From The Marxist Archives -The Revolutionary History Journal-Comintern Work in Western Armed Forces
in the 1930s

 

Click below to link to the Revolutionary History Journal index.

http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/revhist/backissu.htm

Peter Paul Markin comment on this series:

This is an excellent documentary source for today’s leftist militants to “discover” the work of our forebears, particularly the bewildering myriad of tendencies which have historically flown under the flag of the great Russian revolutionary, Leon Trotsky and his Fourth International, whether one agrees with their programs or not. But also other laborite, semi-anarchist, ant-Stalinist and just plain garden-variety old school social democrat groupings and individual pro-socialist proponents.

Some, maybe most of the material presented here, cast as weak-kneed programs for struggle in many cases tend to be anti-Leninist as screened through the Stalinist monstrosities and/or support groups and individuals who have no intention of making a revolution. Or in the case of examining past revolutionary efforts either declare that no revolutionary possibilities existed (most notably Germany in 1923) or alibi, there is no other word for it, those who failed to make a revolution when it was possible.

The Spanish Civil War can serve as something of litmus test for this latter proposition, most infamously around attitudes toward the Party Of Marxist Unification's (POUM) role in not keeping step with revolutionary developments there, especially the Barcelona days in 1937 and by acting as political lawyers for every non-revolutionary impulse of those forebears. While we all honor the memory of the POUM militants, according to even Trotsky the most honest band of militants in Spain then, and decry the murder of their leader, Andreas Nin, by the bloody Stalinists they were rudderless in the storm of revolution. But those present political disagreements do not negate the value of researching the POUM’s (and others) work, work moreover done under the pressure of revolutionary times. Hopefully we will do better when our time comes.

Finally, I place some material in this space which may be of interest to the radical public that I do not necessarily agree with or support. Off hand, as I have mentioned before, I think it would be easier, infinitely easier, to fight for the socialist revolution straight up than some of the “remedies” provided by the commentators in these entries from the Revolutionary History journal in which they have post hoc attempted to rehabilitate some pretty hoary politics and politicians, most notably August Thalheimer and Paul Levy of the early post Liebknecht-Luxemburg German Communist Party. But part of that struggle for the socialist revolution is to sort out the “real” stuff from the fluff as we struggle for that more just world that animates our efforts. So read, learn, and try to figure out the
wheat from the chaff. 
******** 

V: Comintern Work in Western Armed Forces
in the 1930s

We are grateful to David McKnight for his location and translation of an archive document on a little known aspect of the work of the Communist International: underground work in the military forces of the non-Communist world. Some of the consequences of such underground work – which also extended to work in the civil service and diplomatic service – were the espionage witch-hunts of the Cold War. This article introduces a document found in the Comintern archives in 1996. A longer treatment of many aspects of underground work will appear in David McKnight’s book Conspiracy Against the State, to be published by Frank Cass.

In addition, for issues relating to the security services and Communism, see David Turner’s recently awarded PhD thesis: Reds at the Heart of the Empire: Aspects of the Communist Party of Great Britain in the Medway Towns, 1920–1943, Canterbury Christchurch University College/University of Kent. His website http://www.canterbury.u-net.com/ contains valuable material and bibliographies.
As an important background to this Comintern document stand the events of the Invergordon Mutiny in 1931. Led by a Communist, sailors among a fleet in Invergordon struck against naval lower-deck pay cuts imposed by the National Government in the economic crisis. Chapter Two of The Balham Group: How British Trotskyism Began (Pluto Press, London 1974) describes events thus:

Excitement grew when, on 15 September, the men of the Atlantic Fleet at Invergordon refused to obey orders to sail, and, in tidy Navy fashion, took over the ships, ‘refusing to serve under the new rates of pay’. The government quickly appeased the sailors; but teachers and civil servants, not given in that period to militant protest, now marched and met in great numbers. In Britain’s major cities, the unemployed in tens and scores of thousands surged in turbulent protest, often clashing violently with the police. The men of money began shifting their cash away from Britain, government credit tumbled and on 20 September, a government set up to keep Britain on the gold standard was forced to go off it. On 11 October, postal workers, civil servants, teachers, unemployed and trade unionists staged a 100,000-strong united demonstration in Hyde Park.

