Mass Rally for Bradley Manning! Ft. Meade, MD. June 1, 2013

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Join us at Fort Meade in support of Bradley Manning. By the time his court martial begins in June, he will have spent more then 3 years in prison. All for having done the right thing, for having exposed war crimes! Saturday, June 1, 2013 RALLY FOR BRADLEY AT FORT MEADE

By the Bradley Manning Support Network, February 25, 2013.
• 1pm Gather (Reece Road and US 175, Fort Meade, Maryland)
• 2pm March
• 3pm Rally and Speak Out
Sponsored by the Bradley Manning Support Network and the national Veterans for Peace and Iraq Veterans Against the War organizations, with the help of Courage to Resist, and many other groups.

RSVP to this event on facebook.

LEARN MORE ABOUT GETTING THERE: DRIVING INFORMATION, PUBLIC TRANSPORT, LODGING INFORMATION.
Get on the Bradley Manning bus! Click here for information for buses from Baltimore, Washington DC, New York City, Willimantic CT, New Brunswick NJ, Philadelphia PA.
After more than three years of imprisonment, including nine months of torture, Nobel Peace Prize nominee Bradley Manning’s trial is finally scheduled to begin June 3, 2013, at Fort Meade, Maryland. The outcome of this trial will determine whether a conscience-driven 25-year-old WikiLeaks whistle-blower spends the rest of his life in prison. Bradley believed that the American people have a right to know the truth about what our government does around the world in our name. We the People must send a message to the military prosecuting authority, and President Obama, that Bradley Manning is a patriot and heroic truth-teller.
June 1st is the International Day of Action to Support Bradley Manning. Join us at Fort Meade on the eve of Bradley’s court martial. Solidarity actions are welcome at bases, recruiting centers and US
embassies worldwide. We ask that Veterans for Peace join us in cosponsoring these historic events.
Get on the Bradley Manning bus! Click here for information for buses from Baltimore, Washington DC, New York City, Willimantic CT, New Brunswick NJ, Philadelphia PA.
LEARN MORE ABOUT GETTING THERE: DRIVING INFORMATION, PUBLIC TRANSPORT, LODGING INFORMATION.

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Monday, June 3, 2013
ATTEND THE BEGINNING OF US v. BRADLEY MANNING
7:30am – 8:00 am, enter Fort Meade at Reece Road and US 175, Fort Meade, Maryland
9:00 am scheduled daily start of hearings at Magistrate Court
4432 Llewellyn Avenue, Fort Meade, MD. It is 2 miles from the Main Gate.
The court martial is expected to last 6-12 weeks. Supporters are encouraged to attend as many days of this trial as they are able.
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PARKING for June 1st

Free parking has been arranged at Meade Heights Elementary School, 1925 Reece Rd, Fort Meade, MD 20755. This parking lot is only half a mile (11 min. walk) from the the Ft. Meade Main Gate.
Additional parking will be available at Van Bokkelen Elementary School, 1140 Reece Road, Severn, MD 21144. This parking lot is one mile (24 min. walk) from the Ft. Meade Main Gate. We’ll try to help shuttle folks along Reece Road.
There are a small number of unrestricted parking spaces along US 175; however, do not park in the the mini-shopping centers or the Weis Market near Blue Water Blvd.
Portable toilets are expected to be available.
Join us in the courtroom for the trial beginning June 3, 2013. Drive (or taxi) to the Fort Meade Visitor Control Center at the Fort Meade Main Gate (all the other gates are for military ID holders only), Reece Road and US 175, Fort Meade, Maryland. We suggest arriving when the visitor center opens at 7:30am, and certainly before 8:15am. The proceedings are scheduled to begin at 9am daily. The multiple layers of security take time to navigate, and procedures often change from day to day. Each person will need a valid state or federal photo ID such as a driver’s license, state photo ID card, or passport. Foreign passports are accepted. Anyone driving on to Fort Meade will be required to submit their driver’s license, vehicle registration, and printed (not digital) proof of insurance. Your vehicle will be subject to search, and you may be required to cover over political bumper stickers on your vehicle. Consider walking on base if there are any questions at all regarding your vehicle and paperwork.
The proceedings will be held at the Magistrate Court, 4432 Llewellyn Ave, Fort Meade, MD 20755 (this is one mile from the Visitor Center). Electronic devices, including cell phones, computers, cameras, are not allowed in the courtroom, and should be left in your vehicle.
There are no pre-registration requirements for the public to attend the proceedings. However, those wishing to attend as credentialed media should contact the US Army Military District of Washington Public Affairs Office at 202-685-4645.

LEARN MORE ABOUT GETTING THERE: DRIVING INFORMATION, PUBLIC TRANSPORT, LODGING INFORMATION.
Get on the Bradley Manning bus! Click here for information for buses from Baltimore, Washington DC, New York City, Willimantic CT, New Brunswick NJ, Philadelphia PA.

