President Obama, Pardon Pvt. Manning

Because the public deserves the truth and whistle-blowers deserve protection.

We are military veterans, journalists, educators, homemakers, lawyers, students, and citizens.

We ask you to consider the facts and free US Army Pvt. Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning.

As an Intelligence Analyst stationed in Iraq, Pvt. Manning had access to some of America’s dirtiest secrets—crimes such as torture, illegal surveillance, and corruption—often committed in our name.

Manning acted on conscience alone, with selfless courage and conviction, and gave these secrets to us, the public.

“I believed that if the general public had access to the information contained within the[Iraq and Afghan War Logs] this could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy,”

Manning explained to the military court. “I wanted the American public to know that not everyone in Iraq and Afghanistan were targets that needed to be neutralized, but rather people who were struggling to live in the pressure cooker environment of what we call asymmetric warfare.”

Journalists used these documents to uncover many startling truths. We learned:

•Donald Rumsfeld and General Petraeus helped support torture in Iraq.

•Deliberate civilian killings by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan went unpunished.

•Thousands of civilian casualties were never acknowledged publicly.

•Most Guantanamo detainees were innocent.

For service on behalf of an informed democracy, Manning was sentenced by military judge Colonel Denise Lind to a devastating 35 years in prison.

Government secrecy has grown exponentially during the past decade, but more secrecy does not make us safer when it fosters unaccountability.

Pvt. Manning was convicted of Espionage Act charges for providing WikiLeaks with this information, but the prosecutors noted that they would have done the same had the information been given to The New York Times. Prosecutors did not show that enemies used this information against the US, or that the releases resulted in any casualties.

Pvt. Manning has already been punished, even in violation of military law.

She has been:

•Held in confinement since May 29, 2010.

•Subjected to illegal punishment amounting to torture for nearly nine months at Quantico Marine Base, Virginia, in violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), Article 13—facts confirmed by both the United Nation’s lead investigator on torture and military judge Col. Lind.

•Denied a speedy trial in violation of UCMJ, Article 10, having been imprisoned for over three years before trial.

•Denied anything resembling a fair trial when prosecutors were allowed to change the charge sheet to match evidence presented, and enter new evidence, after closing arguments.

Pvt. Manning believed you, Mr. President, when you came into office promising the most transparent administration in history, and that you would protect whistle-blowers. We urge you to start upholding those promises, beginning with this American prisoner of conscience.

We urge you to grant Pvt. Manning’s petition for a Presidential Pardon.

FIRST& LAST NAME _____________________________________________________________

STREET ADDRESS _____________________________________________________________

CITY, STATE & ZIP _____________________________________________________________

EMAIL& PHONE _____________________________________________________________

Please return to: For more information: www.privatemanning.org

Private Manning Support Network, c/o Courage to Resist, 484 Lake Park Ave #41, Oakland CA 94610

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

Seven Ways To Support Freedom For Chelsea Manning- President Obama Pardon Chelsea Manning Now!

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

The Struggle Continues …

Seven Ways To Support Heroic Wikileaks Whistle-Blower Chelsea 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!

*Sign the public petition to President Obama – Sign online or print and share PDF petition Please sign the petition on the reverse side of this letter, “President Obama, Pardon Pvt. Manning,” and make copies to share with friends and family!

You can also 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.

*Start a stand -out, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, in your town square to publicize the pardon and clemency campaigns. Contact the Private Manning SupportNetwork for help with materials and organizing tips http://www.bradleymanning.org/

*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/

*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.

*Call: (913) 758-3600-Write to:Col. Sioban Ledwith, Commander U.S. Detention Barracks 1301 N Warehouse Rd
Ft. Leavenworth KS 66027-Tell them: “Transgender rights are human rights! Respect Private Manning’s identity by acknowledging the name ‘Chelsea Manning’ whenever possible, including in mail addressed to her, and by allowing her access to appropriate medical treatment for gender dysphoria, including hormone replacement therapy (HRT).” (for more details-http://markinbookreview.blogspot.com/2013/11/respecting-chelseas-identity-is-this.html#!/2013/11/respecting-chelseas-identity-is-this.html

Send The Following Message (Or Write Your Own) To The President In Support Of A Pardon For Private Manning

To: President Barack Obama
White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C. 20500

The draconian 35 years sentence handed down by a military judge, Colonel Lind, on August 21, 2013 to Private Manning (Chelsea formerly known as Bradley) has outraged many citizens including me.
Under Article II, Section II of the U.S. Constitution the President of the United States had the authority to grant pardons to those who fall under federal jurisdiction.
Some of the reasons for my request include:

*that Private Manning was held for nearly a year in abusive solitary confinement at the Marine base at Quantico, Virginia, which the UN rapporteur in his findings has called “cruel, inhuman, and degrading”

*that the media had been continually blocked from transcripts and documents related to the trial and that it has only been through the efforts of Private Manning’s supporters that any transcripts exist.

*that under the UCMJ a soldier has the right to a speedy trial and that it was unconscionable and unconstitutional to wait 3 years before starting the court martial.

*that absolutely no one was harmed by the release of documents that exposed war crimes, unnecessary secrecy and disturbing foreign policy.

*that Private Manning is a hero who did the right thing when she revealed truth about wars that had been based on lies.

I urge you to use your authority under the Constitution to right the wrongs done to Private Manning – Enough is enough!

Signature ___________________________________________________________

Print Name __________________________________________________________

Address_____________________________________________________________

City / Town/State/Zip Code_________________________________________

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

No dejaremos a nuestros Sister Detrás presidente Obama Pardon Chelsea Manning ahora!

Discurso pronunciado en nombre del Chelsea Manning en los Smedley mayordomo Veteranos anuales Brigada de la Paz patrocinado por la paz en caso de Armisticio / Día de los Veteranos 11 de noviembre de 2013 a Fanueil Hall en Boston

No dejaremos a nuestros Sister Detrás presidente Obama Pardon Chelsea Manning ahora!