The strike had some success, with all cuts for public servants being restricted to 10 per cent. But another consequence was the strengthening of the law against sedition. In 1934, the Incitement to Disaffection Bill was introduced to replace the Mutiny Act of 1797, which made it an offence to seduce a member of His Majesty’s Forces from his duty or allegiance. Captain R.A. Henderson’s Invergordon Papers 1931 are deposited at the Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge.

For further reading, see Dave Sherry, Red Letter Days: 15 September 1931 – The Invergordon Mutiny, Socialist Review, no. 244, September 2000; Alan Ereira, The Invergordon Mutiny: A Narrative History of the Last Great Mutiny in the Royal Navy, and How it Forced Britain Off the Gold Standard in 1931, Kegan Paul, London 1981; David Divine, Mutiny at Invergordon, Macdonald, London 1970; David Turner, Navy on Strike, Militant, 22 November 1991; Anthony Carew, The Lower Deck of the Royal Navy: 1900–1939; The Invergordon Mutiny in Perspective, Manchester University Press, Manchester 1981; Alan Coles, Invergordon Scapegoat: The Betrayal of Admiral Tomkinson, Sutton Publishing, Glos 1993; R. Spector, The Invergordon Mutiny, MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History, Volume 14, no. 1, Autumn 2001; Len Wincott, Invergordon Mutineer, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London 1974; Where is Len Wincott?, Socialist Current, Volume 1, no. 1, May 1958; Martin Ceadel, The First Communist “Peace Society”: The British Anti-War Movement 1932–1935, Twentieth Century British History, Volume 1, no. 1, 1990, pp. 84–6; Kenneth Edwards, The Mutiny at Invergordon, Putnam, London 1937.

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Communist International, Work in the Army

 

***Of This And That In The Old North Adamsville Neighborhood-The High School Cruising For The Heart Of Saturday Nights Time   

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

A while back I went on to the class website established for the 50^th anniversary reunion of my North Adamsville High School Class of 1964 (that’s in Massachusetts) to check out a new addition to the list of those who have joined the site. Now the way this site works, like lots of such sites, is that each classmate who logs in gets a profile page with some boilerplate stuff like marital status, kids and grandkids but also space for each to tell his or her story of what has happened of interest over that previous 50 years, stuff at least that they wanted classmates to know about.  Over the past several months the site has been up classmates have done a fair amount of updating of their profiles, especially adding a zillion photos of those grandkids. Some have taken advantage of the Message Forum page to let everyone know some important information while others have, as I know in my own case, used the private e-mail message system to deliver news to particular fellow classmates. This sketch is about my remembrances after receiving a private e-mail from guy, Sam Lowell that I used to be best buddies with but who went off my radar after high school.     

I noticed that I had a private e-mail waiting for me on my profile page after looking at that information provided by that new addition, a guy I did not know but who I had seen around the school (you would have seen almost everybody in the four years you were there with one thing or another even though the class had baby-boomer times over 500 students). It turned out to be from Sam Lowell who I used to run around with along with the great track runner from our era, Brad Badger. Sam was also on the track team, a high jumper, a tall rail thin high jumper in those days. The gist of Sam’s e-mail was all about information of his doings since high school which I will intersperse with other stuff below. That e-mail though got me wondering about some details of the stuff we used to do then, you know, where did we hang out, what did we do with our spare time, and most importantly what did we do about searching for the heart of Saturday night-in short looking for girl companionship. I sent him a return e-mail asking about such things and the following sketch is gleaned from that exchange.  

******
[One of the innovations that the class website’s wizard webmaster, Donna (who had also been the Vice-President of the class), had placed on the homepage was a survey format to poll fellow classmates about various questions. The first question was about which elementary school you had gone to of the five feeder schools to North Adamsville High and an additional “other” for those who had gone elsewhere to click onto. I had clicked on “other” since I had gone to Snug Harbor Elementary, a feeder school for cross-town rival Adamsville High. Memory is a strange thing so I was not sure whether Sam remembered that I had not gone to one of the feeder school as he had, the Parker School.]

“Hi Sam –Long time no see. Sorry I have not gotten back to you sooner but I have been out of town. Did you click on and answer that poll question about where you went to elementary school on the home page? I know many a summer afternoon and evening, hot and sweaty, we, you, Brad Badger and I spent hanging around the basketball courts at the Parker School. Spent time with pick-up games with guys who hung out there or games against other teams.

