7”) that due to the recent absence of serious left-wing political struggle (prior to the events at Occupy Boston in Dewey Square from October to December 2011anyway) that our tasks for May Day 2012 in Boston centered on reviving the international working class tradition beyond the limited observance by revolutionaries, radicals and, in recent years, immigrants. This effort would thus not be a one event, one year but require a number of years and that this year’s efforts was just a start. We have made that start.

The important thing this year was to bring Boston in line with the international movement, to have leftist militants and others see our struggles here as part of an international struggle even if our actions were, for now, more symbolic and educational than powerful blows at the imperial system. I believe, despite the bad weather and consequently smaller than anticipated numbers on May Day 2012, we achieved that aim. Through months of hard outreach, especially over the past several weeks as the day approached, we put out much propaganda and information about the events through the various media with which we have access. The message of this May Day, a day without the 99%, got a full hearing by people from the unions, immigrant communities, student milieu and other sectors like the women’s movement and GLBQT community. The connections and contacts made are valuable for our further efforts.

Some participants that spoke to me on May Day (and others who had expressed the same concerns on earlier occasions) believed that we had “bitten off more than we could chew,” by having an all-day series of events. While I am certainly open to hear criticism on the start time of the day’s events (7:00AM does stretch the imagination for night-owlish militants) the idea of several events starting with that early Financial District Block Party and continuing on with the 11:00 AM Anti-Capitalist March which fed into the noontime rally at Boston City Hall Plaza and then switching over to the immigrant community marches and rally capped off that evening by the sober, solemn and visually impression “Death Of Capitalism” funeral procession still seems right to me. Given our task –introducing (really re-introducing) May Day to a wider Boston audience we needed to provide a number of times and events where people could, consciously, contribute to the day’s celebration. Maybe some year our side will be able to call for a one event May Day mass rally (or better a general strike) but that is music for the future.

Needless to say, as occurs almost any time you have many events and a certain need to have them coordinated, there were some problems from

technical stuff like mic set-ups to someone forgetting something important, or not showing at the right time, etc. Growing pains. Nevertheless all the scheduled events happened, we had minimum hassles from the police, and a couple of events really stick out as exemplars for future May Days. The Anti-Capitalist March from Copley Square, mainly in a downpour, led by many young militants and which fed into the noontime City Hall rally was spirited and gave me hope that someday (someday soon, I hope) we are going to bring this imperial monster down. The already mentioned funeral procession was an extremely creative (and oft-forgotten by us) alternative way to get our message across outside the “normal” ham-handed, jack-booted political screed.

Finally, a word or two on organization. The Occupy-May Day Coalition personnel base was too small, way too small even for our limited goals. We need outreach early (early next year) to get enough organizer-type people on board to push forward. More broadly on outreach I believe, and partially this was a function of being too small an organizing center, we spent too much time“preaching to the choir”-going to events, talking to people already politically convinced , talking among ourselves rather than get out into the broader political milieu. For next year (which will not be an election year) we really need union and community people (especially from oppressed communities) to“smooth” the way for us. We never got that one (although we want more than one ultimately) respected middle-level still militant union official or community organizer that people, working people, listen to and who would listen to us with his or her nod. Radical or bourgeois politics, down at the base, you still need to have the people that the people listen to on board. Forward to May Day 2013.

April Book of the Month Deal: Cultures of Darkness by Bryan D. Palmer

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Book of the Month from MR Press! Cultures of Darkness Night Travels in the Histories of Transgression by Bryan D. Palmer get 35% off this title when you enter the coupon code DARKNESS2013 at checkout! When we first published this erudite and absorbing book, Publishers Weekly raved, calling it an "enthralling and important trans-historical study" carried out through "in-depth, far-ranging scholarship with a broad political vision" and presented in an "accessible and highly entertaining writing style." They continued: "Palmer’s canvas is huge…it ranges from an analysis of early modern witch culture (which he connects to the later development of Puritanism) to the emergence of 19th-century semisecret fraternal orders such as the Oddfellows, the vibrant 20th-century gay male cultures of drag and sadomasochism, and the emergence of a U.S. jazz and blues culture…yet he manages to bring these diverse topics together in a cohesive and astute analysis. Integrating unusual details and artful nuances (from the specifics of 18th-century pirate executions to the links between the Rosenberg trial and the novels of Micky Spillane), Palmer creates a multilayered but seamless portrait of four centuries of Western culture." Writing in Against the Current, Leo Panitch called Cultures of Darkness "a truly breathtaking book, whose richness of interpretation as well as documentation is nothing short of remarkable." And Choice praised it as "an unusual work of historical scholarship, a highly readable yet deeply learned history." Take advantage of our special Book of the Month deal and order your copy today! Peasants, religious heretics, witches, pirates, runaway slaves, prostitutes and pornographers, frequenters of taverns and fraternal society lodge rooms, revolutionaries, blues and jazz musicians, beats, and contemporary youth gangs: those who defied authority, choosing to live dangerously outside the defining cultural dominions of early insurgent and, later, dominant capitalism are what Bryan D. Palmer calls people of the night. Constructing a rich tapestry of example and experience spanning eight centuries, Palmer’s fascinating account details lives of exclusion and challenge, as the night travels of the transgressors clash repeatedly with the powerful conventions of their times. Nights of liberation and exhilarating desire are at the heart of this study but so, too, are the dangers cloaked in darkness. Palmer reveals those hidden spaces where darkness concealed acts of brutalizing terror or alternately provided refuge, solace, or freedom. Using the night as metaphor and unifying theme Palmer takes an unflinching look at those dissident or oppositional cultures and movements and shows how they were fueled and shaped by the rise and transformation of capitalism. 620 Pages | $28 order online use coupon code DARKNESS2013 for 35% off!

