The Latest From The “Veterans For Peace” Facebook Page-Gear Up For The Spring 2014 Anti-War Season-Troops Out Of Afghanistan Now!-Hands Off The World!

Click below to link to the Veterans For Peace Facebook page for the latest news on what anti-war front the organization is working on.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Veterans-For-Peace/49422026153

A Stroll In The Park On Veterans Day-Monday November 11, 2013 - Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S. Troops From Afghanistan! Hands Off Syria! Hands Off Iran! Hands Off The World!

Peter Paul Markin comment:

Back on Veterans Day 2010 I happened to be at the Boston Common located just off the downtown section when I came across some white flags, maybe twenty, waving in the distance over near when Charles Street intersects Beacon Street (the main street of the famous Beacon Hill section of Boston). Since I was heading that way I decided to check out what those flags were all about. Upon investigation I found that the white flags also contained in black outline a peace dove symbol and the words Veterans for Peace. Yah, sign me up, my kind of guys and gals. So, to make a long story short,  I marched with the contingent that year in their spot behind, and not part of, the official parade sponsored by the city (the reason for that separation will be described in more detail below) and have marched each year since, including this year. Previously in promoting and commemorating this peace event I have recycled my sketch from 2010 out of laziness, hubris, or the basic sameness of the yearly event. I have updated that sketch a bit here to reflect on this year’s event.    
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Listen, I have been to many marches and demonstrations for democratic, progressive, and socialist causes in my long political life. Some large, many small but both necessary. However, of all those events none, by far, has been more satisfying that to march alongside my fellow ex-soldiers who have, like I have, “switched” over to the other side, have gotten “religion” on the questions of war and peace and what to do about it, have exposed the better angels of their nature after the long hard thrust of war, and preparations for war have lost their allure, and are now part of the struggle against war, the hard, hard struggle against the permanent war machine that this imperial system has embarked upon.
 

From as far back as in the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) days (the days when even guys like the present Secretary of State John Forbes Kerry had to march in the streets to allay their angers and hurts) I have always felt that ex-soldiers (hell, active soldiers too, if you can get them out of the barracks, off the bases, and into the streets as happened a little as the Vietnam War moved relentlessly onward ) have had just a little bit more “street cred” on the war issue than the professors, pacifists and little old ladies in tennis sneakers who have traditionally led the anti-war movements. Maybe those brothers (and in my generation it was mainly only brothers) and now sisters may not quite pose the questions of war and peace the way I do, or the way that I would like them to do, don’t do a bookish analysis, complete with footnotes, of the imperial system and their cog part in it, but they are kindred spirits.

Now normally in Boston, and in most places, a Veterans Day parade means a bunch of Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) or American Legion-types taking time off from drinking at their post bars (the infamous “battle of the barstool,” no, battles) and donning the old overstuffed moth-eaten uniform and heading out on to Main Street to be waved at, and cheered on, by like-minded, thankful citizens. And of course that happened in 2010 (and this year) as well. What also happened in Boston this year as in 2010 (and other years but I had not been involved in prior marches) was that the Smedley Butler Brigade of Veterans for Peace (VFP) organized an anti-war march as part of their “Veterans Day” program. Said march to be held at the same place and time as the official one, one o’clock in the afternoon in downtown Boston near the Common.

Previous to 2010 there had been a certain amount of trouble, although I am not sure that it came to blows, between the two groups. (I have only heard third-hand reports on previous events so all I know is that were some heated disputes) You know the "super-patriots" vs. “commie symps” thing that has been going on as long, maybe before, as there have been ex-soldiers (and others) who have differed from the bourgeois parties’ pro-war line. In any case the way this impasse had been resolved previously, and the way the parameters were set in 2010 and this year as well, was that the VFP took up the rear of the official parade, and took up the rear in an obvious way. Separated that year, if you can believe this, from the main body of the official parade by a medical emergency truck. This year by a phalanx of Boston Police motorcycle cops. Nice, right? Something of the old "I’ll take my ball and bat and go home" by the "officials" was in the air on that one on every occasion.

