AMERICAN LEFT HISTORY

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

Saturday, September 21, 2013

***Out In The Be-Bop 1950s Night- Storms Are On The Ocean- For Prescott Breslin

A YouTube film clip of June Carter Cash performing Storms Are On The Ocean one of Prescott Breslin’s favorite boyhood tunes.

Wildwood Flower, June Carter Cash, produced by John Carter Cash, Dualtone Music, 2003

Scene: Brought to mind by the song Storms Are On The Ocean performed by June Carter Cash on her Wildwood Flower album.

Prescott Breslin was beside himself on that snowy December day just before the Christmas of 1953. He had just heard, no more than heard, he had been told directly by Mr. John MacAdams, the owner’s son, that the James MacAdams & Son Textile Mill was closing its Maine operations in Olde Saco and moving to Lansing, North Carolina right across the border from his old boyhood hometown down in Harlan, Harlan, Kentucky, bloody Harlan of labor legend, song, and story right after the first of the new year. And the reason that the usually steady Prescott was beside himself at hearing that news was that he knew that Lansing back country, knew that the matter of a state border meant little down there as far as backwater ways went, knew it deep in his bones, and knew that come hell or high-water that he could not go back, not to that kind of defeat.

Prescott (not Pres, Scottie, or any such nickname, by the way, just dignified Prescott, one of his few vanities), left the mill at the closing of his shift, went across the street to Millie’s Diner, sat at the stooled-counter for singles, ordered a cup of coffee and a piece of Millie’s homemade pumpkin pie, and put a nickel in the counter jukebox, selecting the Carter Family’s Storms Are On The Ocean that Millie had ordered the jukebox man to insert just for Prescott and the other country boys (and occasionally girls), mainly boys, or rather men who worked the mills in town and sometimes needed a reminder of home, or something with their coffee and pie.

Hearing the sounds of southern home brought a semi-tear to Prescott's eye until he realized that he was in public, was at hang-out Millie’s where he had friends, and that Millie, thirty-something, but motherly-kind Millie was looking directly at him and he held it back with might and main. In a flash he thought, tear turning to grim smirk, how he had told his second son, Kendrick, just last year when he asked about the Marine Corps uniform hanging in a back closet in the two by four apartment that they still rented from the Olde Saco Housing Authority and naively asked him why he went to war. He had answered that he preferred, much preferred, taking his chances in some forsaken battlefield that finish his young life out in the hard-bitten coal mines of eastern Kentucky. And then, as the last words of Storms echoed in the half-empty diner, he thought, thought hard against the day that he could not turn back, never.

And just then came creeping in that one second of self-doubt, that flash of why the hell had he fallen for, and married, a Northern mill town girl (the sweet, reliable Delores, nee LeBlanc, met at the Starlight Ballroom over in Old Orchard Beach when he had been short-time stationed at the Portsmouth Naval Base down in New Hampshire), stayed up North after the war when he knew the mills were only a shade bit better that the mines, faced every kind of insult for being southern from the insular Mainiacs (they actually call themselves that with pride, the hicks, and it wasn’t really because he was from the south although that made him an easy target but because he was not born in Maine and could never be a Mainiac even if he lived there one hundred years), and had had three growing, incredibly fast growing boys, with Delores. He reached, suddenly, into his pocket, found a stray nickel, put it in the counter jukebox, and played the flip side of Storms, Anchored In Love. Yes, times will be tough since the MacAdams Mill was one of the few mills still around as they all headed south for cheaper labor, didn’t he know all about that from the mine struggles, jesus, but Delores, the three boys, and he would eke it out somehow. There was no going back, no way.
*********
Carter Family - The Storms Are On The Ocean lyrics
I'm going away to leave you love
I'm going away for a while
But I'll return to see you sometime
If I go ten thousand miles

The storms are on the ocean
The heavens may cease to be
This world may lose it's motion love
If I prove false to thee

Oh who will dress your pretty little feet
And who will glove your hand
Oh who will kiss your rosy red cheeks
When I'm in a foreign land

Papa will dress my pretty little feet
And Mama will glove my hand
You may kiss my rosy red cheeks
When you return again

