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

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

The Latest From The Private Bradley Manning Support Network-Free Bradley Manning Now! President Obama Pardon Bradley Manning- More Pre-Trial Motions Hearings This Week

RALLY IN SUPPORT OF ALLEGED WIKILEAKS WHISTLEBLOWER PRIVATE BRADLEY MANNING AT THE DOWNTOWN BOSTON OBAMA HDQTRS.

Click on the headline to link to Downtown Boston BM Rally Facebook event page.

RALLY IN SUPPORT OF ALLEGED WIKILEAKS WHISTLEBLOWER PRIVATE BRADLEY MANNING AT THE DOWNTOWN BOSTON OBAMA HDQTRS.

DATE: THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 6, 2012

TIME: STARTING AT 2:00 PM (People will be leafleting downtown from about 11:00 AM and we will stay until about 5:00 PM so join us anytime you can to show your solidarity.)

PLACE: DOWNTOWN BOSTON OBAMA HEADQUARTERS AT 77 SUMMER STREET (NEAR THE DOWNTOWN CROSSING STOP ON THE RED AND ORANGE LINES)

The Boston Smedley Butler Brigade and Samantha Smith Chapter- Veterans for Peace, the Boston Bradley Manning Support Network , Bradley Manning Square of Somerville Committee and other social activists and concerned citizens support the call by the National Bradley Manning Support Network and others to rally nationwide at local Obama headquarters on Thursday September 6, 2012, the day President Obama is scheduled to accept the Democratic Party nomination of president, to call for freedom for alleged WikiLeaks whistleblower, Army Private First Class Bradley Manning. We also will be calling on the president to use his constitutional authority to pardon Private Manning now.

Contact: Al Johnson-Event Coordinator -alfredjohnson34@comcast.net
or Pat Scanlon (VN 69’)-Coordinator, VFP Chapter 9, Smedley Butler Brigade patscanlonmusic@yahoo.com

FREE BRADLEY MANNING-PRESIDENT OBAMA PARDON BRADLEY MANNING NOW!

Check our Facebook event page –Downtown Boston Bradley Manning Support
Rally-September 6th- http://www.facebook.com/events/439879979398064/

Call for action at Obama 2012 offices nationwide Sept. 6th during DNC

The Bradley Manning Support Network, Afghans For Peace and SF Bay Iraq Veterans Against the War Call for Nationwide Actions at local Obama Campaign Offices September 6th 2012 during the Democratic National Convention! Free Bradley Manning!

Since Army PFC Bradley Manning’s arrest in May 2010 for allegedly sharing the “Collateral Murder” video and other evidence of war crimes and government corruption with the whistle-blower website WikiLeaks, progressives and human rights activists have been asking, “Why isn’t President Obama stepping in to help Bradley?”

After all, it was President Obama who in May 2011 declared with regards to protests in the Middle East,

“In the 21st Century, information is power; the truth cannot be hidden; and the legitimacy of governments will ultimately depend on active and informed citizens.”

On Thursday, August 16, US military veterans in Portland OR, Oakland CA, and Los Angeles CA, occupied Obama 2012 campaign offices and faxed a letter of demands to the Obama campaign’s central office. Those letters began:

As those who have spent years serving our country, we have faith that as Commander-in-Chief, President Obama will do the right thing in answering our request.

The letter went on to list the following demands:

That President Obama retract and apologize for remarks made in April 2011, in which he said Bradley Manning “broke the law.” Because President Obama is commander-in-chief, this constitutes unlawful command influence, violating Article 37 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), and prevents Bradley from receiving a fair trial.

That President Obama pardon the accused whistle-blower, taking into consideration his 800 days of pretrial confinement. UN torture chief Juan Mendez called Manning’s treatment “cruel and inhuman,” as it included nine months of solitary confinement at Quantico despite Brig psychiatrists recommending relaxed conditions.

The Bradley Manning Support Network maintains hope that justice will prevail and that President Obama can be the vehicle of change on this issue, but first he needs to hear loud and clear from veterans and civilians across the country that the American people want amends for the unlawful torture of Bradley Manning, and believe he should be freed.

Organizers of the August 16 West Coast actions are now urging others to join them in a nationwide effort to hold actions at many more local Obama campaign offices on September 6th, the day of candidate’s nomination acceptance speech. We want to share messages of support for Bradley with Obama campaign offices from coast to coast.

Please contact emma@bradleymanning.org for more information about attending and/or organizing an event.

Labor donated

Monday, August 27, 2012

Out In The Be-Bop Night-Scenes From Search For The Blue-Pink Great American West Night-Neola Blues

Out In The Be-Bop Night-Scenes From Search For The Blue-Pink Great American West Night-Neola Blues

Christ, this is something out of a Woody Guthrie ballad, maybe Pastures Of Plenty where he talks about all the crops that migrant farm laborers pull out of the earth’s soil as they proceed through the harvest season cycle, I thought to myself as I helped Angelica bring her things down from the farm-fresh cab of that farm-fresh truck that I just jumped down from, as we started heading to our new "home." In this case a small, simple, solidly built and well-maintained white-painted cabin on a huge corn stalk-waved, yellow-sunned Neola, Iowa farm where I was to sweat it out for a few days (and maybe more) doing farm labor until I could get enough money for us to move on. Hell, we were down to our last pennies, pennies that we thought would last us until Denver where I had some friends who we could stay with and who had jobs for us but that dream petered away well before Neola, Iowa.

Now we are at the mercy of Farmer Brown. I swear that was his name and that was how he wanted to be addressed by me out in the fields, probably some old Protestant remnant Mennonite, Hutterite heretic custom that got carried along because nobody thought to change it with the change of centuries. When he picked us up many miles back he must have had some ESP sense that we needed dough, and that he had some "wetback", Okie-Arkie-like-we-were-back-in-the-Great-Depression-1930s help at hand if he played his cards right.

On top of that to say things were strained, strained in comparison to idyllic Steubenville cottage nights, Prestonsburg mad mountain hi-jinx and Lexington great American night thrills, between Angelica and I since we had our Moline meltdown would be an understatement. If you don’t know that story, that Moline story, you had really better go back and read that one, if you want to understand how the road, even the voluntarily taken good night hitchhike road can twist things around. This strain between us was not, as you might think, the way that I have presented things, mainly because I had not been a good "hubby" provider. Rather because now that we were hard into September, had been on the road a couple of months, and all around us school and life were starting back up in their usual annual build-up season Angelica, I believe, sensed that the road, the real road, was not for her, at least not until she had gotten a better grasp of what her dreams were all about. Frankly, most of this had been unspoken on both our parts, more glances and sighs as things got tougher, but I couldn’t help but think that I had spooked her a little bit with that Captain Cob story in Moline, the so-called "real" story of the quest for the blue-pink great American West night. That’s another good reason to read that scene.

Let's get it straight though. Straight as the Iowa corn rows which are now stretched out to infinity before me as I look over at the fields directly across from our new cabin home. As I have told this on-going tale you could see the build-up of some tension between Angelica and me as we drove on, especially since we left Lexington, Kentucky. And that seemed the right way to tell you about it. I haven't spent much time filling you in until now about the things that round out the story and bring us to the current seeming impasse. Or about things that were going on in Big Earth time, like the Woodstock breakout gathering of youth nation back East, guys, guys from NASA nation, walking on the moon in the great Earth breakout, guys and gals in the great Stonewall gay breakout in New York City or the Days of Rage white lumpen breakout in Chicago while we were hell bend west and earth-bound. That Big Earth stuff you know, or can look up. Let me tell about the personal stuff though and then you can see why I used that word impasse.

Let me tell you, for example, about the tearful telephone calls home (collect calls, okay) that Angelica had periodically made back to Muncie and her parents. Tearful not because she was on the road against her will but tearful because her parents were raising holy hell that she was out on the road; that she was out of the road with no car; that she was out on the road with a "hippie", Bolshevik, dragon, beast, you can fill in the rest; and, that she was out on the road with a guy who, unquestionably, was up to some kind of nefarious scheme to corrupt their daughter's virtue. Angelica was good though, she defended her "gentleman hippie." But, of late, I had noticed that when she finished on the phone (usually a pay phone out on some desolation highway or in some noisy Main Street store) when she gave me an instant replay on the conversation she seemed to defense her "old man" of the road less and less fervently as she has gotten more road-weary.

