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

Thursday, July 17, 2014

Veterans For Peace-Cambridge

Midnight Voices

(the young dead soldiers do not speak, they have a silence that speaks for them at night when the clock counts)

Calling all poets, slammers, word smiths, lyricists, rappers, misfits, musicians and anyone who has the gift of gab! We are hosting Midnight Voices, a monthly collaborative coffeehouse, spoken word, and open mic series 3^rd Thursdays at Cambridge Friends Meeting at 7pm. This third Thursday 17 July, we are featuring David Rothauser, he will be bringing an excerpt from his most recent play. Open mic performances will follow.

We are actively seeking co-sponsors and talent to be featured readers in upcoming months. If you have any ideas about this or want any other information please contact Eric Wasileski Ericwasileski@gmail.com

Warrior Writers Boston and the Smedley Butler Brigade, Veteran-Friends in conjunction with the FMC Peace and Social Concerns committee are hosting. These events are open to everyone; next month on August 21 @7pm we will be having Caleb Nelson as the featured reader.

Stand With Gaza! Rally and Die-In

When: Saturday, July 19, 2014, 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm
Where: Park Street MBTA Station • Tremont & Park Sts. • Boston

As the U.S.-made bombs fall on Gaza, indiscriminately killing Palestinians, many of them children, we heed the

Urgent call from Gaza civil society: Act now!

We Palestinians trapped inside the bloodied and besieged Gaza Strip call on conscientious people all over the world to act, protest and intensify the boycotts, divestments and sanctions against Israel until it ends this murderous attack on our people and is held to account.
Join us as we mourn the hundreds killed and protest the complicity of the U.S. government that spends over three billion of our tax dollars and advanced military weapons annually to Israel to maintain an illegal and immoral system of discrimination and occupation and the calamitous siege of Gaza.
We call for:

An End to the Bombings and Killings
An End to U.S. aid to Israel
Support for the Palestinian call for BDS
Sponsored by United for Justice with Peace and many other Boston-area organizations
More information: info@justicewithpeace.org or call 617 383-4857

Join three rallies this week, including one today, in response to the situation in Gaza.
1. #Boston4Gaza: Rally and Candlelight Vigil in Solidarity with Palestine.

Stop the Israeli assault on Gaza launched on July 8.
End the Israeli blockade on Gaza ongoing since 2007.
End US support for Israel’s military & occupation forces.
Demand a US Mideast policy based on international law.

Join together in Copley Square:

Today, Thursday, July 17 from 5:00-6:30pm
560 Boylston St, Boston, MA 02116

to speak out about the injustice in Palestine!

Bring your own signs for the rally and we will have candles for the vigil.

Call Congress!

US Congress endorses Israel’s calculated slaughter in Gaza as “self defense” …and helps pay for it.

With unanimous passage last week of H. Res. 657 (co-sponsored by Mass reps Kennedy and Clark), the House entirely ignored the lethal, disproportionate and mounting civilian casualties inflicted by Israel on the besieged enclave of Gaza. Hamas was subject to a cease fire demand, but not so the planners of this long-contemplated military assault. And, by calling the largely ineffective rocket fire into Israel “unprovoked”, any pretense of objectivity was abandoned.
Today the companion measure – S. Res. 498 (Markey co-sponsoring) was working its way through the Committee on Foreign Relations, towards inevitable floor passage. Call Senator Elizabeth Warren (202-224-4543) and ask her to vote NO on this resolution, and call Senator Markey (202-224-2742) and register your objection.
And on Tuesday, the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee approved $622 million (on top of $3.1 billion) for Israeli missile defense. The IDF claims an 85% success rate for interceptions; critics like Professor Theodore Postol of MIT put that rate at closer to 5%.

To RSVP, please go to https://www.facebook.com/events/1450288828557591/

2. Stand With Gaza! Rally and Die-In

As the U.S.-made bombs fall on Gaza, indiscriminately killing Palestinians, many of them children, we heed the

Urgent call from Gaza civil society: Act now!

