This space is dedicated to the proposition that we need to know the history of the struggles on the left and of earlier progressive movements here and world-wide. If we can learn from the mistakes made in the past (as well as what went right) we can move forward in the future to create a more just and equitable society. We will be reviewing books, CDs, and movies we believe everyone needs to read, hear and look at as well as making commentary from time to time. Greg Green, site manager
Monday, April 29, 2013
Boston's International Workers Day 2013
BMDC International Workers Day Rally Wednesday, May 1, 2013 at Boston City Hall Gather at 2PM - Rally at 2:30PM (Court St. & Cambridge St.) T stops Government Center (Blue line, Green line)
Revere - @ City Hall - gather at 3:pmbegin marching at 3:30 (to Chelsea) Everett - @ City Hall - gather at 3:pm begin marching at 3:30 (to Chelsea) Chelsea - @ City Hall - rally a 3:pm (wait for above feeder marches to arrive) will begin marching at 4:30 (to East Boston) East Boston - @ Central Square - (welcome marchers) Rally at 5:pm
BMDC will join the rally in East Boston immediately following Boston City Hall rally
Supporters: ANSWER Coalition, Boston Anti Authoritarian Movement, Boston Rosa Parks Human Rights Day Committee, Greater Boston Stop the Wars Coalition, Harvard No-Layoffs Campaign, Industrial Workers of the World, Latinos for Social Change, Mass Global Action, Sacco & Vanzetti Commemoration Society, Socialist Alternative, Socialist Party of Boston, Socialist Workers Party, Student Labor Action Movement, USW Local 8751 - Boston School Bus Drivers Union, Worcester Immigrant Coalition, National Immigrant Solidarity Network, Democracy Center - Cambridge, Cambridge, Cambridge/Somerville/Arlington United for Justice with Peace, International Socialist Organization, Community Church of Boston
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 ******** Plan to come to Fort Meade outside of Washington, D.C. on June 1st for an international day of solidarity with Bradley before his scheduled June 3rd trial.If you can’t make it to Fort Meade plan a solidarity event locally in support of this brave whistle-blower.
********** Stop The Media Blackout of The Bradley Manning Trial
Despite the unprecedented and historic nature of Army whistleblower Bradley Manning’s trial, journalists have thus far been banned from recording the proceedings. Because Americans more commonly get their news through television than from any other media source, this presents a major barrier to the American public staying informed on a trial that will profoundly affect the future of our country.
It’s outrageous that the American public is being denied the right to view the trial of U.S. vs. Bradley Manning. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel was appointed by President Obama to ensure civilian oversight of the U.S. military.
Go To the Bradley Manning Support Network http://www.bradleymanning.org/ and sign the petition to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hageldemanding that he ensure journalists can record Bradley Manning’s court martial proceedings! When you sign the petition the network e-mail system will send a message on your behalf to the office of Secretary of Defense.
******** 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 hoc and 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! ******** Those who have followed the heroic Wikileaks whistle-blower Private Bradley Manning’s case over the past year or so, since about April 2012 when the pre-trial hearings 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 WikiLeaks that 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 substantive question of whether his actions constituted “material aid to terrorism” and “aiding the enemy” which could subject Private Manning to life in prison. We noted then that we needed to stay with Bradley on this and make sure people know that what he admitted to was that he disclosed information about American military atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan and other diplomatic high crimes and misdemeanors and only that. We also noted that he was, and is, frankly, in trouble, big trouble, and needs our support more than ever. Especially in light of the following:
After enduring nearly three years of detention, at times under torturous conditions, on February 28, 2013 Bradley Manning confessed that he had provided WikiLeakswith a trove of military and diplomatic documents that exposed U.S. imperialist schemes and wartime atrocities. Private Manning’s guilty plea on ten of 22 counts against him could land him in prison for 20 years. A day after Bradley confessed, military prosecutors announced plans to try him on the remaining counts, including “aiding the enemy” and violating the Espionage Act. Trial is expected to begin in early June, now scheduled for June 3rd.
In exposing the secrecy and lies with which the American government cover their depredations, Bradley Manning performed a great service to workers and oppressed around the world. All who oppose the imperialist barbarity and machinations revealed in the material he provided must join in demanding his immediate freedom. Also crucially important is the defense of Julian Assange against the vendetta by the U.S., Britain and their cohorts, who are attempting to railroad him to prison by one means or another for his role in running WikiLeaks.
In a 35-page statement he read to the military court after entering his plea (written summary available at the Bradley Manning Support Network and an audio transcript as well), Manning told of his journey from nearly being rejected in basic training to becoming an army intelligence analyst. In that capacity he came across mountains of evidence of U.S. duplicity and war crimes. The materials he provided to WikiLeaks included military logs documenting 120,000 civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan and a formal military policy of covering up torture, rape and murder. A quarter-million diplomatic cables address all manner of lethal operations within U.S. client states, from the “drug war” in Mexico to drone strikes in Yemen. He also released files containing assessments of detainees held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. These documents show that the government continued to hold many who, Manning stated, were believed or known to be innocent, as well as “low level foot soldiers that did not have useful intelligence.”
The Pentagon and the Obama Administration declared war against WikiLeaks following the release of a video, now entitled Collateral Murder and widely available, conveyed by Manning, of a 2007 U.S. Apache helicopter airstrike in Iraq that killed at least 12 people, including two Reuters journalists. American forces are then shown firing on a van that pulled up to help the victims. Manning said he was most alarmed by the“bloodlust they appeared to have.” He described how instead of calling for medical attention for a seriously wounded individual trying to crawl to safety, an aerial crew team member “asks for the wounded person to pick up a weapon so that he can have a reason to engage.”