Boston Private Bradley Manning Stand-Out Part Of An International Day Of Solidarity-Saturday June 1^st Park Street Station – 1 PM

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 At Park Street Station In Boston On June 1st At 1 PM For A Stand-Out In Solidarity Before Bradley’s June 3^rd Trial

Plan to go to Fort Meade outside of Washington, D.C. on June 1^st for an international day of solidarity with Bradley before his scheduled June 3^rd trial. Check with the Bradley Manning Support Network http://www.bradleymanning.org/for information about going to Fort Meade from your area.

If you can’t make it to Fort Meade come to Park Street Station on June 1^st 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.

 

June 1-8: Take part in the week of action for Bradley Manning

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Can’t make it to Fort Meade on Sat., June 1st? Help sponsor travel for others — each $20 will cover a bus ticket for someone who otherwise wouldn’t be able to come Please note “Bus Sponsor” in the comments field when making your tax-deductible donation.

Join us at Fort Meade. June 1, 2013

June 1st will mark the beginning of Bradley Manning’s fourth year in prison and the start of his trial. The June 1st Ft. Meade protest for Bradley Manning will be the largest action of our campaign! People across the nation (and the globe) will converge on Ft. Meade to stand up for the Army whistle-blower who risked everything to give the public real facts about our government’s wars in the Middle East and foreign policy worldwide.
Join Pentagon Papers whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg, LGBT activist US Army Lt. Dan Choi, former US diplomat US Army Col. Ann Wright (ret.), and former soldier Ethan McCord–who rescued the wounded children in the van in the Collateral Murder video—and hundreds of our supporters of heroic WikiLeaks whistle-blower Bradley Manning at Ft. Meade. Together we’ll make history.
Visit our new guide to transportation & lodging near Ft. Meade for help planning your trip.
For those unable to travel to Ft. Meade, Veterans for Peace, Iraq Veterans Against the War, and the Bradley Manning Support Network, are also calling for solidarity actions from June 1st-June 8th worldwide. So far events have been registered in the following cities:

Los Angeles 6/1/2013, San Francisco 6/1/2013, Portland, Maine 6/1/2013, Tuscon, AZ 6/1/2013, Honolulu, Hawai`i 6/1/2013, Tampa, Florida 6/1/2013, Boston, MA 6/1/2013, Seattle, WA 6/1/2013,

London, UK 6/1/2013, Heidelberg, Germany 6/1/2013, Berlin, Germany 6/1/2013, San Diego, CA 6/1/2013, Seattle, WA 6/1/2013, Tallahassee, Fl 6/2/2013, Tampa, FL. 6/6/2013, Montrose, CA 6/7/2013,

If you have planned an event or action, please register it on our website so we can promote it to other supporters in your area. Interested in organizing something but want some ideas, materials, or help contacting other activists in your area? Contact farah@bradleymanning.org for assistance!

***Where Hip-Hop Nation Corner Boys Meet The Be-Bop Night Corner Boys- A Nod To J. Cole's "Dolla And A Dream"

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman:

On the face of the matter it would seem improbable, very improbable, that a leading voice of the hip-hop nation today, j. cole, and an old reprobate radical  mired, deeply mired if the truth be known, in be-bop 1950s rock and roll, now called the classic, uh, geriatric age of rock and roll would have any points of intersection. Moreover mired, mission mired before the flame goes out, in youthful transistor radio (for the clueless check Wikipedia) memories and so preoccupied with transmitting those memories for the ages (cyberspace ages anyway). And if it hadn’t been for happenstance that I ran into a young woman, Kelly, at a political event, an anti-war rally, and mentioned to her that I was somewhat bewildered by the lack of political or social focus in what I had heard in today’s music and she mentioned some of j. cole’s stuff that she was crazy about that would still have been so. Naturally, since like I said I am also in the midst of a craze of my own in trying to present archival material from the 1960s that had some social content, I checked out some of his lyrics.

 

The distance between a young black man growing up in the ‘hood of Fayetteville, North Carolina (to speak nothing of that huge army base at Fort Bragg that drives the life of the town) in the recent past, post-civil rights marches time, “post-racial” time and a 1950s be-bop rock white kid growing up in “the projects” turned out not to be so far after all. The connection: a simple lyric taken from j. cole’s Dolla and a Dream about how his mother, blessed mother of course, blessed now that time has shown us the error of our ways in those titantic mother-son battles, had to sew patches on his pants “to make do” when he was young. No heavier social message needed to grab this writer’s attention. I remember, and have written elsewhere about, my own hand-me-down patched non-fashionista childhood. I remember being given my older brother’s cast-offs to make due and in turn passing, if it was still possible to do so with such cheap Wal-Mart- like materials onto my younger brother.