Have you seen those mournful doves
Flying from pine to pine
A-mournin' for their own true love
Just like I mourn for mine

I'll never go back on the ocean love
I'll never go back on the sea
I'll never go back on my blue-eyed girl
'Til she goes back on me

Out In The Be-Bop Noir Night -The Red Wind

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman-with kudos to Raymond Chandler

Old sailors, old tars who have roamed all the seas, seven at last count, who have been in every port, been in every port gin mill, whorehouse and greasy spoon, claim that the red wind, a wind coming from the land means nothing but trouble, trouble with a big T. Their take is this, and maybe they are right, that those red winds, the winds coming out of some Santa Ana enclave make people jittery, make them nervous, make them ready to do each and every thing they would not dream of doing in calmer times. Yes do screwy foul things right up to murder if need be Philip Marlowe, the tough old gumshoe, the seedy, has-been private eye, the shamus, found reason to believe those old seadogs were on to something when the winds, the red winds, no question, blew across the city of angels, disrupted the old time Los Angeles night, his night, one October week back in 1939, back before the war made the whole town crazy with or without winds.

Hell, who would have thought that going out for a few cold ones, a few brews, to take the dust off the night at a newly opened corner bar in the neighborhood, the old Bunker Hill neighborhood where Marlowe called home would lead to murder. He had sat there minding his own business nursing his second beer when Warden came in, came in looking for a dame. No, not some bar girl or some street tart but an upscale woman looking like something out of Vanity Fair and smelling, well, smelling of sandalwood if anybody was asking, just a faint whiff of sandalwood just like it is supposed to be applied. And for his efforts old brother Warden was waylaid and shot point blank by a guy also nursing a few drinks at one of the tables.

Naturally, after the police, the cops, in the person of one hard-nosed Homicide Detective Smythe who had no love for private dicks as he called them, especially Marlowe since he had gotten his nose bent out of shape in the Gilbert murder case, finished rumbling him up, practically calling him the perpetrator, or in cahoots with the hard guy, our boy Marlowe was up for anything that would shed like on what the hell had happened before his eyes. See, not only did that lambster plug Warden but he wanted to put two between the eyes of one Philip Marlowe (and the newly minted bar owner too) to erase any witnesses to his dastardly deed. Marlowe, for professional pride took umbrage at that notion, and at the intriguing idea that some femme, some femme with that essence of sandalwood surrounding her was out in the red wind night. And so our boy traced Warden’s movement back, finally coming up with some clover.

This is the way it went down. This Warden was nothing but a grifter, a ex-con with expensive habits, a dope thing. He had landed in jail up in Oregon and did some time with Richard Baxter, yes, the Richard Baxter who controlled the whole political machine on the sunny slumming angels streets of the town. This Baxter, obviously did not want that hard fact of hard time known around town, among the many other little things that he wanted kept secret. Warden’s grift though was to get to Baxter through his wife Lola, the woman of the sandalwood night. Baxter had picked her up on the rebound after her true love bit the dust down Mexico way flying stuff in and out. Warden, a resourceful sort in a crude way, stole a certain pearl necklace of hers to grab some dough. In any case the pay-off to Warden was dough, big dough, for the pearl necklace that this fly boy had given Lola as sign of undying devotion. Lola was the woman Warden was looking to meet at the bar before he died in a hail of bullets.

Lola, still without her necklace after the aborted meet with Warden, then hired Philip to retrieve the item and keep it on the hush. Naturally Marlowe’s code of honor required that he adhere to that bargain, and find the necklace which he did. As well as a little off-hand romance with the lovely lonely, ethereal Lola. Baxter, who had his tentacles everywhere in his domain found out about Lola and the pearls, the potential expose of his jail-bird time, and her little tryst with Marlowe and was determined to do something about the matter.

Men like Richard Baxter do not get where they wind up without walking over a pile of corpses and so he confronted Lola and Philip in her bedroom one night, gun in hand. Somehow Lola diverted Baxter’s attention long enough to let Marlowe to take a shot at him, a fatal shot, taking a couple of slugs herself in the melee. She died in Philip’s arms clutching that necklace. As for the necklace that old time fly boy love told Lola it had been worth big dough. Philip found out it was glass, worthless. Yes, Marlowe mused those navies were right, those dry res winds meant nothing but trouble, trouble with a big T.

