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
Wednesday, March 06, 2013
Op ed in 2/7/13 edition of
Rainbow Times
Dear Rainbow
Times Editor,
Sometimes
change is elusive, and sometimes you can feel the momentum and know change is
around the corner. That was true for the civil rights movement, women’s movement
and currently the LGBT rights movement. Change is truly in the air, in the state
houses and on the street. This is where Veterans For Peace comes in, on
the street. We have a wonderful welcoming parade on the streets of South Boston
on Saint Patrick’s Day, the (Saint Patrick’s Peace Parade, the
Alternative People’s Parade for Peace, Equality, Jobs, Environmental
Stewardship, Social and Economic Justice). If you believe in peace and
equality you are welcome to march in our parade. We will form up at 2:00 pm on D
Street and West Broadway, South Boston. Together we proudly walk to an
overwhelmingly positive reception, one mile behind the first parade in our
welcoming and inclusive parade.
It is
shameful that it has taken twenty years (and counting) for the LGBT community to
be able to walk in the traditional parade in South Boston without harassment and
hostility. It is 2013, there is gay marriage in Massachusetts, don’t ask don’t
tell is history, gay and lesbian men and women now serve openly and honorably in
the armed forces.
Sadly the
AWVC, the group who initiated the law suite twenty years ago resulting in the
Hurley Decision, still clings to antiquated attitudes. Although the Supreme
Court ruling gave the AWVC the legal right to exclude anyone for any reason from
walking in their parade, that does not make it right. It is not the
legality, it is the morality of their discriminatory actions
towards Veterans For Peace, and members of the LGBT community that is the issue.
Where are
the politicians on Saint Patrick’s Day? They will be telling jokes at the
morning breakfast and probably walking or riding in the first parade, smiling,
shaking hands, politicking and soliciting votes. All the while knowing that the
parade they are walking or riding in is excluding veterans and the LGBT
community. It is great to participate in the pageantry and fun of a parade; it
is very difficult to stand up when you see an injustice marching by right in
front of your face. These same politicians will court the LGBT community for
votes and run ads in the LGBT publications expounding how they support gay
rights etc. Someone should let them know that civil rights do not begin and end
in the voting booth. Not until justice and equality have permeated our culture
do real civil rights take root.
Now is the
time for politicians of conscience to stand up and say enough is enough,
prejudice, bigotry and exclusion on the streets of South Boston has to end once
and for all. It is time for all of us, gay and straight alike to notify our
elected local, state and national representatives and tell them that it is time
to take a moral stand and not walk in that 1st parade. By walking in
the 1st parade they are giving full approval to blatant
discrimination against veterans who work for peace and LGBT community. If a
politician professes to support equal rights for the LGBT community and support
the right of veterans to express their desire for peace and want our vote, now
is the time for them to stand up against this on going, very visible
and embarrassing affront to veterans and the LGBT community.
Hope to see
you on Saint Patrick’s Day, Erin Go Bragh
Pat
Scanlon
Coordinator, Veterans For Peace, Chap 9, Smedley D.
Butler Brigade
In a powerful statement read by US Army PFC Bradley Manning in
court last week, he took full responsibility (and credit) for releasing
documents that exposed war crimes, torture and other grim realities of US
foreign policies to the whistle-blower website WikiLeaks. Bradley explained to
the court, and the world, that, “I believed that if the general public,
especially the American public, had access to the information... it could spark
a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general
as it related to Iraq and Afghanistan."
Bradley detailed the depravity he saw in the 'Collateral Murder' video, the
abuses previously unknown to Americans in the Iraq and Afghan war logs, and the
corrupt backroom dealings in the State Department cables. It wasn't only the
indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, and the US soldiers' ‘bloodlust’, that
concerned him. Bradley had also been ordered by a supervisor to aid Iraqi police
in capturing people that he knew were innocent to be tortured and killed.
“I knew that if I continued to assist the Baghdad Federal Police in
identifying the political opponents of Prime Minister al-Maliki, those people
would be arrested and in the custody of the Special Unit of the Baghdad Federal
Police and very likely tortured and not seen again for a very long time – if
ever,” read Bradley, as part of his 10,000-word statement.
It was a stirring and history-making defense of whistle-blowing and
government transparency. Yet, Bradley also deliberately chose documents he was
sure wouldn't incur harm to the US. Instead, he chose documents that would
expose abuses and inform the public, undercutting the Government's absurd
contention that he "aided the enemy."
Bradley’s attorney David Coombs later explained that, “PFC Manning did not
plead guilty pursuant to a "plea bargain" or "plea deal" with the Government.
Despite his plea, the Government has indicated it will prosecute PFC Manning on
the remaining charges.” So Bradley will still face life in prison during the
June 3rd military court martial, but he’ll be able to defend his heroic actions
in court, effectively putting our wars and over-classification systems on
trial.
Join us at Fort Meade Saturday, June 1, 2013—a couple days
before Bradley’s months-long court martial begins. This International Day of
Action is organized by the Bradley Manning Support Network, Veterans for Peace,
Courage to Resist, and many more organizations. This will be a historic day in
one of the most important trials of American history. We need YOU there to help
us send a strong message to the military officials and the White House—that this
this young man, who believed so strongly in American ideals that he risked
everything, deserves freedom now.
Contact our organizer Emma Cape (emma@bradleymanning.org) if you are interested in helping
organize a bus from your city to Fort Meade for June 1st, or if you can’t make
it to Fort Meade, and are interested in organizing a solidarity event in your
own community.