Of course I had been running my own "battles" with the phone as I had, occasionally, been calling back to Boston to check in with my friends, and once or twice with the, in my new mind's eye view of things increasingly delightful, Joyell. Hey, I'd told Angelica about Joyell in the beginning (what hadn't we talked about, at least superficially, since we had spent so many hours on the road) and about my runaways so she knew the score (as I did on a special guy that she mentioned from back in Muncie). See, like I said before when I didn't tell Angelica about the blue-pink great American West quest until my back was to the wall in Moline, it was never clear where we were heading except we liked each other, liked each other’s company and wanted to be together for a time. The problem right that minute was that I wanted to be on the road and I had this sneaking feeling that Angelica had some little white house and picket fence ideas, or what passed for those ideas out of 1960s Muncie.

And, of course, I haven't told you about the various running battles we had over this and that on the road because frankly this is a story about a quest and not about the kind of stuff that happens in everyday life to everybody and their brother (or sister). Not sexy enough, okay? You know what I mean though little stuff like having her thumb to get quick rides when she was feeling blue, or stopping or not stopping soon enough so she didn’t get too tired. Or real life stuff like having to get to a motel, cheapjack motel or not, so she could wash her hair the right way, etc. and feel human for a few minutes. Sound familiar, sure it does. But the big thing was that the road was a lot harder than she expected, a lot harder than she wanted, and a lot harder than she was willing to put up with. Especially when, like just before we hit dear old Neola, we had no dough, and no prospects to anchor us. Still Angelica was an old pioneer trouper when the deal went down, a Midwest pioneer trouper and that ain’t no lie. I had had no better road companion before or since. She just didn’t want to do it endlessly. But never forget, because I surely don’t, that it was only those times, those mad breakout times, that allowed us to even hook up at all.

I guess I should tell you about the money deal now because that tells a lot about why we were at odds with each other, although like I said before it was more a feeling than anything she had said, at least said since the Moline meltdown. After Moline our luck went from bad to worse as the weather just plain got balky after a few days of clear skies. That meant more cheapjack motels, and more unexpected cash outlay to take us off course, and then our rides started to dry up. About half way through Iowa we were hitching on this state Route 44 that takes you across to Route 191 and then to Neola (and Omaha, Nebraska further on). This farm-fresh guy (Farmer Brown) offered us a ride in his big old hay truck (okay I won't use farm-fresh anymore you get the drift but I swear I had never seen so much flat, cultivated, green and yellow scenery before. I thought I died and went to Grant Wood heaven.). Right away, like I said, he sized us up as from hunger and offered us jobs (or at least me) working to bring in the now ready crop. A ride west, a job of sorts, a place to stay, and a place to rest up and sort things out just hit both of us at the same time as right. We said sure thing. And that is why we were then unloading Angelica's backpack on the ground in front of this tiny lean-to of a cabin on old Farmer Brown's farm.

But here is the kicker, for now. No sooner had we got settled into our new "home" (which actually turned out to be cozy in a primitive way) old Farmer Brown called us out and asked Angelica whether she wanted to work at Aunt Betty's diner in town. Be still my heart. Of course, old hand at serving them off the arm Angelica (about six weeks’ worth) to do her part in jump-starting our future said sure. So off we went in Farmer Brown's Cadillac (that should tell you something) to downtown Neola. In those days (and maybe now too for all I know) this Neola was nothing but a huge grain storage place for all the wheat and corn farmers in western Iowa, a couple of stores and, of course, Aunt Betty's, which seemed to be the hub of the universe here, at least until they rolled up the streets at dusk.

Aunt Betty's, and Aunt Betty herself, however, were something else again.
Think about your grandmother, think about your grandmother's cooking, think about your grandmother's wisdom, think about your grandmother not being your hardball mother that was Aunt Betty, and Aunt Betty's. See that was why these old time farmers hung around there. Hell that was why I hung around there for the time we were there. This was no highway truck stop feed the buggers whatever calories you want because they are moving on anyway and they are so benny-high that they will not notice but some kind of slice of Norman Rockwell America. This was a place of stews, of chicken pot pies, of pot roasts, of Indian puddings, a place to get corn-fed mid-American-sized not emaciated Eastern-dieted. You could practically smell the old-fashioned values in the place, you could feel as you sat in the hand-woven cushioned chairs and tucked in your monogrammed linen, yes, your monogrammed linen napkin, that you were in some other time, a place worthy of the blue-pink night if only it was further west, like California west, but if it was there then it would not be a real Aunt Betty's.

But enough of nostalgia. The main thing is that Aunt Betty immediately took to Angelica, a fellow Midwestern pioneer woman, even if from different generations. I think, or I like to think, that what Aunt Betty kind of instinctively saw in Angelica was what I saw that first night in Steubenville -what you see is what you get. And what you saw and got was just fine. Toward me she granted a certain scornful tolerance because of Angelica, and her "silly" whim for an eastern hippie boy. Yah, Aunt Betty was, maybe, the last of that breed of Iowa women that filled a man’s stomach but also took no guff from friend or foe, alike. At least the last time I spent any time in Iowa a few years ago I didn’t see any Aunt Bettys, all huge corporate farms and peon stoop labor now and no time for slow simmering stews and homemade pot pies.

So Angelica, who was the talk of the diner for days as the old geezers finally had something nice to look at while they were downing their pot roast and, despite all high Protestant caution, lazily lingering over that refilled cup of coffee (coffee pot brewed, naturally). And the nice tips to accompany those looks didn’t hurt either. What I didn’t know though, is that through all of this time Aunt Betty was killing my time (meaning putting the bug in Angelica’s ear about getting off the road). Then I was kind of mad about it, especially when as we overstayed the time when we thought we would have to leave (to avoid the October Denver-bound squalls) old Aunt Betty mentioned it in my presence. Now I can see that it was nothing against me but just an old grandma watching out for her granddaughter. Fair enough, wise Aunt Betty wherever you are.

And how was my work going back on Maggie’s, I mean, Farmer Brown’s farm. Well, I have done all kinds of odd jobs, and worked a fair number of excessive hours but life on a farm, a big prosperous farm, come harvest time was really beyond me, although old Brown never complained about my work and getting to know him a little better he surely would have if he had cause for complain. But after about ten days I was ready to move on, and get the cow shavings and corn shucks out of my system.

Needless to say, at night, each night it seemed the longer we stayed, Angelica and me, tried to put the best face on it but I have not built up this story in just this way to now avoid a parting of the ways. Between road-weariness, Aunt Betty urgings, parental moanings, a few road bumps and bruises, her own highly developed Midwestern practical sense, and her own worthy dreams Angelica put it straight one night when I was getting antsy about making tracks before bad weather set in the rockymountainwest. She was going home, going back to school to see how that worked out and she would meet me out in Los Angeles in January during school break to see where we stood. Fair enough, although that is just a little too easy way to put it. I saw the sense of it though, and was thrilled that she would come west later. That night we started to pack up after I told Farmer Brown we were moving on.

Next day old Aunt Betty showed up at the cabin in her vintage 1930s pickup truck, something out of The Grapes of Wrath except this beauty was well-kept up. She already knew about Angelica’s decision and came to offer us a ride to Omaha where Angelica could catch a bus back to Muncie and I could pick up Interstate 80 West. We drove to the bus station in Omaha in some silence, only speaking about various addresses where we could be reached at in Denver, Los Angeles and Muncie and other trivia. Finally we got to the Greyhound station; Aunt Betty let us off, and went off to wait to give me a ride to Interstate 80. With mixed emotions Angelica and I made our farewells. I felt strange, and maybe Angelica did too, to part in a bus station.

Bus stations to me always meant paper-strewn bench sleeps, tepid coffees and starched foods, noisy, smelly, sweat-filled men’s rooms that spoke to infrequent cleanings and paper bag luggage poverties. But there we were. I put her on the bus, waited for it to pull out, and then headed to Aunt Betty’s pickup truck. As she drove the short distance to the entrance to Interstate 80 Aunt Betty said in her Aunt Betty way that she thought I was probably the best thing that ever happened to Angelica, and Angelica thought so too. We came to the highway entrance too soon for me to pick up on that idea. All I had was the blue-pink west road and that thought to keep me warm as I got out of the truck.

RALLY IN SUPPORT OF ALLEGED WIKILEAKS WHISTLEBLOWER PRIVATE BRADLEY MANNING AT THE DOWNTOWN BOSTON OBAMA HDQTRS.-SEPTEMBER 6, 2012-2:00 PM

Click on the headline to link to Downtown Boston BM Rally Facebook event page.

RALLY IN SUPPORT OF ALLEGED WIKILEAKS WHISTLEBLOWER PRIVATE BRADLEY MANNING AT THE DOWNTOWN BOSTON OBAMA HDQTRS.-SEPTEMBER 6, 2012-2:00 PM

DATE: THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 6, 2012

TIME: STARTING AT 2:00 PM (People will be leafleting downtown from about 11:00 AM and we will stay until about 5:00 PM so join us anytime you can to show your solidarity.)

