Click on the headline to link to updates from the Occupy Boston website. Occupy Boston started at 6:00 PM, September 30, 2011. I will post important updates as they appear on that site.
Markin comment:
We know that we are only at the very start of an upsurge in the labor movement as witness the stellar exemplary actions by the West Coast activists on December 12, 2011. As I have pointed out in remarks previously made elsewhere as part of the Boston solidarity rally with the West Coast Port Shutdown on that date this is the way forward as we struggle against the ruling class for a very different, more equitable society. Not everything went as well, or as well-attended, as expected including at our rally in solidarity in Boston on the afternoon of December 12th but we are still exhibiting growing pains in the post-Occupy encampment era. Some of that will get sorted out in the future as well get a better grip of the important of the labor movement to winning victories in our struggles.
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An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupation Movement And All The Occupiers! Drop All Charges Against All Occupy Protesters Everywhere!
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Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
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Why You, Your Union , Or Your Community Organization Needs To Join The May Day 2012 General Strike In Boston-Stand Up!-Fight Back!
Wage cuts, long work hours, steep consumer price rises, unemployment, small or no pensions, little or no paid vacation time, plenty of poor and inadequate housing, homelessness, and wide-spread sicknesses as a result of a poor medical system or no health insurance. Sound familiar? Words, perhaps, taken from today’s global headlines? Well, yes. But these were also the similar conditions that faced our forebears in America back in the 1880s when the 1% were called, and rightly so, “the robber barons,” and threatened, as one of their kind stated in a fit of candor, “to hire one half of the working class to kill the other half,” so that they could maintain their luxury in peace. That too has not changed.
What did change then is that our forebears fought back, fought back long and hard, starting with the fight for the eight-hour day symbolized each year by a May Day celebration of working class power. We need to reassert that claim. This May Day let us revive that tradition as we individually act around our separate grievances and strike, strike like the furies, collectively against the 1%.
No question over the past several years (really decades but it is just more public and in our face now) American working people has taken it on the chin, taken it on the chin in every possible way. Starting with massive job losses, heavy job losses in the service and manufacturing sectors (and jobs that are not coming back), paying for the seemingly never-ending bail–out of banks, other financial institutions and corporations “to big to fail,” home foreclosures and those “under water,” effective tax increases (since the rich refuse to pay, we pay), mountains of consumer debt for everything from modern necessities to just daily get-bys, and college student loan debt as a lifetime deadweight around the neck of the kids there is little to glow about in the harsh light of the “American Dream.”
Add to that the double (and triple) troubles facing immigrants, racial and ethnic minorities, and women and the grievances voiced in the Declaration of Independence seem like just so much whining. In short, it is not secret that working people have faced, are facing and, apparently, will continue to face an erosion of their material well-being for the foreseeable future something not seen by most people since the 1930s Great Depression, the time of our grandparents (or great-grandparents).
That is this condition will continue unless we take some lessons from those same 1930s and struggle, struggle like demons, against the 1% that seem to have all the card decks stacked against us. Struggle like they did in places like Minneapolis, San Francisco, Toledo, Flint, and Detroit. Those labor-centered struggles demonstrated the social power of working people to hit the “economic royalists” (the name coined for the 1% of that day) to shut the bosses down where it hurts- in their pocketbooks and property. The bosses will let us rant all day, will gladly take (and throw away) all our petitions, will let us use their “free-speech” parks (up to a point as we have found out), and curse them to eternity as long as we don’t touch their production, “perks,” and profits. Moreover an inspired fight like the actions proposed for this May Day 2012 can help new generations of working people, organized, unorganized, unemployed, homeless, houseless, and just plain desperate, help themselves to get out from under.
Show Power
We demand:
*Hands Off Our Public Worker Unions! Hands Off All Our Unions!
* Give the unemployed work! Billions for public works projects to fix America’s broken infrastructure (bridges, roads, sewer and water systems, etc.)!
Guest Commentary
From The Transitional Program Of The Leon Trotsky-Led Fourth International In 1938Sliding Scale of Wages and Sliding Scale of Hours
Under the conditions of disintegrating capitalism, the masses continue to live the meagerized life of the oppressed, threatened now more than at any other time with the danger of being cast into the pit of pauperism. They must defend their mouthful of bread, if they cannot increase or better it. There is neither the need nor the opportunity to enumerate here those separate, partial demands which time and again arise on the basis of concrete circumstances – national, local, trade union. But two basic economic afflictions, in which is summarized the increasing absurdity of the capitalist system, that is, unemployment and high prices, demand generalized slogans and methods of struggle.
The Fourth International declares uncompromising war on the politics of the capitalists which, to a considerable degree, like the politics of their agents, the reformists, aims to place the whole burden of militarism, the crisis, the disorganization of the monetary system and all other scourges stemming from capitalism’s death agony upon the backs of the toilers. The Fourth International demands employment and decent living conditions for all.
Neither monetary inflation nor stabilization can serve as slogans for the proletariat because these are but two ends of the same stick. Against a bounding rise in prices, which with the approach of war will assume an ever more unbridled character, one can fight only under the slogan of a sliding scale of wages. This means that collective agreements should assure an automatic rise in wages in relation to the increase in price of consumer goods.
Under the menace of its own disintegration, the proletariat cannot permit the transformation of an increasing section of the workers into chronically unemployed paupers, living off the slops of a crumbling society. The right to employment is the only serious right left to the worker in a society based upon exploitation. This right today is left to the worker in a society based upon exploitation. This right today is being shorn from him at every step. Against unemployment, “structural” as well as “conjunctural,” the time is ripe to advance along with the slogan of public works, the slogan of a sliding scale of working hours. Trade unions and other mass organizations should bind the workers and the unemployed together in the solidarity of mutual responsibility. On this basis all the work on hand would then be divided among all existing workers in accordance with how the extent of the working week is defined. The average wage of every worker remains the same as it was under the old working week. Wages, under a strictly guaranteed minimum, would follow the movement of prices. It is impossible to accept any other program for the present catastrophic period.
Property owners and their lawyers will prove the “unrealizability” of these demands. Smaller, especially ruined capitalists, in addition will refer to their account ledgers. The workers categorically denounce such conclusions and references. The question is not one of a “normal” collision between opposing material interests. The question is one of guarding the proletariat from decay, demoralization and ruin. The question is one of life or death of the only creative and progressive class, and by that token of the future of mankind. If capitalism is incapable of satisfying the demands inevitably arising from the calamities generated by itself, then let it perish. “Realizability” or “unrealizability” is in the given instance a question of the relationship of forces, which can be decided only by the struggle. By means of this struggle, no matter what immediate practical successes may be, the workers will best come to understand the necessity of liquidating capitalist slavery.
*End the endless wars!
* Full citizenship rights for all those who made it here no matter how they got here!
* A drastic increase in the minimum wage and big wage increases for all workers!
•
* A moratorium on home foreclosures! No evictions!
* A moratorium on student loan debt! Free, quality higher education for all! Create 100, 200, many publicly-supported Harvards!
*No increases in public transportation fares! No transportation worker lay-offs! Free public transportation!
To order to flex our collective bottom up power on May 1, 2012 we will be organizing
a wide-ranging series of mass collective participatory actions:
*We will be organizing within our unions- or informal workplace organizations where
there is no union - a one-day general strike.
*We will be organizing where a strike is not possible to call in sick, or take a personal day, as part of a coordinated “sick-out.”
*We will be organizing students to walk-out of their schools (or not show up in the first place), set up campus picket lines, or to rally at a central location, probably Boston Common.
*We will be calling in our communities for a mass consumer boycott, and with local business support where possible, refuse to make purchases on that day.
Watch this website and other social media sites for further specific details of events and actions.
All out on May Day 2012.
Monday, February 20, 2012
Out In The Be-Bop 1950s Night-When “Stewball” Stu Ruled The Highways
Click on to the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Danny and The Juniors performing Rock And Roll Is Here To Stay to set the mood for this sketch.
Scene: Brought to mind by the be-bop cover photograph of a “boss” two-toned 1950s Oldsmobile sitting in front of a car dealership just waiting to be driven off in the “golden age of the automobile” night.
“Stewball” Stu loves cars, loved 1950s classic “boss” cars, period. And on the very top of that heap is his cherry red ’57 Chevy. The flamed-out king hell dragon of the Mainiac highways, especially those back roads around his, our, hometown, Olde Saco, close by the sea. Not for him the new stuff, the new “boss” Mustang, Mustang Sally ride I am crazy for, or would be crazy for if, (1) I was older than my current no-driver, no legal driver fifteen, and (2) I had any kind of dough except the few bucks I grab doing this and that, mainly that. And how do I know about Stewball’s preferences, prejudices if you want to put it that way? Well I, Joshua Lawrence Breslin, have been riding “shot-gun” to Stewball’s driver for the past several months, ever since I proved my metal, my Stu-worthy metal, when I “scrammed” a while back when Stu moved in on me and a “hot date” I had with a local Lolita and three was a crowd(let’s leave it at for her name, looks and prowess since she was, uh, what you would call under-aged but definitely not under-sexed and maybe even now the statute of limitations hasn’t run on that fact, the age fact. But, hell, why do you think King Stu moved in on me?).
You, Stu and I are tight, tight as a nineteen- year old guy who is the king of the roads around here can be with a fifteen-year old guy with no dough, no drivers’ license, no sister for him to drool over, and zero, maybe minus zero, mechanical skills to back him up. So you see me flaking out on that Lolita thing meant a lot to Stewball, although he is not a guy that you can figure something on, not easy figuring anyhow.
[Hey, by the way, by the very big way, that Stewball moniker is strictly between you and me. Some of the guys that hang around his garage (really his bent out of shape trailer home rigged up with all kinds of automobile-fixing stuff all over the place) started to call him “Stewball” among ourselves after we observed, observed for the sixty-fifth time, Stu loaded before noon on some rotgut Southern Comfort that he swore kept his sober, unlike whiskey. Like I say don’t spread that around because Stu in one tough hombre. I once saw him chain-whip a guy just for kind of eyeing a Lolita (not the one I butted out on) that was sitting next to him in that cherry red Chevy at Jimmy Jacks’s Diner, the one down on Route One, not the one over on Atlantic Avenue. Enough said, okay.]
Let me tell you about one time a few months back when Stu proved, for the umpteenth time (although my first time, first really seeing him in action glory time), why no one can come close to him as king of these roads around here, and maybe any. It was a Friday night, an October Friday night just starting to get to be defroster or car heater time so it had to be then. Stu, who lives over on Tobacco Road (I won’t tell you his real address because, like he says, what people don’t know is just fine with him and the girls all know where he is anyway. Ya, that’s a real Stu-ism) picked me up at my house on Albemarle Street (got that girls, Albemarle) like he always does, sometime between seven and eight, also as usual.
We then make the loop. First down Atlantic passed the Colonial Donut Shoppe (they serve other stuff there too, early in the day breakfast stuff, all day) to see if there was any stray clover (A Stu-ism for a girl, origin unknown) or two looking to erase the gloomy, lonely night coming on. I hoped two, two girls that is, because while I am glad, glad as hell, that I did right by Stu with that Lolita (and she was hot, maybe too hot for me then, not now) I don’t want to make a habit of it, being Stu’s “shot-gun,” or not. No dice. So off to Lanny’s Bowl-A-World over on Sea Street. Guess it was kind of early because no dice there either. Well, it’s off to “headquarters,” Jimmy Jack’s Diner on Main Street (really Route One but everybody local calls it Main just to be from Main Street, although I never got the joke).
Now Jimmy Joe’s has been Stu’s headquarters for so long that he has a “reserved” spot there. Yes, right in front just to the left on the entrance so that he can “scope” (Stu-ism) the scene (read: girls, Josh-ism). Jimmy Joe, the owner, felt that Stu was so good for business, Friday night hot teenage girls crowding the place looking for fast-driving guys and fast, or slow, driving guys for, well you know and I don’t have to draw you a diagram on that, business so he had no problem with the arrangement.
Except this Friday night, this October Friday night, Stu’s reserved spot is occupied, occupied by a two-toned low-riding 1956 Oldsmobile that even I can see had been worked on, worked hard on to create maximum horse-power in the minimum time. And inside that Oldsmobile sat one Duke McKay, a guy some of us had heard of, from down in Kittery near the New Hampshire border. So maybe Duke, not knowing the local rules, parked in that spot by accident.
Ya that seemed like the right answer because no local guy, not even some hayseed farmer boy with more horsepower than head power, would park with in three spaces of Stu’s spot. Just in case he needed some extra space. No way, though. Why? Because sitting right next old Duke, actually almost on top of him was that Lolita that I made way for to help Stu. Said Lolita (not her real name like I said because she was, and is maybe, as I write, uh, still not “of age” so Lolita is a good enough moniker) looking very fine, very fine indeed, as Stu goes over to the Oldsmobile to give Duke the what for. I can almost hear the whipsaw chains coming out.
But Stu must have had some kind of jinx on him, or Lolita had put one on him, because all he did was make Duke a proposition. Beat Stu in a “chicken run” and the parking spot, Lolita, and the unofficial king of the road title were his. Lose, and he was gone (without a chain-whipping, I hoped) from Olde Saco, permanently, minus Lolita. Now I can see where this Lolita was worth getting a little steamed up about. But take it from me Stu, until just this minute, was strictly a love them or leave them guy (leave them to me, please). Duke, with eight million pounds of bravado, answered quickly like any true road-warrior does when challenged just and uttered, “On.” And we were off, although not before Lolita gave Stu some madness femme fatale look. A look, a pout really, which you couldn’t tell if she was in Stu’s corner or just really wanted to see him in flamed-out hell. Girls, hell.
A chicken race, for the squares, is nothing but a race between two cars (usually), two fast teenager-driven cars, done late at night or early in the morning out on some desolate road, sometimes straight, sometimes not. The idea is to get a fast start and keep the accelerator on the floor as long as possible before some flame-out. For Olde Saco runs they use the beach down at the Squaw Rock end since it is long, flat, and wide even at high tide, and the loser either winds up in the dunes or the ocean, usually the latter, ruining a perfectly good car but that is the way it is. Most importantly it is out of sight of the cops until it too late, way too late for them to do anything about it-except call a tow truck.
So about two in the morning one could see a ’57 cherry red Chevy lining up, with me as a “second,” against a ’56 Oldsmobile, with Lolita as Duke’s “second.” Jimmy Jack’s son, Billy, who I will tell you about sometime, acted as starter as usual. And at Billy’s signal we are off. Duke got an extremely fast start and was maybe thirty yards ahead of us and it looked like we were done for when Stu opened up from somewhere and flat out “smoked” the side of Duke Olds sending his vehicle off into the ocean, soon to sputter in the roaring waves, and oblivion.
Stu stopped the Chevy, backed up the several hundred yards to the vicinity of the distressed Oldsmobile, opened up the passenger side door of that wreck and escorted Lolita, as nice as you please, to his king hell Chevy. And she was smiling, no pout this time, smiling very, well let’s put it this way, Stu’s got a big treat coming. And Josh? Well, Stu yelled over “Hey, Josh, hope you find a ride home tonight.” But do you see what I mean about Stewball Stu being the king of the roads around here. What a guy.
Scene: Brought to mind by the be-bop cover photograph of a “boss” two-toned 1950s Oldsmobile sitting in front of a car dealership just waiting to be driven off in the “golden age of the automobile” night.
“Stewball” Stu loves cars, loved 1950s classic “boss” cars, period. And on the very top of that heap is his cherry red ’57 Chevy. The flamed-out king hell dragon of the Mainiac highways, especially those back roads around his, our, hometown, Olde Saco, close by the sea. Not for him the new stuff, the new “boss” Mustang, Mustang Sally ride I am crazy for, or would be crazy for if, (1) I was older than my current no-driver, no legal driver fifteen, and (2) I had any kind of dough except the few bucks I grab doing this and that, mainly that. And how do I know about Stewball’s preferences, prejudices if you want to put it that way? Well I, Joshua Lawrence Breslin, have been riding “shot-gun” to Stewball’s driver for the past several months, ever since I proved my metal, my Stu-worthy metal, when I “scrammed” a while back when Stu moved in on me and a “hot date” I had with a local Lolita and three was a crowd(let’s leave it at for her name, looks and prowess since she was, uh, what you would call under-aged but definitely not under-sexed and maybe even now the statute of limitations hasn’t run on that fact, the age fact. But, hell, why do you think King Stu moved in on me?).
You, Stu and I are tight, tight as a nineteen- year old guy who is the king of the roads around here can be with a fifteen-year old guy with no dough, no drivers’ license, no sister for him to drool over, and zero, maybe minus zero, mechanical skills to back him up. So you see me flaking out on that Lolita thing meant a lot to Stewball, although he is not a guy that you can figure something on, not easy figuring anyhow.
[Hey, by the way, by the very big way, that Stewball moniker is strictly between you and me. Some of the guys that hang around his garage (really his bent out of shape trailer home rigged up with all kinds of automobile-fixing stuff all over the place) started to call him “Stewball” among ourselves after we observed, observed for the sixty-fifth time, Stu loaded before noon on some rotgut Southern Comfort that he swore kept his sober, unlike whiskey. Like I say don’t spread that around because Stu in one tough hombre. I once saw him chain-whip a guy just for kind of eyeing a Lolita (not the one I butted out on) that was sitting next to him in that cherry red Chevy at Jimmy Jacks’s Diner, the one down on Route One, not the one over on Atlantic Avenue. Enough said, okay.]
Let me tell you about one time a few months back when Stu proved, for the umpteenth time (although my first time, first really seeing him in action glory time), why no one can come close to him as king of these roads around here, and maybe any. It was a Friday night, an October Friday night just starting to get to be defroster or car heater time so it had to be then. Stu, who lives over on Tobacco Road (I won’t tell you his real address because, like he says, what people don’t know is just fine with him and the girls all know where he is anyway. Ya, that’s a real Stu-ism) picked me up at my house on Albemarle Street (got that girls, Albemarle) like he always does, sometime between seven and eight, also as usual.
