AMERICAN LEFT HISTORY

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

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Message

Dear All,

On Thursday, May 29, starting at 1 pm, workers, students and supporters will hold a visibility action at Harvard's Commencement exercises. We will meet at the Smith Campus Center, 1350 Mass. Ave., Cambridge, steps from the Harvard Square Red Line MBTA station. Our action will begin shortly before a speech by right-wing, anti-union billionaire and ex-NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Please join us! The Facebook event is here.

We will let attendees know about the following cases of campus worker mistreatment:

Johany Pilar, who sued Harvard for sexual harassment, has faced threats and retaliation in Campus Services, where she was called an "embarassing Latina," by the boss. Johany has been denied a transfer out of the department where she was repeatedly harassed.

Marvin Byrd, referred to as "that dirty black man," by the same administrator, has been relegated to the lowest salary grade of any union member in his department, despite long service & a good work record. Marvin, who is partially disabled, has recently faced threats of termination.

The same Campus Services boss also demoted HUCTW* Rep Nassim Kerkache three salary grades, because his English supposedly wasn't good enough for the job he'd done for 9 years! Nassim defended his co-workers, and the reward for his activism was to be downgraded and stripped of his responsibilities.

Judy Rouse was terminated for being a diligent shop steward in Campus Services, an environment where managers referred to workers of color as "animals" and "monkeys." Judy faced threats at work, called the HU Police Dept, and was subsequently fired, and slapped with a no-trespass order by the HUPD.

Long-serving Maintenance Technician Paul Casey was laid off soon after returning from a disability leave, supposedly for "lack of work," even though he was very busy in his job. Paul's duties were simply distributed to other workers, and colleagues are sure he was laid off due to his needing surgery and having to take a leave.

These abuses must be understood in the context of Harvard's refusal to even consider divesting from the fossil fuels that directly threaten our planet, despite having a $32.7 billion endowment, massively larger than any other university's. Harvard's recent response to a student who dared to protest this moral blindness was to have him arrested. Harvard has come under fire for its huge timber plantation in Argentina, which has wrecked wetlands and mercilessly exploited local workers. The University is also under Federal investigation for its handling of sexual assaults on campus. 100 cases of sexual assault have been reported just over the past three years at Harvard, and activists say Harvard's horribly flawed investigative process discourages survivors from taking action.

Together, we can put healthy pressure on Harvard to end its immoral and discriminatory behavior! For more information, please click here.

In Solidarity,

Geoff Carens, Union Rep, HUCTW*

Delegate, Industrial Workers of the World / IWW

*Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers

Privacy Statement

Add Comcast

THIS WEDNESDAY: Crisis in the Ukraine: Cold War? Civil War? Roots of the Conflict

When: Wednesday, May 28, 2014, 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm
Where: First Parish Unitarian Church • 3 Church St • Harvard T • Cambridge

Ukraine in 2013; Crimea is now part of the Russian Federation

Speakers:

Mark Solomon, professor of history (emeritus), Simmons College
Gary Leupp, professor of history, Tufts University

President Obama in his April visit to Japan commented, "Mr. Putin has had an increasing tendency to see the world through a Cold War prism." But there are many questions:

is the US/NATO push into Eastern Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union the real source of tension with Russia?
Did the US government spend five billion dollars for democracy or regime change?
Who are the fascists in the new Kiev government?
Will sanctions isolate Russia?
What is behind the conflict in Odessa and Eastern Ukraine and will it lead to civil war?

How should the peace movement respond to rising tensions between the two biggest nuclear powers and the US shift towards covert war? The UJP forum will examine these issues and possible action items.

$5 donation requested

sponsored by United for Justice with Peace

617-383-4857 or info@justicewithpeace.org

Upcoming Events:

"15 Now New England"...
+ Add to Address Book

Message

15 Now makes the local news!

Higher Wage Supporters Mount Ballot Campaign

15 Now Boston organizers Toya Chester and Seamus Whelan talk about the campaign on BNN in Boston!

Get involved with 15 Now near you!

Contact us at:

www.15now.org

facebook.com/15NowNewEngland

15NowNewEngland@gmail.com

East Boston Neighborhood meeting!