By January 2010, Manning said, he“began to become depressed with the situation that we found ourselves increasingly mired in year after year” and decided to make public many of the documents he had backed up as part of his work as an analyst. Manning first offered the materials to the Washington Post and the New York Times. Not getting anywhere with these pillars of the press establishment, the latter apparently not considering war crimes of its government, as opposed to all manner of foreign state activities, news fit to print in February 2010 he made his first submission to WikiLeaks. He attached a note advising that “this is possibly one of the more significant documents of our time removing the fog of war and revealing the true nature of twenty-first century asymmetric warfare. Have a good day.”
The charge of “aiding the enemy”—i.e., Al Qaeda—is especially ominous. This used to mean things like military sabotage and handing over information on troop movements to a battlefield enemy. In Manning’s case, the prosecution claims that the very act of publicizing U.S. military and diplomatic activities, some of which took place years before, amounted to “indirect” communication with Al Qaeda. Manning told the court that he believed that public access to the information “could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general.” He hoped that this “might cause society to reevaluate the need or even the desire to engage in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations that ignore the complex dynamics of the people living in the affected environment every day.” But by the lights of the imperialists’ war on terror, any exposure of their depredations can be construed as support to the “terrorist”enemy, whoever that might be.
The Pentagon intends to call no fewer than 141 witnesses in its show trial, including four people to testify anonymously. One of them, designated as “John Doe,” is believed to be a Navy SEAL who participated in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. “Doe” is alleged to have grabbed three disks from bin Laden’s Abbottabad, Pakistan, compound on which was stored four files’ worth of the WikiLeaks material provided by Manning.
Nor do charges under the Espionage Act have to have anything to do with actual spying. The law was one of an array of measures adopted to criminalize antiwar activity after U.S. imperialism’s entry into the First World War. It mandated imprisonment for any act deemed to interfere with the recruitment of troops. Among its first and most prominent victims was Socialist Party spokesman Eugene V. Debs, who was jailed for a June 1918 speech at a workers’ rally in Canton, Ohio, where he denounced the war as capitalist slaughter and paid tribute to the leaders of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. Dozens of Industrial Workers of the World organizers were also thrown into prison.
In the early 1970s, the Nixon government tried, unsuccessfully, to use this law to go after Daniel Ellsberg, whose release of the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times shed light on the history of U.S. imperialism’s losing war against the Vietnamese workers and peasants. Obama has happily picked up Nixon’s mantle. Manning’s prosecution will be the sixth time the Obama administration has used the Espionage Act against the source of an unauthorized leak of classified information—more than the combined total under all prior administrations since the law’s enactment in 1917. ******* The Private Bradley Manning case is headed toward an early summer trial. The news on his case over the past several months has centered on the many pre-trial motion hearings including defense motions to dismiss for lack of speedy trial. Private Manning’s pre-trial confinement is now well over 1000 days. That dismissal motion was 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. 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. ******* The defense had also 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 (2012) 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 has been 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. ******* An important statement in November 2012 was issued 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. (Available on the Support Bradley Manning Network website.) ************ 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. ********
6 Ways To Support Heroic Wikileaks Whistle-blower Private Bradley Manning
*Urgent: The government has announced, in the wake of Bradley Manning’s admission of his part in the Wikileaks expose in open court on February 28th, its intention to continue to prosecute him for the major charges of “aiding the enemy” (Espionage Act) and “material aid to terrorism.” Everyone should contact the presiding officer of the court –martial process, General Linnington, at 1-202-685-2807 and tell him to drop those charges. Once Maj. Gen. Linnington’s voicemail box is full – you can also leave a message at the DOD: (703) 571-3343 – press “5″ to leave a comment.*If this mailbox is also full, leave the Department of Defense a written message.Do it today.
*Urgent: The military authorities at Fort Meade, the site of Bradley Manning’s impending June 3rd court-martial are attempting to limit media coverage of the trial.Go to the Bradley Manning Support Network http://www.bradleymanning.org/and sign the petition to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hageldemanding that he ensure journalists can record Bradley Manning’s court martial proceedings! When you sign the petition the network e-mail system will send a message on your behalf to the office of Secretary of Defense.
*Come to our stand-out in support of Private Bradley Manning in Central Square, Cambridge, Ma (corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Prospect Street near MBTA Redline station) every Wednesday between 5-6 PM. For other locations in Greater Boston, nationally, and internationally check the Bradley Manning Support Network -http://www.bradleymanning.org/ and for details of the current status of the case and future event updates as well. Also plan to come to Fort Meade outside of Washington, D.C. on June 1st for an international day of solidarity with Bradley before his scheduled June 3rd trial.If you can’t make it to Fort Meade plan a solidarity event locally in support of this brave whistle-blower.
*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/
*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 plus 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), write 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 power 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 for 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!
Sunday, April 28, 2013
***Out In The Corner Boy Night- Rock 'Em Daddy, Be My Be-Bop Daddy-But Watch Out-Belatedly For Elvis Presley
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
This is the way Betsy McGee, an old time, very old time Clintondale Elementary School flame (locally known as the Acre school, and everybody knew what you were talking about, everybody around Clintondale anyway), and now (1961, in case anybody reads this later) a fellow sophomore classmate at North Clintondale High, wanted the story told, the story of her ill-fated brother, twenty-two year old John “Black Jack” McGee so this is the way it will be told. Why she wanted me to tell the story is beyond me, except that she knows, knows even in her sorrows, that I hang around with corner boys, Harry’s Variety Store corner boys, although I am more like a“pet,” or a “gofer,” than a real corner boy. But that story has already been told, told seven ways to Sunday, so let’s get to Black Jack’s story.
