AMERICAN LEFT HISTORY

This space is dedicated to the proposition that we need to know the history of the struggles on the left and of earlier progressive movements here and world-wide. If we can learn from the mistakes made in the past (as well as what went right) we can move forward in the future to create a more just and equitable society. We will be reviewing books, CDs, and movies we believe everyone needs to read, hear and look at as well as making commentary from time to time. Greg Green, site manager

Monday, August 06, 2012

From The Archives Of The “Revolutionary History” Journal-Alan Wald, The New York Intellectuals

Click on the headline to link to the Revolutionary History Journal index.

Markin comment:

This is an excellent documentary source for today’s militants to “discovery” the work of our forebears, whether we agree with their programs or not. Mainly not, but that does not negate the value of such work done under the pressure of revolutionary times. Hopefully we will do better when our time comes.
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Reviews

Alan Wald, The New York Intellectuals, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1987, pp 440, £12.95

We present two reviews of this book. Sam Levy investigates the political issues, and Sheila Lahr looks at the literary aspects.

The New York Intellectuals deals with a unique phenomenon, the emergence and development of an anti-Stalinist, mainly Trotskyist-influenced, left amongst the intellectuals. Fellow travelling as a major phenomenon arose as a consequence of the major slump of 1929 and the emergence of Fascism in all its brutal reality. Though fellow travelling existed before this period, it is after this time that it really flourished. David Caute’s The Fellow Travellers deals with the main beneficiary – Stalinism. Wald’s book, however, deals with that group of intellectuals who broke from Stalinism and went beyond it.

I have personal memories of this period, when, as a youngster, I first became involved in active politics and became a Trotskyist. The Moscow Trials and the Spanish Civil War acted as both a detonator and educator of my political development. I remember from 1937 going weekly to the Independent Labour Party bookshop at 35 St Bride Street, because only there could one get material that wasn’t Stalinist or Stalinist approved. Whilst one could buy cheap books and pamphlets in the Stalinist bookshops, particularly the Marxian classics, anything else was verboten. It was at 35 St Bride Street that one could buy material beyond the Stalinist hack work.

The most important material I acquired was Trotskyist, mainly from the USA. It was there that I first learnt about some of the many intellectuals dealt with by Wald, particularly those linked with the Socialist Workers Party, such as Max Shachtman, Felix Morrow, Albert Goldman and George Novack. They had a strong influence on me.

This book, however, goes beyond my recollections or even knowledge, as to the important roles played by the intellectuals. It gives an historical picture as well as biographical sketches of the leftward moving, though in many cases still young and unknown, intellectuals, whose geographical area was New York, the main centre of American intellectual life. Here was the start of a relatively large-scale movement of intellectuals to the left of Stalinism, whereas elsewhere those moving towards Trotskyism were few and far between, unstable and of often short-lived allegiance.

The rise of the US anti-Stalinist left was linked to the general rise of the left, the growth of industrial unionism and the rise of the CIO. Unlike in western Europe, the Stalinists could not dominate this rise. They grew, but segments of the struggles were not under their control, such as the Minneapolis Teamsters and the auto workers in Flint.

Whereas in Europe, where the class struggles were dominated by the Stalinists, the Trotskyists being marginalised, in the USA a different pattern emerged. Due to historic and certain economic factors, Stalinism was not all-powerful, and the Trotskyists had a small but creditable organisation with some working class base, which was involved in some of the biggest struggles of the time. They could therefore be a pole of attraction to the politicised intellectuals. The rô1e of Stalinism in Germany, the Moscow Trials, the Popular Front and the Spanish Civil War had left their mark on the young intellectuals who were coming out of the colleges after the Great Depression, and they passed by Stalinism to the left beyond it.

The book reveals the active and dynamic role played by these intellectuals in the advance of the left, particularly Trotskyists. Two examples convey the picture. Sidney Hook played a major rôle in the creation of the Muste group, in its fusion with the Trotskyists, and in pushing James Burnham along the same road. The intellectuals also took a key part in the fight against the Moscow Trials. Whilst the Stalinists’ cover-up was powerful, it was not as strong as in Europe. Likewise, the Committee for the Defence of Leon Trotsky was strong enough in the USA to have some influence: sufficient to convince John Dewey to play an active investigatory part on it, whereas Bertrand Russell, with his personal and philosophical affinity with Dewey, was almost silent on this issue.

However, with war clouds growing and the slowing down of working class struggle, the first cracks started to appear. There’s always a ’reason’ for political moves. If it’s a serious move away from Marxism, it starts with philosophy, the two front runners being dialectics and the labour theory of value. It’s amazing that whenever one looks at those who start with ’marginal’ revisions, they tend to move to the far right of the political spectrum. Burnham admitted as much in his resignation letter to the Workers Party. Though not all travel that far, the trend is there.

Trotsky knew the signs from years of experience. After all, a major feature of European revisionism at the beginning of the century was preferring Kant to Marx, the categorical imperative to the class struggle. The trend was so powerful so early that an article by Burnham and Shachtman, Intellectuals in Retreat (New International, January 1939), was vindicated by its authors travelling that very road – first Burnham, then Shachtman.

That is why Trotsky realised, particularly after Dewey’s response to his Their Morals and Ours, that this movement away from Marxism was not just the idiosyncracies of Max Eastman, but a trend of a stratum of intellectuals. The raising by Trotsky in the faction fight in the SWP in 1939-40 of the question of dialectics was to attack the central core of this movement. He tried to educate his comrades, not in abstractions as is so often presented, but as a method of reasoning and as a method of application to the problems of society. He tried to counter the move away from Marxism, both personally (it seems that he was writing a major article on dialectical materialism when he was struck down), as well as delegating Novack and Jean van Heijenoort, whom he hoped would carry on the struggle against the revisionists. Both proved totally incapable. Van Heijenoort ended up rejecting the working class on the grounds that it was incapable of carrying out its historic tasks. Novack turned out an intelligent hack and nothing else; today’s SWP proves this, a politically bankrupt bunch chasing after the golden mirages of Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and Daniel Ortega.

For the anti-Stalinist intellectuals it was downhill all the way in the post-war period, although their individual progressions went at an uneven rate and in an uneven pattern. Their strengths became their weaknesses. Their ability to go beyond Stalinism and expose its rottenness itself became the instrument for them to move towards the most reactionary elements of capitalism. Unable to understand the relationship between Stalinism and the working class, and with their lack of confidence in the working class, they had only one direction in which to go – towards supporting US capitalism.

As these intellectuals moved further to the right, they had to jump a series of hurdles, their attitude to which gave a stamp both to their character and how far they were moving. First was the McCarthy era. They came out very badly, the overwhelming majority endorsing elements of McCarthyism or keeping quiet. The Stalinists have used this as an indictment of Trotskyism. Wald points out that McCarthyism penetrated all left wing and fellow travelling movements. Wald also points out that, ironically, McCarthyism rescued the Stalinists’ reputations:

Ignorance on the part of the 1960s New Leftists was not the sole reason that apologists for Stalinism such as Lillian Hellman, Paul Robeson, and the Hollywood Ten were resurrected as moral beacons; their rehabilitation was the logical by-product of the dismal record of all but a few of the founders of the intellectual anti-Stalinist left.

Robeson was one of the most vociferous denunciators of Trotskyism, supporting the imprisonment during the Second World War of the Trotskyists under the Smith Act. Only when he was himself being done under it did he fight against it. Hellman’s anti-Fascist credentials were glorified in the supposedly autobiographical film Julia, which was exposed by Mary McCarthy as a tissue of lies. The McCarthy period was not only a false indictment of Trotsky – through the rôle of the New York intellectuals – but it also permitted the glorification of some of the nastiest Stalinist hacks.

The next major hurdle they faced was the Vietnam War. Many more fell. This war was unique in American history, not in its objectives, but in its result. The heavy casualties and powerful opposition at home altered the outlook of large sections of American society. This war was a further marker in the rightward evolution of the old anti-Stalinist intellectuals. Some held back. Others, like Shachtman, whilst slow off the mark, rapidly overtook them, and went beyond them, defending the reactionary actions of an imperialist government.

This is dealt with by Wald, particularly the differences that emerged amongst the intellectuals, but one feels he does not deal adequately with it in the fundamental sense. The New Left was a major new force arising amongst the younger intellectuals, and whilst on the whole they were as confused a bunch as one could expect to see, they nevertheless correctly saw America’s rôle in that war. Wald, naturally, only touches slightly on them. They aren’t the main topic of his book, nevertheless the inter-relation between them and the older generation is missing. For my part, these New Leftists were the bastard children of the New York Intellectuals, whose disowning of their parentage is linked with the Vietnam war.

The main criticism I have of this book is that it does not give an adequate picture of the material and other conditions, such as the economy, the consciousness of the working class, the struggle of social systems, etc, from which flowed the ideological drift of the anti-Stalinist intellectuals, and the central ideological justification for the movement. Wald deals extensively with the intellectuals’ philosophical polemics, ending with what I feel is a correct observation:

The dialectical transcendence or sublation (in the Hegelian sense of Aufhebung) of this debate is the sine qua non for the revival of Marxist theory and practice in the United States.

This gives an historical slant to the debate, not arguing how it affects present-day thinking in both the USA and Europe. I think a part of this is due to the lack of intertwining the two aspects.

Each period has a basic material and ideological foundation which consciously or unconsciously intertwine. No dominant ideas or philosophy arise out of a vacuum. The ideological movement from Marxism, in the first instance away from Marxist philosophy, reflected the period precisely in the new guru, not Kant (old hat), but pragmatism, and John Dewey in particular. The liberalism of exposition and outlook hid the deeper basic concept from which the philosophy flowed. Being developed in a period of developing US capitalism, with the concept of wide open spaces, intelligent activism became the core, drawing ideas from that core, using developing US capitalism and wide open spaces as the scale, all things became possible – many roads lead to socialism. The difference in this sense between Kant and Dewey is but a reflection of the different material roots.