Remember Jim Slater’s team, beautiful (although you could not call guys that then) and graceful Jim with that sweet swish jump shot who fell in Vietnam in 1968, and how the competition was pretty intense but afterward we went for sodas at Jack and Ted’s Variety, losers buying, and when we were older (but still under age) we would get some illegal smile beers from some unknowing father’s stash. Remember too how the corner boy situation divided up by tenth grade with Jim’s crowd setting up on any given weekend night in front of Doc’s Drugstore and we, serfs for our lord Frankie Riley, would perch in front Salducci’s Pizza Parlor looking all college-cool (or so we thought) and hoping against hope that some passing car traffic girls would honk our way.

You at six feet-four inches (I think that is right since you towered over me) were pretty good with those sharp elbows of yours even though in those days you were a rail at about one hundred and fifty pound. Brad was pretty good too with that fast break speed but I never had the co-ordination to play very well, except at the foul line. You guys all used to laugh when I did those two-hand bucket shots but I was deadly and it helped us win more than one game and grab those sodas and beers.

I know the Parker was where you went to school but I am not sure if you knew or not but I went to Snug Harbor Elementary down in the Adamsville projects from grade 1 to 6. I recently went down there to take some photos (see Message Forum #30) and the place has not changed all that much structurally since the later 1950s when my family left. A number of NA64ers went there at some point, including our old friend Brad. That is where I met him and where he went to school until fourth grade, then left for Holden to return to Adamsville showing up at North in the 10^th grade. I was in contact with him about five or six years ago after my mother died in 2007. After her death I all of a sudden after many years of statutory neglect I got North Adamsville patriotic for the old days. That’s when I contacted him on an unrelated commercial classmates site and we stayed in touch for a while but then as such things do, we faded out again once the glow of talking about the old days wore off and we found we had little else to talk about now. I recently noticed that Roger French who still lives in North Adamsville and who has stayed in contact with Brad  all these years from what Brad had told me back then is also on this site and I sent him a note asking Brad’s whereabouts since he is not at the last address and telephone number I have for him. You don’t know where Brad is, do you?

 The main reason for this note however is to mull over some of the olds days in NAHS times. I have gone back to North Adamsville a number of times over the past few years thinking about such things. As I said before I remember we hung out at the basketball courts but also at the drugstore (no longer there) near your house on Flynt Street. What was the name of it? I know it had a soda fountain and we used to sit in there and talk to the soda jerk (what a description) and mainly about the ugly Red Sox of those years. Also didn’t we hang also around that Mom and Pop variety store toward the Downs run by a couple of brothers?

Moving on-I will always remember those trips, mainly futile, down Adamsville Boulevard and on to the Southern Artery for pizza at that Leaning Tower of Pizza after we had struck out in the girl department on any given Saturday night. That sounds about right doesn’t it? I know we were crazy for girls but they did not then, at least NAHS girls, give us a tumble. I know that I never had a date with an NAHS girl while I was there. ( I did later after graduation and I will tell you about it sometime and about the things she told me about some North girls that will surprise you. What about you? I noticed the name Betty Thomas with a note to you recently on your profile page but did you date her?  I don’t remember if you did or not. I know I never saw in the car when we were around but you could have at other times.   

Funny about all the times we struck out with girls who mattered, who more than one time desperately mattered when dance times came, wherever we went. Let’s face it we weren’t exactly anybody’s choice for best looking guys, or best dressed, or best athletics, probably most girls didn’t even know we had a track team. I remember once telling a girl, Sarah Lane I think who was in my Problems in Democracy class senior, that I was on the track team and she was clueless that the school has such a team. Even with all the publicity that Brad received over the PA system from Coach Lyons, in the school newspaper and in the local newspapers. I bet the lowliest scrub football player got more notice than us.

Here is the other funny thing though I would have thought, although this might be in hindsight, that the “boss” ’57 Chevy that you had and that we drove around town in would have been a “babe” magnet. Remember how you would have us shut up when the Supremes’ Baby Love came on WMEX on the car radio so the girls could hear what was playing. Hah. Today anyway if you see one on the street everybody looks, looks more than once too, and from what I hear guys who own such vehicles have no problem getting women, good-looking women too, to ride up front with them.  I forget the colors of your car, were they red and black that two-toned combination that everybody was in to back then.              