John “Black Jack” McGee like a million guys who came out of the post-World War II Cold war night and came out of the no prospect projects, in his case the Clintondale Housing Project (the Acre, okay, and hell’s little acre at that to save a lot of fancy sociological talk stuff), looking for kicks. Kicks anyway he could get them to take the pain away, the pain of edge city living if he was asked, by the way, politely asked or you might get your head handed to you on a platter asked. Needless to say Black Jack was rough stuff, rough stuff even when he was nothing but another Acre teenage kid, with a chip, no, about seven chips, on his wide shoulders. Needless to say, as well, there was nothing that school could teach him and he dropped out the very day that he turned sixteen. As a sign of respect for what little North Clintondale High taught him threw a rock through the headmaster’s window and then just stood there. The headmaster did not made peep one about it (he was probably hiding under his desk, he is that kind of guy) and Black Jack just walked away laughing. Yes, Black Jack was rough stuff, rough stuff all the way around. That story made him a legend all the way down to the Acre school, and so much so that every boy, every red-blooded boy, in her class made his pitch to get along with Betsy.
The problem with legends though is unless you keep pace other legends crowd you out, or somebody does some crazy prank and your legend gets lost in the shuffle. That’s the way the rules are, make of them what you will. And Black Jack, wide shouldered, tall, pretty muscular, long brown hair, and a couple of upper shoulder tattoos with two different girls’ names on them was very meticulous about his legend. So every once in a while you would hear a rumor about how Black Jack had “hit” this liquor store or that mom and pop variety store, small stuff when you think about it but enough to stir any red-blooded Acre elementary schoolboy’s already hungry imagination.
And then all of sudden, just after a nighttime armed gas station robbery that was never solved, Black Jack stepped up in society, well, corner boy society anyway. This part everyone who hung around Harry’s Variety knew about, or knew parts of the story. Black Jack had picked up a bike (motorcycle, for the squares), and not some suburban special Harley-Davidson chrome glitter thing either but a real bike, an Indian. The only better bike, the Vincent Black Lightning, nobody had ever seen around, only in motorcycle magazines. And as a result of having possession of the“boss” bike (or maybe reflecting who they thought committed that armed robbery) he was “asked” (if that is the proper word, rather than commissioned, elected, or ordained) to join the Acre Low-Riders.
And the Acre Low-Riders didn’t care if you were young or old, innocent or guilty, smart or dumb, or had about a million other qualities, good or bad, just stay out of their way when they came busting through town on their way to some hell-raising. The cops, the cops who loved to tell kids, young kids, to move along when it started to get dark or got surly when some old lady jaywalked caught the headmaster’s 'no peep' when the Low Riders showed their colors. Even “Red” Doyle who was the max daddy king corner boy at Harry’s Variety made a very big point that his boys, and he himself, wanted no part of the Low-Riders, good or bad. And Red was a guy who though nothing, nothing at all, of chain-whipping a guy mercilessly half to death just because he was from another corner. Yes, Black Jack had certainly stepped it up.
Here’s where the legend, or believing in the legend, or better working on the legend full-time part comes in. You can only notch up so many robberies, armed or otherwise, assaults, and other forms of hell-raising before your act turns stale, nobody, nobody except hungry imagination twelve-year old schoolboys, is paying attention. The magic is gone. And that is what happened with Black Jack. Of course, the Low-Riders were not the only outlaw motorcycle “club” around. And when there is more than one of anything, or maybe on some things just one, there is bound to be a "rumble" (a fight, for the squares) about it. Especially among guys, guys too smart for school, guys who have either graduated from, or are working on, their degrees from the school of hard knocks, the state pen. But enough of that blather because the real story was that the Groversville High-Riders were looking for one Black Jack McGee. And, of course, the Acre Low-Riders had Black Jack’s back.
Apparently, and Betsy was a little confused about this part because she did not know the “etiquette” of biker-dom, brother John had stepped into High-Rider territory, a definite no-no in the biker etiquette department without some kind of truce, or peace offering, or whatever. But see Black Jack was “trespassing” for a reason. He had seen this doll, this fox of a doll, this Lola heart-breaker, all blonde hair, soft curves, turned-up nose, and tight, short-sleeved cashmere sweater down at the Adamsville Beach one afternoon a while back and he made his bid for her. Now Black Jack was pretty good looking, okay, although nothing special from what anybody would tell you but this doll took to him, for some reason. What she did not tell him, and there is a big question still being asked around Harry’s about why not except that she was some hell-cat looking for her own strange kicks, was that she had a boyfriend, a Groversville guy doing time up the state pen. And what she also didn’t tell him was that the reason her boyfriend,“Sonny” Russo, was in stir was for attempted manslaughter and about to get out in August. And what she also did not tell him was that Sonny was a charter member of the High-Riders.
Forget dramatic tension, forget suspense, this situation, once Sonny found out, and he would, sooner or later, turned into “rumble city," all banners waving, all colors showing. And so it came to pass that on August 23, 1961, at eight o’clock in the evening the massed armies of Acre Low-Riders and Groverville High-Riders gathered for battle. And the rules of engagement for such transgressions, if there is such a thing, rules of engagement that is rather than just made up, was that Sonny and Black Jack were to fight it out in a circle, switchblades flashing, until one guy was cut too badly to continue, or gave up, or… So they went back and forth for a while Black Jack getting the worst of it with several cuts across his skin-tight white tee-shirt, a couple of rips in his blue jeans, bleeding but not enough to give up.