Icelandic MP visits US to raise awareness of Bradley Manning

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Icelandic official who helped reveal Collateral Murder, nominate Bradley for Nobel Peace Prize, visits US Icelandic parliamentarian Birgitta Jonsdottir, who helped WikiLeaks produce Collateral Murder and nominated Bradley Manning for the Nobel Peace Prize, is visiting the U.S. this weekend to help raise awareness ahead of Bradley's court martial. April 5 is the third anniversary of the release of the Collateral Murder video that exposed the murder of innocent civilians and two Reuters journalists. April 5, 2013, is the third anniversary of the release of Collateral Murder, the world-famous video that documented the murder of innocent civilians and journalists by a US Apache gunship in Iraq. On this day, Icelandic parliamentarian Birgitta Jonsdottir will visit the United States to raise awareness about Bradley Manning and rally support ahead of his June 3 trial. Jonsdottir helped WikiLeaks edit the video, and now sits on the Bradley Manning Support Network’s Advisory Board. Despite fears that the U.S. government will try to silence WikiLeaks collaborators, she is visiting New York City this month, and plans to return for more events around the country in June. On Friday, April 5, beginning at 5:30 PM ET at Judson Memorial Church (55 Washington Square South), Birgitta will display stills from Collateral Murder, and she’ll project the video, as well as a five-minute documentary, “Providence”, featuring Bradley’s voice. Then at 8:00 PM ET, she’ll join a panel discussion with FDL journalist Kevin Gosztola, WikiLeaks researcher Alexa O’Brien, and media critic Peter Hart, moderated by Sam Seder. The event will be live-streamed at BradleyManning.org. Funds raised at the event will go toward Bradley Manning’s defense. In a powerful statement last month, Bradley said he was appalled by U.S. Apache gunners in the video, particularly by how they begged for the wounded to pick up weapons to justify shooting them. He compared the gunmen to children “torturing ants with a magnifying glass.” He also explained why he released the video to WikiLeaks: I hoped that the public would be as alarmed as me about the conduct of the aerial weapons team crewmembers. I wanted the American public to know that not everyone in Iraq and Afghanistan were targets that needed to be neutralized, but rather people who were struggling to live in the pressure cooker environment of what we call asymmetric warfare. After the release I was encouraged by the response in the media and general public who observed the aerial weapons team video. As I hoped, others were just as troubled—if not more troubled—than me by what they saw. The release of the video in 2010 allowed the American public to engage in widespread debates concerning U.S. conduct in Iraq, and how U.S. gunners violated international law by killing innocent journalists, civilians and rescue workers. Its release turned international attention to some of the ugliest realities of the Iraq war, and began an important discussion about how to hold the U.S. military accountable. Read more ...

DECLARATION BY DICK GREGORY ON BEHALF OF LYNNE STEWART -sign the petition

 

DECLARATION BY DICK GREGORY — APRIL 4, 2013

I hereby declare on this day commemorating the life and sacrifice of my friend

and brother in struggle, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., that in the spirit of his

moral legacy, I demand the immediate release from prison of the legendary

lawyer Lynne Stewart, who devoted her entire professional life to the poor, the

oppressed and those targeted by the police and a vindictive State.

I further declare that from this day forth, I shall refuse all solid food until

Lynne Stewart is freed and receives medical treatment in the care of her family

and with physicians of her choice without which she will die.

There is no time to lose as cancer, which had been in remission, has

metastasized since her imprisonment. It has spread to her lymph nodes, her

shoulder and appears in her bones and in her lungs.