The essence of Dewey’s thoughts is shown in his short but concrete reply to Trotsky’s Their Morals and Ours in the New International (August 1938) He concludes:

Orthodox Marxism shares with orthodox religionism and with traditional idealism the belief that human ends are interwoven into the very texture and structure of existence – a concept inherited presumably from its Hegelian origin.

If that is the core of his criticism of Marxism extant, the real flavour of it is this:

Since the class struggle is regarded as the only means that will reach the end, and since the view that it is the only means is reached deductively and not by an inductive examination of means-consequence in their interdependence, the means, the class struggle, does not need to be critically examined with respect to its actual objective consequence.

What is posed here is an abstract argument, a universalist argument independent of reality, though liberal in form. This is counterposed to the narrow, therefore ‘religious’ concept of the class struggle. Whereas Trotsky tried to put a period scale on historical development in Their Morals and Ours, from capitalism to a new economic and social structure in which man would truly be free – Socialism – Dewey, on the contrary, tried to establish an absolute principle applicable to all periods under all conditions. He downgrades the class struggle in comparison to his many roads, under the banner of scientific thought and liberal content.

The accusation that the class struggle being the only means has been reached deductively, without scientific basis, is totally wrong. Most scientific discovery is based on deduction flowing from known facts. Again, the argument that class struggle as the only road is reached without critical examination, says more for the lack of knowledge of Marxism on the part of Dewey. Marx and Engels spent their lifetime analysing the economic and social structure of capitalism, from which arise the class struggle, examining the historical, social and economic developments. They made errors, but the structure on which they based their conclusions has stood the test of time.

The dominant characteristics of man are determined by the way he lives, his environment, and the social relations which arise from that. It is precisely the development of the various modes of production – economic and social relationships – that is the dominant (but not the only) characteristic of human development, and which determines the major relationships of classes, sub-classes and even groups. The emergence of capitalism – economically unconsciously and politically semi-consciously – reflected the various struggles of the lower classes – capitalists and workers, serfs and peasants – against the dominant class, which established both the political and the economic foundations of capitalism. The emergence of capitalism established the dominance of a new mode of production – production for the market.

This mode of production rests on certain fundamentals – the relationships to the production and distribution of commodities of those owning the capital, and those without capital but who produce the goods. It is a conflict of interests, based not on what Marx, the industrial proletariat, etc, wants or not, but on a permanent division at the point of production, independent of human consciousness. The class struggle exists, regardless of whether the workers are storming the barricades or believing that they have a common interest with their employers. Marxism arises in the consciousness, not in the class struggle itself.

Because modern human existence rest on the capitalist mode of production, other factors and relationships follow The class struggle becomes the key anc dominant force in social change. Fundamental social change means the destruction of capitalism by the elimination of the capitalists’ rôle in production transferring capitalist property to common ownership. Only the working class has a relationship with capital that enable this to be done. No other class can carry out this radical and necessary transformation.

To argue that the class struggle is central to modern society, does not, however, mean that there are not other forms of conflict, many predating capitalism, such as over the rô1e of women, and racial and religious prejudices, etc, or that many will not be a source of conflict, albeit declining, after the establishment of Socialism.

Dewey, on the contrary, blames the messenger, not the message. Dialectics does not create the class struggle, it is the method of showing and explaining the process. The scientific nature of the explanation is that, on the basis of the examination of capitalism, it cuts across the illusory desires of utopian Socialism. Its strength lies in showing – not postulating – that there is only one road to Socialism. It is Dewey who desires many roads and therefore becomes involved in abstract philosophical arguments independent of reality.

The post-war decline in working class consciousness, and the growing illusions in capitalism on the part of some workers, have been the material foundation of the adoption of a Deweyist outlook by some intellectuals and working class activists. That it first took shape amongst the anti-Stalinist left was no accident. They were brighter and more politically conscious. Nevertheless, today it permeates through the movement, from Euro-stalinists to trade union bureaucrats. The New Left, the bastard children of the New York intellectuals, revolted against their rightward-moving parents as a consequence of the Vietnam War, but took on as their basic creed that there are other means for radical social change, and thus downgraded the working class. With the student, black and women’s movements, struggles were diverted down blind alleys. And whilst many leading lights of the New Left of the 1960s have joined their elders in enjoying the fruits of capitalism, the philosophical basis remains. Many of the latest generation operate along the same lines, just adding new issues with corresponding movements, such as gays and the environment.

I think that Wald has illusions in the movement in Europe. The reality, however, is that Europeans merely imitate what’s happening in the USA, or develop similar themes. The flourishing of new movements at the expense of working class collective activity has become an impediment to developing conscious working class policies and struggle. The tendency to imitate the USA is ironic when one considers political developments there, with the fragmentation of the movement into small groups, some of which have so lost their basic class outlook that they support a black populist of the Democratic Party.

The growth of US capitalism has been a major factor in this development, but for Marxists these are factors to be fought. Whether they like it or not on the New Left, US capitalism is in decline, and to pick on aspects of the social problems in the USA instead of opposing US capitalism as a whole is a blind alley. The need for a total struggle, and in this perspective the re-emergence of the working class and its parties, is not only logical, but necessary.

To criticise the student, black or women’s movements, etc., is not to condemn the justifiable reaction of the disadvantaged, but to criticise their sectionalised outlook, as blacks, as women, independently of the class structure. One should fight for equal rights for women, blacks and gays, and take up ecological issues, but all this should be part of the central class struggle, under the working class and its parties.

I do not think that this has little to do with the New York intellectuals. It is the result of an historical development, of a process that started before the Second World War, the end result of the movement away from Marxism.

After about 55 years, the generation of New York intellectuals has nearly run its course. Such a book is necessary for a knowledge of the past, the rôle the intellectuals played, the weaknesses inherent in their situation, ideology, etc. As an historical documentation of the development of the New York intellectuals, the book is impressive. The hard work gone into it is clear for everyone to see. In that rôle it fulfills a first class function. It is in drawing the strands together and giving it a clear direction where the weaknesses arise, because it fails to draw the full implications of the effects of Deweyism on the working class, through its influence on the intellectuals. Nevertheless, I recommend without doubt this book to anyone who can afford it, because it advocates the need:

‘... to integrate the sort of theoretical consciousness about political strategy with careful empirical research into the experience of the previous generation of Marxists [i.e., Trotsky, Bukharin, etc.]. In that way we will be able to advance the recovery of our radical heritage, to correct the political amnesia that has marred our legacy.

And that is a job worth doing.

Sam Levy

To the general reader who regards books as providing entertainment or information, the arguments between the various literary schools of the early and mid twentieth century may hold no interest. However, it should be remembered that Trotsky regarded the question of such importance that in 1923 he published Literature and Revolution, in which his concern was with the development of literature following the Russian Revolution. To this end, he gave consideration to the possibility of the unfolding of a proletarian culture following the Revolution, coming to the conclusion that while every ruling class creates its own culture, it also takes several hundred years for this to flower. Therefore, as the dictatorship of the proletariat was expected to last a comparatively short time only before giving way to the abolition of classes and the establishment of socialism, no far-reaching proletarian culture would develop.

Certainly Trotsky did not consider that proletarian culture could flourish within capitalist society. However, from the beginning of the 1930s the Stalinists propounded against all other literary schools proletarian literature or, as it was also called, ‘realism’, and this was supported by clubs named after John Reed. One of the foremost proponents of proletarian literature in America was the Stalinist Mike Gold, who set forth a number of stipulations for its practice, among which he demanded that the world of work be described with technical precision; it must provide a useful social function; be presented in as few words as possible in a simple vocabulary; that action should be swift, and that there should be no melodrama. (M. Gold, A Literary Anthology [Ed. M. Folsom], International Publishers, 1972).

As may be understood, those literary intellectuals of the 1930s who were to become the anti-Stalinist left of Wald’s book found this formula over-prescriptive, which led to two of their number, William Phillips and Philip Rahv, both members of the Communist Party and the John Reed Clubs, to advocate that proletarian literature be leavened by ‘modernism’. At that time, the best known writers in the modernist style were Joyce, Pound, Eliot and Stein, and it was their style of writing which came under fire from the Stalinist proletarian literature school. To provide an example of the type of polemic between modernists and ‘realists’ I can do no better than quote Brecht, who wrote to Lukács in 1956 in defence of James Joyce. Brecht writes that an interior monologue of a woman lying in bed in Ulysses had been rejected by ‘Marxists’ as ‘formalistic’ (formalist – the reduction of writing to etymology and syntax: See Trotsky’s Literature and Revolution). But the criticism had been made in such terms, that it left the impression that the monologue would have been acceptable had it been set in a session with a psychoanalyst. (Aesthetics and Politics – Debates between Bloch, Lukacs, Brecht, Benjamin and Adorno, Verso, 1980).

However, to return to Phillips and Rahv. With the support and assistance of established Communist cultural leaders, including Mike Gold, and financial support raised through a lecture by John Strachey, they launched the Partisan Review to concentrate primarily on cultural and literary questions, while leaving the New Masses to confine itself to the political and industrial. By 1937, when both Rahv and Phillips broke openly with the Stalinists, the Partisan Review had gathered around it most of the anti-Stalinist left and Trotskyists who are the subject of Wald’s book, and provided a central point of literary and cultural polemics.