Los titulares del verano son ahora aún. El veredicto, la sentencia judicial si no el veredicto de la historia, en el caso de los Estados Unidos contra el soldado de primera clase Bradley Manning ha sido proclamado, culpable de 20 de los 22 cargos. La sentencia draconiana 35 años se ha impuesto por la cruel descaradamente progubernamental juez militar, el coronel Lind. Los expertos de los medios y comentaristas también han dado su opinión, principalmente, que la popa se había hecho justicia por la convicción, la convicción de acuerdo a su propio deseo de mantener las cosas en secreto para nosotros y no dejar que un soldado alistado humilde exponga su castillo de naipes. Algunos, como el avestruz New York Times, se resistió un poco a la sentencia excesiva y luego siguió su camino. Otros tenían una risita momentánea cuando Bradley se convirtió en Chelsea para expresar su verdadero género y entonces ellos también se fue. Todo ahora está tranquilo, el caso es noticia de ayer ya mucho tiempo fuera del interés de 24/7 ciclo. En sus ojos Chelsea Manning ha tenido sus quince minutos de fama y ahora se reduce a sólo un prisionero de guerra confinada a los cuarteles de máxima seguridad en las praderas de Kansas en Fort Leavenworth para hacer frente a un futuro incierto.

Chelsea Manning ahora también se enfrenta al duro destino que se da en casi todos los casos de presos políticos, haciendo difícil la espera para el proceso de apelación engorroso lento para trabajar su camino a través de los tribunales militares y civiles de apelación. Espera en el corto plazo para una posible reducción de la pena por el oficial de convocatoria de Manning de Private corte marcial que tiene la autoridad para hacerlo para el Distrito Militar de Washington, el general Buchanan con sede en Fort McNair. Y espera también, con franqueza, con la esperanza de desvanecimiento, de alguna manera corta hogar indulto presidencial a un presidente que injustamente interrumpió a sí mismo en el caso de sus comentarios desde el principio. Esa campaña perdón dio un giro serio para lo peor cuando el post-convicción de Amnistía Internacional / Private Manning Support Network Casa Blanca petición en línea fallaron, cayendo gravemente corto de conseguir las 100.000 firmas necesarias que habría obligado a la Administración Obama para abordar la cuestión planteado por la petición.

Chelsea también tiene que hacer frente a la caída real de que ya se ha producido en el apoyo público ferviente y la actividad en torno a su caso, ya que el veredicto y la sentencia se encuentran y el interés de los medios se ha cerrado en torno al caso. Habrá menos mítines públicos periódicos de todo el mundo, desde Afganistán a los Estados en su nombre, lo que refleja una difusión de foco ahora que los seguidores no están fijos en la presencia pública en el juicio. La larga lista de las celebridades y ciudadanos comunes que han contribuido con sus nombres, su tiempo, su dinero y sus energías tienen y se caerá en nombre de nuestros Wikileaks heroicas señales de alarma también. Incluso los partidarios fuertes y comprometidos que han liderado los esfuerzos Manning aquí en Boston han decidido llevar a cabo otras estrategias menos públicos para obtener la libertad de Chelsea. Eventos Para luchar la batalla por su libertad en otros frentes de la recaudación de fondos para ponerse en contacto con los funcionarios del gobierno que va a "engrasar el camino" al presidente que nos dé una audiencia sobre la solicitud de indulto.

Y este último punto es realmente el quid de la cuestión. La lucha continúa, continúa hasta que Chelsea es gratis. Ahí es donde los Veteranos por la Paz se presenta en las personas que han servido en las fuerzas armadas, que han conseguido "religión" en el lado derecho de los ángeles en las cuestiones de la guerra y la paz, y que se han destacado en la solidaridad y la defensa de Chelsea, Manning desde el inicio de su encarcelamiento. Todos nosotros, ya sea que sirvieron en las guerras o en "tiempos de paz", pasó por el rigor y la locura de la formación básica en venerables viejos sargentos nos golpearon en la cabeza con la idea de que tenía que cuidar de su compañero, que su supervivencia, y con esto querían decir en el fragor de la batalla, dependía de nosotros comprando en ese concepto.

Cualquier veterano puede contar muchas historias acerca de cómo al final su participación en el ejército se redujo a sólo incorporada idea de que cuando el acuerdo fue hecho y las cosas se calmaron. No decepcionar a sus amigos. No dejar a sus amigos atrás. Si la mayoría de los perforados, en los conceptos militares que aprendimos valen nada es difícil de juzgar, el miedo y la imprudencia de hecho, puede desempeñar un papel más importante. Sin embargo podemos tomar que "no salir de su amigo detrás" concepto y aplicarlo aquí. Sin embargo, podemos llegar a la prestación de apoyo a Manning Chelsea es con el entendimiento de que es nuestro amigo. No vamos a dejar a nuestra hermana atrás. Recuerde que. Recuerde que esto también presidente Obama Pardon Chelsea Manning ahora!

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

We Will Not Leave Our Sister Behind-President Obama Pardon Chelsea Manning Now!

Speech made on behalf of Chelsea Manning at the annual Smedley Butler Brigade Veterans for Peace- sponsored peace event on Armistice/Veterans Day, November 11, 2013 at Fanueil Hall in Boston

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

The headlines of the summer are now still. The verdict, the legal verdict if not the verdict of history, in the case of the United States vs. Private First Class Bradley Manning has been proclaimed, guilty on 20 of 22 counts. The draconian 35 year sentence has been imposed by the cruel pro-government military judge, Colonel Lind. The media pundits and commentators too have had their say, mainly that stern justice had been served by the conviction, a conviction in keeping with their own desire to keep things secret from us and not let some lowly enlisted soldier expose their house of cards. Some, like the ostrich-like New York Times, balked a little at the excessive sentence and then moved on. Others had a momentary titter when Bradley turned into Chelsea to express her real gender and then they too moved on. All is now quiet, the case is yesterday’s news now long outside the 24/7 cycle interest. In their eyes Chelsea Manning has had her fifteen minutes of fame and now she is reduced to just another military prisoner confined to the maximum security barracks out in the prairies of Kansas at Fort Leavenworth to face an uncertain future.