The signature gathering for the $15/hr minimum wage ballot question has started but we still need YOU to come out and be a part of the campaign for $15 in Boston. Come out this Saturday and share your comments, questions and concerns about this key struggle for working people and see how you can get involved. The only way we can win is through building a movement!

Saturday, May 31st, 1:00pm

East Boston YMCA

215 Bremen St

Please RSVP and invite your friends on

Donate $5 for the Fight for 15!

Corporations are spending millions to fight our movement, it's time to push back!

The Fight for 15 continues to heat up! From Seattle to California to Boston, working people are getting organized and winning the struggle for a $15/hr minimum wage, against the organized resistance of the corporate elites.

We don't have millions of dollars from CEOS and billionaires, we rely on building a campaign through small donations from ordinary working people. Every penny you donate to 15 Now goes into the struggle for justice for working people - funding fliers, pamphlets, community meetings, all of the necessities for building a vibrant movement to register a win for the 99%

Click here to become a monthly sustainer for 15 Now!

Forward email

Join UNAC at the Left Forum

The New Face of U.S. Imperialist Wars

Session 1:

1.71

Sat 10:00am - 11:50am

Massive antiwar sentiment in the US and throughout the world has made it difficult for the US to conduct wars today as they did in Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan. People do not want to see another quagmire with US military boots on the ground. As a result, the US has turned towards militarized drones, special operations forces and the use of US allies, proxies and right-wing forces to push its imperialist agenda in country after country. This is the case in Syria, Africa, Venezuela and with its intervention in Ukraine. The panel will discuss the mechanisms that the US uses to make this happen and the response needed from the antiwar movement today.

United National Antiwar Coalition

Chair/Facilitator: Marilyn Levin, UNAC National Co-Coordinator

Speakers/Co-Facilitators:


	Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of the Pan-African News Wire. He is the co-founder of the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality and the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice and a member of the UNAC administrative committee.
	Bernadette Ellorin is the current Chairperson of the US Chapter of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan, or BAYAN USA, an alliance of 18 Filipino-American organizations fighting for genuine sovereignty, peace and democracy in the Philippines as well as the rights and welfare of Filipinos in the US and the diaspora. Bernadette is a member of the UNAC administrative committee
	William Camacaro, is a Member of the Bolivarian Circle of New York “Alberto Lovera” and an expert on Venezuela.
	Jeff Mackler is a member of the UNAC administrative committee. Mackler has been an antiwar leader for many years. He is the West Coast Coordinator of the Lynne Stewart Defense Committee and the director of the Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal. He is an author of several books and pamphlets on Imperialism, War and other topics
	Sara Flounders is the author of “War Without Victory: The Pentagon’s Achilles Heel." She is the Co-Director of International Action Center, a member of the administrative committee of United National Antiwar coalition, and organizer of many past major antiwar mobilizations

Harvard Graduation Day Demo
Thursday, May 29th 4:00 – 5:30 pm (Holyoke Center/Harvard Square)
JOIN US!
People from all over the world attend the graduation.

We will ask them to support the BDS campaign wherever they live and demand an end to military aid to Israel.
Boston Coalition for Palestinian Rights

Day of the People: Gracchus Babeuf and the Communist Idea
“We Communists, united in the Third International, consider ourselves the direct continuators of the heroic endeavors and martyrdom of a long line of revolutionary generations from Babeuf – to Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg.”[1]

The above words were spoken by Leon Trotsky during the opening session of the Third International in Moscow in March 1919. While Trotsky was speaking, the young Soviet Republic was fighting desperately for its life against counter-revolutionary White Armies and foreign intervention. The Soviet Republic was also struggling to maintain itself in the midst of economic breakdown and famine.

Despite this, the workers and peasants of Russia were showing great heroism in their defense of the Revolution, a matter of great importance beyond the Soviets themselves. The Russian Revolution had provided a light of hope to the oppressed masses of Europe and the world of a future that was free of capitalism.

