This space is dedicated to the proposition that we need to know the history of the struggles on the left and of earlier progressive movements here and world-wide. If we can learn from the mistakes made in the past (as well as what went right) we can move forward in the future to create a more just and equitable society. We will be reviewing books, CDs, and movies we believe everyone needs to read, hear and look at as well as making commentary from time to time. Greg Green, site manager
“If the public, particularly the American public, had
access to this information, it could spark a debate on the military and our
foreign policy in general as it applied to Iraq and Afghanistan, it might cause
society to reconsider the need to engage in counter-terrorism while ignoring the
human situation of the people we engaged with every day … I felt I accomplished
something that would allow me to have a clear conscience.” Bradley Manning
A man of exceptional courage and
principle
In a
statement he read in court on 28 February 2013, gay US Army
PFC Bradley Manning proudly admitted having leaked information to Wikileaks in
order to inform the public of US war crimes and government skulduggery that was
being kept from us.
1 - 8 June: International Actions to Free Bradley
Manning
So far actions in
Canada, Germany, Italy, South Korea, Turkey, UK, USA,
Wales…
Bradley Manning’s court-martial begins 3 June
The Bradley Manning Support
Network is calling for a week of actions across the US and around the world
from Saturday 1 June to 8 June.
On 23 February, an unprecedented groundswell of international
support for Bradley emerged when 70 communities in 19 countries took action.
Some actions
already planned:
Canada:
1 June, Rally at US Consulate in Toronto Germany:31
May, Meeting at Clearing Barrel GI Café, Kaiserslautern. 1 June
Solidarity Rally in Berlin, Brandenburg
Gate. South Korea,3-8 June Press conference and demonstration
at US Embassy in Seoul.
UK:1 June, 2 pm Picket outside the US Embassy, Grosvenor Square, London US: 1 June
Rally at Fort Meade, Maryland, where the court-martial will take place.
Join your nearest protest or organize a solidarity event in your
area, register it on the BMSN website, and let us know about it
so we can help publicise
Other ways to support
Bradley
·Write your local press why you support Bradley’s courageous
whistleblowing.
·Translate this message and/or send to your networks.
·Demand media
access to the trial, and that court records be released. See BMSN Action
Alert.
"Let us
follow the example of Bradley, let’s battle for peace, let’s battle against
wars, without fear of reprisals, let’s learn from Bradley to be truly
human."
“This material [passed
to Wikileaks] has contributed to ending dictatorships in the Middle East, it has
exposed torture and wrongdoing in all the corners of the world”.
Julian
AssangeWikileaks founder, who remains in
the Ecuadorian embassy in London, protected from extradition to Sweden and to
the US
Sister Assata: This Is What American History Looks Like
Alice Walker May 13, 2013 Alice Walker's Garden
I believe Assata Shakur to be a good and decent, a kind and compassionate person. True revolutionaries often are. Physically she is beautiful, and her spirit is also. She appears to hold the respect, love and friendship of all the people who surround her.