We Palestinians trapped inside the bloodied and besieged Gaza Strip call on conscientious people all over the world to act, protest and intensify the boycotts, divestments and sanctions against Israel until it ends this murderous attack on our people and is held to account.

Join us on Saturday:

July 19 at 1:00pm
Park Street Station

as we mourn the hundreds killed and protest the complicity of the U.S. government that spends over three billion of our tax dollars and advanced military weapons annually to Israel to maintain an illegal and immoral system of discrimination and occupation and the calamitous siege of Gaza.

To RSVP, please go to https://www.facebook.com/events/285514144962386/

3. Outrage Against Israeli Massacre in Gaza: Boston Stands with Palestine

As Israel's relentless bombardment of Gaza enters its second week, join with thousands across the world in demanding an end to Israel's collective punishment of Palestinians.

Take to the streets on Tuesday at Copley Square:

July 22 starting at 5:30pm560 Boylston St, Boston, MA 02116

to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people and to demand an end to U.S. aid to Israel, an end to the siege of Gaza, and an end to the occupation.

To RSVP, please go to https://www.facebook.com/events/256379791223750/

Standing with you for peace,

Cole Harrison
Executive Director

Join Massachusetts Peace Action - or renew your membership today!
Dues are $40/year for an individual, $65 for a family, or $10 for student/unemployed/low income. Members vote for leadership and endorsements, receive newsletters and discounts on event admissions. Donate now and you will be a member in good standing through December 2014! Your financial support makes this work possible!

Massachusetts Peace Action, 11 Garden St., Cambridge, MA 02138
617-354-2169 • info@masspeaceaction.org • Follow us on Facebook or Twitter
Click here to unsubscribe

Once Again On Writer David Foster Wallace

Podcast • June 26, 2014

Revisiting David Foster Wallace’s Boston

The novelist David Foster Wallace has resurfaced on film and in our radio archive, so we’re revisiting one of our favorite shows of the year this week: “Infinite Boston,” a tribute to Wallace's magnum opus "Infinite Jest" and its roots in Cambridge and Brighton. We dug up the famous Connection interview with Wallace from the spring of 1996, in which Wallace spoke about the book, Boston AA meetings, the lonely and lost Generation X, and his place in U.S. literature.

Bluesman Johnny Winters Passes At 70

Blues Guitarist Johnny Winter Dies At 70

by Bill Chappell

July 17, 2014 8:13 AM ET

i i

hide captionLegendary blues guitarist Johnny Winter, seen here performing in Valencia in 2008, has died at age 70.

Diego Tuson/AFP/Getty Images

Legendary blues guitarist Johnny Winter, seen here performing in Valencia in 2008, has died at age 70.

Diego Tuson/AFP/Getty Images

Texas blues legend Johnny Winter has died, ending a long and expansive career that included working alongside bluesman Muddy Waters and playing at the Woodstock festival. Winter, who was 70, had been set to release a new album this fall.
Winter's death was confirmed by his publicist, who issued a statement saying, "His wife, family and bandmates are all saddened by the loss of one of the world's finest guitarists."
Winter reportedly died in his hotel room in Zurich, Switzerland. A cause of death has not been provided. He had maintained a busy touring schedule, with dates in the U.S., Canada, South America and Europe scheduled for a four-month tour that was to begin this month.
As a guitarist, Winter was adept at both finger-picking blues grooves and rock-star pyrotechnics, building on the talents that had marked both him and his younger brother Edgar as musicians early in their lives — they formed their first band when Johnny was 15.
Both brothers were born with albinism, and as adults, they grew their white hair long, making them a striking presence on stage.
Winter emerged on the national scene in 1968 after being featured in a Rolling Stone article. That same year, he released his first album, The Progressive Blues Experiment. One year later, he released his self-titled album, and then a follow-up called Second Winter.
The songs on those albums were a mix of originals and standards — but they were all defined by the liquid speed Winter was able to pour out of his guitar.