We then make the loop. First down Atlantic passed the Colonial Donut Shoppe (they serve other stuff there too, early in the day breakfast stuff, all day) to see if there was any stray clover (A Stu-ism for a girl, origin unknown) or two looking to erase the gloomy, lonely night coming on. I hoped two, two girls that is, because while I am glad, glad as hell, that I did right by Stu with that Lolita (and she was hot, maybe too hot for me then, not now) I don’t want to make a habit of it, being Stu’s “shot-gun,” or not. No dice. So off to Lanny’s Bowl-A-World over on Sea Street. Guess it was kind of early because no dice there either. Well, it’s off to “headquarters,” Jimmy Jack’s Diner on Main Street (really Route One but everybody local calls it Main just to be from Main Street, although I never got the joke).
Now Jimmy Joe’s has been Stu’s headquarters for so long that he has a “reserved” spot there. Yes, right in front just to the left on the entrance so that he can “scope” (Stu-ism) the scene (read: girls, Josh-ism). Jimmy Joe, the owner, felt that Stu was so good for business, Friday night hot teenage girls crowding the place looking for fast-driving guys and fast, or slow, driving guys for, well you know and I don’t have to draw you a diagram on that, business so he had no problem with the arrangement.
Except this Friday night, this October Friday night, Stu’s reserved spot is occupied, occupied by a two-toned low-riding 1956 Oldsmobile that even I can see had been worked on, worked hard on to create maximum horse-power in the minimum time. And inside that Oldsmobile sat one Duke McKay, a guy some of us had heard of, from down in Kittery near the New Hampshire border. So maybe Duke, not knowing the local rules, parked in that spot by accident.
Ya that seemed like the right answer because no local guy, not even some hayseed farmer boy with more horsepower than head power, would park with in three spaces of Stu’s spot. Just in case he needed some extra space. No way, though. Why? Because sitting right next old Duke, actually almost on top of him was that Lolita that I made way for to help Stu. Said Lolita (not her real name like I said because she was, and is maybe, as I write, uh, still not “of age” so Lolita is a good enough moniker) looking very fine, very fine indeed, as Stu goes over to the Oldsmobile to give Duke the what for. I can almost hear the whipsaw chains coming out.
But Stu must have had some kind of jinx on him, or Lolita had put one on him, because all he did was make Duke a proposition. Beat Stu in a “chicken run” and the parking spot, Lolita, and the unofficial king of the road title were his. Lose, and he was gone (without a chain-whipping, I hoped) from Olde Saco, permanently, minus Lolita. Now I can see where this Lolita was worth getting a little steamed up about. But take it from me Stu, until just this minute, was strictly a love them or leave them guy (leave them to me, please). Duke, with eight million pounds of bravado, answered quickly like any true road-warrior does when challenged just and uttered, “On.” And we were off, although not before Lolita gave Stu some madness femme fatale look. A look, a pout really, which you couldn’t tell if she was in Stu’s corner or just really wanted to see him in flamed-out hell. Girls, hell.
A chicken race, for the squares, is nothing but a race between two cars (usually), two fast teenager-driven cars, done late at night or early in the morning out on some desolate road, sometimes straight, sometimes not. The idea is to get a fast start and keep the accelerator on the floor as long as possible before some flame-out. For Olde Saco runs they use the beach down at the Squaw Rock end since it is long, flat, and wide even at high tide, and the loser either winds up in the dunes or the ocean, usually the latter, ruining a perfectly good car but that is the way it is. Most importantly it is out of sight of the cops until it too late, way too late for them to do anything about it-except call a tow truck.
So about two in the morning one could see a ’57 cherry red Chevy lining up, with me as a “second,” against a ’56 Oldsmobile, with Lolita as Duke’s “second.” Jimmy Jack’s son, Billy, who I will tell you about sometime, acted as starter as usual. And at Billy’s signal we are off. Duke got an extremely fast start and was maybe thirty yards ahead of us and it looked like we were done for when Stu opened up from somewhere and flat out “smoked” the side of Duke Olds sending his vehicle off into the ocean, soon to sputter in the roaring waves, and oblivion.
Stu stopped the Chevy, backed up the several hundred yards to the vicinity of the distressed Oldsmobile, opened up the passenger side door of that wreck and escorted Lolita, as nice as you please, to his king hell Chevy. And she was smiling, no pout this time, smiling very, well let’s put it this way, Stu’s got a big treat coming. And Josh? Well, Stu yelled over “Hey, Josh, hope you find a ride home tonight.” But do you see what I mean about Stewball Stu being the king of the roads around here. What a guy.
Monday Feb 20: National Occupy Day for Prisoners-Free All Our Class-War Prisoners-Boston Action
Monday Feb 20: National Occupy Day for Prisoners
February 17th, 2012 · BrianK · News and Announcements5 comments
On Monday, February 20, 2012 at 3:00 PM, the Occupy Boston People of Color Working Group, Ocupemos El Barrio, Jericho Movement, and many other individuals and organizations will be taking part in the National Occupy Day for Prisoners. We will meet at 3pm at the North Station MBTA Stop at Causeway St. and Friend St. and then march to the Nashua Street Jail on 200 Nashua Street in Boston. Answering the call from Occupy Oakland, we will stand in solidarity with the people confined within prison walls and to demand the end of the incarceration as a means of containing those dispossessed by unjust social policies.
Reasons:
Prisons have become a central institution in American society, integral to our politics, economy and our culture.
Between 1976 and 2000, the United States built on average a new prison each week and the number of imprisoned Americans increased tenfold.
Prison has made the threat of torture part of everyday life for millions of individuals in the United States, especially the 7.3 million people—who are disproportionately people of color—currently incarcerated or under correctional supervision.
Imprisonment itself is a form of torture. The typical American prison, juvenile hall and detainment camp is designed to maximize degradation, brutalization, and dehumanization.
Mass incarceration is the new Jim Crow. Between 1970 and 1995, the incarceration of African Americans increased 7 times. Currently African Americans make up 12 % of the population in the U.S. but 53% of the nation’s prison population. There are more African Americans under correctional control today—in prison or jail, on probation or parole—than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began.
The prison system is the most visible example of policies of punitive containment of the most marginalized and oppressed in our society. Prior to incarceration, 2 out of 3 prisoners lived in conditions of economic hardship. Yet the perpetrators of white-collar crime largely go free, or get re-elected.
In addition, the Center for Economic and Policy Research estimated that in 2008 alone there was a loss in economic input associated with people released from prison equal to $57 billion to $65 billion.
At a national level, we call on Occupies across the country to support:
1. Abolishing unjust sentences, such as the Death Penalty, Life Without the Possibility of Parole, Three Strikes, Juvenile Life Without Parole, and the practice of trying children as adults.
2. Standing in solidarity with movements initiated by prisoners and taking action to support prisoner demands, including the Georgia Prison Strike and the Pelican Bay/California Prisoners Hunger Strikes.
3. Freeing political prisoners, such as Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier, Lynne Stewart, Bradley Manning and Romaine “Chip” Fitzgerald, a Black Panther Party member incarcerated since 1969.
4. Demanding an end to the repression of activists, specifically the targeting of African Americans and those with histories of incarceration, such as Khali in Occupy Oakland who could now face a life sentence, on trumped-up charges, and many others being falsely charged after only exercising their First Amendment rights.
5. Demanding an end to the brutality of the current system, including the torture of those who have lived for many years in Secured Housing Units (SHUs) or in solitary confinement.
6. Demanding that our tax money spent on isolating, harming and killing prisoners, instead be invested in improving the quality of life for all and be spent on education, housing, health care, mental health care, jobs and other human services which contribute to the public good. (In Massachusetts, it costs $45,917 a year to house a prisoner compared to $6,613 in a semester of tuition and fees at UMass Boston or $13,055 a year per public school student.)
At a local level in Massachusetts and Boston, about 24,000 people are held any given day in state and county prisons and jails; about 59% serving criminal sentences in state facilities are people of color, and about 6% are women. This includes about 2,150 people in Nashua Street Jail and Suffolk County House of Corrections (“South Bay”), including people detained by Immigration Customs and Enforcement(ICE) in immigration cases. State prison facilities are overcrowded; South Bay is at 126% and Nashua Street is at 163%. Among county facilities, Norfolk, Essex Middleton, Middlesex Cambridge, and Bristol Dartmouth are at more than 200% capacity, with Bristol Dartmouth at 367%; among state facilities, MCI Concord and MCI Framingham’s Awaiting Trial Unit are at more than 200% capacity, with MCI Framingham’s Awaiting Trial Unit at 359%. In addition, about 3000 youth per year are detained in juvenile facilities, and 1288 youth are placed under the custody of the Department of Youth Services. On average, state prisons across Massachusetts are 142% overcrowded.
Though Black and Latino communities are only 16% of the population of Massachusetts, they comprise a full 56% of the prison population in the Bay State. We also call for:
· The end to the current attempt to pass a three strikes bill or mandatory post-release supervision laws in Massachusetts
· An end to the unjust detention and treatment of prisoners, including Tarek Mehanna and Arnold King. Tarek Mehanna is an example of the racist scapegoating, and relentless persecution and targeting under the Patriot Act’s new provisions of young Muslim men around the country for speaking out against US foreign policy and other activities that are supposedly protected by the First Amendment.
· Arnold King is 59 years old and has been locked up since he was 18. He has been continually denied commutation even after receiving two votes by the parole board of “favorable” status.
· Research and reporting on racial disparities within the juvenile justice system
· Granting Trans people, particularly Trans women, in prison access to services and hormones, and HIV+ people to be allowed to keep their medications on their person
· A visitor bill of rights that reflects humane and just practices
· An end to police brutality and stop and frisk policies targeting communities of color, and the establishment of a civilian review board in Boston with real power to hold the police department accountable
· An end to all state and local cooperation with the “Secure Communities” program, and an end to the practice of honoring the federal Immigration Customs and Enforcement’s requests to detain suspected undocumented immigrants in jail for extra time so that ICE can initiate deportation proceedings.
Local Action
On February 20th, 2012 we will join the National Occupy Day for Prisoners by protesting in front of Nashua Street Jail, which is just one of the many oppressive, racist, and overcrowded prison facilities in the Bay State. At this demonstration, through prisoners’ writings and other artistic and political expressions, we will express the voices of the people who have been inside the walls. The organizers of this action will reach out to the community for support and participation. We are contacting social service organizations, faith institutions, labor organizations, schools, prisoners, former prisoners and their family members.
National and International Outreach
We will reach out to Occupies across the country to have similar demonstrations outside of prisons, jails, juvenile halls and detainment facilities or other actions as such groups deem appropriate. We will also reach out to Occupies outside of the United States and will seek to attract international attention and support.
We have chosen Monday, February 20, 2012, because it is a non-weekend day. Presidents’ Day avoids the weekend conflict with prisoners’ visitation, which would likely be shut down if we held a demonstration over the weekend.
Website
http://www.occupy4prisoners.org
For more information and/or to endorse, email occupy4prisoners [at] gmail [dot] com.
ENDORSERS (listed alphabetically)
Organizations
All of Us or None
ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and Racism Coalition)
Arizona Prison Watch
California Coalition for Women Prisoners
Campaign to End the Death Penalty
Chicago PIC Teaching Collective
Committee to Free Romaine “Chip” Fitzgerald
Community Futures Collective
Critical Resistance
December 9th Georgia and International Prisoners’ Movement
Freedom Archives
Free Tarek Mehanna Campaign
Hope for Freedom Paralegal Services
International Coalition to Free the Angola 3
International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5
International Socialist Organization
Jericho Movement
Justice Now
Kevin Cooper Defense Committee
Labor Action Committee to Free Mumia Abu Jamal
Labor for Palestine
Legal Services for Prisoners with Children
Life Support Alliance
Lynne Stewart Defense Committee
Michael Lewis Legal Defense Committee
Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu Jamal
National Committee to Free the Cuban Five
Nevada CURE
Nevada Prison Watch
NYC Labor Against the War
Occupied Oakland Tribune
Ocupemos El Barrio
Oscar Grant Committee Against Police Brutality and State Repression
Peoples’ Action for Rights and Community
Prison Activist Resource Center
Prison Radio
Prison Watch Network
Prisoners Are People Too, Inc. (Buffalo, NY)
Project NIA
Real Cost of Prisons
Redwood Curtain CopWatch
San Francisco Bay View Newspaper
Solitary Watch News
Stanley Tookie Williams Legacy Network
Through Barbed Wire
Individuals
Angela Davis
Anne Weills, National Lawyers Guild (NLG).
Barbara Becnel, founder, STW Legacy Network
Carole Seligman, Kevin Cooper Defense Committee
Elaine Brown
Diana Block, California Coalition for Women Prisoners
Jack Bryson
Jeff Mackler, Director, Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
Jeffrey Alan Masko, tutor and media coordinator, Second Chance Program at CCSF
Kazi Toure
Kevin Cooper
Kiilu Nyasha
Michael Letwin, Former President, Assn. of Legal Aid Attorneys/UAW Local 2325
Noelle Hanrahan, Project Director, Prison Radio
Sarah Shourd, Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer, former hostages in Iran and human rights activists
Stanley Tookie Williams IV
February 17th, 2012 · BrianK · News and Announcements5 comments
On Monday, February 20, 2012 at 3:00 PM, the Occupy Boston People of Color Working Group, Ocupemos El Barrio, Jericho Movement, and many other individuals and organizations will be taking part in the National Occupy Day for Prisoners. We will meet at 3pm at the North Station MBTA Stop at Causeway St. and Friend St. and then march to the Nashua Street Jail on 200 Nashua Street in Boston. Answering the call from Occupy Oakland, we will stand in solidarity with the people confined within prison walls and to demand the end of the incarceration as a means of containing those dispossessed by unjust social policies.
Reasons:
Prisons have become a central institution in American society, integral to our politics, economy and our culture.
Between 1976 and 2000, the United States built on average a new prison each week and the number of imprisoned Americans increased tenfold.
Prison has made the threat of torture part of everyday life for millions of individuals in the United States, especially the 7.3 million people—who are disproportionately people of color—currently incarcerated or under correctional supervision.
Imprisonment itself is a form of torture. The typical American prison, juvenile hall and detainment camp is designed to maximize degradation, brutalization, and dehumanization.
Mass incarceration is the new Jim Crow. Between 1970 and 1995, the incarceration of African Americans increased 7 times. Currently African Americans make up 12 % of the population in the U.S. but 53% of the nation’s prison population. There are more African Americans under correctional control today—in prison or jail, on probation or parole—than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began.
The prison system is the most visible example of policies of punitive containment of the most marginalized and oppressed in our society. Prior to incarceration, 2 out of 3 prisoners lived in conditions of economic hardship. Yet the perpetrators of white-collar crime largely go free, or get re-elected.
In addition, the Center for Economic and Policy Research estimated that in 2008 alone there was a loss in economic input associated with people released from prison equal to $57 billion to $65 billion.
At a national level, we call on Occupies across the country to support:
1. Abolishing unjust sentences, such as the Death Penalty, Life Without the Possibility of Parole, Three Strikes, Juvenile Life Without Parole, and the practice of trying children as adults.
2. Standing in solidarity with movements initiated by prisoners and taking action to support prisoner demands, including the Georgia Prison Strike and the Pelican Bay/California Prisoners Hunger Strikes.
3. Freeing political prisoners, such as Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier, Lynne Stewart, Bradley Manning and Romaine “Chip” Fitzgerald, a Black Panther Party member incarcerated since 1969.
4. Demanding an end to the repression of activists, specifically the targeting of African Americans and those with histories of incarceration, such as Khali in Occupy Oakland who could now face a life sentence, on trumped-up charges, and many others being falsely charged after only exercising their First Amendment rights.
5. Demanding an end to the brutality of the current system, including the torture of those who have lived for many years in Secured Housing Units (SHUs) or in solitary confinement.
6. Demanding that our tax money spent on isolating, harming and killing prisoners, instead be invested in improving the quality of life for all and be spent on education, housing, health care, mental health care, jobs and other human services which contribute to the public good. (In Massachusetts, it costs $45,917 a year to house a prisoner compared to $6,613 in a semester of tuition and fees at UMass Boston or $13,055 a year per public school student.)
At a local level in Massachusetts and Boston, about 24,000 people are held any given day in state and county prisons and jails; about 59% serving criminal sentences in state facilities are people of color, and about 6% are women. This includes about 2,150 people in Nashua Street Jail and Suffolk County House of Corrections (“South Bay”), including people detained by Immigration Customs and Enforcement(ICE) in immigration cases. State prison facilities are overcrowded; South Bay is at 126% and Nashua Street is at 163%. Among county facilities, Norfolk, Essex Middleton, Middlesex Cambridge, and Bristol Dartmouth are at more than 200% capacity, with Bristol Dartmouth at 367%; among state facilities, MCI Concord and MCI Framingham’s Awaiting Trial Unit are at more than 200% capacity, with MCI Framingham’s Awaiting Trial Unit at 359%. In addition, about 3000 youth per year are detained in juvenile facilities, and 1288 youth are placed under the custody of the Department of Youth Services. On average, state prisons across Massachusetts are 142% overcrowded.
Though Black and Latino communities are only 16% of the population of Massachusetts, they comprise a full 56% of the prison population in the Bay State. We also call for:
· The end to the current attempt to pass a three strikes bill or mandatory post-release supervision laws in Massachusetts
· An end to the unjust detention and treatment of prisoners, including Tarek Mehanna and Arnold King. Tarek Mehanna is an example of the racist scapegoating, and relentless persecution and targeting under the Patriot Act’s new provisions of young Muslim men around the country for speaking out against US foreign policy and other activities that are supposedly protected by the First Amendment.
· Arnold King is 59 years old and has been locked up since he was 18. He has been continually denied commutation even after receiving two votes by the parole board of “favorable” status.
· Research and reporting on racial disparities within the juvenile justice system
· Granting Trans people, particularly Trans women, in prison access to services and hormones, and HIV+ people to be allowed to keep their medications on their person
· A visitor bill of rights that reflects humane and just practices
· An end to police brutality and stop and frisk policies targeting communities of color, and the establishment of a civilian review board in Boston with real power to hold the police department accountable
· An end to all state and local cooperation with the “Secure Communities” program, and an end to the practice of honoring the federal Immigration Customs and Enforcement’s requests to detain suspected undocumented immigrants in jail for extra time so that ICE can initiate deportation proceedings.