Chelsea Manning now also faces the hard fate that occurs in almost all political prisoner cases; doing the hard time while waiting for the slow cumbersome appeals process to work its way through the military and civilian courts of appeal. Waits in the near term for a possible reduction in sentence by the convening officer of Private Manning’s court-martial who has the authority to do so for the Washington Military District, General Buchanan based at Fort McNair. And waits too, candidly, with fading hopes, for some short way home presidential pardon from a President who wrongfully interjected himself into the case with his comments early on. That pardon campaign took a serious turn for the worst when the post-conviction Amnesty International/ Private Manning Support Network White House on-line petition failed, falling seriously short of getting the required 100,000 signatures that would have forced the Obama Administration to address the question posed by the petition.

Chelsea must also face the very real falloff that has already occurred in the fervent public support and activity around her case now that the verdict and sentence are in and the media interest has shut down around the case. There will be fewer periodic public rallies around the world from Afghanistan to the States on her behalf, reflecting a diffusion of focus now that supporters are not riveted to the public presence at trial. The long list of those celebrities and average citizens who have contributed their names, their time, their money and their energies have and will fall off on behalf of our heroic Wikileaks whistle-blower as well. Even strong and committed supporters who have led the Manning efforts here in the Boston have decided to pursue other less public strategies to gain Chelsea’s freedom. To fight that battle for her freedom on other fronts from fund-raising events to contacting any governmental officials who will “grease the way” to the President to give us a hearing on the pardon application.

And that last point is really the crux of the matter. The struggle continues, continues until Chelsea is free. That is where Veterans for Peace comes in, people who have served in the military, who have gotten “religion” on the right side of the angels on the questions of war and peace and who have stood in solidarity with, and defense of, Chelsea Manning since the beginning of her incarceration. All of us, whether we served in wars or in “peace-time,” went through the rigors and madness of basic training where hoary old drill sergeants beat us over the head with the notion that you had to take care of your buddy, that your survival, and by this they meant in the heat of battle, depended on us buying into that concept.

Any veteran can tell you many stories about how in the end their involvement with the military came down to just that embedded idea when the deal went done and the dust settled. Not letting down your buddies. Not leaving your buddies behind. Whether most of those drilled-in military concepts we learned are worth anything is hard to judge, fear and recklessness may in fact play a larger role. Nevertheless we can take that "not leaving your buddy behind" concept and apply it here. However we may end up providing support to Chelsea Manning it is with the understanding that she is our buddy. We will not leave our sister behind. Remember that. Remember this as well- President Obama Pardon Chelsea Manning Now!

Pvt. Manning attorney to speak in LA, Oakland, Seattle

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David Coombs, attorney for American prisoner of conscience US Army Pvt. Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning, will speak at three upcoming West Coast events hosted by the Private Manning Support Network. Mr. Coombs continues to represent the heroic WikiLeaks whistle-blower recently sentenced to 35-years in military prison.
Sunday, Dec. 8 at 7:00pm — Los Angeles CA
The Church in Ocean Park, 235 Hill Street, Santa Monica CA 90405
Monday, Dec. 9 at 6:30pm — Oakland CA
Humanist Hall, 390 27th Street, Oakland CA 94612
Wednesday, Dec. 11 at 7:00pm — Seattle WA
University Temple United Methodist Church (Fireplace Room), 1415 NE 43rd St., Seattle WA 98105
Events will include Q&A with Mr. Coombs, and a fund pitch by the Support Network to benefit Pvt. Manning’s ongoing defense efforts, including pending legal appeals.
Oakland event is presented by Courage to Resist, with the support of the Bay Area Military Law Panel, Veterans for Peace-SF, War Resisters League-West, Project Censored and the Media Freedom Foundation, SF Women in Black, World Can’t Wait-SF Bay, CodePink Women for Peace-East Bay & Golden Gate, OccupySF Action Council & Environmental Justice Working Group, OccupyForum, SF LGBT Pride Celebration Committee, Queer Strike, National Lawyers Guild-SF, and the Civilian-Soldier Alliance. $5-$10 donation requested at the door to cover event expenses. Wheelchair accessible. For more info, contact: Courage to Resist, 510-488-3559.

***Songs To While The Time By- Rod Stewart’s Lady Day 

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

 

…she had to move on, move on with her life she said. Said their, quote, “flirtation” was not built to last, not made of the stuff of dreams (sweet dreams, he said, quote). And of course she was right, she was right for her, right to want to move on. To leave the country life behind, to leave the dull behind and shake up the world a little, shake up the world a little with her love too. He, well, he was a tattered and tore guy, a guy who would be swallowed up in cities, would find no air to breathe. Still it hurt, hurt like hell that she wanted to leave, wanted to leave her tattered and tore behind like a dust rag. Still it hurt that she never looked back when she walked up the road to take that Greyhound bus to who knows where. Still, well, still he loved her, a small love in a big world but love…      

************
Lady Day

North winds have made my face a little older
And my back is bent through trying too hard
My vest is torn, so I make no perfect picture
To place upon your white-washed wall

 

I'd like to stay but you have not asked me
Still I don't really expect you to
Dusty boots would shame you now, Lady Day

Are we really that far apart?

I wish the world could see you now, Lady Day
Laughing down at your oldest friend
The one who shared just about all he had

In a one-sided love affair

I get scared when I remember too much
Wasted time I suppose you could say that
Strange, it don't seem that way to me

But wait a minute, I don't even think you're listening

Just let me tell you how I really feel
I've seen the inside of your heart, Lady Day
When you wanted to be shown the way
I loved you then as I love ya now, girl

Read more: Rod Stewart - Lady Day Lyrics | MetroLyrics

***The Life And Times Of Michael Philip Marlin, Private Investigator- A Piece Of Work 

 

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

Those who have been following this series about the exploits of the famous Ocean City (located just south of Los Angeles then now incorporated into the county) private detective Michael Philip Marlin (hereafter just Marlin the way everybody, except a few lady friends who called him Philip and his late mother who called him Michael Philip, called him when he became famous after the Galton case out on the coast) and his contemporaries in the private detection business like Freddy Vance, Charles Nicolas (okay, okay Clara too), Sam Archer, Miles Spade, Johnny Spain, know that he related many of these stories to his son, Tyrone Fallon, in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Tyrone later, in the 1970s, related these stories at his request to the journalist Joshua Lawrence Breslin who uncovered the relationship, a friend of my boyhood friend, Peter Paul Markin, who in turn related them to me over several weeks in the late 1980s. Despite that circuitous route I believe that I have been faithful to what Marlin presented to his son. In any case I take full responsibility for what follows.        