I remember that time when you sold me your old car, some junk box Plymouth that you had gotten from your father after he traded up, for about ten bucks or something when you got that ’57 Chevy. I know you had it the summer after graduation when we were still in touch after Brad went into the Navy rather than go to college but how long did you keep it for? (Brad’s home-life was so bad that he decided he had get out right away and there was really no family money for college anyway.) Until you went into the service in 1966? Interesting how you kept in the same banking profession all your life. I remember you taking business courses in high school and then later at Bentley figuring that was the way you were going to make a name for yourself. And you did so kudos to you.     

I will let off for now and let you answer my questions if you like but I hope that things have gone well for you since the old days. By your profile page that seems to be true. A proud many times over grandpa and tinkering around with antiques now that you are retired. Later Frank Jackman “

In Honor Of May Day 2014-From The American Left History Blog Archives -From The May Day Organizing 2012 Organizing Archives –May Day 2013 Needs The Same Efforts

 

 

All Out On May Day 2012: A Day Of International Working Class Solidarity Actions- An Open Letter To The Working People Of Boston From A Fellow Worker

 

 

All Out For May 1st-International Workers Day 2012!

 

Why Working People Need To Show Their Power On May Day 2012

 

Wage cuts, long work hours, steep consumer price rises, unemployment, small or no pensions, little or no paid vacation time, plenty of poor and inadequate housing, homelessness, and wide-spread sicknesses as a result of a poor medical system or no health insurance. I will stop there although I could go on and on. Sounds familiar though, sounds like your situation or that of someone you know, right?

 

Words, or words like them, are taken daily from today’s global headlines.

But these were also similar to the conditions our forebears faced in America back in the 1880s when this same vicious ruling class was called, and rightly so, “the robber barons,” and threatened, as one of their kind, Jay Gould, stated in a fit of candor, “to hire one half of the working class to kill the other half,” so that they could maintain their luxury in peace. That too has not changed.

 

What did change then is that our forebears fought back, fought back long and hard, starting with the fight connected with the heroic Haymarket Martyrs in 1886 for the eight-hour day symbolized each year by a May Day celebration of working class power. We need to reassert that claim. This May Day let us revive that tradition as we individually act around our separate grievances and strike, strike like the furies, collectively against the robber barons of the 21st century.

 

No question over the past several years (really decades but now it is just more public and right in our face) American working people have taken it on the chin, taken it on the chin in every possible way. Start off with massive job losses, heavy job losses in the service and manufacturing sectors (and jobs that are not coming back except as “race to the bottom” low wage, two-tier jobs dividing younger workers from older workers like at General Electric or the auto plants). Move on to paying for the seemingly never-ending bail–out of banks, other financial institutions and corporations “too big to fail,” home foreclosures and those “under water,” effective tax increases (since the rich refuse to pay, in some cases literally paying nothing, we pay). And finish up with mountains of consumer debt for everything from modern necessities to just daily get-bys, and college student loan debt as a life-time deadweight around the neck of the kids there is little to glow about in the harsh light of the “American Dream.”

 

Add to that the double (and triple) troubles facing immigrants, racial and ethnic minorities, and many women and the grievances voiced long ago in the Declaration of Independence seem like just so much whining. In short, it is not secret that working people have faced, are facing and, apparently, will continue to face an erosion of their material well-being for the foreseeable future something not seen by most people since the 1930s Great Depression, the time of our grandparents (or, for some of us, great-grandparents).

 

That is this condition will continue unless we take some lessons from those same 1930s and struggle, struggle like hell, against the ruling class that seems to have all the card decks stacked against us. Struggle like they did in places like Minneapolis, San Francisco, Toledo, Flint, and Detroit. Those labor-centered struggles demonstrated the social power of working people to hit the “economic royalists” (the name coined for the ruling class of that day by their front-man Franklin Delano Roosevelt, FDR) to shut the bosses down where it hurts- in their pocketbooks and property.

 

The bosses will let us rant all day, will gladly take (and throw away) all our petitions, will let us use their “free-speech” parks (up to a point as we have found out via the Occupy movement), and curse them to eternity as long as we don’t touch their production, “perks,” and profits. Moreover an inspired fight like the actions proposed for this May Day 2012 can help new generations of working people, organized, unorganized, unemployed, homeless, houseless, and just plain desperate, help themselves to get out from under. All Out On May Day 2012.