However, Wald writes, although both Phillips and Rahv warned against the right wing dangers to writers “who seek to assimilate the Joyce-Eliot sensibility without a clear revolutionary purpose”, Rahv and Phillips held to elements of Elitism and a belief in High Culture. But they saw modernism as an avant-garde in literary protest against twentieth century commercialism. It is not pertinent that the modernist writers referred to above were not on the left in their politics, for their criticism of bourgeois culture in their works was seen as transcending their political views – an approach, Wald remarks, which recalls Marx and Engels’s treatment of Balzac and Lenin’s of Tolstoy. It must also be remembered that while Trotsky focused on the social aspects of literature in his criticism, he rigorously differentiated between his assessments of the political views of an author and his judgements of the artistic quality of the work.

Ironically, while these editors were gathering about them anti-Stalinist left intellectuals who accepted that “an error of leftism occurs from zeal to steep literature overnight in the programme of Communism, as this leads to sloganised and inorganic writing”, the Stalinists were abandoning their proletarian culture tactics in favour of the Popular Front and were closing down the John Reed Clubs!

Trotsky was now writing about the Moscow Trials, and, as he held a special appeal for radicalised literati which stemmed from his literary, historical and polemical achievements, left wing intellectuals increasingly became associated with the Partisan Review. As it happens, during the 1930s Trotsky had devoted extensive correspondence to the question of the significance of the American intellectuals for a small revolutionary workers’ party, for he saw the leftist intelligentsia, following the Russian revolution, as “binding its lot to the proletariat for the victorious revolution, but at the same time raising itself on the shoulders of the revolution”. He therefore urged that his followers exercise special precautionary measures when assimilating former Communist intellectuals who had gained an education in a Stalinist Party, and pressed that radical intellectuals and writers should strive for theoretical clarity. To what extent some, or all, of these left intellectuals sought the political clarity referred to by Trotsky at that time cannot be stated, but certainly a number of them had reservations with regard to Marxism and Leninism – Max Eastman, for instance, wanted to replace ‘mechanical Marxism’ with ‘social engineering’, and Sidney Hook with pragmatism. Perhaps one of the best known writers attracted to the group around the New Partisan Review was the novelist James T. Farrell (who was also a member of the Trotsky Defence Committee). Farrell’s novels presented Irish working class life in the first half of the twentieth century, and can be said to be written in the realist-naturalist school (examples of which are Zola and Dreiser) but Wald, possibly determined to find a modernist connection, states that he can be considered modernist because he allowed dreams and subconscious longings into his novels. He quotes as proof of this a vision seen by Studs Lonigan as he lies dying from the effects of bootleg liquor, to which he had turned to drown his frustrations and sorrows, instead of developing a class conscious response. As he lies on his sick-bed Studs dreams of a Communist led demonstration against unemployment in which are visible banners bearing slogans calling for revolutionary political action. Against Studs is posed Danny O’Neill “who breaks with the false consciousness perpetrated by (capitalist) society” to work his way through college. Not that this itself is a revolutionary act – in fact it can be quite the opposite!

However, by 1937 when a revamped Partisan Review was launched by Rahv and Phillips, the Moscow Trials, the Trotsky Defence Committee and the Dewey Commission had politicised a further group of young anti-Stalinist left-wing writers, and so Mary McCarthy who was a member of the Trotsky Defence Committee, and whose best known novel is probably The Group, and Dwight Macdonald, became members of the editorial board. Rahv and Phillips had remained intent upon the journal continuing its search for a Marxist aesthetic, and Phillips once again wrote that Trotsky was outstanding in that “he not only saw in literature a mirror of society, but was acutely conscious of those qualities which taken together make up the social vision of a work of art”. In fact, Wald writes that this revamped Partisan Review “was the most important cultural event following the Moscow Trials”.

Nevertheless, it did not last very long as a literary revolutionary catalyst, for within a few short years, as a response to the enthusiastic support of the Second World War by the Stalinists and the absence of a mass revolutionary movement, Rahv had come to the conclusion that the only way in which a writer could protest against the dominant values of ‘our time’ was by maintaining ‘intellectual integrity’. In this Rahv reflected the attitudes of an increasing number of anti-Stalinist left wing writers and intellectuals who had also become disappointed in, and disillusioned by, the failure of the working class to make a revolution. Of course, this process of disintegration was accelerated by Trotsky’s murder. Disillusionment with revolutionary politics brought forth a plethora of anti-socialist novels and stories from former left wing writers and Trotskyists who previously had included little of their revolutionary experience in their fiction. Saul Bellow, Isaac Rosenfeld, Edmund Wilson, Lionel Trilling, Mary McCarthy and Joseph Howe all produced novels and stories, the purport of which was to illustrate the fallacy of attempting to change society by social theory and action. Wald writes that the fiction of the New York intellectuals in the 1940s must be read with a sense of irony, for the consistent theme of virtually every one of their important works published during and immediately after the Second World War proclaims the need for liberation from the ideologies of the radical movement. One might almost call this the school of anti-proletarian culture!

Insofar as ideology is concerned, Wald quotes the British Marxist Terry Eagleton, whose view of ideology is materialist as against that of the New York intellectuals’ philosophical pragmatism. Eagleton sees reality as “ideology’s homeland”. Therefore a work of art “has the potential of liberating us from ideological illusion. Inasmuch as a work of literature seizes upon, reshuffles and depicts experience it, too, resides in the realm of ideology”. (Criticism and Ideology, New Left Books, 1976)

As may well be understood, the opposition of many of these intellectuals to ‘radical ideology’ was to lead them during the ensuing years to support for American foreign policy, McCarthyism, Nixon and Reaganism.

With regard to ‘modernism’, it has become increasingly academic and the elite culture of an intellectual establishment “in which some of the New York intellectuals played a part”. Wald writes that the Marxist criticism of modernism of these intellectuals had never been more than a few penetrating insights “unlike the brilliant work of their European contemporaries such as Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno and Georg Lukacs”. It should therefore come as no surprise that today students of Critical Theory largely study the essays written by these Europeans.

Perhaps in the West the political discussion has changed from a debate of literary schools to that of the effects of mass culture, or the ‘commercialisation of culture’ which Farrell perceived as “creating a struggle between the desire of the artist to present an authentic vision of the world and the desire of the film-makers and publishers to make art marketable, which they achieve by standardisation, repetition and by promoting established authors”. (J.T. Farrell, The Fate of Writing in America, quoted by Wald, p.223).

However, in the East, the debate with regard to ‘proletarian culture’ continues and, in fact, has become part of the fabric of daily life, as witness a recent Channel 4 programme on the dissident Czech writer Vaclav Havel, who has served several terms in prison and whose plays are banned because they satirise the bureaucracy, the plays being presented in a modernist style. In this programme a Stalinist Director of Arts stated that “art has the duty to serve the health of society”, which recalls one of the prescriptions set out by Mike Gold.

In conclusion, I would add that this is a book which poses many questions to all those interested in the connection between politics and the development of a Marxist aesthetic.

What I found especially interesting was the contemplation of why, in America during the 1930s, there was such an active anti-Stalinist and Trotskyist intellectual left, while in Britain our own radicalised intellectuals for the most part continued to support Stalinism or moved directly to the right.

The book itself is written clearly and comprehensively, and apart from detailing the debates and polemics involved, provides potted biographies of a star-studded cast.

Sheila Lahr

From The Archives Of The “Revolutionary History” Journal-Vera Broido, Lenin and the Mensheviks

From The Archives Of The “Revolutionary History” Journal-John Taylor Caldwell, Come Dungeons Dark: The Life and Times of Guy Aldred, Glasgow Anarchist

Sunday, August 05, 2012

From "OCCUPY HOMES MASSACHUSETTS"- No Homeowner Need Stand Alone!-Organize Now!

Click on the headline to link to the Occupy Quincy website for more information about Occupy Homes MA.

Stand Together-Occupy Homes Ma-Stop 'the banksters' Foreclosures and Evictions

OCCUPY HOMES MA

Next Meeting Scheduled For Tufts Library, Broad Street, Weymouth, August 21 2012-6:00 PM- Check out directions and details on our Facebook page-Occupy Homes MA.

WANT ASSISTANCE OR MORE INFORMATION?

OccupyHomesMA@gmail.com

617-249-4359

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Are you facing FORECLOSURE?- YOU ARE NOT ALONE!

Stand up with other homeowners who are fighting with us.

Want more information?

Contact us by email at OccupyHomesMA@gmail.com

or call us at 617-249-4359

The homeowner's meeting is intended to be a support group
specifically for those in the foreclosure process.

ATTEND A HOMEOWNERS MEETING TO

Develop Solidarity and Support:

We urge people to leave their shame at the door. We work to end the stigma and isolation of individual foreclosure and eviction cases by uniting homeowners.

Learn Your Rights:

You don't have to move just because the bank says so. We empower people to know their rights and advocate for themselves.

Organize with Occupy Homes MA:

Community members and activists are ready to stand with you. Let’s build mass resistance to defend your home and break the stranglehold the big banks have on our neighborhoods.
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Want to get involved?

Participate!

Fight back! A movement working for the 99% must be shaped and formed by all those who participate. All decisions on the direction and scope of the struggle are democratic.

Organize!

Build powerful communities! Identify issues affecting our neighborhoods, and work together on solutions.

Mobilize!

The best tool of the 99% is our numbers, and our ability to work together. Plan public actions, protests, and home defense.

Educate!

Become educated and teach others about the nature of the foreclosure crisis, and ways empowered communities can begin to solve it.
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Excerpt from...

Keeping House: Local Organizations Collaborate to Help Boston Residents Stay in Their Home Post-Foreclosure

Noelle Swan Spare Change News

When Jeril Richardson checked out of the hospital after he was hit by a car in 2009, he returned home to find that his landlord had not been keeping up with mortgage payments and the bank was foreclosing on his Hyde Park home.