The Private Goes Public

The meaning of Chelsea Manning.

By Sam Slovick

September 12, 2013

Chelsea Manning's selfie.

hat do you do when you’ve just been found guilty on 20 counts, including violating the Espionage Act of 1917, and sentenced to 35 years in the central military prison at Ft. Leavenworth, Kan.?
If you’re former Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, who helped leak more than 700,000 military and state department records—including video of an Apache helicopter gunship killing civilians and journalists—you have the biggest coming-out party in history.
“I am Chelsea Manning. I am female,” Manning wrote in a statement released to NBC’s Today show shortly after she was sentenced.
With those seven words, Manning transformed herself from someone who might be dismissed as a confused kid acting out (she had been showing signs before all this) or a possible shrinking violet (she apologized during the hearing for any harm she may have caused the U.S.) into a warrior princess now fighting for transparency within the military-industrial complex and LBGTQ rights.
Yes, by doubling down on her dissidence, Chelsea is now waving the stars and stripes as well as the rainbow flag, demanding a pardon, on moral grounds, outmaneuvering her persecutors, all the while becoming a new icon to the LBGTQ community—the very community she will be walking into with open arms as soon as she’s out of prison, which will be sooner than the scalp hunters expected or wanted.
In other words, Manning is crazy all right, crazy like a fox. She’s positioned herself at the center of a global platform—the newly renamed Private Manning Support Network—that raised the money for her legal defense and recently launched a crowdsourcing project to pay for her family in Wales to visit. Moreover, she may become just the second person in U.S. history to complete a gender transformation while incarcerated.
Chelsea Manning either hit a psychiatric wall or staged a breakdown while she was stationed in Iraq in 2009. Let’s say it’s the latter and that on May 7, when Army witnesses say they found her in the fetal position in a storage cupboard with a knife and the words “I want” carved into the vinyl chair she was sitting on, is when she began laying the groundwork for her master plan.
She rousted herself enough to punch intelligence analyst specialist Jihrleah Showman, a woman, in the face. For that, she was rewarded with a brigade psychiatrist recommending then-Private Bradley Manning be discharged for “occupational problem and adjustment disorder.” Manning’s supervisor promptly removed the bolt from her gun and relinquished her to supply-office duty. Oddly, her security clearance remained intact.
Maybe, as the story goes, Manning actually did come unglued behind a breakup with her boyfriend and subsequently leaked thousands of classified documents in a kind of adolescent tantrum. But a trail of breadcrumbs suggests other possibilities.
The trail starts when Manning, the son of a Navy veteran skilled in computer programming, showed up while on leave in January 2010 at a “hackerspace” in the basement of the computer science building at Boston University. According to leftist blog Empty Wheel, Manning was in Boston looking for encryption software and had already scraped massive amounts of data without being caught.
Manning met mathematician Eric Schmiedl while in Boston. She emailed Schmiedl on May 19, confessing that she was the source of the Baghdad airstrike video. Ten days before she contacted Schmiedl, Manning hit up gay novelist Jonathan Odell on Facebook, saying that she had been involved in some “very high-profile events, albeit as a nameless individual thus far” and wanted to talk to him.
In other words, her operation was already up and running and looking for distribution.
Working more as a smooth operator than a confused kid, Manning contacted high profile “gray hat” hacker Adrian Lamo on May 21, disclosing that she had set up Twitter and YouTube accounts under the name Breanna. Giving a digital birth to her female self, Manning wrote to Lamo, “I wouldn’t mind going to prison for the rest of my life, or being executed so much, if it wasn’t for the possibility of having pictures of me … plastered all over the world press … as [a] boy.”
Two days later, Lamo turned her in. Was Manning actually falling apart or setting up a gender-dysphoria defense knowing the leaks would be traced to her?