PLACE: DOWNTOWN BOSTON OBAMA HEADQUARTERS AT 77 SUMMER STREET (NEAR THE DOWNTOWN CROSSING STOP ON THE RED AND ORANGE LINES)

The Boston Smedley Butler Brigade and Samantha Smith Chapter- Veterans for Peace, the Boston Bradley Manning Support Network , Bradley Manning Square of Somerville Committee and other social activists and concerned citizens support the call by the National Bradley Manning Support Network and others to rally nationwide at local Obama headquarters on Thursday September 6, 2012, the day President Obama is scheduled to accept the Democratic Party nomination of president, to call for freedom for alleged WikiLeaks whistleblower, Army Private First Class Bradley Manning. We also will be calling on the president to use his constitutional authority to pardon Private Manning now.

Contact: Al Johnson-Event Coordinator -alfredjohnson34@comcast.net
or Pat Scanlon (VN 69’)-Coordinator, VFP Chapter 9, Smedley Butler Brigade patscanlonmusic@yahoo.com

FREE BRADLEY MANNING-PRESIDENT OBAMA PARDON BRADLEY MANNING NOW!

Check our Facebook event page –Downtown Boston Bradley Manning Support
Rally-September 6th- http://www.facebook.com/events/439879979398064/

Labor donated

Call for action at Obama 2012 offices nationwide Sept. 6th during DNC

The Bradley Manning Support Network, Afghans For Peace and SF Bay Iraq Veterans Against the War Call for Nationwide Actions at local Obama Campaign Offices September 6th 2012 during the Democratic National Convention! Free Bradley Manning!

Since Army PFC Bradley Manning’s arrest in May 2010 for allegedly sharing the “Collateral Murder” video and other evidence of war crimes and government corruption with the whistle-blower website WikiLeaks, progressives and human rights activists have been asking, “Why isn’t President Obama stepping in to help Bradley?”

After all, it was President Obama who in May 2011 declared with regards to protests in the Middle East,

“In the 21st Century, information is power; the truth cannot be hidden; and the legitimacy of governments will ultimately depend on active and informed citizens.”

On Thursday, August 16, US military veterans in Portland OR, Oakland CA, and Los Angeles CA, occupied Obama 2012 campaign offices and faxed a letter of demands to the Obama campaign’s central office. Those letters began:

As those who have spent years serving our country, we have faith that as Commander-in-Chief, President Obama will do the right thing in answering our request.

The letter went on to list the following demands:

That President Obama retract and apologize for remarks made in April 2011, in which he said Bradley Manning “broke the law.” Because President Obama is commander-in-chief, this constitutes unlawful command influence, violating Article 37 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), and prevents Bradley from receiving a fair trial.

That President Obama pardon the accused whistle-blower, taking into consideration his 800 days of pretrial confinement. UN torture chief Juan Mendez called Manning’s treatment “cruel and inhuman,” as it included nine months of solitary confinement at Quantico despite Brig psychiatrists recommending relaxed conditions.

The Bradley Manning Support Network maintains hope that justice will prevail and that President Obama can be the vehicle of change on this issue, but first he needs to hear loud and clear from veterans and civilians across the country that the American people want amends for the unlawful torture of Bradley Manning, and believe he should be freed.

Organizers of the August 16 West Coast actions are now urging others to join them in a nationwide effort to hold actions at many more local Obama campaign offices on September 6th, the day of candidate’s nomination acceptance speech. We want to share messages of support for Bradley with Obama campaign offices from coast to coast.

Please contact emma@bradleymanning.org for more information about attending and/or organizing an event.

From #Un-Occupied Boston (#Un-Tomemonos Boston)-What Happens When We Do Not Learn The Lessons Of History- The Pre-1848 Socialist Movement-Works of Auguste Blanqui 1851-Warning to the People(The London Toast — February 25, 1851)

Sunday, August 26, 2012

From The Pen Of Peter Paul Markin-Out In The Be-Bop 1950s Night- Out In The Adventure Car Hop Night

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of the Dubs performing the classic Could This Be Magic? to set the mood for this piece.

Now 1957 was a good year for rock, for "boss" cars, and for car hops if you could keep them, the car hops that is, at least that was what some of the older guys told me later. Of course all such details about “hot” car hops as were related should have been taken with the grain of salt, although they were not always by me anyway. To heard some of the talk, and here I am thinking of my old time high school corner boy king, Frankie Riley, these hard-pressed and abused young women could hardly keep their hands off these guys rather than worry about getting the orders right, did you have a Coke with that burger or Pepsi?, that kind of stuff which was probably more like it. But the pressure, the male peer pressure to come up with spicy (and improbable) tales at before school Monday boys’ “lav” bull sessions dictated such fables. Rightly so, as well, if you wanted to be “cool,” including some tall tales told by this writer.

In 1957 though my drive-in restaurant experiences were limited to, when we had a car, a working car in our family which was an iffy proposition at best, sitting in the back seat of some beat up sedan, maybe a Hudson or Studebaker strictly from hunger, waiting during the daytime (the night belonged to the teens and no self-respecting or smart parent would bring tender children to such a devils’ den place at night) for some cold plastic hamburger with fries. Coke or Pepsi (although I graduated to Robb’s Root Beer, a local elixir, at some point because that is all I would drink for soda (then called tonic in New England). Jesus.

But the music was on fire that year as the breakout of the previous couple of years hit the pre-teen (me and my boys) audience that was just as starved for its own not good housekeeping-parent-seal-of-approval music as the older kids. Swiveling Elvis, duck-walking Chuck Berry, Mad man piano buster Little Richard, Bo Diddley (who made a very early and strong claim with that Afro-Carib beat and that incredible drum line to be the guy, the mad monk, who put the rock in rock and roll), Jerry Lee also busting up the black and whites, and a ton of other talent was hitting the airwaves so that if you tired of hearing one song after the one thousandth consecutive playing on your record player you could move right on.

Some years in those days, I believe reflecting banner years, had a ton of good stuff to listen to and in line with that premise one would today find multiple CDs (with about twenty plus songs on each one remember the songs then were about two and one half minutes or so) dedicated to the greatest hits for that year. For 1957, which had at least a magic two CDs worth we were in very heaven because one could hardly do the trick with just one CD. No way. Stick outs then included Chuck Berry’s Rock & Roll Music (Christ, he had about ten hits in those years and most of them still crank up the teen-memory dark night air with their electricity); The Platters’ classic last dance, school dance I’m Sorry (oh, please, please save that last dance for me certain she that I have eyed until my eyes got sore all night, and she, certain she, peeked at me too); Little Richard’s Jenny, Jenny (another guy who had a ton of hit in a short period, although they haven't worn as well as Chuck's); and Fats Domino’s Blue Monday (yah, back to school days Monday blahs, except for Monday morning boys' "lav" bragging rights if that certain she I just mentioned really did mean to look my way for that last dance, otherwise why have a Monday anyway). Those are just the icing on the cake to make you (me) wish, wish to high heaven that I was older, and had a boss ’57 Chevy so I too could take a run at those car hops and complain, also to high heaven, about those plastic hamburgers and fries to someone that mattered.

RALLY IN SUPPORT OF ALLEGED WIKILEAKS WHISTLEBLOWER PRIVATE BRADLEY MANNING AT THE DOWNTOWN BOSTON OBAMA HDQTRS.-SEMPTEMBER 6, 2012-2:00 PM

Click on headline to link to BM Rally Facebook event page.

RALLY IN SUPPORT OF ALLEGED WIKILEAKS WHISTLEBLOWER PRIVATE BRADLEY MANNING AT THE DOWNTOWN BOSTON OBAMA HDQTRS.-SEMPTEMBER 6, 2012-2:00 PM

DATE: THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 6, 2012

TIME: STARTING AT 2:00 PM (People will be leafleting downtown from about 11:00 AM and we will stay until about 5:00 PM so join us anytime you can to show your solidarity.)

PLACE: DOWNTOWN BOSTON OBAMA HEADQUARTERS AT 77 SUMMER STREET (NEAR THE DOWNTOWN CROSSING STOP ON THE RED AND ORANGE LINES)

The Boston Smedley Butler Brigade and Samantha Smith Chapter- Veterans for Peace, the Boston Bradley Manning Support Network , Bradley Manning Square of Somerville Committee and other social activists and concerned citizens support the call by the National Bradley Manning Support Network and others to rally nationwide at local Obama headquarters on Thursday September 6, 2012, the day President Obama is scheduled to accept the Democratic Party nomination of president, to call for freedom for alleged WikiLeaks whistleblower, Army Private First Class Bradley Manning. We also will be calling on the president to use his constitutional authority to pardon Private Manning now.

