Vets Win Expansion Of Freedom Of Speech and Right To Assemble

Resist! Afghanistan, Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Wars and Militarism
By Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, www.PopularResistance.org
October 10th, 2014

Select LanguageAfrikaansAlbanianArabicArmenianAzerbaijaniBasqueBelarusianBengaliBosnianBulgarianCatalanCebuanoChinese (Simplified)Chinese (Traditional)CroatianCzechDanishDutchEsperantoEstonianFilipinoFinnishFrenchGalicianGeorgianGermanGreekGujaratiHaitian CreoleHausaHebrewHindiHmongHungarianIcelandicIgboIndonesianIrishItalianJapaneseJavaneseKannadaKhmerKoreanLaoLatinLatvianLithuanianMacedonianMalayMalteseMaoriMarathiMongolianNepaliNorwegianPersianPolishPortuguesePunjabiRomanianRussianSerbianSlovakSlovenianSomaliSpanishSwahiliSwedishTamilTeluguThaiTurkishUkrainianUrduVietnameseWelshYiddishYorubaZulu

  Powered by Translate

5

Above: Veterans and allies pose at the end of the 2014 antiwar memorial service at Vietnam Veterans Memorial in New York City. They are holding photos of David George whose pictures are also on the wall behind them. Photo by Ellen Davidson.

Veterans For Peace Three Year Campaign Removes Curfew as Vets and Allies Protest the Wars, Honor The Dead

Each October 7 for the last three years, the date of the US invasion of Afghanistan, members of Veterans For Peace and their allies have gathered at the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial in Lower Manhattan for a soulful ceremony. Their purpose: to mark another year of a war in Afghanistan and call for peace, to honor all whose lives are destroyed by war and to expand the First Amendment right to peaceably assemble.
This year, they were finally able to do so without facing a small army of police threatening arrest if the ceremony went past the arbitrary 10 pm curfew placed on the memorial.

Jacob David George

And this year, veterans and allies had more reasons to gather: to protest new wars being waged by President Obama without approval of Congress or the United Nations and to remember the much-loved Jacob David George, a veteran of three tours in Afghanistan, who died of ‘moral injury’ three weeks before.
Jacob was only 19 when he went overseas to Afghanistan for his first tour. He grew up in the mountains of Arkansas and was a talented poet and musician. After his tours, he struggled to survive in the United States, surrounded by war culture. He set off to bicycle around the country to speak about the realities of war and the need for peace, a trip that he called “A Ride til the End.” He sang “Soldiers Heart”:

“I’m just a farmer from Arkansas, there’s a lot of things I don’t understand, like why we send farmers to kill farmers in Afghanistan. I did what I’s told for my love of this land. I come home a shattered man with blood on my hands.

“Now I can’t have a relationship, I can’t hold down a job. Some may say I’m broken, I call it Soldier’s Heart. Every time I go outside, I gotta look her in the eyes knowing that she broke my heart, and turned around and lied.

“Red, white and blue, I trusted you and you never even told me why.”

“Soldier’s Heart” is a Civil War phrase used to describe what we now know as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).  Jacob wrote that Soldiers Heart “more accurately describes my wounds and what I experienced.” “Moral injury,” which Jacob wrote was a major component of PTSD, leads to 22 veteran suicides a day.
Jacob was with members of Veterans for Peace and thousands of others in Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC for the tenth anniversary of the Afghanistan War in October, 2011. He had spent part of the summer in Afghanistan with the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers. Jacob performed that night in Freedom Plaza and the Afghan Youth joined the event from Afghanistan by Skype. After that, he continued to travel in his search for healing and to participate in the Occupy Movement. In the summer of 2012, he marched 99 miles with the Guitarmy from Philadelphia to New York City.
Ending the Nightmares of War

The Veterans Peace Team and Occupy Faith stand between police and the people. Photo by Ellen Davidson

Although most war memorials throughout the United States are open to the public 24 hours a day, seven days a week, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in New York ‘closes’ at 10 pm, that is, if you are expressing First Amendment rights.
There is no good reason to close the memorial since is located on a plaza surrounded by office buildings.  It isn’t really possible to close this memorial anyway. It is used as a walkway for pedestrians and dog walkers at all hours of the day and night. The veterans believe there should be no curfew as the nightmares of war don’t know curfews and they often surface late at night. War memorials should be a place of peace and refuge for those who need it without threats of intimidation or arrest by police.
The curfew has only been enforced when people are exercising their right to peaceably assemble. Tarak Kauff, a board member of Veterans For Peace, first noted the curfew at a 2012 May Day assembly by Occupy Wall Street. Tarak describes the assembly as “what you would want to see in a democracy, people gathering to discuss solutions to community problems.” Troops of NY police confronted the assembly. Members of the Veterans Peace Team stood between the police and people; and were arrested. This constitutionally permitted, democratic gathering was stopped for no good reason.