Meanwhile true-blue Lola is egging Sonny on, egging him on something fierce, like some devil-woman, to cut the love-bug John every which way. But then Black Jack drew a break. Sonny slipped and John cut him, cuts him bad near the neck. Sonny was nothing but bleeding, bleeding bad, real bad. Sonny called it quits. Everybody quickly got the hell out of the field of honor, double-quick, Sonny’s comrades helping him along. That is not the end of the story, by no means. Sonny didn't make it, and in the cop dust-up Lola, sweet Lola, told them that none other than lover-boy Black Jack did the deed. And now Black Jack is earning his hard knock credits up in stir, state stir, for manslaughter (reduced from murder two).
After thinking about this story again I can also see where, if I played my cards right, I could be sitting right beside maybe not-so-old-flame Betsy, helping her through her brother hard times, down at the old Adamsville beach some night talking about the pitfalls of corner boy life while we are listening to One Night of Sin by Elvis Presley on the old car radio. What do you think?
National Lawyers Guild Massachusetts Chapter, Inc. 14 Beacon St.,
Suite 407, Boston, MA 02108 tel. 617-227-7335 • fax: 617-227-5495 •
nlgmass@igc.org _____________________________________________________________________________ PRESS
RELEASE_____________________________________________________________________________ Contact: Elaine
Sharp, Board of Directors
Urszula Masny-Latos, Executive Director 617-680-9553
617-227-7335
THE NATIONAL
LAWYERS GUILD, MASSACHUSETTS CHAPTER, CALLS ON THE GOVERNMENT AND LAW
ENFORCEMENT TO EXPLAIN
CONSTITUTIONAL
BASIS FOR WARRANTLESS SEARCHES AND SEIZURES
Boston, Friday, April 26, 2013: The
National Lawyers Guild, Massachusetts Chapter (NLG) continues to express its
sympathy to those who were wounded and to those who lost family members in the
April 15 bombings and in the events of the following days. We join in the hope
for recovery and healing.
While we appreciate that public safety rules
usually serve a legitimate purpose in times of crisis in order to protect and
maintain an orderly society, our legal system includes other important
protections derived from the U.S. Constitution. Those protections must
be upheld, especially in the aftermath of crisis. Indeed, those protections are
designed for times of crisis. If constitutional protections are denied
to some of us, they may one day be denied to all of us.
One week has
passed since the lock down of Watertown, as well as Boston and other
areas. This lock down and the widespread use of warrantless searches and
seizures imposed by law enforcement on Friday, April 19, 2013 were unprecedented
in our nation’s history.
We are concerned about the widespread use of
searches and seizures, in particular, warrantless entries into and searches of
many homes, sometimes with guns drawn, without any articulable suspicion to
believe that the bombing suspect was located in any particular home. These
widespread searches and seizures, executed by heavily armed officers who more
closely resembled special forces military units than they did law enforcement
officers, occurred over a 20-block area of Watertown and in the context of a
total lockdown of that area, and a more voluntary lockdown of the entire City of
Boston, among other places.
The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution
protects us from just this sort of behavior by the Government, as does
the Constitution of the Commonwealth.
The United States Constitution,
Amendment IV states,
“The right of the people to be secure in their
persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and
seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable
cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place
to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
Similarly, the
Declaration of the Rights of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Part the First,
Article XIV states,
"Every subject has a right to be secure from all
unreasonable searches, and seizures, of his person, his houses, his papers, and
all his possessions. All warrants, therefore, are contrary to this right, if
the cause or foundation of them be not previously supported by oath or
affirmation; and if the order in the warrant to a civil officer, to make search
in suspected places, or to arrest one or more suspected persons, or to seize
their property, be not accompanied with a special designation of the persons or
objects of search, arrest, or seizure: and no warrant ought to be issued but in
cases, and with the formalities prescribed by the laws."
The Supreme
Court has carved out a narrowly tailored exception to the requirement of a
search warrant, applicable when law enforcement officers are in hot pursuit of a
fleeing felon. However, hot pursuit may be invoked only when officers are in
immediate and continuous pursuit of a suspect from the scene of the
crime. Here, the officers simply shut down a large area and began
indiscriminate invasions of every home in that area over the course of a full
day. Ultimately, the suspect was never even found in that locked
down area. Thus, any claim of hot pursuit is unconvincing. Based on the facts
at this time, we do not believe that this or any other exception to the
warrant requirement was justified here.
As a legal organization, we are
especially concerned that these actions of law enforcement could be used
as precedent for the further erosion of the public’s constitutional rights.
Indeed, the Boston Police are already seeking more cameras and drones to
saturate the area with surveillance ability “to prevent a similar attack in the
future”. If the police can shut down an entire city in pursuit of one
suspect, albeit a dangerous one, what use of force will they consider to be
justified when faced with a similar or greater threat? If we do not take a
stand to protect our constitutional freedoms now, they will continue to erode.
The National Lawyers Guild, Massachusetts Chapter calls on the
Massachusetts Government and all law enforcement agencies - federal, state and
local - involved in these searches and seizures to explain to the public what
grounds justified the forcible lock down of an entire town for a full day and
why constitutional protections were ignored.
The NLG, Massachusetts
Chapter also invites any person subject to these searches and seizures to speak
with us about your experiences and about your legal rights.
The
National Lawyers Guild is the oldest and largest public interest and human
rights bar organization in the United States with a goal to “serve the people to
the ends that human rights shall be regarded as more sacred than
property interests.”