In the event this year’s march went off as usual for both parties, as we waited behind the motorcycle cordon for the “officials” to pass by. While waiting I noticed that while the anti-war contingent was about the same size as it has been for the past few years that I have participated, filled out with other peace activists from Quakers and shakers to ranters and chanters and ant-drone folk (strolling along with a mobile replica of a drone to make their point nicely), all angelic, or at least all also on the right side of the angels, the VFP component looked a little smaller. This reflecting the inevitable aging, can’t make the walk, reality that VFP like myriad peace and social justice-oriented organizations are now peopled, alarmingly so, mainly by older activists who cut their teeth in the struggles of the 1960s (or earlier).

Equally as alarming was the sight of more of my Vietnam era veterans using canes, walkers and other aids to either walk the parade or to get around and listen to the program at the end of the march at the Samuel Adams Park at Fanuiel Hall. The hopeful sign though was an increased number of Iraq (Iraq 2003) and Afghanistan veterans who have had enough time to reflect on their war experiences and made a decision to come over to the side of the angels. One such veteran spoke from platform, as did veterans from the Korean and Vietnam War eras, as well as a speaker on behalf of Chelsea Manning, the heroicWikileaks whistle-blower soldier.            

But here is where there is a certain amount of rough plebeian justice, a small dose for those on the side of the angels, in this wicked old world. In order to form up, and this was done knowingly by VFP organizers in 2010 and this year well, the official marchers, the bands and battalions that make up such a march, had to “run the gauntlet” of dove emblem-emblazoned VFP banners waving frantically directly in front of their faces as they passed by. Moreover, although we again this year formed the caboose of this thing the crowds along the parade route actually waited for us after the official paraders had marched by and waved, clapped, and flashed the ubiquitous peace sign at our procession from the sidelines. Be still my heart.

That response just provides another example of the "street cred” that ex-soldiers have on the anti-war question. Now, if there is to be any really serious justice in the world, if only these fellow vets would go beyond then “bring the troops home” and pacific vigil tactics and embrace- immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all U.S./Allied Troops from everywhere, embrace a more studied response to the nature of war policy “in the belly of the beast” then we could maybe start to get somewhere out on those streets. But today, like at that first white flag sighting in 2010 I was very glad to be fighting for our socialist future among those who know first-hand about the dark side of the American experience. No question.

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From The Pen Of Vladimir Lenin -Leader Of The Russian October 1917 Revolution   

Click on the headline to link to the Lenin Internet Archives.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/

Markin comment from the American Left History blog:

DVD REVIEW

LENIN-VOICE OF THE REVOLUTION, A&E PRODUCTION, 2005

Every militant who wants to fight for socialism, or put the fight for socialism back on the front burner, needs tocome to terms with the legacy of Vladimir Lenin and his impact on 20th century revolutionary thought. Every radical who believes that society can be changed by just a few adjustments needs to address this question as well in order to understand the limits of such a position. Thus, it is necessary for any politically literate person of this new generation to go through the arguments both politically and organizationally associated with Lenin’s name. Before delving into his works a review of his life and times would help to orient those unfamiliar with the period. Obviously the best way to do this is read one of the many biographies about him. There is not dearth of such biographies although they overwhelmingly tend to be hostile. But so be it. For those who prefer a quick snapshot view of his life this documentary, although much, much too simply is an adequate sketch of the highlights of his life. It is worth an hour of your time, in any case.

The film goes through Lenin's early childhood, the key role that the execution of older brother Alexander for an assassination attempt on the Czar played in driving him to revolution, his early involvement in the revolutionary socialist movement, his imprisonment and various internal and external exiles, his role in the 1905 Revolution, his role in the 1917 Revolution, his consolidation of power through the Bolshevik Party and his untimely death in 1924. An added feature, as is usual in these kinds of films, is the use of ‘talking heads’ who periodically explain what it all meant. I would caution those who are unfamiliar with the history of the anti-Bolshevik movement that three of the commentators, Adam Ulam, Richard Daniels and Robert Conquest were ‘stars’ of that movement at the height of the anti-Soviet Cold War. I would also add that nothing presented in this biography, despite the alleged additional materials available with the‘opening’ of the Soviet files, that has not been familiar for a long time.