Contact: Al Johnson-Event Coordinator -alfredjohnson34@comcast.net
or Pat Scanlon (VN 69’)-Coordinator, VFP Chapter 9, Smedley Butler Brigade patscanlonmusic@yahoo.com

FREE BRADLEY MANNING-PRESIDENT OBAMA PARDON BRADLEY MANNING NOW!

Check our Facebook event page –Downtown Boston Bradley Manning Support
Rally-September 6th- http://www.facebook.com/events/439879979398064/

Labor donated

Call for action at Obama 2012 offices nationwide Sept. 6th during DNC

The Bradley Manning Support Network, Afghans For Peace and SF Bay Iraq Veterans Against the War Call for Nationwide Actions at local Obama Campaign Offices September 6th 2012 during the Democratic National Convention! Free Bradley Manning!

Since Army PFC Bradley Manning’s arrest in May 2010 for allegedly sharing the “Collateral Murder” video and other evidence of war crimes and government corruption with the whistle-blower website WikiLeaks, progressives and human rights activists have been asking, “Why isn’t President Obama stepping in to help Bradley?”

After all, it was President Obama who in May 2011 declared with regards to protests in the Middle East,

“In the 21st Century, information is power; the truth cannot be hidden; and the legitimacy of governments will ultimately depend on active and informed citizens.”

On Thursday, August 16, US military veterans in Portland OR, Oakland CA, and Los Angeles CA, occupied Obama 2012 campaign offices and faxed a letter of demands to the Obama campaign’s central office. Those letters began:

As those who have spent years serving our country, we have faith that as Commander-in-Chief, President Obama will do the right thing in answering our request.

The letter went on to list the following demands:

That President Obama retract and apologize for remarks made in April 2011, in which he said Bradley Manning “broke the law.” Because President Obama is commander-in-chief, this constitutes unlawful command influence, violating Article 37 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), and prevents Bradley from receiving a fair trial.

That President Obama pardon the accused whistle-blower, taking into consideration his 800 days of pretrial confinement. UN torture chief Juan Mendez called Manning’s treatment “cruel and inhuman,” as it included nine months of solitary confinement at Quantico despite Brig psychiatrists recommending relaxed conditions.

The Bradley Manning Support Network maintains hope that justice will prevail and that President Obama can be the vehicle of change on this issue, but first he needs to hear loud and clear from veterans and civilians across the country that the American people want amends for the unlawful torture of Bradley Manning, and believe he should be freed.

Organizers of the August 16 West Coast actions are now urging others to join them in a nationwide effort to hold actions at many more local Obama campaign offices on September 6th, the day of candidate’s nomination acceptance speech. We want to share messages of support for Bradley with Obama campaign offices from coast to coast.

Please contact emma@bradleymanning.org for more information about attending and/or organizing an event.

From The Pen Of Peter Paul Markin- Those Oldies But Goodies…Out In The Be-Bop ‘50s Song Night-Mark Dinning's "Teen Angel"

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Mark Dinning performing Teen Angel.

This American Left History blog is noted for politics mainly, and mainly the desperate political fight against various social, economic and moral injustices and wrongs in this wicked old world, although the place where politics and cultural expression, especially post-World War II be-bop cultural expression, has drawn some of my interest over the past several years. The most telling example of that interest is in the field of popular music, centrally the blues, city and country, good woman on your mind, hard working under sweating suns or noisy dust-filled factory floors, hard drinking Saturday into Sunday morning just before church blues and folk music, mainly urban, mainly protest to high heaven against the world’s injustices smite the dragon down, folk music. Of late though the old time 1950s kid, primordial, big bang, jail-break rock and roll music that set us off, the generation of ’68 from earlier generations has drawn my attention. Mostly this retro look has been by reviewing oldies CDs but here, and occasionally hereafter under this headline, specifically songs that some future archaeologists might dig up as prime examples of how we primitives lived ,and what we listened to back in the day.
************

MARK DINNING
"Teen Angel"

(Jean Surrey & Red Surrey)

Teen angel, teen angel, teen angel, ooh, ooh
That fateful night the car was stalled
upon the railroad track
I pulled you out and we were safe
but you went running back
Teen angel, can you hear me
Teen angel, can you see me
Are you somewhere up above
And I am still your own true love
What was it you were looking for
that took your life that night
They said they found my high school ring
clutched in your fingers tight
Teen angel, can you hear me
Teen angel, can you see me
Are you somewhere up above
And I am still your own true love
Just sweet sixteen, and now you're gone
They've taken you away.
I'll never kiss your lips again
They buried you today
Teen angel, can you hear me
Teen angel, can you see me
Are you somewhere up above
And I am still your own true love
Teen angel, teen angel, answer me, please

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First off when you are in the heart of 1950s rock and roll music get used to hearing ad finitum about angels, earth-bound, heaven-sent, hell-sent, angelic, yes, angelic, heart-broken, heart-breaking angels, and how many angels can fit on the head of a pin, Enough angels to make old revolutionary Puritan poet John Milton's angel fights in Paradise Lost seem, well, punk by comparison. That is if you really want to know about 1950s rock subject matter, all of the above, naturally being teen angels (as if there were any other kind), maybe even Milton's, and that brings us to the heart of this Mark Dinning teen angst classic, Teen Angel.

Frankly, I am bewildered by the bizarre lyrics and story line here, although it rates high, very high on my newly constructed teen song angst-o-meter. Peggy and Billy, okay I know they are not named, or maybe nameable, in the universal teen night but let’s call them that to give name to the kinds of fools we are dealing with, were stranded out on railroad tracks in old Billy’s apparently dead-ender car, probably his father’s hand-me-down. That should have been the first tip-off to Peggy. There were a million guys in town with “boss” cars, including Linc with his ’57 cherry red Chevy by the look on his face every time you passed by, who would have been more than happy to give you a tumble.

Or maybe Billy just didn’t have gas dough and the clunker ran out, unfortunately, ran out on that old dreaded isolated track with all those signs saying don’t stop, please don’t stop, on the tracks because even if trains were going out of style in the big 1950s freeway car exodus they still ran every now and again. No dough Billy, christ I knew seven guys (although not Linc) who had plenty of dough, or could get it, to show you a good time, including Frankie (and Frankie, supposedly only had eyes for his ever lovin’ sweetie, Joanne).

Okay, the ways of love are strange, no question, so Billy it was. But, jesus, he pulled you out, you were safe and then you went ballistic over some f-----g, cheapjack ring, some cheapjack fake gold (like about four carat gold filigree, maybe) with fako diamond and barely legible stuff written on it class ring. And you knew, since you had been out with Billy for a while by then that it was cheapo. Come on you couldn’t have been that naïve. Now you have left Billy all choked up over his teen angel lost, and I know for a fact that he stayed that way, for a while. But just recently he seems to be on the mend because didn’t Tommy T. see him and Linda Lou, ya, sweet “hot stuff’ Linda Lou, walking hand and hand into Kay’s jewelry store that handles the North Adamsville High School class ring account. Maybe it was nothing but I wonder what they were looking for?

***From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin-The Merry Widow Murderer- Alfred Hitchcock’s “Shadow Of A Doubt”

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow Off A Doubt.

DVD Review

Shadow Of A Doubt, starring Joseph Cotten, Teresa Wright, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, written by Thornton Wilder, Universal Pictures, 1943

Sometimes landing on your head or some other traumatic incident when young can have serious consequences later in life. Or at least this is the stated premise, or half premise, behind this Alfred Hitchcock thriller, Shadow Of A Doubt. The mental state angle may be a bit awry and a bit too pat as the draw to pull us in and suspend our disbelief that good old Uncle Charley (played by Joseph Cotton) is the villain of the piece and is the serial killer of rich widows but there are some interesting psychological moments as we see how this villainous man meets his inevitable just desserts. Of course the max daddy of all Hitchcock thrillers, Psycho, set the standard by scaring every pre-teen, teen, and maybe a few adults half to death by NOT showing us what happened when that serial killer was about his mad man work. This one doesn’t really come close by as I say it has a few interesting points.

Needless to say any screen play written by Thornton Wilder (Our Town) means that small town Americana with everybody normal going about their everyday normal business is sure to be in play. Certainly the town is not suspecting that a mad man has just descended on them an event that should have caused every widow in town to check her insurance coverage. And it, late 1930s Santa Rosa (California) is here as the backdrop for Uncle Charlie’s timely visit (timely for him as he as just lammed it out of the East just in front of the law) to rekindle the old family relationships. But see dear Charlie is not the boy of old small town ambitions but of master race certitudes and scorn of the small town rubes. And to cap that scorn he is not above offing a rich widow or two in the process. And that quirky tendency is what drives the film, drives the law men in pursuit and drives one devoted niece, Charlie (nee Charlotte played by Teresa Wright) half-crazy with suspicion and disbelief before she tumbles to the facts of dastardly Uncle Charlie ‘s life. Almost too late.