Canvassers knocking on his door told him about City Life Vida Urbana, a community organization that would help him to fight to stay in his home. Nearly three years later, Richardson still lives in the house, pays rent to the bank, and is saving to purchase the property.

Every weekend, students and community volunteers from Project No One Leaves hit the streets in an effort to reach tenants and homeowners facing foreclosure to inform them of their rights during and after the foreclosure.

"We try to get there before eviction agents come knocking and telling them to leave immediately," said Chris Larson, senior at Tufts University who helped to coordinate a chapter of No One Leaves at Tufts.

In recent years, keeping up with new foreclosures has become a daunting task, said Chas Hamilton, a third-year law student and current president of the board for Project No One Leaves at Harvard Law School. "In a given week, there might be 30 new foreclosures listed in Boston proper."

"Then there are properties that they did not get to in weeks past because canvassers ran out of time, people weren't home, or their just weren't enough cars to get to all of the neighborhoods." Volunteers for No One Leaves chart foreclosure postings listed in local newspapers and real estate publications.

Listings are grouped into geographic zones of the city and mapped out. Each week, a dozen or so volunteers gather at the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau in Cambridge, split up into groups of two to five depending on the number of cars available, and try to get out to as many properties as they can in three hours.

"The real message that we try to deliver is that foreclosure is not the end. It's the beginning of this very long battle," Larson said.

http://sparechangenews.net/news/keeping-house-
local-organizations-collaborate-help-boston-residents-
stay-their-home-post-forecl
********
WHY Occupy Homes MA?

OCCUPY OUR HOMES

Far too many homeowners are facing foreclosure. The need is greater than the capacity to help. City Life along with a team from Harvard Law is mentoring Occupy Homes MA as we create this new chapter to help homeowners on the South Shore. We are here to:

STOP FORECLOSURES

This is a people's movement that is building across Massachusetts. Homeowners did not create the crisis we are in, and homeowners are no longer going to face the shame of foreclosure and eviction alone. We are here to:

STOP EVICTIONS

The police should serve and protect the 99%, not assist the big banks with eviction. We will organize the community and resist eviction. Knowledge is power; they cannot easily put you out on the street - we want to help you, we won't let them!

HOUSING IS A HUMAN

There are 18 million empty homes in the U.S.

Help us, to help you by saying: "NOT MY HOME!"

Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By-In Honor Of The Frontline Defenders Of The Working Class!-Bob Marley’s “Get Up, Stand Up!”

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Bob Marley performing his classic song of struggle, Get Up, Stand Up.

*******
An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The International Working Class Everywhere!

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

*Jobs For All Now!-“30 For 40”- A historic demand of the labor movement. 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 instead on organizing the unorganized and on other labor-specific causes (good example, the November, 2011 anti-union recall referendum in Ohio, bad example the Wisconsin gubernatorial recall race in June 2012).

*End the endless wars!- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops (And Mercenaries) From Afghanistan! Hands Off Pakistan! Hands Off Iran! U.S. 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.
*********
As Isaac Deutscher said in his speech “On Socialist Man” (1966):

“We do not maintain that socialism is going to solve all predicaments of the human race. We are struggling in the first instance with the predicaments that are of man’s making and that man can resolve. May I remind you that Trotsky, for instance, speaks of three basic tragedies—hunger, sex and death—besetting man. Hunger is the enemy that Marxism and the modern labour movement have taken on.... Yes, socialist man will still be pursued by sex and death; but we are convinced that he will be better equipped than we are to cope even with these.”

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

***********
Markin comment:

In this series, presented under the headline Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here.
*********
Bob Marley Get Up, Stand Up Lyrics

Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: don't give up the fight!

Preacher man, don't tell me,
Heaven is under the earth.
I know you don't know
What life is really worth.
It's not all that glitters is gold;
'Alf the story has never been told:
So now you see the light, eh!
Stand up for your rights. come on!

Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: don't give up the fight!
Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: don't give up the fight!

Most people think,
Great god will come from the skies,
Take away everything
And make everybody feel high.
But if you know what life is worth,
You will look for yours on earth:
And now you see the light,
You stand up for your rights. jah!

Get up, stand up! (jah, jah! )
Stand up for your rights! (oh-hoo! )
Get up, stand up! (get up, stand up! )
Don't give up the fight! (life is your right! )
Get up, stand up! (so we can't give up the fight! )
Stand up for your rights! (lord, lord! )
Get up, stand up! (keep on struggling on! )
Don't give up the fight! (yeah! )

We sick an' tired of-a your ism-skism game -
Dyin' 'n' goin' to heaven in-a Jesus' name, lord.
We know when we understand:
Almighty god is a living man.
You can fool some people sometimes,
But you can't fool all the people all the time.
So now we see the light (what you gonna do?),
We gonna stand up for our rights! (yeah, yeah, yeah! )

So you better:
Get up, stand up! (in the morning! git it up! )
Stand up for your rights! (stand up for our rights! )
Get up, stand up!
Don't give up the fight! (don't give it up, don't give it up! )
Get up, stand up! (get up, stand up! )
Stand up for your rights! (get up, stand up! )
Get up, stand up! (... )
Don't give up the fight! (get up, stand up! )
Get up, stand up! (... )
Stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up!
Don't give up the fight! /fadeout/

Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By-In Honor Of The Frontline Fighters Of The International Working Class Today-The International Working Class Anthem “The Internationale”

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of a performance of the classic international working class song of struggle, The Internationale.

Markin comment:

In this series, presented under the headline Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here.
*****
As Isaac Deutscher said in his speech “On Socialist Man” (1966):

“We do not maintain that socialism is going to solve all predicaments of the human race. We are struggling in the first instance with the predicaments that are of man’s making and that man can resolve. May I remind you that Trotsky, for instance, speaks of three basic tragedies—hunger, sex and death—besetting man. Hunger is the enemy that Marxism and the modern labour movement have taken on.... Yes, socialist man will still be pursued by sex and death; but we are convinced that he will be better equipped than we are to cope even with these.”
***********
The Internationale [variant words in square brackets]

Arise ye workers [starvelings] from your slumbers
Arise ye prisoners of want
For reason in revolt now thunders
And at last ends the age of cant.
Away with all your superstitions
Servile masses arise, arise
We'll change henceforth [forthwith] the old tradition [conditions]
And spurn the dust to win the prize.

So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale unites the human race.
So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale unites the human race.

No more deluded by reaction
On tyrants only we'll make war
The soldiers too will take strike action
They'll break ranks and fight no more
And if those cannibals keep trying
To sacrifice us to their pride
They soon shall hear the bullets flying
We'll shoot the generals on our own side.

No saviour from on high delivers
No faith have we in prince or peer
Our own right hand the chains must shiver
Chains of hatred, greed and fear
E'er the thieves will out with their booty [give up their booty]
And give to all a happier lot.
Each [those] at the forge must do their duty
And we'll strike while the iron is hot.
________________________________________

L'Internationale

Debout les damnés de la terre
Debout les forçats de la faim
La raison tonne en son cratère
C'est l'éruption de la fin
Du passe faisons table rase
Foules, esclaves, debout, debout
Le monde va changer de base
Nous ne sommes rien, soyons tout

C'est la lutte finale
Groupons-nous, et demain (bis)
L'Internationale
Sera le genre humain

Il n'est pas de sauveurs suprêmes
Ni Dieu, ni César, ni tribun
Producteurs, sauvons-nous nous-mêmes
Décrétons le salut commun
Pour que le voleur rende gorge
Pour tirer l'esprit du cachot
Soufflons nous-mêmes notre forge
Battons le fer quand il est chaud

L'état comprime et la loi triche
L'impôt saigne le malheureux
Nul devoir ne s'impose au riche
Le droit du pauvre est un mot creux
C'est assez, languir en tutelle
L'égalité veut d'autres lois
Pas de droits sans devoirs dit-elle
Egaux, pas de devoirs sans droits

Hideux dans leur apothéose
Les rois de la mine et du rail
Ont-ils jamais fait autre chose
Que dévaliser le travail
Dans les coffres-forts de la bande
Ce qu'il a crée s'est fondu
En décrétant qu'on le lui rende
Le peuple ne veut que son dû.

Les rois nous saoulaient de fumées

Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By- "America, Where Are You Now...."-Stepphenwolf's "Monster" –For The Fighters Of The International Working Class

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Steppenwolf performing their classic anti-war song (and plaintive plea)Monster.

In this series, presented under the headline Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here.
********
Markin comment on the lyrics here:

Steppenwolf was one of the most political of the rock groups brought forth by the new musical sensibility of the counter-cultural movement in the mid to late 1960s. The narrative here in Monster reads like a capsule history of the American experience up until the 1960s. And a powerful call, a call that should resonate today, for the older generation (now us) to come and help the young fight against the monster of American imperialistic capitalism that is driving us all to the bottom. A theme song for all the movements springing up around this wicked old world.