*******

Yah, that Teddy Landers was a piece of work alright, a guy from Yonkers or some place near New York City, he was always changing up what town he was from but he was always from the tough end sections of those towns, so he had to be tough, city street smarts tough. A guy, a film director, you know, Robert Ashland, yes, that Robert Ashland, the one who did The Choice, Close Call, and Cry, The City and a bunch of other tough guy films and grabbed a fistful of awards too, wanted to do a film adaptation of Teddy’s life. The brash kid growing up in troubled circumstances before the war, the heroic war record including stints as a “pre-mature anti-fascist” fighting in one of the International Brigades in Spain and later as a commando and SS prisoner in the war, war wounds, hanging around Vegas with war buddies, now connected war buddies who used him as a mule to launder money down Mexico way, then landing square on his feet marrying money, serious money, when he bedded and wedded the wild child Sarah Wyatt all wrapped around a good-looking guy whose war wounds only enhanced those good looks. There was talk, serious talk of Brando or Newman as the lead, and Audrey Hepburn as Sarah. There was even, at Teddy’s insistence, a walk-on part for Marlin as Teddy’s new found side-kick and confidante about two- thirds of the way through the film to show what a regular guy he was, you know, mixing with tough guys and holding his own in the city’s plebeian bars. The money, the backing was there, an outline of a script was there, this was no come-on like a lot of Hollywood film ideas that wind up out on some back lot floor gathering dust. So, yes, Ashland wanted to do the film, needed to after a couple of crash and burn non-descript items that did not increase that fistful of awards on his fireplace. That is he wanted to do that film until one night Teddy took off, took off with a small suitcase and a satchel full of cash (cocaine too but the amount was unknown was never known so let’s just stick with that bucket of cash) and left no forwarding address, left a lot of people in the lurch including one Michael Philip Marlin. 

Yah, Teddy Landers who also knew all the angels, good and bad liking the bad if he was to call a preference, knew some French women in Europe after the war who taught his some interesting sex tips that stood him in good stead when he found Hollywood, and later found the decadent Sarah. Knew, knew well, half the hookers, call girls, street tricks and courtesans in Vegas before he split to the coast (and, yes, there were, are, courtesan in bright light neon Vegas but you won’t see them in the tourist brochures, you have to be connected, very connected to even know that such sexual delights could be found there, otherwise make your choice from the hookers, call girls and tricks. Knew some savage junkie women in London who put him onto the whole black market set-up for a few bindles of junk, H, you know heroin, and then left them flat. Knew a Yonkers girl too back when he was just brash who wouldn’t tumble, wouldn’t give him what he wanted, and so he blew her off and who later was shot by her angry husband but every day (according to Marlin) he kicked himself for doing so. But good girl or bad girl he attracted the angels like moths to the light.

He knew all the angles too, had run a “clip” gang (you know kids, and it was only kids no serious professional would risk his career for a few baubles worth jack, hitting jewelry, department , and record stores and grabbing everything not nailed down then selling it cheap, maybe called “five-finger discount” around your way. Hell, I did it myself for a while around my old hometown) and one night pulled a “robbery” grabbing all the cash in the kitty to take some twist somewhere. Strictly kids’ stuff though, a little ejack-rolling of drunks, midnight auto stuff, light drug dealing, until Europe, Europe and black markets and dough (remember he stiffed those street hooker London bindle freaks). Europe and war buddy connections that would pan out when he blew Yonkers and headed west for a change of scenery.   

So Teddy knew how to cut corners on both, knew how to use his attraction for women, certain kinds of women with a wild streak, a desire to take a step over the edge and see what that side looked like, and decidedly not goody women, not at least since that first long flickered out flame back in his boyish days and knew too, by training if not by instinct how to fend for himself, how to make the other guy take the fall, knew how to grab the money and run, knew also you needed protectors in this wicked old world and was not choosey about who that was, know who to cut those corners more than one way too as Marlin found out, found out, later. And Marlin joined the line, the long line of gals and guys, high class dames, high-class call girls, high-end rollers and low-down gangsters, who got used by Teddy, got used and still liked the guy, or at least wished him no harm.

Marlin had met him in a bar, Shorty’s, the original Shorty’s over off Wiltshire just short of the Los Angeles line in Ocean City  to set your geography straight, although most of the clientele in those days came from the city, down the street from his apartment building. Shorty’s the bar that he had make famous, or infamous as the case may be depending on whether you like the coppers to see public justice done or are rooting for the guys like Marlin who for cheap dough, a few knocks on the head or a stray bullet chase after windmills,  in the Baxter case. The bizarre one that you might have heard of where an old time Los Angeles king hell fixer, Richard Baxter,  took a fall, a fatal fall, all because a guy got shot by another guy right in Shorty’s over a decade before, just before the war in Europe got up a head of steam. Shorty, now a prosperous owner of several watering holes, including the Club Arriba over on Central Avenue in the city, once he knew whose palms to grease and who to seek “protection” from, liked Marlin’s presence as a crowd-drawer and for the favor his drinks were on the house. Marlin, in the chips or not, never turned down a drink, scotch especially, from friend or foe so the place was his regular hang-out

It had been a slow Monday late afternoon when Teddy  walked in, sat down beside Marlin, and ordered a scotch bright, scotch, high-end MacDonald Brother scotch in his case, with a kick of Bacardi, a drink that the guys who had come back from overseas brought back with them. More importantly that was Marlin’s drink of choice at that moment (although he had been too old to serve in World War II he had seen service with the American Expeditionary Force in World War I and had picked up the scotch bright taste from some ex-soldiers who hung around the Kit-Kat Club, a big hang-out for homecoming West Coast ex-soldiers, sailors and marines). He off-handedly commented on their similar tastes and Teddy told him about how he had acquired the taste in London during the war. Teddy, a friendly guy anyway as long as he was not crossed, not looking for something from somebody and got turned down or was in his cups was in a talkative mood, and maybe sensed that Marlin was a guy who he could talk to and he continued on, ordering another scotch bright, and one for Marlin too.