TODAY! Dirty Wars: The
World Is a Battlefield - Scahill, Goodman, Chomsky
When: Saturday, April 27, 2013, 2:00 pm to
4:00 pm
Where: Harvard University, Science Center B,
1 Oxford St, Cambridge
Please join us for
a discussion of Jeremy Scahill’s important new book Dirty Wars: The World Is a
Battlefield (Nation Books, April 23, 2013).
Please
join investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill, author
Noam Chomsky, and Democracy Now! host Amy
Goodman for the special discussion of Scahill's ground breaking new
book Dirty Wars.
Jeremy Scahill is National Security
Correspondent for the Nation magazine and author of the New York Times
best-seller Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. He
is a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute. Scahill has
reported from Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, the former Yugoslavia and
elsewhere across the globe. Scahill is a frequent guest on a wide array of
programs, appearing regularly on The Rachel Maddow Show, Real Time with Bill
Maher and Democracy Now! He has also appeared on Fresh Air, ABC World News, CBS
Evening News, NBC Nightly News, CNN, PBS NewsHour and Bill Moyers Journal.
Scahill’s work has sparked several congressional investigations and won some of
journalism’s highest honors. He was twice awarded the prestigious George Polk
Award, in 1998 for foreign reporting and in 2008 for his book Blackwater. He is
also the subject of the film Dirty Wars (http://dirtywars.org/), an official selection of the
2013 Sundance Film Festival. The film opens in theaters June 7 through Sundance
Selects.
Amy Goodman is the host and executive producer of
Democracy Now! (http://www.democracynow.org/), a national,
daily, independent, award-winning news program airing on over 1,100 public
television and radio stations worldwide. Time Magazine named Democracy Now! its
“Pick of the Podcasts,” along with NBC’s Meet the
Press.
Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor in the Department
of Linguistics and Philosophy at MIT and author of numerous books, including
Hegemony or Survival, Failed States, Imperial Ambitions, What We Say Goes,
Interventions, and Hopes and Prospects.
In Dirty Wars,
Jeremy Scahill, author of the New York Times best-seller Blackwater, takes us
inside America’s new covert wars. The foot soldiers in these battles operate
globally and inside the United States with orders from the White House to do
whatever is necessary to hunt down, capture or kill individuals designated by
the president as enemies.
Drawn from the ranks of the Navy
SEALs, Delta Force, former Blackwater and other private security contractors,
the CIA’s Special Activities Division and the Joint Special Operations Command
(JSOC), these elite soldiers operate worldwide, with thousands of secret
commandos working in more than one hundred countries. Funded through “black
budgets,” Special Operations Forces conduct missions in denied areas, engage in
targeted killings, snatch and grab individuals and direct drone, AC-130 and
cruise missile strikes. While the Bush administration deployed these ghost
militias, President Barack Obama has expanded their operations and given them
new scope and legitimacy. Dirty Wars follows the consequences of the declaration
that “the world is a battlefield,” as Scahill uncovers the most important
foreign policy story of our time. From Afghanistan to Yemen, Somalia and beyond,
Scahill reports from the frontlines in this high-stakes investigation and
explores the depths of America’s global killing machine. He goes beneath the
surface of these covert wars, conducted in the shadows, outside the range of the
press, without effective congressional oversight or public debate. And, based on
unprecedented access, Scahill tells the chilling story of an American citizen
marked for assassination by his own government.
As US
leaders draw the country deeper into conflicts across the globe, setting the
world stage for enormous destabilization and blowback, Americans are not only at
greater risk—we are changing as a nation. Scahill unmasks the shadow warriors
who prosecute these secret wars and puts a human face on the casualties of
unaccountable violence that is now official policy: victims of night raids,
secret prisons, cruise missile attacks and drone strikes, and whole classes of
people branded as “suspected militants.” Through his brave reporting, Scahill
exposes the true nature of the dirty wars the United States government struggles
to keep hidden.
Praise for Dirty
Wars:
“There is no journalist in America who has exposed the
truth about US government militarism more bravely, more relentlessly and more
valuably than Jeremy Scahill. Dirty Wars is highly gripping and dramatic, and of
unparalleled importance in understanding the destruction being sown in our
name.” —Glenn Greenwald, New York Times best-selling author and
Guardian columnist
“Dirty Wars tells us, with convincing
detail and much new information, what has been done in the name of America since
9/11.” —Seymour Hersh
“Dirty Wars is the
most thorough and authoritative history I’ve read yet of the causes and
consequences of America’s post-9/11 conflation of war and national security. I
know of no other journalist who could have written it: For over a decade,
Scahill has visited the war zones, overt and covert; interviewed the soldiers,
spooks, jihadists, and victims; and seen with his own eyes the fruits of
America’s bipartisan war fever. He risked his life many times over to write this
book, and the result is a masterpiece of insight, journalism, and true
patriotism.” —Barry Eisler, novelist and former operative in the
CIA’s Directorate of Operations
Free. General admission.
Attendance is first come, first served.
Sponsored by the
Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard Kennedy School, the ACLU of
Massachusetts, Nation Institute, American Friends Service Committee, the
Cambridge Peace Commission, and the Community Church of
Boston.
For more information about the book, film, and
Scahill, visit: http://dirtywars.org/
Refusing to Kill: Refuseniks from Around the World Speak Out
The Monthly
Peace & Justice
Film
Series
When: Thursday, May 2, 2013, 6:45 pm to
9:00 pm
Where: Central Square Library • 45 Pearl
St • Central Sq T • Cambridge
REFUSING TO
KILL
Refusiniks from around the world speak
out
Produced by Payday, a network of men working with the Global
Women's strike
"I'd rather go to prison for desertion than
kill a child by mistake",
Sgt Camilo Meja, US army. Sentenced to a year
in prison for refusing to return to
Iraq.