Local Action
On February 20th, 2012 we will join the National Occupy Day for Prisoners by protesting in front of Nashua Street Jail, which is just one of the many oppressive, racist, and overcrowded prison facilities in the Bay State. At this demonstration, through prisoners’ writings and other artistic and political expressions, we will express the voices of the people who have been inside the walls. The organizers of this action will reach out to the community for support and participation. We are contacting social service organizations, faith institutions, labor organizations, schools, prisoners, former prisoners and their family members.
National and International Outreach
We will reach out to Occupies across the country to have similar demonstrations outside of prisons, jails, juvenile halls and detainment facilities or other actions as such groups deem appropriate. We will also reach out to Occupies outside of the United States and will seek to attract international attention and support.
We have chosen Monday, February 20, 2012, because it is a non-weekend day. Presidents’ Day avoids the weekend conflict with prisoners’ visitation, which would likely be shut down if we held a demonstration over the weekend.
Website
http://www.occupy4prisoners.org
For more information and/or to endorse, email occupy4prisoners [at] gmail [dot] com.
ENDORSERS (listed alphabetically)
Organizations
All of Us or None
ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and Racism Coalition)
Arizona Prison Watch
California Coalition for Women Prisoners
Campaign to End the Death Penalty
Chicago PIC Teaching Collective
Committee to Free Romaine “Chip” Fitzgerald
Community Futures Collective
Critical Resistance
December 9th Georgia and International Prisoners’ Movement
Freedom Archives
Free Tarek Mehanna Campaign
Hope for Freedom Paralegal Services
International Coalition to Free the Angola 3
International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5
International Socialist Organization
Jericho Movement
Justice Now
Kevin Cooper Defense Committee
Labor Action Committee to Free Mumia Abu Jamal
Labor for Palestine
Legal Services for Prisoners with Children
Life Support Alliance
Lynne Stewart Defense Committee
Michael Lewis Legal Defense Committee
Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu Jamal
National Committee to Free the Cuban Five
Nevada CURE
Nevada Prison Watch
NYC Labor Against the War
Occupied Oakland Tribune
Ocupemos El Barrio
Oscar Grant Committee Against Police Brutality and State Repression
Peoples’ Action for Rights and Community
Prison Activist Resource Center
Prison Radio
Prison Watch Network
Prisoners Are People Too, Inc. (Buffalo, NY)
Project NIA
Real Cost of Prisons
Redwood Curtain CopWatch
San Francisco Bay View Newspaper
Solitary Watch News
Stanley Tookie Williams Legacy Network
Through Barbed Wire
Individuals
Angela Davis
Anne Weills, National Lawyers Guild (NLG).
Barbara Becnel, founder, STW Legacy Network
Carole Seligman, Kevin Cooper Defense Committee
Elaine Brown
Diana Block, California Coalition for Women Prisoners
Jack Bryson
Jeff Mackler, Director, Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
Jeffrey Alan Masko, tutor and media coordinator, Second Chance Program at CCSF
Kazi Toure
Kevin Cooper
Kiilu Nyasha
Michael Letwin, Former President, Assn. of Legal Aid Attorneys/UAW Local 2325
Noelle Hanrahan, Project Director, Prison Radio
Sarah Shourd, Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer, former hostages in Iran and human rights activists
Stanley Tookie Williams IV
From #Ur-Occupied Boston (#Ur-Tomemonos Boston)-General Assembly-The Embryo Of An Alternate Government-Learn The Lessons Of History- From The Pages Of The French Revolution- Ernest Belfort Bax-The Last Episode of the French Revolution Being a History of Gracchus Babeuf and the Conspiracy of the Equals (1911)-VII. The Catastrophe
Click on the headline to link to updates from the Occupy Boston website. Occupy Boston started at 6:00 PM, September 30, 2011. I will post important updates as they appear on that site.
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An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend All The Occupation Sites And All The Occupiers! Drop All Charges Against All Protesters Everywhere!
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Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It, It’s Ours! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
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Below I am posting, occasionally, comments on the Occupy movement as I see or hear things of interest, or that cause alarm bells to ring in my head. The first comment directly below from October 1, which represented my first impressions of Occupy Boston, is the lead for all further postings.
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Markin comment October 1, 2011:
There is a lot of naiveté expressed about the nature of capitalism, capitalists, and the way to win in the class struggle by various participants in this occupation. Many also have attempted to make a virtue out of that naiveté, particularly around the issues of effective democratic organization (the General Assembly, its unrepresentative nature and its undemocratic consensus process) and relationships with the police (they are not our friends, no way, when the deal goes down). However, their spirit is refreshing, they are acting out of good subjective anti-capitalist motives and, most importantly, even those of us who call ourselves "reds" (communists), including this writer, started out from liberal premises as naive, if not more so, than those encountered at the occupation site. We can all learn something but in the meantime we must defend the "occupation" and the occupiers. More later as the occupation continues.
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In the recent past as part of my one of my commentaries I noted the following:
“… The idea of the General Assembly with each individual attendee acting as a “tribune of the people” is interesting and important. And, of course, it represents, for today anyway, the embryo of what the “new world” we need to create might look like at the governmental level.”
A couple of the people that I have talked lately were not quite sure what to make of that idea. The idea that what is going on in Occupy Boston at the governmental level could, should, would be a possible form of governing this society in the “new world a-borning” with the rise of the Occupy movement. Part of the problem is that there was some confusion on the part of the listeners that one of the possible aims of this movement is to create an alternative government, or at least provide a model for such a government. I will argue here now, and in the future, that it should be one of the goals. In short, we need to take power away from the Democrats and Republicans and their tired old congressional/executive/judicial doesn’t work- checks and balances-form of governing and place it at the grassroots level and work upward from there rather than, as now, have power devolve from the top. (And stop well short of the bottom.)
I will leave aside the question (the problem really) of what it would take to create such a possibility. Of course a revolutionary solution would, of necessity, have be on the table since there is no way that the current powerful interests, Democratic, Republican or those of the "one percent" having no named politics, is going to give up power without a fight. What I want to pose now is the use of the General Assembly as a deliberative executive, legislative, and judicial body all rolled into one. In that sense previous historical models come to mind; the short-lived but heroic Paris Commune of 1871 that Karl Marx tirelessly defended against the reactionaries of Europe as the prototype of a workers government; the early heroic days of the Russian October Revolution of 1917 when the workers councils (soviets in Russian parlance) acted as a true workers' government; and the period in the Spanish Revolution of 1936-39 where the Central Committee of the Anti-Fascist Militias acted, de facto, as a workers government. All the just mentioned examples had their problems and flaws, no question. However, merely mentioning the General Assembly concept in the same paragraph as these great historic examples should signal that thoughtful leftists and other militants need to investigate and study these examples.
In order to facilitate the investigation and study of those examples I will, occasionally, post works in this space that deal with these forbears from several leftist perspectives (rightist perspectives were clear- crush all the above examples ruthlessly, and with no mercy- so we need not look at them now). I started this Lessons Of History series with Karl Marx’s classic defense and critique of the Paris Commune, The Civil War In France and today’s presentation noted in the headline continues on in that same vein.
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A Five-Point Program As Talking Points
*Jobs For All Now!-“30 For 40”- A historic demand of the labor movement. Thirty hours work for forty hours pay to spread the available work around. Organize the unorganized- Organize the South- Organize Wal-Mart- Defend the right for public and private workers to unionize.
* Defend the working classes! No union dues for Democratic (or the stray Republican) candidates. Spent the dough on organizing the unorganized and other labor-specific causes (example, the November, 2011 anti-union recall referendum in Ohio).
*End the endless wars!- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops (And Mercenaries) From Afghanistan! Hands Off Pakistan! Hands Off Iran! Hands Off The World!
*Fight for a social agenda for working people!. Quality Healthcare For All! Nationalize the colleges and universities under student-teacher-campus worker control! Forgive student debt! Stop housing foreclosures!
*We created the wealth, let’s take it back. Take the struggle for our daily bread off the historic agenda. Build a workers party that fights for a workers government to unite all the oppressed.
Emblazon on our red banner-Labor and the oppressed must rule!
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Ernest Belfort Bax-Gracchus Babeuf-VII. The Catastrophe
DURING the course of the events described in the last chapter, that is, between the 1st and the 10th of May 1796, it has been proved by recent researches that the government, namely, the executive Directory, together with the Minister of Police, was kept fully informed of everything important that was taking place. We have already spoken of Grisel, the government spy, who was in the innermost councils of the Babouvist Committee, or Secret Directory, as it was called, and himself a member of the Military Committee, upon which the task of drawing up and carrying out the plan of the insurrection devolved. But it would appear that, although perhaps the principal, he was by no means the only agent to keep the authorities au courant with the progress of the insurrectionary movement. In addition to the ordinary police spies, of which there were the usual contingent of eavesdroppers, in cafes or elsewhere, where political questions were likely to be canvassed, there were undoubtedly other more important sources of information as to the places of assembly and the actions of the chiefs of the conspiracy.
Among the principal informers was the keeper of the Café des Bains Chinois, which was a rendezvous of the Babouvists and those favourable to the movement. Of especial interest, as regards the relations of the government and the insurrectionary movement of Babeuf and his colleagues, is the question of the part played by Barras, who was the most influential of the five Directors, and the most prominent man at the time. Buonarroti states, in general terms, that Barras had coquetted with the Babouvists, but does not give particulars. In fact, for long the precise relations between Barras and the movement remained in historical obscurity. In a recent work, however (Histoire et Droit, 1907, vol. i. pp. 267-293), M. Paul Robriquet has collected evidence of the part played by Barras in the affair, including some unpublished documents in the Archives nationales. The next strongest man to Barras on the Directory was Carnot, and between these two men was implacable discord, which culminated later in the affair of the “18th Fructidor”. Hippolyte Carnot, the son of the famous “organiser of victory”, in his memoirs of his father, alludes to the complicity of Barras in the matter of the “Equals”, thinking that it was only the timely arrest of Babeuf and his friends that averted catastrophe (i.e. from the point of view of the government and the dominant classes). In confirmation of this, M. Robriquet cites a letter he has discovered, signed by one Armand, who was evidently a police agent, to the Minister of Police, containing the words, “I am persuaded that Barras is betraying us, for he has interviews with Rossignol”; and later, in another letter, “the director Barras is more than ever suspect to me. He has had Rossignol informed that he begs the Committee of Insurrection to send him ‘a confidential man’, because, says he, ‘the moment of the insurrection’, he wishes to pass over to the Faubourg St Antoine with a part of the État major”, explaining, however, at the same time, that in case the committee does not send him the man he asks for, he would, none the less, “throw himself into the arms of the people”.
The same author quotes, further, a letter of Charles Germain to Babeuf, relative to an interview he had had with Barras on the 30th Germinal, anno IV (19th April 1796). “You ought to know from Darthé or others,” writes Germain, “that I was sent for by Barras this morning, the 30th of Germinal. I have had an audience with the director.” Germain goes on to give a statement of his conversation with Barras, as much as possible in the language used. After enlarging on the dangers the country ran from the Royalists, Barras asked his visitor what the patriots thought. “We know,” he said, “they are preparing a movement. Good men, their zeal has blinded them; they are going to get themselves prairialised, whereas, in order to save the country, we have got to vendémiarise.” This, of course, referred to the abortive insurrection of the populace on the 1st of Prairial of the previous year, when the Convention was invaded, but which, after a few hours’ triumph, was suppressed, and which led to the expulsion and indictment of the Mountainist section of the Convention for having supported the demands of the insurgents. Barras opposes this to his own exploits, with the aid of Napoleon and his cannon, on the 13th of Vendémiaire, when the Royalist insurrection was suppressed.
Here follows a remarkable utterance of Barras, as reported by Germain: “Like you,” Barras is alleged to say, “I know myself that the present state of things is not the end which was contemplated by the men who overthrew the Bastille, the Throne, and Robespierre. Like you, I recognise myself that a change must be made, and that this change is not so far away as some might think; and when one has the most need of patriots to effect this change, they are meditating our ruin, our death! They are making themselves, without intending it, perhaps, the instruments of the emigrants, the fanatics, the Royalists, who have ever seen the restored monarchy near at hand.” Barras continued, alluding to the pretended complicity of the Babouvists with the Royalists in their intrigues with Pitt and Cobourg, and wound up by challenging Germain to give his own opinion. The latter replied, denying any knowledge of the alleged intrigues with Cobourg, Pitt, Isnard, Robert, etc., but assuring the Director that the people was tired of its oppressors, and would be no more satisfied with a Vendémiaire than with a Prairial, the former having proved of no more benefit to them than the latter. Barras, here interrupting him, expressed regret at not having worked the oracle (“travaillé la marchandise”), if for only three days, in a manner to satisfy the patriots.
He then launched forth into an invective against the Royalists, expressing the wish that the movement might become general and be directed against the Royalists. “I have confidence,” he exclaimed, “in the means at my disposal.” He then went on to relate that he had lately made an excursion through the popular faubourgs, and that the people all appeared calm and peaceable. “If I had seen anything stirring,” he said, “the thing would have been done. I should have marched with the people, for it is by and through the people that, as I hold, the national will manifests itself. The people,” he added, “is not represented by a handful of clumsy agitators.” He thereupon renewed his suggestions that the Babouvists should rally round the Directory rather than maintain a secret directory of their own, in opposition to the governmental one. “You cry out,” said Barras, “against us, Crucify them! and yet to whom do you propose to attach yourselves? To the Court of Verona! Yes, my friends, it is thither that they want to lead you, whereas that is the very thing we have to kill and destroy. You ought now, my comrade,” said he, “to know my mind, my sentiment, and my principles. More than one patriot knows me already; my existence is bound up in that of the Republic and the people. Believe me, that, like all true patriots, I shall neglect nothing for their success; and it is only in order to serve them that I resist my own pressing inclination to abdicate my position, and to retire peacefully into an obscurity which is very dear to me.” Barras, in bidding good-bye to Germain, invited him to come and see him from time to time, giving him a carte de circulation to facilitate his movements in official regions.
Barras admits in his memoirs that he had received Germain sometimes, but denies absolutely that he had any relations whatever with Babeuf himself, whom, he states, he regarded as a great fool. He naturally was afterwards anxious to excuse himself from the suspicion of having actively favoured the movement of the Equals, but the testimony of others, among whom was Buonarroti, was to the effect that Barras had actually offered his services to “the conspiracy”, which certainly seems to be confirmed by the letter above quoted from, and which indeed, even apart from this, might be inferred from the admission of Barras himself, that he had “sometimes received” the ardent Germain. The fellow-director of Barras, Larivellière-Lèpeaux, certainly held strongly to the opinion of his having negotiated with the conspirators. “The conduct of Barras,” he says, “his relations, his sinister look, his opinions, sufficed to convince us.” He also states that this was the opinion of the other directors, and that so strongly were they impressed with the unreliability of their colleague, that the measures to be taken against the conspiracy were only discussed when Barras happened to be absent from the directorial sittings.
That Barras, from what we know of the man, was not actuated by disinterested enthusiasm or regard for principle in his attitude may be taken for granted, though what precisely his “game” was is not quite clear, any more than as to whether Napoleon was privy to it or not. It would seem, however, pretty evident that, notwithstanding the aggressive luxury of his private life, a luxury that had alienated many, as also the role he had played as a Thermidorean, he thought he might attain an influence with the revolutionary party by avowedly favouring their aims on the one side, while playing up to the representatives of property and the status quo on the other by posing as a man of moderating counsels. Whether Bonaparte knew of the matter, and had visions of a forestalled 18th of Brumaire, and an entry upon the scene as the saviour of society, as already said, cannot be determined for certain.
However this may be, and whatever the motives underlying the attitude of Barras, there is no doubt whatever of his haste to adopt an “I know not the man” attitude so soon as he saw the way things were turning. The moment he was apprised of the imminent arrest of the Babouvist leaders, and perceived that the movement was lost, he made a violent scene with his colleagues, extracting from them a declaration that they had given no credence to the reports of his treachery circulated by malevolents. At the same time he talked of appearing before the Council of Five Hundred, in order to obtain a public satisfaction. Not caring to show a divided counsel at a moment of peril, the other Directors calmed Barras, assuring him that they had no thought of bringing any accusation against him.
On the 10th of May (21st Floreal, anno IV), Carnot, who was president of the executive Directory, sent a message to the Council of Five Hundred to inform them that a horrible plot was to be hatched on the morrow, and that its object was “to overthrow the French Constitution, to slaughter the legislative body, all the members of the government, the État major of the Army of the Interior, and to deliver this great city to general pillage and frightful massacres.” It concluded with the information that the executive Directory were informed of the place of meeting of the chiefs of this conspiracy, and had given orders for their immediate arrest. The same day, indeed, at the very moment when the Secret Directory was planning the final arrangements for the insurrection, a body of soldiers invaded the room where the sitting was being held and seized the principal leaders, amongst them being the ex-conventionals belonging to the Mountainist section of the now united revolutionary party – Vadier, Ricord, Laignelot, and Drouet. Babeuf himself, however, was not there, neither was he to be found at his old address, No. 29 Faubourg St Honoré, but at the house of the tailor Tissot, No. 21 Rue de la Grande Truanderie, where the meeting of the 11th of Floréal was held, and where, as before related, he had taken refuge as a measure of precaution, which events proved was ineffectual.
At the moment that the police burst into his apartment he was engaged in drawing up, in company with Buonarroti and another, the manifestoes intended to determine the lines of the insurrection. All the important papers relating to the movement were seized. In spite of the generosity of the one man of means in the party, Le Pelletier, [This Le Pelletier, it should be noted, was the younger brother of the well-known Louis Michel Le Pelletier de Saint Fargeau, who was assassinated in a café on the day after the vote in the of the king’s death, i.e. the 21st January 1793.] there was only found in ready cash 2000 livres in assignats. What this amounted to in the depreciated currency of the time is easy to reckon. The poverty, indeed, of the movement threatened to cause its failure, even had it not been prematurely betrayed. Without the co-operation of military, or at least a considerable section of them, it was impossible that the insurrection could have succeeded; and to ensure the support of the military, it was necessary that they should be paid. It was proposed to divide the insurgent army onto three divisions; three generals were to command it, under the order of the general-in-chief. Fion, Germain, Rossignol, and Massart were those designated. All was arranged up to the moment when the tocsin should ring out, and when, at the beat of the générale, the popular wards of the city would rise to claim the heritage the revolution had promised them. The arrest immediately produced a great sensation on the general public.