There are several
DIVISIONS marching in the parade, as well as two marching bands, Duck Boats,
bagpipers, and the Bread and Puppet Theater.. The DIVISIONS are: Veterans
groups; Peace groups; LGBT groups; Faith groups; environmental groups; social
and economic justice groups; labor groups; political groups. Please invite your
group(s) to come! Contact: Veterans for Peace, Pat Scanlon, info@massvfp.org, 978-475-1776;
Massachusetts Peace Action, Cole Harrison, info@masspeaceaction.org, 617-354-2169; faith groups contact
Lara Hoke, minister@uuandover.org.
Please join us for our
Third Annual Saint Patrick’s Peace Parade, the Alternative People’s Parade for
Peace, Equality, Jobs, Environmental Stewardship, Social and Economic
Justice.
Rides along the parade route are available
for those who need them, but please let us know ahead of time that you may need
a ride.
Come by
T if at all possible as the area will be very
congested. Broadway is the closest MBTA subway station.
Parking is
available for participants in the St. Patrick’s Peace Parade.
Vehicles must enter from the north from Summer Street
onto D Street; the parking lot is at 383 D Street. Look for the lot with 40 foot
white truck trailers. Allow extra time for traffic.
Directions
From
North
Route I-93 to South
Station exit (20 A). Merge onto Purchase Street to light (100 feet). Make a left
onto Summer Street (will pass South Station on right). Go approx. 1 mile to
Convention Center. Turn right onto D Street, parking lot .2 mile up on left,
(look for VFP Flag)
From South
Route I-93 – Take exit 20
toward South Station. Follow signs for Chinatown, continue straight onto Lincoln
Street, turn right onto Kneeland Street, turn left onto Atlantic, south Station
will be up on your right. Take a right onto Summer Street. Go approx. 1 mile to
Convention Center. Turn right onto D Street, parking lot .2 mile up on left,
(look for VFP Flag)
Why are there two
parades on Saint Patrick’s Day?
For the past three years
Veterans For Peace have been denied to walk in the historic Saint Patrick’s
Parade in South Boston. This is the largest parade of its kind in the country
with over 700,000 people viewing the parade. The parade has a dual purpose; the
celebration of Saint Patrick and the Irish traditions and heritage and a
celebration of Evacuation Day, the day the British were run out of Boston. Both
days fall on March 17th, so the City of Boston thought it a good idea to have
the Allied War Veterans Council (AWVC) organize the parade. The problem is that
one side of the equation, St. Patrick, a man of peace, is second fiddle to a
military parade. AWVC has the exclusive say in who gets to walk in this
historical parade. The City of Boston, South Boston Community Groups, the Boston
Police have absolutely no say in who walks the streets of South Boston in the
Saint Patrick’s Day Parade.
In 2011 Veterans For Peace’s application was denied, when asked why
and were told, “They did not want to have the word Peace associated with the
word Veteran”. Well they did not know the Smedleys very well. We pulled our own
permit and with only three weeks to go before the parade pulled together 500
people and the Saint Patrick’s Peace Parade, the Alternative People’s Parade for
Peace, Equality, Jobs, Environmental Stewardship, Economic and Social Justice
was born.
Twenty years ago the LGBT
community wanted to walk in the parade and were denied which resulted in a
lawsuit that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court resulting in the Hurley
Decision. The Smedleys immediately reached out to the LGBT community, inviting
them to “walk in our parade”
In 2012 we had close to
2,000 people, seven divisions (Veterans, Peace, LGBT, Labor, Political,
Religious, Occupy Everywhere) two bands, bag pipers, drummers, a Duck Boat, two
trollies etc. It was a grand success. We have an Environmental Stewardship
Division this year. Our goal is to end this last vestige of institutionalized
exclusion, prejudice, bigotry, and homophobia and make this parade inclusive and
welcoming to all and bring the message of peace to South Boston on Saint
Patrick’s Day.
Please join us in South
Boston on March 17. Be sure to bring your Chapter’s or Organization’s banners,
signs and costumes and join us in our fabulous Third Annual Saint Patrick’s
Peace Parade.
On behalf of the Saint Patrick’s Peace Parade Organizing
Committee.
In Honor Of The 94th Anniversary Of The Founding Of The Communist International-Take Six- Chicago 1919
William Z. Foster (nobody ever called him Bill, not even his closest drinking companions) was his angel idol. Yes, ever since Jim Gladstone had started working for William Z. he had hung on his every word, whether that word was right, or wrong. And he had to pinch himselfbecause there he was sitting in same room as William Z. planning out strategy for the next steps in the strike struggles that William Z. was organizing in Chicago just that 1919 year, just that year when the hellish war over in Europe was over and working men could go backto work, and go back to work for better pay now that everybody had done his or her patriotic duty by not squawking when the bosses keep piling up the dough and the workingman had barely enough to live on. But William Z., one smart cookie, and one hell of an organizer would put things straight. Hell he had even got the white guys down the steel plants and meat butchery places to stick up for the “colored” workers, for a while anyway.
Yes, one smart cookie and Jim Gladstone was glad that he had hitched his star to William Z’s. Moreover William Z. had been smart, smart as hell, to keep clear of guys like that Socialist Debs and their ranting and raving about President Wilson getting America all gummed up in that European war. All it got Debs was some serious jail time and no chance to work the tide sweeping working man America looking for a little more in their pot and some respect. Yes, Jim Gladstone had it all figured, workingman figured. Out of the nasty Chicago cold water tenements, out of that twenty languages yakking ethnic squalor and onto easy street with a nice cushy job in some union office and who knows maybe more. His mother, mother of nine, and without a rolling stone father’s help (father last heard from out in Eureka in California looking for gold or something, more likely women and whiskey from his track record), was proud of him, proud that he was making something of himself although she would have been just as happy if he had steady work over at the steel mill. Jesus, mothers sometimes. No sweat and grime for him, him and Anna whom he intended to marry just as soon as the strike was settled and he became a permanent union official.