Refuseniks and their families, supporters and other anti-war
protesters around the world, from the Second World War, wars in Africa,
Vietnam, Palestine and the two Gulf wars tell their
stories.
Only 2% of soldiers shoot to kill. So the military needs to
brainwash the 98% who don't. Everywhere people are drafted into the military by
law or poverty. Those who refuse to kill are punished, jailed, sometimes
killed. In spite of that, there is a growing movement of refuseniks supported
by their loved ones usually women.
Parking
Nearby--Municipal Garage and street parking
Women's
International League for Peace and Freedom
The campaign to free Army whistle-blower Bradley Manning has stayed strong
for three long years, thanks to your support. From thousands of letters and
calls directed to top military officials, to hundreds of protests around the
world, including at Quantico which led to Bradley being transferred to more
humane prison conditions, supporters have gathered together to give Bradley a
real chance at the life he deserves. Now we are asking you to join us at the
gates of Fort Meade, where Bradley's trial will begin.
Join us at Ft. Meade, MD on June 1, 2013, for a mass demonstration in support of the heroic 25 year-old
soldier who exposed war crimes and disturbing foreign policy through the
whistleblowing website WikiLeaks. Bradley Manning will have spent over three
years in prison by the start of his trial -- 11 months of which were spent in
solitary confinement. The UN has issued a report calling his treatment cruel,
inhuman and degrading.
Top military officials have the power to reduce Bradley’s sentence. However,
they have done everything in their power to distract public attention from this
case. Reporters have complained they have less access to these proceedings than
Guantanamo Bay military tribunals. Let's show the military and President Obama
the public support that exists for our most prominent American whistle-blower,
Nobel Peace Prize nominee Bradley Manning! Don't let the military get away with
unjust persecution, abuse, and sending a whistle-blower to prison for life.
Bradley is in prison for us, let's get out to Ft. Meade for him!
Leaving June 1st at 11:30 am from the 2640 Space at 2640 St. Paul Street,
Baltimore. Contact baltimore@bradleymanning.org, or better yet, reserve your seat
today ($10).
Leaving June 1st at 11:30am from in front of Union Station, Washington, DC.
Contact malachy@bradleymanning.org, or better yet, reserve your seat
today ($10). Located outside these cities, but interested in organizing others to go to
Ft. Meade? We are offering small grants to help with organizing buses and vans to carpool
to Ft. Meade for June 1st!
The Very Rich Are Very Different From You And Me- With Richard Gere’s Arbitrage In Mind
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
Scotty Fitzgerald, the king hell king writer of the American Jazz Age back in the 1920s, once famously said that the very rich (not just the average rich who could just be junk car dealers from Bronx or something) are different, well no, are very different from you and me. And you know he was right, right like he was on a lot of things, Jay Ganz Great Gatsby things, Tender is the Night things, This Side of Paradise things, since he wrote about that group that he had more than a passing acquaintance with in his time. The main thing, the main concern of this sketch anyway, is that the very rich are untouched by things that you and I would take the fall for in a n instance and wind up doing some hard time, some Sing Sing, Shawshank, you name the joint time. That brings us up to super-rich Wall Street financier Robert Ludlow and the way he skated clear, clear as day from more felony charges that the King’s County D.A.’s office had space for. Yah, he walked, walked like some connected mafia don right out onto the street and never missed a beat. Never.
You don’t know Robert Ludlow, Robert Ludlow the big Wall Street holy- roller, mumbo-jumbo man who has taken over (and gotten rid of ) more companies that you can shake a stick selling off the assets at huge profits? Yes, that Robert Ludlow from Ludlow Enterprises (or whatever corporate shell name he is using just now). Yah, you probably don’t know him now that I think about it. Not the specific name but you do know the wreaking havoc with your mortgage, your retirement savings, and your credit card too. That you know. He and his Wall Street crony crowd, and maybe that is all you have to know to follow along. Some other names are bigger, better known in the prints but he was thick as thieves with them. So, yes, I agree with you they all should be hanging off some lampposts somewhere but Robert’s story is a little bit quirkier so let’s focus on him.
When dough is around, big dough, people, people with some ideas, maybe good ideas, maybe bad ideas, but ideas gravitate to that pole of attraction. It was no different in Robert’s case except he had fatal thing for arty type women, beautiful arty type women looking for a little help, and willing to give a little something in return. (Come on now you knew a woman was involved, don’t be naïve.) And Arlette, fresh dewy Arlette straight off the plane from some Paris art gallery, dropped right into his lap one night at an opening. Of course he helped her since like I said he was also fatally attracted to having affairs with those arty type women. He once said something about looking for his inner soul- mate, his opposite, some foolish ying and yang thing. But we know it was sex, and nothing but sex that drove him. And yes he had a very nice but very not young wife and kids and all that but that was all for public relations. What Robert was really was just an old fashion alley cat. And made no apologizes for it.
But alley- catting around and wheeler-dealing can sometimes get complicated, very complicated even for guys like Robert Ludlow. See like a lot of guy on the street Wall Street or Jump Street he tried to squeeze every deal for what it was worth. Some you win, some you lose. Same with Robert. Except lately he had been on a losing streak, a few bad deals, a couple of guys who couldn’t be bought, troubles in the global market. Enough bad stuff so that he had to bail out, sell his company. Of course nobody, nobody on this good green earth wants a company, even Ludlow Enterprises, with cash flow problems except at a deep, deep discount so he had his people cook the books. Cook the books big time. That part wasn’t so unusual he had done it before on a smaller scale, although not to one of his own companies. So he was down for ten to twenty easy over in Danbury on the various white collar felony counts.