Then there was a family famous story that concerned me about the time when I was in elementary school trying to impress a non-projects girl at a school square dance demonstration and had cut up one of my only two or three pairs of pants to give myself a righteous farm- hand look. When my mother, who was invited to, and attended, the dance demonstration, saw what I had done she started yelling at me about my disrespect for her and my father by ruining those pants when she had no way to get more in front of everybody. I got holy hell about that for weeks. And, needless to say, had no chance, nada, no go, with that girl after that. Yah, it was like that.

Small stuff, silly in the great Mandela scheme of things, but it points out that tough reality of wants, constant wants, down at the edges of society, down among the projects dwelling, where everything is no, can’t do, can’t have, forget it, and you don’t need that anyway. And points out as well the hard reality that down in those mean streets the struggle for existence takes up far too much time. The struggle for the daily bread, literally on some days, takes the better instincts of our natures and numbs then up, makes the pursuit of those higher goods seem ridiculous. So anybody, any “gangsta” had (has) a great gravitational pull for kids trying to fill up that empty want hole.

Then it started like it always does in the big fight against wants, started just like the generation before me, the old 1930s corner boys making all their noise (and winning junior corner wannabe admiration). Started simply with a “clip” here (grabbing stuff from stores, usually jewelry stores and record shops and slipping it under, well, under something, your coat, your underwear, whatever), the jack-roll there (the usual victim some older resident of the projects, an easy target, and easily left behind unlike going uptown and facing that cop madness trouble), maybe a small time gas station robbery or extortion racket as you moved up that food chain (armed, armed against any thought of resistant. See the romance of the gun has a long pedigree, long before it became the tool of choice, or necessary, in the midnight drifter world). Cheap jack stuff, petty stuff when you realize the personal and social cost, but stuff to make those want blues go away, for a while until that craving comes back. Yah, maybe you don’t know what I mean but hell my brother j. coles knows what I mean, knows damn well what I mean.

 

Dolla and a Dream lyrics- j. cole

For all my ville niggas man,
All my Carolina niggas man, (lights off and shit)
All my real niggas, no matter where you come from

A dolla and a dream, thats all a nigga got
So if its about that c.r.e.a.m., then I'm all up in the spot.
I was raised in the F-A-
Why a nigga never gave me nothing?
Pops left me, I ain't never cry, baby, fuck him, that's life.
And trust me I'm living,
Look what a nigga made out,
The shit that I was given,
Look what a nigga came out
The shit that I was given,
Look what a nigga came out
Momma sewing patches on my holes,
Man, our hoes couldn't put this flame out.

Straight up, I got my back against the brick wall,
I'm from a world where niggas never pop no Cristal, it was pistols.
You pass through, you better pray them bullets missed y'all,
I thank the Lord He let a nigga make it this far,
A lot niggas don't, a lot of moms weep.
I gotta carry on, all the weight is on me.
You never know when a nigga might try to harm me.
Rest In Peace that nigga John Lee,
I pour liquor, homie.

It's foul, but yo the world keeps spinning,
Gotta keep winning, get up off this cheap linen,
Nigga Imma eat, even if it means sinning,
Niggas want beef, Imma sink my teeth in 'em.
Pause, I go harder, I am all about a dollar.
You niggas street smart? I'm a motherfucking scholar.
So trust me, I ain't stopping 'til my money is long,
So much dough, them hoes will think I'm rocking money cologne.

Have a model at the crib waiting, "Honey, I'm home."
Cooking greens for a nigga, give 'em plenty, a dome.
It's funny, we dream about money so much its like we almost got it,
Until we reach up in our pockets, its time to face reality,
The ville is a trap nigga now,
And if you ain't focused you gonna be here for awhile, yeah.

***Poet's Corner-William Wordsworth's Ode To The French Revolution As The Anniversary Approaches

William Wordsworth's famous ode to the beginning of the French revolution is full of all the youthful enthusiasm such a world historic event can elicit. Even in stuffy old Georgian England among the young, the radicals, and some of the plebeian masses the idea that one could break from the ancient regime, from taking humankind, taking French humankind anyway, where one was a mere subject of some arbitrary happenstance (although in England one should have reflected on one’s own monarchial state as well) to a cry of freedom citizen struck a deep chord throughout Europe and the Americas . No wonder the French went crazy, and in almost all classes too, began calling each other citizen, it certainly had a certain cache. At the beginning.

Of course we have now seen enough revolutions to know that they not only have their own cycles but that they, the great ones anyway, English, American, French, Russian, Chinese, are stern task-masters, make simple social patterns long established explode and create new forms, maybe many forms, before they are spent and not a few things go awry as well. Including the hard fact that revolutions have tended to devour their own. Then many a former fellow-traveler, rightly or wrongly, gets cold feet, gets a feeling that this revolution stuff is a lot more complicated that he or she had bargained for. And so they find reasons, rightly or wrongly, to move away from, to disown what they once proclaimed from the rooftops. Such, alas, has been the hard human experience thus far as we try, essentially, to struggle against the three great tragedies of life; sex, death, and hunger. It has been that last one that most modern revolutions, especially ones espousing socialist goals have, concentrated on.