From The Pages Of The Communist International- In Honor Of The 95th Anniversary Of The Founding Of The Communist International (1919)

Click below to link to the Communist International Internet Archives"

http://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/index.htm

Markin comment from the American Left History blog (2007):

BOOK REVIEW

‘LEFT-WING’ COMMUNISM-AN INFANTILE DISORDER, V.I. LENIN, UNIVERSITY PRESS OF THE PACIFIC, CALIFORNIA, 2001

An underlying premise of the Lenin-led Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917 was that success there would be the first episode in a world-wide socialist revolution. While a specific timetable was not placed on the order of the day the early Bolshevik leaders, principally Lenin and Trotsky, both assumed that those events would occur in the immediate post-World War I period, or shortly thereafter. Alas, such was not the case, although not from lack of trying on the part of an internationalist-minded section of the Bolshevik leadership.

Another underlying premise, developed by the Leninists as part of their opposition to the imperialist First World War, was the need for a new revolutionary labor international to replace the compromised and moribund Socialist International (also known as the Second International) which had turned out to be useless as an instrument for revolution or even of opposition to the European war. The Bolsheviks took that step after seizing power and established the Communist International (also known as the Comintern or Third International) in 1919. As part of the process of arming that international with a revolutionary strategy (and practice) Lenin produced this polemic to address certain confusions, some willful, that had arisen in the European left and also attempted to instill some of the hard-learned lessons of the Russian revolutionary experience in them.

The Russian Revolution and after it the Comintern in the early heroic days, for the most part, drew the best and most militant layers of the working class and radical intellectuals to their defense. However, that is not the same as drawing experienced Bolsheviks to that defense. Many militants were anti-parliamentarian or anti-electoral in principle after the sorry experiences with the European social democracy. Others wanted to emulate the old heroic days of the Bolshevik underground party or create a minority, exclusive conspiratorial party.

Still others wanted to abandon the reformist bureaucratically-led trade unions to their then current leaderships, and so on. Lenin’s polemic, and it nothing but a flat-out polemic against all kinds of misconceptions of the Bolshevik experience, cut across these erroneous ideas like a knife. His literary style may not appeal to today’s audience but the political message still has considerable application today. At the time that it was written no less a figure than James P. Cannon, a central leader of the American Communist Party, credited the pamphlet with straightening out that badly confused movement (Indeed, it seems every possible political problem Lenin argued against in that pamphlet had some following in the American Party-in triplicate!). That alone makes it worth a look at.

I would like to highlight one point made by Lenin that has currency for leftists today, particularly American leftists. At the time it was written many (most) of the communist organizations adhering to the Comintern were little more than propaganda groups (including the American party). Lenin suggested one of the ways to break out of that isolation was a tactic of critical support to the still large and influential social democratic organizations at election time. In his apt expression- to support those organizations "like a rope supports a hanging man".

However, as part of my political experiences in America around election time I have run into any number of ‘socialists’ and ‘communists’ who have turned Lenin’s concept on its head. How? By arguing that militants needed to ‘critically support’ the Democratic Party (who else, right?) as an application of the Leninist criterion for critical support. No, a thousand times no. Lenin’s specific example was the reformist British Labor Party, a party at that time (and to a lesser extent today) solidly based on the trade unions- organizations of the working class and no other. The Democratic Party in America was then, is now, and will always be a capitalist party. Yes, the labor bureaucrats and ordinary workers support it, finance it, drool over it but in no way is it a labor party. That is the class difference which even sincere militants have broken their teeth on for at least the last seventy years. And that, dear reader, is another reason why it worthwhile to take a peek at this book.