 

I have listed some of the problems we face now to some of our demand that should be raised every day, not just May Day. See if you agree and if you do take to the streets on May Day with us. We demand:

 

*Hands Off Our Public Worker Unions! No More Wisconsins! Hands Off All Our Unions!

 

* Give the unemployed work! Billions for public works projects to fix America’s broken infrastructure (bridges, roads, sewer and water systems, etc.)!

*End the endless wars- Troops And Mercenaries Out Of Afghanistan (and Iraq)!-U.S Hands Off Iran! Hands Off The World!

 

* Full citizenship rights for all those who made it here no matter how they got here!

 

* A drastic increase in the minimum wage and big wage increases for all workers!

 

* A moratorium on home foreclosures! No evictions!

 

* A moratorium on student loan debt! Free, quality higher education for all! Create 100, 200, many publicly-supported Harvards!

 

*No increases in public transportation fares! No transportation worker lay-offs! For free quality public transportation!

 

To order to flex our collective bottom up power on May 1, 2012 we will be organizing a wide-ranging series of mass collective participatory actions:

 

*We will be organizing within our unions- or informal workplace organizations where there is no union - a one-day strike around some, or all, of the above-mentioned demands.

 

*We will be organizing at workplaces where a strike is not possible for workers to call in sick, or take a personal day, as part of a coordinated “sick-out”.

 

*We will be organizing students from kindergarten to graduate school and the off-hand left-wing think tank to walk-out of their schools (or not show up in the first place), set up campus picket lines, and to rally at a central location.

 

*We will be calling in our communities for a mass consumer boycott, and with local business support where possible, refuse to make purchases on that day.

 

All out on May Day 2012.

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.

Four 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 …

Four  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

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.

*** Of This And That In The Old 1960s North Adamsville Neighborhood-Those Pale Blue Eyes, Revisited 

 

A YouTube film clip to set the mood for this sketch.

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Not all adventures in social networking lead to good results and happy endings, although don’t blame the Internet or the fact of the Internet as a communication tool for bringing people together on that. People, men and women in serious and unserious relationships, have been screwing them up without that technological help ever since Adam and Eve, maybe before, so back off. I have a story to tell about how the Internet brought two fellow classmates from the North Adamsville Class of 1964, Sam Lowell and Melinda Loring, together, how they started out a relationship sparked by the Internet but were able to mess things up as if that instrumentality never existed. Needless to say the pair are no longer together after a short stormy affair, although they both have admitted to me individually that they still believed that it was written in the stars that they belonged together. But that good hope sentiment sometimes doesn’t mean a thing if the couple can’t abide each other’s presence, couldn’t seem to connect the dots. Such situations happen more than one might think so let’s look at how things unfolded and how I got wind of what went down.         

Despite the sad story of Sam and Melinda I have spent not a little time lately touting the virtues of the Internet in allowing me and the members of the North Adamsville Class of 1964, or what is left of it, the remnant that has survived and is findable with the new technologies (some will never be found by choice or by being excluded from the “information super-highway” that they have not been able to navigate), to communicate with each other some fifty years and many miles later on a class website recently set up to gather in classmates for our 50^th anniversary reunion. I had noted in earlier sketches my own successes with this website in being able to tout a guy whose photos of my old childhood neighborhood send me spinning down memory lane, another about an old corner boy and our Adventure car hop misadventures looking for the heart of Saturday night, writing a tribute to our classmates fallen in Vietnam, and in answering a perplexing question about what I saw as my role as a commentator on the site. I admit I had to marvel at some of the communications technology that makes our work a lot easier than back in the day. The Internet was only maybe a dream, a mad monk scientist far-fetched science fiction dream then as we struggle with three by five cards and archaic Dewey Decimal systems.

I also admitted in one of those sketches that for most of these fifty years since graduation I had studiously avoided returning to the old town for any past class reunions but this one I had wanted to attend, the reasons which not need detain us here. Or I should say rather wanted to attend once the reunion committee was able to track me down and invite me to attend. Or a better “rather” to join a NA64.com website run by a wizard webmaster, Donna, who was also our class Vice-President to keep up to date on progress for that reunion.