And that seeming plebeian task is, perhaps, why, while there have been some creative artists associated with revolutions that the norm has been that such types, have shied away from non-artistic revolutionary movements. The exceptions like Milton in the English Revolution, Wordsworth in the early French Revolution and Gorky in the Russian Revolution have been driven by stronger political motives, for a time anyway. One also thinks of Andre Breton and the Surrealist whose Manifesto of Revolutionary Art was written in conjunction with Leon Trotsky’s efforts to form a new revolutionary international after the demise of the initial energies of Russian Revolution under Stalin. However , when one looks closely at the relationship between creative artists and revolutionary movements one notes the sparse numbers who have adhered to such movements welcome as they are.

That Wordsworth, like many another former 'friend' of revolutions over the ages, went over to the other side when things got too hot does not however take away from his efforts here in the fresh bloom of the French Revolution.

The French Revolution as it appeared to Enthusiasts

. Oh! pleasant exercise of hope and joy!
For mighty were the auxiliars which then stood
Upon our side, we who were strong in love!
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven!—

Oh! times, In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways
Of custom, law, and statute, took at once
The attraction of a country in romance!
When Reason seemed the most to assert her rights,

When most intent on making of herself
A prime Enchantress--to assist the work
Which then was going forward in her name!
Not favoured spots alone, but the whole earth,

The beauty wore of promise, that which sets
(As at some moment might not be unfelt
Among the bowers of paradise itself )
The budding rose above the rose full blown.

What temper at the prospect did not wake
To happiness unthought of? The inert
Were roused, and lively natures rapt away!
They who had fed their childhood upon dreams,

The playfellows of fancy, who had made
All powers of swiftness, subtilty, and strength
Their ministers,--who in lordly wise had stirred
Among the grandest objects of the sense,

And dealt with whatsoever they found there
As if they had within some lurking right
To wield it;--they, too, who, of gentle mood,
Had watched all gentle motions, and to these

Had fitted their own thoughts, schemers more wild,
And in the region of their peaceful selves;--
Now was it that both found, the meek and lofty
Did both find, helpers to their heart's desire,

And stuff at hand, plastic as they could wish;
Were called upon to exercise their skill,
Not in Utopia, subterranean fields,
Or some secreted island, Heaven knows where!

But in the very world, which is the world
Of all of us,--the place where in the end
We find our happiness, or not at all!

William Wordsworth

Biggest week of actions yet! Is this email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser. Week of action for Bradley, June 1-8 Can’t make it to Fort Meade on Sat., June 1st? Help sponsor travel for others -- each $20 will cover a bus ticket for someone who otherwise wouldn’t be able to come. Please note "Bus Sponsor" in the comments field when making your tax-deductible donation. Join us at Fort Meade. June 1, 2013 June 1st will mark the beginning of Bradley Manning’s fourth year in prison and the start of his trial. The June 1st Ft. Meade protest for Bradley Manning will be the largest action of our campaign! People across the nation (and the globe) will converge on Ft. Meade to stand up for the Army whistle-blower who risked everything to give the public real facts about our government’s wars in the Middle East and foreign policy worldwide. Join Pentagon Papers whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg, LGBT activist US Army Lt. Dan Choi, former US diplomat US Army Col. Ann Wright (ret.), and former soldier Ethan McCord--who rescued the wounded children in the van in the Collateral Murder video—and hundreds of our supporters of heroic WikiLeaks whistle-blower Bradley Manning at Ft. Meade. Together we’ll make history. Visit our new guide to transportation & lodging near Ft. Meade for help planning your trip. Buses to the Ft. Meade rally for Bradley are now confirmed from Washington DC, Baltimore, New York City, Philadelphia, and New Brunswick (NJ). Learn more about buses to the Fort Meade demonstration. For those unable to travel to Ft. Meade, Veterans for Peace, Iraq Veterans Against the War, and the Bradley Manning Support Network, are also calling for solidarity actions from June 1st-June 8th worldwide. So far events have been registered in the following cities: Los Angeles 6/1/2013, San Francisco 6/1/2013, Portland, Maine 6/1/2013, Tuscon, AZ 6/1/2013, Honolulu, Hawai`i 6/1/2013, Tampa, Florida 6/1/2013, Boston, MA 6/1/2013, Seattle, WA 6/1/2013, London, UK 6/1/2013, Heidelberg, Germany 6/1/2013, Berlin, Germany 6/1/2013, San Diego, CA 6/1/2013, Seattle, WA 6/1/2013, Tallahassee, Fl 6/2/2013, Tampa, FL. 6/6/2013, Montrose, CA 6/7/2013, If you have planned an event or action, please register it on our website so we can promote it to other supporters in your area. Interested in organizing something but want some ideas, materials, or help contacting other activists in your area? Contact farah@bradleymanning.org for assistance! Three new Bradley Manning shirts available Our shirts are US-made, sweatshop-free, and printed by union labor. Shirts are $22.50 each, and the flag is $50 – a donation amount that includes shipping and processing. Proceeds help subsidize bulk organizing materials for regional activists. Orders are filled and shipped by Courage to Resist. Online store Help us continue to cover 100% of Bradley's legal fees! Donate today.