From The Massachusetts Citizens Against The Death Penalty Website

Click below to link to the Massachusetts Citizens Against The Death Penalty website.

http://www.mcadp.org/

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Markin comment:

I have been an opponent of the death penalty for as long as I have been a political person, a long time. While I do not generally agree with the thrust of the Massachusetts Citizens Against The Death Penalty Committee’s strategy for eliminating the death penalty nation-wide almost solely through legislative and judicial means (think about the 2011 Troy Davis case down in Georgia for a practical example of the limits of that strategy) I am always willing to work with them when specific situations come up. In any case they have a long pedigree extending, one way or the other, back to Sacco and Vanzetti and that is always important to remember whatever our political differences.

For Women's History Month-Lucy On The Edge Of The World

 

People, ordinary vagrant night owls, hung-over refugees from the now closed bars and cabarets that dotted high Massachusetts Avenue and low Brattle Street, average vagabond wanderers of the Harvard Square night afraid to go home to face some wrath, the shiftless, the toothless homeless lacking that benighted nickel for subway fare or having made an erroneous judgment in favor of sweet sickly Thunderbird wine, came into the all-night Hayes-Bickford seeking, like him,  relieve from their collective woes with a cup of weak-kneed coffee and steamed, steamed everything. They, whatever their condition, whatever their motives, did not bother Lucy (the first name Lucy was all anybody ever found out about her as far as he knew, at least that was all he turned up upon later  inquiry) sitting alone at her “reserved” table in the back of the cafeteria toward the rest rooms. There she held forth in if not splendor then in quietude as she plied her nightly musings, and as he watched in awkward silence.   

Lucy Lilac, nicknamed that last part by some ancient want-to-be fellow bard perhaps and it stuck. At least she would brighten up and answer to that call when a midnight friend called it out (that moniker’s genesis like her real surname also undisclosed to him by the other regular tenants of the night when he asked around for more information about her). She spent her youthful middle of the nights just then hunched over a yellow legal notepad filling up its pages with her writings. (She was perhaps twenty-two, maybe twenty-three, had just finished college, he had heard through the grapevine, so that age seemed about right). Occasionally she would speak in a melodious sing-song voice some tidbit she had written out loud, not harmful out loud like some of the drunks at a few of the tables, or some homeless wailing banshee cry against a benighted world,  but just out loud.

Some of what she spoke of he thought was beautiful the words glued together in such a way that brought forth images of serious and thoughtful labors, and some was, well, doggerel, words strewn about in fashionable if haphazard free verse, about par  for the course with poets and other writers, But all of her work, whatever he heard of it, was centered on her plight in the world as a woman torn, as a woman on the edge, on the edge between two societies, on a see-saw between her membership in the generic human race and her ragamuffin fate as a woman reduced to second-class human citizenship in a white- bread male dominated world. She spoke of kinship to the fate of the black masses.

Caught between, as one professor put it whom he had asked about it later, two cultural gradients if that term has any meaning beyond the academy. And maybe she had been stuck that way like she said but let’s let him try to reconstruct what it was all about, all about for Lucy Lilac night owl. He had become so fascinated by where she was going with her muse in those 1962 summer nights, about how she was going to go about struggle to resolve that battle between “cultural gradients” and about the gist of what she had to say to a callow world in those days that he turned up many a “two in morning” to try to figure her dream out. He had more than a passing interest in this battle since he was also spooked by those same demons that she spoke of.    

[Oh, by the way, for the curious, Lucy Lilac, was drop-dead beautiful, with long black iron-pressed straight hair as was the style then, alabaster white skin whether from her odd hours of sleep or by genetic design was not clear, big red lips, which he did not know whether were in style then or not, the bluest eyes of blue, always wearing dangling earrings. Usually as well wearing some long dress so it was never really possible to determine her figure or her legs, important pieces of knowledge to him, and not just to him, in those sex-obsessed days, but he would have said slender and probably nice legs too. Since neither her beauty, nor the idea of sex, at least pick-up sex, enter into this sketch that is all that needs to be pointed out. Except this, her beauty, along with that no-nonsense demeanor, was so apparent that it held him, and others too, off from anything other than an occasional distant forlorn smile.]               