The press gave blood-curdling accounts of the projected movement and the objects of the stillborn insurrection. Every day brought reports of fresh arrests of the insurrectionists, besides those of Royalists and others. Babeuf and his friends were removed at once to imprisonment in the Temple. All were apparently at first taken to the prison of the Abbaye. This was on the 21st Floreal (10th May). Brought up the same day before the Minister of Police, Charles Cochon Laparent, a former member of the Convention, Babeuf claimed to be the author of the plan of insurrection found among the papers seized. This was, of course, not strictly true, but Babeuf was anxious not to incriminate his associates, whom he steadily refused to name. Two days later he indicted the following letter to the executive Directory:–
CITIZENS AND DIRECTORS, – Would you regard it as beneath you to treat with me as between power and power? You have already seen the vast confidence of which I am the centre! You have seen that my party may well balance yours! You have seen its vast ramifications! I am more than convinced that the outlook has made you tremble!
Is it to your interest, is it to the interest of the country, to give special notoriety to the conspiracy and its inspirers? I do not think so. I will give you the reasons why my opinion ought not to appear suspicious. What would happen if this affair should appear in the full light of day? That I should play the most glorious of all roles! I should demonstrate with all the force of character, with all the energy of which you have known me to be possessed, the righteousness of the conspiracy, of which I never denied having been the ringleader. Departing from that cowardly path strewn with denials, which the common ruck of accused persons use to justify themselves, I should dare to develop great principles, plead the eternal rights of the people, with all the advantage which close absorption and the grandeur of the subject gives me. I should dare, I say, to demonstrate that this trial is not one of justice, but it is one of strength against weakness, of oppressors against oppressed and their magnanimous defenders, of the strong against the weak. You may condemn me to deportation or death, but your judgment will be at once seen to be pronounced by powerful vice against feeble virtue. My scaffold will figure gloriously beside that of Barneveldt or of Sidney. Would you fear to see, after my execution, altars raised to me beside those where to-day Robespierre and Goujon are revered as illustrious martyrs? It is not in this way that governments and rulers are rendered secure. You have seen, citizens and directors, that you hold nothing when I am in your hands. I am not all the conspiracy, it is clear; nay, I am only a single link in the long chain that composes it. You have to fear all the other parties no less than mine. You have, indeed, the proof of all the interest they take in me, that you strike at them all in striking at me, and you will irritate them.
You will irritate, I say, the whole democracy of the French Republic. But you know already that it is not such a small matter as you may have imagined at first. You must recognise that it is not only in Paris that it exists in strength, you must see that there is not one of the departments where it is not powerful. You would judge of the matter still better if your agents had seized the vast correspondence which enabled us to form the lists of which you have only seen a fragment. It is all very well to seek to stifle the sacred fire which burns and will burn. What though it seems at certain instants extinguished if its flame threatens to revive suddenly with the force of an explosion? Would you undertake to deliver yourselves entirely to that vast sans-culotte sect which has not yet deigned to declare itself vanquished ? Even in any possibility of this where would you find yourselves afterwards? You are not quite in the same position as he who after the death of Cromwell ruled some millions of English republicans. Charles II was king, and whatever you may say you are not that yet. You have need of a party to support you, and if you removed that of the patriots you are left alone in the face of royalism. What do you think would be your lookout if you were standing before it single-handed? You will say that the patriots are as dangerous as the royalists, and perhaps more so. You deceive yourselves. Consider well the character of the enterprise of the patriots. You will not find that they desire your death, and it is a calumny to have allowed the statement to be published. For myself, I can tell you that they do not desire it. They wish to walk in other paths than those of Robespierre. They desire no blood. They would force you to confess of yourselves that you have made an oppressive use of power, that you have got rid of all popular forms and safeguards, and they desire you to replace them. They would not have gone as far as they have, if, as you promised after Vendémiaire, you had made the attempt to govern popularly.
I myself in my earlier numbers [of his paper] have sought to open the door to you. I have said how I thought that you might cover yourselves with the blessing of the people. I explained how it seemed possible to me that you might cause to disappear all that the constitutional character of your government exhibits in contrast to true republican principles.
Well, there is still time. The turn the latest events have taken may become profitable, and the salvation alike of yourselves and the public interests. Do you disdain my advice and my conclusions, which are that your own interest and that of the country consists in not giving notoriety to the present affair? I seem to perceive that it is already your intention to treat the matter politically. It seems to me that you would be wise in doing so. Don’t think that my present action is interested. The open and unusual manner in which I do not cease to declare myself guilty, in the sense in which you accuse me, must show you that I do not act from weakness. Death or exile would be to me the pathway to immortality, and I shall tread it with a heroic and religious zeal, but my proscription, like that of all other democrats, will not advance you one whit, or ensure the salvation of the republic.
I have seen, on reflection, that in the last resort you have not always been the enemies of this republic. You were once evidently republicans in good faith. Why will you not be so again? Why will you not believe that you who are men have been temporarily led astray like others by the inevitable effect of exaggerations into which circumstances have thrown you? The patriots and the mass of the people have a lacerated heart. Would you tear it still more? What would be the final result? Do not these patriots rather deserve that, instead of aggravating their wounds, you should think at last of curing them? You have, when it pleases you, the initiative of well being, since in you resides the whole force of public administration. Citizen Directors, govern popularly! Such is all these patriots ask of you! Speaking thus for them, I am sure that they will not interrupt my voice. I am sure of not being repudiated by them. I see but one policy that it is wise for you to take. Declare that there has never been any serious conspiracy. Five men, in thus showing themselves great and generous, can to-day save the country. I allege still further that the patriots will cover you with their bodies, and that you will have no more need of entire armies to defend you. The patriots do not hate you; they only hate your unpopular acts. I will then give you, on my own account, a guarantee as extended as is my habitual frankness. You know the measure of influence that I have with this class of men – I refer to the patriots. Well, I employ it to convince them that if you are at one with the people, they ought to act at one with you. It would not surely be an unhappy thing if the effect of this simple letter were to pacify the internal condition of France in checking the notoriety of which this affair is the subject. Would it not, at the same time, check all that now opposes itself to the calm of Europe?
G. BABEUF
This letter, not perhaps very wise or altogether dignified under the circumstances, had, as might be expected, no effect on its recipients. Four of the Directors at least were uncompromising in their determination mercilessly to stamp out the movement, while the fifth, Barras, whatever may have been his private ideas or inclinations, found himself already an object of secret suspicion to his colleagues, and had to fall in with their projects, with all the alacrity he could assume, if he was to avoid placing himself in a false, and even a dangerous, position. The president of the Directory, Carnot, that “organising genius”, carried everything before him at this juncture by his energy and determination. His struggle with the only other man of real ability at the head of affairs, Barras, was deferred to a later day. Barras won on the 18th Fructidor, though only himself to be overthrown by Bonaparte on the 18th Brumaire.
But, to return to our prisoners, they were all at first interned in the Abbaye, three days later to be brought up before the Directors and Jury of the department of Paris. But the Government took an early opportunity of transferring the more important of the prisoners, amongst them Babeuf and Buonarroti, to the prison of the Temple. One important prisoner, however, was allowed to remain at the Abbaye. We refer to Jean Baptiste Drouet, whose name has been several times mentioned in connection with the proceedings of the Secret Directory. Drouet had a special significance as being a Mountainist member of the Convention, and one of the few who succeeded in getting into the new Council of Five Hundred. It was he who was the postmaster at the small town of Ste. Menehould, and who procured the arrest of Louis XVI at the time of his flight to Varennes in June 1791. He was a man whose past gave him influence with all the existing parties, and his adhesion the movement of Babeuf obtained for him additional importance.
Now this man Drouet, in his capacity of political prisoner, was rather a white elephant to the executive Directory. In the first place, his being among the accused prevented the great trial coming under the jurisdiction of the High Court of Justice of Paris, as in the ordinary course it would have done. For by article 265 of the Constitution of year III. it was provided that members of the Legislature were not to be tried before the ordinary tribunals, but that a special high court to be established to deal with their cases. Hence it was that the government decided that whole process should take place before a special high court, whose seat was fixed at the town of Vendôme, in the department of the Loir et Cher. But, for reasons of his own, Barras was particularly unwilling that Drouet should be brought to trial at all. Hence, shortly before the time of the trial came on, on the 1st Fructidor, ann. IV (17th August 1796), Drouet was allowed, it has now been proved, with the connivance of Barras, to effect his escape from the Abbaye. Drouet succeeded in getting away from France into Switzerland. From thence he went to Teneriffe, where he took a leading part in the successful resistance to the attack of Nelson in the following year. He became a sub-prefect under the Empire, and died at Mâcon in 1824.
On the 9th Prairial, ann. IV (26th May 1796), the old members of the Society of the Pantheon, together with some of the Mountainists, attempted to raise the populace to deliver the prisoners. The attempt, however, was a failure. During the earlier period of his detention in the Temple, Babeuf’s enthusiasm for the cause seemed at times to render him indifferent to every other consideration, even to the welfare of his wife and family. As the weeks went on, however, he softened, and the following letter to his well-to-do friend Felix Le Pelletier is of interest, as expressing at once his political testament and his regard for the domestic affections, and, lastly, as a specimen of his literary style at its best. It is dated – , “The Tower of the Temple, 26th Messidor, anno IV (10th of August 1796),” and is as follows:–
Greetings, dear Felix! Don’t alarm yourself on seeing these lines traced by my hand. I know that all that bears the imprint of relations with me gives the right to disquietude. I am the being that all fly from; that all regard as dangerous, and of a deadly approach. However, my conscience tells me that I am pure; and my true friends, that is, certain just men, know also that I have nothing wherewith to reproach myself. If even they shun me it is not from any real aversion which I inspire in them, but it is the effect of the factitious terror imposed upon them by malice, lest by chance they should be reputed criminals, and treated as such. In this position the consideration that I owe to good men prescribes to me the interdiction of all intercourse with them, in order to avoid giving them the smallest alarm. But urgent considerations, such as present themselves naturally to the thoughts of a man on the brink of the tomb, have decided me to make one more advance towards one of my fellow-citizens whom I especially esteem. I do this the more willingly inasmuch as I am sure to run no other risk than that, perhaps, of somewhat disquieting him. It is a sacrifice that friendship can make. I shall lighten it in reassuring you, as quickly as possible, my good Felix, that there is nothing to fear. I was certain, in getting this epistle conveyed to you, the last that I shall address to you, that it would overcome without peril all the obstacles that might come between you and me.
Behold us, then, without doubt, more at ease with one another – you to read me, I to conclude what I have to tell you! I have built my text, in speaking to you, on friendship. I have called you friend! I have believed, and I believe, that I may do so. It is by this title that I address you in confidence – respecting do you know what? – my testament, and last recommendation.
I make the following assumptions subordinate to its execution – that proscription will not always pursue you; that the tyrants, sated with my blood and that of some of my unhappy companions, will be contented, and their own policy will not counsel them, perhaps, to do what they at first appeared to propose doing, namely, to make a hecatomb of all republicans. On the other hand, it might still happen, after my martyrdom, that fortune will tire of striking our country, and then that her true children may breathe in peace. If it is otherwise, I lose all hope as to what shall survive me. Then all will perish in the vast cataclysm that crime against virtue and justice will engender. The work of the good, their memory, their families, will fall into eternal night, and be involved in one universal destruction. Then, again, all is said: I need take no more care for those who are still dear to me, whom my thought has followed up to the repose of nothingness, the last inevitable end of all that exists.
It is on the first supposition that I am acting, my friend. I believe I have remained worthy of the esteem of men who are as just as you are. I have not seen you in the ranks of those evil Machiavellian politicians who multiply my sufferings a hundredfold, and are looking forward to my death. The traitors! In causing those for whom they appeared to have interested themselves most to appear in a cowardly and shameful light, they have pictured me – whose every public act has testified to the rectitude, to the purity of my intentions; to me, whose sighs and tenderness ever for unfortunate humanity are painted in unequivocal traits! – me, who have worked with such courage and devotion for the enfranchisement of my :brothers! – me, who in this sublime enterprise have had at the moment of misfortune, following on the great success which attests that I have at least brought some intelligence to the work before me! – they have pictured me, I say, either as a miserable dreamer in oblivion, or as a secret instrument of the perfidy of the enemies of the people. They have not blushed to agree with the tyrants as to the culpability of the most generous efforts to break down slavery and to cause the horrible misery of the country to cease. They have not blushed, finally, to seek to cast upon me alone this capital offence, in ornamenting it with all the accessories by which they thought to be able effectively to give it the colour of crime; and, nevertheless, I myself had the delicacy to compromise no one by name, only involving in the charge brought against me the coalition of all the democrats of the entire Republic, because I thought it, at first useful to strike at despotism with terror, and because I thought it would be an insult to any democrat not to present him as a participant in an enterprise so obligatory for him as that of the re-establishment of equality! What have. they gained, these false brothers, these apostates from our holy doctrine? What have they gained by this evil system which they appear to regard as the non plus ultra of cleverness? They have gained nothing beyond dishonour to themselves, to discredit revolutionaries with the people, who necessarily always disperse when they see themselves abandoned by their leaders. They have also succeeded in encouraging the enemy by the spectacle of such weakness. They have succeeded, finally, in precipitating the more rapidly their own protéges into the abyss. You have not taken part in these turpitudes, my friend. You have already begun to render to us the tribute of homage, which a just posterity will pay in full.
The letter then proceeds to exculpate Le Pelletier still further from any share in the base conduct of others, and to recall his loyal expressions of devotion to the cause, and to those who were now in prison as its martyrs. Babeuf continues, that to a man who has spoken and who. thinks thus, he has no hesitation in addressing the appeal for himself and his family, which forms the concluding portion of the letter.
I have no need – writes Babeuf – to assure you, that, in my complete devotion to the people, I have not thought of my personal affairs, neither have I ever forecast as to what might happen in the case of the failure that has now befallen me. I leave two children and a wife, and I leave them without a cent, without the means of livelihood. No! for a man like Felix, it will certainly not be too onerous a legacy to impose upon him, to charge him to aid these unhappy creatures in not dying of want. The daughter of Michel Le Pelletier [the before-mentioned murdered member of the Convention] will assist in this worthy work; her character, that I have had the opportunity of observing, her unmistakable sensibility, already accustomed to exercise itself towards those unfortunates that the world has made, assure me of all her movements, and of her resolution when you cause her to read this letter. You will permit me to give a little more in detail what I wish to be done for the unfortunates that I am abandoning. My two sons: the elder, as far as I can judge from the little that has been done for his education, will not have a great aptitude for the sciences. This would seem also to argue that he will not have the ambition to play any important role in the political arena. Hence he may pass his life quietly, and thus avoid the painful lot and misfortunes of his father. This boy has at least an excellent judgment and an independent spirit, the result of all the ideas in which he has been nourished. I have sounded him as to what he would like to be. Workman, he replied, but workman of the most independent class possible, and he cited that of the printer. He was not so far wrong, perhaps, and I desire nothing more than that he should follow his tastes. I can say nothing as regards his younger brother, who is too young as yet to decide anything as to his capacities; but if I have ground to hope that you will do as much for him as for the elder, I am content. Gracchus Babeuf has never been ambitious for himself or for his children. He has only been anxious to procure some good for the people. He would be too fortunate if he knew that his children were by way of becoming some day good and peaceable artisans, among the classes of which society has always need, and which consequently can never be wanting to her.
As regards my wife, in the face of the fact that she only has the domestic virtues and the simple qualities belonging to the mother of a family, all that will be necessary to preserve her from a pitiable want will be very little. It will suffice to advance her some small sum to place her in a position to undertake one of those minor occupations such as furnish all that is necessary to keep a small family.
And now, my good friend, I will ask of you one more favour. The nature of my trial and its slow progress tell me that I have still a certain number of days to live before that day when I shall go to sleep myself on the bed of honour, to expiate the acts which render me supremely culpable in the eyes of the enemies of humanity. I can wish, for consolation, that my wife and my children might accompany me, so to say, to the foot of the altar where I shall be immolated; that will do me much more good than a confessor. Place them, I pray of you, in a position to make the journey, so that I shall not be deprived of this last satisfaction.
My body will return to earth. There will remain no more of me than a sufficient quantity of projects, notes, and sketches of democratic and revolutionary writings, all tending to the last aim, to the complete philanthropic system for which I die. My wife will be able to collect them all; and one day, when the persecution shall have slackened, when perchance good men shall breathe again, with freedom enough to be able to cast a few flowers on our tomb, when people will have come to think again on the means for procuring to the human race the happiness we have proposed for it, you may look into those fragments, and present to all the disciples of Equality, to those of our friends who preserve our principles in their hearts – you may present to them, I say, for the benefit of my memory, a selection of these divers fragments, containing all that the corrupt of to-day call my dreams. I have finished. I embrace you and bid you adieu.
G. Babeuf.
It was not until the 10th Fructidor, ann. IV (27th August 1796), that Babeuf and his associates were transferred to Vendôme during the night, in cages made on purpose, as Buonarroti alleges, to make of them an exhibition as of wild beasts. Gendarmes and a strong detachment of cavalry escorted the vehicles conveying the accused, which were followed by others containing their wives and children, among whom were Madame Babeuf and her son Emile. Three days later the cortége arrived at Vendôme, the accused being placed in the cells under the court buildings, to which all access from outside was severely prohibited. According to Buonarroti, the evenings were relieved by the singing of revolutionary songs on the part of the prisoners, in which the inhabitants of the town who happened to be in the neighbourhood of the prison frequently joined.
The high court which was to try them was composed of the president, Gandon, and of five other judges, Coffinhal, Pajou, Moreau, Audier, and Massillon. There were, in addition, two supplementary judges, Lalonde and Ladève. The public prosecutors were Viellart and Bailly. The jury was composed of sixteen members, four adjuncts, and four supplementary members. But the prisoners had still some months to wait in durance. At last, after the usual formalities, the trial began on the 2nd Ventose, ann. V (the 20th February ’97), and was destined to drag on its course to the 7th Prairial, ann. V (27th May 1797).