And so Teddy and Marlin talked, talked about the drink and its origins, talked about the bewildering variety and types of scotch whiskeys from the Highlands, talked about the late war and the wounds that Teddy had sustained which were still visible in the light although fading, talked about the craziness of Los Angeles lately although Marlin could tell Teddy was neither native nor had he gone native getting a deep tan, wearing sporty clothes and generally acting like he didn’t have a care in the world, talked about the scads of kids coming to Ocean City to surf, surf for chrissakes, the hard boys from the valley who were driving their soup-up hot rods up and down the Pacific Coast Highway like they owned it and the Okies and Arkies coming out of the woodwork once they heard that California was a Garden of Eden, talked about the big migrations from the east  after the war that had stretched the place to the limit and they were still coming, and about this and that, guy stuff, manly guy stuff.

Every few days, maybe every week or so, they would run into each other at Shorty’s, Teddy always parking his ride, his shining dark green Jaguar courtesy of wife Laura (who insisted that the old Hudson that he had been driving around in when they met, and which he had tenderly kept in top condition, was too plebeian, and what would the help say if he was driving a car they might own so he grabbed the most expensive damn automobile he could find and, damn, she didn’t flinch), right out in front helter-skelter depending on how heavily he had been drinking, and discuss stuff, guy stuff, mostly. Teddy doing the talking, fast-talking with a little edge, with a little larceny, wise-guy, angle-cutting edge to it, and Marlin served as the listening post. Eventually he would have Teddy over to his place after the bar closed for a nightcap, many nights for Teddy to sleep it off on Marlin’s couch as well.

A lot of what Teddy would talk about was how tough it was being married for the past five years to money, big money, married to the Wyatt fortune, or part of it, the Laura Wyatt part of it. That was old California money, old meaning built by grabbing water rights back in the 1920s, getting in on the ground floor of the oil boom around the LaBrea tar pits and whatever else old Leslie Wyatt could grab that was not tied down. This Wyatt a real bastard Marlin had heard but a real lamb to his kids, especially Laura who early on was wild, just as wild as plenty of money would go. Teddy could take the money part, take it easily with both hands out having grown up poor, dirt poor in Yonkers before the war. But the way they, Laura, the old man, and their Mayfair swell friends made him feel like cheap street left ashes in his mouth. That was one angle he had not figured out he told Marlowe one drunken night, not yet.

Worse this Laura was nothing but a tramp picking up every fly-by-night guy she took a momentary fancy too, bringing him home, or rather to her “guest house” away from their main home, their mansion where she might be holed up for a few days before coming up for air (that place bought, every tile and nail bought, by Leslie Wyatt when Laura purred in his ear that they needed suitable digs for entertaining, and she had had the guest house built once she told Teddy that she needed her “own space”). Hell, Teddy would say, after he had had his seventh drink, maybe more, that he really should have had no kick about Laura’s style since he had met her at one of her Malibu parties which he crashed with a friend and he had spent his own few days in her “guest house” at the old man’s mansion. After they came up for air a few days thereafter they were married, a lark for her, she said all her friends were married and she should be too. Christ, now that he thought about it, although it easy street and shiny objects for him, it still bothered him, bothered him that she was so open like only the rich could be with her minute affairs. And so Teddy, Teddy the trophy war-hero (he had been a “premature anti-fascist” fighting in the Spanish Civil War in an International Brigade unit although more for the three squares and some dough than any political allegiance and later as a volunteer commando with the British when Europe heated up, and where he was severely wounded on a secret mission) began to fall off the leash.

Teddy the reclamation project too (Laura made it clear she was taking a poor kid from the streets and giving him dough, a car and some manners, public manners anyway), began to lead his own life, began to play around, play around with a loose country club set woman or two who was dissatisfied with her husband or who just liked to play around in that insular little world of 1950s Malibu, Malibu before all the riff-raff and hang- ten surfers came through. Thereafter he began to drink heavily (and grab a few lines of off-hand cocaine if it was laying around), began to drink himself into a stupor to ease the pain, the pain of his youthful wants, his very real war wounds, and his store –bought social wounds. After a while, after a few months of talk, couches, and drunks Marlin considered Terry a friend, a rare distinction for a lone- wolf private detective. And Teddy considered Marlin a friend too.

So it was no big deal when Teddy came up to Marlin’s apartment one midnight several months after they met, drunk, frazzled, a little shaky and asked Marlin to drive him to Mexico, dusty, tin cup, anything goes, anything goes if you have the dough, anything, Tijuana, faux Mexico Tijuana, just over the border, to think things out, undisclosed things. Teddy in high dudgeon wanted no questions asked and once Marlin accepted that condition, actually had thought nothing of the request except the direction, the trip down south was unusual, previous requests had been to places north of L.A. to see some woman (his latest one, whom Marlin had not met, lived up in Malibu in the same colony as the Lander’s estate) or to drive him home, he bought the ticket and gave him that ride.

A fateful ride that would cost Marlin a few days in the slammer for aiding a felon after the fact since what Teddy  was thinking things out about down in sweaty, sunny Mexico was the brutal murder of his wife. Laura was found naked in her guest house, battered, blood all over the place, by one of her maids the next morning and who immediately reported the discovery to the sheriff’s office. Once the coppers tied Marlin to Teddy’s disappearance they pounced on him, and it wasn’t hard because Marlin had not tried to hide his tracks, all he had asked of Teddy was to say to him nothing, nothing at all about what bothered him once he agreed to take him south sensing something very illegal was afoot although he thought Teddy was running from his gangster war buddies, or some busted drug deal he was acting as intermediary for. The coppers gave it to Marlin strong, gave him the full-press third-degree under the bright lights, all night, the whole good cop, bad cop routine, the confess and we’ll go easy on you, have a cigarette and think it over, like he was that easy to turn over. Yah, all the little tricks they liked to play, things they liked to do that they have seen on television or in some old time film noir, maybe a B-Robert Ashland film, things they liked to do anytime they got a private dick in their clutches. Especially Marlin who had twisted their noses on the Sternwood case (the time he rounded up Eddie Miles, the big gangster, and put a big bow around his neck to help an old man rest in peace a little after his daughters went wild on him) and the Trepper case(where he exposed a murderous psychopathic crooked cop hung up on a redhead, a married redhead who had a funny habit of cheating on him, the cop not the husband), made them look foolish, a few years before.