Nightmares of War Do Not End at 10PM. Photo by Ellen Davidson.

Kauff brought the idea of a campaign to open the Memorial to Vets For Peace who embraced it, holding their first memorial service on October 7, 2012. Hundreds gathered at the memorial for a powerful ceremony. Father George Packard, Chris Hedges and veterans from World War II through the wars of today spoke, read poems and sang. Participants read names of New Yorkers who were killed in war and of civilians in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan who were also killed. After every 20 names, a gong was struck and flowers were placed in 11 vases, one for every year in Afghanistan.
As the ceremony continued, the police presence began to grow. When 10 PM arrived, the reading of the names was interrupted by a police captain with a bullhorn warning that if the crowd did not disperse, arrests would be made. Undaunted, veterans and allies persisted in reading names and honoring the dead as some in the crowd moved to the margins of the park. One by one, 25 people who continued the memorial were arrested. Those arrested included a decorated World War II Veteran and a Vietnam War Medic for whom the nightmares of holding the wounded in his arms have never ceased. The police were placed in an uncomfortable position – arresting veterans reading the names of the dead to enforce a capricious curfew.
A friend of Jacob George, Brock McIntosh, also an Afghanistan veteran described the feelings of Jacob and many vets:

“Jacob did all he could as a warrior to speak and to warn about the dangers of war. Jacob spoke to me often of moral injury, and he once told me about meeting a Vietnam veteran who felt that every war was his war, who blamed himself for not stopping each war that happened, one after the next. Jacob felt that burden.”

Vets link together facing arrest at Vietnam Memorial October 2013. Photo by Ellen Davidson.

Veterans and allies returned in 2013 to protest the deep war culture embraced by the United States. To make that point, among the war dead remembered were Indigenous peoples slaughtered in the “Indian Wars.”  That year several of the veterans refused to be removed easily. Firm in their belief that they had a right to be there, that the memorial was created to honor the dead and that nothing should interfere with that, five veterans linked themselves together with thick plastic handcuffs and lay down in front of the memorial when the police arrived to arrest them. Altogether, nineteen were arrested.
Jacob was there that year. One vet who stood with him recounted that Jacob was very distressed to see his comrades being arrested for protesting the wars and honoring the dead.
The veterans and allies who were arrested had two goals. They wanted to use the judicial process to end the curfew at the Memorial and to introduce the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to expand the definition of Freedom of Speech to meet the international standard rather than the narrow and shrinking US standard.
Instead, charges were dropped for many of the arrestees and 14 who spent a week in trial were denied justice. The judge refused to entertain the expanded definition of free speech and found them guilty but then dismissed the charges “in the interest of justice,” undermining their ability to appeal.
Fourteen of the second year arrestees had their charges dismissed and the five who linked themselves together had their charges downgraded against their will to avoid a jury trial. The judge also found them guilty but gave them conditional release.
Each time the vets appeared in court, police offers shook their hands, thanked them and told them they supported what they were doing. The memorial services were having an added effect of dividing the police.
Victory is bittersweet
This year, the veterans won the right to stay at the memorial without interference from the police. In a letter to the mayor, the veterans outlined their intent to hold the vigil again and their desire that the memorial remain open at all hours. They thanked the mayor for his statement, after the Flood Wall Street protest two weeks before, that First Amendment Rights were more important than traffic and invited him to join them on October 7. The mayor’s office responded by saying that the curfew would be lifted for the night.

Singing songs of Jacob George and antiwar ballads at the Vietnam Veterans War Memorial, October 7, 2014. Photo by Ellen Davidson.

The mood at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial this year was bittersweet. There was palpable relief that we were free to express ourselves without police intimidation and that we could choose when to leave under our own terms. But there was also greater sadness than years before because a week after the President began bombing Iraq again and then Syria, Jacob George took his life. Some suspect the trauma of watching another US war begin, knowing that more soldiers and innocent civilians would die or be forever traumatized and seeing the Masters of War succeed in manipulating the public to support war was too much to bear.
Jacob wrote:

“With our choice to join the US military, we soldiers gained great insights into the effects of war. During basic training, we are weaponized: our souls are turned into weapons. This intentional adjustment of the moral compass seems to be the onset of Moral Injury. Basic training demands the dehumanization of the enemy.

“Through my personal healing from PTSD, I’ve discovered it’s not possible to dehumanize others without dehumanizing the self.”