YouTube

In the rankings of the all-time greatest guitarists, Winter was named No. 67 by a Guitar World reader poll, and No. 63 by Rolling Stone.
His website calls Winter "the clear link between British blues-rock and American Southern rock (a la the Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd)."
Winter has said he benefited from being exposed to many styles of music as a kid, particularly the blues music he would hear in clubs in his native Beaumont, Texas. And it seems that even in the racially charged era of the 1950s and 60s, the albino kid was seen as just another person who loved the blues.
"Nothing ever happened to me," Winter said on his website. "I went to black clubs all the time, and nobody ever bothered me. I always felt welcome."
"Not many white people in Beaumont cared about the blues," he told NPR's Scott Simon in 2011. "I just liked the emotion and the feeling in the music. It was the most emotional music I'd ever heard."
A longtime fan of Muddy Waters, Winter produced and played guitar on Waters' Grammy-winning album Hard Again in 1977, along with three other Grammy-nominated records. The two met when Winter was around 17 — after the teenager bugged the bluesman to let him play with him on stage.
"He gave me his guitar and let me play," Winter said. "I got a standing ovation, and he took his guitar back."
Of Winter, Waters once said, "That guy up there onstage — I got to see him up close. He plays eight notes to my one!"

South African Writer Nadine Gordimer Passes at 90

Nadine Gordimer, Nobel-Winning Chronicler Of Apartheid, Dies

by Alan Greenblatt

July 14, 201410:10 AM ET

i i

hide captionGordimer, shown here in 2006, died in her sleep Sunday at home in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Guillermo Arias/AP

Gordimer, shown here in 2006, died in her sleep Sunday at home in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Guillermo Arias/AP

Nadine Gordimer, a Nobel Prize-winning author famed for her portrayals of South Africa under apartheid, died Sunday, her family said in a statement. She was 90.
Gordimer was considered a modern literary genius, an important chronicler of the injustices of racial segregation along with other white writers such as Athol Fugard and J.M. Coetzee.
"Her proudest days were not only when she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991," her family said in the statement, "but also when she testified at the Delmas Trial in 1986, to contribute to saving the lives of 22 [African National Congress] members, all of them accused of treason."
Gordimer became active in the African National Congress — which was then banned but is now South Africa's ruling party — after the Sharpeville massacre of 1960, in which dozens of people were killed. Three of Gordimer's books were banned during apartheid.
"They showed how people were living here," Gordimer said in an NPR interview last year. "They showed what influences were shaping our lives. And they showed the many different reactions to it among different people here."
Gordimer was one of the first people Nelson Mandela wanted to see upon his release from prison in 1990. A copy of her 1979 novel Burger's Daughter, which explored the family life of the children of revolutionaries, had been smuggled into his hands while he was imprisoned.
When they first met in the 1960s, Gordimer recalled in a 2009 interview, "we talked politics, of course. What else would we talk about?"
But she wrote in a New Yorker essay published upon Mandela's death last year that when they met a few days after his release from prison, he wanted to talk not about politics, but about his discovery that his wife had cheated on him.
This reflected in a way Gordimer's fiction, in which politics were always present but the personal was never forgotten. In 1981's July's People, a white family flees an armed rebellion and ends up increasingly reliant on a boy who had been their servant, turning the power relationship between white and black on its head.
As reviewer Maureen Corrigan noted of Gordimer's 2012 novel No Time Like the Present on NPR's Fresh Air, Gordimer's characters continued to grapple with politics after the end of apartheid, but found the country had become "much more morally ambiguous."
"Human beings must live in the world of ideas," Gordimer said in an interview with The Paris Review 35 years ago. "This dimension in the human psyche is very important."
Gordimer was born in 1923 in South Africa to immigrant Jewish parents, her mother English and her father a Lithuanian who had fled the pogroms of his home country. She began writing early and published her first short story when she was 15.