Then something happened, something that not even the smart as a cookie William Z. could have figured on. The bosses dug in their heels, dug them deep, started to call everybody reds and anarchists, started bringing the coppers in, and before long the rank and file, those squawking twenty languages, were ready to throw in the towel and the deal went down, went down badly. William Z. thereafter went about his business without one Jim Gladstone.
But here is the funny part, although there was nothing funny about the circumstances. Jim had in the aftermath ofthe strike defeat done a certain amount of soul-searching since he, ah, had plenty oftime to walk Division Street and other haunts of the Windy City. He contacted a friend, a friend who had left from Chicago and gone to New York and had joined up with some radicals in Greenwich Village.
His friend and his radical friends were all huffed up about what had been going on in Russia since the war was over and the Bolsheviks were still fighting a civil war against the White Guards and needed help, and about the new organization that the Bolsheviks, the government in Russia was forming with kindred spirits throughout the world, a new international they called it (although truth to tell Jim didn’t know there was an old one needing replacement), the Communist International. And they were going to need trade union organizers to help organize the unions to fight for power everywhere. Jim perked up when he heard this news and got in direct contain with William Z. (or rather his assistant) to tell him of this new opportunity. William Z. nixed the idea, didn’t want to publicly get involved with reds and that was that. But Jim Gladstone still in need of a job, still in need of showing his love for his Anna by a little marriage and a white picket fence house got himself a train ticket for New York…
Communist International, First Congress (March 2-6, 1919)
Historical Background: The Russian Civil War weighed its heavy toll on the people and
government of Soviet Russia. The interventionist armies had nearly completely encircled the capital of Moscow, and St. Petersburg, once the capital of the nation, was cut off from the Soviet government and surrounded on all sides by hostile forces. The northern ports of Arkhangel'sk and Murmansk were occupied by the British fleet and the Northern Territories were occupied by British, French, and American soldiers. To the Southwest French armies were attempting to bolster the failing White Armies, while Denikin was increasing his strength in southern Russia with British aid. In the Far East, Japan was annexing more and more Russian territory, while U.S. soldiers secured the Trans-Siberian railroad, cutting off the Soviet government from contacting over half of Russia. Former czarist Admiral Kolchak had crossed over the Urals and was threatening the cities of Kazan, Kuybyshev, and Kirov.
Reasons for creation: Lenin believed that the only way the Socialist revolution could be successful was by socialist revolution occurring throughout the world; the economic and social demands of the socialist system could be maintained and progress only on a world scale. Lenin understood that it was of the utmost necessity for proletarians around the world to be liberated from capitalist oppression, lest future world wars send more to their deaths, and a growing capitalistic machine takes more and more of their humanity and freedom. Armed with these convictions, Lenin set out to establish the First Communist International.
Preparations: In early January of 1919 preparations began for the Communist International with a meeting of representatives from a number of Communist Parties and Left-wing Socialist groups from all around the world who discussed the founding of the Third International. They adopted a manifesto entitled "For the First Congress of the Communist International". The manifesto was published on behalf of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party, foreign bureaus of the Communist Workers' Party of Poland, Hungarian Communist Party, Communist Party of German Austria, the Russian bureau of the Central Committee of the Latvian Communist Party, Central Committee of the Finnish Communist Party, Executive Committee of the Balkan Revolutionary Social Democratic Federation and the Socialist Labor Party of America.
At the end of February delegates began arriving in Moscow in response to the called to establish the Third Communist International. On March 1, a preliminary meeting was held under Lenin's chairmanship to discuss the agenda of the Congress.
Details of the Congress: March 2, 1919, was the opening day of the International Communist Conference, attended by 52 delegates from nations all around the world – 34 delegates with a vote (one delegate per party or organization represented), accompanied by 18 redundant delegates (their party or organization already represented) with a voice but no vote. The following Communist and Socialist parties and organizations were represented by delegates:
The Communist Parties of: Russia, Germany, German Austria, Hungary, Poland, Finland, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Byelorussia, Estonia, Armenia, the Volga German region; Swedish Left Social-Democratic Party (the Opposition), Balkan Revolutionary People's of Russia; Zimmerwald Left Wing of France; the Czech, Bulgarian, Yugoslav, British, French and Swiss Communist Groups; the Dutch Social-Democratic Group; Socialist Propaganda League and the Socialist Labor Party of America; Socialist Workers' Party of China; Korean Workers' Union, Turkestan, Turkish, Georgian, Azerbaijanian and Persian Sections of the Central Bureau of the Eastern People's, and the Zimmerwald Commission.
Among the delegates were:
Lenin, Vorovsky, Chicherin, H. Eberlien (Albert), O.V. Kuusinen, F. Platten, B. Reinstein, S. Rutgers, I.S. Unshlikht (Yurovsky), Y. Sirola, N.A. Skrypnik, S.I. Gopner, K. Shteingard (I. Gruber), J. Fineberg, J. Sadoul and others.
Agenda:The first meeting of the Congress decided "to hold sessions as an International Communist Conference" and adopted the following work agenda:
1) constitution 2) reports 3) policy statement of the International Communist Conference 4) bourgeois democracy and dictatorship of the proletariat 5) the Berne Conference and attitude toward socialist trends 6) the international situation and the Entente's policy 7) Manifesto 8) White terror 9) elections to the bureau and other questions organization.
Proceedings & Resolutions:Each delegate gave a report on the revolutionary situation in their own countries, which was followed by discussing the platform of the Communist International. Lenin's thesis and report on bourgeois democracy and dictatorship of the proletariat attracted much attention. The thesis in Russian and German were circulated among the delegates before the speech. At the third session on March 4, Lenin read his thesis. The conference expressed its unanimous approval of Lenin's thesis and decided to submit them to the Bureau for wide circulation. It also adopted resolution moved by Lenin as a supplement to the thesis .