anning got into the military for the wrong reasons. On April 24, 2010, she sent an email to Master Sergeant Paul Adkins featuring an attached Warholian self-portrait of herself in a blond wig. “This is my problem. I’ve had signs of it for a very long time,” she wrote, as well as, “I thought a career in the military would get rid of it.”
Well, no. But maybe as she set about sabotaging her Army career while outing some of the military’s dirty secrets, she started to focus on what would “get rid of it,” and then some. Such as positioning herself as a hero by exposing the oppressive hetero-normative policies of the Department of Defense.
Contacting a high-profile hacker like Lamo, who had been arrested in 2003 after hacking The New York Times, Yahoo! and Microsoft, would clearly set off some big alarms. She knew most of the documents she leaked were not breaking news— the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners and misrepresentation of the civilian death toll in the Iraq War were well known by then. Though there were predictable headhunters, including Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) calling for the death penalty, even former Defense Secretary Robert Gates told Congress the leaks were “significantly overwrought, causing no serious damage, though embarrassing and awkward.”
There’s a chance Manning calculated prison might be a better place to “get rid of it” than the military. At least she wouldn’t have to participate in gunning down civilians and journalists in prison. Was this a case of moral conscience intersecting with self -interest?
Judge Denise Lind sentenced Manning to 35 years at Ft. Leavenworth with three-and-a-half years granted for time served and consideration for the abusive treatment she suffered in a Marine brig at Quantico. When measured against the 10 years given to Abu Ghraib’s sadistic shot caller, Charles Graner, who served six and a half, Manning’s sentence seems severe at first. It was, however, only 10 more years than Manning’s proposed plea and it was far less than the headhunters were howling for.
Manning’s lawyer, David Coombs, says Manning could be out in seven years on parole. He’s filed for a presidential pardon. Manning’s statement said, “If you deny my request for a pardon, I will serve my time knowing that sometimes you have to pay a heavy price to live in a free society.”
Chelsea went to jail and everybody else went back to business as usual with the full impact of Manning’s leaks still unknown. The New York Times recently reported that some cables included in a trove of State Department messages leaked to WikiLeaks in 2010 included information about Syria’s procurement of deadly chemical weapons—very possibly part of Manning’s doc dump.
In her statement to the Today show, Manning said she wanted everyone to now “the real me.” And that she wanted to begin hormone therapy ASAP. The statement was signed “Chelsea E. Manning.”
The Army maintains it isn’t going to give Manning, who won’t be dishonorably discharged until her time is served, hormone therapy or any other special consideration. Coombs says he will file legal action to get the therapy. Meanwhile, the LGBTQ community has a new high-profile advocate for prison reform.
Either way, it all works in favor of Manning maneuvering her way out of the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Ft. Leavenworth, Kan., so she can slip into something more comfortable, like a federal prison for her government-sponsored hormone replacement treatment and, presumably, gender reassignment surgery (GRS).
As the legal petitions pile up, at some point in the foreseeable future an accredited doctor is likely to certify Manning as transgender and she’ll begin hormone treatment somewhere in the federal prison system. Or, less likely, Ft. Leavenworth will begin to accommodate military personnel with gender dysphoria and provide them with hormone therapy.
Manning will ultimately be released from prison as Chelsea Manning, a trans-woman who has paid her debt to society. During her time in jail, the contributions her leaks made to transparency, public awareness and truth will continue to seep to the surface. The truth always comes out in time, like everything (and everyone) else.

Participating organizations in the Network to Stop Drone Surveillance and Warfare (NSDSW) are responding to
a call by activists nationwide for a follow-on campaign to the tremendously successful April Days of Action 2013.

CODEPINK, World Can't Wait, AFSC, Know Drones, No Drones Network, and others have conferred and recommend:

November Days of Action Against Drones 2013

To help build this campaign, please:

(1) Post your actions on the unified national list of anti-drones actions.

(2) Opt-in to become a participant in NSDSW.

(3) Use the NSDSW online organizing manual to develop your actions, and share it with others!

MORE BACKGROUND

There has been extraordinary public opposition to war as a result of the Obama administration's proposal to attack Syria and continuing question over whether Congress will authorize it. This has focused public attention on the use of force and the cost of war.

The weeks ahead are a perfect time for coordinated effort against war of all kinds, including drone wars.

The fulcrum of the proposed November days will be the “Drones Around the Globe: Proliferation and Resistance” summit being held in Washington DC the weekend of November 16-17, 2013. Organized by CODEPINK, Institute for Policy Studies, The Nation Magazine, and National Lawyers Guild (Georgetown Chapter), coordinated actions will compliment and support the gathering.

