A Mea Culpa… Of Sorts-Down With The Trump Government!- Build The Resistance

A Mea Culpa… Of Sorts-Down With The Trump Government!- Build The Resistance      

A while back, last year, during the American presidential election campaign of 2016 at a point where the two major contenders, now President Donald Trump and now failed contender Hillary Clinton had been nominated by their respective organizations, I was under constant and hard-core pressure from personal friends and political associates to let up on my opposition of support to the candidate of either of the major parties. I had planned, and had made my stance clear early on to one and all, that I planned to cast a protest vote for Green Party candidate once socialist Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders’ campaign went down in disgraceful flames (disgraceful because of the horrible way he was treated by the Democratic Party establishment which went out of its way, way out of its way, to favor weak-kneed leading candidate Clinton). On November 8^th I did just that here in Massachusetts whose Electoral College votes were overwhelming won by Mrs. Clinton. 

The gist of my opposition to the two major party candidates was that I could discern no qualitative difference between war-hawk Clinton and war-hawk Trump, the issues around war and peace being the central reason that I have steadfastly opposed both major parties since my military service during the Vietnam War. A war whose long duration like the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were started by one party’s president (Johnson in the case of Vietnam and avidly pursued by another before the fall of Saigon, Nixon/Ford). While I was not, and have not been, agnostic on my differences on other social and personal liberty issues that war and peace issue has always anchored my politic perspectives since the old days. And those personal friends and political associates have known that as well. Yet as the general election campaign progressed, if that is the right word for the down and dirty slug-fest between both candidates which nobody could rightly accept as reasonable political discourse, they continued their drumbeat. Something in that hard sell twisted me to become more adamant in my opposition-in my seeing that there was as the late great American novelist Gore Vidal no stranger to mainstream politics only “one ruling party in America with two branches-Democratic and Republican.”

I wrote a number of blogs and other commentaries as a result all along this line which not only included my opposition to the two parties but my fervent desire to get on with the real business of people with my brand of politics-organize against the endless wars and home and abroad. Here is a sample of my thinking at the time:

“Now several years ago, maybe late 2007, early 2008 when one Barack Obama made his presence felt on the American national political stage and sought to slay the dragon, to slay what we would come to find out was the dragon lady but who just then was in the first blush of her endless drive to win the Oval Office I noted that the Hillary-Obama race for the Democratic Party nomination looked like a breath of fresh air and although I would not have voted for either for love nor money I decided to try to chronicle the beginning storms of the campaign that year. (In the interest of full disclosure I voted for Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney of the Green Party that year a natural choice as a black and woman with a political past which she need not be ashamed of and who had at least a passing acquaintance with the truth-a big plus that year after all the bullshit was cleared away)   

“Early on though somewhere around the aftermath of the New Hampshire primary (which Hillary had won late by a hair and kept her campaign alive) in 2008 I gave up the enterprise as so much blather and as so much hot air and realized that the “promise” of 2007 had turned to ashes as neither candidate could give the approximate location of the truth in a time when all hell was breaking loose in the economy and working people, the working poor were being beaten down mercilessly by what would be called the Great Recession of 2008. And as we witness in 2016 working people, hard-working working people of all ethnic, racial and gender identifications have been taking it on the chin lo these many years. Taken it on the chin so they have in some cases fervently listened as one Dump the Trump (sorry I could not resist that slam, not the worst thing that will ever happen to that ill-bred bastard) lulls them to sleep with his balderdash, with his contempt for those who have so fervently supported him despite any good sense. We will find no truth coming from anywhere in that precinct. Worse this year milady Hillary has lost all her slight girlish charms from 2008 and is frothing at the mouth in anticipation of next week’s coronation as war-monger-in-chief.      

“Here is the hard truth, the truth neither billionaire Donald nor Wall Street Hillary have a clue about. For working people, for the hard-working people of this country who have been put up against the wall and blindfolded for a while now there is no salvation this side of capitalism, this side of that  defunct system that has had its day and had long ago lost any progressive content that it had in its golden age. “Speak the truth no matter how bitter” and that is the bitter truth as we will, once again learn over the next dreary four years. Yeah, Leon Trotsky, one of his books the place where I first read the truth of that “bitter” phrase, would have said it himself if he was not beyond the pale. You heard it here-think about it okay.”    