The Latest From The Private Bradley Manning Support Network-Free Bradley Manning Now! President Obama Pardon Bradley Manning-Call for action at Obama 2012 offices nationwide Sept. 6th during DNC

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 international anti-war movement were not able to do much to affect the Bush- Obama Iraq war timetable or, as of now, the Afghanistan one, but we can save the one hero of that war, American soldier Private Bradley Manning. The Manning legal case, and Private Manning as an exceptionally brave individual, can and should serve to rally all those looking for a concrete way to express their anti-war outrage at the continuing atrocious American imperial war policies. The message below can serve as a continuing rationale for my (and your) support to this honorable whistleblower.
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The following are remarks that I have been focusing on of late to build support for Private Manning’s cause at stand-outs, marches and rallies.

Veterans for Peace proudly stands in solidarity with, and in defense of, Private 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. Those precious bits of information leaked to Wikileaks about American soldiers committing war atrocities in Iraq as chronicled in the tape known on YouTube as “Collateral Murder” and the Iraq and Afghan War Diaries. 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 flim-flam house of cards. American imperialism’s gun-toting flim-flam 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 has been held in solidarity at Quantico, other locales, and now at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas 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.

Many of us have become somewhat inured to the constant cases of jackboot torturous behavior on the part of the American military in places like Guantanamo, Bagram and other national security hellhole black box locations against foreign nationals. We have also become inured, or at least no longer surprised, when American civilian citizens are subject to such actions, and more likely death. However, as recent allegations of pre-trial torturous conduct condoned by high military authority (see the allegations and motion to dismiss charged on the Bradley Manning Support Network website) by Private Manning’s civilian defense lawyer David Coombs make clear, those acts are not confined to foreign nationals and American civilian citizens. The torture of Private Manning, an American soldier, by the American government should give us all pause. And should have us shouting to the heavens for his release.

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.

I urge everyone to sign the petition calling on the American military to free Private Bradley Manning either here or on the Bradley Manning Support Network website. And if we cannot get Private Manning freed that way I urge everyone to begin a campaign in your area to call on President Barack Obama, or whoever is president while Private Manning is incarcerated, to pardon this brave soldier. The American president has the constitutional authority to grant pardons to the guilty and innocent, the convicted and those facing charges. I call on President Obama to pardon Private Manning now.

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

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Call for action at Obama 2012 offices nationwide Sept. 6th during DNC

The Bradley Manning Support Network, Afghans For Peace and SF Bay Iraq Veterans Against the War Call for Nationwide Actions at local Obama Campaign Offices September 6th 2012 during the Democratic National Convention! Free Bradley Manning!

Since Army PFC Bradley Manning’s arrest in May 2010 for allegedly sharing the “Collateral Murder” video and other evidence of war crimes and government corruption with the whistle-blower website WikiLeaks, progressives and human rights activists have been asking, “Why isn’t President Obama stepping in to help Bradley?”

After all, it was President Obama who in May 2011 declared with regards to protests in the Middle East,

“In the 21st Century, information is power; the truth cannot be hidden; and the legitimacy of governments will ultimately depend on active and informed citizens.”

On Thursday, August 16, US military veterans in Portland OR, Oakland CA, and Los Angeles CA, occupied Obama 2012 campaign offices and faxed a letter of demands to the Obama campaign’s central office. Those letters began:

As those who have spent years serving our country, we have faith that as Commander-in-Chief, President Obama will do the right thing in answering our request.

The letter went on to list the following demands:

That President Obama retract and apologize for remarks made in April 2011, in which he said Bradley Manning “broke the law.” Because President Obama is commander-in-chief, this constitutes unlawful command influence, violating Article 37 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), and prevents Bradley from receiving a fair trial.

That President Obama pardon the accused whistle-blower, taking into consideration his 800 days of pretrial confinement. UN torture chief Juan Mendez called Manning’s treatment “cruel and inhuman,” as it included nine months of solitary confinement at Quantico despite Brig psychiatrists recommending relaxed conditions.

The Bradley Manning Support Network maintains hope that justice will prevail and that President Obama can be the vehicle of change on this issue, but first he needs to hear loud and clear from veterans and civilians across the country that the American people want amends for the unlawful torture of Bradley Manning, and believe he should be freed.

Organizers of the August 16 West Coast actions are now urging others to join them in a nationwide effort to hold actions at many more local Obama campaign offices on September 6th, the day of candidate’s nomination acceptance speech. We want to share messages of support for Bradley with Obama campaign offices from coast to coast.

Please contact emma@bradleymanning.org for more information about attending and/or organizing an event.

Saturday, August 25, 2012

A MODEST LABOR PROPOSAL-RECRUIT, RUN INDEPENDENT LABOR MILITANTS IN THE 2012 ELECTIONS.

IN THIS TIME OF THE ‘GREAT FEAR’ WE NEED CANDIDATES TO FIGHT FOR A WORKERS GOVERNMENT.

FORGET DONKEYS AND ELEPHANTS - BUILD A WORKERS PARTY!

In the summer of 2006 I originally wrote the following commentary (used in subsequent election cycles and updated a little for today’s purpose) urging the recruitment of independent labor militants as write-in candidates for the mid-term 2006 congressional elections based on a workers party program. With the hoopla already in full gear for the 2012 election cycle I repost that commentary below with that same intention of getting thoughtful leftists to use the 2012 campaign to further our propagandistic fight for a workers’ party that fights for a workers government.

A Modest Proposal-Recruit, Run Independent Labor Militants In The 2012 Elections

All “anti-parliamentarian”, “anti-state”, “non-political” anarchist or anarcho-syndicalist brothers and sisters need read no further. This writer does not want to sully the purity of your politics with the taint of parliamentary electoral politics. Although I might remind you, as we remember the 75th anniversary of the beginning of the Barcelona Uprising, that your political ancestors in Spain were more than willing to support the state and enter the government when they got the chance- the bourgeois government of a bourgeois state. But, we can fight that issue out later. We will, hopefully, see you on the barricades with us when the time comes.

As for other militants- here is my modest proposal. Either recruit fellow labor militants or present yourselves as candidates to run for public office, especially for Congress, during the 2012 election cycle. Why? Even a quick glance at the news of the day is calculated to send the most hardened politico screaming into the night. The quagmire in Afghanistan (and unfinished business in Iraq and threats to Iran), immigration walls, flag-burning amendments, anti -same-sex marriage amendments, the threat to separation of church state raised by those who would impose a fundamentalist Christian theocracy on the rest of us, and the attacks on the hard fought gains of the Enlightenment posed by bogus theories such as ‘intelligent design.’ And that is just an average day. Therefore, this election cycle provides militants, at a time when the dwindling electorate is focused on politics, a forum to raise our program and our ideas. We use this as a tool, like leaflets, petitions, meetings, demonstrations, etc. to get our message across. Why should the Donkeys, Elephants, and the other smaller bourgeois parties have a monopoly on the public square?

I mentioned in the last paragraph the idea of program. Let us face it if we do not have a program to run on then it makes no sense for militants to run for public office. Given the political climate our task at this time is to fight an exemplary propaganda campaign. Our program is our banner in that fight. The Democrats and Republicans DO NOT RUN on a program. The sum of their campaigns is to promise not to steal from the public treasury (or at least not too much), beat their husbands or wives, or grossly compromise themselves in any manner. On second thought, given today’s political climate, they may not promise not to beat their husbands or wives or not compromise themselves in any untoward manner. You, in any case, get the point. Damn, even the weakest neophyte labor militant can make a better presentation before working people that this crowd. This writer presents a five point program (you knew that was coming, right?) that labor militants can run on. As point five makes clear this is not a ‘minimum’ program but a program based on our need to fight for power.

1. FIGHT FOR THE IMMEDIATE AND UNCONDITIONAL WITHDRAWAL OF U.S. TROOPS FROM THE MIDDLE EAST NOW (OR BETTER YET, YESTERDAY)! U.S. HANDS OFF THE WORLD! VOTE NO ON THE WAR BUDGET!

The quagmire in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Middle East (Iraq, Syria, Libya, Palestine, Iran) is the fault line of American politics today. Every bourgeois politician has to have his or her feet put to the fire on this one. Not on some flimsy ‘sense of the Congress’ softball motion for withdrawal next, year, in two years, or (my favorite) when the situation is stable. Moreover, on the parliamentary level the only real vote that matters is the vote on the war budget. All the rest is fluff. Militants should make a point of trying to enter Congressional contests where there are so-called anti-war Democrats or Republicans (an oxymoron, I believe) running to make that programmatic contrast vivid.