Yet Trotsky acknowledged in his opening remarks to the Third International, that the Russian Revolution was building upon the efforts of many others, including those who had been killed without ever glimpsing the accomplishment of actual revolution. One of those who Trotsky named was Francois-Noel “Gracchus” Babeuf, a pioneer who opened the horizon to the possibility of communist revolution. For Babeuf, a communist operating in the midst of France's bourgeois revolution of 1789, saw a future beyond capitalism. For Babeuf, there were many roads that had been opened by the French Revolution, some of which led to a society dominated by competition, or social democracy while Babeuf wanted to push the revolution to its ultimate limit in order to realize 'the common happiness.'

Full: http://links.org.au/node/3228

Why I Don't Want to See the Drone Memo

By David Swanson
http://warisacrime.org/content/why-i-dont-want-see-drone-memo

And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us a secret memo that gets us out of the bit about Thou-shalt-not-kill.

And, lo, as I was driving home from the committee hearing I was pulled over for speeding, and I said unto the officer, "I've got a memo that lets me speed. Would you like to see it?" and he said, "No thank you, and not your grocery list or your diary either."

Transparency in drone murders has been a demand pushed by U.N. lawyers and pre-vetted Congressional witnesses, and not by the victims' families. Nobody asks for transparency in child abuse or rape. "Oh, have you got a memo that explains how aliens commanded you to kill and eat those people? Oh, well that's all right then."

Seriously, what the filibuster?

I don't want to see the memo that David Barron wrote "legalizing" the killing of U.S. citizens with drone strikes, after which (or is it beforehand?) I'll decide whether he should be a federal judge.

Laws don't work that way. A law is a public document, known to or knowable to all, and enforced equally on all. If a president can instruct a lawyer to write a memo legalizing murder, what can a president not instruct a lawyer to legalize? What's left of legality?

Let's assume that the memo argues with great obfuscation that, in essence, killing people with drones is part of a war and therefore legal, will we better off or worse off after watching all the human rights groups and lawyers bow down before that idol?

Just because Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch don't recognize the U.N. Charter or the Kellogg Briand Pact is not a reason for us not to. Laws don't work that way. Laws remain law until they are repealed. These laws have not been. If a memo can make a murder part of a war and therefore legal, we are obliged to ask: What makes the war legal?

The answer is not the U.S. government, not the pretense that the president can declare war, and not the pretense that Congress has declared eternal war everywhere. The U.S. government is in violation of the U.N. Charter and of the Kellogg Briand Pact.

Or let's assume the memo says something else. The point is not what it says but its purported power to say it. The law against murder in Pakistan and the law against murder in Yemen don't cease to exist in Pakistan and Yemen because a new Jay Bybee, willing to say whatever's needed to become a judge, writes a secret memo -- or a public memo.

And, as this conversation plays out, think what it will have U.S. editorial pages all silently assuming about the legality of murdering non-U.S. citizens. If a memo is needed to kill U.S. citizens, what about the other 99% of drone victims? That, too, is not how actual laws work. The laws against war don't prevent war only on U.S. citizens. The laws of Pakistan don't protect only U.S. citizens. The amendments in the U.S. bill of rights, for that matter, don't apply only to U.S. citizens.

Now, the memo is likely to describe people who are an imminent threat to the United States. And our newspapers are likely to remind us that President Obama made a speech claiming that one of the four U.S. citizens known to have been killed under this program was such a threat. It will be tempting to point out that Anwar al Awlaki, on the contrary, was already on the kill list prior to the incident that Obama claims justified putting him there. It will be tempting to point out that nobody's made even a blatantly false argument to justify killing the other three U.S. citizens, much less the thousands of other human beings.

We shouldn't fall for those traps. A president is not legally allowed to invent criteria for killing people. Never mind that he doesn't meet his own criteria. We should not be so indecent or so lawless as to engage in such a conversation. We should not want to see the blood-soaked memo.

David Swansons wants you to declare peace at http://WorldBeyondWar.org His new book is War No More: The Case for Abolition. He blogs at http://davidswanson.org and http://warisacrime.org and works for http://rootsaction.org. He hosts Talk Nation Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @davidcnswanson and FaceBook.