I was almost as surprised as everybody else come the morning of November 9^th to find one Donald “Dump The Trump” (no apology for that now) had been an upset winner of the 2016 American election. Although maybe not as surprised as most as I kept hearing a small drumbeat from working class guys and gals too whom I would meet in my work, or somebody would tell me about that there something underground in the political world, something down at the base was happening for Trump. Hell I even heard stuff when I played golf with guys on public golf courses (not Donald’s private ones) in places like Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire that Trump was their guy for jobs, for keeping black and Latinos down, keeping the fucking immigrants out and making America an armed fortress. 

Then as the transition began its awful cycle on the turnover Trump daily almost shocked me, and everybody else like me, with his choices for who would aid him in his government. This is where the “mea culpa” of the title of this piece comes in. I now am ready to concede that there is some qualitative difference between a Trump government and what Hillary’s would have looked like- if only because she would leave us alone. I still stand by my vote of “no confidence” and am still glad, very glad, that I cast my protest vote for Jill Stein but we are in a mess for the next four years no question. Practically speaking though I was down in Washington on January 20^th to express my opposition, no, my resistance to the Trump government on day one.

Down with the Trump government!-Build The Resistance   

I Accuse-Unmasking The Sherlock Holmes Legend, Part VIII-“Bumbling Down The Primrose Lane”-Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce’s “The Woman In Green” (1945)-A Film Review

I Accuse-Unmasking The Sherlock Holmes Legend, Part VIII-“Bumbling Down The Primrose Lane”-Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce’s “The Woman In Green” (1945)-A Film Review

DVD Review 

By Bruce Conan

The Woman In Green, starring Lanny Lamont (aka Basil Rathbone aka Sherlock Holmes, aka a million other aliases to be discussed below), the Fixer man (aka John Watson, MD, aka John Watkins, aka Nigel Bruce also to be discussed below), 1945   

Okay no more Mister Nice Guy, no more trying to be reasonable with these felons, miscreants, dopesters, grifters, grafters, con men, whores, pimps and murderers of the nefarious group the Baker Street Irregulars who work out of London town as far as I know but who seemingly have tentacles all over the world, or at least to the United States where they have attempted to hunt me down. Apparently they have something of a central committee, or organizing center, the notorious Kit Kat Club a known hang-out for degenerates and riff-raff of all sorts who people the tables at the place and have ever since King George III’s day. Now that my family is finally safe and beyond the reach of these craven fiends I can take off the kid gloves, can reveal what everybody knows by now and which these Irregulars fear to become public knowledge. Their idol Lanny Lamont (really their idle if you think about how little detective work he actually did once he turned over the hard dirty work to the real if corrupt coppers at Scotland Yard) aka Basil Rathbone aka Sherlock Holmes is an impostor, nothing but a parlor pink amateur sleuth that even Agatha Christie laughed at without embarrassment. Him and his buddy Doc Watson aka Doc Fixer Man were a great deal more than roommates, were the stately queens of England if you get my drift.

I have been chastised, berated, called a political Neanderthal, a homophobe and that is just the nice things by what I can only consider is a slander/libel campaign run by the Irregulars to dismiss me and my fact-driven contentions. That alone tells me I am on to something since this Irregular cohort is made up of those who are the most degenerate devotees of the Lamont legend, those who are into unspeakable blood rituals in order to sate their unholy desires (as is standard operating procedure now that I have uncovered his real identity after great efforts refuse to call him anything but his given name Lanny Lamont born in the West End slums of London to an unwed mother who attempted to abandon him at birth).

I have decided in any case to take on the legend hereafter strictly on the basis of competence, of ability to do private detection and will leave out further reference to the unholy and then scandalous relationship, the “sin that dare not speak its name” between these two, ah, roommates. That means that I will give up all the proof I directly gathered from the archival journals of the Kit Kat Club that they were members in good standing of that hell-hole nefarious operation and almost bankrupted the place with their fiendish opium habits and their unbridled unnatural lusts. So be it.   