On March 4, after the adoption of the thesis and the resolution on Lenin's report, the question was raised again of founding the Communist International because so many new delegates had arrived. On the motion of the delegates of the Communist Party of German Austria, Left Social-Democratic Party of Sweden, Balkan Revolutionary Social Democratic Federation and Hungarian Communist Party, the Conference resolved "to constitute itself as the Third International and adopt the name of the Communist International". On the same day a unanimous resolution was passed to consider the Zimmerwald association dissolved. The Conference formulated the policy statement of the Communist International, which contained the following main propositions:
1) inevitability of the replacement of the capitalist system by the Communist social system 2) necessity of the proletarian revolutionary struggle for the overthrow of bourgeois governments 3) destruction of the bourgeois state and its replacement by a new type of state, a proletarian state of the Soviet type, which would insure the transition to Communist society.
The Congress also urged the workers of all countries to support Soviet Russia and demanded from the Entente non-interference in the internal affairs of the Soviet republic, withdrawal of interventionist troops from her territory, recognition of the Soviet state, lifting of the economic blockade and restoration of trade relations. The Congress closed with the decision to set up to the governing bodies which would operate the affairs of the Communist International, and between Congresses. An Executive Committee and Bureau were elected; the Executive Committee was elected by the entire Congress, while the bureau, consisting of five people, was elected by the Executive Committee.
After 23 years of annual Congresses, in 1943 the Communist International was dissolved by Stalin. Stalin dictated that it was not possible to coordinate communists internationally, and so the International Communist movement was destroyed. The activities and movements of Communists around the world was still closely watched and at times coordinated, but in an explicitly non proletarian-democratic form: behind the walls of the Kremlin. According to the definition of Communist set out by Marx and Engels, supported fully by Lenin (the founder of the Communist International), Stalin's dissolution of the International was one of the most clear and explicit violations of what a Communist is. See Final Declaration of the Comintern.
Tuesday, March 05, 2013
Poet’s Corner- Claude McKay-If We Must Die-In Honor Of The 94thAnniversary Of The Communist International- Take Four
…they had heard that a group of White Guards, a first detachment on horse, maybe from the dreaded mercenary Czech Legion that were running amok from Siberia to the Urals, paid for by who knows who, some said the English some said the French, or worst maybe the dreaded Cossacks, who needed no outside pay but only theirAtaman’s word to bend contemptible peasant heads to size, and who took no prisoners, none, were heading their way, heading right for their line of defense in the city ready to take back Kazan for the asking, so those Whites thought. Kazan fallen then the road to Moscow lay wide open and perhaps the end of the Soviet experiment in that dragged on second year of hellish civil war. But Commissar Vladimir ( assigned that title because he, a little more literate, a little cooler under pressure, than the vast bulk oflumpish peasants, mostly from Monsieur Orlov’s land around Omsk, who had signed up to fight and to die for the land, their land from what they had heard, was listened to by that mass unlike the city boy reds) and his band of comrade brothers, five in all, (and one sixteen year old sister, one stray Red Emma, they called her who learned of revolution and sex, young love smitten sex even in war-torn Kazanwith young Zanoff, in that exact order while in their company and proved as fierce a fighter both ways, according to that same Zanoff, as any man), the last remnant from the old Orlov estate who survived the bloody endless Czar war swore, swore a blood oath on their tattered red flag, the previous day that they would retreat no further, that here was their stand, their last stand if necessary, but no more moves away from Moscow.
[Red Emma, real name Nana Kamkov, deserves a better fate that to written off as some play thing for some loutish peasant boy, GrishaZanoff by full name, no matter how Red Army brave he was just that moment and no matter how peasant handsome he was, and he was, to Nana’s eyes. Nana had come off the land as a child, as fate would have it Orlov’s land, when after the last revolution, the one in 1905, the government encouraged capitalist exploitation of the land in order to break down the backward-looking peasant communes. Her parents had abandoned the land had travelled to live in Kazan and her father had set up shop as a locksmith, a good one. Nana had gone school and had been an outstanding student if somewhat socially backward (she had not been like the other girls boy-crazy) and desperately wanted to become an engineer although the family resources precluded such a fate.
One day in the summer of 1917 at the height of the revolutionary fervor she ran across a Bolshevik agitator in Kazan (later killed in Kiev fighting off some White Guards in that location) who told her, young impressionable her, aged fourteen, no more, that if the Soviets survived she would be able to pursue her engineering career, hell, the Bolsheviks would encourage it. From that time she had been a single-minded Red Guard soldier performing many dangerous tasks until the Whites threatened Kazan and she was trapped in the city and had joined Vladimir’s remnants as a result. And there she spied Grisha among his soldiers, loutish, foolish Grisha, although handsome she admitted. Perhaps it was the time of her time, perhaps she still had a little foolish schoolgirl notion to be with a man just in case things didn’t work out and she was killed, or worse, executed but one cold night she snuggled up to the sleeping Grisha and that was that. She was teaching him to read better and to think about things just in case they weren’t killed, or worse executed. Practical young woman, very practical. And so young Nana enters the red pantheon, and maybe she will drag Grisha along too.]
It had not always been that way with them, not even with Vladimir, not by a long shot. They had all farmed, like their fathers going back eons before them, the same fruitless task (for them) land for Orlov, the richest landowner in Omsk, and never lifted their heads when the Social Revolutionaries had come before the war and during that last revolution, the one back in 1905, with glad tidings (and before them other city radicals, narodniks or something like that, had spoken to their fathers and grandfathers). They just shoveled the dirt, kept shoveling, and kept their heads down.