Sign up for occasional important activist alerts here http://davidswanson.org/signup

Sign up for articles or press releases here http://davidswanson.org/lists

This email may be unlawfully collected, held, and read by the NSA which violates our freedoms using the justification of immoral, illegal wars absurdly described as being somehow for freedom.

On Memorial Day For Peace

Oh say can you see feel hear taste touch

The awful memories of trenches and foxholes

The ocean’s entombing thrall

And buried beneath the turncoat waves

Oh say can you see feel hear taste touch

In the treachery of the skies above

The valleys laced with menace below

And on foreign hillsides and alien mountain tops

Dangers that numb the spirit and root out hope

Oh say can you see feel hear taste touch

On lakes still with foreboding, rivers streaming with blood and capsized desire.

Wherever there was destruction and cruelty

and in the hearts of children women men despair
and loneliness, mercilessly spawned by war and violence

Endlessly twisting the knives of grief and abandon

Oh say can you see feel hear taste touch

Can you remember? Of course you can, memories close as marrow bone.

Then now here forever

And in all places vow to bring a healthy balm

By sheer will married to unearned forgiveness

Make peace a portion plentiful enough for each of us to consume

Our fill many times over and so slake our thirst

For justice and hunger for understanding

and true friendship

Satisfy our restless anxiety and grant us

Humility sufficient for the journey

For we are confused and thou art love.

We gather because

We need each other

Even as we struggle separately

We need each other

To tame our anger

We need each other

To increase our kindness

We need each other

To steel our courage

We need each other

To sing our joys

We need each other

If we are to transform our individual hells into communal fields of glory

We need each other

Louder

Softer

Amen so be it blessed be let it be.

From USMemorialDay.Org

Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, is a day of remembrance for those who have died in our nation's service. There are many stories as to its actual beginnings, with over two dozen cities and towns laying claim to being the birthplace of Memorial Day. There is also evidence that organized women's groups in the South were decorating graves before the end of the Civil War: a hymn published in 1867, "Kneel Where Our Loves are Sleeping" by Nella L. Sweet carried the dedication "To The Ladies of the South who are Decorating the Graves of the Confederate Dead" (Source: Duke University's Historic American Sheet Music, 1850-1920). While Waterloo N.Y. was officially declared the birthplace of Memorial Day by President Lyndon Johnson in May 1966, it's difficult to prove conclusively the origins of the day.

Memorial Day was officially proclaimed on 5 May 1868 by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, in his General Order No. 11, and was first observed on 30 May 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery.

Here's Moore's Proof via Brian Hicks at Post and Courier.

On a Monday morning that spring, nearly 10,000 former slaves marched onto the grounds of the old Washington Race Course, where wealthy Charleston planters and socialites had gathered in old times. During the final year of the war, the track had been turned into a prison camp. Hundreds of Union soldiers died there.

For two weeks in April, former slaves had worked to bury the soldiers. Now they would give them a proper funeral.

The procession began at 9 a.m. as 2,800 black school children marched by their graves, softly singing "John Brown's Body."

Soon, their voices would give way to the sermons of preachers, then prayer and — later — picnics. It was May 1, 1865, but they called it Decoration Day.

Dozens of groups and individuals have claimed that they are the originators of Memorial Day. A General ordered it and a President enacted it. Two origins are among my favorites. One was the report that the widows and loved ones of slain Confederate soldiers in Mississippi looked over to that part of the cemetery where the graves of Union soldiers were untended and overgrown. They cleared the graves and looked after them along with their own.

The other origin is of a race track turned into a cemetery for Union soldiers in Charlston, (South Carolina?) where slaves and their children buried the dead and memorialized them.

My vote for the true Memorial Day is today, here, in an event created by Veterans for Peace and now joined by many peace and justice groups. Here is proof that the human heart is capable of holding the plaints and griefs of all who call out for justice and mercy, for love and understanding.

In the words of Bob Doss, one of our greatest ministers, For all those who seek God, Allah, Yahweh, the divinity in each of us, may God go with you. For all those who embrace life, may life return your affections. And for all those who seek a right path, may the way be found and the courage to take it, step by step. Amen so be it blessed be let it be.