A Wall is Just a Wall, , I don’t know why, given where we are with dronefare, but I didn’t expect the man making the announcement about Assata Shakur being the first woman “terrorist” to appear on the FBI’s most wanted list to be black. That was a blow. I was reminded of the world of “trackers” we sometimes get glimpses of in history books and old movies on TV. In Australia the tracker who hunts down other aboriginals who have, because of the rape and murder, genocide and enslavement of the indigenous (aboriginal) people, run away into the outback. He shows up again in cowboy and Indian films: jogging along in the hot sun, way ahead of the white men on horseback, bending on his knees to get a better look at a bruised leaf or a bent twig, while they curse and spit and complain about how long he’s taking to come up with a clue. And then there were the “trackers” who helped the pattyrollers during our four hundred years of enslavement. When pattyrollers (or patrols) caught run-away slaves in those days they frequently beat them to death. I’ve often thought of the black men whose expertise at tracking fugitives helped bring these terrors, humiliations and deaths about. When I was younger I would have been in a rage against them; not understanding the reality of invisible coercion, and mind and spirit control, that I do now. Today, only a few years older than Assata Shakur, and marveling at the unenviable state of humanity’s character worldwide, I find I can only pray for all of us. That we should be sinking even below the abysmal standard early “trackers” have set for us: that the US government can now offer two million dollars for the capture of a very small, not young, black woman who was brutally abused, even shot, over three decades ago, as if we don’t need that money to buy people food, clothes, medicine, and decent places to live. What is most distressing about the times we live in, in my view, is our ever accelerating tolerance for cruelty. Prisoners held indefinitely in orange suits, hooded, chained and on their knees. Like the hunger strikers of Guantanamo, I would certainly prefer death to this. People shot and bombed from planes they never see until it is too late to get up from the table or place the baby under the bed. Poor people terrorized daily, driven insane really, from fear. People on the streets with no food and no place to sleep. People under bridges everywhere you go, holding out their desperate signs: a recent one held by a very young man, perhaps a veteran, under my local bridge: I Want To Live. But nothing seems as cruel to me as this: that our big, muscular, macho country would go after so tiny a woman as Assata who is given sanctuary in a country smaller than many of our states. The first time I met Assata Shakur we talked for a long time. We were in Havana, where I had gone with a delegation to offer humanitarian aid during Cuba’s “special period” of hunger and despair, and I’d wanted to hear her side of the story from her. She described the incident with the New Jersey Highway Patrol, and assured me she was shot up so badly that even if she’d wanted to, she would not have been able to fire a gun. Though shot in the back (with her arms raised), she managed to live through two years of solitary confinement, in a men’s prison, chained to her bed. Then, in what must surely have been a miraculous coming together of people of courageous compassion, she was helped to escape and to find refuge in Cuba. One of the people who helped Assata escape, a white radical named Marilyn Buck, was kept in prison for thirty years and released only one month before her death from uterine cancer. She was a poet, and I have been reading her book, Inside/Out, Selected Poems, which a friend gave me just last week. There is also a remarkable video of her, shot in prison, that I highly recommend. This is what solidarity can look like. The second time I saw Assata, years later, I was in Havana for the Havana Book Fair. Cuba has a very high literacy rate, thanks to the Cuban revolution, and my novel, Meridian, had recently been translated and published there. However, this time we did not talk about the past. We talked about meditation. Seeing her interest, and that of Ricardo Alarcon, president of the Cuban National Assembly, and others, I decided to offer a class. There under a large tree off a quiet street in Havana, I demonstrated my own practice of meditation to some of the most attentive students I have ever encountered. The mantra: Breathing in: “In,” breathing out: “Peace.” I believe Assata Shakur to be a good and decent, a kind and compassionate person. True revolutionaries often are. Physically she is beautiful, and her spirit is also. She appears to hold the respect, love and friendship of all the people who surround her. Like Marilyn Buck they have risked much for her freedom, and appear to believe her version of the story as I do. That she did not wish to live as an imprisoned creature and a slave is understood. What to do? Since we are not, in fact, helpless. Nor are we ever alone. I call on the Ancestors by whose blood and DNA we exist to accompany us as always through this lengthening sorrow. And to bear witness within us to all that we are aware.
Portside aims to provide material of interest to people on the left that will help them to interpret the world and to change it. Submit via web Submit via email Frequently asked questions Manage subscription Search Portside archives
SAVE
THE DATE
and
get ready to
March
Together in the DORCHESTER DAY PARADE!
Sunday,
June 2
Dorchester People for
Peace
will be marching again this year in the Dorchester Day Parade on June 2 along
with our friends and allied organizations. Every year Dorchester People for
Peace reserves a place in the parade, then invites our friends. Together
webring our vision and our values to thousands of people along
the four-mile route. Join us this year!
Our message will focus
on ending the war in Afghanistan and opposing any new military intervention in
Iran or Syria; reducing the military budget; and funding urgent needs at home in
our neighborhoods and communities. Thousands of
marchers and parade watchers will see our banners and get our anti-war
flyers!
Marchers will gather
around Noon in Dorchester Lower Mills (Richmond St.)
with the
parade kick-off about 1pm. We’ll have our after-Parade barbeque and celebration
at Jeff Klein’s house, 123 Cushing Ave. from about 3:30pm. More details as we
get them.