************
Monster/Suicide/America Lyrics
Steppenwolf
Words and music by John Kay, Jerry Edmonton, Nick St. Nicholas and Larry Byrom

(Monster)
Once the religious, the hunted and weary
Chasing the promise of freedom and hope
Came to this country to build a new vision
Far from the reaches of kingdom and pope
Like good Christians, some would burn the witches
Later some got slaves to gather riches

But from near and far to seek America
They came by thousands to court the wild
But she just patiently smiled and bore a child
To be their spirit and guiding light

Then once the ties with the crown had been broken
Westward in saddle and wagon it went
And 'til the railroad linked ocean to ocean
Many the lives which had come to an end
While we bullied, stole and bought our a homeland
We began the slaughter of the red man

But still from near and far to seek America
They came by thousands to court the wild
And she just patiently smiled and bore a child
To be their spirit and guiding light

The blue and grey they stomped it
They kicked it just like a dog
And when the war over
They stuffed it just like a hog

And though the past has it's share of injustice
Kind was the spirit in many a way
But it's protectors and friends have been sleeping
Now it's a monster and will not obey

(Suicide)
The spirit was freedom and justice
And it's keepers seem "friendly" and kind
It's leaders were supposed to serve the country
But now they were paying no mind
'Cause the people "got" fat and "grew" lazy
now their vote "is like a" meaningless "Tune"
"You know they talk about law "about" order
But it's all just an echo of what they've been told
Yeah, there's a monster on the loose
It's got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there watchin'

Our cities have turned into jungles
And corruption is stranglin' the land
The police force is watching the people
And the people just can't understand
We don't know how to mind our own business
'Cause the whole worlds got to be just like us
Now we are fighting a war over there
No matter who's the winner
We can't pay the cost
'Cause there's a monster on the loose
It's got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there watching

(America)
America where are you now?
Don't you care about your sons and daughters?
Don't you know we need you now
We can't fight alone against the monster

© Copyright MCA Music (BMI)
All rights for the USA controlled and administered by
MCA Corporation of America, INC

Honor Manning soldado Hoy-Vamos a redoblar nuestros esfuerzos para salvar soldado Manning-Que todas las Plaza de la Ciudad en América (y el mundo) Un Bradley Manning Square De Boston a Berkeley para nosotros Berlín-Ingreso en Davis Square, Somerville-A partir del 04 de julio del stand-out se realizará todos los miércoles de 4:00-5:00 pm

Haga clic en el titular para enlazar a una página privada de la página web de Bradley Manning Petición.

Markin comentar sobre nuestro nuevo día y hora de inicio de este Cuatro de Julio:

Veteranos por la Paz siempre está orgulloso de estar junto a aquellos que están contra las guerras imperiales de Estados Unidos. Me siento orgulloso de haber pasado parte de la Cuarta de julio en solidaridad con Manning invierno soldado raso Bradley Manning en nuestra Plaza de la ubicación (también conocido como Davis Square en otras ocasiones) en Somerville. La multitud era bastante receptiva, tenemos discursos y canciones, como siempre, y hemos recogido algunas firmas. Todo esto se acumula a la prestación del soldado Manning a medida que avanzamos con el nuevo día y hora. Otros veteranos por la paz marcharon este día en el Rockport, MA Cuatro de Julio Desfile y me uniré a ellos el domingo 8 de julio en Portsmouth, New Hampshire para un "Bienvenido a casa" desfile para el Iraq de New Hampshire y el veterano de la guerra afgana. Hoy, sin embargo, yo estaba muy contento de estar junto a Winter Soldier Bradley Manning. Únase a nosotros en esta lucha! Manning gratis! El presidente Obama Manning Perdón PRIVADAS ahora mismo!

Markin un comentario:

El caso de Bradley Manning privada se dirige hacia un otoño / invierno temprano ensayo. Aquellos de nosotros que apoyan su causa, debemos redoblar nuestros esfuerzos para asegurar su libertad. Para los últimos meses ha habido una semana de espera en el área metropolitana de Boston frente a la Plaza de Davis Redline MBTA parada (rebautizada Plaza de Bradley Manning para la duración de la vigilia) en Somerville viernes por la tarde, pero ahora hemos cambiado el tiempo de 4:00 5:00 pm los miércoles. Esta posición de salida tiene, por decir lo menos, ha sido muy poca asistencia. Tenemos que construir con más seguidores presentes. Por favor, únase a nosotros cuando pueda. O mejor aún si usted no puede unirse a nosotros iniciar una vigilia de apoyo Bradley Manning la semana en algún lugar en su ciudad ya sea en el área de Boston, Berkeley o Berlín. Y por favor, firmen la petición para su liberación. He puesto enlaces a la red de Manning y Manning sitio web de la plaza de abajo.

Bradley Manning Support Network
http://www.bradleymanning.org/~~V
Manning Plaza de página web
http://freemanz.com/2012/01/20/somerville_paper_photo-bradmanningsquare/bradleymanningsquare-2011_01_13/

Los siguientes son comentarios que se han centrado en los últimos tiempos para conseguir apoyo para la causa Bradley Manning.
Veteranos por la Paz se yergue en la solidaridad y la defensa de los soldado Bradley Manning.

Nosotros, los del movimiento anti-guerra no pudieron hacer mucho para afectar el gobierno de Bush-Obama Irak calendario guerra, pero podemos salvar uno de los héroes de esa guerra, Bradley Manning.
Estoy en solidaridad con las supuestas acciones de soldado Bradley Manning en sacar a la luz, sólo un poco de luz, algunos de los nefastos hechos relacionados con la guerra de este gobierno, el gobierno de Bush y Obama. Si lo hiciera tales actos no son delito. Ningún crimen en absoluto en mis ojos o en los ojos de la gran mayoría de la gente que conoce del caso y de su importancia como un acto individual de resistencia a las injustas y bárbaras encabezadas por Estados Unidos las guerras en Irak y Afganistán. Duermo un poco de sombra más fácil en estos días a sabiendas de que Manning podría haber expuesto lo que todos sabían, o debían haber sabido, la guerra de Irak y de las justificaciones de la guerra afgana se basaba en un castillo de naipes. El imperialismo estadounidense pistolero castillo de naipes, pero las tarjetas, sin embargo.

Estoy de pie en solidaridad con el soldado Bradley Manning, porque estoy indignado por el trato dado a Manning, presumiblemente un hombre inocente, por un gobierno que afirma a sí misma como un "faro" del mundo civilizado. Bradley Manning se había celebrado en la solidaridad en Quantico y otras localidades de más de dos años, y ha sido detenido sin juicio durante más tiempo, ya que el gobierno y sus fuerzas armadas tratan de pegar un caso juntos. Los militares y sus secuaces en el Departamento de Justicia, se han vuelto más tortuosa, aunque no más inteligente desde que era un soldado en la mira más de cuarenta años.

Estas son razones más que suficientes para estar en solidaridad con el soldado Manning y lo será hasta el día en que es liberado por sus carceleros. Y voy a seguir para estar en solidaridad con el soldado Manning orgullosos hasta ese gran día.

La retirada inmediata e incondicional de todas las tropas estadounidenses / Allied y mercenarios de Afganistán! Manos Fuera de Irán! Manning gratis PRIVADAS ahora mismo!

Honor Manning Winter Soldier Privado Hoje-Vamos redobrar nossos esforços para salvar Privado Manning-Faça Praça cada cidade da América (eo mundo) Um Bradley Manning Praça De Boston a Berkeley para Berlim-se a nós em Davis Square, Somerville-A partir 04 de julho A Stand Out-Will Be Toda quarta-feira De 16:00 - 17:00

Clique no título para vincular a um privado Bradley página do site Manning Petição.

Markin comentar sobre o nosso novo dia e hora de início nesta Quarta de Julho:

Veteranos pela Paz é sempre o orgulho de estar com aqueles que estão contra as guerras imperiais dos Estados Unidos. Tenho orgulho de ter passado parte do Quatro de Julho em permanente solidariedade com Manning Inverno soldado Bradley Manning na nossa Praça de localização (aka Davis Square em outros momentos), em Somerville. A multidão foi bastante receptivo, temos discursos e canções como sempre, e coletou algumas assinaturas. Tudo isso reverte para benefício Manning Privado à medida que avançamos com o novo dia e hora. Outros veteranos da Paz marchou neste dia, na Rockport, Ma Quatro de Julho Parade e vou juntar a eles no domingo 08 de julho, em Portsmouth, New Hampshire para um "Welcome Home" desfile para o Iraque New Hampshire e veterano da guerra do Afeganistão. Hoje, porém, eu estava muito feliz por estar ao lado de Inverno soldado Bradley Manning. Junte-se a nós nesta luta! Manning gratuito e privado! Presidente Manning Pardon Obama Privado Now!

Markin comentar:

The Private Bradley Manning caso é dirigido para um fim de outono / inverno julgamento antecipado. Aqueles de nós que apóiam sua causa deve redobrar os nossos esforços para assegurar sua liberdade. Para os últimos meses tem havido uma semana destacam-se na Grande Boston em frente à Praça Davis Redline MBTA stop (renomeado Bradley Manning Praça de duração da vigília) em Somerville nas tardes de sexta-feira mas já mudou o tempo de 04:00 -5:00 PM às quartas-feiras. Este stand-out tem, para dizer o mínimo, foi muito pouco frequentado. Nós precisamos construí-la com mais adeptos presentes. Por favor, se juntar a nós quando puder. Ou melhor ainda se você não pode se juntar a nós iniciar uma vigília de apoio Bradley Manning semanal em algum local em sua cidade se é na área de Boston, Berkeley ou Berlim. E, por favor assine a petição para sua liberação. Eu coloquei as ligações à rede e Manning Manning website quadrado abaixo.

Bradley Manning Rede de Apoio
http://www.bradleymanning.org/~~V
Manning website Praça
http://freemanz.com/2012/01/20/somerville_paper_photo-bradmanningsquare/bradleymanningsquare-2011_01_13/

A seguir, são observações que venho focando de tarde para construir o apoio para a causa Bradley Manning.

Veteranos pela Paz orgulhosamente se solidariza com, e defesa dos privados Bradley Manning.

Nós do movimento anti-guerra não foram capazes de fazer muito para afetar o Bush-Obama Iraque calendário Guerra, mas nós podemos salvar o herói de um de que a guerra, Bradley Manning.