* Friday, November 15: protests at General Atomics in Washington, DC. We are calling for actions around the country at other manufactures of drones.

* Saturday/Sunday, November 16/17: Drones Around the Globe: Proliferation and Resistance (Registration and Program)

* Monday, November 18: legislative push at Congressional offices in DC and in local districts.

Please share this call widely.

An expanded description of November Days of Action Against Drones activities will be distributed by October 1.

Peter Lems

For a full list of participating NSDSW organizations click here.

For additional coordinated actions leading up to the November summit click here.

### END ###

Peter Lems

Program Director, Education and Advocacy for Iraq and Afghanistan

American Friends Service Committee

1501 Cherry Street, Philadelphia, 19102

Tel: 215/241-7170 | Fax: 215/241-7177

http://afghanistan101.blogspot.com

Twitter: afghanistan101

Facebook: AFSC Wage Peace Campaign

http://www.afsc.org/

Nuclear Weapons: Time for Reductions

President Obama has repeatedly and eloquently spoken about the need to rid the world of nuclear weapons. Even as a student at Harvard Law School he wrote papers on the horrific threats to humanity posed by nuclear weapons. As President, he has continued this theme in his speeches, but he has fallen short in his actions. Fortunately, several upcoming events provide opportunities for President Obama to show support for international actions against nuclear weapons.

First, to show his continuing commitment to a world free of nuclear weapons, he should attend, and personally address, the UN High-Level Conference On Nuclear Weapons set for Sept. 26, 2013, in New York City. It is critical that he attend this important conference, and state his readiness to cooperate with other nations to work on a plan to get rid of nuclear weapons, and as President Obama said, make the world truly safe.

Second, he should send a high-level U.S. delegation to the 2014 conference in Mexico on the humanitarian effects of nuclear war.

Even one nuclear explosion anywhere on the planet would cause horrendous suffering and long-term destruction. Remember Einstein’s words, “The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.”

It is our responsibility as citizens to see that our government changes its thinking and actions.

Contact President Obama, and urge him to personally address the September 26th, UN Conference on Nuclear Weapons, and to send an official government delegation to the 2014 conference in Mexico. Ask him to seize these unique occasions to inform both the nuclear weapons nations and others, that the U.S is ready to participate in nuclear reductions and ultimately, the world-wide elimination of nuclear weapons.

CONTACT:

PRESIDENT OBAMA

Web: www.whitehouse.gov/contact

Tel: 202-456-1111 (9:00 am to 5:00 pm)

Fax: 202-456-2461

Mail:

President Barack Obama

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Washington, DC 20500

Photo: Susan, UBC Rose Garden, Vancouver, Lois Barber, 1977

President Putin: Help Free Mordechai Vanunu and Tell the Truth about Nuclear Weapons

Posted to TNT: Tell Nuclear Truths
May 31

►See full description

To: Prime Minister Netanyahu, President Peres, President Putin, President Obama, Secretary of State Kerry and the Leaders of All Member States of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Mordechai Vanunu is a former Israeli nuclear technician who told the truth and provided the photographic proof of Israel’s nuclear weapons program to the London Sunday Times in 1986. Israel kidnapped Vanunu and after a closed-door trial convicted him for treason and espionage. Vanunu then...
…

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"I have sacrificed my freedom and risked my life in order to expose the danger of nuclear weapons which threatens this whole region." -Mordechai Vanunu

In 1985 Mordechai Vanunu, was a mid level technician on the night shift at Israel's nuclear facility in Dimona.

Vanunu suffered a crisis of conscience when he realized he was a cog in the manufacturing of Weapons of Mass Destruction and not working in a Textile Plant as the sign out front claimed!

Because of lax SECURITY, Vanunu was able to enter into Top Secret locations throughout the seven-story underground WMD Facility and shoot two rolls of film.

He traveled throughout Europe for nine months with the undeveloped film until he met Peter Hounam, an investigative journalist for the London SUNDAY TIMES.

The SUNDAY TIMES published a front page story utilizing Vanunu's photos and his testimony just as he was being kidnapped, clubbed, drugged, bound by Mossad in Rome and transported back to Israel for a closed-door trial.