Finding the real name, that Lanny Lamont name on the birth certificate though I cannot give up since that really is the initial lynchpin for what seemed totally wrong from the beginning about this brittle character who went by a million names (Basil Rathbone, like that moniker could be a real name be serious, Lytton Strachey, Sailor Jack when he was plying the trade among the rough waterfront sailors, Benny Worth, Harry Smyth, not Smith, and a half dozen others). Claimed to be a private detective. I looked up the International Private Detection Association membership lists and the London private detective licensing lists from the 1920s to the 1950s. No Lanny Lamont or any of the other aliases, nothing. I did find a Lanny Lamont who served time in Dartmoor Prison in the 1930s for drug trafficking, assault, carrying a concealed weapon and a raft of other minor charges. (Also made the connection of how Lanny and Fixer Man met, by the way the only other name I found on him was John Watkins, having met in Dartmoor when he was serving a long stretch for practicing medicine without a license, performing illegal abortions, selling illegal drugs, and sodomy.) The clincher though was a thorough run through all the London telephone directories for those years (a task that will be harder to do with all the singular cellphone use now and in the future).Yeah you guessed it no Lanny or any other name. Nowhere. And certainly not on Baker Street his, their last known address. An old lady had lived in his claimed residence by herself since her husband died during most of that time.                

I could go on with all the lies and deceit but I said that I would take Lanny on his own ground, take him apart as a parlor pink amateur detective that a kid like Jimmy Olson who is just starting could beat six ways to Sunday on a case and have time for lunch and a nap. Take this Women in Green case where this fraud tried to take down heroic Professor Moriarty, tried to pin the so-called ‘finger” murders on that much maligned man. First off Lanny and Fixer Man were so stoned out of their gourds for weeks at a time that they did not know thing number one about the “finger” murder spree until it had grabbed four young innocent random women in its net. Sat around swilling booze when he could have nailed somebody for the job pretty quickly even if he had to fake the evidence. Pin it naturally on a woman and just as naturally a good looking blonde who looked like she liked to get under the silky sheets without too much effort. Of course Lanny could have cared less about running that route but he just let the bodies pile up like a cord of wood until he got done with his high.

While every detective private or public, was on this case to protect womanhood if nothing else Lanny waited for the daughter of one of the guys who thought he had murdered a young woman to show up at his door. Had the tell-tale surgically sawed off finger in a box in his pocket. Five down, make it six when that guy took the fall. That woke Lanny up a little, not Fixer Man though he persisted on a landudum high until Lanny was in danger of falling of a roof and then he started crying for his man. After what seemed like six months Lanny finally had an idea-finally figured that somebody was manipulating the killers somehow-although how was a book sealed with seven seals. Then one of the guys who was sent to kill Fixer Man (it was probably a busted drug deal but the case went into cold case history and was never solved) screwed up and Lanny finally caught on. The guys were hypnotized and the “finger” in the box in their pockets was to blackmail them when they couldn’t figure out whether they had killed the young woman that belonged to the finger or not.

Naturally Lanny’s number one suspect was much put upon Professor Moriarty since they were sworn enemies since Kit Kat Club days when the good Professor “took” some guy away from Lanny according to an old-time reprobate member who remembers those battles for the young guys which were fierce. Lanny confronted the Professor but he blew Lanny off with the suggestion that he will take the Fixer Man away from him. Lanny in terror backs off. The long and short of it is that Lanny never really was able to pin the murders on the Professor who had an alibi any way that he had been in Scotland. Here is what Lanny never figured, never thought through. What about the blonde dish, what about maybe she had something to do with it. She had after all been seen right in the Pembroke Club with the last murderer where he was sucking up scotches. Not until the bodies were sky high did he take a run in that direction. And didn’t, I repeat didn’t, like any red-blooded private detective from the 1940s take a run at her under the sheets before turning her over. Let Scotland Yard take the tough collar while he pranced around in exotic drug high. Yeah, a fake and fraud. Where is Sam Spade when you need him.       

          

Tues 3/27, 4:45 pm, Picket for Mayli, fired by Harvard for reporting sexual harassment & racism!