WHERE: Lower
Mills, Dorchester
Richmond Street between
Dorchester Ave and Adams Street
Look for the Dorchester People
for Peace van
You can’t drive or park
anywhere near there on Dorchester Day, so travel early and travel by T
(to Ashmont Station on the Red Line, Butler or Milton on the Mattapan trolley)
…. Or park a ways away and walk.
Please let us know if you can make it by responding to
this email, writing to info@dotpeace.org
or phoning 617-288-4578
BRING: A
sun hat, comfortable walking shoes (it’s four miles), water. You
can bring a banner for your organization if you have the people to carry
it.
COOKOUT: After the parade at Jeff Klein’s,
123 Cushing Ave (near the end of the parade and near Savin Hill T
station)
Dorchester
People for Peace
works to end the wars; to build
a multi-racial peace movement against violence and militarism at home and
abroad; to oppose budget cuts, racism and political
repression.
*** We Have Some Unfinished Business From The 1960s To Tend To- A Struggle To The End- For A Workers and Baby-Boomers Government! –Say What!
From The Pen OfFrank Jackman:
The following is in the nature of a stream of consciousness reflection on recent political struggles and the slight breeze that I am feeling starting to push back against defeats of some forty plus years since we last had a shot at “seeking a newer world” and that old-time breeze that pushed me first into the political fray.
*** As fate would have it sometimes a certain conjecture just falls into place for no particular reason other than happenstance, or so it would appear. As noted below I have been on a tear of late trying to get, young and old, but mainly my baby-boomer contemporaries, to get back into the political fray, and if there already to ratchet up their activity, and their political drifts leftward away from the all too familiar liberal complacencies. But that happenstance business is just a front because while one strand of the memory jog occurred just recently with the struggle over the events in Afghanistan and the Middle East in general and those whispered conversations about olden day struggles another strand had been spent on a now extensive review of much of the music from our youth, the youth that came of musically age just at that moment when we began to call rock ‘n’ roll music our own.
And that jail breakout music got reflected, at some level, in the way we looked at the world. We felt that although the world was not of our making, and not what we wanted it to be, it was up for grabs to go in our direction, at least for a cultural moment.
The core of that review of the music of our generation, strangely enough given its imprimatur, was a rather extensive compilation of CDs put out by Time-Life Music (you see what I mean) as its Rock ‘n’ Roll Era series. While the compilations give a wide selection of the most recognizable music for a number of years from about the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s (basically pre-British invasion time, no not the War of 1812, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, groups like that) the real draw for this reviewer was the cover art that accompanied each CD. Those covers, more than the bulk of the music (after all there was a musical counter-revolution of sorts in the late 1950s in reaction to the Elvis, Jerry Lee, Chuck Berry way to sexy implications of their music) , evoked in me (and I am sure they would in you as well if you are a baby-boomer), a flood of memories. Such subjects as“hot” 1950s cars, drive-in movies, drive-in restaurants complete with to-die-for cute car hops serving them off the arm, the high school dance scene. And so on. I have reposted one such effort below:
"This 1964 art cover piece with its drawing of a high school girl (school used as backdrop here to let you know, just in case you were clueless, that the rock scene was directed, point blank, at high school students, high school students with discretionary money to buy hot records, or drop coins in the local juke box), or rather her high heel sneakers (Chuck Taylor high tops, for sure, no question, although there is no trademark present no way that they can be some knock-offs in 1964, no way, I say). The important thing, in any case, is the sneakers, and that slightly shorter than school regulation dress, a dress that presaged the mini-skirt craze that was then just on its way from Europe. Naturally said dress and sneakers, sneakers, high- heeled or not, against the mandatory white tennis sneakers on gym days and low-heel pumps on other days, is the herald of some new age. And, as if to confirm that new breeze, in the background scouring out her high school classroom window, a sullen, prudish schoolmarm. She, the advance guard, obviously, of that parentally-driven reaction to all that the later 1960s stood for to us baby-boomers, as the generations fought out their epic battles about the nature of the world, our world or theirs.