Vanunu was convicted of treason and espionage in 1988 and endured 18 years in a windowless tomb sized cell-most all in solitary confinement.

Vanunu was 'freed' on 21 April 2004 under draconian restrictions including not to speak to foreigner's-meaning MEDIA-and ever since denied the right to leave Israel.
Vanunu has NO knowledge of Israel's WMD beyond 1985 and he has also spoken with thousands of people since 2004-and many books about him and video interviews with him have been published.

Why the World should care about Vanunu's unjust detention:

The Establishment of Israel's very Statehood was contingent upon upholding the UN UNIVERSAL DECLARATION of HUMAN RIGHTSand every Member State is obligated to hold ALL other Member States to it!

Article 13 and 19 enshrine:
Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country. - Article 13-2

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. - Article 19.

Whereas, the International Court of Justice found that the destructive power of nuclear weapons cannot be contained in either space or time, and that they carry the potential to destroy all civilization and the entire ecosystem of the planet,

Whereas, Governments have obligations and People have rights, and the nuclear threat attacks every core concept of human rights,

Whereas it is a basic human right to be free of threat or violence, and it is the duty of adults to protect children and future generations, we the people of the World unequivocally demand all Governments of the World to pursue a Nuclear FREE World and clean up the chemical and radioactive contamination which have polluted Our World,

Whereas America remains the only nation in the world to unleash Nuclear Weapons and Israel remains the only state in the Middle East with Nuclear Weapons We the People of The World beseech All Leaders of The World to END ALL Nuclear Deceptions and FREE ALL Nuclear Resisters.

Location: Jerusalem, Israel

Breaking News

Over 8,000 people signed this petition which was open for signatures from May 31 through August 9, 2013. This Petition has now re-opened for signatures until Oct. 13 [Vanunu's 59th birthday] to directly address President Putin because on Thursday he said…Read More

***From The Pen Of Ernest Hemingway On Love And War- "A Farewell To Arms"

BOOK REVIEW

A FAREWELL TO ARMS, ERNEST HEMINGWAY, GROVE PRESS, 1997

I have spent a political lifetime arguing that the nature of modern society turned on the dramatic and deadly events that became what we know in history as World War I. A Farewell to Arms is Ernest Hemingway’s attempt to come to grips with that notion in novelistic form. He combines the two themes that he is noted for and accomplished at - love and war- and demonstrates how hard that combination is on the love side of the equation. Here we find the first flourishes of that angst, desperation and sense of futility in the persons of the main characters, a young fancy-free American officer and a British nurse who had recently lost her fiancé in battle, that would characterize the survivors of the war- the "lost generation".

When I reviewed Hemingway’s "The Sun Also Rises" I argued that Scott Fitzgerald had the truer ear for the pathos of the "lost generation" after the war. I also noted that Hemingway had a much better ear and style for the love and war combination. Here Hemingway clearly wins. Maybe it is the trauma of war that makes his sparseness of language and stripped emotion work. Maybe it is his eternal quest for honor and the other attributes of machismo closely associated with the war experience. Maybe it is because he could just flat-out write a hell of a war story. But, damn, you had better read this novel if you want to know what writing is all about.

We Urgently Need 100, 000 Signatures By September 20, 2013 -Sign The On-Line Petition-President Obama Pardon Private Manning - Free Private Manning- The Heroic Whistle-Blower Now!

Note that this image is PVT Manning’s preferred photo.

The Fight For Private Manning’s Freedom Continues…

The draconian 35 years sentence handed down by a military judge on August 21, 2013 marked a new focus on the campaign to free Private Manning. The central theme of the new campaign is –“President Obama Pardon Bradley Manning.” An immediate task is to begin organizing around the call started by Amnesty International and the Private Manning Support Network on August 20, 2013 to sign an on-line petition directed to the President. The goal is to get 100,000 on-line signatures by September 20, 2013 to make our case loud and clear. Join many thousands of fellow citizens and supporters around the world to say loudly and clearly-President Obama Pardon Private Manning

Below is the link to the Amnesty International/Private Manning Support Network to sign the on-line petition before the White House- imposed September 20, 2013 deadline. Thank you

pardon.bradleymanning.org.