But, one might argue, that would split the ‘progressive’ forces. Grow up, please! That argument has grown stale since it was first put forth in the “popular front” days of the 1930’s. If you want to end the wars in Afghanistan and elsewhere fight for this position on the war budget. Otherwise the same people (yes, those 'progressive Democrats') who almost unanimously voted for the last war budget get a free ride on the cheap. War President Barack Obama desperately needs to be opposed by labor militants. By rights this is our issue. Let us take it back.

2. FIGHT FOR A LIVING WAGE AND WORKING CONDITIONS-UNIVERSAL FREE HEALTH CARE FOR ALL.

It is a ‘no-brainer’ that no individual, much less a family can live on the minimum wage (now $7/hr. or so). What planet do these politicians live on? We need an immediate fight for a living wage, full employment and decent working conditions. We need universal free health care for all. End of story. The organized labor movement must get off its knees and fight to organize Wal-Mart and the South. A boycott of Wal-Mart is not enough. A successful organizing drive will, like in the 1930’s; go a long way to turning the conditions of labor around.

3. FIGHT THE ATTACKS ON THE ENLIGHTENMENT.

Down with the Death Penalty! Full Citizenship Rights for All Immigrants who make it here! Stop the Deportations! For the Separation of Church and State! Defend abortion rights! Down with anti-same sex marriage legislation! Full public funding of education! Stop the ‘war on drugs’, basically a war on blacks and minority youth-decriminalize drugs! Defend political prisoners! This list of demands hardly exhausts the “culture war” issues we defend. It is hard to believe that in the year 2012 over 200 years after the American Revolution and the French Revolution we are fighting desperately to preserve many of the same principles that militants fought for in those revolutions. But so be it.

4. FIGHT FOR A WORKERS PARTY.

The Donkeys, Elephants and other smaller bourgeois parties have had their chance. Now is the time to fight for our own party and for the interests of our own class, the working class. Any campaigns by independent labor militants must highlight this point. And any campaigns can also become the nucleus of a workers’ party network until we get strong enough to form at least a small party. None of these other parties, and I mean none, are working in the interests of working people and their allies. The following great lesson of politic today must be hammered home. Break with the Democrats, Republicans!

5. FIGHT FOR A WORKERS AND XYZ GOVERNMENT. THIS IS THE DEMAND THAT SEPARATES THE MILITANTS FROM THE FAINT-HEARTED REFORMISTS.

We need our own form of government. In the old days the bourgeois republic was a progressive form of government. Not so any more. That form of government ran out of steam about one hundred years ago. We need a Workers Republic. We need a government based on workers councils with a ministry (I do not dare say commissariat in case any stray anarchists are still reading this) responsible to it. Let us face it if we really want to get any of the good and necessary things listed above accomplished we are not going to get it with the current form of government.

Why the XYZ part? What does that mean? No, it is not part of an algebra lesson. What it reflects is that while society is made up mainly of workers (of one sort or another) there are other classes (and parts of classes) in society that we seek as allies and could benefit from a workers government. Examples- small independent contractors, intellectuals, the dwindling number of small farmers, and some professionals like dentists. Yes, with my tongue in my cheek after all my dental bills, I like the idea of a workers and dentists government. The point is however you formulate it you have got to fight for it.

Obviously any campaign based on this program will be an exemplary propaganda campaign for the foreseeable future. But we have to start now. Continuing to support or not challenging the bourgeois parties does us no good. That is for sure. While bourgeois electoral laws do not favor independent candidacies write-in campaigns are possible. ROLL UP YOUR SHEEVES! GET THOSE PETITIONS SIGNED! PRINT OUT THE LEAFLETS! PAINT THOSE BANNERS! GET READY TO SHAKE HANDS AND KISS BABIES.

RALLY IN SUPPORT OF ALLEGED WIKILEAKS WHISTLEBLOWER PRIVATE BRADLEY MANNING AT THE DOWNTOWN BOSTON OBAMA HDQTRS.-SEPTEMBER 6, 2012-2 PM

Click on headline to link to Bradley Manning Rally Facebook event page.

RALLY IN SUPPORT OF ALLEGED WIKILEAKS WHISTLEBLOWER PRIVATE BRADLEY MANNING AT THE DOWNTOWN BOSTON OBAMA HDQTRS.-SEPTEMBER 6, 2012-2 PM

DATE: THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 6, 2012

TIME: STARTING AT 2:00 PM (People will be leafleting downtown from about 11:00 AM and we will stay until about 5:00 PM so join us anytime you can to show your solidarity.)

PLACE: DOWNTOWN BOSTON OBAMA HEADQUARTERS AT 77 SUMMER STREET (NEAR THE DOWNTOWN CROSSING STOP ON THE RED AND ORANGE LINES)

The Boston Smedley Butler Brigade and Samantha Chapter- Veterans for Peace, the Boston Bradley Manning Support Network , Somerville Manning Square Committee and other social activists and concerned citizens support the call by the National Bradley Manning Support Network and others to rally nationwide at local Obama headquarters on Thursday September 6, 2012, the day President Obama is scheduled accept the Democratic Party nomination of president, to call for freedom for alleged WikiLeaks whistleblower, Army Private First Class Bradley Manning. We also will be calling on the president to use his constitutional authority to pardon Private Manning now.

Contact: Pat Scanlon (VN 69’)-Coordinator, VFP Chapter 9, Smedley Butler Brigade patscanlonmusic@yahoo.com or Al Johnson-Event Coordinator -alfredjohnson34@comcast.net

FREE BRADLEY MANNING-PRESIDENT OBAMA PARDON BRADLEY MANNING NOW!

Check our Facebook event page –Downtown Boston Bradley Manning Support Rally-September 6th- http://www.facebook.com/events/439879979398064/

Labor donated
Call for action at Obama 2012 offices nationwide Sept. 6th during DNC

The Bradley Manning Support Network, Afghans For Peace and SF Bay Iraq Veterans Against the War Call for Nationwide Actions at local Obama Campaign Offices September 6th 2012 during the Democratic National Convention! Free Bradley Manning!

Since Army PFC Bradley Manning’s arrest in May 2010 for allegedly sharing the “Collateral Murder” video and other evidence of war crimes and government corruption with the whistle-blower website WikiLeaks, progressives and human rights activists have been asking, “Why isn’t President Obama stepping in to help Bradley?”

After all, it was President Obama who in May 2011 declared with regards to protests in the Middle East,

“In the 21st Century, information is power; the truth cannot be hidden; and the legitimacy of governments will ultimately depend on active and informed citizens.”

On Thursday, August 16, US military veterans in Portland OR, Oakland CA, and Los Angeles CA, occupied Obama 2012 campaign offices and faxed a letter of demands to the Obama campaign’s central office. Those letters began:

As those who have spent years serving our country, we have faith that as Commander-in-Chief, President Obama will do the right thing in answering our request.

The letter went on to list the following demands:

That President Obama retract and apologize for remarks made in April 2011, in which he said Bradley Manning “broke the law.” Because President Obama is commander-in-chief, this constitutes unlawful command influence, violating Article 37 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), and prevents Bradley from receiving a fair trial.

That President Obama pardon the accused whistle-blower, taking into consideration his 800 days of pretrial confinement. UN torture chief Juan Mendez called Manning’s treatment “cruel and inhuman,” as it included nine months of solitary confinement at Quantico despite Brig psychiatrists recommending relaxed conditions.

The Bradley Manning Support Network maintains hope that justice will prevail and that President Obama can be the vehicle of change on this issue, but first he needs to hear loud and clear from veterans and civilians across the country that the American people want amends for the unlawful torture of Bradley Manning, and believe he should be freed.

Organizers of the August 16 West Coast actions are now urging others to join them in a nationwide effort to hold actions at many more local Obama campaign offices on September 6th, the day of candidate’s nomination acceptance speech. We want to share messages of support for Bradley with Obama campaign offices from coast to coast.

Please contact emma@bradleymanning.org for more information about attending and/or organizing an event.

***From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- Handsome Johnnie’s Revenge –Alfred Hitchcock’s “Suspicion”

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Alfred Hitchcock’s Suspicion.

DVD Review

Suspicion, starring Cary Grant, Joan Fontaine, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, RKO Radio Pictures, 1941

Everybody knows, well, knows since Dorothy Parker uttered the words, that gentlemen don’t make passes at girls that wear glasses. Period. Well, period, except hard up ne’er-do- well besotted, benighted, be-, well, bedeviled and be done with it, handsome Johnnies gents who are slightly arrears on their rent or I.O.U. obligation to their bookmakers. They glasses, four-eyes, six-eyes, hell, threes eyes are in play then especially if they are well brought up love-starved country gentry daughters with a little dowry, or hopes of one. And especially when that certain girl, woman, when she takes off said glasses is well, by the ugly duckling turning camera magic, fetching. And that in a nutshell is the lead-up to this early Alfred Hitchcock classic under review, Suspicion.