Eu estou em solidariedade com as ações de alegada Privado Bradley Manning em trazer à luz, apenas um pouco de luz, alguns dos nefastos relacionados à guerra feitos deste governo, sob Bush e Obama. Se ele fez tais atos não são crime. No crime em todos os meus olhos ou aos olhos da grande maioria de pessoas que sabem do caso e da sua importância como um ato individual de resistência às injustas e bárbaras guerras lideradas pelos norte-americanos no Iraque e no Afeganistão. Durmo um pouco de sombra mais fácil nos dias de hoje, sabendo que Manning privada pode ter exposto o que todos sabíamos, ou deveria saber, a guerra do Iraque e as justificações de guerra afegãos repousava sobre um castelo de cartas. Casa imperialismo norte-americano de arma em punho de cartões, mas os cartões, no entanto.

Estou em permanente solidariedade com Privado Bradley Manning, porque estou indignado com o tratamento dado ao soldado Manning, presumivelmente um homem inocente, por um governo que alega-se a ser uma "farol" do mundo civilizado. Bradley Manning tinha sido realizado em solidariedade às localidades Quantico e outros por mais de dois anos, e foi detido sem julgamento por mais tempo, como o governo e os militares tentam colar um caso juntos. O militar, e seus capangas no Departamento de Justiça, se tornaram mais desonesto, embora não mais inteligente desde que eu era um soldado em sua mira mais de quarenta anos atrás.

Estas são razões mais do que suficientes para se solidarizar com Manning e privado e será até o dia em que ele é libertado por seus carcereiros. E vou continuar a se solidarizar com orgulho Manning privada até o grande dia.

Retirada incondicional imediata das tropas dos EUA / aliados e mercenários Afeganistão! Mãos fora de Irã! Manning gratuito e privado Now!

Manning soldat Honor hiver Privé Aujourd'hui-Voyons redoubler d'efforts pour sauver le soldat Manning-faire de chaque place de la ville en Amérique (et Le Monde) Un Bradley Manning Place De Boston à Berkeley pour nous de Berlin-Join In Davis Square, Somerville-Début Juillet 4 ° La Stand-Out Will Be Tous les mercredis de 16:00-17:00

Manning soldat Honor hiver Privé Aujourd'hui-Voyons redoubler d'efforts pour sauver le soldat Manning-faire de chaque place de la ville en Amérique (et Le Monde) Un Bradley Manning Place De Boston à Berkeley pour nous de Berlin-Join In Davis Square, Somerville-Début Juillet 4 ° La Stand-Out Will Be Tous les mercredis de 16:00-17:00

Cliquez sur le titre pour un lien vers une page du site web privé Bradley Manning pétition.

Markin commentaires sur notre nouveau jour et l'heure de départ sur cette quatrième de Juillet:

Combattants pour la Paix est toujours fier d'être avec ceux qui se dressent contre les guerres impériales de l'Amérique. Je suis fier d'avoir passé une partie de la quatrième de Juillet en solidarité avec Manning Winter Soldier privé à notre Bradley Manning emplacement Square (aka Davis Square à d'autres moments) à Somerville. La foule était assez réceptif, nous avons des discours et des chants comme toujours, et nous avons recueilli quelques signatures. Tout cela revient à profit soldat Manning en tant que nous avançons dans le nouveau jour et l'heure. D'autres anciens combattants pour la paix ont défilé ce jour dans le Rockport, Ma quatrième de Juillet Parade et je vais les rejoindre le dimanche Juillet 8ème Portsmouth, New Hampshire pour un "Welcome Home" parade pour l'Irak du New Hampshire et vétéran de la guerre afghane. Aujourd'hui cependant, j'ai été très heureux de se tenir avec d'hiver soldat Bradley Manning. Rejoignez nous dans cette lutte! Gratuit soldat Manning! Manning Président Obama Pardon privé maintenant!
Markin commenter:

Le Soldat Bradley Manning cas est dirigé vers une fin de l'automne / début de l'hiver procès. Ceux d'entre nous qui soutiennent sa cause doit redoubler d'efforts pour obtenir sa liberté. Pour les derniers mois, il ya eu un hebdomadaire stand-out dans le Grand Boston en face de l'arrêt Davis Square Redline MBTA (rebaptisé Bradley Manning place pour la durée de la veillée de) Somerville vendredi après-midi, mais nous avons changé le temps de 4:00 -5:00 PM le mercredi. Ce stand-out a, pour dire le moins, été très peu fréquentée. Nous avons besoin de le construire avec plus de supporters présents. S'il vous plaît joindre à nous quand vous le pouvez. Ou mieux encore, si vous ne pouvez pas vous joindre à nous lancer un soutien Bradley Manning vigile hebdomadaire dans un certain endroit dans votre ville si elle est dans la région de Boston, Berkeley ou Berlin. Et s'il vous plaît signer la pétition pour sa libération. J'ai placé des liens vers le réseau

Manning et Manning site web de Square-dessous.
Réseau de soutien Bradley Manning
http://www.bradleymanning.org/~~V
Manning Place site
http://freemanz.com/2012/01/20/somerville_paper_photo-bradmanningsquare/bradleymanningsquare-2011_01_13/

Ce qui suit sont des remarques que j'ai été axées sur de la fin de construire soutien à la cause Bradley Manning.
Combattants pour la Paix se dresse fièrement en signe de solidarité avec, et la défense des soldat Manning Bradley.

Nous du mouvement anti-guerre n'étaient pas en mesure de faire beaucoup d'affecter l'administration Bush-Obama la guerre en Irak calendrier, mais nous pouvons sauver le seul héros de cette guerre, Bradley Manning.
Je me tiens en solidarité avec les agissements présumés de Bradley Manning privé dans la mise à la lumière, juste un peu de lumière, certains des infâmes liées à la guerre faits et gestes de ce gouvernement, sous l'administration Bush et Obama. Si il l'a fait de tels actes, ils sont pas un crime. Aucun crime du tout à mes yeux ou aux yeux de la grande majorité des gens qui savent de l'affaire et de son importance comme un acte individuel de résistance aux injustes et barbares menées par les Américains des guerres en Irak et en Afghanistan. Je dors un peu l'ombre plus facile ces jours-ci en sachant que soldat Manning a peut-être exposée ce que nous savions tous, ou aurait dû savoir-la guerre en Irak et les justifications de guerre afghans reposait sur un château de cartes. Pistolet-toting de l'impérialisme américain château de cartes, mais les cartes malgré tout.
Je suis debout dans la solidarité avec le soldat Bradley Manning, parce que je suis outré par le traitement infligé à Manning privé, sans doute un homme innocent, par un gouvernement qui prétend lui-même y avoir une certaine «phare» du monde civilisé. Bradley Manning a eu lieu à la solidarité à Quantico et d'autres lieux pour plus de deux ans, et a été détenu sans procès pendant plus longtemps, que le gouvernement et son armée essayer de coller une affaire ensemble. Le militaire, et ses sbires dans le département de la Justice, ont obtenu plus sournois mais pas plus intelligent depuis que je suis un soldat dans leur ligne de mire il ya quarante ans.

Ce sont des raisons plus que suffisantes pour rester debout dans la solidarité avec Manning privé et sera jusqu'au jour où il est libéré par ses geôliers. Et je vais continuer à manifester leur solidarité avec les fiers soldat Manning jusqu'à ce grand jour.

Immédiate le retrait inconditionnel de toutes les troupes des États-Unis / Allied et des mercenaires en Afghanistan! Hands Off Iran! Gratuit soldat Manning maintenant!

The Latest From The Private Bradley Manning Support Network-Free Bradley Manning Now! -Petition for Bradley, 800 days in jail, pretrial abuse, and FOIA requests

The Latest From The Private Bradley Manning Support Network-Free Bradley Manning Now!- To defend Bradley Manning, we must educate the public about WikiLeaks

The Latest From The Private Bradley Manning Support Network-Free Bradley Manning Now! -Feminist, trans advocates should support Bradley Manning

Click on the headline to link to the Private Bradley Manning Support Network for the latest information on his case and activities on his behalf .
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We of the anti-war movement were not able to do much to affect the Bush- Obama Iraq war timetable but we can save the one hero of that war, Private Bradley Manning. The entry below can serve as a continuing rationale for my (and your) support to this honorable whistleblower.

From the American Left History Blog, March 28, 2012

Why I Will Be Standing In Solidarity With Private Bradley Manning- A Personal Note From An Ex-Soldier Political Prisoner

Markin comment:

Last year I wrote a little entry in this space in order to motivate my reasons for standing in solidarity with a March 20th rally in support of Private Manning at the Quantico Marine Base in Virginia where he was then being held. I have subsequently repeatedly used that entry, Why I Will Be Standing In Solidarity With Private Bradley Manning At Quantico, Virginia On Sunday March 20th At 2:00 PM- A Personal Note From An Ex-Soldier Political Prisoner, as a I have tried to publicize his case in blogs and other Internet sources, at various rallies, and at marches, most recently at the Veterans For Peace Saint Patrick’s Day Peace Parade in South Boston on March 18th.

In that spirit I have updated, a little, that earlier entry to reflect the changed circumstances over the past year or so. As one would expect when the cause is still the same, Private Bradley Manning's freedom, unfortunately most of the entry is still in the same key. And will be until the day he is freed by his jailers. And I will continue to stand in proud solidarity with Private Manning until that great day.
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Of course I will be standing at the front gate to the Fort Meade , Maryland on April 25th because I stand in solidarity with the actions of Private Bradley Manning in bringing to light, just a little light, some of the nefarious doings of this government, Bush-like or Obamian. If he did such acts they are no crime. No crime at all in my eyes or in the eyes of the vast majority of people who know of the case and of its importance as an individual act of resistance to the unjust and barbaric American-led war in Iraq. I sleep just a shade bit easier these days knowing that Private Manning (or someone) exposed what we all knew, or should have known- the Iraq war and the Afghan war justification rested on a house of cards. American imperialism’s gun-toting house of cards, but cards nevertheless.