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***Poet's Corner-William Wordsworth's Ode To The French Revolution As The Anniversary Approaches

Here is William Wordsworth's famous ode to the beginning of the French revolution full of all the youthful enthusiasm such a world historic event can elicit. That he, like many another former 'friend' of revolutions over the ages, went over to the other side when things got too hot does not take away from his efforts here.

The French Revolution as it appeared to Enthusiasts

. Oh! pleasant exercise of hope and joy!
For mighty were the auxiliars which then stood
Upon our side, we who were strong in love!
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven!—

Oh! times, In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways
Of custom, law, and statute, took at once
The attraction of a country in romance!
When Reason seemed the most to assert her rights,

When most intent on making of herself
A prime Enchantress--to assist the work
Which then was going forward in her name!
Not favoured spots alone, but the whole earth,

The beauty wore of promise, that which sets
(As at some moment might not be unfelt
Among the bowers of paradise itself )
The budding rose above the rose full blown.

What temper at the prospect did not wake
To happiness unthought of? The inert
Were roused, and lively natures rapt away!
They who had fed their childhood upon dreams,

The playfellows of fancy, who had made
All powers of swiftness, subtilty, and strength
Their ministers,--who in lordly wise had stirred
Among the grandest objects of the sense,

And dealt with whatsoever they found there
As if they had within some lurking right
To wield it;--they, too, who, of gentle mood,
Had watched all gentle motions, and to these

Had fitted their own thoughts, schemers more wild,
And in the region of their peaceful selves;--
Now was it that both found, the meek and lofty
Did both find, helpers to their heart's desire,

And stuff at hand, plastic as they could wish;
Were called upon to exercise their skill,
Not in Utopia, subterranean fields,
Or some secreted island, Heaven knows where!

But in the very world, which is the world
Of all of us,--the place where in the end
We find our happiness, or not at all!

William Wordsworth

 

 

 

***Prelude To The American Civil War-Kenneth Stampp’s America In 1857

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Book Review

America In 1857:A Nation On The Brink, Kenneth M. Stampp, Oxford University Press,  1990

As we commemorate the 150^th anniversary of the American Civil War I have been poring through some books concerning the lead-up to that conflict trying to gather again a picture of what the political, social and economic landscape looked like that in a few short years would tear the American state apart and seriously jeopardize what Abraham Lincoln called this fragile experiment in democracy. The book under review, Kenneth Stampp’s America In 1857 is one such snapshot in time just prior to that war. And a good one.

The historian’s art is all about periodization, you know ages, eras, the times, zeitgeist, and things like that in order to set their arguments. Sometimes the choice is rather an arbitrary construct but here Professor Stampp has set out a pretty good argument for the year 1857 as decisive in the slide to civil war. Certainly the whole decade of the 1850s was filled with events that lead in that direction but 1857 with the inauguration of Democrat James Buchanan is not a bad place, especially over Kansas, to show where the “irrepressible conflict,” free labor or slave, would accelerate that rush to war.

Professor Stampp, who has written other books on antebellum slavery and post-war  reconstruction and so knows the period well, details how the forces that emerged from the presidential election of 1856 where Buchanan beat the upstart Republican Fremont played out in 1857 the first year of his administration. He runs through the important changing political party configurations, especially the final demise of the Whigs and the vanishing of the Know-Nothings and the rise of the anti-slavery Republican Party, the importance of the Dred Scott decision of that year which inflamed both sides on the slavery issue, and the almost infinite varieties of programs presented to find a political solution to the question of slavery expansion from popular sovereignty to filibusters. He also highlights and goes into great detail about the important of the struggle over the admission of Kansas into the Union as a defining issue that set both sides on edge. Many of the names like Douglas, Davis, Seward, Sumner, although not Lincoln’s, that will become familiar in the Civil War period are front and center in the Kansas struggles. Additionally, he factors in the Panic of 1857 and its aftermath in the political struggles of the times. Whether his thesis that 1857 was a decisive year holds up for future historians is uncertain but that he argues his position well and brings the period to life is not.                

Boston Private Bradley Manning Stand-Out As Part Of An International Day Of Solidarity -Saturday June 1^st Park Street Station – 1 PM

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 At Park Street Station In Boston On June 1st At 1 PM For A Stand-Out In Solidarity Before Bradley’s June 3^rd Trial

Plan to go to Fort Meade outside of Washington, D.C. on June 1^st for an international day of solidarity with Bradley before his scheduled June 3^rd trial. Check with the Bradley Manning Support Network http://www.bradleymanning.org/for information about going to Fort Meade from your area.