Then just as quickly Marlin was sprung from jail without an explanation. No, that is not right, there was no more case since Teddy had saved everybody a lot of trouble and committed suicide, leaving an incriminating note. So long Teddy, end of story. No, no again, Marlin was not buying the whole set-up both because he did not believe that Teddy could have brutally murdered his wife no matter how much he hated her tramp ways and her snobbery and that high-end life they led and because Teddy just didn’t seem the suicide type, didn’t appear that distraught when he left him off at the border. Marlin figured that he could not have stayed in his chosen profession very long if he was not able to take the measure of a man, could not size him up, could not have a grip on what made him tick, and what didn’t. No, with all his sorrows, all his hurts, all his baggage from his youth Teddy was made of tougher stuff.

But there was nothing Marlin could do about checking further having been warned off the case by Laura’s father who wanted the thing closed, closed tight, so he could maintain his privacy, keep the case off the front page so that his country club set would have nothing to titter about behind his back. Told all this not directly by the old man, the help was not handled that way in that orbit, but by Wyatt’s lawyer, naturally. And since the old man drew a lot of water downtown he was prepared to make life tough for one Michael Philip Marlin.

Had been warned off too by a couple of Teddy’s old friends and war buddies, Mendy and Randy (no last names but Vegas-connected and thus connected enough for Marlin),  whom Teddy had worked for before he hit pay- dirt with Laura and who were also then very prominent mobsters with connections back East. They three while playing heroic commandos also took care of their respective number ones by working the black markets of half the countries in Europe. Skills that were useful at home when the hard boys of New York and later, the West Coast when operations shifted there took notice. Not heeding such warnings from hard guys, guys who had cut their teeth in the cutthroat black markets of wartime Europe, were in on the ground floor when the fight over who, or who would not, run Vegas, and who would think nothing of sending some, what did Mendy call him, oh yeah, some two-bit gumshoe, down some secluded ravine face down was not good for business.

And then there were the cops, the cops responding to pressure from downtown (who were responding to pressure from the old man and his crowded court of cronies), their own dislike for Marlin and his profession, and their own sense of power who said in no uncertain terms the case was shut, shut tight. So although Teddy’s fate gnawed at him Marlin backed off, backed off for a while, although not because some high-priced lawyer, some two-bit soft guy Vegas hoods, or some on- the- take cops said to but because he was broke and needed to make some dough, needed to make office and room rent.

With Teddy still in the back of his mind Marlin grabbed his next case, the Waits case, the case of a famous abusive drunken pot-boiler historical novel writer, Roger Waits. Everybody, even Marlin, had heard of Waits of course, the sword and busted bodice novel guy whose books you would see at the check-out counters at supermarkets and who sex-hungry housewives read to while away those lonely hours out in suburbia, out in Levittown, out in Irvine. He had gone missing for a week or more and his wife, Eileen, was desperately trying to find him and bring him back to their oceanfront Malibu home.

Here is where Teddy, or rather Marlin’s stand-up shut- up guy defense of Teddy, got him the job since Mrs. Waits had read about Marlin in the newspapers when he was in custody as a material witness and grabbing the third degree and decided he was the man to find her errant husband. Marlin finally seeing some dough, easy dough, on the horizon and the back of his landlords’ heads took the case and in a short time was able to find old Roger holed up trying to dry out (again) in a sanatorium. Marlin brought him home to his ever-loving wife and that was that. End of story.

No, again no, Roger had taken a liking to Marlin, wanted to hire him to protect him against his demons, real and imagined, but Marlin said no deal. He was not a baby-sitter, or man-servant, which is what was required. What might have changed his mind, if anything, though was this Eileen Waits, Roger’s trophy wife, whose slim figure, faraway blue eyes, wistful expression, and slight whiff of perfume, gardenia something, had him thinking about silky sheets and sultry bedroom afternoons. But that was not to be, although not for his lack of trying, giving her very definite signals. What happened to forestall that possibility was not that not long after he had gotten Roger home, dried out for a while, he started drinking again, and started to be haunted by his demons. One day Roger in some drunken rage, or drunken stupor, shot himself, committed suicide. Marlin wasn’t buying that one either since Waits, whatever his writer’s block, whatever feelings he had that he was washed up, a has been, was not a suicide guy. Marlin now had to dig into this one if for no other reason than surrounded by two suicides in short order he had to get out from under the tag of a guy to not be around if you cared about your health, or your life.

Things were a mess until Marlin stepped back and put a couple things together. First off the Waits knew the Wyatts, father and daughters, travelled in some of the same circles out in Malibu, and had been to some of the same charity events and the like. That information came out by accident when the cops were investigating Roger’s suicide. Without too much trouble he also found out that Laura Wyatt had numbered Roger Waits as one of her trophies. And that set up everything else once Roger’s houseboy gave Marlin enough information about Mrs. Waits and her strange nocturnal habits, her vague longing for some soldier boy first love long gone that she had married before Roger habits. Not so long gone though since that soldier boy she pined away for was one Teddy Landers (although they had been married with him using a different name in London during the war).

Eileen Waits enraged that the tramp Laura had taken her first man, long thought to be dead after some secret raid in Norway, enraged that he had become nothing but a degenerate kept pet by Laura and enraged that she had also taken her second man and flouted that fact making no attempt to conceal the affair or their guest house love-making murdered both of them. Although no jury would had convicted her even if the D.A. decided to try the case. A beautiful, disturbed (and wealthy) widow was not the kind of murder case that would sail in celebrity-conscious Los Angeles in the hush-hush 1950s. And that case would not be tried because Laura’s father, that couple of Vegas-connected hoods, and the on-the-take cops had closed the case previously, closed it up tight. And that is the end of the story.

Well not quite. Something still did not add up, especially the role of those two hoods, war buddies or not, going way out of their way to shut the case down, to warn Marlin off. So he again stepped back and what he figured out was that no way, no way on this good green earth did Teddy Landers die in Mexico. The whole thing was fixed, fixed by Terry and the boys. And the way Marlin found that out was simple, simplicity itself, Landers, disguised as a Mexican, showed up at his door one day and flaunted that hard fact in Marlin's face. Then he walked away. And Marlin for his own reasons, for an old friendship gone awry, let him. Yeah, that Teddy Landers was a piece of work. End of story.