Meanwhile, the remains of the party of which Babeuf was the leader were not inactive in Paris. Babeuf and his associates had been scarcely a month in the dungeons beneath the courthouse of Vendôme before a final attempt, which had been some weeks in preparation, was made to win over to the revolutionary cause the military in the camp at Grenelle, near Paris. On the 7th of September some hundreds of followers of the Babeuf movement rose in abortive insurrection. Their plan was first of all to seize the palace of the Luxembourg, the official residence of the Directory, and where the five directors were sitting, and next, after securing the persons of the directors, to proceed to the camp of Grenelle, there to induce a movement among the military, and to bring back those favourable to their scheme as an armed force to Paris.
But the attack on the Luxembourg failed. The authorities, warned in time of the movement that was on foot, reinforced the guards round the governmental palace, and the attacking force was driven off, although not effectively dispersed. The insurgents rallied but did not a second time attempt to penetrate into the Luxembourg. Abandoning this part of their plan, they proceeded in a body to Grenelle. Here they had every hope of success, judging from the reports they had received, but here also they were likewise doomed to a failure that proved the final disaster to their party. On summoning the camp, in which General Latour was in command, to join them, they were greeted with an unexpected resistance, under the immediate orders of Colonel Marlo. Instead of, as they had hoped and expected, tokens of fraternisation, they were met by a series of volleys fired into their number. In a few minutes they were in panic-stricken flight, leaving more than a hundred dead and wounded on the field.
This attempt on the camp at Grenelle was the last dying flicker of the spirit of popular insurrection in Paris and France for a long time to come, and may be fittingly regarded as the closing episode of the French Revolution, considered as one distinct and connected historical event.
The Government could have wished for nothing better than this abortive demonstration. It afforded them an excuse for hunting down all suspected of revolutionary sympathies in Paris and the departments surrounding the capital. Those arrested soon approached the number of 800. These prisoners were not brought before the ordinary tribunals, but were tried by a specially appointed military commission, in other words, a court martial. As might be expected, numerous sentences of death were pronounced, and as many as thirty persons were executed by military platoons on the plain of Grenelle. In addition to this, a large number were sentenced to penal servitude and to deportation. The only prominent person who had the courage to defend the vanquished democrats was the noble-minded Pache, the late Mayor of Paris, during the period of the first commune, who issued, from his residence in the country, whither he had retired, a pamphlet zealously championing the unfortunate victims, and denouncing in scathing terms the conduct of the governing classes of the day.
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An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend All The Occupation Sites And All The Occupiers! Drop All Charges Against All Protesters Everywhere!
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Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It, It’s Ours! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
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Below I am posting, occasionally, comments on the Occupy movement as I see or hear things of interest, or that cause alarm bells to ring in my head. The first comment directly below from October 1, which represented my first impressions of Occupy Boston, is the lead for all further postings.
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Markin comment October 1, 2011:
There is a lot of naiveté expressed about the nature of capitalism, capitalists, and the way to win in the class struggle by various participants in this occupation. Many also have attempted to make a virtue out of that naiveté, particularly around the issues of effective democratic organization (the General Assembly, its unrepresentative nature and its undemocratic consensus process) and relationships with the police (they are not our friends, no way, when the deal goes down). However, their spirit is refreshing, they are acting out of good subjective anti-capitalist motives and, most importantly, even those of us who call ourselves "reds" (communists), including this writer, started out from liberal premises as naive, if not more so, than those encountered at the occupation site. We can all learn something but in the meantime we must defend the "occupation" and the occupiers. More later as the occupation continues.
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In the recent past as part of my one of my commentaries I noted the following:
“… The idea of the General Assembly with each individual attendee acting as a “tribune of the people” is interesting and important. And, of course, it represents, for today anyway, the embryo of what the “new world” we need to create might look like at the governmental level.”
A couple of the people that I have talked lately were not quite sure what to make of that idea. The idea that what is going on in Occupy Boston at the governmental level could, should, would be a possible form of governing this society in the “new world a-borning” with the rise of the Occupy movement. Part of the problem is that there was some confusion on the part of the listeners that one of the possible aims of this movement is to create an alternative government, or at least provide a model for such a government. I will argue here now, and in the future, that it should be one of the goals. In short, we need to take power away from the Democrats and Republicans and their tired old congressional/executive/judicial doesn’t work- checks and balances-form of governing and place it at the grassroots level and work upward from there rather than, as now, have power devolve from the top. (And stop well short of the bottom.)
I will leave aside the question (the problem really) of what it would take to create such a possibility. Of course a revolutionary solution would, of necessity, have be on the table since there is no way that the current powerful interests, Democratic, Republican or those of the "one percent" having no named politics, is going to give up power without a fight. What I want to pose now is the use of the General Assembly as a deliberative executive, legislative, and judicial body all rolled into one. In that sense previous historical models come to mind; the short-lived but heroic Paris Commune of 1871 that Karl Marx tirelessly defended against the reactionaries of Europe as the prototype of a workers government; the early heroic days of the Russian October Revolution of 1917 when the workers councils (soviets in Russian parlance) acted as a true workers' government; and the period in the Spanish Revolution of 1936-39 where the Central Committee of the Anti-Fascist Militias acted, de facto, as a workers government. All the just mentioned examples had their problems and flaws, no question. However, merely mentioning the General Assembly concept in the same paragraph as these great historic examples should signal that thoughtful leftists and other militants need to investigate and study these examples.
In order to facilitate the investigation and study of those examples I will, occasionally, post works in this space that deal with these forbears from several leftist perspectives (rightist perspectives were clear- crush all the above examples ruthlessly, and with no mercy- so we need not look at them now). I started this Lessons Of History series with Karl Marx’s classic defense and critique of the Paris Commune, The Civil War In France and today’s presentation noted in the headline continues on in that same vein.
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A Five-Point Program As Talking Points
*Jobs For All Now!-“30 For 40”- A historic demand of the labor movement. Thirty hours work for forty hours pay to spread the available work around. Organize the unorganized- Organize the South- Organize Wal-Mart- Defend the right for public and private workers to unionize.
* Defend the working classes! No union dues for Democratic (or the stray Republican) candidates. Spent the dough on organizing the unorganized and other labor-specific causes (example, the November, 2011 anti-union recall referendum in Ohio).
*End the endless wars!- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops (And Mercenaries) From Afghanistan! Hands Off Pakistan! Hands Off Iran! Hands Off The World!
*Fight for a social agenda for working people!. Quality Healthcare For All! Nationalize the colleges and universities under student-teacher-campus worker control! Forgive student debt! Stop housing foreclosures!
*We created the wealth, let’s take it back. Take the struggle for our daily bread off the historic agenda. Build a workers party that fights for a workers government to unite all the oppressed.
Emblazon on our red banner-Labor and the oppressed must rule!
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Ernest Belfort Bax-Gracchus Babeuf-VII. The Catastrophe
DURING the course of the events described in the last chapter, that is, between the 1st and the 10th of May 1796, it has been proved by recent researches that the government, namely, the executive Directory, together with the Minister of Police, was kept fully informed of everything important that was taking place. We have already spoken of Grisel, the government spy, who was in the innermost councils of the Babouvist Committee, or Secret Directory, as it was called, and himself a member of the Military Committee, upon which the task of drawing up and carrying out the plan of the insurrection devolved. But it would appear that, although perhaps the principal, he was by no means the only agent to keep the authorities au courant with the progress of the insurrectionary movement. In addition to the ordinary police spies, of which there were the usual contingent of eavesdroppers, in cafes or elsewhere, where political questions were likely to be canvassed, there were undoubtedly other more important sources of information as to the places of assembly and the actions of the chiefs of the conspiracy.
Among the principal informers was the keeper of the Café des Bains Chinois, which was a rendezvous of the Babouvists and those favourable to the movement. Of especial interest, as regards the relations of the government and the insurrectionary movement of Babeuf and his colleagues, is the question of the part played by Barras, who was the most influential of the five Directors, and the most prominent man at the time. Buonarroti states, in general terms, that Barras had coquetted with the Babouvists, but does not give particulars. In fact, for long the precise relations between Barras and the movement remained in historical obscurity. In a recent work, however (Histoire et Droit, 1907, vol. i. pp. 267-293), M. Paul Robriquet has collected evidence of the part played by Barras in the affair, including some unpublished documents in the Archives nationales. The next strongest man to Barras on the Directory was Carnot, and between these two men was implacable discord, which culminated later in the affair of the “18th Fructidor”. Hippolyte Carnot, the son of the famous “organiser of victory”, in his memoirs of his father, alludes to the complicity of Barras in the matter of the “Equals”, thinking that it was only the timely arrest of Babeuf and his friends that averted catastrophe (i.e. from the point of view of the government and the dominant classes). In confirmation of this, M. Robriquet cites a letter he has discovered, signed by one Armand, who was evidently a police agent, to the Minister of Police, containing the words, “I am persuaded that Barras is betraying us, for he has interviews with Rossignol”; and later, in another letter, “the director Barras is more than ever suspect to me. He has had Rossignol informed that he begs the Committee of Insurrection to send him ‘a confidential man’, because, says he, ‘the moment of the insurrection’, he wishes to pass over to the Faubourg St Antoine with a part of the État major”, explaining, however, at the same time, that in case the committee does not send him the man he asks for, he would, none the less, “throw himself into the arms of the people”.
The same author quotes, further, a letter of Charles Germain to Babeuf, relative to an interview he had had with Barras on the 30th Germinal, anno IV (19th April 1796). “You ought to know from Darthé or others,” writes Germain, “that I was sent for by Barras this morning, the 30th of Germinal. I have had an audience with the director.” Germain goes on to give a statement of his conversation with Barras, as much as possible in the language used. After enlarging on the dangers the country ran from the Royalists, Barras asked his visitor what the patriots thought. “We know,” he said, “they are preparing a movement. Good men, their zeal has blinded them; they are going to get themselves prairialised, whereas, in order to save the country, we have got to vendémiarise.” This, of course, referred to the abortive insurrection of the populace on the 1st of Prairial of the previous year, when the Convention was invaded, but which, after a few hours’ triumph, was suppressed, and which led to the expulsion and indictment of the Mountainist section of the Convention for having supported the demands of the insurgents. Barras opposes this to his own exploits, with the aid of Napoleon and his cannon, on the 13th of Vendémiaire, when the Royalist insurrection was suppressed.
Here follows a remarkable utterance of Barras, as reported by Germain: “Like you,” Barras is alleged to say, “I know myself that the present state of things is not the end which was contemplated by the men who overthrew the Bastille, the Throne, and Robespierre. Like you, I recognise myself that a change must be made, and that this change is not so far away as some might think; and when one has the most need of patriots to effect this change, they are meditating our ruin, our death! They are making themselves, without intending it, perhaps, the instruments of the emigrants, the fanatics, the Royalists, who have ever seen the restored monarchy near at hand.” Barras continued, alluding to the pretended complicity of the Babouvists with the Royalists in their intrigues with Pitt and Cobourg, and wound up by challenging Germain to give his own opinion. The latter replied, denying any knowledge of the alleged intrigues with Cobourg, Pitt, Isnard, Robert, etc., but assuring the Director that the people was tired of its oppressors, and would be no more satisfied with a Vendémiaire than with a Prairial, the former having proved of no more benefit to them than the latter. Barras, here interrupting him, expressed regret at not having worked the oracle (“travaillé la marchandise”), if for only three days, in a manner to satisfy the patriots.
He then launched forth into an invective against the Royalists, expressing the wish that the movement might become general and be directed against the Royalists. “I have confidence,” he exclaimed, “in the means at my disposal.” He then went on to relate that he had lately made an excursion through the popular faubourgs, and that the people all appeared calm and peaceable. “If I had seen anything stirring,” he said, “the thing would have been done. I should have marched with the people, for it is by and through the people that, as I hold, the national will manifests itself. The people,” he added, “is not represented by a handful of clumsy agitators.” He thereupon renewed his suggestions that the Babouvists should rally round the Directory rather than maintain a secret directory of their own, in opposition to the governmental one. “You cry out,” said Barras, “against us, Crucify them! and yet to whom do you propose to attach yourselves? To the Court of Verona! Yes, my friends, it is thither that they want to lead you, whereas that is the very thing we have to kill and destroy. You ought now, my comrade,” said he, “to know my mind, my sentiment, and my principles. More than one patriot knows me already; my existence is bound up in that of the Republic and the people. Believe me, that, like all true patriots, I shall neglect nothing for their success; and it is only in order to serve them that I resist my own pressing inclination to abdicate my position, and to retire peacefully into an obscurity which is very dear to me.” Barras, in bidding good-bye to Germain, invited him to come and see him from time to time, giving him a carte de circulation to facilitate his movements in official regions.
Barras admits in his memoirs that he had received Germain sometimes, but denies absolutely that he had any relations whatever with Babeuf himself, whom, he states, he regarded as a great fool. He naturally was afterwards anxious to excuse himself from the suspicion of having actively favoured the movement of the Equals, but the testimony of others, among whom was Buonarroti, was to the effect that Barras had actually offered his services to “the conspiracy”, which certainly seems to be confirmed by the letter above quoted from, and which indeed, even apart from this, might be inferred from the admission of Barras himself, that he had “sometimes received” the ardent Germain. The fellow-director of Barras, Larivellière-Lèpeaux, certainly held strongly to the opinion of his having negotiated with the conspirators. “The conduct of Barras,” he says, “his relations, his sinister look, his opinions, sufficed to convince us.” He also states that this was the opinion of the other directors, and that so strongly were they impressed with the unreliability of their colleague, that the measures to be taken against the conspiracy were only discussed when Barras happened to be absent from the directorial sittings.
That Barras, from what we know of the man, was not actuated by disinterested enthusiasm or regard for principle in his attitude may be taken for granted, though what precisely his “game” was is not quite clear, any more than as to whether Napoleon was privy to it or not. It would seem, however, pretty evident that, notwithstanding the aggressive luxury of his private life, a luxury that had alienated many, as also the role he had played as a Thermidorean, he thought he might attain an influence with the revolutionary party by avowedly favouring their aims on the one side, while playing up to the representatives of property and the status quo on the other by posing as a man of moderating counsels. Whether Bonaparte knew of the matter, and had visions of a forestalled 18th of Brumaire, and an entry upon the scene as the saviour of society, as already said, cannot be determined for certain.
However this may be, and whatever the motives underlying the attitude of Barras, there is no doubt whatever of his haste to adopt an “I know not the man” attitude so soon as he saw the way things were turning. The moment he was apprised of the imminent arrest of the Babouvist leaders, and perceived that the movement was lost, he made a violent scene with his colleagues, extracting from them a declaration that they had given no credence to the reports of his treachery circulated by malevolents. At the same time he talked of appearing before the Council of Five Hundred, in order to obtain a public satisfaction. Not caring to show a divided counsel at a moment of peril, the other Directors calmed Barras, assuring him that they had no thought of bringing any accusation against him.
On the 10th of May (21st Floreal, anno IV), Carnot, who was president of the executive Directory, sent a message to the Council of Five Hundred to inform them that a horrible plot was to be hatched on the morrow, and that its object was “to overthrow the French Constitution, to slaughter the legislative body, all the members of the government, the État major of the Army of the Interior, and to deliver this great city to general pillage and frightful massacres.” It concluded with the information that the executive Directory were informed of the place of meeting of the chiefs of this conspiracy, and had given orders for their immediate arrest. The same day, indeed, at the very moment when the Secret Directory was planning the final arrangements for the insurrection, a body of soldiers invaded the room where the sitting was being held and seized the principal leaders, amongst them being the ex-conventionals belonging to the Mountainist section of the now united revolutionary party – Vadier, Ricord, Laignelot, and Drouet. Babeuf himself, however, was not there, neither was he to be found at his old address, No. 29 Faubourg St Honoré, but at the house of the tailor Tissot, No. 21 Rue de la Grande Truanderie, where the meeting of the 11th of Floréal was held, and where, as before related, he had taken refuge as a measure of precaution, which events proved was ineffectual.
At the moment that the police burst into his apartment he was engaged in drawing up, in company with Buonarroti and another, the manifestoes intended to determine the lines of the insurrection. All the important papers relating to the movement were seized. In spite of the generosity of the one man of means in the party, Le Pelletier, [This Le Pelletier, it should be noted, was the younger brother of the well-known Louis Michel Le Pelletier de Saint Fargeau, who was assassinated in a café on the day after the vote in the of the king’s death, i.e. the 21st January 1793.] there was only found in ready cash 2000 livres in assignats. What this amounted to in the depreciated currency of the time is easy to reckon. The poverty, indeed, of the movement threatened to cause its failure, even had it not been prematurely betrayed. Without the co-operation of military, or at least a considerable section of them, it was impossible that the insurrection could have succeeded; and to ensure the support of the military, it was necessary that they should be paid. It was proposed to divide the insurgent army onto three divisions; three generals were to command it, under the order of the general-in-chief. Fion, Germain, Rossignol, and Massart were those designated. All was arranged up to the moment when the tocsin should ring out, and when, at the beat of the générale, the popular wards of the city would rise to claim the heritage the revolution had promised them. The arrest immediately produced a great sensation on the general public.
The press gave blood-curdling accounts of the projected movement and the objects of the stillborn insurrection. Every day brought reports of fresh arrests of the insurrectionists, besides those of Royalists and others. Babeuf and his friends were removed at once to imprisonment in the Temple. All were apparently at first taken to the prison of the Abbaye. This was on the 21st Floreal (10th May). Brought up the same day before the Minister of Police, Charles Cochon Laparent, a former member of the Convention, Babeuf claimed to be the author of the plan of insurrection found among the papers seized. This was, of course, not strictly true, but Babeuf was anxious not to incriminate his associates, whom he steadily refused to name. Two days later he indicted the following letter to the executive Directory:–
CITIZENS AND DIRECTORS, – Would you regard it as beneath you to treat with me as between power and power? You have already seen the vast confidence of which I am the centre! You have seen that my party may well balance yours! You have seen its vast ramifications! I am more than convinced that the outlook has made you tremble!