But see that was so much “wave of future” just then because sullen schoolmarm or not what Ms. Hi-Heel sneakers (and dress, yah, don’t forget that knee-showing dress) was preening for is those guys who are standing (barely) in front of said school and showing their approval, their approval in the endless boy and girl meet game. And these guys are not just of one kind, they are cool faux beat daddy guys, tee-shirted corner boy guys, and well, just average 1964- style average guys. Now the reality of Ms. Hi-Heel sneakers (and a wig-hat on her head if you remember the song) proved to be a minute thing and was practically forgotten in the musical breeze that was starting to come in from Europe (that British invasion led by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones mentioned before) but it was that harbinger of change that the old schoolmarm dreaded and we, teenagers, especially we teenagers of the Class of 1964, were puzzled by. All we knew for sure, at least some of us knew , was that our class, at least for a moment, was going to chase a few windmills, and gladly.
That is the front story, the story of the new breeze coming, but the back story is that the kind of songs that are on this CD with that British invasion coming full blast were going to be passé very soon. Moreover, among my crowd, my hang-out crowd, my hang-out guy and girl crowd of guys who looked very much like those guys pictured on the artwork, if not my school crowd (slightly different), the folk scene, the Harvard Square at weekend night, New York City Village every once in a while folk scene, the Dylan, Baez, Van Ronk, Paxton, Ochs, etc. scene was still in bloom and competitive (although that scene, that folk scene minute, ironically, would soon also be passé).
Thus 1964 was a watershed year for a lot of the genres, really sub-genres, featured in those CDs. Like the harmony-rich girl groups (The Supremes, Mary Wells, The Shangri-Las, Martha and the Vandellas, Betty Everett) and the surfer boy, hot-rod guys of blessed neighborhood memory (Ronnie and the Daytonas, The Rivieras, and The Beach Boys, a little). But it was also a watershed year for the guys pictured in the artwork (and out in the neighborhoods). Some would soon be fighting in Vietnam, some moving to a commune to get away from it all, and others would be raising holy hell about that war, the need for social justice and the way things were being run in this country. And Ms. Hi-Heel sneakers? Maybe, just maybe, she drifted into that San Francisco for the Summer of Love night, going barefoot into that good night. I like to think so anyway.
Watershed year or not, there are some serious non-invasion stick-outs here. Under The Boardwalk (great harmony), The Drifters; Last Kiss, Frank Wilson and The Cavaliers; Dancing In The Streets (lordy, lordy, yes), Martha and the Vandellas; Leader Of The Pack (what a great novelty song and one that could be the subject of a real story in my growing up neighborhood), The Shangri-Las; Hi-Heel Sneakers, Tommy Tucker (thanks for the lead-in, Tommy), and, the boss song of the teen dance club night, no question, no challenge, no competition, Louie, Louieby the Kingsmen”
Note: Those familiar with leftist, Marxist-oriented politics are familiar with the slogan- fight for a workers government. If you will observe in the headline to this entry I have posited a workers and baby-boomers government. No, not to be silly or flip, although I know how to do both, but to make a point. A point that always bears a certain repetition when dealing with variants of this workers’ government slogan. In places like Egypt today, or better, in the old Czarist days, in Russia, the slogan would have been expanded to something like a workers and peasants government. And that gets to the real point. Although we Marxists argue, and argue strenuously, that when the deal goes down there are only two decisive classes in the modern era- the capitalists who own the means of production and the workers who produce the profits and emphatically do not own the means of production. But that begs the point, a little. In the age of capitalism other classes, and parts of classes, have been spun off. Thus, the question, even in the United States, of allies for the working class requires a broader slogan (at times) than just the generic workers government slogan that graces these pages on most related entries. Today’s entry reflects the very real possibility that our best allies might be those who are coming of retirement age, the post- World War II baby-boomer generation.