From The Marxist Archives- In Honor Of The 96^th Anniversary Of The Russian October Revolution-The Early Communist Party and the Fight for Black Liberation
 
Leon Trotsky On The Lessons Of The Russian Revolution

Workers Vanguard No. 968
5 November 2010

In Honor of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution

For New October Revolutions!

(From the Archives of Marxism)
November 7 (October 25 by the calendar used in Russia at the time) marks the 93rd anniversary of the Russian Revolution. Led by the Bolshevik Party of V.I. Lenin and Leon Trotsky, the workers’ seizure of power in Russia gave flesh and blood reality to the Marxist understanding of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Despite the subsequent Stalinist degeneration of the Soviet workers state, culminating in its counterrevolutionary destruction in 1991-92, the October Revolution was and is the international proletariat’s greatest victory; its final undoing, a world-historic defeat. The International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist) fought to the bitter end in defense of the Soviet Union and the bureaucratically deformed workers states of East Europe, while calling for workers political revolutions to oust the parasitic nationalist Stalinist bureaucracies that ruled these states. This is the same program we uphold today for the remaining workers states of China, North Korea, Vietnam and Cuba.

Having been expelled from the USSR in 1929 by Stalin, Trotsky spent the remainder of his life in exile. In November 1932, he gave a speech to a Danish social-democratic student group in Copenhagen. He outlined the political conditions and the social forces that drove the Russian Revolution, stressing the decisive role of the Bolshevik Party. Illuminating the worldwide impact of the Russian Revolution and its place in history, Trotsky underlined the necessity of sweeping away the decaying capitalist order and replacing it with a scientifically planned international socialist economy that will lay the material basis for human freedom.

The ICL fights to forge workers parties modeled on Lenin and Trotsky’s Bolsheviks to lead the struggle for new October Revolutions around the globe.

* * *

Revolution means a change of the social order. It transfers the power from the hands of a class which has exhausted itself into those of another class, which is on the rise....

Without the armed insurrection of November 7, 1917, the Soviet state would not be in existence. But the insurrection itself did not drop from Heaven. A series of historical prerequisites was necessary for the October revolution.

1. The rotting away of the old ruling classes—the nobility, the monarchy, the bureaucracy.

2. The political weakness of the bourgeoisie, which had no roots in the masses of the people.

3. The revolutionary character of the peasant question.

4. The revolutionary character of the problem of the oppressed nations.

5. The significant social weight of the proletariat.

To these organic pre-conditions we must add certain conjunctural conditions of the highest importance:

6. The Revolution of 1905 was the great school, or in Lenin’s words, the “dress rehearsal” of the Revolution of 1917. The Soviets, as the irreplaceable organizational form of the proletarian united front in the revolution, were created for the first time in the year 1905.

7. The imperialist war sharpened all the contradictions, tore the backward masses out of their immobility and thereby prepared the grandiose scale of the catastrophe.

But all these conditions, which fully sufficed for the outbreak of the Revolution, were insufficient to assure the victory of the proletariat in the Revolution. For this victory one condition more was needed:

8. The Bolshevik Party....

In the year 1883 there arose among the emigres the first Marxist group. In the year 1898, at a secret meeting, the foundation of the Russian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party was proclaimed (we all called ourselves Social-Democrats in those days). In the year 1903 occurred the split between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. In the year 1912 the Bolshevist fraction finally became an independent Party.

It learned to recognize the class mechanics of society in struggle, in the grandiose events of twelve years (1905-1917). It educated cadres equally capable of initiative and of subordination. The discipline of its revolutionary action was based on the unity of its doctrine, on the tradition of common struggles and on confidence in its tested leadership.

Thus stood the Party in the year 1917. Despised by the official “public opinion” and the paper thunder of the intelligentsia press, it adapted itself to the movement of the masses. Firmly it kept in hand the control of factories and regiments. More and more the peasant masses turned toward it. If we understand by “nation,” not the privileged heads, but the majority of the people, that is, the workers and peasants, then Bolshevism became in the course of the year 1917 a truly national Russian Party.

In September 1917, Lenin, who was compelled to keep in hiding, gave the signal, “The crisis is ripe, the hour of the insurrection has approached.” He was right. The ruling classes had landed in a blind alley before the problems of the war, the land and national liberation. The bourgeoisie finally lost its head. The democratic parties, the Mensheviks and social-revolutionaries, wasted the remains of the confidence of the masses in them by their support of the imperialist war, by their policy of ineffectual compromise and concession to the bourgeois and feudal property-owners. The awakened army no longer wanted to fight for the alien aims of imperialism. Disregarding democratic advice, the peasantry smoked the landowners out of their estates. The oppressed nationalities at the periphery rose up against the bureaucracy of Petrograd. In the most important workers’ and soldiers’ Soviets the Bolsheviki were dominant. The workers and soldiers demanded action. The ulcer was ripe. It needed a cut of the lancet.

Only under these social and political conditions was the insurrection possible. And thus it also became inevitable. But there is no playing around with the insurrection. Woe to the surgeon who is careless in the use of the lancet! Insurrection is an art. It has its laws and its rules.

The Party carried through the October insurrection with cold calculation and with flaming determination. Thanks to this, it conquered almost without victims. Through the victorious Soviets the Bolsheviki placed themselves at the head of a country which occupies one sixth of the surface of the globe....

Let us now in closing attempt to ascertain the place of the October Revolution, not only in the history of Russia but in the history of the world. During the year 1917, in a period of eight months, two historical curves intersect. The February upheaval—that belated echo of the great struggles which had been carried out in past centuries on the territories of Holland, England, France, almost all of Continental Europe—takes its place in the series of bourgeois revolutions. The October Revolution proclaims and opens the domination of the proletariat. It was world capitalism that suffered its first great defeat on the territory of Russia. The chain broke at its weakest link. But it was the chain that broke, and not only the link.