If you can’t make it to Fort Meade come to Park Street Station on June 1^st in support of this brave whistle-blower.

The Mulatta

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

What the hell did he know. He had come from a white world, from a white bread (a word that before he met her was unknown, maybe unknowable, to him), a white world of neighborhoods meant to be kept that way without any overt effort, and certainly without any rancor but that was just the way things were in this wicked old world. You kept to your own and they kept to their own, whoever the “they” were. So he grew to manhood in a neighborhood, a working- class Irish neighborhood mainly with a few Italians thrown in who had come over to work the now worked-out quarries that had made the city famous (that and famous presidents, Presidents of the United States that is). A neighborhood where in early summer before the heat really beat down you could tell it was summer because every kid, or almost every kid, who went to the local beach was bright red from the sun’s exertions. 

There was a standing joke, a joke that should have let him know what was what but didn’t, that the Italian kids, especially the girls (and that was all that really counted in his corner boy guy-driven world) when they tanned up all dark and everything looked like n-----s, looked all black. Of course that was just an unkind joke, meant or not, since what really set the tone of the neighborhood was that in his high school graduating class of almost six hundred there was not one, not one, black student, and not much else for non-white minorities either . Another standing joke was that someone had seen, had actually sighted mind you, an Arab one time in downtown Adamsville. Only passing through though. What was not a joke was that from his house and from many houses in that insulated community you could see a bridge that led to the big city, Boston, and a teeming and growing black ghetto. Yah, so what did he know.       

Yes, so what did he know when he saw her walking down the street, down a friendly sunny early summer Frisco street, Bay Street, young, younger than he from a quick glance, all casually beautiful, brownish skin, long legs, short dress as was the fashion of the time, and some peasant blouse with multi-colored designs worked in, and she smiled at him. Not a “come hither” smile so much as a thanks for the look, and I hope I made your day smile like she had been doing that look and smile response for ten thousand years.  Maybe she had, had done that in five hundred previous generations and it has stuck, stuck deep in the DNA. And that would have been it that except some papers she was carrying in her right hand had blown away in the street after a sudden wind whirl from the bay, not unusual in Frisco town, caught them. He chased after them, retrieved most of them, and returned them to her. And that started a conversation, you know,” thanks,” “oh it was nothing,” “are you a student?” and then a few seconds silence while he/she calculated whether this thing should be a start or a finish. A start. He asked her where she was a student, she said, part-time over a San Francisco State. He told her that he had finished school, had headed to California to see what it was all about and stuff like that. And so they talked for a while. And after a while they headed to one of the cafes that dotted Mission Street just then.

So they did the eternal boy-girl thing, had a few drinks, a couple of stutter laughs and so maybe that was that. He hoped not although as they were talking he noticed that she would keep wiping her nose, not from a cold nose, and he thought maybe she was into cocaine, coke, girl, since he had tried it a few times and had the same reaction with the nose. He had given it up after a short while for just that reason, and also that he was far more comfortable with an occasional joint, some weed, marijuana the drug of choice then, mainly among the young. He asked her for a date just out of the blue, asked her if she lived in a dorm, or something and she said no, she lived over on a street in South San Francisco, a street that she gave him directions to since as a newcomer he was unfamiliar with that part of town. She said to pick her up there the next afternoon. He asked her why not a date at night and she said she was busy then.  Yah, so what did he know.                      

The next afternoon after about seven wrong turns and mis-directions he wound up at her address, an address that turned out to be in the heart of the black ghetto, although unlike back East the houses looked well-kept up and did not have that Boston shanty town look. He was afraid, very afraid, since he had never actually been in such a situation before, and was further afraid every time a black man looked at him with black man eyes, eyes that said “what the hell are you doing here white bread, go back to your own turf,” although, there was no apparent menace behind those eyes. He rang the doorbell to her apartment, the front foyer door opened and he walked up to the second floor where she lived. She opened the door and entered her small apartment which was half student modern, half dope den. He was familiar with that look from some places in Boston where he had friends so that did not scare him off. Nor did the telltale mirror on the coffee table in front of a flop house sofa, a universal sight in those days. And on the mirror were a couple of random lines of coke that were waiting to be inhaled. He asked her if they were for her use she said-“ Yes, was that a problem?” He said no although he related his own negative cocaine experiences and she said she felt the opposite. He shrugged his shoulders.

He really didn’t think much of that cocaine situation one way or the other because if that had bothered him he would have cut the thing short the previous day. He was more and more intrigued by her. What set off an explosion though was when he asked her why she was living in a black neighborhood. Was she trying to save money on rent or something. She laughed, laughed a self-conscious laugh that he thought was making fun of him. She told him she was black, well, not all black, black and white, a mulatto, a mulatta. He freaked for a minute and then blurted out that he thought she was either Italian or Mexican or something like that and that look was what intrigued him. He started, self-consciously, to tell her about where he came from to explain why he had freaked for a minute, about his white bread prior existence but she cut him short a little, cut him short by saying was he going to stay or go, stay and they maybe could work something out. Go and that would be that. He half-stuttered “stay.” Then she went to that flop house sofa, sat down, rolled up a dollar bill and snorted a line of coke. She offered him a line; he hesitated and then said “what the hell.”