Now back in the 1930s when there were many more small and family farmers than there are today the proposition of a workers and farmers government was posed as a cutting-edge slogan by our political forbears. And, of course, somebody, some smart- aleck young Marxist who was trying to be silly or flip (probably a college student from New York City where young Marxists were as thick as fleas) noted that there were more dentists in the United States than farmers at that time. Now, from painful personal (and expensive too) experience, I actually could get behind the idea of a workers and dentists government. But that specific variant is just adding to the main point above, the algebraic nature of a workers and XYZ government as a fighting slogan. So for now my workers and baby-boomers government has a certain flare, especially until the grey beards are in the minority of most of the rallies that I have seen lately. Please though don’t expect me to take a job in the Commissariat of Elder Affairs when we win. No way.
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Getting to Ft. Meade to support Army whistleblower Bradley Manning
To date, nearly 1,000 people have RSVPed to come to the June 1st demonstration at Ft. Meade. We look forward to having you join us! Below is some information to make planning your trip to Ft. Meade easier… Buses
Charter buses are scheduled to Ft. Meade from the following cities: NYC, Washington DC, Baltimore and Hartford, CT.
Find directions from airports to charter buses OR from Amtrak and Greyhound stations to charter buses in Baltimore, DC and NYC using public transit.
If you’re arriving at the BWI Airport on June 1st, there is also a regional bus from the airport to Arundel Mills Shopping Center (Bus 017), from which you can then take the CTC K to the Main Gate. The entire trip is approximately 45 minutes. For a Google Maps public transit view of this option: http://alturl.com/3ehis
Still interested in organizing a bus or van from your city? We’re offering small grants to help. Driving to Ft. Meade
From most locations, driving will be the quickest way to access Ft. Meade. If you plan to fly into the area and rent a car, priceline.com and hotwire.com are two useful sites for finding budget rentals.
Free parking has been arranged at Meade Heights Elementary School, 1925 Reece Rd, Fort Meade, MD 20755. This parking lot is only half a mile (11 min. walk) from the the Ft. Meade Main Gate.
Additional parking is available at Van Bokkelen Elementary School, 1140 Reece Road, Severn, MD 21144. This parking lot is one mile (24 min. walk) from the Ft. Meade Main Gate. We’ll try to shuttle folks along Reece Road.
There are a small number of unrestricted parking spaces along US 175; however, do not park in the the mini-shopping centers or the Weis Market near Blue Water Blvd. Housing options
Search Priceline for hotels near Ft. George G. Meade, MD
View a list of other hotels in DC, MD and VA. Mass housing options
There are also two campgrounds in the area, Cherry Hill Park near Washington D.C. and Greenbelt Park in Greenbelt, MD. The campground fee is $16. Navigation Google maps usually has up-to-date road and public transit information. You can also download apps and links for navigation in the DC area, MD and NYC Carpooling
If you are able to offer rides to others, please e-mail emma@bradleymanning.org
with your planned departure date, time, location, and how many seats you are offering. Carpool information for those looking for rides will be posted on this page as it becomes available. Ft. Meade Security
Our event on June 1st will take place outside the Fort Meade Main Gate at 175 Maryland and Reece Rd. However, if you plan to stay to attend Bradley’s court martial, which begins June 3rd, you’ll need to be prepared to go through security checkpoints.
To enter Ft. Meade, you’ll need a government issued ID, such as a state issued drivers license or passport. Non-US passports are accepted. Be prepared to remove any shirts or buttons that show support for Bradley Manning while on base.
The courtroom is located 1 mile past the main gate, and maps are available at the Visitor Control Center immediately inside the gate and to the right. There is parking by the courtroom, space allowing. To drive onto Ft. Meade:
Have your up-to-date vehicle registration
Have your up-to-date vehicle insurance (printed copy–not a electronic version on your mobile phone)
Obey posted speed limits (they are strictly enforced by military police–especially for “special visitors”)
Be prepared to cover “political” bumper stickers on your vehicle with tape
Unlike most trials, the government is refusing to release any official transcripts of the trials. It is up to the public to attend, and comment on, what happens inside the otherwise secretive court room. Thank you for your support and please join us at Fort Meade!