***From The Boston Private Manning Support Committee Archives (Fall 2013)

Thanks to everybody who signed the on-line petition. We failed to force an answer from the President this time but there will be further efforts. Thanks also to those who supported our weekly efforts on behalf of Private Manning as we close down that phase of our efforts. We are now working out our future plans to keep the Manning case before the public.
Let’s Redouble Our Efforts To Free Private Manning-President Obama Pardon Private Manning-Make Every Town Square In America (And The World) A Private 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

Note that this image is PVT Manning’s preferred photo.

The Struggle Continues …

Five Ways To Support Heroic Wikileaks Whistle-Blower Private Manning

*Call (202) 685-2900- Major General Jeffery S. Buchanan is the Convening Authority for Private Manning’s court- martial, which means that he has the authority to decrease the sentence imposed no matter what the judge handed down. Ask General Buchanan to use his authority to reduce the draconian 35 year sentence handed down by Judge Lind.

Please help us reach all these important contacts: Adrienne Combs, Deputy Officer Public Affairs (202) 685-2900 adrienne.m.combs.civ@mail.mil

Col. Michelle Martin-Hing, Public Affairs Officer (202) 685-4899 michelle.l.martinhing.mil@mail.mil The Public Affairs Office fax #: 202-685-0706

Try e-mailing Maj. Gen. Buchanan at jeffrey.s.buchanan@us.army.mil –

The Public Affairs Office is required to report up the chain of command the number of calls they receive on a particular issue, so please help us flood the office with support for our heroic whistleblower today!

*Come to our stand-out in support of Private Manning in Central Square, Cambridge, Ma. (Corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Prospect Street near MBTA Redline station) every Wednesday between 5:00-6:00 PM or start a stand-out in your town.

*Contribute to the Private Manning Defense Fund- now that the trial has finished funds are urgently needed for pardon campaign and for future military and civilian court appeals. The hard fact of the American legal system, military of civilian, is the more funds available the better the defense, especially in political prisoner cases like Private Manning’s. The government had unlimited financial and personnel resources to prosecute Private Manning at trial. And used them as it will on any future legal proceedings. So help out with whatever you can spare. For link go to http://www.bradleymanning.org/

*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) to demand that President Obama use his constitutional power under Article II, Section II to pardon Private Manning now.

*Write letters of solidarity to Private Manning while she is serving her sentence. She wishes to be addressed as Chelsea and have feminine pronouns used when referring to her. Private Manning’s mailing address: Bradley E. Manning, 89289, 1300 N. Warehouse Road, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 66027-2304. You must use Bradley on the address envelope.

Private Manning cannot receive stamps or money in any form. Photos must be on copy paper. Along with “contraband,” “inflammatory material” is not allowed. Six page maximum.

***From The Boston Private Manning Support Committee Archives (Fall 2013)

We Urgently Need 100, 000 Signatures By September 20, 2013 -Sign The On-Line Petition-President Obama Pardon Private Manning - Free Private Manning- The Heroic Whistle-Blower Now!

Thanks to everybody who signed the on-line petition. We failed to force an answer from the President this time but there will be further efforts

Note that this image is PVT Manning’s preferred photo.

The Fight For Private Manning’s Freedom Continues…

The draconian 35 years sentence handed down by a military judge on August 21, 2013 marked a new focus on the campaign to free Private Manning. The central theme of the new campaign is –“President Obama Pardon Bradley Manning.” An immediate task is to begin organizing around the call started by Amnesty International and the Private Manning Support Network on August 20, 2013 to sign an on-line petition directed to the President. The goal is to get 100,000 on-line signatures by September 20, 2013 to make our case loud and clear. Join many thousands of fellow citizens and supporters around the world to say loudly and clearly-President Obama Pardon Private Manning

Below is the link to the Amnesty International/Private Manning Support Network to sign the on-line petition before the White House- imposed September 20, 2013 deadline. Thank you

pardon.bradleymanning.org.