Is it to your interest, is it to the interest of the country, to give special notoriety to the conspiracy and its inspirers? I do not think so. I will give you the reasons why my opinion ought not to appear suspicious. What would happen if this affair should appear in the full light of day? That I should play the most glorious of all roles! I should demonstrate with all the force of character, with all the energy of which you have known me to be possessed, the righteousness of the conspiracy, of which I never denied having been the ringleader. Departing from that cowardly path strewn with denials, which the common ruck of accused persons use to justify themselves, I should dare to develop great principles, plead the eternal rights of the people, with all the advantage which close absorption and the grandeur of the subject gives me. I should dare, I say, to demonstrate that this trial is not one of justice, but it is one of strength against weakness, of oppressors against oppressed and their magnanimous defenders, of the strong against the weak. You may condemn me to deportation or death, but your judgment will be at once seen to be pronounced by powerful vice against feeble virtue. My scaffold will figure gloriously beside that of Barneveldt or of Sidney. Would you fear to see, after my execution, altars raised to me beside those where to-day Robespierre and Goujon are revered as illustrious martyrs? It is not in this way that governments and rulers are rendered secure. You have seen, citizens and directors, that you hold nothing when I am in your hands. I am not all the conspiracy, it is clear; nay, I am only a single link in the long chain that composes it. You have to fear all the other parties no less than mine. You have, indeed, the proof of all the interest they take in me, that you strike at them all in striking at me, and you will irritate them.
You will irritate, I say, the whole democracy of the French Republic. But you know already that it is not such a small matter as you may have imagined at first. You must recognise that it is not only in Paris that it exists in strength, you must see that there is not one of the departments where it is not powerful. You would judge of the matter still better if your agents had seized the vast correspondence which enabled us to form the lists of which you have only seen a fragment. It is all very well to seek to stifle the sacred fire which burns and will burn. What though it seems at certain instants extinguished if its flame threatens to revive suddenly with the force of an explosion? Would you undertake to deliver yourselves entirely to that vast sans-culotte sect which has not yet deigned to declare itself vanquished ? Even in any possibility of this where would you find yourselves afterwards? You are not quite in the same position as he who after the death of Cromwell ruled some millions of English republicans. Charles II was king, and whatever you may say you are not that yet. You have need of a party to support you, and if you removed that of the patriots you are left alone in the face of royalism. What do you think would be your lookout if you were standing before it single-handed? You will say that the patriots are as dangerous as the royalists, and perhaps more so. You deceive yourselves. Consider well the character of the enterprise of the patriots. You will not find that they desire your death, and it is a calumny to have allowed the statement to be published. For myself, I can tell you that they do not desire it. They wish to walk in other paths than those of Robespierre. They desire no blood. They would force you to confess of yourselves that you have made an oppressive use of power, that you have got rid of all popular forms and safeguards, and they desire you to replace them. They would not have gone as far as they have, if, as you promised after Vendémiaire, you had made the attempt to govern popularly.
I myself in my earlier numbers [of his paper] have sought to open the door to you. I have said how I thought that you might cover yourselves with the blessing of the people. I explained how it seemed possible to me that you might cause to disappear all that the constitutional character of your government exhibits in contrast to true republican principles.
Well, there is still time. The turn the latest events have taken may become profitable, and the salvation alike of yourselves and the public interests. Do you disdain my advice and my conclusions, which are that your own interest and that of the country consists in not giving notoriety to the present affair? I seem to perceive that it is already your intention to treat the matter politically. It seems to me that you would be wise in doing so. Don’t think that my present action is interested. The open and unusual manner in which I do not cease to declare myself guilty, in the sense in which you accuse me, must show you that I do not act from weakness. Death or exile would be to me the pathway to immortality, and I shall tread it with a heroic and religious zeal, but my proscription, like that of all other democrats, will not advance you one whit, or ensure the salvation of the republic.
I have seen, on reflection, that in the last resort you have not always been the enemies of this republic. You were once evidently republicans in good faith. Why will you not be so again? Why will you not believe that you who are men have been temporarily led astray like others by the inevitable effect of exaggerations into which circumstances have thrown you? The patriots and the mass of the people have a lacerated heart. Would you tear it still more? What would be the final result? Do not these patriots rather deserve that, instead of aggravating their wounds, you should think at last of curing them? You have, when it pleases you, the initiative of well being, since in you resides the whole force of public administration. Citizen Directors, govern popularly! Such is all these patriots ask of you! Speaking thus for them, I am sure that they will not interrupt my voice. I am sure of not being repudiated by them. I see but one policy that it is wise for you to take. Declare that there has never been any serious conspiracy. Five men, in thus showing themselves great and generous, can to-day save the country. I allege still further that the patriots will cover you with their bodies, and that you will have no more need of entire armies to defend you. The patriots do not hate you; they only hate your unpopular acts. I will then give you, on my own account, a guarantee as extended as is my habitual frankness. You know the measure of influence that I have with this class of men – I refer to the patriots. Well, I employ it to convince them that if you are at one with the people, they ought to act at one with you. It would not surely be an unhappy thing if the effect of this simple letter were to pacify the internal condition of France in checking the notoriety of which this affair is the subject. Would it not, at the same time, check all that now opposes itself to the calm of Europe?
G. BABEUF
This letter, not perhaps very wise or altogether dignified under the circumstances, had, as might be expected, no effect on its recipients. Four of the Directors at least were uncompromising in their determination mercilessly to stamp out the movement, while the fifth, Barras, whatever may have been his private ideas or inclinations, found himself already an object of secret suspicion to his colleagues, and had to fall in with their projects, with all the alacrity he could assume, if he was to avoid placing himself in a false, and even a dangerous, position. The president of the Directory, Carnot, that “organising genius”, carried everything before him at this juncture by his energy and determination. His struggle with the only other man of real ability at the head of affairs, Barras, was deferred to a later day. Barras won on the 18th Fructidor, though only himself to be overthrown by Bonaparte on the 18th Brumaire.
But, to return to our prisoners, they were all at first interned in the Abbaye, three days later to be brought up before the Directors and Jury of the department of Paris. But the Government took an early opportunity of transferring the more important of the prisoners, amongst them Babeuf and Buonarroti, to the prison of the Temple. One important prisoner, however, was allowed to remain at the Abbaye. We refer to Jean Baptiste Drouet, whose name has been several times mentioned in connection with the proceedings of the Secret Directory. Drouet had a special significance as being a Mountainist member of the Convention, and one of the few who succeeded in getting into the new Council of Five Hundred. It was he who was the postmaster at the small town of Ste. Menehould, and who procured the arrest of Louis XVI at the time of his flight to Varennes in June 1791. He was a man whose past gave him influence with all the existing parties, and his adhesion the movement of Babeuf obtained for him additional importance.
Now this man Drouet, in his capacity of political prisoner, was rather a white elephant to the executive Directory. In the first place, his being among the accused prevented the great trial coming under the jurisdiction of the High Court of Justice of Paris, as in the ordinary course it would have done. For by article 265 of the Constitution of year III. it was provided that members of the Legislature were not to be tried before the ordinary tribunals, but that a special high court to be established to deal with their cases. Hence it was that the government decided that whole process should take place before a special high court, whose seat was fixed at the town of Vendôme, in the department of the Loir et Cher. But, for reasons of his own, Barras was particularly unwilling that Drouet should be brought to trial at all. Hence, shortly before the time of the trial came on, on the 1st Fructidor, ann. IV (17th August 1796), Drouet was allowed, it has now been proved, with the connivance of Barras, to effect his escape from the Abbaye. Drouet succeeded in getting away from France into Switzerland. From thence he went to Teneriffe, where he took a leading part in the successful resistance to the attack of Nelson in the following year. He became a sub-prefect under the Empire, and died at Mâcon in 1824.
On the 9th Prairial, ann. IV (26th May 1796), the old members of the Society of the Pantheon, together with some of the Mountainists, attempted to raise the populace to deliver the prisoners. The attempt, however, was a failure. During the earlier period of his detention in the Temple, Babeuf’s enthusiasm for the cause seemed at times to render him indifferent to every other consideration, even to the welfare of his wife and family. As the weeks went on, however, he softened, and the following letter to his well-to-do friend Felix Le Pelletier is of interest, as expressing at once his political testament and his regard for the domestic affections, and, lastly, as a specimen of his literary style at its best. It is dated – , “The Tower of the Temple, 26th Messidor, anno IV (10th of August 1796),” and is as follows:–
Greetings, dear Felix! Don’t alarm yourself on seeing these lines traced by my hand. I know that all that bears the imprint of relations with me gives the right to disquietude. I am the being that all fly from; that all regard as dangerous, and of a deadly approach. However, my conscience tells me that I am pure; and my true friends, that is, certain just men, know also that I have nothing wherewith to reproach myself. If even they shun me it is not from any real aversion which I inspire in them, but it is the effect of the factitious terror imposed upon them by malice, lest by chance they should be reputed criminals, and treated as such. In this position the consideration that I owe to good men prescribes to me the interdiction of all intercourse with them, in order to avoid giving them the smallest alarm. But urgent considerations, such as present themselves naturally to the thoughts of a man on the brink of the tomb, have decided me to make one more advance towards one of my fellow-citizens whom I especially esteem. I do this the more willingly inasmuch as I am sure to run no other risk than that, perhaps, of somewhat disquieting him. It is a sacrifice that friendship can make. I shall lighten it in reassuring you, as quickly as possible, my good Felix, that there is nothing to fear. I was certain, in getting this epistle conveyed to you, the last that I shall address to you, that it would overcome without peril all the obstacles that might come between you and me.
Behold us, then, without doubt, more at ease with one another – you to read me, I to conclude what I have to tell you! I have built my text, in speaking to you, on friendship. I have called you friend! I have believed, and I believe, that I may do so. It is by this title that I address you in confidence – respecting do you know what? – my testament, and last recommendation.
I make the following assumptions subordinate to its execution – that proscription will not always pursue you; that the tyrants, sated with my blood and that of some of my unhappy companions, will be contented, and their own policy will not counsel them, perhaps, to do what they at first appeared to propose doing, namely, to make a hecatomb of all republicans. On the other hand, it might still happen, after my martyrdom, that fortune will tire of striking our country, and then that her true children may breathe in peace. If it is otherwise, I lose all hope as to what shall survive me. Then all will perish in the vast cataclysm that crime against virtue and justice will engender. The work of the good, their memory, their families, will fall into eternal night, and be involved in one universal destruction. Then, again, all is said: I need take no more care for those who are still dear to me, whom my thought has followed up to the repose of nothingness, the last inevitable end of all that exists.
It is on the first supposition that I am acting, my friend. I believe I have remained worthy of the esteem of men who are as just as you are. I have not seen you in the ranks of those evil Machiavellian politicians who multiply my sufferings a hundredfold, and are looking forward to my death. The traitors! In causing those for whom they appeared to have interested themselves most to appear in a cowardly and shameful light, they have pictured me – whose every public act has testified to the rectitude, to the purity of my intentions; to me, whose sighs and tenderness ever for unfortunate humanity are painted in unequivocal traits! – me, who have worked with such courage and devotion for the enfranchisement of my :brothers! – me, who in this sublime enterprise have had at the moment of misfortune, following on the great success which attests that I have at least brought some intelligence to the work before me! – they have pictured me, I say, either as a miserable dreamer in oblivion, or as a secret instrument of the perfidy of the enemies of the people. They have not blushed to agree with the tyrants as to the culpability of the most generous efforts to break down slavery and to cause the horrible misery of the country to cease. They have not blushed, finally, to seek to cast upon me alone this capital offence, in ornamenting it with all the accessories by which they thought to be able effectively to give it the colour of crime; and, nevertheless, I myself had the delicacy to compromise no one by name, only involving in the charge brought against me the coalition of all the democrats of the entire Republic, because I thought it, at first useful to strike at despotism with terror, and because I thought it would be an insult to any democrat not to present him as a participant in an enterprise so obligatory for him as that of the re-establishment of equality! What have. they gained, these false brothers, these apostates from our holy doctrine? What have they gained by this evil system which they appear to regard as the non plus ultra of cleverness? They have gained nothing beyond dishonour to themselves, to discredit revolutionaries with the people, who necessarily always disperse when they see themselves abandoned by their leaders. They have also succeeded in encouraging the enemy by the spectacle of such weakness. They have succeeded, finally, in precipitating the more rapidly their own protéges into the abyss. You have not taken part in these turpitudes, my friend. You have already begun to render to us the tribute of homage, which a just posterity will pay in full.
The letter then proceeds to exculpate Le Pelletier still further from any share in the base conduct of others, and to recall his loyal expressions of devotion to the cause, and to those who were now in prison as its martyrs. Babeuf continues, that to a man who has spoken and who. thinks thus, he has no hesitation in addressing the appeal for himself and his family, which forms the concluding portion of the letter.
I have no need – writes Babeuf – to assure you, that, in my complete devotion to the people, I have not thought of my personal affairs, neither have I ever forecast as to what might happen in the case of the failure that has now befallen me. I leave two children and a wife, and I leave them without a cent, without the means of livelihood. No! for a man like Felix, it will certainly not be too onerous a legacy to impose upon him, to charge him to aid these unhappy creatures in not dying of want. The daughter of Michel Le Pelletier [the before-mentioned murdered member of the Convention] will assist in this worthy work; her character, that I have had the opportunity of observing, her unmistakable sensibility, already accustomed to exercise itself towards those unfortunates that the world has made, assure me of all her movements, and of her resolution when you cause her to read this letter. You will permit me to give a little more in detail what I wish to be done for the unfortunates that I am abandoning. My two sons: the elder, as far as I can judge from the little that has been done for his education, will not have a great aptitude for the sciences. This would seem also to argue that he will not have the ambition to play any important role in the political arena. Hence he may pass his life quietly, and thus avoid the painful lot and misfortunes of his father. This boy has at least an excellent judgment and an independent spirit, the result of all the ideas in which he has been nourished. I have sounded him as to what he would like to be. Workman, he replied, but workman of the most independent class possible, and he cited that of the printer. He was not so far wrong, perhaps, and I desire nothing more than that he should follow his tastes. I can say nothing as regards his younger brother, who is too young as yet to decide anything as to his capacities; but if I have ground to hope that you will do as much for him as for the elder, I am content. Gracchus Babeuf has never been ambitious for himself or for his children. He has only been anxious to procure some good for the people. He would be too fortunate if he knew that his children were by way of becoming some day good and peaceable artisans, among the classes of which society has always need, and which consequently can never be wanting to her.
As regards my wife, in the face of the fact that she only has the domestic virtues and the simple qualities belonging to the mother of a family, all that will be necessary to preserve her from a pitiable want will be very little. It will suffice to advance her some small sum to place her in a position to undertake one of those minor occupations such as furnish all that is necessary to keep a small family.
And now, my good friend, I will ask of you one more favour. The nature of my trial and its slow progress tell me that I have still a certain number of days to live before that day when I shall go to sleep myself on the bed of honour, to expiate the acts which render me supremely culpable in the eyes of the enemies of humanity. I can wish, for consolation, that my wife and my children might accompany me, so to say, to the foot of the altar where I shall be immolated; that will do me much more good than a confessor. Place them, I pray of you, in a position to make the journey, so that I shall not be deprived of this last satisfaction.
My body will return to earth. There will remain no more of me than a sufficient quantity of projects, notes, and sketches of democratic and revolutionary writings, all tending to the last aim, to the complete philanthropic system for which I die. My wife will be able to collect them all; and one day, when the persecution shall have slackened, when perchance good men shall breathe again, with freedom enough to be able to cast a few flowers on our tomb, when people will have come to think again on the means for procuring to the human race the happiness we have proposed for it, you may look into those fragments, and present to all the disciples of Equality, to those of our friends who preserve our principles in their hearts – you may present to them, I say, for the benefit of my memory, a selection of these divers fragments, containing all that the corrupt of to-day call my dreams. I have finished. I embrace you and bid you adieu.
G. Babeuf.
It was not until the 10th Fructidor, ann. IV (27th August 1796), that Babeuf and his associates were transferred to Vendôme during the night, in cages made on purpose, as Buonarroti alleges, to make of them an exhibition as of wild beasts. Gendarmes and a strong detachment of cavalry escorted the vehicles conveying the accused, which were followed by others containing their wives and children, among whom were Madame Babeuf and her son Emile. Three days later the cortége arrived at Vendôme, the accused being placed in the cells under the court buildings, to which all access from outside was severely prohibited. According to Buonarroti, the evenings were relieved by the singing of revolutionary songs on the part of the prisoners, in which the inhabitants of the town who happened to be in the neighbourhood of the prison frequently joined.
The high court which was to try them was composed of the president, Gandon, and of five other judges, Coffinhal, Pajou, Moreau, Audier, and Massillon. There were, in addition, two supplementary judges, Lalonde and Ladève. The public prosecutors were Viellart and Bailly. The jury was composed of sixteen members, four adjuncts, and four supplementary members. But the prisoners had still some months to wait in durance. At last, after the usual formalities, the trial began on the 2nd Ventose, ann. V (the 20th February ’97), and was destined to drag on its course to the 7th Prairial, ann. V (27th May 1797).
Meanwhile, the remains of the party of which Babeuf was the leader were not inactive in Paris. Babeuf and his associates had been scarcely a month in the dungeons beneath the courthouse of Vendôme before a final attempt, which had been some weeks in preparation, was made to win over to the revolutionary cause the military in the camp at Grenelle, near Paris. On the 7th of September some hundreds of followers of the Babeuf movement rose in abortive insurrection. Their plan was first of all to seize the palace of the Luxembourg, the official residence of the Directory, and where the five directors were sitting, and next, after securing the persons of the directors, to proceed to the camp of Grenelle, there to induce a movement among the military, and to bring back those favourable to their scheme as an armed force to Paris.
But the attack on the Luxembourg failed. The authorities, warned in time of the movement that was on foot, reinforced the guards round the governmental palace, and the attacking force was driven off, although not effectively dispersed. The insurgents rallied but did not a second time attempt to penetrate into the Luxembourg. Abandoning this part of their plan, they proceeded in a body to Grenelle. Here they had every hope of success, judging from the reports they had received, but here also they were likewise doomed to a failure that proved the final disaster to their party. On summoning the camp, in which General Latour was in command, to join them, they were greeted with an unexpected resistance, under the immediate orders of Colonel Marlo. Instead of, as they had hoped and expected, tokens of fraternisation, they were met by a series of volleys fired into their number. In a few minutes they were in panic-stricken flight, leaving more than a hundred dead and wounded on the field.