Mass Rally for Bradley Manning! Ft. Meade, MD. June 1, 2013
Join us at Fort Meade in support of Bradley Manning. By the time his court martial begins in June, he will have spent more then 3 years in prison. All for having done the right thing, for having exposed war crimes! Saturday, June 1, 2013 RALLY FOR BRADLEY AT FORT MEADE
By the Bradley Manning Support Network, February 25, 2013. • 1pm Gather (Reece Road and US 175, Fort Meade, Maryland) • 2pm March • 3pm Rally and Speak Out Sponsored by the Bradley Manning Support Network and the national Veterans for Peace and Iraq Veterans Against the War organizations, with the help of Courage to Resist, and many other groups.
——————————- Monday, June 3, 2013 ATTEND THE BEGINNING OF US v. BRADLEY MANNING 7:30am – 8:00 am, enter Fort Meade at Reece Road and US 175, Fort Meade, Maryland 9:00 am scheduled daily start of hearings at Magistrate Court 4432 Llewellyn Avenue, Fort Meade, MD. It is 2 miles from the Main Gate. The court martial is expected to last 6-12 weeks. Supporters are encouraged to attend as many days of this trial as they are able. ——————————-
PARKING for June 1st
Free parking has been arranged at Meade Heights Elementary School, 1925 Reece Rd, Fort Meade, MD 20755. This parking lot is only half a mile (11 min. walk) from the the Ft. Meade Main Gate.
Additional parking will be available at Van Bokkelen Elementary School, 1140 Reece Road, Severn, MD 21144. This parking lot is one mile (24 min. walk) from the Ft. Meade Main Gate. We’ll try to help shuttle folks along Reece Road.
There are a small number of unrestricted parking spaces along US 175; however, do not park in the the mini-shopping centers or the Weis Market near Blue Water Blvd.
Portable toilets are expected to be available.
Join us in the courtroom for the trial beginning June 3, 2013. Drive (or taxi) to the Fort Meade Visitor Control Center at the Fort Meade Main Gate (all the other gates are for military ID holders only), Reece Road and US 175, Fort Meade, Maryland. We suggest arriving when the visitor center opens at 7:30am, and certainly before 8:15am. The proceedings are scheduled to begin at 9am daily. The multiple layers of security take time to navigate, and procedures often change from day to day. Each person will need a valid state or federal photo ID such as a driver’s license, state photo ID card, or passport. Foreign passports are accepted. Anyone driving on to Fort Meade will be required to submit their driver’s license, vehicle registration, and printed (not digital) proof of insurance. Your vehicle will be subject to search, and you may be required to cover over political bumper stickers on your vehicle. Consider walking on base if there are any questions at all regarding your vehicle and paperwork.
The proceedings will be held at the Magistrate Court, 4432 Llewellyn Ave, Fort Meade, MD 20755 (this is one mile from the Visitor Center). Electronic devices, including cell phones, computers, cameras, are not allowed in the courtroom, and should be left in your vehicle.
There are no pre-registration requirements for the public to attend the proceedings. However, those wishing to attend as credentialed media should contact the US Army Military District of Washington Public Affairs Office at 202-685-4645.
Boston Private Bradley Manning
Stand-Out Part Of An International Day Of Solidarity-Saturday June 1st Park
Street Station – 1 PM
Let’s Redouble Our Efforts To Free Private Bradley Manning-President
Obama Pardon Bradley Manning -Make Every Town Square In America (And The World)
A Bradley Manning Square From Boston To Berkeley to Berlin-Join Us At Park
Street Station In Boston On June 1st At 1 PM For A Stand-Out In Solidarity
Before Bradley’s June 3rd Trial
Plan to go to Fort Meade outside of Washington, D.C. on June 1st
for an international day of solidarity with Bradley before his scheduled June 3rd
trial. Check with the Bradley Manning Support Network http://www.bradleymanning.org/for
information about going to Fort Meade from your area.
If you can’t make it to Fort Meade come to Park Street Station on June 1st
in support of this brave whistle-blower.