***From The Boston Private Manning Support Committee Archives (Fall 2013)

We Urgently Need 100, 000 Signatures-Sign The On-Line Petition-President Obama Pardon Private Manning -Free Private Manning- The Heroic Whistle-Blower Now!
Thanks to everybody who signed the on-line petition. We failed to force an answer from the President this time but there will be further efforts

Note that this image is PVT Manning’s preferred photo.
The Struggle Continues …

The draconian 35 years sentence handed down by a military judge on August 21, 2013 marked a new focus on the campaign to free Private Manning. The central theme of the day and of the new campaign is –“President Obama Pardon Bradley Manning.” An immediate task is to begin organizing around the call by Amnesty International and the Private Manning Support Network to sign an on-line petition directed to the President. The goal is to get 100,000 on-line signatures by September 20, 2013 to make our case loud and clear. All pardon petition efforts should focus on the on-line petition to send that message as one voice.

Below is a link to the Amnesty International/Private Manning Support Network to sign the on-line petition. The process is a little more cumbersome than other such petitions, including having to set up an account with an e-mail but the struggle to free Private Manning is worth the extra time and effort for all the light shed on the governmental cover-ups and other nefarious actions exposed.

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/restore-united-states’-human-rights-record-and-grant-clemency-pvt-bradley-manning/L7zHZv4r

And…

Call (202) 685-2900- Major General Jeffery S. Buchanan is the Convening Authority for Private Manning’s court martial, which means that he has the authority to decrease the sentence, no matter what the judge imposed. Ask General Buchanan to use his authority to reduce the 35 year sentence handed down by Judge Lind.

Please help us reach all these important contacts: Adrienne Combs, Deputy Officer Public Affairs (202) 685-2900 adrienne.m.combs.civ@mail.mil- Col. Michelle Martin-Hing, Public Affairs Officer (202) 685-4899 michelle.l.martinhing.mil@mail.mil The Public Affairs Office fax #: 202-685-0706

Try e-mailing Maj. Gen. Buchanan at jeffrey.s.buchanan@us.army.mil

The Public Affairs Office is required to report up the chain of command the number of calls they receive on a particular issue, so please help us flood the office with support for whistleblower Chelsea (Bradley) Manning today!

***From The Boston Private Manning Support Committee Archives (Fall 2013)

We Need 100, 000 Signatures-Sign The On-Line Petition-President Obama Pardon Private Manning - Free Chelsea Manning- The Heroic Whistle-Blower Formerly Known As Bradley Now!

Thanks to everybody who signed the on-line petition. We failed to force an answer from the President this time but there will be further efforts

Note that this image is PVT Manning’s preferred photo.

On August 22, 2013 David Coombs announced that as of that date Private Bradley Manning, the unjustly imprisoned heroic Wikileaks whistle-blower soldier, wants to be called Chelsea and to be referred to by use of the feminine pronoun. How this change affects the language used in campaigns after the Amnesty International/Private Manning Support Network’s petition to President Obama remains to be seen but for now we will use Pardon Bradley Manning. Here is a link to announcement-

http://www.today.com/news/i-am-chelsea-bradley-mannings-full-statement-6C10974052

The draconian 35 years sentence handed down by a military judge on August 21, 2013 marks a new focus on the campaign to free Private Manning. The central theme of the day and of the new campaign is –“President Obama Pardon Bradley Manning.”An immediate task is to begin organizing around the call by Amnesty International and the Private Manning Support Network to sign an on-line petition directed to the President. The goal is to get 100,000 on-line signatures by September 20, 2013 to make our case loud and clear. All pardon petition efforts should focus on the on-line petition to send that message as one voice.

Below is a link to the Amnesty International/Private Manning Support Network to sign the on-line petition. The process is a little more cumbersome than other such petitions, including having to set up an account with an e-mail but since they (and you know who the they are (first letter N) have all our e-mail addresses anyway push on. This is for Chelsea (Bradley).

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/restore-united-states’-human-rights-record-and-grant-clemency-pvt-bradley-manning/L7zHZv4r

AMERICAN LEFT HISTORY

Saturday, September 21, 2013

The Private Goes Public

The meaning of Chelsea Manning.

By Sam Slovick

September 12, 2013

To: Prime Minister Netanyahu, President Peres, President Putin, President Obama, Secretary of State Kerry and the Leaders of All Member States of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

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