Part of the reason I did join the class site was to keep informed about upcoming events but also as is my wont to make commentary about various aspects of the old hometown, the high school then, and any other tidbit that my esteemed fellow classmates might want to ponder after all these years. All this made simple as pie by the act of joining. Once logged in one is provided with a personal profile page complete with space for private e-mails, story-telling, various vital statistics like kids and grandkids, and space for the billion photos of that progeny, mostly it seems for those darling grandkids that seem to pop up everywhere.  Additionally, there is a section, a general comment section, the “Message Forum” page, where one and all can place material they think of general interest to the class as a whole. I have used that page more than once over the past several months.  

A while back, a few months ago now, I went on to the class website to check out a new addition to the list of those who had joined the site recently. We can use our personal settings to be informed of that kind of information on a more or less frequent basis. The guy who had just joined was a guy I did not know but I had seen around the school and so I was ready to click off the site (by the way  you would have seen almost everybody in the four years you were there with one thing or another even though the class had baby-boomer times over 500 students). Then I noticed that Sam Lowell  had placed a comment in the “Message Forum” section about Melinda Loring and how she had recently as a result of slipping in an indoor swimming pool up in Epping, New Hampshire,  while exercising had broken her right hip requiring surgery. We were asked to send Melinda best wishes message for a speedy recovery on her profile page.

Now I knew Sam Lowell from high school, had been a teammate of his on the indoor and outdoor track teams, and had hung around with him most of junior and senior years. I had, when Sam joined the website in November of 2013 shortly I had, sent him some private e-mails and we had maintained an exchange of messages about the old days and about what had been happening since then. I had not heard from him or seen anything listed about him for a few months before his Melinda announcement. I do not remember him knowing Melinda Loring back in school although we both knew who she was. I remember that we had both commented at one time back then that she was a  definite “fox” in the language of the hormonal schoolboy 1960s night  but “unapproachable” to ragamuffin boys like us. Sam had not mentioned being in touch with her on the site in any of our communications, and I knew that he lived in Holden here in Massachusetts and that Melinda listed her home town as up near the White Mountains in New Hampshire. Most importantly I knew that Sam had been married to the same woman, Laura, for about thirty-five years. So I sent him a private e-mail message asking “what gives with Melinda?” and how he came to be the guy who placed a notice about her condition on the “Message Forum” page. In return he asked for my Internet e-mail because he wanted to explain some things without going on the site. I knew something was up.

I also got more, much more, than I bargained for so hear me out. It seems that Sam was really gung-ho about going to and being a part of this 50^th anniversary class reunion. He had gone to many of previous ones at 5, 10, 25, and 40 years but last fall he had not heard anything about planning for a 50^th reunion so he, like many of our generation who are the least bit Internet savvy these days, created an event page on Facebook looking for interested classmates and asking whether any plans were afoot. Melinda subsequently sent him a message on that event page asking what he knew of the doings. Sam sent her back a message about what little he knew and that he was prepared to organize something if nothing was in the works but forgot to give his name. She replied “who are you?” And that was their start. They exchanged a blizzard (Sam’s word) of e-mails over the next several day telling each other about what they had been up to over the last 50 years. Melinda had been a professor of education at various colleges, most recently at the University of New Hampshire and was still plodding away at that profession. Sam had been many things over the years, including teaching, but was at this time a lawyer working mainly out of his house on appeals cases. During this time Sam, through a separate source found out that there was already a class website in existence, informed Melinda, and they both joined the site over the next few days.       

Somehow this blizzard of e-mails morphed into some insipid cyberspace kindred spirit torch-bearing. Something was driving them forward. Eventually the e-mail system became too slow for their eight million questions for each and their attraction to each other so the ubiquitous cellphone became their mode of communication. Well the long and short of it was that after a blizzard of calls they arranged to meet for dinner in Lowell and discuss things. Melinda, twice married but now single and available asked Sam about his marital status during their exchanges. Sam kind of, no, he definitely fudged on that saying he was “separated” from Laura in order to see what way the winds were blowing with Melinda. Melinda accepted that explanation at face value, then. They met. They met and some spark was lit right from the first, hands touching and smiles glowing immediately. Maybe it was that they had gone to the same high school together, maybe it was the same tough growing up poor and hungry profiles which they exchanged, maybe it was the six million things they had in common like an interest Russian literature and history, maybe it was their connection in the education field, and maybe knowing Sam it was Melinda’s pale blue eyes but a spark was lit. They agreed that after fifty years of “missing” each other they had to play the thing out.