*Contribute to the Bradley Manning Defense Fund- as the trial date
approaches funds are urgently needed! The government has unlimited financial
and personnel resources to prosecute Bradley. And the Obama government is fully
using them. We have a fine defense civilian lawyer, David Coombs, many
supporters throughout America and the world working hard for Bradley’s freedom,
and the truth on our side. Still the hard reality of the American legal system,
civilian or military, is that an adequate defense cost serious money. So help
out with whatever you can spare. For link go to http://www.bradleymanning.org/
*Sign the online petition at the Bradley Manning Support Network
(for link go to http://www.bradleymanning.org/ )to the Secretary of the Army to free Bradley
Manning-1000 plus days is enough! The Secretary of the Army stands in the
direct chain of command up to the President and can release Private Manning
from pre-trial confinement and drop the charges against him at his discretion.
For basically any reason that he wishes to-let us say 1000 plus days is enough.
Join the over 25,000 supporters in the United States and throughout the world
clamoring for Bradley’s well-deserved freedom.
June 1-8: Take part in the week of action for Bradley Manning
Can’t make it to Fort Meade on Sat., June 1st? Help sponsor travel for others — each $20 will cover a bus ticket for someone who otherwise wouldn’t be able to come Please note “Bus Sponsor” in the comments field when making your tax-deductible donation.
Join us at Fort Meade. June 1, 2013
June 1st will mark the beginning of Bradley Manning’s fourth year in prison and the start of his trial. The June 1st Ft. Meade protest for Bradley Manning will be the largest action of our campaign! People across the nation (and the globe) will converge on Ft. Meade to stand up for the Army whistle-blower who risked everything to give the public real facts about our government’s wars in the Middle East and foreign policy worldwide.
Join Pentagon Papers whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg, LGBT activist US Army Lt. Dan Choi, former US diplomat US Army Col. Ann Wright (ret.), and former soldier Ethan McCord–who rescued the wounded children in the van in the Collateral Murder video—and hundreds of our supporters of heroic WikiLeaks whistle-blower Bradley Manning at Ft. Meade. Together we’ll make history. Visit our new guide to transportation & lodging near Ft. Meade for help planning your trip.
For those unable to travel to Ft. Meade, Veterans for Peace, Iraq Veterans Against the War, and the Bradley Manning Support Network, are also calling for solidarity actions from June 1st-June 8th worldwide. So far events have been registered in the following cities:
If you have planned an event or action, please register it on our website so we can promote it to other supporters in your area. Interested in organizing something but want some ideas, materials, or help contacting other activists in your area? Contact farah@bradleymanning.org
for assistance!
***Where Hip-Hop Nation Corner Boys Meet The Be-Bop Night Corner Boys- A Nod To J. Cole's "Dolla And A Dream"
From The Pen Of FrankJackman:
On the face of the matter it would
seem improbable, very improbable, that a leading voice of the hip-hop nation
today, j. cole, and an old reprobate radical mired, deeply mired if the truth be known, in
be-bop 1950s rock and roll, now called the classic, uh, geriatric age of rock
and roll would have any points of intersection. Moreover mired, mission mired before
the flame goes out, in youthful transistor radio (for the clueless check
Wikipedia) memories and so preoccupied with transmitting those memories for the
ages (cyberspace ages anyway). And if it hadn’t been for happenstance that I
ran into a young woman, Kelly, at a political event, an anti-war rally, and
mentioned to her that I was somewhat bewildered by the lack of political or social
focus in what I had heard in today’s music and she mentioned some of j. cole’s
stuff that she was crazy about that would still have been so. Naturally, since like
I said I am also in the midst of a craze of my own in trying to present
archival material from the 1960s that had some social content, I checked out
some of his lyrics.
The distance between a young black man growing up in the ‘hood
of Fayetteville, North Carolina (to speak nothing of that huge army base at
Fort Bragg that drives the life of the town) in the recent past, post-civil
rights marches time, “post-racial” time and a 1950s be-bop rock white kid
growing up in “the projects” turned out not to be so far after all. The
connection: a simple lyric taken from j. cole’s Dolla and a Dream about
how his mother, blessed mother of course, blessed now that time has shown us the
error of our ways in those titantic mother-son battles, had to sew patches on
his pants “to make do” when he was young. No heavier social message needed to
grab this writer’s attention. I remember, and have written elsewhere about, my
own hand-me-down patched non-fashionista childhood. I remember being given my
older brother’s cast-offs to make due and in turn passing, if it was still
possible to do so with such cheap Wal-Mart- like materials onto my younger
brother.