This attempt on the camp at Grenelle was the last dying flicker of the spirit of popular insurrection in Paris and France for a long time to come, and may be fittingly regarded as the closing episode of the French Revolution, considered as one distinct and connected historical event.
The Government could have wished for nothing better than this abortive demonstration. It afforded them an excuse for hunting down all suspected of revolutionary sympathies in Paris and the departments surrounding the capital. Those arrested soon approached the number of 800. These prisoners were not brought before the ordinary tribunals, but were tried by a specially appointed military commission, in other words, a court martial. As might be expected, numerous sentences of death were pronounced, and as many as thirty persons were executed by military platoons on the plain of Grenelle. In addition to this, a large number were sentenced to penal servitude and to deportation. The only prominent person who had the courage to defend the vanquished democrats was the noble-minded Pache, the late Mayor of Paris, during the period of the first commune, who issued, from his residence in the country, whither he had retired, a pamphlet zealously championing the unfortunate victims, and denouncing in scathing terms the conduct of the governing classes of the day.
One State Conference: Israel/Palestine and the One-State Solution-Harvard Conference
One State Conference: Israel/Palestine and the One-State Solution
Submitted by ujpadmin1 on Fri, 02/03/2012 - 3:35pm.
When: Saturday, March 3, 2012, 9:00 am to Sunday, March 4, 2012, 6:00 pm
Where: Harvard Kennedy School • 79 John F. Kennedy Street • Harvard Sq T • Cambridge
Harvard University will be hosting a conference on the one state solution. Registration Feb 2. The conference takes place on March 3rd and 4th at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Speakers include: Ilan Pappe, Stephen Walt, Timothy McCarthy, Susan Akram, Duncan Kennedy and Ali Abunimah.
Please visit: http://onestateconference.org/program.html for more information or to register for the conference.
Submitted by ujpadmin1 on Fri, 02/03/2012 - 3:35pm.
When: Saturday, March 3, 2012, 9:00 am to Sunday, March 4, 2012, 6:00 pm
Where: Harvard Kennedy School • 79 John F. Kennedy Street • Harvard Sq T • Cambridge
Harvard University will be hosting a conference on the one state solution. Registration Feb 2. The conference takes place on March 3rd and 4th at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Speakers include: Ilan Pappe, Stephen Walt, Timothy McCarthy, Susan Akram, Duncan Kennedy and Ali Abunimah.
Please visit: http://onestateconference.org/program.html for more information or to register for the conference.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
March 1st, 2012: National Day of Action For Education-All Out For The Boston Action-Assemble Dewey Square- 1:00 PM
Click on the title to link to the College Occupy Boston website for more details on the March 1st actions in Boston.
Markin comment:
Free, quality higher education for all- Create 100, 200, many publicly-funded Harvards!
*******
March 1st, 2012: National Day of Action For Education
Posted on February 16, 2012 by romina
0 Comments and 1 Reaction
Statement from Occupy Education:
We refuse to pay for the crisis created by the 1%. We refuse to accept the dismantling of our schools and universities, while the banks and corporations make record profits. We refuse to accept educational re-segregation, massive tuition increases, outrageous student debt, and increasing privatization and corporatization.
They got bailed out and we got sold out. But through nationally coordinated mass action we can and will turn back the tide of austerity.
We call on all students, teachers, workers, and parents from all levels of education —pre-K-12 through higher education in public and private institutions— and all Occupy assemblies, labor unions, and organizations of oppressed communities, to mobilize on March 1st, 2012 across the country to tell those in power: The resources exist for high-quality education for all. If we make the rich and the corporations pay we can reverse the budget cuts, tuition hikes, and attacks on job security, and fully fund public education and social services.
This is a call to work together, but it is up to each school and organization to determine what local and regional actions—such as strikes, walkouts, occupations, marches, etc.—they will take to say no to business as usual.
We have the momentum, the numbers, and the determination to win. Education is not for sale. Let’s take back our schools. Let’s make history.
For more information:
Facebook page: March 1st National Day of Action for Education
Facebook event page: March 1st National Day of Action for Education
Markin comment:
Free, quality higher education for all- Create 100, 200, many publicly-funded Harvards!
*******
March 1st, 2012: National Day of Action For Education
Posted on February 16, 2012 by romina
0 Comments and 1 Reaction
Statement from Occupy Education:
We refuse to pay for the crisis created by the 1%. We refuse to accept the dismantling of our schools and universities, while the banks and corporations make record profits. We refuse to accept educational re-segregation, massive tuition increases, outrageous student debt, and increasing privatization and corporatization.
They got bailed out and we got sold out. But through nationally coordinated mass action we can and will turn back the tide of austerity.
We call on all students, teachers, workers, and parents from all levels of education —pre-K-12 through higher education in public and private institutions— and all Occupy assemblies, labor unions, and organizations of oppressed communities, to mobilize on March 1st, 2012 across the country to tell those in power: The resources exist for high-quality education for all. If we make the rich and the corporations pay we can reverse the budget cuts, tuition hikes, and attacks on job security, and fully fund public education and social services.
This is a call to work together, but it is up to each school and organization to determine what local and regional actions—such as strikes, walkouts, occupations, marches, etc.—they will take to say no to business as usual.
We have the momentum, the numbers, and the determination to win. Education is not for sale. Let’s take back our schools. Let’s make history.
For more information:
Facebook page: March 1st National Day of Action for Education
Facebook event page: March 1st National Day of Action for Education
Monday Feb 20: National Occupy Day for Prisoners-Free All Our Class-War Prisoners-Boston Action
Monday Feb 20: National Occupy Day for Prisoners-Free All Our Class-War Prisoners-Boston Action
http://www.occupyboston.org/
Monday Feb 20: National Occupy Day for Prisoners
February 17th, 2012 · BrianK · News and Announcements5 comments
On Monday, February 20, 2012 at 3:00 PM, the Occupy Boston People of Color Working Group, Ocupemos El Barrio, Jericho Movement, and many other individuals and organizations will be taking part in the National Occupy Day for Prisoners. We will meet at 3pm at the North Station MBTA Stop at Causeway St. and Friend St. and then march to the Nashua Street Jail on 200 Nashua Street in Boston. Answering the call from Occupy Oakland, we will stand in solidarity with the people confined within prison walls and to demand the end of the incarceration as a means of containing those dispossessed by unjust social policies.
Reasons:
Prisons have become a central institution in American society, integral to our politics, economy and our culture.
Between 1976 and 2000, the United States built on average a new prison each week and the number of imprisoned Americans increased tenfold.
Prison has made the threat of torture part of everyday life for millions of individuals in the United States, especially the 7.3 million people—who are disproportionately people of color—currently incarcerated or under correctional supervision.
Imprisonment itself is a form of torture. The typical American prison, juvenile hall and detainment camp is designed to maximize degradation, brutalization, and dehumanization.
Mass incarceration is the new Jim Crow. Between 1970 and 1995, the incarceration of African Americans increased 7 times. Currently African Americans make up 12 % of the population in the U.S. but 53% of the nation’s prison population. There are more African Americans under correctional control today—in prison or jail, on probation or parole—than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began.
The prison system is the most visible example of policies of punitive containment of the most marginalized and oppressed in our society. Prior to incarceration, 2 out of 3 prisoners lived in conditions of economic hardship. Yet the perpetrators of white-collar crime largely go free, or get re-elected.
In addition, the Center for Economic and Policy Research estimated that in 2008 alone there was a loss in economic input associated with people released from prison equal to $57 billion to $65 billion.
At a national level, we call on Occupies across the country to support:
1. Abolishing unjust sentences, such as the Death Penalty, Life Without the Possibility of Parole, Three Strikes, Juvenile Life Without Parole, and the practice of trying children as adults.
2. Standing in solidarity with movements initiated by prisoners and taking action to support prisoner demands, including the Georgia Prison Strike and the Pelican Bay/California Prisoners Hunger Strikes.
3. Freeing political prisoners, such as Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier, Lynne Stewart, Bradley Manning and Romaine “Chip” Fitzgerald, a Black Panther Party member incarcerated since 1969.
4. Demanding an end to the repression of activists, specifically the targeting of African Americans and those with histories of incarceration, such as Khali in Occupy Oakland who could now face a life sentence, on trumped-up charges, and many others being falsely charged after only exercising their First Amendment rights.
5. Demanding an end to the brutality of the current system, including the torture of those who have lived for many years in Secured Housing Units (SHUs) or in solitary confinement.
6. Demanding that our tax money spent on isolating, harming and killing prisoners, instead be invested in improving the quality of life for all and be spent on education, housing, health care, mental health care, jobs and other human services which contribute to the public good. (In Massachusetts, it costs $45,917 a year to house a prisoner compared to $6,613 in a semester of tuition and fees at UMass Boston or $13,055 a year per public school student.)
At a local level in Massachusetts and Boston, about 24,000 people are held any given day in state and county prisons and jails; about 59% serving criminal sentences in state facilities are people of color, and about 6% are women. This includes about 2,150 people in Nashua Street Jail and Suffolk County House of Corrections (“South Bay”), including people detained by Immigration Customs and Enforcement(ICE) in immigration cases. State prison facilities are overcrowded; South Bay is at 126% and Nashua Street is at 163%. Among county facilities, Norfolk, Essex Middleton, Middlesex Cambridge, and Bristol Dartmouth are at more than 200% capacity, with Bristol Dartmouth at 367%; among state facilities, MCI Concord and MCI Framingham’s Awaiting Trial Unit are at more than 200% capacity, with MCI Framingham’s Awaiting Trial Unit at 359%. In addition, about 3000 youth per year are detained in juvenile facilities, and 1288 youth are placed under the custody of the Department of Youth Services. On average, state prisons across Massachusetts are 142% overcrowded.
Though Black and Latino communities are only 16% of the population of Massachusetts, they comprise a full 56% of the prison population in the Bay State. We also call for:
· The end to the current attempt to pass a three strikes bill or mandatory post-release supervision laws in Massachusetts
· An end to the unjust detention and treatment of prisoners, including Tarek Mehanna and Arnold King. Tarek Mehanna is an example of the racist scapegoating, and relentless persecution and targeting under the Patriot Act’s new provisions of young Muslim men around the country for speaking out against US foreign policy and other activities that are supposedly protected by the First Amendment.
· Arnold King is 59 years old and has been locked up since he was 18. He has been continually denied commutation even after receiving two votes by the parole board of “favorable” status.
· Research and reporting on racial disparities within the juvenile justice system
· Granting Trans people, particularly Trans women, in prison access to services and hormones, and HIV+ people to be allowed to keep their medications on their person
· A visitor bill of rights that reflects humane and just practices
· An end to police brutality and stop and frisk policies targeting communities of color, and the establishment of a civilian review board in Boston with real power to hold the police department accountable
· An end to all state and local cooperation with the “Secure Communities” program, and an end to the practice of honoring the federal Immigration Customs and Enforcement’s requests to detain suspected undocumented immigrants in jail for extra time so that ICE can initiate deportation proceedings.
Local Action
On February 20th, 2012 we will join the National Occupy Day for Prisoners by protesting in front of Nashua Street Jail, which is just one of the many oppressive, racist, and overcrowded prison facilities in the Bay State. At this demonstration, through prisoners’ writings and other artistic and political expressions, we will express the voices of the people who have been inside the walls. The organizers of this action will reach out to the community for support and participation. We are contacting social service organizations, faith institutions, labor organizations, schools, prisoners, former prisoners and their family members.
National and International Outreach
We will reach out to Occupies across the country to have similar demonstrations outside of prisons, jails, juvenile halls and detainment facilities or other actions as such groups deem appropriate. We will also reach out to Occupies outside of the United States and will seek to attract international attention and support.
We have chosen Monday, February 20, 2012, because it is a non-weekend day. Presidents’ Day avoids the weekend conflict with prisoners’ visitation, which would likely be shut down if we held a demonstration over the weekend.
Website
http://www.occupy4prisoners.org
For more information and/or to endorse, email occupy4prisoners [at] gmail [dot] com.
ENDORSERS (listed alphabetically)
Organizations
All of Us or None
ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and Racism Coalition)
Arizona Prison Watch
California Coalition for Women Prisoners
Campaign to End the Death Penalty
Chicago PIC Teaching Collective
Committee to Free Romaine “Chip” Fitzgerald
Community Futures Collective
Critical Resistance
December 9th Georgia and International Prisoners’ Movement
Freedom Archives
Free Tarek Mehanna Campaign
Hope for Freedom Paralegal Services
International Coalition to Free the Angola 3
International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5
International Socialist Organization
Jericho Movement
Justice Now
Kevin Cooper Defense Committee
Labor Action Committee to Free Mumia Abu Jamal
Labor for Palestine
Legal Services for Prisoners with Children
Life Support Alliance
Lynne Stewart Defense Committee
Michael Lewis Legal Defense Committee
Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu Jamal
National Committee to Free the Cuban Five
Nevada CURE
Nevada Prison Watch
NYC Labor Against the War
Occupied Oakland Tribune
Ocupemos El Barrio
Oscar Grant Committee Against Police Brutality and State Repression
Peoples’ Action for Rights and Community
Prison Activist Resource Center
Prison Radio
Prison Watch Network
Prisoners Are People Too, Inc. (Buffalo, NY)
Project NIA
Real Cost of Prisons
Redwood Curtain CopWatch
San Francisco Bay View Newspaper
Solitary Watch News
Stanley Tookie Williams Legacy Network
Through Barbed Wire
Individuals
Angela Davis
Anne Weills, National Lawyers Guild (NLG).
Barbara Becnel, founder, STW Legacy Network
Carole Seligman, Kevin Cooper Defense Committee
Elaine Brown
Diana Block, California Coalition for Women Prisoners
Jack Bryson
Jeff Mackler, Director, Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
Jeffrey Alan Masko, tutor and media coordinator, Second Chance Program at CCSF
Kazi Toure
Kevin Cooper
Kiilu Nyasha
Michael Letwin, Former President, Assn. of Legal Aid Attorneys/UAW Local 2325
Noelle Hanrahan, Project Director, Prison Radio
Sarah Shourd, Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer, former hostages in Iran and human rights activists
Stanley Tookie Williams IV
http://www.occupyboston.org/
Monday Feb 20: National Occupy Day for Prisoners
February 17th, 2012 · BrianK · News and Announcements5 comments
On Monday, February 20, 2012 at 3:00 PM, the Occupy Boston People of Color Working Group, Ocupemos El Barrio, Jericho Movement, and many other individuals and organizations will be taking part in the National Occupy Day for Prisoners. We will meet at 3pm at the North Station MBTA Stop at Causeway St. and Friend St. and then march to the Nashua Street Jail on 200 Nashua Street in Boston. Answering the call from Occupy Oakland, we will stand in solidarity with the people confined within prison walls and to demand the end of the incarceration as a means of containing those dispossessed by unjust social policies.
Reasons:
Prisons have become a central institution in American society, integral to our politics, economy and our culture.
Between 1976 and 2000, the United States built on average a new prison each week and the number of imprisoned Americans increased tenfold.
Prison has made the threat of torture part of everyday life for millions of individuals in the United States, especially the 7.3 million people—who are disproportionately people of color—currently incarcerated or under correctional supervision.
Imprisonment itself is a form of torture. The typical American prison, juvenile hall and detainment camp is designed to maximize degradation, brutalization, and dehumanization.
Mass incarceration is the new Jim Crow. Between 1970 and 1995, the incarceration of African Americans increased 7 times. Currently African Americans make up 12 % of the population in the U.S. but 53% of the nation’s prison population. There are more African Americans under correctional control today—in prison or jail, on probation or parole—than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began.
The prison system is the most visible example of policies of punitive containment of the most marginalized and oppressed in our society. Prior to incarceration, 2 out of 3 prisoners lived in conditions of economic hardship. Yet the perpetrators of white-collar crime largely go free, or get re-elected.
In addition, the Center for Economic and Policy Research estimated that in 2008 alone there was a loss in economic input associated with people released from prison equal to $57 billion to $65 billion.
At a national level, we call on Occupies across the country to support:
1. Abolishing unjust sentences, such as the Death Penalty, Life Without the Possibility of Parole, Three Strikes, Juvenile Life Without Parole, and the practice of trying children as adults.
2. Standing in solidarity with movements initiated by prisoners and taking action to support prisoner demands, including the Georgia Prison Strike and the Pelican Bay/California Prisoners Hunger Strikes.
3. Freeing political prisoners, such as Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier, Lynne Stewart, Bradley Manning and Romaine “Chip” Fitzgerald, a Black Panther Party member incarcerated since 1969.
4. Demanding an end to the repression of activists, specifically the targeting of African Americans and those with histories of incarceration, such as Khali in Occupy Oakland who could now face a life sentence, on trumped-up charges, and many others being falsely charged after only exercising their First Amendment rights.
5. Demanding an end to the brutality of the current system, including the torture of those who have lived for many years in Secured Housing Units (SHUs) or in solitary confinement.
6. Demanding that our tax money spent on isolating, harming and killing prisoners, instead be invested in improving the quality of life for all and be spent on education, housing, health care, mental health care, jobs and other human services which contribute to the public good. (In Massachusetts, it costs $45,917 a year to house a prisoner compared to $6,613 in a semester of tuition and fees at UMass Boston or $13,055 a year per public school student.)
At a local level in Massachusetts and Boston, about 24,000 people are held any given day in state and county prisons and jails; about 59% serving criminal sentences in state facilities are people of color, and about 6% are women. This includes about 2,150 people in Nashua Street Jail and Suffolk County House of Corrections (“South Bay”), including people detained by Immigration Customs and Enforcement(ICE) in immigration cases. State prison facilities are overcrowded; South Bay is at 126% and Nashua Street is at 163%. Among county facilities, Norfolk, Essex Middleton, Middlesex Cambridge, and Bristol Dartmouth are at more than 200% capacity, with Bristol Dartmouth at 367%; among state facilities, MCI Concord and MCI Framingham’s Awaiting Trial Unit are at more than 200% capacity, with MCI Framingham’s Awaiting Trial Unit at 359%. In addition, about 3000 youth per year are detained in juvenile facilities, and 1288 youth are placed under the custody of the Department of Youth Services. On average, state prisons across Massachusetts are 142% overcrowded.