Of course I will also be standing at the front gate of Fort Meade, Maryland on April 25th because I am outraged by the treatment meted out to Private Manning, presumably an innocent man, by a government who alleges itself to be some “beacon” of the civilized world. Bradley Manning had been held in solidarity at Quantico and other locales for over 500 days, and has been held without trial for much longer, as the government and its military try to glue a case together. The military, and its henchmen in the Justice Department, have gotten more devious although not smarter since I was a soldier in their crosshairs over forty years ago.

Now the two reasons above are more than sufficient for my standing at the front gate at Fort Meade on April 25th although they, in themselves, are only the appropriate reasons that any progressive thinking person would need to show up and shout to the high heavens for Private Manning’s freedom. I have an additional reason though, a very pressing personal reason. As mentioned above I too was in the military’s crosshairs as a citizen-soldier during the height of the Vietnam War. I will not go into the details of that episode, this comment after all is about brother soldier Manning, other than that I spent my own time in an Army stockade for, let’s put it this way, working on the principle of “what if they gave a war and nobody came”.

Forty years later I am still working off that principle, and gladly. But here is the real point. During that time I had outside support, outside civilian support, that rallied on several occasions outside the military base where I was confined. Believe me that knowledge helped me get through the tough days inside. So on April 25th I will be just, once again, as I have been able to on too few other occasions over years, paying my dues for that long ago support. You, Brother Manning, are a true winter soldier. We were not able to do much about the course of the Iraq War (and little thus far on Afghanistan) but we can move might and main to save the one real hero of that whole mess.

Private Manning I hope that you will hear us and hear about our rally in your defense outside the gates. Better yet, everybody who reads this piece join us and make sure that he can hear us loud and clear. And let us shout to high heaven against this gross injustice-Free Private Manning Now!

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Feminist, trans advocates should support Bradley Manning

“Everything we know from Bradley Manning’s friends, family, and legal defense team, is that he wishes to be referred to as Brad or Bradley until he’s able to get to the next stage of his life. Bradley has indicated that he’s not interested in publicly addressing this issue.” -Bradley Manning Support Network. July 24, 2012

By Rainey Reitman, Bradley Manning Support Network Steering Committee. March 1, 2012. (Originally published in the Washington Blade.)

Some thoughtful feminist scholars have recently called on the Bradley Manning Support Network to begin referring to the accused WikiLeaks whistle-blower with a female pronoun. Emily Manuel’s essay in Global Comment highlighted why many of us who strongly support transgender rights are sensitive to the pronouns we use when we refer to Manning.

As an ardent supporter of Bradley Manning and a feminist, I have given this issue a great deal of thought. Given the unusual and perhaps unprecedented circumstances of the situation, I wanted to explain why I’m still calling him Bradley. In so doing, I also hope to demonstrate why folks who care passionately about queer and transgender rights should come out in support.

First, we should bear in mind the basis upon which some have made suppositions about Manning’s preferred gender identity. By and large, we are dealing with evidence that has not been established as fact. We can look at some Google searches found in forensic evidence, a smattering of late-night private chat logs, and potential testimony from those in whom Manning may have privately confided.

If these materials are to be believed, then it appears that Manning was questioning his gender identity. Manning’s lawyers have noted that he had sought counseling, but we don’t know if any final decision was ever made. We don’t know whether Manning wanted “Breanna” to be a primary identity, or if this was an alter ego that was never meant to be indicative of primary gender identification. We do know — from our own private conversations with friends and family members — that prior to his incarceration, Manning had not asked people to refer to him with a female pronoun.

The decision to transition – especially when it entails life-changing hormones or even surgery – isn’t something undergone lightly or quickly. Like many who are unsure about their gender identification, Manning used the Internet as a sandbox to begin experimenting with these complex issues. Unfortunately, he was arrested and forced to undergo many torturous months in solitary confinement, without proper medical, social, and emotional support during this time of questioning. We don’t know whether he reached a final decision.

From the earliest stages, the Bradley Manning Support Network has sought to honor Manning’s choices. Early in the campaign, we reached out to Manning’s aunt and lawyer and asked what name he preferred we use in our advocacy. They got back to us to say that “Brad” or “Bradley” would be fine.

Since then, we’ve sent Bradley packages in the mail showing him the fliers, stickers, postcards, T-shirts and photos of rallies all emblazoned with the name “Bradley Manning.” Manning has issued three public statements since his incarceration: during his first Christmas behind bars he issued holiday wishes; after many long months in solitary confinement he released a multi-page letter describing his abusive conditions; and after the pretrial hearing in December, he communicated through his aunt that he appreciated our support.

Notably, he didn’t ask us to start referring to him as Breanna. Advocates for Manning have an obligation to respect his agency and use the pronoun he had preferred prior to his arrest. None of us has the right to switch pronouns for Manning unless he tells us otherwise.

We also need to bear in mind that PFC Manning is currently – and quite literally – fighting for his life. He faces ridiculous charges of “aiding the enemy,” which carry a maximum sentence of death, despite the fact that our government’s own impact assessments found no harm to national security from the WikiLeaks materials. This extreme retaliation against Manning for uncovering war crimes stands in stark contrast to the military’s recent decisions to let other soldiers, who have admitted to killing unarmed civilians, walk free with nothing more than a cut in their pay.

This is not the normal legal environment that we may remember from our high school civics class. This is a show trial of a political prisoner. The military is openly abusing Manning of his rights in order to create a calculated psychological impact, and no doubt as a sharp warning to others who might consider exposing crimes and corruption.

Manning has been subjected to prolonged solitary confinement, which carries the risk of severe psychological damage. During that time, he was on several occasions ordered to remove his clothing and stand at “parade rest” in front of his guards. Those in the military know that this position requires you to place your hands behind your back. By all accounts, PFC Manning was the only detainee at the Quantico brig who was subjected to this peculiar form of humiliation. Military officials have since refused to turn over video-recordings that they made of these incidents.

It is difficult to conclude that this very specific form of degrading treatment has nothing to do with the fact that Manning was known to be questioning his gender identity.

When pressed on the mistreatment at a White House press conference, President Obama suggested that these absurd measures were imposed on Manning for his own safety. This excuse contradicted the findings of brig psychiatrists tasked with evaluating Manning, who found on every occasion that he posed no threat to himself in custody.

In this environment, those of us who have the luxury of relative freedom need to recognize that Manning might not be able to say everything that he really wants to say. In fact, we know this to be true. There have been several occasions in which meetings between Manning and his attorneys have been recorded by the military. Military officials have blocked Juan Mendez, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, from having a private meeting with PFC Manning. Manning has rejected an offer from the military to allow him to meet with Mendez on the condition that the meeting be monitored.

In short, Bradley Manning is being silenced. Whether through these direct restrictions on his ability to communicate freely, or more subtly through media narratives that attempt to erase his political agency, the establishment does not want us to hear Manning’s true voice.

Each one of us working with the Bradley Manning Support Network anxiously awaits the day when Bradley Manning can speak freely, unencumbered by the shackles of oppression and injustice. But until that time, we can’t presume to speak for him, especially on an issue as personal and yet political as gender identification.

Lt. Daniel Choi, who was discharged from the Army for being openly gay, recently called on the queer community to stand up for Bradley Manning. In an interview with Keith Olbermann, he decried the media’s portrayal that Manning’s sexual or gender identity was being used an excuse. He instead noted that Manning had displayed the highest level of integrity in his actions:

I think at this point we can’t say that he did any of this or didn’t do any of this because he’s gay or transgender. He did this because he’s a good soldier… I’m proud of him as a gay soldier because he stood for integrity. And Keith, one thing about the gay community is that our community, among all of the communities in the world, we’re the only one that bases its membership -— its membership — on integrity and telling the truth about ourselves, declassifying that information for the betterment of our entire lives and societies and families. And when we do that, we realize that the gay movement is more important than just for gay people alone.

All available evidence points to Manning being driven by integrity. At the Article 32 hearing, military prosecutors submitted a note allegedly attached by Manning to the materials they say he sent to WikiLeaks concerning the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It read:

This is perhaps one of the most significant documents of our time, removing the fog of war and revealing the true nature of 21st century asymmetric warfare.

This seems to be the core motivation for Manning: to enlighten and educate the world, to create a better-informed democracy, to shed sunlight on the darkness covering our foreign policies and ongoing wars overseas. And, as queer activists have long known, there is power and transcendence in choosing truth, even when that truth makes others uncomfortable.

The Latest From The Private Bradley Manning Support Network-Free Bradley Manning Now!-Join us at the Fort Meade hearings to stand with Brad -Next Pre-Trial Hearings Begin August 27th On Conditions Of His Confinement For Over 800 Days

Let’s Redouble Our Efforts To Save Private Bradley Manning-Make Every Town Square In America (And The World) A Bradley Manning Square From Boston To Berkeley to Berlin-Join Us In Davis Square, Somerville –The Stand-Out Is Every Wednesday From 4:00-5:00 PM-Next Private Manning Pre-Trial Hearings Start August 27, 2012

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

Markin comment:

The Private Bradley Manning case is headed toward a late fall/early winter trial. Those of us who support his cause should redouble our efforts to secure his freedom. For the past several months there has been a weekly stand-out in Greater Boston across from the Davis Square Redline MBTA stop (renamed Bradley Manning Square for the vigil’s duration) in Somerville on Friday afternoons but we have since July 4th changed the time and day to 4:00-5:00 PM on Wednesdays. This stand-out has, to say the least, been very sparsely attended. We need to build it up with more supporters present. Please join us when you can. Or better yet if you can’t join us start a Support Bradley Manning weekly vigil in some location in your town whether it is in the Boston area, Berkeley or Berlin. And please sign the petition for his release. I have placed links to the Manning Network and Manning Square website below.
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News has reached us that some of the folks at the Dorchester People for Peace (DPP) have started a stand-out for Private Manning to be held weekly beginning on Tuesday July 24, 2012 at 4:00 PM. The next stand-out is on August 7, 2012 at Ashmont Station in Dorchester. Ashmont Station is an easily reachable stop via the MBTA Redline.The next stand-out is August Please join them.
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Bradley Manning Support Network

http://www.bradleymanning.org/

Manning Square website

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

From “COURAGE TO RESIST”- A Note From Private Bradley Manning’s Civilian Attorney David E Coombs -Free Bradley Manning! Free All The Military Resisters!