[Vladimir, Vladimir Suslov (whose grandson, Misha, would become a high Soviet dignitary in the 1980s) also deserves some additional mention so one does not get the impression that they had dug deep into the bottom of the barrel and he was all they could come up with from the loutish lumpish peasant mass that decided, decided almost just yesterday, that they should first raise their heads and then actually go out and fight for their land, come hell or high water. No Vladimir, even as a child was a leader of the boys, the peasant boys who spent more time avoiding work and hiding in the woods than bending to the plow. And contrary to his stolid appearance (added to, and aided by, those miserable years in the trenches) which endeared him to his fellows, made him appear older than his thirty years, he was a good reader, and could write some, including fancying himself a minor peasant poet. Like he told the political commissar of his unit one night when things had dusted up it paid to NOT appear too much brighter than the fellows or else you would be treated like poor Red Emma, Nana, who actually had the heart, the heart of a red warrior princess. And so Vladimir led, led by just being a little ahead, being a little bit better able to read maps, and people and get his fellows out of more than a few scrapes. Of such men revolutions flourish, for a time. Then the grandsons, the Mishas, come along and think they have done it all themselves. ]
Then the war came, the bloody world war as it turned out, and the Czar’s police (Orlov’s really but in the name of the Czar so the same thing) came and “drafted” them into some vast ill-fed, ill-clad, ill-armed peasant force which proved no match for the methodical Germans as they were slaughtered by the millions in and around those foul trenches. And still they kept their heads bent, Vladimir and his four Orlov surviving farm brothers the only healthy alive ones left from the twenty-two that had started out from Omsk in the summer of 1915. Kept them bent until the February revolution stirred things up although they held to the front line trenches even then since no one told them not to leave and in the fall of 1917 they had just followed their fellows out of the trenches and went home. Not the first ones out, nor the last but just out. Went home to farm Orlov’s land again they figured with bent heads again. Even when the Bolsheviks took power in November and decreed the land of Orlov’s theirs they kept their heads bent. It was not until Orlov, his agents, and his White Guard friends came back and took the land, their now precious land, theirs, that they roared back. And they had joined one of Trotsky’s red brigades passing through on a recruiting drive. They had moved here and there as the lines of battle shifted but mainly back, mainly retreats or break-ups since then and hence the blood oath, and no more retreats. The peasant slows in them had been busted, busted good.
Just then a messenger came to their line, a messenger from the river in front of Kazan, from the wind- swept Volga. The message said that Trotsky himself , Trotsky of the phantom armored train rushing to this and that front, seemingly everywhere at the same time, that put fear in the hearts of whites and reds alike, had decided to fight and die before Kazan if necessary to save the revolution, to save their precious land. Vladimir and his comrades, including Red Emma, Red Emma who if the truth be told despite her tender years of sweet sixteen was the best soldier of the lot, and should have been the commissar except those lumpish peasants would not have listened to her, reaffirmed their blood oath. They were not sure of Lenin, thinking him a little too smart, and maybe he had something up his sleeve, maybe he was just another Jew, he looked the part with that bald head of his, but stout-hearted Trotsky, if he was willing to die then what else could they do. If they must die they would die in defense of Kazan, and maybe just maybe somebody would hear of their story, the story of five peasant boys and a pretty red-hearted city girl as brave as they, and lift their heads and roar back too….
If We Must Die
If we must die, let it not be like hogs Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs, Making their mock at our accursèd lot. If we must die, O let us nobly die, So that our precious blood may not be shed In vain; then even the monsters we defy Shall be constrained to honor us though dead! O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe! Though far outnumbered let us show us brave, And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow! What though before us lies the open grave? Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack, Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!
Let’s Redouble Our Efforts To Free Private Bradley Manning-President Obama Pardon Bradley Manning -Make Every Town Square In America (And The World) A Bradley Manning Square From Boston To Berkeley to Berlin-Join Us In Central Square, Cambridge, Ma. For A Stand-Out For Bradley- Wednesdays From 5:00-6:00 PM
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Beginning in September 2011, in order to publicize Private Manning’s case locally, there have been weekly stand-outs (as well as other more ad hocand sporadic events) in various locations in the Greater Boston area starting in Somerville across from the Davis Square Redline MBTA stop on Friday afternoons and later on Wednesdays. Lately this stand-out has been held each week on Wednesdays from 5:00 to 6:00 PM at Central Square, Cambridge, Ma. (small park at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Prospect Street just outside the Redline MBTA stop, renamed Manning Square for the duration of the stand-out) in order to continue to broaden our outreach. Join us there in calling for Private Manning’s freedom. President Obama Pardon Private Manning Now!
********
The Private Bradley Manning case is headed toward an early summer trial now scheduled for June 2013. The news on his case over the past several months (since about April 2012) has centered on the many pre-trial motion hearings including recent defense motions to dismiss for lack of speedy trial. Private Manning’s pre-trial confinement is now at over 1000 days and will be over well over 1000 days by the time of trial. That dismissal motion has now been ruled on by Military Judge Lind. On February 26, 2013 she denied the defense’s motion for dismissal, the last serious chance for Bradley Manning to go free before the scheduled June trial. She ruled furthermore that the various delays by the government were inherent in the nature of this case and that the military authorities, except in one short instance, had been diligent in their efforts to move the proceedings along. For those of us with military experience this is a classic, if perverse, case of that old army slogan-“Hurry up, and wait.” This is definitely tough news for Private Manning although perhaps a good appeal point in some future civilian court review.