Though Black and Latino communities are only 16% of the population of Massachusetts, they comprise a full 56% of the prison population in the Bay State. We also call for:
· The end to the current attempt to pass a three strikes bill or mandatory post-release supervision laws in Massachusetts
· An end to the unjust detention and treatment of prisoners, including Tarek Mehanna and Arnold King. Tarek Mehanna is an example of the racist scapegoating, and relentless persecution and targeting under the Patriot Act’s new provisions of young Muslim men around the country for speaking out against US foreign policy and other activities that are supposedly protected by the First Amendment.
· Arnold King is 59 years old and has been locked up since he was 18. He has been continually denied commutation even after receiving two votes by the parole board of “favorable” status.
· Research and reporting on racial disparities within the juvenile justice system
· Granting Trans people, particularly Trans women, in prison access to services and hormones, and HIV+ people to be allowed to keep their medications on their person
· A visitor bill of rights that reflects humane and just practices
· An end to police brutality and stop and frisk policies targeting communities of color, and the establishment of a civilian review board in Boston with real power to hold the police department accountable
· An end to all state and local cooperation with the “Secure Communities” program, and an end to the practice of honoring the federal Immigration Customs and Enforcement’s requests to detain suspected undocumented immigrants in jail for extra time so that ICE can initiate deportation proceedings.
Local Action
On February 20th, 2012 we will join the National Occupy Day for Prisoners by protesting in front of Nashua Street Jail, which is just one of the many oppressive, racist, and overcrowded prison facilities in the Bay State. At this demonstration, through prisoners’ writings and other artistic and political expressions, we will express the voices of the people who have been inside the walls. The organizers of this action will reach out to the community for support and participation. We are contacting social service organizations, faith institutions, labor organizations, schools, prisoners, former prisoners and their family members.
National and International Outreach
We will reach out to Occupies across the country to have similar demonstrations outside of prisons, jails, juvenile halls and detainment facilities or other actions as such groups deem appropriate. We will also reach out to Occupies outside of the United States and will seek to attract international attention and support.
We have chosen Monday, February 20, 2012, because it is a non-weekend day. Presidents’ Day avoids the weekend conflict with prisoners’ visitation, which would likely be shut down if we held a demonstration over the weekend.
Website
http://www.occupy4prisoners.org
For more information and/or to endorse, email occupy4prisoners [at] gmail [dot] com.
ENDORSERS (listed alphabetically)
Organizations
All of Us or None
ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and Racism Coalition)
Arizona Prison Watch
California Coalition for Women Prisoners
Campaign to End the Death Penalty
Chicago PIC Teaching Collective
Committee to Free Romaine “Chip” Fitzgerald
Community Futures Collective
Critical Resistance
December 9th Georgia and International Prisoners’ Movement
Freedom Archives
Free Tarek Mehanna Campaign
Hope for Freedom Paralegal Services
International Coalition to Free the Angola 3
International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5
International Socialist Organization
Jericho Movement
Justice Now
Kevin Cooper Defense Committee
Labor Action Committee to Free Mumia Abu Jamal
Labor for Palestine
Legal Services for Prisoners with Children
Life Support Alliance
Lynne Stewart Defense Committee
Michael Lewis Legal Defense Committee
Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu Jamal
National Committee to Free the Cuban Five
Nevada CURE
Nevada Prison Watch
NYC Labor Against the War
Occupied Oakland Tribune
Ocupemos El Barrio
Oscar Grant Committee Against Police Brutality and State Repression
Peoples’ Action for Rights and Community
Prison Activist Resource Center
Prison Radio
Prison Watch Network
Prisoners Are People Too, Inc. (Buffalo, NY)
Project NIA
Real Cost of Prisons
Redwood Curtain CopWatch
San Francisco Bay View Newspaper
Solitary Watch News
Stanley Tookie Williams Legacy Network
Through Barbed Wire
Individuals
Angela Davis
Anne Weills, National Lawyers Guild (NLG).
Barbara Becnel, founder, STW Legacy Network
Carole Seligman, Kevin Cooper Defense Committee
Elaine Brown
Diana Block, California Coalition for Women Prisoners
Jack Bryson
Jeff Mackler, Director, Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
Jeffrey Alan Masko, tutor and media coordinator, Second Chance Program at CCSF
Kazi Toure
Kevin Cooper
Kiilu Nyasha
Michael Letwin, Former President, Assn. of Legal Aid Attorneys/UAW Local 2325
Noelle Hanrahan, Project Director, Prison Radio
Sarah Shourd, Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer, former hostages in Iran and human rights activists
Stanley Tookie Williams IV
Saturday, February 18, 2012
You Don’t Need The Band To Perform The Last Waltz-Do You?
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Mark Dinning performing his teen tear-jerker, Teen Angel to set an "appropriate" mood for this post.
The Last Waltz, Indeed
Peter Paul Markin, North Adamsville Class Of 1964, comment:
Note: The term “last waltz” of the title of this piece is used as a simple expression of the truth. The life, or better, half-life of this sketch came about originally through reviewing, a few years ago, a long-running series of “Oldies But Goodies” CDs from the 1950s and early 1960s, the time of my coming of age time. After reviewing ten of these things I found out that the series was even longer, fifteen in all. Rather than turning myself into some local hospital for a cure and the good effects of some oldies twelve-step program to restore my soul health plugged on. Plugged on, plugged on intrepidly, with the full knowledge that such things had their saturation point.
After all how much could one rekindle, endlessly rekindle, memories from a relatively short, if important, part of our lives, even for those of us who lived and died by the songs (or some of the songs) in those treasured compilations. How many times, after all, can one read about wallflowers (their invisibleness and dread of dreads not winding up like them even if it meant casting off friendships with every known nerdish future, doctor, engineer and lawyer in town, sighs (Ahs, and otherwise), certain shes (or hes for shes) the real point of reviewing any such compilations, the crepe paper-etched moonlight glow on high school dance night (if there was any) and hanging around to the bitter end for that last dance of the night to prove... what. Bastante! Enough!
Or so I thought until my old friend, my old mad monk, merry prankster, stone freak, summer of love (1967 version) compadre from Olde Saco up in Maine, Josh Breslin. Yes, that Josh Breslin, or rather Joshua Lawrence Breslin for those who have read his by-line over the years in half the unread radical chic or alterative vision publications in this country, called me up in a frenzy just after I had finally completed the last damn review. And as usual when he calls up in the dead of night it was “girl” trouble, if that is the appropriate way to say it for sixty-somethings.
His frenzied three in the morning problem? Josh’s Old Saco High School Class of 1967 was going to have its fortieth reunion, and through the now weathered Mainiac grapevine he found out that some middle school (then junior high) sweetheart, Lucy Dubois (Olde Saco was, and is a central gathering spot for French-Canadians and French Canadian Americans, including Josh’s old mother, Delores, nee LeBlanc), was going to show and he needed a refresher on the old time tunes. More importantly, he continued on to explain why he, madcap love ‘em and leave Josh in that summer of love 1967, and beyond, including a not forgotten “theft” of my girlfriend at the time, Butterfly Swirl (ya it was that kind of time), still had a “crush” on Ms. Dubois and what was he going to do about it come reunion night. So the following is just a little mood music from Josh’s backward trek.
********
No question that those of us who came of age in the late 1950s and early 1960s were truly children of rock and roll. We were there, whether we appreciated it or not at the time, when the first, sputtering, musical moves away from ballady Broadway show tunes and rhymey Tin Pan Alley pieces hit the radio airwaves. (If you do not know what a radio is then ask your parents or, ouch, grandparents please. Or look it up on Wikipedia if you are too embarrassed to not know ancient history things. Join the bus.) And, most importantly, we were there when the music moved away from any and all music that one’s parents might have approved of, or maybe, even liked, or, hopefully, at least left you alone to play in peace up in your room when rock and roll hit post- World War II America teenagers like, well, like an atomic bomb.
Not all of the material put forth was good, nor was all of it destined to be playable forty or fifty years later on some “greatest hits” compilation like the ones Peter Paul has been satanically reviewing but some of songs had enough chordal energy, lyrical sense, and sheer danceability to make any Jack or Jill jump then, or now. And, here is the good part, especially for painfully shy guys like me, or those who, like me as well, had two left feet on the dance floor. Just don’t tell Lucy that, okay. You didn’t need to dance toe to toe, close to close, with that certain she (or he for shes). Just be alive…uh, hip to the music. Otherwise you might become the dreaded wallflower. I had to drop more guys from the old neighborhood over on Albemarle, the projects, who later made good just because I didn’t want the guilt by association wallflower nerd label tagged around my neck. But that fear, the fear of fears that haunted many a teenage dream then, maybe now too, is a story for another day. Let’s just leave it at this for now. Ah, to be very, very young then was very heaven.
But what about the now seeming mandatory question that Peter Paul made a point of asking in those dimwitted reviews he is so proud of, the inevitable end of the night high school dance (or maybe even middle school) song that I really want to talk about. Or rather about Lucy Dubois’ (I won’t use her married name because she still lives up around Olde Saco and has, many, many family connections around, including a couple of giant economy-sized brothers). The song that you, maybe, waited around all night for just to prove that you were not a wallflower, and more importantly, had the moxie to, mumble-voiced, parched-throated, sweaty-handed, asked a girl to dance (women can relate their own experiences, probably similar).
Here the 1960 Mark Dinning tune Teen Angel fills the bill, or filled Lucy’s bill. Hey, I did really like this one too, especially the soulful, sorrowful timing and voice intonation. Yes, I know, I know the lyrics are, well, not life-enhancing and apparently the Laura or Lorraine who ill-advisedly ran back to that car stuck on the railroad track was none too bright. Not for some cheapjack high school ring that would not survive more than few hand-washings and that, moreover, Lance or Larry had already previously given (and taken back) from half the girls in the school. Yes, I also know, this is one of the slow ones that you had to dance close on. And just hope, hope to high heaven, that you didn’t destroy your partner’s shoes and feet. Well, one learns a few social skills in this world if for no other reason than to “impress” that certain she (or he for shes, or nowadays, just mix and match your preferences). I did, didn’t you?
Well Lucy showed up that class reunion night as expected, as expected as she told me once she heard that I was coming back for the night. Damn, she still held me in thrall. Upon seeing her once again across the room I almost could smell that faint-edged scent, some lilac and dreams, bed sheet dream, scent, that always travelled around with her and drove me (and other guys too, no question) to distraction. And what song did we, Josh Breslin and Lucy Dubois, trot out to on that wintry November reunion night? Come on now, guess.
*************
....and a trip down memory lane.
MARK DINNING lyrics - Teen Angel
(Jean Surrey & Red Surrey)
Teen angel, teen angel, teen angel, ooh, ooh
That fateful night the car was stalled
upon the railroad track
I pulled you out and we were safe
but you went running back
Teen angel, can you hear me
Teen angel, can you see me
Are you somewhere up above
And I am still your own true love
What was it you were looking for
that took your life that night
They said they found my high school ring
clutched in your fingers tight
Teen angel, can you hear me
Teen angel, can you see me
Are you somewhere up above
And I am still your own true love
Just sweet sixteen, and now you're gone
They've taken you away.
I'll never kiss your lips again
They buried you today
Teen angel, can you hear me
Teen angel, can you see me
Are you somewhere up above
And I am still your own true love
Teen angel, teen angel, answer me, please
The Last Waltz, Indeed
Peter Paul Markin, North Adamsville Class Of 1964, comment:
Note: The term “last waltz” of the title of this piece is used as a simple expression of the truth. The life, or better, half-life of this sketch came about originally through reviewing, a few years ago, a long-running series of “Oldies But Goodies” CDs from the 1950s and early 1960s, the time of my coming of age time. After reviewing ten of these things I found out that the series was even longer, fifteen in all. Rather than turning myself into some local hospital for a cure and the good effects of some oldies twelve-step program to restore my soul health plugged on. Plugged on, plugged on intrepidly, with the full knowledge that such things had their saturation point.
After all how much could one rekindle, endlessly rekindle, memories from a relatively short, if important, part of our lives, even for those of us who lived and died by the songs (or some of the songs) in those treasured compilations. How many times, after all, can one read about wallflowers (their invisibleness and dread of dreads not winding up like them even if it meant casting off friendships with every known nerdish future, doctor, engineer and lawyer in town, sighs (Ahs, and otherwise), certain shes (or hes for shes) the real point of reviewing any such compilations, the crepe paper-etched moonlight glow on high school dance night (if there was any) and hanging around to the bitter end for that last dance of the night to prove... what. Bastante! Enough!
Or so I thought until my old friend, my old mad monk, merry prankster, stone freak, summer of love (1967 version) compadre from Olde Saco up in Maine, Josh Breslin. Yes, that Josh Breslin, or rather Joshua Lawrence Breslin for those who have read his by-line over the years in half the unread radical chic or alterative vision publications in this country, called me up in a frenzy just after I had finally completed the last damn review. And as usual when he calls up in the dead of night it was “girl” trouble, if that is the appropriate way to say it for sixty-somethings.
His frenzied three in the morning problem? Josh’s Old Saco High School Class of 1967 was going to have its fortieth reunion, and through the now weathered Mainiac grapevine he found out that some middle school (then junior high) sweetheart, Lucy Dubois (Olde Saco was, and is a central gathering spot for French-Canadians and French Canadian Americans, including Josh’s old mother, Delores, nee LeBlanc), was going to show and he needed a refresher on the old time tunes. More importantly, he continued on to explain why he, madcap love ‘em and leave Josh in that summer of love 1967, and beyond, including a not forgotten “theft” of my girlfriend at the time, Butterfly Swirl (ya it was that kind of time), still had a “crush” on Ms. Dubois and what was he going to do about it come reunion night. So the following is just a little mood music from Josh’s backward trek.
********
No question that those of us who came of age in the late 1950s and early 1960s were truly children of rock and roll. We were there, whether we appreciated it or not at the time, when the first, sputtering, musical moves away from ballady Broadway show tunes and rhymey Tin Pan Alley pieces hit the radio airwaves. (If you do not know what a radio is then ask your parents or, ouch, grandparents please. Or look it up on Wikipedia if you are too embarrassed to not know ancient history things. Join the bus.) And, most importantly, we were there when the music moved away from any and all music that one’s parents might have approved of, or maybe, even liked, or, hopefully, at least left you alone to play in peace up in your room when rock and roll hit post- World War II America teenagers like, well, like an atomic bomb.
Not all of the material put forth was good, nor was all of it destined to be playable forty or fifty years later on some “greatest hits” compilation like the ones Peter Paul has been satanically reviewing but some of songs had enough chordal energy, lyrical sense, and sheer danceability to make any Jack or Jill jump then, or now. And, here is the good part, especially for painfully shy guys like me, or those who, like me as well, had two left feet on the dance floor. Just don’t tell Lucy that, okay. You didn’t need to dance toe to toe, close to close, with that certain she (or he for shes). Just be alive…uh, hip to the music. Otherwise you might become the dreaded wallflower. I had to drop more guys from the old neighborhood over on Albemarle, the projects, who later made good just because I didn’t want the guilt by association wallflower nerd label tagged around my neck. But that fear, the fear of fears that haunted many a teenage dream then, maybe now too, is a story for another day. Let’s just leave it at this for now. Ah, to be very, very young then was very heaven.
But what about the now seeming mandatory question that Peter Paul made a point of asking in those dimwitted reviews he is so proud of, the inevitable end of the night high school dance (or maybe even middle school) song that I really want to talk about. Or rather about Lucy Dubois’ (I won’t use her married name because she still lives up around Olde Saco and has, many, many family connections around, including a couple of giant economy-sized brothers). The song that you, maybe, waited around all night for just to prove that you were not a wallflower, and more importantly, had the moxie to, mumble-voiced, parched-throated, sweaty-handed, asked a girl to dance (women can relate their own experiences, probably similar).
Here the 1960 Mark Dinning tune Teen Angel fills the bill, or filled Lucy’s bill. Hey, I did really like this one too, especially the soulful, sorrowful timing and voice intonation. Yes, I know, I know the lyrics are, well, not life-enhancing and apparently the Laura or Lorraine who ill-advisedly ran back to that car stuck on the railroad track was none too bright. Not for some cheapjack high school ring that would not survive more than few hand-washings and that, moreover, Lance or Larry had already previously given (and taken back) from half the girls in the school. Yes, I also know, this is one of the slow ones that you had to dance close on. And just hope, hope to high heaven, that you didn’t destroy your partner’s shoes and feet. Well, one learns a few social skills in this world if for no other reason than to “impress” that certain she (or he for shes, or nowadays, just mix and match your preferences). I did, didn’t you?
Well Lucy showed up that class reunion night as expected, as expected as she told me once she heard that I was coming back for the night. Damn, she still held me in thrall. Upon seeing her once again across the room I almost could smell that faint-edged scent, some lilac and dreams, bed sheet dream, scent, that always travelled around with her and drove me (and other guys too, no question) to distraction. And what song did we, Josh Breslin and Lucy Dubois, trot out to on that wintry November reunion night? Come on now, guess.
*************
....and a trip down memory lane.
MARK DINNING lyrics - Teen Angel
(Jean Surrey & Red Surrey)
Teen angel, teen angel, teen angel, ooh, ooh
That fateful night the car was stalled
upon the railroad track
I pulled you out and we were safe
but you went running back
Teen angel, can you hear me
Teen angel, can you see me
Are you somewhere up above
And I am still your own true love
What was it you were looking for
that took your life that night
They said they found my high school ring
clutched in your fingers tight
Teen angel, can you hear me
Teen angel, can you see me
Are you somewhere up above
And I am still your own true love
Just sweet sixteen, and now you're gone
They've taken you away.
I'll never kiss your lips again
They buried you today
Teen angel, can you hear me
Teen angel, can you see me
Are you somewhere up above
And I am still your own true love
Teen angel, teen angel, answer me, please
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