Geoff Carens

3/21/2018 5:17 PM

To  act-ma@act-ma.org,    reformhuctw   and 5 others

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Dear All,

Next Tuesday, 3/27, starting at 4:45 pm, supporters of HUCTW* member Mayli
will picket <https://www.facebook.com/events/1663807007019858/> her
workplace at Harvard University. Mayli was fired in February for reporting
sexual harassment and racial discrimination at work. Please join us in
front of the Smith Campus Center, 1350 Mass Ave in Cambridge, steps from
the Harvard Square T stop.

*Background*: Mayli, who worked at Harvard for 10+ years, had good
performance evaluations until she reported inappropriate conduct and racist
remarks from her boss. She was swiftly targeted for micro-management and
retaliatory discipline, and was soon fired, supposedly for being seen at
her desk half an hour *early*. Mayli's supervisor had previously written,
"Mayli is always in work before her regular hours. She is extremely
reliable," on at least two performance evaluations. A few days before she
was fired, Harvard put a letter in Mayli's file, threatening her with
termination for sharing her complaints with co-workers. It is clear the
firing was punishment for speaking out.

Harvard has challenged Mayli's unemployment benefits and she is now without
income. A first gen immigrant single mom of two, she could lose her home,
and her child may have to drop out of college. You can donate to help Mayli
here <https://www.gofundme.com/DefendMayli>.

Please feel free to send protests to Harvard's Director of Labor Relations
Paul Curran at paul_curran@harvard.edu, 617 496-9193. Suggested message, "I
am outraged to hear that a union member named Mayli was fired by Harvard
after reporting sexual harassment and racial discrimination. Please use
your influence to ensure justice in this case."

Read more about the fight to win Mayli's job back:

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/2/16/mayli-shing-protest/

https://www.harvardindependent.com/2018/02/unions-students-stand-mayli-shing/

Please feel free to forward this message as widely as possible!

In Solidarity,

Geoff Carens, Union Rep, HUCTW / AFSCME Local 3650
Harvard No Layoffs Campaign
<https://www.facebook.com/groups/224445424319070/>

*Harvard Union of Clerical & Technical Workers
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RAPID RESPONSE: Wendy's attacks farmworker women as "exploiting" the #MeToo and Time's Up movement.

Coalition of Immokalee Workers

3/21/2018 7:49 PM

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RAPID RESPONSE: Wendy's attacks farmworker women as "exploiting" the #MeToo and Time's Up movement. We need YOU to take to social media to fight back against Wendy's dirty move! Heidi Schauer (pictured above, confronted by farmworker women at Wendy's headquarters last May) to Huffington Post: "There’s no new news here, aside from the CIW trying to exploit the positive momentum that has been generated by and for women in the #MeToo and Time’s Up movement to advance their interests." Eve Ensler, #TimesUp's Alyssa Milano join the Fair Food Nation in swift, unequivocal response: "The Immokalee women workers are the heart and soul of the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements..." Today, Wendy's took their denial of farmworker women's basic rights to a despicable new level. Responding to the Huffington Post, Wendy's spokesperson Heidi Schauer shamelessly went on the record with the fast-food holdout's latest: “There’s no new news here, aside from the CIW trying to exploit the positive momentum that has been generated by and for women in the #MeToo and Time’s Up movement to advance their interests." Speaking for Wendy's, Ms. Schauer's statement is a wildly disrespectful attack on the leadership of farmworker women in the decades-long fight to end sexual violence in the fields, a fight that long predates the critical momentum garnered by the recent #MeToo and #TimesUp movements. It is a disgraceful response to the sacrifice of the dozens of farmworker women who fasted last week in New York to hold Wendy's and its Board Chairman Nelson Peltz accountable for the company's failure to join the Fair Food Program, a successful solution designed by farmworkers to halt sexual abuse in their workplace. Time's Up leader Alyssa Milano immediately rebuked Wendy's offensive attack on Facebook: "...Wendy's, this is very simple: These women are the #MeToo movement, which is a grassroots movement of women from all corners of society exposing the painfully common experience of sexual harassment, misconduct and assault. The Time's Up movement was created in part to "lift up the voices, power, and strength of women working in low-wage industries." To suggest that farmworker women — whose voices, power, and strength were on impressive display in front of the offices of Wendy's Board Chairman all last week during their Freedom Fast — are somehow unwelcome intruders in the fight for dignity and safety for women is downright absurd and unbelievably offensive. And that such a statement was made by a company like Wendy's, who pulled their purchases entirely from "the best working environment in American agriculture" and now partners with an industry with well-documented human rights abuses, including sexual violence, is even more outrageous. I stand with our sisters in the fields, and applaud their efforts to expand the new protections guaranteed in the Fair Food Program to the millions more women who are seeking change. And a final word of advice, Wendy's: If you really want to get on the wrong side of the Time's Up movement, keep using our name to attack and belittle farmworker women who are fighting to keep themselves and their sisters safe from rape in the fields." Meanwhile, acclaimed playwright Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues, fought back on Instagram: Now, it's your turn. We need YOU to take to Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to call out Wendy's on their outrageous attack and declare #BoycottWendys until they join the Fair Food Program! Time's Up, Wendy's! Coalition of Immokalee Workers (239) 657 8311 | workers@ciw-online.org | www.ciw-online.org Connect with us  ‌  ‌  ‌  ‌