The defense had contended that the charges should be dismissed because the military by its own statutes (to speak nothing of that funny old constitutional right to a speedy trial guarantee that our plebeian forbears fought tooth and nail for against the bloody British and later made damn sure was included in the Amendments when the founding fathers“forgot” to include it in the main document) should have arraigned Private Manning within 120 days after his arrest. They hemmed and hawed for almost 600 days before deciding on the charges and a court martial. Nobody in the convening authority, as required by those same statutes, pushed the prosecution forward in a timely manner. In fact the court-martial convening authority, in the person of one Colonel Coffman, seemed to have seen his role as mere “yes man” to each of the government’s eight requests for delays without explanation (and without informing the defense in order to take their objection). Apparently the Colonel saw his role as a mere clearing agent for whatever excuse the government gave, mainly endless addition time for clearing various classified documents a process that need not have held up the proceedings. The defense made timely objection to each governmental request to no avail.
Testimony from military authorities at pre-trial hearings in November 2012 about the reasons for the lack of action ranged from the lame to the absurd (mainly negative responses to knowledge about why some additional delays were necessary. One “reason” sticks out as a reason for excusable delay -some officer needed to get his son to a swimming meet and was thus “unavailable” for a couple of days. I didn’t make this up. I don’t have that sense of the absurd. Jesus, a man was rotting in Obama’s jails and they let him rot because of some damn swim meet). The prosecution, obviously, argued that the government has moved might and main to move the case along and had merely waited until all leaked materials had been determined before proceeding. The judge saw it the government’s way and ruled according as noted above.
*******
Those who have followed the Manning case over the past year or so, maybe since about April 2012 when the pre-trial hearing began in earnest know that last November the defendant offered to plead guilty to a few lesser included charges in his indictment, basically taking legal and political responsibility for the leaks to WikiLeaksthat had been the subject of some of the government’s allegations against him. Without getting into the arcane legal maneuvering on this issue the idea was to cut across the government’s pretty solid case against him being the leaker of information and to have the now scheduled for June trial be focused on the substantial question of whether his actions constituted “material aid to terrorism” which could subject Private Manning to life in prison. On February 28, 2013 in open court as part of the continuing pre-trial hearings down at Fort Meade in Maryland Private Manning pled guilty to those lesser charges (unauthorized use of Internet,disclosing classified information, etc.) before Judge Lind and has left himself open for up to twenty years of imprisonment. Right now the June trial issue will be on the major charges only. We need to stay with Bradley on this and make sure people know that what he admitted to was that he disclosed that information about American military atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan and other diplomatic high crime and misdemeanors. He is in trouble, big trouble, and needs our support more than ever.
********
The defense has also recently pursued a motion for a dismissal of the major charges (espionage/ indirect material aid to terrorists) on the basis of the minimal effect of any leaks on national security issues as against Private Manning’s claim that such knowledge was important to the public square (freedom of information issues important for us as well in order to know about what the hell the government is doing either in front of us, or behind our backs). Last summer witnesses from an alphabet soup list of government agencies (CIA, FBI, NSA, Military Intelligence, etc., etc.) testified that while the information leaked shouldn’t have been leaked that the effect on national security was de minimus. The Secretary of Defense at the time, Leon Panetta, also made a public statement to that effect. The prosecution argued, successfully at the time, that the mere fact of the leak of classified information caused irreparable harm to national security issues and Private Manning’s intent, even if noble, was not at issue.
The recent thrust of the motion to dismiss has centered on the defense’s contention that Private Manning consciously and carefully screened any material in his possession to avoid any conflict with national security and that most of the released material had been over-classified (received higher security level than necessary).Much of the materials leaked, as per those parts published widely in the aftermath of the disclosures by the New York Times and other major outlets, concerned reports of atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan and diplomatic interchanges that reflected poorly on that profession. The Obama government has argued again that the mere fact of leaking was all that mattered. That motion has also not been fully ruled on and is now the subject of prosecution counter- motions and a cause for further trial delay.
********
A defense motion for dismissal based on serious allegations of torturous behavior by the military authorities extending far up the chain of command (a three-star Army general, not the normal concern of someone so far up the chain in the matter of discipline for enlisted personal) while Private Manning was first detained in Kuwait and later at the Quantico Marine brig for about a year ending in April 2011 has now been ruled on. In late November and early December Private Manning himself, as well as others including senior military mental health workers, took the stand to detail those abuses over several days. Most important to the defense was the testimony by qualified military mental health professionals citing the constant willful failure of those who held Private Manning in close confinement to listen to, or act, on their recommendations during those periods
Judge Lind, the military judge who has heard all the pre-trial arguments in the case thus far, has essentially ruled unfavorably on that motion to dismiss given the potential life sentence Private Manning faces. As she announced at an early January pre-trial hearing the military acted illegally in some of its actions. While every Bradley Manning supporter should be heartened by the fact that the military judge ruled that he was subject to illegal behavior by the military during his pre-trial confinement her remedy, a 112 days reduction in any future sentence, is a mere slap on the wrist to the military authorities. No dismissal or, alternatively, no appropriate reduction (the asked for ten to one ratio for all his first year or so of illegal close confinement which would take years off any potential sentence) given the seriousness of the illegal behavior as the defense tirelessly argued for. And the result is a heavy-handed deterrent to any future military whistleblowers, who already are under enormous pressures to remain silent as a matter of course while in uniform, and others who seek to put the hard facts of future American military atrocities before the public.
Some other important recent news, this from the November 2012 pre-trail sessions, is the offer by the defense to plead guilty to lesser charges (wrongful, unauthorized use of the Internet, etc.) in order to clear the deck and have the major espionage /aiding the enemy issue (with a possibility of a life sentence) solely before the court-martial judge, Judge Lind (the one who has been hearing the pre-trial motions, not some senior officer, senior NCO lifer-stacked panel. A wise move, a very wise move.). Also there has been increased media attention by mainstream outlets around the case (including the previously knowingly oblivious New York Times), as well as an important statement by three Nobel Peace Laureates (including Bishop Tutu from South Africa) calling on their fellow laureate, United States President Barack Obama, to free Private Manning from his jails.