A few details will help to tell why there is suspense in Suspicion (although not as much as in say the later Psycho, etc. when Hitchcock went over the edge and started to scare the bejesus out of every brave pre-teen and teen boy and girl on the earth by NOT showing us what evil lurked in the hearts of men). Johnnie, well-mannered but broke Johnnie (played by Cary Grant, who else would fit as the downwardly mobile British gent), “courts” one plain jane (don’t be deceived like I was at first by the glasses) country house gentry (meaning in those days running after foxes, et. al) daughter Lina (played by Academy Award-winning Joan Fontaine), wins her over and they are married. He has no illusions in what he is doing (mainly male gold-digging in order to maintain a studious avoidance of anything that smacks of work and anything that doesn’t smack of making a sure thing bet on race day) she, intelligent enough although not really world-wary has more than a few.

Up until that point, and somewhat beyond that point, this film is basically a comedy of manners in the old fashion sense. But eventually Johnnie’s gambling debts and thefts start to crowd in on him, and her. And a whole series of events occur that make Lina, well, suspicious that dear old bean Johnnie boy might just get under from under his obligations by putting her under, under the ground. Murder, murder and nothing else is surly in the air. The problem, or really two problems, though are no way, no way in hell can one make playboy Johnnie out as a murder one guy, and problem number two no way, no way in hell, once you take the glasses off, is fetching Lina slated for an early visit to the morgue. Like the title says suspicion, nothing to it but suspicion as the lovers reconcile.

Friday, August 24, 2012

From #Un-Occupied Boston (#Un-Tomemonos Boston)-What Happens When We Do Not Learn The Lessons Of History- The Pre-1848 Socialist Movement-Auguste Blanqui 1849-To the Mountain of 1793! To the Pure Socialists, its True Heirs!

Click on the headline to link to the Occupy Boston General Assembly Minutes website. Occupy Boston started at 6:00 PM, September 30, 2011.

Markin comment:

I will post any updates from that Occupy Boston site if there are any serious discussions of the way forward for the Occupy movement or, more importantly, any analysis of the now atrophied and dysfunctional General Assembly concept. In the meantime I will continue with the “Lessons From History ’’series started in the fall of 2011 with Karl Marx’s The Civil War In France-1871 (The defense of the Paris Commune). Right now this series is focused on the European socialist movement before the Revolutions of 1848.
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An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupy Movement And All Occupiers! Drop All Charges Against All Occupy Protesters Everywhere!

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Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
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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.

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

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Auguste Blanqui 1849-To the Mountain of 1793! To the Pure Socialists, its True Heirs!

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Source: Banquet des Travailleurs Socialistes. Chez Pages, Paris, 1849;
Translated: for marxists.org by Mitchell Abidor;
CopyLeft: Creative Commons (Attribute & ShareAlike) marxists.org 2010.

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The Socialist Worker’s Banquet took place Sunday December 3, 1848 at exactly noon at the Association of Cooks, 36 Barrière du Maine. 1,000 guests and 300-400 of the curious – 1,500 in all, among them 400-500 women, participated. The name of the Chairman of the banquet, Citizen A. Blanqui, held in the dungeon of Vincennes, could be read on the tribune across from the name of the candidate of the republican socialists, F-V Raspail. There could also be read on signs the names of those outlawed by reaction who are the most beloved of the people: Louis Blanc, Barbès, Albert.

Citizen Salières opened the session with these few words:

Citizens:

The Commission of the Socialist Worker’s banquet has chosen as its Chairman Citizen Auguste Blanqui, held in the dungeon of Vincennes (applause).

This commission, composed of workers, calling workers to this fraternal banquet wants to testify in their name to its gratitude to this indefatigable combatant for democracy, this man who is the incessant victim of persecution because of his defense of the most noble of causes, whose pure devotion has been repaid with persecution and calumny.

Citizens, you know how overwhelmed socialism today is. The very people who, if socialism could be personified in one man, would attempt to cross that man from the book of life, these very people proclaim themselves to be socialists. They say they are its adherents and reject its true principles. This presents a great danger for us. The history of the ideas that in all eras have served to tie men together shows us that it is the same lovers of the form who have often stifled the idea, or at least have reduced it to petty proportions. And so we proletarians, we for whom the word “socialism” is synonymous with that of “liberation,” have come here to present the true idea, the principle of socialism. We will do it in our way, with our hearts. We hope that you will take account of our efforts (Yes! Yes!)

After these words Citizen Salières read the prisoner’s toast:

To the Mountain of 1793! To the Pure Socialists, its true heirs!

Citizens, the Mountain had sublime inspirations, daughters of the gospels and philosophy. But it never possessed those positive theories that only grow slowly from a close analysis of the social body, just as the art of healing is born of the revelations of anatomy.

Nevertheless, if it was lacking in the organizing force of science, the impulses of the heart sufficed to dictate to it the immortal slogan of the future: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, and that admirable symbol, the Declaration of Rights, which broadly interpreted contains the seed of all that will come in the future society. Unfortunately, it’s the fate of the works of genius that have shaken the world to perish asphyxiated under the clouds of incense under which superstitious admirers drown them. The vivifying spirit of the master dies suffocated by the narrow observance of the text. The Law of Moses succumbed to the desperate embrace of the Pharisees. The Koran will be extinguished, turned into stone by the immobility of its imbecilic sectarians. And the Gospels themselves would have been sealed in their tomb by the idolatrous hands of its disciples – who had become its gravediggers – if their immortal ideas, escaping from the icy corpse around which they knelt, had not reappeared ever more shining in the new incarnation that will perpetuate them among humanity.

The Declaration of Rights, a formula born yesterday, is already suffering the fate of the old dogmas which in their period of decrepitude almost always become instruments of reaction against the redemptory labors of their revealers. The Judaic cult of the letter killed the revolutionary spirit of the symbol.

The militant life of the Mountain was brief, and like that of Christ ended on Golgotha. But its acts are a sparkling commentary on its words and provide the true meaning of the teachings it spread around the world.

Like Jesus, the consoler of the poor, the enemy of the powerful, the Mountain loved those who suffer and hated those who caused suffering. The salient element of its existence was its intimate alliance with the Parisian proletariat, not because it only felt the pain of one city, but because among so many populations equally bent down by suffering it found this energetic group ready at hand for the fight, for it was moved by the consciousness of its sufferings, and it made of them the liberating army of the human race.

From August 10, the date of the fall of the monarchy, until 4 Prairial, the final convulsion of the faubourgs, the people and the Mountain marched as one across the revolution, inseparable in victory and defeat. What a marvelous role to assume again! And one all the easier because the fight of 1793 was taken up again in 1848, on the same battlefield between the same combatants and , strange as it might seem, with almost the same incidents.

What do we see? As in 1793 privilege in combat with equality, and as their champions in combat a reactionary legislative majority colliding with the masses of Parisian democracy.

Will we also again find the Mountain and its faithful brotherhood in arms with the people?

And in fact, the name has reappeared! All the soldiers of the young phalanx bear it with pride and swear to bravely follow the steps of their predecessors.

Silence! The gates swing open and the action begins.

What do I hear! Under the pretext of fraternity M. Ledru-Rollin, the new leader of the Holy Mountain imperiously demands the return of the troops to the capitol against the will of the people. Is this in any way the tradition of the Mountain? I open my history book and I read that the Gironde, trembling in anger and fright before the pressure of the faubourgs, having demanded the formation of a camp of 20,000 men at the city gates to cover the national representatives, the Mountain rose up against this project fatal to freedom, set the multitude in motion, threatened the majority, and finally gained victory in this life or death question. Paris remained free.

We were less fortunate. And yet, turning the soldiers away from the bloody arena of civil war, where they could only harvest hatred and death, signified treating them as brothers. The men of the Mountain preferred fraternization in the streets.

What do we see now? The people marching in columns from the Champ de Mars to the Hotel de Ville and M. Ledru-Rollin, leader of the Mountain, has them run the gauntlet between two ranks of bayonets. And then he sets counter-revolution on the anarchists. I never saw this maneuver in either Marat’s or Danton’s campaigns. On that day did the hero of the recall of the troops incorrectly read his Montagnard theory?

And then there was another adventure. Who is that on horseback at the head of the National Guard? It’s M. Ledru-Rollin, leader of the Mountain leading victorious reaction to the Hotel de Ville and the patriot prisoners to the dungeon of Versailles.

Is it possible? Is it also M. Ledru-Rollin who presents and the Mountain who vote the draconian law against public gatherings? It is!

Good god! Are these Montagnards nothing but Girondins? But I read the name of Robespierre on their hats.