***Sports Is The American Pastime- George V. Higgins’ The Agent

Book Review

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

The Agent, George V. Higgins, Harcourt Brace, New York, 1998

I came across the novels of the late George V. Higgins in the 1970s when I read his first novel, The Friends of Eddie Coyle (later made into film starring Robert Mitchum taking his beating as Eddie) and became an instant fan. Now part of that draw of was because the scenes, as are the scenes of the book under review The Agent, took place in and around Boston where I am from and so the physical landscape was familiar. Part was because the characters in that book “spoke” to me. Not so much the language and mental set of those who have chosen crime as a career path which Higgins’ had a masterful ear for but because they seemed very much like the corner boys I used to hang around with as a kid. And would have followed into whatever was going to happen if I didn’t fall in love with reading and chose a different path. Higgins thereafter gave us a slew of books based on that same sharp ear and eye to the language and mindset of mainly soldier-level criminals like Eddie. And I read them as they came off the press, many of them anyway.

The Agent written toward the end of Higgins’ life did not speak to me as much. Part of it was because he was dealing with the intricacies of the modern world of professional sports and its competitiveness so there were no corner boy characters for me root for, only an insufferable king hell king sport agent, Alec, who had the misfortune of not keeping up with the times. And therefore becomes the A-one target of a murder. The details of that murder and who had anything to gain from Alec’s demise are left to the reader. My reservations about this book are based on the unfolding story-line. Far too many pages were spent giving the reader the then current (1998) dope on what the world of big-time professional sports and sports agency was about, from about six different characters who basically said the same thing- for the athlete “take the money and run”-for the agent “get the best contract possible and then ride the rails until the end.” That might have meant something back in the day before players were organized in the 1970s or so (and rightly so) but it seems less startling these days. This one falls flat on that score. Higgins should have stuck to those corner boys that knew so well and that drew my attention to his work in the first place.

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Defend The Palestinian People! No U.S. Aid To Israel

IMPORTANT - STAND WITH GAZA ACTIONS

Spread the word. Come and be visible.

https://www.facebook.com/events/1450288828557591/?ref=br_tf

	Thursday, July 17 at 5:00pm - 6:30pm in EDT
	Copley Square Copley Sq, Boston, Massachusetts 02116

Stop the Israeli assault on Gaza launched on July 8.
End the Israeli blockade on Gaza ongoing since 2007.
End American support and assistance for Israeli crimes.

Join together in Copley Square to speak out about the injustice in Palestine!

Bring your own signs for the rally and we will have candles for the vigil.

https://www.facebook.com/events/256379791223750/

	Tuesday, July 22 at 5:30pm in EDT
	Copley Square Copley Sq, Boston, Massachusetts 02116

As Israel's relentless bombardment of Gaza enters its second week, join with thousands across the world in demanding an end to Israel's collective punishment of Palestinians.

Take to the streets to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people and to demand an end to U.S. aid to Israel, an end to the siege of Gaza, and an end to the occupation.

#Boston4Gaza

Liza Behrendt

Organizer, Jewish Voice for Peace - Boston

603-397-2412, liza@jvp-boston.org

Tell TIAA-CREF: Divest from Israeli Occupation

Saturday, July 19, 1 PM, Park St., Rally. More details to follow.

Marilyn Levin

United for Justice with Peace

781-316-2018

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Veterans For Peace-Cambridge

Midnight Voices

(the young dead soldiers do not speak, they have a silence that speaks for them at night when the clock counts)

There are only 5 days left for the U.S. and Iran to either agree to a nuclear deal or extend the July 20th deadline. All of our work to prevent war and support a brighter future for the U.S. and Iran could come down to the next 100 hours.

And, like clockwork, Senator Robert Menendez and Lindsey Graham have prepared a letter to President Obama issuing inflexible and unnecessary demands that could derail the talks and set the stage for sanctions and war.