Capitalism has outlived itself as a world system. It has ceased to fulfill its essential mission, the increase of human power and human wealth. Humanity cannot stand still at the level which it has reached. Only a powerful increase in productive force and a sound, planned, that is, Socialist organization of production and distribution can assure humanity—all humanity—of a decent standard of life and at the same time give it the precious feeling of freedom with respect to its own economy. Freedom in two senses—first of all, man will no longer be compelled to devote the greater part of his life to physical labor. Second, he will no longer be dependent on the laws of the market, that is, on the blind and dark forces which have grown up behind his back. He will build up his economy freely, that is, according to a plan, with compass in hand. This time it is a question of subjecting the anatomy of society to the X-ray through and through, of disclosing all its secrets and subjecting all its functions to the reason and the will of collective humanity. In this sense, Socialism must become a new step in the historical advance of mankind. Before our ancestor, who first armed himself with a stone axe, the whole of nature represented a conspiracy of secret and hostile forces. Since then, the natural sciences, hand in hand with practical technology, have illuminated nature down to its most secret depths. By means of electrical energy, the physicist passes judgment on the nucleus of the atom. The hour is not far when science will easily solve the task of the alchemists, and turn manure into gold and gold into manure. Where the demons and furies of nature once raged, now rules ever more courageously the industrial will of man.

But while he wrestled victoriously with nature, man built up his relations to other men blindly, almost like the bee or the ant. Belatedly and most undecidedly he approached the problems of human society. He began with religion, and passed on to politics. The Reformation represented the first victory of bourgeois individualism and rationalism in a domain which had been ruled by dead tradition. From the church, critical thought went on to the state. Born in the struggle with absolutism and the medieval estates, the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people and of the rights of man and the citizen grew stronger. Thus arose the system of parliamentarism. Critical thought penetrated into the domain of government administration. The political rationalism of democracy was the highest achievement of the revolutionary bourgeoisie.

But between nature and the state stands economic life. Technology liberated man from the tyranny of the old elements—earth, water, fire and air—only to subject him to its own tyranny. Man ceased to be a slave to nature, to become a slave to the machine, and, still worse, a slave to supply and demand. The present world crisis testifies in especially tragic fashion how man, who dives to the bottom of the ocean, who rises up to the stratosphere, who converses on invisible waves with the Antipodes, how this proud and daring ruler of nature remains a slave to the blind forces of his own economy. The historical task of our epoch consists in replacing the uncontrolled play of the market by reasonable planning, in disciplining the forces of production, compelling them to work together in harmony and obediently serve the needs of mankind. Only on this new social basis will man be able to stretch his weary limbs and—every man and every woman, not only a selected few—become a full citizen in the realm of thought.

—“Leon Trotsky Defends the October Revolution” (Militant, 21 January 1933)

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

Workers Vanguard No. 1017	8 February 2013

TROTSKY

LENIN

The Early Communist Party and the Fight for Black Liberation

(Quote of the Week)

In the face of the traditional indifference to black oppression among American socialists, the Bolsheviks struggled to convince Communists in the U.S. to recognize the special oppression of black people as a matter of strategic importance. In 1920, at the Second Congress of the Communist International held in Soviet Russia, Bolshevik leader V.I. Lenin personally urged that American Communist John Reed speak on the “Negro Question.” Reed’s speech and the Communist International’s fight against special oppression are carried forward in the Spartacist League program.

If we consider Negroes an enslaved and oppressed people, we confront two problems: on the one hand, that of a strong racial and social movement; on the other, that of a powerful proletarian labor movement that is rapidly gaining class consciousness. Negroes have no demands for national independence. All movements among the Negroes aiming for separate national existence fail, as did the Back to Africa movement of a few years ago. They consider themselves first of all Americans at home in the United States. That makes it very much simpler for Communists.

For American Communists the only correct policy toward the Negroes should be to see them primarily as workers. Despite the Negroes’ backwardness, the tasks posed for agricultural workers and tenant farmers in the South are the same as those we must solve with respect to the white agricultural proletariat. Communist propaganda work can be carried on among Negroes working in industry in the North. In both sections of the country every effort must be made to organize Negroes into common labor unions with the whites. That is the best and fastest way to break down race prejudice and foster class solidarity.

But the Communists must not stand aloof from the Negro movement for social and political equality, which is spreading quickly among the Negro masses today as race consciousness grows rapidly. Communists must use this movement to point out the futility of bourgeois equality and the necessity of social revolution—not only to free all workers from servitude but also as the only means of freeing the Negroes as an enslaved people.

—John Reed at Second Congress of the Communist International, Session 4, 26 July 1920, reprinted in John Riddell (ed.), Workers of the World and Oppressed Peoples, Unite! Volume One (1991)

***Cowboy Shrugged –Matthew McConaughey’s Dallas Buyers Club

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

DVD Review

Dallas Buyers Club, Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Garner, Jared Leto, 2013

Damn AIDS, Damn Homophobia, Damn Big Pharma, Damn the FDA, hell damn your average 1980s Texas Cowboy (and not just them and maybe not just then) but please do not damn Matthew McConaughey’s performance as Ron Woodroof, uh, your average 1980s Texas homophobic cowboy-with AIDS. It is Oscar-worthy. He plays the role of a low-down macho, whiskey-drinking, coke-snorting, whoring cowboy who, to his own initial disbelief, is diagnosed with HIV which can lead, and did lead, to AIDS in many cases (including in the end his own case). You know AIDS, the 1980s idea of AIDS, the disease that only homos, faggots, queers, drug-users got, got if you believed the preachers, brought down by the wrath of God for non-God-fearing sinful behavior and good riddance.

The tale told on the screen, and the reason that McConaughey’s performance is Oscar-worthy, is that of resourceful cowboy Woodroof’s struggle to self-medicate himself in order to defy the original thirty-day prognosis for his survival (he survived seven years). In the process he had to fight the local medical establishment, big Pharma, big FDA, and his own homophobic worldview in order to procure drugs, maybe dangerous, maybe helpful in a day when patients were dying while those establishments were scratching their heads and were overwhelmed by the epidemic.

But our man Woodroof was a relentless sort, didn’t want to die, didn’t want to die without his boots on and so, with the help of Rayon (played by Jared Leto), a fellow patient and transsexual (a good-looking one too), he does an end around and establishes the Dallas Buyers Club as a source for the afflicted to get some relieve. And all hell comes down on him. That fight against all hell is what drives the film, and what drives McConaughey out of the comfort zone of many of his previous performances (romantic roles, Lincoln Lawyertough hombre stuff). Enough said.