A criminal defense attorney in New York for over 30 years, Lynne Stewart’s

unwavering dedication as a selfless advocate was acknowledged by the

community as well as judges, prosecutors and the entire legal profession. Such

has been her reputation as a fearless lawyer, ready to challenge those in power,

that judges assigned her routinely to act for defendants whom no attorney was

willing to represent.

In 2002, Lynne Stewart was targeted by then-President George Bush and

Attorney General John Ashcroft for providing a vigorous defense of her client,

the blind Egyptian cleric Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman. She was charged with

conspiracy to provide material support to a terrorist activity after she exercised

both her and her client’s first amendment rights by presenting a press release

to a Reuters journalist. She did nothing more than other attorneys, such as her

co-counsel former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, have done on behalf of their

clients.

The reason for the prosecution and persecution of Lynne Stewart is evident to

us all. It was designed to intimidate the entire legal community so that few

would dare to defend political clients whom the State demonizes and none

would provide a vigorous defense. It also was designed to narrow the meaning

of our cherished first amendment right to free speech, which the people of this

country struggled to have added to the Constitution as the Bill of Rights.

The prosecution and imprisonment of Lynne Stewart is an ominous threat to

the freedom, rights and dignity of each and every American. It is the agenda of

a police state.

I ask you to join with me to demand freedom for Lynne Stewart. An

international campaign has been launched with a petition that supports her

application for compassionate release. Under the 1984 Sentencing Act, the

Bureau of Prisons can file a motion with the Court to reduce sentences “for

extraordinary and compelling reasons.” Life threatening illness is foremost

among these and Lynne Stewart meets every rational and humane criterion for

compassionate release.

Join with me, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Pete Seeger and 6,000 other people

of conscience throughout the world who have signed this petition to compel the

Warden of the Federal Medical Center, Carswell and the Director of the Bureau

of Prisons to act. Act now. There is no time to lose.

The petition (below) can be found online at the Justice for Lynne Stewart

website: www.lynnestewart.org or at

www.change.org/petitions/petition-to-free-lynne-stewart-save-her-life-release-her-now-2

Contacts: Lil Gregory at 508.746.7427 to schedule interviews with Dick Gregory and

Ralph Schoenman at 707.552.9992 for follow up information on Dick Gregory and the

Campaign to Save the Life of Lynne Stewart.

PETITION TO FREE LYNNE STEWART: SAVE HER LIFE – RELEASE HER NOW!

Lynne Stewart has devoted her life to the oppressed – a constant advocate for the

countless many deprived in the United States of their freedom and their rights.

Unjustly charged and convicted for the “crime” of providing her client with a fearless

defense, the prosecution of Lynne Stewart is an assault upon the basic freedoms of us all.

After years of post-conviction freedom, her bail was revoked arbitrarily and her

imprisonment ordered, precluding surgery she had scheduled in a major New York hospital.

The sinister meaning of the relentless persecution of Lynne Stewart is unmistakably clear.

Given her age and precarious health, the ten-year sentence she is serving is a virtual death

sentence.

Since her imprisonment in the Federal Prison in Carswell, Texas her urgent need for

surgery was delayed 18 months – so long, that the operating physician pronounced the

condition as “the worst he had seen.”

Now, breast cancer, which had been in remission prior to her imprisonment, has reached

Stage Four. It has appeared in her lymph nodes, on her shoulder, in her bones and her

lungs.

Her daughter, a physician, has sounded the alarm: “Under the best of circumstances,

Lynne would be in a battle of the most serious consequences with dangerous odds. With

cancer and cancer treatment, the complications can be as debilitating and as dangerous as

the cancer itself.”

In her current setting, where trips to physicians involve attempting to walk with 10 pounds

of shackles on her wrists and ankles, with connecting chains, Lynne Stewart has lacked

ready access to physicians and specialists under conditions compatible with medical

success.

It can take weeks to see a medical provider in prison conditions. It can take weeks to report

physical changes and learn the results of treatment; and when held in the hospital, Lynne

has been shackled wrist and ankle to the bed.

This medieval “shackling” has little to do with any appropriate prison control. She is

obviously not an escape risk.

We demand abolition of this practice for all prisoners, let alone those facing surgery and the

urgent necessity of care and recovery.

It amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, in violation of human rights.

There is immediate remedy available for Lynne Stewart. Under the 1984 Sentencing Act,

after a prisoner request, the Bureau of Prisons can file a motion with the Court to reduce

sentences “for extraordinary and compelling reasons.” Life threatening illness is foremost

among these and Lynne Stewart meets every rational and humane criterion for

compassionate release.