************
On February 23, 2013, the 1000th day of Private Bradley Manning’s pre-trial confinement, an international day of solidarity was observed with over seventy stand-outs and other demonstration held in America and internationally. Bradley Manning and his courageous stand have not been forgotten. Go to the Bradley Manning Support Network for more details about the events of that day. Another international day of solidarity is scheduled for June 1, 2013 at Fort Meade, Maryland and elsewhere just before the scheduled start of his trial on June 3rd. Check the support network for updates on that event as well.
*Contribute to the Bradley Manning Defense Fund- as the trial date approaches funds are urgently needed! The government has unlimited financial and personnel resources to prosecute Bradley. And the Obama government is fully using them. We have a fine defense civilian lawyer, David Coombs, many supporters throughout America and the world working hard for Bradley’s freedom, and the truth on our side. Still the hard reality of the American legal system, civilian or military, is that an adequate defense cost serious money. So help out with whatever you can spare. For link go to http://www.bradleymanning.org/ for
*Sign the online petition at the Bradley Manning Support Network (for link go to http://www.bradleymanning.org/ )to the Secretary of the Army to free Bradley Manning-1000 plus days is enough! The Secretary of the Army stands in the direct chain of command up to the President and can release Private Manning from pre-trial confinement and drop the charges against him at his discretion. For basically any reason that he wishes to-let us say 1000 days is enough. Join the over 25,000 supporters in the United States and throughout the world clamoring for Bradley’s well-deserved freedom.
*Call (Comments”202-456-1111, write9 The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20500, e-mail-(http://www.whitehouse.gov’contact/submitquestions-and comments) the White House to demand President Obama pardon Bradley Manning- The presidential powers to pardon is granted under Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution:
“The President…shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in case of impeachment.”
In federal cases, and military cases are federal cases, the President of the United States can, under authority granted by the U.S. Constitution as stated above, pardon the guilty and the innocent, the convicted and those awaiting trial- former President Nixon and former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, for example among others, received such pardons of their heinous crimes- Now that Bradley Manning has pleaded guilty to some lesser charges and is subject to further prison time (up to 20 years) this pardon campaign is more necessary than ever. Free Bradley Manning! Free the whistleblower!
Out In The Film Night –Kevin Spacey’sTheShipping News
DVD Review
The Shipping News, Kevin Spacey, Julianne Moore
At various times I have been interested to exotic things like Pacific Island cargo cults and the visionary aspects of Native American religious culture around the peyote ceremony and other things in that vein. Practices and rituals done by peoples in isolation from more cluttered and populated areas like say New York City, or even, ah, Buffal. So watching Kevin Spacey going through his paces as a misfit (the classic misfit just the way he drinks in odd-ball acting part if nothing else) going “home” to Newfoundland of all places where a rather quirky set of outlanders await him was intriguing. Along the way he finds a job, a place to be himself (not that boxy job he was running away from, and, of course some love, with earth mother Julianne Moore (hey, this is a feel goodmovie after all), all things found that make him in the end a normal Newfoundlander (is that the right way to call the inhabitants ?). Like I said a feel good film with lots of nice shot of that forebodingly beautiful land (except I don’t, don’t’ okay, want to live there because getting out appears to be extremely hard). Enough said.
From The American Left History Blog Archives (2006)
- On American Political Discourse
Markin comment:
In the period 2006-2008 I, in
vain, attempted to put some energy into analyzing the blossoming American
presidential campaign since it was to be, as advertised at least, a watershed
election, for women, blacks, old white anglos, latinos, youth, etc. In the
event I had to abandon the efforts in about May of 2008 when it became obvious,
in my face obvious, that the election would be a watershed only for those who
really believed that it would be a watershed election. The four years of the
Obama presidency, the 2012 American presidential election campaign, and world
politics have only confirmed in my eyes that that abandonment was essentially
the right decision at the right time. In short, let the well- paid bourgeois
commentators go on and on with their twitter. I, we, had (have) better things
to do like fighting against the permanent wars, the permanent war economies,
the struggle for more and better jobs, and for a workers party that fights for
a workers government . More than enough to do, right? Still a look back at some
of the stuff I wrote then does not a bad feel to it. Read on.
************
THE (IL) LOGIC OF THE NATION-STATE
COMMENTARY
‘GLOBALIZATION’ THEORY TAKES A BEATING
FORGET DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS AND GREENS- BUILD A WORKERS
PARTY!
The recent events in the
Middle East and elsewhere have highlighted the irrational nature of trying to
confine economic, social and political developments to the nation-state system
in the age of modern capitalist imperialism. Every conflict from the sectarian
civil war in Iraq to the Israeli- Lebanese border war to the
Israeli-Palestinian struggle cries out for a socialist solution. That is a
fight to the finish not between ethnically divided populations but a working
class-based solution. Today’s political configurations, including the prevalent
of religious fundamentalism on all sides in every struggle, make that
proposition seem utopian at best and irrelevant at worst. This writer will
concede that it is entirely possible that just solutions to these conflicts may
proved ultimately intractable nevertheless it is equally obvious that the
capitalist nation-state system provides no way out of this dilemma. Sometimes
one must fight for what is necessary as well as what is right.
Ironically, Marxists have
historically had mixed feelings about the role of the nation-state in
history.In the age of the rise of
capitalist development from about the 16th to the 19th
century at a time when the capitalist system as a whole was a truly progressive
historical development Marxists welcomed the formation of nation-states against
the particularist, provincial nature of the feudal system. Since World War I,
however, that is since the rise of the full blown imperialist age, Marxist have
generally opposed the reactionary nature of the nation-state in the
metropolitan areas.Nevertheless, even
today Marxists extend support to national liberation struggles and defend the
right to national self-determination for oppressed and neo-colonial peoples.