What Lucy Lilac would speak of, like a lot of the young in those days, was her alienation from parents, society, alienated from just everything to keep the list from getting out of hand, but not just that. On that she had kindred spirits in abundance. She was also alienated from her race like lot of the young, him included, were in those days as well. Alienated from her nine-to-five-go-by-the-rules-we-are-in-charge-trample on the rest of the world, especially the known black world white race. Part of it was that you could not turn open a newspaper or turn on a radio or television without having the ugly stuff going down south in America (and sometimes stuff in the north too) confronting you headlong. But part of it was an affinity with black culture, mainly through music, through be-bop jazz, electrified blues and flat-out rock and roll blastings  and a certain style, a certain swagger in the face of a world filled with hostility. “Cool,” to use just one word. 

Now this race thing, this white race thing of Lucy’s had nothing to do, he did not think, at least when she spoke that thought never came through, with some kind of guilt by association with the rednecks and crackers down in places like Alabama and Mississippi goddams. It was more that given the deal going down in the world, the injustices, the not having had any say in what was going on, or of having been asked about it either made her feel like she was some Negro in some down trodden shack some place. Some mad priestess fellaheena scratching the good earth to make her mark.

As Lucy expanded her ideas each night (and began to get a little be-bop- edged  flow into her voice as she spoke, a flow that he secretly kept time to), he got a better sense of what she was trying to say. (He later learned though one of her poems, that she had been, as he had, very influenced by Norman Mailer’s 1950s essay in The Partisan Review The White Negro, a screed on what Mailer called the white hipster, those who had parted company with their own culture and moved toward  the sexier, sassy black cultural gradient.) And while Lucy and he were both comfortably ensconced in the cozy Cambridge  Hayes-Bickford  (well maybe not cozy but safe anyway) and had some very white skin to not have to Mister James Crow worry about he began to see what she meant.

And Lucy Lilac really hit home when she spoke of how she had been, to his surprise since she gave every indication of being some cast-off Mayfair swell’s progeny, brought up under some tough circumstances down in New Jersey. She spoke about being from poor, very poor white folks somewhere around Toms River, her father out of work a lot worrying about the next paycheck and keeping him and his under some roof, her mother harried by taking care of five kids on two kids’ money, about being ostracized by the other better off kids, about seeking solace in listening to Bessie Smith, Billie, Muddy Howlin’ Wolf and a ton of other blues names that he recognized. And he too recognized a fellahin kindred since his own North Adamsville existence seemed so similar.

Yes, those nights he knit a secret and unknown bond with Lucy Lilac. Lucy who a few months later vanished into thin air from the Hayes-Bickford night. Lucy from the edge of the world, and wherever she wound up he knew just what she meant by the white Negro hipster-dom she was seeking, and that maybe he was too…

And hence this International Women’s Day contribution.                   

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.

Six 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 …

Six Ways To Support Heroic Wikileaks Whistle-Blower Chelsea  Manning

*Sign the public petition to President Obama – Sign online http://www.amnesty.org/en/appeals-for-action/chelseamanning  “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