Later, after a few more lines, and a little talk they went to her bedroom. After their sweaty exertions, after she made him holler to high heaven with her body moves he blurted out that although he had never been with a black woman before it didn’t seem that different except she was more thoughtful and inventive about her love-making that the white girls he had known. She laughed. Then they both laughed. Both knowing that he was in for the ride, that she had him hooked, and that they would see where this trouble led them. Yah, so what did he know.           

 

Lynne Stewart - breaking news re release application-Free Lynne Stewart

Please forward widely and immediately...

Dear Friends of Lynne Stewart and Mumia Abu-Jamal,

Here's the latest news further indicating that a recommendation from Judge Koelt to grant Lynne compassionate release to her family's New York City home and thence to Sloan Kettering Cancer Center may be close at hand. We are awaiting confirmation.

Please read the material below and redouble your efforts to obtain additional signatures on the petition for Lynne's release.

I am presently scheduled to visit with Lynne at FMC Carswell in Fort Worth,Texas. It is my greatest hope that I can cancel my plane tickets and instead visit Lynne at her new home in New York. The fight for her return to good health, as difficult as that will be, will continue as well as her winning her freedom as Lynne pursues her legal battle demanding that the U.S. Supreme Court hear her appeal.

There is absolutely no doubt that the progress that we have collectively made to date opens the door wide to further victories. Let us all press on at this critical moment.

In solidarity,

Jeff Mackler, West Coast Coordinator, Lynne Stewart Defense Committee

*** Please forward widely ****

1. BREAKING NEWS - May 13, 2013 2:00 p.m. PST:

The International Petition Campaign to Free Lynne Stewart and Save Her Life is gratified to report that today, May 13, following urgent communications from former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and social activist Dick Gregory, that Federal Bureau of Prisons (FBP) General Counsel Kathleen Kenney telephoned Ramsey Clark to advise that a recommendation of Compassionate Release for Lynne Stewart from FMC Carswell Warden Jody R. Upton is on the desk of FBP Director Charles E. Samuels, Jr. with a full package of documentation.

Ramsey Clark and the International Petition Campaign are on stand-by for further news regarding Federal Bureau of Prisons implementation of Compassionate Release for Lynne Stewart with the appropriate filing of this Motion with Judge John Koetl.

We call upon all to intensify our collective efforts and expand the Petition Campaign as this life and death decision for Lynne Stewart is pending.

Our grateful thanks to all for your dedication and commitment in waging this struggle for justice, compassion and freedom for Lynne Stewart

(This Breaking News Update was prepared by Co-Cordinators Mya Shone, Ralph Schoenman and Ralph Poynter.)

*****************************************

2. Email from We Will Not Be Silent:

LYNNE STEWART SHOULD BE FREE

We will stand for love, courage and solidarity to make the call for Lynne to return home.

STAND WITH THE MANY

NOT WITH THE FEW

On April 26, 2013, people gathered outside the gates of the U.S. Federal Prison in Carswell, Texas where Lynne Stewart is being held.

WHAT WILL WE DO?

1. Sign the petition for a Compassionate Release for Lynne Stewart.

2. Post photos and the slideshow by clicking here on Facebook and Twitter, with links to the petition. Raise awareness about Lynne's case, her appeal for a Compassionate Release and encourage people you know to sign the petition.

3. Write a letter to Charles Samuels, who is looking at Lynne's case. Write that Lynne Stewart should be discharged on Compassionate Release grounds.

Charles E. Samuels, Jr., Director
Federal Bureau of Prisons

321 First Street NW
Washington, DC 20534

4. We will come out to stand together in Foley Square, NYC, this Wednesday, in Lynne's city and stand up for her. We will create a public presence from Carswell, Texas to Times Square, to Foley Square, New York to stand for compassion, for love, for justice for Lynne Stewart and ask others to stand with us.

We will be part of this wave of humanity...
to get justice done to bring Lynne home.

We will not delay. Time is of the essence.

SIGN THE PETITION ANDSPREAD THE WORD

LYNNESTEWART.ORG

In Lynne's own words, "until my feet are planted like the Tree that grows in Brooklyn and I am around my friends, family and comrades... we must continue. Fight On!!"

WE WILL NOT BE SILENT is an artist/activist collective that has been in existence since 2006. Through the creative use of language embodied on shirts and at times emboldened on signs held up in public spaces, we respond to current social justice issues, encouraging creative, direct public-actions where many people can participate.