Here’s where it gets complicated though. Naturally a guy flying on a trapeze without a net is going to be tense, going to need a little time away with his honey (no, not the wife, Arlette) while things take their course. So he and Arlette headed upcountry, headed out of the city in her car. But like I say Robert was tired, tense, maybe a few too many scotches, and while he was driving he dozed off and went off the road into skid and roll-over. Poor Arlette was killed instantly. Of course Robert took some injuries too but he was mainly concerned about what the publicity would do to his company sell-off.So he left scene, left Arlette there without remorse.
BMDC International Workers Day Rally Wednesday, May 1, 2013 at Boston City Hall Gather at 2PM - Rally at 2:30PM (Court St. & Cambridge St.) T stops Government Center (Blue line, Green line)
Revere - @ City Hall - gather at 3:pmbegin marching at 3:30 (to Chelsea) Everett - @ City Hall - gather at 3:pm begin marching at 3:30 (to Chelsea) Chelsea - @ City Hall - rally a 3:pm (wait for above feeder marches to arrive) will begin marching at 4:30 (to East Boston) East Boston - @ Central Square - (welcome marchers) Rally at 5:pm
BMDC will join the rally in East Boston immediately following Boston City Hall rally
Supporters: ANSWER Coalition, Boston Anti Authoritarian Movement, Boston Rosa Parks Human Rights Day Committee, Greater Boston Stop the Wars Coalition, Harvard No-Layoffs Campaign, Industrial Workers of the World, Latinos for Social Change, Mass Global Action, Sacco & Vanzetti Commemoration Society, Socialist Alternative, Socialist Party of Boston, Socialist Workers Party, Student Labor Action Movement, USW Local 8751 - Boston School Bus Drivers Union, Worcester Immigrant Coalition, National Immigrant Solidarity Network, Democracy Center - Cambridge, Cambridge, Cambridge/Somerville/Arlington United for Justice with Peace, International Socialist Organization, Community Church of Boston
Saturday, April 27, 2013
ANOTHER SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC LOOK AT LEON TROTSKY
BOOK REVIEW
TROTSKY-MEMOIR AND CRITIQUE, ALBERT GLOTZER,
PROMETHEUS BOOKS, NEW YORK, 1989
As readers of this space may
know I make no bones about being an admirer of the work of Leon Trotsky (see
archives). I have noted elsewhere that I believe that the definitive biography
of the man is Isaac Deutscher’s three-volume set. Nevertheless, others have
written biographies, or in this a case a memoir and critique (naturally-the memoir
alone in this case would not sustain a
book) on Trotsky that are either less balanced than Deutscher’s or come at it
from a different angle with a different ax to grind. Mr. Glotzer’s take on
Trotsky’s legacy is a classic post World War II social democratic one driven by
the effect of the ravages of American imperialism during the Cold War on the
right wing of that international political tendency.The post war period was not kind to those who
fell away from the politics that sparked their communist youth, but more on
that at another time.
Despite our extreme politic differences
Mr.Glotzer’s reminiscences of how he
became a communist are welcome. I am always fascinated by how those who came to
political maturity a couple of generations before me and who are the real
living links to the Russian Revolution felt about that event. Moreover, Mr.
Glotzer is no mere chronicler of Trotsky’s life. During the 1930’s before the
political temperature in the American left intellectual milieu got to hot for someof them Mr. Glotzer was part of the
leadership of the American Trotskyist movement and was a key lieutenant,
factional operative and personal friend of a central founder- one Max
Shachtman. That these two along with another “Young Turk” one Martin Abern
spent as much time plotting for organizational control of the movement against
the wily ‘bureaucratic’ old timer and
founder James P. Cannon during that time as in constructive political work is a
separate issue. Needless to say only a few cryptic references to that
experience surface in this work- a very selective memoir, as is usually the
case. For more on that political struggle read Cannon’s The Struggle for a
Proletarian Party and Trotsky’s In Defense of Marxism and make up your own mind.
As always the critique of Trotsky,
or more correctly, Bolshevism is centered on the question of the organizational
principles of that party. That is democratic centralism or as the critics would
have it bureaucratic centralism-long on the bureaucratic, short on the
democratic. Trotsky is seen here to have escaped that bad practice until he
linked up with the Bolsheviks in 1917. This is his original sin in the eyes of
liberals and social democrats like Glotzer. The reduction of an organizational
principle of a political party to the decisive reason for the degeneration of a
revolution defies belief. The model for all European social democratic parties,
including both the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks in Russia, at the turn of the 20th
century was the German party. One doesnot have to read to far into the history of that party to know that even
without state party to buttress its organizational practice that party was as
bureaucratically run as any Bolshevik party cell. The real question then is not
the principle of democratic centralism but the question of a ‘vanguard party’ versus
a ‘party of the whole class’. In the end that was what the dispute in the Russian
social democracy turned on. And later on the international movement, as well. History has demonstrated, if it has
demonstrated anything on this question, that a ‘party of the whole class’ with
its implication of inclusiveness including backward workers can never take
state power, if that was the idea of those who argued for this type of party in
the first place. All of the above said, the question of bureaucracy in the
process of transforming society from capitalism to socialism is one that has,
in the light of the history of Stalinism has to be taken as a real question. There are no a priori guarantees on the bumpy
road to socialism but that is hardly the decisive question for now.