And so they did meeting for dinner many times, going to Washington together for a few days, and fatally winding up at Melinda’s house in New Hampshire one night, one cold night, one night when the wine flowed and, well, you can figure it out. But for Sam, almost from the start there was always that nagging lie about his relationship with Laura (and also the need to lie to her about his whereabouts on many occasions whenhe was with Melinda) which as time went on he began to kind of half tell Melinda about.

Needless to say Melinda, a woman according to Sam, who was serially monogamous and sought exclusive possession of her men became furious about Sam’s real relationship with Laura. As Sam gave more details to Melinda while both developed strong feeling of affection for each other Melinda more and more pressed the issue of Sam’s fully leaving Laura. He would hedge, saying he needed more time. Then Melinda’s pool accident and subsequent surgery occurred and hence the notice provided by him on the site.

That is where I entered the picture and contacted Sam. But as I learned from Sam later as thing unwound this recovery time was also a time when Sam, who would go up to New Hampshire frequently (telling Laura he was helping out an old classmate), to help Melinda out around her house, take her to appointments and get her out of the home felt more like a care-giver than a lover. He made what became the fatal mistake of telling Melinda that change in feelings and she because furious despite her condition. See Sam also told me he was getting cold feet about his future with Melinda who was talking more and more about them living together. Shortly after Melinda had recovered enough to be able to drive on her own they agreed to meet one night for dinner in Newburyport and discuss where they were going. That night the sparks flew, there were acrimonious arguments, and finally Sam walked out furious at some of the things Melinda said. That was the last they saw of each other in person although there were a few bitter e-mails and cellphone calls before Melinda closed the curtain[CL1] [CL2]  down on the affair. So there is the story, the sad story and no happy ending.              

 I will finish up this tale by posting the e-mail that I sent Melinda after Sam posted his message about her condition (and after he had told me the details of their relationship but before I learned of their split). See, after seeing her class yearbook photograph, seeing some photos of her taken recently, hearing Sam’s story of their affair, I decided that maybe I should make myself known, known as an old-time admirer. And as a guy with no strings attached. Here goes:                          

 

“Melinda –I hope that this note finds you convalescing quickly from your recent hip surgery. I also hope that your cats, Mickie, Ell, Queenie, and Jinx that you have placed pictures of on your profile page comfort to you at this time.  I too am a cat-lover who has just lost a cat, Willie Boy, who was my shadow around the house and is now buried in the back yard. I will have his spirit watching out for you too.

I know several years ago when I had my knee replacement and was laid up for weeks and house-bound I appreciated getting notes and messages to see me through. I thought I would tell you a little “secret” story from our high school days that might cheer you up.

In the spring of our junior year I had something of a “crush” on you. From a distance for sure since I did not know you, did not have any classes with you, or anything like that but had only seen you around the school in the corridors and such so I was not sure how I would approach you. Moreover I was pretty shy then and kind of bedraggled, a ragamuffin, so I was very hesitant to make my “move” since you were such a college-bound looking girl with your cashmere sweaters and frilly skirts.

As you might know if you looked at my profile photos I was on the track team although you may not have known there was even such a team at school. In the pring of 1963 after school in the boys’ locker room I heard a couple of guys from the team mention your name and how “hot” you were (not that word then I don’t think but you know what I mean). I used that opening as a way to get some “grapevine” intelligence about whether you had a boyfriend or something. So I asked them. Both their replies were basically “forget it, she is unapproachable.” Naturally given everything I just said I backed off and moved on to the next possibility as young guys did then (maybe now too). I wonder now seeing your photos what would have happened had I been braver then. I hope you like the story and it makes you feel better.

 

BTW when I read your comment on Dave Meagher’s “In Memory” page I noticed that you had gone to the junior prom with him. [Dave had fallen in Vietnam in 1968, one of two such classmates.] Who did you go to the senior prom with? Some college guy?

 I also noticed that you have a photo on your profile page with roses (probably for Valentine’s Day) in your arms looking very nice. I suppose you have a special guy to help take care of you up there in New Hampshire. Now don’t take this the wrong way, I am not trying to “hit” on you but I could come up sometime while you are house-bound and we could talk about the old times. I hope you do not think I am too forward. Later Frank Jackman "