From “COURAGE TO RESIST”- A Note From Private Bradley Manning’s Civilian Attorney David E Coombs -Free Bradley Manning! Free All The Military Resisters!

Click on the headline to link to the Courage To Resist website.

Courage To Resist

Supporting the troops who refuse to fight

484 Lake Park Ave #41, Oakland CA 94610

www.couragetoresist.org

510-488-3559

"Brad also asked me to specifically thank on his behalf the unflinching support of
Courage To Resist”

From David Coombs Civilian defense counsel for US Army PFC Bradley Manning
July 14, 2012

Over the past two years, thousands of individuals have either donated to thedefense fund or given freely of their time to support PFC Bradley Manning. The support provided has come in many forms:

Signing petitions (standwithbrad.org);

Standing up to say "I am Bradley Manning"
(iam.bradleymanning.org);

Writing to military/government authorities;

Writing letters to the editors of local and national newspapers;

Attending marches, rallies, and other public events to raise awareness about Bradley Manning;

Using social media to write about the case and the events of every hearing;

Contacting government representatives;
Sending messages of support to my law office;

Donating to the legal defense fund;

Or Volunteering with the Bradley Manning Support Networkand Courage to Resist.

At every court hearing, I am given the opportunity to witness this support first hand. The attendance by supporters during these hearings has been nothing short of inspiring. Although my client is not permitted to engage those in attendance, he is aware of your presence and support.

During our latest hearing on 6-8 June, I was particularly struck by the warmth of support by those in attendance. At one point during a break, I had causally mentioned that it was my anniversary.

Apparently a supporter had overheard this statement, and took up a collection to give flowers, a balloon, and a thoughtful card to me and my wife. This kind gesture is emblematic of the type of people who are supporting Brad.

I would like to publicly thank all those who have supported my client over the past two years. I also want to pass on the following message from Brad: "I am very grateful for your support and humbled by your ongoing efforts." Brad also asked me to specifically thank on his behalf the unflinching support of Courage to Resist and the Bradley Manning Support Network.

What happens in this court-martial is of vital importance to all of us. With your continued support, we will ensure that justice is achieved for Brad.

David E, Coombs-Civilian defense counsel for US Army PFC Bradley Manning
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Courage to Resist hosts the Bradley Manning Defense Fund in collaboration with the Bradley Manning Support Network. The Defense Fund has been, and continues to be, responsible for 100% of Bradley's legal expenses. That's amounted to $200,000 thus far, with at least another $50,000 needed through trial.

If you'd like your tax-deductible donation today to go towards Bradley's defense only (including legal and public education efforts), just note that on your reply and/or write "Bradley Manning" on your check's memo line. Otherwise, we'll use your contribution to support Bradley along with other military GI resisters.

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- Ms. Wise To You

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of G.B. Grayson performing the old time ballad Ommie Wise.

Ommie Wise Lyrics

Oh, listen to my story, I'll tell you no lies,
How John Lewis did murder poor little Omie Wise.
He told her to meet him at Adams's Springs.
He promised her money and other fine things.

So, fool-like she met him at Adams's Springs.
No money he brought her nor other fine things.

"Go with me, little Omie, and away we will go.
We'll go and get married and no one will know."

She climbed up behind him and away they did go,
But off to the river where deep waters flow.

"John Lewis, John Lewis, will you tell me your mind?
Do you intend to marry me or leave me behind?"

"Little Omie, little Omie, I'll tell you my mind.
My mind is to drown you and leave you behind."

"Have mercy on my baby and spare me my life,
I'll go home as a beggar and never be your wife."

He kissed her and hugged her and turned her around,
Then pushed her in deep waters where he knew that she would drown.

He got on his pony and away he did ride,
As the screams of little Omie went down by his side.

T'was on a Thursday morning, the rain was pouring down,
When the people searched for Omie but she could not be found.

Two boys went a-fishin' one fine summer day,
And saw little Omie's body go floating away.

They threw their net around her and drew her to the bank.
Her clothes all wet and muddy, they laid her on a plank.

Then sent for John Lewis to come to that place --
And brought her out before him so that he might see her face.

He made no confession but they carried him to jail,
No friends or relations would go on his bail.

Was Rebecca Malone wise? That was all the rage conversation over the shawlie clothesline wires that week in the hamlet of Adamsville Junction among the Little Ireland denizens of the cold water flats, triple-decker cold water flats, that lined Atlantic Street and Sea Street in that fair locale. The previous week it had been whether Laura Kenny should, or should not, allow her daughter Jennifer to leave the neighborhood public school and attend Miss Woodward’s Academy for Girls to further her education. (The shawlies split down the middle on that one).

The week before that the question was whether Jimmy Pearse, should or shouldn’t be drawn and quartered, or worst, for robbing Sid Smith’s Gas Station of twenty seven dollars and some change. The penalty to be imposed was not for the robbery itself but, one, for bringing shame on dear pious church-going Mrs. Pearse’s household, and, two, for exposing to one and all the fact that his theft was done to provide some food for the table of that penniless family. (The overwhelming opinion on that one was he should indeed be drawn and quartered for “airing the dirty linen in public.”) That week thought the question before the “council” was whether an orphan girl like Rebecca Wise should rise too far above her station and be seen all over greater Adamsville Junction riding in son of wealth Jack Lewis’ sporty brand new 1956 Buick convertible. (They overwhelming answered that no good could come of it, no good at all.)

Despite that community judgment Rebecca Wise did continue to see one John (Jack) Lewis, the heir apparent to the Lewis textile fortune. But perhaps we should back up just a bit to find out how our Orphan Annie attracted the eye of young Jack. The details of Rebecca’s birth were rather obscure, although the shawlie speculation, usually acutely accurate on such matters, had it that her mother, a cleaning woman over at the Lewis Mills, had been gotten “in the family way” by some person unknown, had left the child on Father Bill’s doorstep over at Saint Anne’s, and had fled town for parts unknown. Subsequently she was raised, and raised well, according to that same grapevine, by Sam Malone and his family of six over on Sea Street.

Orphan or not, well raised or not, Rebecca was a beauty. Was a beauty when she came of age. Long red hair (like her mother’s if the shawlie speculation was correct), tall and thin with well-turned legs and ankles. Many a Sea Street lad (and not just Sea Street, and no just lads either) spent a wistful afternoon (or midnight) dreaming about fair Rebecca. To no avail. Until Jack Lewis showed up one day in front of the Malone residence honking his horn several times for Rebecca to come out for a ride.

The details of where and how they met were a little sketchy, shawlie sketchy, and so they probably were. The best guess was that the pair had met in high school where they were known to have classes together and had some secret “crush” on each other that never got past first base because Jack was always, always, seen exclusively in the company of Lisa Adams, the daughter of the owner the Adams Chemical Company. Then Jack had gone off to college, and Rebecca to work in the Lewis Mills. Next thing that was known Jack was honking horns on Sea Street to beat the devil.

Now the rest of the story was pieced together after the fact from some witnesses, other evidence discovered, and from the police reports. Jack and Rebecca were always around town together for the next several months after that first open encounter at the Malone house. Then Rebecca was not seen at the Malone home for a few days, and Jack‘s stick-out convertible was not seen around town either. Sam Malone contacted the police with the story and here is what they found out when, after several days, they eventually found Rebecca’s body washed up on the shore at the far end of Adamsville Beach near the furious breakwater jetty.

Jack and Rebecca had not only been seen riding around town but had been seen a number of times (the hotel records listed over twenty) at the Hotel Majestic over in Centralia about twenty miles away. Somehow along the way during those Centralia (or elsewhere but no records were found) trysts Jack had gotten Rebecca “in the family way.” (I am being delicate here in case shawlie eyes read this). And that is where the problems started. Or ended. Rebecca had told one of her friends (one of her jealous over Jack friends), Lily Gillis, that if she would “do it” (again for those shawlie eyes)
Jack would marry her if anything happened, anything family way happened.
When Rebecca came up missing and Lily heard of it she reported that fact to the police and that started the long thread back.

See Jack while smitten (like I said just like every other guy in town) with Rebecca and while more than willing to take her to nice places to have sex (oops) had this little problem, or really two problems, One , unlike , Rebecca toward him, he did not love her. Two, Jack Lewis, had been practically since birth, engaged to Lisa Adams so the two houses could merge. So a pregnant, very pregnant according to the coroner’s report, orphan girl was in the way. One does not need to be a master detective to figure out what happened next.

Jack took Rebecca down to the Adamsville Beach jetty, a favorite spot for young and old to watch the sea changes, and as they walked the granite slabs he pushed her into the foaming sea. Case closed, murder one, hang the bastard. Not so quick. When they found Jack a couple of weeks later in Olde Saco, Maine, where the family had a summer home, he denied everything, denied even having seen Rebecca for weeks before. (Lisa provided some alibis for some of the times.) They kept him in jail a while but after a few months with no further evidence to pin anything on him, he walked. Yah those shawlies were right, no good could come of the relationship between Mr. Lewis and Ms. Murphy. Damn.