The rest of Glotzer’s
critique is a more or less quick gloss on his politics and a rather annoying
gloating over what proved to be the incorrectness of some of Trotsky’s
predictions. The central argument Glotzer presents here is that capitalism
rather than being in its death throes as Trotsky (and before him Lenin)
suggested still had, and has, a life and
is not ready to be relegated to the dustbin of history. Unfortunately, those
social democrats like Glotzer did more than their fair share of ideological
work of behalf of preserving the imperialist status quo. Perhaps he would have
been better off if he had ended his memoirs in his Communist youth in the
1930’s when he helped to try to create an international Trotskyist youth
movement -that is the Glotzer who interest me. The rest I have heard a million
times before.
ASOCIAL DEMOCRATIC VIEW OF THE AMERICAN COMMUNIST PARTY
BOOK REVIEW
THE AMERICAN COMMUNIST PARTY-A CRITICAL HISTORY (1919-1957), IRVING HOWE AND LEWIS COSER, BEACON PRESS, BOSTON, 1957
I have reviewed the two volume set on the history of the early American Communist Party by Theodore Draper elsewhere in this space. There I noted that as an addition to the historical record of the period from the Russian Revolution of 1917 to the formation and consolidation of the legal, above ground party in 1923 The Roots of American Communism and its companion volume detailing the period from 1923 to 1929-American Communism and Soviet Russia – are the definitive scholarly studies on the early history of the American Communist Party through the Stalinization of the American party.
The present volume by Irving Howe, who had been long time editor of the social democratic journal Dissent, and fellow professor Lewis Coser took that story up to 1957. Although Howe and Coser also covered the early period covered by Draper including the pre-World War I radical milieu, the split of the left wing of the Socialist Party, the creation of two communist parties, the underground period , the eventual reunion of the two parties, the resurfacing and finally the Stalinization of the party since I believe that Draper did an extremely thorough job on the early period I therefore will limit my comments on this book to the period after that from the ‘third period’ Communist policy of about 1929 through the Popular Front, the Stalin-Hitler Pact, and the various makeshift popular front policies of the World War II and post-war period.
That said, I will pose the same question here that I did in the Draper reviews.Why must militants read these works today? After the demise of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe anything positively related to Communist studies is deeply discounted. Nevertheless, for better or worse, the American Communist Party (and its offshoots) needs to be studied as an ultimately flawed example of a party that failed in its mission to create a radical version of society in America when it became merely a tool of Soviet diplomacy. Now is the time for militants to study the mistakes and draw the lessons of that history.
Needless to say the very title of this study gives its perspective-a critical study- and that attitude, sometimes mockingly, sometimes with disgust at Communist strategy and tactics mars this work as one would expect from a political opponent of communism. But we are after all political people (assuming that today’s reader of such material has to be political) and we know how to take those kinds of opponent remarks in stride. The book nevertheless provides a wealth of information about what was going on in the American Communist party, how subservient it was to Moscow at any particular time and the difficulties inherent in a radical approach to American labor politics during that period (and now for that matter).
For my money the most important contribution in this volume is the study of the ‘third period’. For those unfamiliar with the terminology Communist International language, codified in its theses and tactics, had set 1917-1924, the first period, as one of revolutionary opportunities, 1924-28, the second period, of capitalist stabilization and beginning about 1929 the ‘third period’-the collapse of capitalism and the final confrontation between the two main forces in world politics- the bosses and the workers. A good shorthand way to describe this period was the slogan- Class Against Class. Well we all know the results- the most important being the victory of Hitler in Germany without so much as a fight by the working class. I will confess that in my youth I was very drawn to ‘third period’ Comintern politics, that is, until I got hold of a copy of Leon Trotsky’s The Struggle Against Fascism in Germany and realized that the whole Stalinist policy was a house of cards. There were no places of exile for the mass of the German working class who borne the brunt of Hitler’s vengeance as a result oft this strategy. They took it on the chin and never really recovered from that defeat. So much for ultra-radical sloganeering. Although the effects on the American scene were not as traumatic it was nevertheless a period of isolation and some very serious labor defeats in struggles that they led.
If in my youth I was enamored of the ‘third period’ that was not the case of the next period-the period of the popular front. As a reaction to the sterility and foolishness of the ‘third period’ and the isolation internationally of the Soviet Union in the face of the Hitler menace the class against class approach was abandoned to be replaced by one in which the communists were basically undifferentiated from the mass of bourgeois politics- they were just the ‘guys and gals’ next door. Although this was the period of greatest influence for the American Party in the unions, in the universities, in cultural life and in American politics in general it too proved a house of cards when the Moscow line changed during the time of the Hitler-Stalin Pact in 1939-41. The authors present a very interesting description of how the party maneuvered through ‘front’ groups during this period to gain apparent influence on the cheap. They list a whole catalogue of organizations that the party controlled, a few that I was not aware of, and what happened went the deal went sour in 1939. In short, a lesson that latter radicals, including today’s radicals, should have permanently etched in their brains when one counts how much influence we really have in such things as the current anti-Iraq war movement.
After the Soviet Union was invaded in 1941 the party’s influence grew but for all the wrong reasons- it was the most patriotic and conservative factor in labor politics all obstensibly in the interest of defending the Soviet Union. In the post-war period, however, the party reaped what it had sown as it faced a steep decline of influence in the labor movement due to its own policies and the ‘red scare’ that developed during the Cold War build up. It is during the discussion of this period that the authors show their greatest degree of contempt for the American party mainly arguing that that party was solely an agent for the Soviet Union and therefore not part of the labor movement. While those of us who are anti-Stalinist can quote chapter and verse the crimes of Stalinism as well as Howe and Coser it is a very grave mistake to have assumed that this was not a current of the international labor movement and therefore did not have to be defended. We have paid a steep price for that social democratic view. It was necessary to defeat Stalinism within the labor movement but not by outsourcing that task to American imperialism.