There are probably many agnostics here and that is good. Remember when you sing this that God is love and we are the angels referenced.

Sleep my child and peace attend thee,
All through the night
Guardian angels God will send thee,
All through the night
Soft the drowsy hours are creeping,
Hill and dale in slumber sleeping
I my loved ones' watch am keeping,
All through the night

Writ

ing from the Universalizing Zone,
Ralph Blickenstaff Galen, M.Div.

***Why Don’t You Listen To What I Have To Say- With Rod Stewart’s Lady Day In Mind

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

They, Sal and Edwina (no last names needed not out of any sense of legal harm or litigation but because their story survives just as well as if last names were used, survives maybe as a cautionary tale), had met in ninth grade in high school. Okay, I will tell you it was North Adamsville High School, the school that I had graduated from in 1964 although it could have been any high school. The way I heard the story, or the latest version of the story since there have been a few stages to the thing, had been through a connection with my old running mate Brad Badger (running mate in two senses, we were teammates on the track team and we also hung out together in those long ago lonesome sultry, sweaty, no dough North Adamsville summer nights talking dreams, yes, escape dreams).

The way I connected with him was through joining the 50^th anniversary reunion class website late last year where I noticed that he had joined, sent him some private e-mails, and we started cutting up torches about old times. Sal and Edwina came into the discussions one time when we were talking about old flames and Edwina‘s name came up because Brad had had a unrequited “crush” on her all through high school and never got to first base with her once Sal made his move. Brad also had stayed around town long enough after high school to keep tabs on what the pair were up to and had run into them both a couple of times. So he is the real source of this story, this ill-fated story. (Ill-fated for him as well since Brad tried to get to first base with Edwina again after the pair split. No dice.)

I personally did not know either Sal or Edwina but from the ninth grade on until graduation they were one of those “item” things that no school seemed to be without and which was always brought up as some kind of ideal back then, their relationship. Naturally over four years I would have heard about them but they and their problems were off my radar. I do know that at least one girlfriend I had talked dreamily about them. How they fit together and were slated to live happily ever after with kids, dogs and white picket fences thrown in. And maybe it was, and maybe it should have been but the way things worked out, or better, did not work out, that is a very close question.

What is not in question is that North Adamsville back in those days (now too) was very much a by-the-bootstraps working-class town where almost everybody was poor, or worse. And of course Sal, son of a constantly unemployed bricklayer, and Edwina, daughter of a hardware store clerk, were no exception. So big dates were either double-dates with some Edwina girlfriend whose boyfriend had a car since Sal could never afford a car and his father had no car to offer or else they walked down to Adamsville Beach when their hormones were raging and found some secluded spot to do whatever they were going to do. And by senior year, if you could believe either the boys’ “lav” or girls’ “lav” Monday morning before school talk, they had done the “do” (if you need that explained, well, let’s just assume that you don’t). One of Edwina’s girlfriends who had been sworn to secrecy had told one of her girlfriends and that was all that was necessary. Naturally every virginal guy (and maybe girls too) envied Sal and dreamed of taking his own love down to those secluded sands. The talk around school was that since they were to be married just as soon as they got out of high school (a very, very common experience as late as the early 1960s) that they were just practicing for that eventuality. And so it went all through high school and since Edwina was a beauty and Sal was handsome in his own way they topped off their high school careers as the king and queen of the senior prom (there had been talk that this was a question of sentimental favorites since Virginia Malone was declared by one and all, including me, to be the “fox” of the class).

And so they graduated with high hopes. Then reality set in. Sal had not been much of a student, had been more of a steady worker type and not an intellectual but he had high hopes of getting into the apprenticeship program for welders down at the shipyard, the major employer in the area giving many fathers good paying if hard jobs and other fathers further down the food chain occasional work when there were ships to be built. The announcement that the shipyard was closing and to be relocated in Greece hit Sal (and many others as well, including my occasional work father) hard. There was nothing else for him to do though but go to work in the dirty dusty granite quarries that was the town’s other major industry. Edwina, having received some scholarship money to go to modelling school, did just that and was beginning to make connections with various locally well-known photographers and advertisers looking for a certain look, not high–end fashion model looks like in Vogue or those kinds of publications but wholesome looks for average young women consumers. Yes, Edwina fit that need, no question.