To misconstrue the gravamen of this compassionate release by conditioning such upon

being at death’s door – released, if at all, solely to die – is a cruel mockery converting a

prison sentence, wholly undeserved, into a death sentence.

The New York Times, in an editorial (2/12), has excoriated the Bureau of Prisons for their

restrictive crippling of this program. In a 20-year period, the Bureau released a scant 492

persons – an average of 24 a year out of a population that exceeds 220,000.

We cry out against the bureaucratic murder of Lynne Stewart.

We demand Lynne Stewart’s immediate release to receive urgent medical care in a

supportive environment indispensable to the prospect of her survival and call upon the

Bureau of Prisons to act immediately.

If Lynne’s original sentence of 28 months had not been unreasonably, punitively increased

to 10 years, she would be home now — where her medical care would be by her choice

and where those who love her best would care for her. Her isolation from this loving care

would end.

Prevent this cruelty to Lynne Stewart whose lifelong commitment to justice is now a

struggle for her life.

Free Lynne Stewart Now!

Ralph Poynter and Family

###

JOIN BOSTON APRIL DAYS OF ACTION AGAINST

LETHAL AND SURVEILLANCE DRONES

The world is waking up to the Obama administration’s dangerous and illegal use of drones for expanding warfare by targeted assassinations, along with threats to our civil liberties and right to dissent by increasing drone surveillance by police agencies at home.

“April Days of Action”, a national campaign of counter-drone protests and teach-ins focused on drone bases, manufacturers and research and training centers, was called to alert the public and to challenge the escalating threat of drone warfare and spying.

Not only are lethal drones used in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, but the US is using drones in Iran, Syria, and Mali as preparation for possible military intervention and threatening North Korea with Nuclear war. We must stop these acts of war now!

NO KILLER DRONES!

NO SPY DRONES!

HANDS OFF KOREA, IRAN, SYRIA!

Boston plans include:

Sat., April 6, 1 -2:00 PM - DRONE "DEATH MARCH" AND VIGIL.

Women's International League for Peace and Freedon (WILPF) leads silent, single-file death march from Community Church, 565 Boylston Street, Copley Square to Park St. to join Committee for Peace and Human Rights weekly Park St. vigil 1-2:00 pm. Wear black and bring a white mask.

Sat., April 13, 1-3:00 PM – PARK ST. Rally, Die-In, March through downtown Boston. (To participate in die-in, contact Susan McLucas, susanbmcl@gmail.com, 617-776-6524.)

Sat., April 26-28 – Regional Anti-Drone Conference in Syracuse and mass protest at hancock Reaper drone air base. (For more information and to sign up for transportation, contact UJP.)

Sponsors (in formation): EASTERN MASS. ANTI-DRONE NETWORK, United for Justice with Peace, United National Antiwar Coalition, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Committee for Peace and Human Rights, Veterans For Peace – Smedley Butler Brigade, International Action Center, Boston May Day Committee

For further information on actions, to become a sponsor, or to join the anti-drone network, contact: Boston: United for Justice with Peace, info@justicewithpeace.org, 617-383-4857

National: http://www.knowdrones.com/ Syracuse: www.upstatedroneaction.org

Boston's International Workers Day 2013


BMDC International Workers Day Rally
Wednesday, May 1, 2013 at Boston City Hall
Gather at 2PM - Rally at 2:30PM
(Court St. & Cambridge St.)
T stops Government Center (Blue line, Green line)

To download flyer click here. (Please print double-sided)

Other May Day events:

Revere - @ City Hall - gather at 3:pmbegin marching at 3:30 (to Chelsea)
Everett - @ City Hall - gather at 3:pm begin marching at 3:30 (to Chelsea)
Chelsea - @ City Hall - rally a 3:pm (wait for above feeder marches to arrive) will begin marching at 4:30 (to East Boston)
East Boston - @ Central Square - (welcome marchers) Rally at 5:pm

BMDC will join the rally in East Boston immediately following Boston City Hall rally

Supporters: ANSWER Coalition, Boston Anti Authoritarian Movement, Boston Rosa Parks Human Rights Day Committee, Greater Boston Stop the Wars Coalition, Harvard No-Layoffs Campaign, Industrial Workers of the World, Latinos for Social Change, Mass Global Action, Sacco & Vanzetti Commemoration Society, Socialist Alternative, Socialist Party of Boston, Socialist Workers Party, Student Labor Action Movement, USW Local 8751 - Boston School Bus Drivers Union, Worcester Immigrant Coalition, National Immigrant Solidarity Network, Democracy Center - Cambridge, Cambridge, Cambridge/Somerville/Arlington United for Justice with Peace, International Socialist Organization, Community Church of Boston