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Twitter claps back at Wendy’s: “Reprehensible,” “vile,” “disgusting,” “shameful” and “outrageous”…

Coalition of Immokalee Workers

3/22/2018 8:31 AM

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Twitter claps back at Wendy’s: “Reprehensible,” “vile,” “disgusting,” “shameful” and “outrageous”… From left to right, CIW leaders Silvia Perez, Julia Perkins, and Lupe Gonzalo conduct a worker-to-worker education session on the right of farmworker women to work free of sexual violence on a Fair Food Program farm in July, 2017. Wendy’s spokesperson Heidi Schauer claims “CIW trying to exploit the positive momentum that has been generated by and for women in the #MeToo and Time’s Up movement to advance their interests” in Huffington Post article… Time’s Up leaders react! Alyssa Milano: “Hey,@Wendys! If you really want to get on the wrong side of the #TimesUp movement, keep using our name to attack and belittle farmworker women who are fighting to keep themselves and their sisters safe from rape in the fields.” First, a bit of context… The CIW’s Silvia Perez (pictured on the right during last week’s Freedom Fast), has spent the past six years waking up as early as 4 am to drive through the dawn to tomato, strawberry, and pepper fields across the state of Florida and up the East Coast as far as New Jersey. Over those six years, she and her fellow education team members have taught tens of thousands of her fellow farmworkers about their rights — including the right to work free from sexual violence, an abuse so common that fully 80% of farmworker women report being subjected to sexual harassment or assault at work — under the Fair Food Program.  Indeed, along with several other longtime CIW leaders, women and men, Silvia has spent the past seventeen years, since the launch of the Campaign for Fair Food in 2001, organizing day in and day out to win the power to enforce farmworkers’ human rights in the fields — including the right to work free from sexual violence. In the process, Silvia and her colleagues have helped countless farmworker women successfully defend their rights and have transformed an entire industry. And today, the Fair Food Program (FFP) that Silvia and her colleagues built is widely recognized as the only program that has successfully put a stop to sexual assault at work for low wage workers in this country. The FFP is being studied by experts from the halls of academia, to European capitals, to the inner circles of the Time’s Up movement as a model for protecting the rights of tens of millions of women around the globe. Their efforts over the past two decades have attracted the attention of human rights observers from the White House to the United Nations. They have received a Presidential Medal, the Anti-Slavery Hero Award from the State Department, and a MacArthur “Genius” Grant for their groundbreaking achievements.   Yet this week, Wendy’s spokesperson Heidi Schauer accused Silvia and her colleagues at the CIW of “trying to exploit the positive momentum that has been generated by and for women in the #MeToo and Time’s Up movement to advance their interests,” in an article published Wednesday in the Huffington Post.  Wendy’s accused farmworker women of exploiting the Time’s Up movement. Wendy’s should never be allowed to speak about the Time’s Up movement again. Read all of the rapid responses from Alyssa Milano, Eve Ensler, Caitriona Balfe, Sara Ziff and, of course, Silvia Perez, over at the CIW website! Coalition of Immokalee Workers (239) 657 8311 | workers@ciw-online.org | www.ciw-online.org Connect with us  ‌  ‌  ‌  ‌

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