 *******                                                

Free Chelsea Manning Now

Dear Friends,   Please see below a letter to the military authority supporting Chelsea Manning’s demand to receive hormone therapy.   The Pvt Manning Support Network have advised us that as of last week the military had eight more days to give an official determination to the petition for Chelsea to get the hormone therapy (this process began in November).   According to Chelsea’s lawyer, David Combs (who is handling this part of the legal case) the lower level brass have had a positive attitude towards the petition whereas the top brass will make the final decision.   There is a good case for winning this, because the Federal law mandates transgender treatment.  But the military may not want to set a precedent ie to pay for transgender therapy/surgery. There is a legal case planned with a Federal judge if there is no response this week.   Please see Pvt Manning website for updates on this. In the meantime, if you want to add your signature to our letter to Col. Sioban Ledwith or write your own please note that letters have to be sent by post.   Free Chelsea Manning!   Lori Nairne Queer Strike Col. Sioban Ledwith, Commander U.S. Detention Barracks 1301 N Warehouse Rd Ft. Leavenworth KS 66027 RE: Hormone therapy treatment for Pvt. Chelsea Manning (formerly Bradley Manning) (8929)   28 February  2014   Dear Col. Ledwith,   We are writing to you in support of Pvt Manning’s request for hormone therapy treatment and for her self-identity as “Chelsea Manning” to be acknowledged within the detention facilities.   We understand that obstacles preventing Private Manning from exercising her right to this treatment are not medical but administrative.  We understand that you have the power to remove these obstacles. We call on you to end a situation where a detainee under your supervision faces discrimination in the exercise of her human rights as a transgender woman.   For many years transgender people have campaigned for recognition of their gender and their right to live free from discrimination and violence.  In recent years, transgender people’s rights have become more universally acknowledged and assumed, including within the armed forces. Currently, at least ten countries do not discriminate against transgender people doing military service.  The same is true for the rights of people in prison.  The UN Handbook on prisoners with special needs  outlines human rights standards for the treatment of transgender people in prison: Everyone deprived of liberty shall be treated with humanity and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person … Sexual orientation and gender identity are integral to each person's dignity.(1) In the USA, the US Bureau of Prisons which governs 119 federal institutions has a policy stating that inmates who have "gender dysphoria" are entitled to receive the healthcare services they need. Since 2011, this policy also covers inmates who have not benefitted from those services before their incarceration. (2) We therefore urge you to ensure that Pvt Manning is immediately given access to the hormone therapy she has requested; that she immediately be known by the name and gender she wants; and that the legal process of her identity change be completed without delay.    Yours sincerely   Lori Nairne,  Queer Strike                       Ben Martin, Payday Men's Network queerstrike@queerstrike.net                   payday@paydaynet.org PO Box 14512, SF, CA. 94114               PO Box 287 London NW6 5QU                                                                             CO-SIGNED BY: Black Orchid Collective, Seattle, US FreeChelseManningNet, Berlin, Germany Freedom Socialist Party, US F*WORD, a project of the Resource Center for Nonviolence, Santa Cruz, CA Gay Liberation Network, Chicago, USGlobal Women’s Strike UK/US Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club Executive Board, San Francisco, US Hella 503 Collective, Portland, Oregon, US LAGAI -- Queer Insurrection, San Francisco Bay Area, USLegal Action for Women UK/US Left Front Art, UK MolinoGroup – Theatre and Performance Collective, UK Occupy SF Action Council, San Francisco, US Peace for the Streets by Kids from the Streets (PSKS), Seattle, US Prof. Dean Spade, Seattle University School of Law, US Queer+ Friends of Chelsea Manning, London, UKQueer Qumbia Qrew, US Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism (QUIT!), San Francisco Bay Area, US Radical Women, US Section Rita Addessa, Executive Director (retired), PA Lesbian & Gay Task Force, Philadelphia, US Sin Barras, Santa Cruz, US Sylvia Rivera Law Project, USWomen of Colour in the Global Women’s Strike UK/US U.S. Citizens for Peace & Justice, Rome, Italy Veteran Artists, Stephen Funk Creative Director, San Francisco, US --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1)     SOURCE: UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Handbook on Prisoners with Special Needs, March 2009, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/4a0969d42.html  2)    SOURCE: http://www.glad.org/current/pr-detail/federal-bureau-of-prisons-makes-major-change-in-transgender-medical-policy/

In Honor Of The 95^th Anniversary Of The Founding Of The Communist International-Take Seven-The Long Road Home

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman                  

Jack Smithfield (party name, real name James Gladstone, originally from old Chi town) sat in his little closet of an office at American Communist Party headquarters just outside of Union Square in old haunted New York City and declared himself tired (that declared part was something of an inside joke of late what with all the squabbles and everybody declaring, or being forced to declare for or against something, so he was declaring himself tired). Not that he would publicly declare such a condition, not these days, not being sure which way the winds were blowing in the party. Who knows maybe being tired, or the declaration of such tiredness, was in fact creating an unauthorized faction and thus anathema and no paycheck.