And that contrast in fortunes was the downfall of the house of Sal and Edwina. Naturally Sal’s having to take any job he could find left those marriage plans in abeyance since the money at the quarries was a pittance compared to the shipyard work. Moreover Edwina began to take assignments away from town. They fought over this, fought so hard that they decided they needed time away from each other. Or rather Edwina wanted time “to grow” as she put it. The long and short of that “to grow” was that one of the advertiser’s sons that Edwina did work for, Jack Remmick, had taken to her, and she to him. So without telling Sal but also without telling him to get lost Edwina suddenly was not at home many times when Sal called. Moreover one night when she was home and consented to see him she was totally dismissive of him and his dirty fingernails and dusty clothes. And told him. Not good, not good at all.

Eventually Edwina gave Sal his walking papers, although that did not stop him from trying to speak to her about the future. But the more he tried the more she dismissed him out of hand. He tried to confront her with her haughtiness but to no avail, she just laughed at him and told him to go find a nice quarry girl (meaning some girl from among his work-mates’ children, some nice working-class girl, maybe an immigrant, with no prospects except producing many children). It got worse when she snubbed him in public, snubbed him in front of friends. Sal was crestfallen but did not know where to turn. One day on the street he tried to evoke their past, their high school days when she knew what she wanted, and that what she wanted was Sal. She laughed at him again. Worse she plugged her ears when he continued to talk after she said she had to go.

Sal had not seen Edwina for about a year when Brad caught wind of the story when they met in Adamsville Center on fall afternoon. (I had moved away to go to college and had assumed they were married and working on their first child.) Sal kept on saying to anybody who would listen (Brad at that moment) that he knew her back when and that she would be back. Said he knew that she knew how to do the right thing, had back in the day anyway. Brad just rolled his eyes and thought poor bugger. Me too.

Monday, May 26, 2014

In Honor Of May Day 2014-From The American Left History Blog Archives -From The May Day 2012 Organizing Archives –May Day 2013 Needs The Same Efforts Why You, Your Union, Or Your Community Organization Needs To Join The May Day 2012 General Strike In Boston-Stand Up!-Fight Back!

Last fall there were waves of politically-motivated repressive police attacks on, and evictions of, various Occupy camp sites throughout the country including where the movement started in Zucotti (Liberty) Park. But even before the evictions and repression escalated, questions were being asked: what is the way forward for the movement? And, from friend and foe alike, the ubiquitous what do we want. We have seen since then glimpses of organizing and action that are leading the way for the rest of us to follow: the Oakland General Strike on November 2^nd, the West Coast Port Shutdown actions of December 12^th, Occupy Foreclosures, and other actions including, most recently, renewed support for the struggles of the hard-pressed longshoremen in Longview, Washington. These actions show that, fundamentally, all of the strategic questions revolve around the question of power. The power, put simply, of the 99% vs. the power of the 1%.

Although the 99% holds enormous power -all wealth is generated, and the

current society is built and maintained through, the collective labor

(paid and unpaid) of the 99%-, we seldom exercise this vast collective power in our own interests. Too often, abetted and egged on by the 1%, we fruitlessly fight among ourselves driven by racism, patriarchy, xenophobia, occupational elitism, geographical prejudice, heterosexism, and other forms of division, oppression and prejudice.

This consciously debilitating strategy on its part is necessary, along with its control of politics, the courts, the prisons, the cops, and the military in order for the 1% to maintain control over side without worrying for a minute about their power and wealth. Their ill-gotten power is only assured by us, actively or passively, working against ourselves. Moreover many of us are not today fully aware of, nor organized to utilize, the vast collective power we have. The result is that many of us - people of color, women, GLBTQ, immigrants, those with less formal educational credentials, those in less socially respected occupations or unemployed, the homeless, and the just plain desperate- deal with double and triple forms of oppression and societal prejudice.