The right to national self-determination has been an integral of the
revolutionary program since the early days of the Communist International. The
support for struggle of the Palestinian peoples for their own, even if
truncated, state falls under that premise. Why? To take the national question
off the agenda and place the class question to the fore.
While this little note makes
no pretense to do anything but pose the question, to be dealt with more fully
in future blogs, of the strategies necessary to replace the nation-state with
other forms of political organization it does take issue with the notion,
currently fashionable, that the process of ‘globalization’ will solve the
problems of the nation-state by making borders irrelevant. This writer for one
would be more than happy if that were to be the case. However, who is the
utopian here? If anything the process of globalization-let us call it by its
right name, the international capitalist system- has intensified the tensions
in the nation-state system. This ‘globalization’, by the way, did not start
recently. The whole development of the capitalist system from its progressive
beginnings to its imperialist decay has been the struggle to internationalize
the marketplace. In short, the capitalists have had their chance - it is time
to move on over and let others solve the question of international economic,
social and political development. More, much more, later.
From The American Left History Blog Archives (2006)
- On American Political Discourse
Markin comment:
In the period 2006-2008 I, in
vain, attempted to put some energy into analyzing the blossoming American
presidential campaign since it was to be, as advertised at least, a watershed
election, for women, blacks, old white anglos, latinos, youth, etc. In the
event I had to abandon the efforts in about May of 2008 when it became obvious,
in my face obvious, that the election would be a watershed only for those who
really believed that it would be a watershed election. The four years of the
Obama presidency, the 2012 American presidential election campaign, and world
politics have only confirmed in my eyes that that abandonment was essentially
the right decision at the right time. In short, let the well- paid bourgeois
commentators go on and on with their twitter. I, we, had (have) better things
to do like fighting against the permanent wars, the permanent war economies,
the struggle for more and better jobs, and for a workers party that fights for
a workers government . More than enough to do, right? Still a look back at some
of the stuff I wrote then does not a bad feel to it. Read on.
************ INHERIT THE WIND?
COMMENTARY
OF INHERITANCES AND MINIMUM WAGES
FORGET DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS AND GREENS- BUILD A WORKERS
PARTY!
In the press of other
commentaries this writer has had to delay commenting on proposed legislation
this summer by Congress concerning the obviously connected issues of the
abolition (or severe reduction) of the federal inheritance tax and the marginal
increment of the federal minimum wage standard (see blog, dated July 5, 2006
concerning the minimum wage proposal). Obvious, you ask? Yes, those few
thousand heirs who are trying to stampede Congress to protect their billions
(and have spent many millions to get their way) and those millions fighting to
make minimum wages (even at a lousy $7/hr) and thus avoid leaving their heirs
to inherit the wind is compelling. Agreed?
At least that connection is
compelling interest group politics in the demented minds of the Republican
congressional leadership which parleyed these two items together in an effort
to embarrass (if that is possible) the Democrats. How? By forcing an up or down
vote on the counterposed issues and thus forcing the Democrats to vote against
the federal minimum wage proposal. The Democrats initially, with a view to the
fall congressional elections, supported an increase in the minimum wage in
order to grandstand to a part of their constituency.As if any self-respecting person could, with
a straight face, support much less propose a $7 minimum wage in this day in age
(see below).Democratic politicians not
having to personally live on the minimum wage apparently have weird senses of
humor. The Republicans, responding to their very different base, faced no such
embarrassment. Their proposal to severely cap, if not eliminate, the
inheritance tax for millionaires and billionaires set just the right tone. And
avoided an increase in the minimum wage, which they did not want, to boot. My
hat is off to the Republican leadership for joining the two issues together.
Just when this writer thought that parliamentary cretinism had reached a bottom
line beyond which no rational politics could go he finds out that there is an
abyss instead.Well you live and learn.
In an earlier blog, cited in
the first paragraph, I counterposed to the minimum wage the fight for a living
wage. I stand by that idea here. What one may ask is a living wage? Well, for
openers the current median household income.That is somewhere near $50,000/yr. Do the math on the proposed federal
minimum wage of $7/hr. Anyway one cuts it the total is about $15,000/yr. That,
these days, just barely covers a family’s energy, housing and food costs. Get
real. It is embarrassing to this writer to have to discuss the concerns of a
small part of society which is worried (and seriously worried) about
inheritance taxes when several million people have to get by on that $15,000/yr.
Hell, I couldn’t. Can anyone else? Something is desperately wrong with this
society’s priorities.
Do not get me wrong about the
inheritance tax issue. In the final analysis a workers government will not
simply confine itself to taxing the rich but will confiscate their inheritances
as part of the social redistribution process.And not shed a single tear about it. The rich can work just like the
rest of us, at first for their daily needs and by those deeds the good of
society. However, that is music for the future. The point now is that the
current tax does not hurt the people we care about-working people.The point at which the tax sets in is far,
far above anything a worker’s estate would trigger.In short, the fight over this tax, one way or
the other, is not central to our fight for a more just society.Beyond that, various schemes to tax the rich
which periodically spring up on the part of leftists as a means of the
redistribution of the social surplus are generally put forth in order to deflect
the need for class struggle.Needless to
say to really put a crimp in the lifestyles of the “rich and famous” working
people need to take state power. We need that solution in order to do more than
inherit the wind. Forward.
Sunday, March 17, 2013, 2:00 pm
Rides along the parade route are available
for those who need them, but please let us know ahead of time that you may need
a ride.
On behalf of the Saint Patrick’s Peace Parade Organizing
Committee.