All Jack knew was that he was beginning to rue the day ten years before that he had taken up a friend’s friendly offer to come to New York City and become a trade union organizer for the party (and the just-formed  Communist International that was providing the funding at that point) at a time when in, association with the big-time organizer William Z. Foster, they had lost some Chi town strikes as the bosses dug in their heels, dug them in deep and he was in need, desperately in need of a job. Funny that friend, Jake Armor (party name), had left the party a couple of years later when the big to-do over whether to be an underground or aboveground party was a big deal and he had sided with the under-grounders and headed to Mexico. (He had heard later that that Jake had surfaced around Diego Rivera and his arty crowd a couple of years back, some much for underground conspiracies around those flame-throwers). Moreover he had grabbed that train to New York and a job with the specific idea of making enough dough to marry Anna, his hometown high school sweetheart from back in the Division Street cold-water flat tenements. And he had. She had come to New York with him as he began to organize the New York garment workers. Moreover she had fallen in love with New York, the Village (Greenwich Village for those not in the know), and with some foul Trotskyite painter a couple of years back and had taken little Sarah and left him high and dry in order to “find herself.” (The last he had heard, via Sarah, was that she was with some Dadaist, whatever that was, poet, and at least not a known Trotskyite which, who knows might get him into trouble since they just expelled Jim Cannon and his counter-revolutionary crowd).

Yes, Jack was beginning to rue that day as he sat in that cubbyhole office trying to figure out what had happened to Jim Gladstone turned jack Smithfield since that fateful day in 1919. Some of it was fun, at least at first anyway, the travelling part, going here and there for the party up and down the East Coast. That Paterson textile strike was a beauty, great guns blazing, although he was not really sure whether they had won or lost it in the long haul (in the short haul, yes, they had won). And getting to go to the first international conference of the Red International of Trade Unions in Moscow where he met lots of other trade union organizers and found out that they all had the same basic problems as he did in organizing the masses. Even some of the whacky party fights around that previously mentioned underground-aboveground battle, the fight over the labor party and who to endorse, sending the party headquarters to Chicago to get out of stuffy New York (ho, ho, what a laugh) and even the name of the party (there had actually been two parties at one point, with crazy factions lined up to decide who was king of the hill. The Comintern had to figure it out for them, jesus). But lately, the last couple years the thing had kind of spiraled out of control.

Here’s the funny part. When Jack had mentioned his job offer to William Z. (nobody ever called him Bill, not even his drinking buddies) back in 1919 he had nixed it for himself saying that he publicly didn’t want to get mixed up with radicals and reds. Well that was just a ruse. William Z. had already been in contact with the party discreetly and had been using Jack as a “stalking horse.” When William Z. did finally come out and join the party Jack and others became part of his faction, gladly. And things went along okay for a while, especially when Jim Cannon and his old Wobblie boys came along with the faction (factions made necessary by all those fights in the party mentioned before).

But then, Jack was not sure when, things changed. Maybe when Lenin died and Stalin took over in Russia and more Russian emissaries were showing up at party headquarters with directions on what to do, or not to do. Maybe when the old-time leaders like Trotsky, Zinoviev, and Kamenev started wilting and falling out of favor. Or maybe it was more recently when Jim Cannon and his crowd got booted out for being damn Trotskyites (and good riddance since one of them was that bastard painter who “stole” Anna from him) and then the next thing you knew Jay Lovestone and his crowd were taking the same boot leaving Earl Browder, Christ, Earl Browder, William Z.’s assistant was made party leader. All Jack knew was that he was tired, undeclared tired in case anybody from the party was asking, but he also knew times were tough and that he needed that damn paycheck …