Menendez and Graham, with help from AIPAC, are working to convince Senators from key committees to sign the letter before they send it to the President tonight.

Our Senators, Elizabeth Warren and Edward Markey, are among those being pressured to sign the letter. They need to hear from you.

Will you call our Senators right away [Warren - (202)224-4543, Markey - (202)224-2742]?

Tell them:

"I am a constituent from [your city] and I support U.S.-Iran diplomacy, not war. I am calling to urge my Senator to NOT sign the Menendez-Graham letter that could derail a nuclear agreement and start a war."

If enough Senators sign this letter, they risk unraveling the best chance we've ever had to prevent war between the U.S. and Iran.

Please make the call and let us know if you do so we can keep track of our impact and focus attention as needed. And please share this message so that we can generate as many calls as possible.

For peace,

Shelagh Foreman
Program Director

Massachusetts Peace Action, 11 Garden St., Cambridge, MA 02138
617-354-2169 • info@masspeaceaction.org • Follow us on Facebook or Twitter
Click here to unsubscribe

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First - Sign & Donate to publish this message in Texas:

Stop Patriarchy:
Emergency in Texas
Stop Forced Motherhood
Abortion on Demand and Without Apology

“If nothing changes, on September 1st all but six abortion clinics in Texas will be closed (there were 46 in 2011).

“Women will begin dying from dangerous illegal abortions. Others will be imprisoned for self-inducing abortions. Thousands more will have their lives foreclosed by being forced to bear children they do not want – shattering their dreams, trapping them in abusive relationships, and/or driving them into humiliating and dangerous poverty. Rural, poor, immigrant, and women of color will be hardest hit.

“Worse, this emergency in Texas is not an isolated problem...”

Read the rest of the statement and sign-on.

Join Merle Hoffman (CEO of Choices Women's Medical Center in New York City), Carol Downer (founder of Feminist Women's Health Center in Los Angeles), Rev. Donna Schaper (senior minister at Judson Memorial Church, NYC), Sikivu Hutchinson (Black feminist atheist author), Diane Derzis (owner of the last abortion clinic in Mississippi), and Sunsara Taylor (writer for Revolution, Stop Patriarchy; fighter for abortion rights since 1995) in signing this statement along with Elaine Brower, Susan Brownmiller, Marilyn Fitterman, Carol Giardina, C. Clark Kissinger, Sandy Rapp, SarahRoche-Madhi, Debra Sweet.

We aim to publish this in a major Texas newspaper on August 4th, the first day of court proceedings which will determine whether all but six remaining abortion clinics in Texas will be forced to close on September 1, 2014.

Only with your donations will publication be possible. Scroll down to add your name and donate to see this statement published in Texas.

Find out more about the Abortion Rights Freedom Ride: Ground Zero Texas.

Mary Anne Grady jailed for Hancock AFB Drone Protest

July 10, 2014: Syracuse, NY. Anti-drone protester Mary Anne Grady was sent to county jail for a maximum 12 month sentence for violating a temporary "Order of Protection" granted by a County Judge to explicitly to protect the Commander Evans of Hancock Air Force Base, who said he wanted to keep protesters "out of his driveway."

Years of non-violent protest, including civil disobedience, led by the Upstate Coalition to Ground the Drones and Stop the Wars, have focused public attention on the role of Hancock in remotely piloting US drones around the world, particularly Reaper drones over Afghanistan, and also in training drone operators.

The use of Orders of Protection (OoP's) is an outrageous application of an instrument developed to protect women from domestic abusers. Ironically, those actual orders are often violated, or unenforced. But to use the same framework to cast political protesters as a danger to the commander of the base is an outrageous attack on the free speech and assembly rights of the people who are risking their freedom to stop US drone war through holding signs on public property.

The Syracuse Peace Council provides background on the Orders of Protection and suggests How You Can Help Fight Orders of Protection.

Democracy Now covered the sentencing; watch now.

Read more...

Uniting Against the Bombing of Gaza

Download here: posters & the following flyer in English & Spanish.