Then there was a family famous story that concerned me about
the time when I was in elementary school trying to impress a non-projects girl
at a school square dance demonstration and had cut up one of my only two or
three pairs of pants to give myself a righteous farm- hand look. When my
mother, who was invited to, and attended, the dance demonstration, saw what I
had done she started yelling at me about my disrespect for her and my father by
ruining those pants when she had no way to get more in front of everybody. I
got holy hell about that for weeks. And, needless to say, had no chance, nada, no
go, with that girl after that. Yah, it was like that.
Small stuff, silly in the great Mandela scheme of things,
but it points out that tough reality of wants, constant wants, down at the edges
of society, down among the projects dwelling, where everything is no, can’t do,
can’t have, forget it, and you don’t need that anyway. And points out as well
the hard reality that down in those mean streets the struggle for existence
takes up far too much time. The struggle for the daily bread, literally on some
days, takes the better instincts of our natures and numbs then up, makes the
pursuit of those higher goods seem ridiculous. So anybody, any “gangsta” had (has)
a great gravitational pull for kids trying to fill up that empty want hole.
Then it started like it always does in the big fight against
wants, started just like the generation before me, the old 1930s corner boys
making all their noise (and winning junior corner wannabe admiration). Started simply
with a “clip” here (grabbing stuff from stores, usually jewelry stores and
record shops and slipping it under, well, under something, your coat, your
underwear, whatever), the jack-roll there (the usual victim some older resident
of the projects, an easy target, and easily left behind unlike going uptown and
facing that cop madness trouble), maybe a small time gas station robbery or
extortion racket as you moved up that food chain (armed, armed against any
thought of resistant. See the romance of the gun has a long pedigree, long
before it became the tool of choice, or necessary, in the midnight drifter
world). Cheap jack stuff, petty stuff when you realize the personal and social
cost, but stuff to make those want blues go away, for a while until that
craving comes back. Yah, maybe you don’t know what I mean but hell my brother j.
coles knows what I mean, knows damn well what I mean.
Dolla and a Dream lyrics- j. cole
For all my ville niggas man,
All my Carolina niggas man, (lights off and shit)
All my real niggas, no matter where you come from
A dolla and a dream, thats all a nigga got
So if its about that c.r.e.a.m., then I'm all up in the spot.
I was raised in the F-A-
Why a nigga never gave me nothing?
Pops left me, I ain't never cry, baby, fuck him, that's life.
And trust me I'm living,
Look what a nigga made out,
The shit that I was given,
Look what a nigga came out
The shit that I was given,
Look what a nigga came out
Momma sewing patches on my holes,
Man, our hoes couldn't put this flame out.
Straight up, I got my back against the brick wall,
I'm from a world where niggas never pop no Cristal, it was pistols.
You pass through, you better pray them bullets missed y'all,
I thank the Lord He let a nigga make it this far,
A lot niggas don't, a lot of moms weep.
I gotta carry on, all the weight is on me.
You never know when a nigga might try to harm me.
Rest In Peace that nigga John Lee,
I pour liquor, homie.
It's foul, but yo the world keeps spinning,
Gotta keep winning, get up off this cheap linen,
Nigga Imma eat, even if it means sinning,
Niggas want beef, Imma sink my teeth in 'em.
Pause, I go harder, I am all about a dollar.
You niggas street smart? I'm a motherfucking scholar.
So trust me, I ain't stopping 'til my money is long,
So much dough, them hoes will think I'm rocking money cologne.
Have a model at the crib waiting, "Honey, I'm home."
Cooking greens for a nigga, give 'em plenty, a dome.
It's funny, we dream about money so much its like we almost got it,
Until we reach up in our pockets, its time to face reality,
The ville is a trap nigga now,
And if you ain't focused you gonna be here for awhile, yeah.