Currently the state of the economy has hit all of us hard, although as usual the less able to face the effects are hit the hardest like racial minorities, the elderly, the homeless and those down on their luck due to prolonged un and under- employment. In short, there are too many people out of work; wage rates have has barely kept up with rising costs or gone backwards to near historic post-World War II lows in real time terms; social services like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security have continued to be cut; our influence on the broken, broken for us, government has eroded; and our civil liberties have been seemingly daily attacked en masse. These trends have has been going on while the elites of this country, and of the world, have captured an increasing share of wealth; have had in essence a tax holiday for the past few decades; have viciously attacked our organizations of popular defense such as our public and private unions and community organizations; and have increase their power over us through manipulating their political system even more in their favor than previously.

The way forward, as we can demonstrate by building for the May Day actions, must involve showing our popular power against that of the entrenched elite. But the form of our power, reflecting our different concepts of governing, must be different from the elite’s. Where they have created powerful capital profit driven top down organizations in order to dominate, control, exploit and oppress we must build and exercise bottom-up power in order to cooperate, liberate and collectively empower each other. We need to organize ourselves collectively and apart from these top down power relationships in our communities, schools and workplaces to fight for our interests. This must include a forthright rejection of their attempts, honed after long use, to divide and conquer in order to rule us. A rejection of racism, patriarchy, xenophobia, elitism and other forms of oppression, and, importantly, a rejection of attempts by their electoral parties, mainly the Democrats and Republicans but others as well, powerful special interest groups, and others to co-opt and control our movement.

The Occupy freedom of assembly-driven encampments initially built the mass movement and brought a global spotlight to the bedrock economic and social concerns of the 99%. They inspired many of us, including those most oppressed, provided a sense of hope and solidarity with our fellow citizens and the international 99%, and brought the question of economic justice and the problems of inequality and political voiceless-ness grudgingly back into mainstream political conversation. Moreover they highlighted the need for the creation of cultures, societies and institutions of direct democracy based on "power with"- not "power over"- each other; served as convivial spaces for sharing ideas and planning action; and in some camps, they even provided a temporary space for those who needed a home. Last fall the camp occupations served a fundamental role in the movement, but it is now time to move beyond the camp mentality and use our energies to struggle to start an offensive against the power of the 1%. On our terms.

Show Power

We demand:

*Hands Off Our Public Worker Unions! Hands Off All Our Unions!

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

*End the endless wars!

* 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! Free public transportation!

To order to flex our collective bottom up power on May 1, 2012 we will be organizinga 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 general strike.

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

*We will be organizing students to walk-out of their schools (or not show up in the first place), set up campus picket lines, or to rally at a central location, probably Boston Common.

*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.

These actions, given the ravages of the capitalist economic system on individual lives, the continuing feelings of hopelessness felt by many, the newness of many of us to collective action, and the slender ties to past class and social struggles will, in many places, necessarily be a symbolic show of power. But let us take it as a wakeup call by a risen people.

And perhaps just as important as this year’s May Day itself , the massive organizing and outreach efforts in the months leading up to May 1st will allow us the opportunity to talk to our co-workers, families, neighbors, communities, and friends about the issues confronting us, the source of our power, the need for us to stand up to the attacks we are facing, the need to confront the various oppressions that keep most of us down in one way or another and keep all of us divided, and the need for us to stand in solidarity with each other in order to fight for our collective interests. In short, as one of the street slogans of movement says–“they say cut back, we say fight back.” We can build our collective consciousness, capacity, and confidence through this process; and come out stronger because of it.

Watch this website and other social media sites for further specific details of events and actions.

All out in Boston on May Day 2012.

***Of This And That In The Old North Adamsville Neighborhood-In Search Of…..The Be-Bop Night

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Recently I have avidly been perusing the personal profiles of various members of the North Adamsville Class of 1964 website as fellow classmates have come on to the site and lost their shyness about telling their life stories (or have increased their computer technology capacities, not an unimportant consideration for the generation of ’68, a generation on the cusp of the computer revolution and so not necessarily as savvy as the average eight-year old today). Of course not everybody who graduated with me in that baby-boomer times class of over five hundred students had a literary flare or could articulate their dreams in the most coherent way. But they had dreams, and they have today when we have all been through about seven thousand of life’s battles, good and bad, a vehicle to express whatever they want.