Israel has unleashed another murderous campaign against Gaza.

If your heart is sickened by what Palestinians are living and dying through now, let us confront – and act to help many people confront -- that all this violence is backed by the $3.1 billion in military aid Israel receives each year from the U.S.

People of conscience must stand against and resist the crimes of our own government, and that includes U.S. political and military support for the crimes of its cohort, its allies, when those powers commit crimes against humanity funded by and therefore “made in the U.S.A.”

During the 1980’s when wars rocked Central America, and also when South African apartheid was being challenged — it made a real difference when people inside the U.S. woke up to the facts of what their own government was doing, and questioned which side America was on. Many people inside the empire publicly stood up and said NO to the U.S. Empire. That is what is needed today, once again!

Palestinian children, men, and women are dying every day as a result of the illegal actions of the U.S. government and Israel going back 60 years. The U.S. government must be brought to account for arming Israel.

Stop Illegal, Unjust U.S. support of Israel
Stop U.S. Threats to Attack Iraq Again

Courageous Resistance! “I have come to the decision that I refuse to participate in this criminal act.”

Reprieve reported Tuesday that:

"A military medical professional at Guantanamo Bay recently refused to force-feed detainees after witnessing the suffering it caused detainees, it has been revealed.

The incident is thought to be the first case of 'conscientious objection' to force-feeding at Guantánamo since a mass hunger-strike began at the prison last year. Cleared Syrian Abu Wa’el Dhiab related the news on a phone call last week with his Reprieve lawyer, Cori Crider. Dhiab explained that a military nurse recently told him he would no longer participate in force-feedings, saying: “I have come to the decision that I refuse to participate in this criminal act.”

Carol Rosenberg in the Miami Herald reported:

Word of the refusal reached the outside world last week in a call from a prisoner, Abu Wael Dhiab, to attorney Cori Crider of the London-based legal defense group Reprieve. Dhiab, a hunger striker, described how a nurse in the Navy medical corps abruptly refused to “force-feed us” sometime before the Fourth of July — and disappeared from detention center duty.

We will follow this and report more as we attempt to learn who the nurse is, so we can applaud his conscience.

Above: one of the restraint chairs used in force-feedings at Guantanamo.

Passing along to you: Witness Against Torture Releases New Posters Project
From Witness Against Torture:

“For the last three years, Witness Against Torture has presented short runs of posters featuring quotes from former and current Guantánamo detainees. This week, we are releasing five new posters designed by WAT member Justin Norman. These artistic renderings of the plight of the detainees will hopefully engage people in a new way. We hope you like them. Furthermore, you can purchase printed images of these posters on the Witness Against Torture website. These purchases help in raising funds for efforts to shut down the detention center that continues to hold them. Click here to check out the new posters, which are all available on our website store.”

Share this message:

What happens on the World Can't Wait conversations? Sometimes, we have a guest speaker who talks with us about key issues we want to know more about.

World Can't Wait Conversation
Thursday, July 10
10pm Eastern / 7pm Pacific

Organizers of the Abortion Rights Freedom Ride will join the conversation.
Register for dial-in info.

At other times, it's World Can't Wait supporters talking amongst ourselves, planning, and confronting the latest ourages. Last week, we designed 2 posters, and came up with the content of a flyer by talking about what we had learned in the previous few days at protests of the bombing of Gaza
See the results below:

Download here: posters & flyer in English & Spanish.

To support & allow World Can't Wait to play its role in stopping the crimes of your government, become a sustainer. Monthly sustainers pay all the web, phone, office & printing expenses of this all-volunteer effort.

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United for Justice with Peace is a coalition of peace and justice organizations and community peace groups in the Greater Boston region. The UJP Coalition, formed after September 11th, seeks global peace through social and economic justice. Help us continue to do this critical work! Make a donation to UJP today.
info@justicewithpeace.org	617-383-4857	www.justicewithpeace.org