Be patient. Faithful to the parallels, no scene of the past will be missing from today’s drama. As in the past the mounting tide of hostilities between a reactionary majority and the Parisian workers must inevitably lead to a May 31. It broke out not on May 15, a grotesque day, but on June 23.

The army of the Mountain was ready on that day. And what did we see? Our monkeys of the Mountain throwing away their liberty bonnets and other revolutionary garb, inciting from the four corners all the stored up anger of the federalists, and like an avalanche, precipitating the counter-revolutionary masses on Paris.

The affront of May 31 was avenged; the rebellious Babylon punished. And by whom? By the Mountain!

Woe on the defeated. Those of June drank the chalice to the dregs. Crimes are eagerly being imputed to them. Had they emerged victorious everyone would have asked for a place of honor behind their flag. They are dead, and everyone spits anathema on them. Reaction says they are escapees from penal colonies and the Mountain says they are in the pay of monarchism.

What was the point of this last outrage? What is the goal of the fable of Russian gold and the ridiculous voyage in search of dynastic employment? As if royalty could today move a single paving stone. Why this pathetic tactic which makes friends and enemies laugh with pity? Most likely to prevent any solidarity with the defeated. But everyone knows there is nothing in common between you and them. Your artillery has sufficiently proved your innocence. Perhaps your artillery has to be justified in the eyes of some others, and so you go seeking imaginary leaders at the expense of the honor of the dead.

You dare to say that the Parisian people, the precursors of the future, are nothing but a herd of animals that Pitt and Cobourg lead to the slaughterhouse with a handful of salt. And all this because it pleased M. Ledru-Rolin to harangue them in the form of cannon fire. Fire, gentlemen, but don’t slander. June 26 is one of those ill-fated days that the revolution takes credit for in tears, just as a mother calls for the corpse of her son.

All of you, you great unknowns, who are swallowed up by the mass graves, poor Lazaruses fallen before the bullets in the great hunt for those in rags, you were nothing but the tools and mercenaries of royalism! You too, monuments to the justice and the clemency of our masters, unfortunate victims of prison ships. Colfavru, Thuillier, writers struck from behind, noble martyrs of the press for whom the press had not one word of protection or farewell. And you my old companions of Mont Saint Michel: Jarasse, Herbulet, Pétremann, valiant soldiers of May and February, thrice guilty of the crime of lack of respect for the army, know there in your lion’s pit that the kabyle razzia swept you up as enemies of the republic.

And the saviors of the republic, the Brutuses and Scaevolas are the generals and aides-de-camp of Louis-Philippe, the marquis of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, the holy militias of the congregations. But also the glorious decorated of June, all of them furious newly-minted royalists, the princes and dukes, intrepid leaders of the rural National Guard. And finally, there’s the Chouans who rose up en masse at the call of their priests to attack Paris. Did they do this to avenge ‘93, to avenge the old insults of the impious city? Not at all! It was to defend the republic against the Parisian royalist brigands!

O old formulas! Will of the wisps that cause the mountains to sink into the marshes. This is the result of your blows! You’ve turned our senators into vicars and marabouts murmuring prayers they no longer understand. But this isn’t your fault. You have always been clear about things, but the Mountain’s senses have been weakened.

The world has moved on in fifty years, but they have remained immobile. Science has forged more certain weapons, cleared a wider and more direct road. But the Mountain persists in walking down the paths of the past in old worn out attire, and they cry out against any novelty unknown to our fathers. These Epimenides fell asleep during a session of the Convention and upon awakening inadvertently took their place on the benches of the right. And then there they come, playing the year 1793 before the public, with its words, costumes and decors, everything except the play’s meaning, like those Ellevious and Malibran of Quimper-Corentin who think they’ll find the voices they need in the costume room.

The first act opened with the decree of vests à la Robespierre. The show goes on, and we will be spared not a couplet or a line. The least change in the script will result in its criminal author being sent before the revolutionary tribunal.

Our Epimenides recognize no other living beings than the dead of 1793, and whether they want it or not they assign everyone a role in their play. At the current moment it’s the second Cordelier Club that’s on stage. A deputy (infinitely newer in the Taitbout Room than today on Rue Taitbout) having gotten sensed the presence of the first version and denounced a Hébertist conspiracy, the men of the Mountain immediately set out on their trail.

They swear that in order to fool the bloodhounds who are after them the guilty have changed their names; that Hébert is now called Proudhon and Chaumette Raspail. They are searching everywhere for disguised versions of Ronsin, Momoro, Vincent, Anacharsis Cloots, Bishop Gobel. Watch out for the priest of Saint Eustache, who is a socialist. I advise him if he falls into their hands that if he wants to come out of this safe to protest that he is not Father Gobel, but rather the abbot Gregoire, and then he’ll be smothered in excuses and caresses.

The Jacobins asked M. Buchez to illuminate their searches with his parliamentary history lantern. Imagine their surprise when he angrily answered them: “There’s no need to seek; it is you who are the Hébertists since you don’t admire the Saint Bartholomew’s massacre.”

It appears that at the moment of the abrupt awakening of February 24 all of the sleepers carried out a confused exchange of heads, to such an extent that in the midst of this chaos of unmatched physiognomies the disoriented M. Buchez takes Girondins for Hébertists, the former thinking themselves to be men of the Mountain.

People then ran to seek information from Pierre Leroux, the author of the “Renaissance dans l’Humanité.” But the good patriarch gently told his questioners that without any doubt individuals are indefinitely reborn from generation to generation, but perfected and better; that consequently there were no more, there could no longer be, either Girondins, men of the Mountain, or Hébertists.

The response convinced no one and the searches are actively continuing. We already have proof that “Le Peuple” the newspaper of Hébert-Proudhon is nothing but the former “Père Duchêne” disguising its style.

These buffooneries would be funny if they hadn’t become tragic. Unfortunately, in this play every scene of uncontrollable laughter immediately engenders a scene of tears and blood. The actors themselves don’t know the denouement of their performance. In all good faith they thought they were presenting it for the profit and not at the expense of the workers. They will perhaps console themselves for the misadventure with the thought that they were performing in a play with two ends, one happy and the other sad, and that all that is wrong flows from an error in the variant.

But this mass of unexpected incidents, of situations improvised outside and against the libretto, seriously demoralizes them and leads them to dream about the fickleness of the public. Political romanticism has most decidedly perverted people’s spirits. In no condition to resist the torrent and maintain the classical tradition in its integrity, the academicians of the Mountain painfully resign themselves to make a sacrifice to the folly of the day and dress the old repertoire in the taste of today.

Rags cut from Proudhon, Leroux, Cabet and Fourier have been sewed onto Robespierre’s worn out coat, and from this variety they’ve put together the most eclectic of picturesque and vulgar costumes, a harlequin’s costume, now hung as a sign at the doors of the theater and carried in great pomp around the streets for the edification of the crowd.

On the breast of the mannequin, spread in trompe l’oeil, shine the socialist labels, to the great chagrin of their legitimate owners, the innovators who see their formulas turned into advertisements for the Hotel des Invalides.

These fraudulent borrowings force us to lengthen our motto with endless epithets. Is it not disastrous to call oneself by a name more interminable than that of a Spanish grandee and to need a half an hour to issue one’s rallying cry?

We are victims of the most abominable of ambushes. It is we socialists, the so-called despoilers, who everyone despoils at will and with no shame. Even our name has been taken from us, and soon our shadows will be stolen. What is more, the men of the Mountain, reaction’s youngest children, in pillaging us have done nothing but follow the example of their elders. If today they steal our title of socialist, yesterday the others wrested our title of republican.

Yes, this noble name of republican, outlawed and ridiculed by the counter revolution, was imprudently stolen by them so they could crown themselves with the laurel of our victory. With the same audacity they stole from us our sublime slogan of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, so long insulted and covered with mud by them as the symbol of blood and death.

Fortunately it rejected our flag... This was a mistake: It remains ours.

Citizens, the Mountain is dead!

To socialism, its sole heir!

This speech, religiously listened to, at various points incited unanimous applause among the listeners.

West Coast Bradley Manning Action At Obama Headquarters- August 17, 2012-Pardon Bradley Manning

The Boston Smedley Butler Brigade and Samantha Chapter- Veterans for Peace, the Boston Bradley Manning Support Network , Somerville Manning Square Committee and other social activists and concerned citizens support the call by the National Bradley Manning Support Network and others to rally nationwide at local Obama headquarters on Thursday September 6, 2012, the day President Obama is scheduled accept the Democratic Party nomination of president, to call for freedom for alleged WikiLeaks whistleblower, Army Private First Class Bradley Manning. We also will be calling on the president to use his constitutional authority to pardon Private Manning now.