That was the case with a guy I barely knew in high school since he had moved away in the tenth grade before I had a chance to meet him since he said that at his new school he was on the track team there as I had been at North Adamsville and I assume that if he had stayed he would have been a member. He had earlier grown up for a time in the Adamsville projects where I came of age although I did not know him from there either, at least I don’t remember him from that time. This guy, a guy named Gary Tibbetts, who has as a result of permission granted by the webmaster been allowed to be part of our site although he did not graduate with us, has been regaling us with his very quirky (and sometimes purely off the wall) thoughts. Some classmates in response have commented that Gary should tone down or curtail his screeds but I have come to his defense. Not out of some free speech political angle, although that is a thought but because quirky guys should have their say too along with beaming grandparents, golfing aficionados and other hobbyists, and shop-until-you-drop devotees. So there.

Of course as I have mentioned before in other sketches 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 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. (Some will never be found by choice or by being excluded from the “information super-highway” that they have not been able to navigate.) Interestingly those who have joined the site have, more or less, felt free to send me private e-mails telling me stories about what happened back in the day in school or what has happened to them since their jailbreak from the confines of the old town.

Some stuff is interesting to a point, you know, those endless tales about the doings and not doings of the grandchildren, odd hobbies and other ventures taken up in retirement and so on although not worthy of me making a little off-hand commentary on. Some stuff is either too sensitive or too risqué to publish on a family-friendly site. Some stuff, some stuff about the old days and what did, or did not, happened to, or between, fellow classmates, you know the boy-girl thing (other now acceptable relationships were below the radar then) has naturally perked my interest. Gary’s is in something of a different category but let my message placed on the generic class “Message Forum” page tell the tale:

[As mentioned above Gary did not graduate from North Adamsville with us but rather at Fort Pierce High down in Florida. He insisted that despite that fact he had stronger attachments to his years in the old town. Moreover as the comments on his personal profile by those who knew him back in the day indicate he was a colorful and well-known figure then. Particularly well-known for his antics at Adamsville Central Junior High School, one of the two feeder junior highs to North (the other being Adamsville North Junior High where I went).]

“The Bard Of Adamsville Central Junior High School, Class of 1961-In Reply To Gary Tibbetts Message Forum #21

Sorry Gary I have done you, my fellow Adamsville projects boy (he of Figurehead Lane and me of Taffrail Road) a great disservice. Yesterday in response to Danny Valentine’s MF#24 (also a fellow Adamsville projects boy who I did know, and know well) I wrote a short note (MF#25) about the need to spice up this site. In short I proposed that we s-x the site up a bit and I asked him, maybe begged him, to tell us all about his experiences at the “submarine races” down at Adamsville Beach in the old days. But see I had neglected to read your beautiful screed before his where you had already done your best to liven things up, and maybe made a few old geezers, well let’s say, hot under the collar as they thought back to those junior high days at Adamsville Central Junior High School (the same stuff went on at Adamsville North except we only had two years to do it rather than the three you got to wreck the joint and to tweak the girls, and they us).

Believe me, my brother, I liked your automatic writing, shades of Jack Kerouac, maybe not On The Road but definitely sections of Big Sur, William Burroughs in Naked Lunch and mad poet Allen Ginsberg’s Howl. You are kindred even if you have never read them- you are a “beat” brother no question and even though their time was before our time and we only caught a whiff of what was brewing you carry on in their spirit. More importantly you have caught the spirit of this site- to contribute to the collective memory of our class in your own way. Who better than somebody who fifty years later wants to and can give a, well, quirky meaning to those teen experiences. Thanks Braveheart.

AMERICAN LEFT HISTORY

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Message

Mailboxes

THIS WEDNESDAY: Crisis in the Ukraine: Cold War? Civil War? Roots of the Conflict

Message

The New Face of U.S. Imperialist Wars

Why I Don't Want to See the Drone Memo

Monday, May 26, 2014

Left Links

About Me