FACEBOOK / TWITTER

Contact: INFO@WEWILLNOTBESILENT.NET
WWW.WEWILLNOTBESILENT.NET

Out In The Be-Bop 1950s Night- The Drifter Of No Known Trade, Take Two

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

As the drifter of no known trade (that is the moniker that he gave himself although if you look for a birth certificate, driver’s license or, more importantly, through the police files you will no such name. You will however find William James Bradley, Willie Brads, William Lee, Billie Wills and at least one half dozen other aliases depending on where you look and the town but “drifter” and keep in mind the add on “of no known trade” will do here.) sat down on the windy day Boston Common park bench he eyed a beat cop eyeing him. A copper ready, willing, and able to add him to his resume, to his weekly quota, hell, maybe to his pension time the way those guys worked their retirement racket. The drifter had that look about him, the look, hell, these days too maybe the smell of con. Funny the park was filled with people, mothers or nursemaids with little children, a couple of young lovebirds, a wino singing to himself , a couple of girls, one white, one black, with the look of strictly trade about them, whom he sensed were walking the streets looking for tricks and who were just then gathering themselves for the next push.

All that was going on and that copper only had eyes for him. He didn’t know the cop from Adam and since he was new in town, had just drifted back a couple of days before, the cop didn’t know him either (and he looked too young to have nabbed him on anything at any time). But it was always the same story, the same story since childhood, but more recently since he had been on the nod it seemed every cop in every city had his number. Maybe they were right to take that stare what with him in a “seen better days” trench coat, soiled and spattered pants a size or two too big these days, worn-out shoes (worn from many miles of hobo wandering and hitchhike standing on desolate two in the morning no traffic side roads), needing a shave and a haircut and topped off with a soft fedora hat, fairly new and of a Kelly green color ,that did not in any way, shape or form, go with the rest of the outfit. But such are the ways of the nod, and maybe such are the cop antenna that they sense the nod, or at least in a park sense that some connection is about to be made and they should keep on their toes. As the cop started heading his way slowly, feeling his way, the drifter started working his way back in his mind about how it all had gone awry. When he thought such thoughts and they had not been often that indicated that he was in need of some fix, some connection, although he was only sitting on this bench just then to rest, to rest the rest of the weary. And think.

He swore as a kid back in those North Adamsville projects (the town located a short way from Boston and the Common he was sitting in just then) to his corner boy gang that he would never do a lick of work in his life, nine to five work, back-breaking work like many fathers, including his, did and had the damn tumbledown project life to show for their efforts. No that scene was not for him. He figured, figured almost right back then, back in the mid-1950s that he could take his good looks (all the girls were crazy for him then and he would give his “leavings,” his rejects, to his corner boys after he was done with them), his good singing voice, and his, well, style and make it as a rock and roll star with plenty of dough, girls and everything. And he almost made it except a funny thing happened. His voice changed, changed to a gruff if manly voice that might have later made it as some sissy boy folk singer but not as a rock star. So that dream road out smashed he had to hustle, hustle like crazy to keep up with expenses and the like.

That is where he started presenting himself under the moniker of the “drifter with no known trade.” One day a guy came up to him, a guy who was interested (not a cop) in finding out how a guy with no known trade had such a “boss” car, some nice duds, a couple of foxy chicks and plenty of dough. He replied that he was doing a little of this and a little of that, just a drifter of no known trade and that was that. End of story. Well not quite the end. See he was robbing everything that was not tied down, first around North Adamsville, then in Boston, and later in Philly. And he was good at it, made some dough and planned big heists, some that came off, a couple you might have read about in the newspapers that were never solved, until she came along.

No, not a woman she, sister, cocaine, snow, girl, although a woman was part of it. A young girl from Philly, a society girl that he was trying to ply for her society connections as well as trying to ply her, Ellen, took him up as partner in snorting every line put in front of her. She said she was bored with tea (grass, herb, marijuana whatever you call it in your neighborhood) and wanted to branch out. He liked it after trying it, liked that she liked it, liked that they got all sexy (for a while before the hunt to keep connected, always connected, took the edge off) and made endless bed time. Then the other shoe dropped. Her habit, and then his, got him to take more risks, to get “rum” brave and plan a big heist, a heist that went awry and which cost him to two to five (she, society girl she, got off with five years’ probation, but he wasn’t squawking).

When he got out, the world had changed a little, the dough wasn’t around, he had not been around, the cops started looking his way more closely everywhere he went. So he moved again. This time to New Orleans, New Orleans and graduation day. Cocaine, coke, was not doing it for him anymore, he needed more of a kick and then some whore he ran into on the street turned him on to boy, H, heroin. And the nod. A couple more years in stir, give or take, for this and that, mostly drug dealing now and then to keep even with his habit. And now a park bench, a cop heading his way and maybe thirty days “vag.” Hell, maybe this time he would go cold turkey and get well, real well, maybe even get a job, get a trade. Nah, he wasn’t built for that stuff …