We gathered that night to speak, read poems and sing together once again. We remembered Jacob and all who are devastated by war.  Large photos of Jacob were placed on the memorial wall.  ‘Taps’ was played.
One vet read a statement about the damage war does and the toll it takes on families, remembering his nephew, a vet who also committed suicide:

“Not only was he profoundly affected by war, but so was his entire family. The pain will be felt by those who loved him for generations. That is what war does. It causes deep wounds that cut across generations. His father, a Vietnam Veteran, is having a very difficult time and has withdrawn, buried in grief. He already suffered from PTSD, and this has made things much worse. His mother, my sister, is racked with guilt and blames herself for not being able to help [her son].”

A poem by Vets For Peace poet laureate, Doug Rawlings, called “We Need Not Go There Again: A tribute to Jacob George, was read:

Over 100 years of
shooting into a mirror
thinking they were
squashing the other –
first the Hun, then the Nip, then the gook,
and now the sand niggers —
the old war mongers remain insatiable
in their self-delusion
Freudian analysts can’t get them off
their couches:
moral cripples
they never sense
that something is awry
How could they?
It is not the blood
of their daughters and sons
pours back into their hands
slippery with the stench
of their calculated ignorance
They will continue to
worship at the alter
of Pontius Pilate
to wash their hands
in the trough
of our passivity
until we gather in the streets
until we bring down
the walls of the Pentagon
singing the choruses
of Jacob George

Participants in antiwar memorial circle of hugs. Photo by Ellen Davidson.

We formed a circle and one by one, we walked the circle and hugged each other. Members of the Guitarmy led us through songs written by Jacob. We also sang Down By the Riverside and Lean On Me. We read names of the dead, raised our fists and shouted “Presente” in unison after each name. Afterwards, we talked quietly in small groups. And when we were ready, we left the memorial.
It took three years to win the right to vigil at the war memorial. The next task is to change the policy so that it remains open at all times and is there for those who need it. Members of Veterans for Peace are committed to seeing that task through. We hope this campaign encourages others to find ways to expand our rights.
Though it is important to choose particular days to gather for remembrance and protesting these illegal and unjust wars, the work for peace is a daily task. Those who are not fooled by the propaganda or by persuaded by partisanship can best honor those who have died and those still living who have served by speaking out regularly for an end to war.
In his song called Support the Troops, Jacob wrote:

“I’m tellin’ you, don’t thank me for what I’ve done. Give me a hug and let me know we ain’t gonna let this happen again because we support the troops and we’re gonna bring war to an end.”

Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese are organizers of Popular Resistance. They participated in the campaign to end the curfew at the NYC Vietnam Veterans Memorial. They can be followed @KBZeese and @MFlowers8.
This article was originally published on MintPress News.

Guitarmy Travels Staten Island to ZuccottiJacob George singing with the Guitarmy on July 12, 2012, Jacob is in the front playing Banjo

Vets Win Free Speech Victory
Tarak Kauff interviewed by Luke Rudkowski of We Are Change

Related Posts:

• Mexican Farmers Oppose Expansion Of GMO Crops July 16, 2014
• Another Attack On Free Speech In Academia September 10, 2014
• Remembering The Greatest 4th Of July Speech Of All Time July 3, 2014
• The Legacy And Promise Of The Free Speech Movement October 4, 2014
• Antiwar Protesters Greet Obama’s Iraq War Speech September 12, 2014

SYRIA-IRAQ WAR: Where is the antiwar movement?

But even though organizers acknowledge the uphill battle, some say there’s cause for optimism. There was some Congressional opposition to arming Syrian rebels to fight the Islamic State. The authorization to help rebels passed the House by a 273-156 vote; the Senate opposition amounted to only 22 votes.  “This war is far less popular than either the Afghanistan or Iraq War at their outset at this time period. And it’s worth remembering that inevitably what happens, no matter where these wars start, they always end at the same place, which is incredibly unpopular,” Win Without War’s Miles told me. So where does the anti-war movement go from here? Ali Issa, the national field organizer with War Resisters League, says the key is connecting struggles against militarism to other movements.  More

 

ISIS in WASHINGTON: Inside the American Terrordome

… the chorus of hysteria-purveyors, Republican and Democrat alike, nattered on, as had been true for weeks, about the "direct," not to say apocalyptic, threat the Islamic State and its caliph posed to the American way of life… Terror as the preeminent danger to our American world now courses through the societal bloodstream, helped along by regular infusions of fear from the usual panic-meisters. On that set of emotions, an unparalleled global security state has been built (and funded), as well as a military that, in terms of its destructive power, leaves the rest of the world in the dust… In this context, perhaps we should think of the puffing up of an ugly but limited reality into an all-encompassing, eternally “imminent” threat to our way of life as the final chapter in the demobilization of the American people.  Terror-phobia, after all, leaves you feeling helpless and in need of protection.  The only reasonable response to it is support for whatever actions your government takes to keep you "safe."   More

 

FIGHTING THE ISLAMIC STATE - HOW MUCH WILL IT COST?

Even bigger than the direct costs of the new campaign against the Islamic State is the dramatic U-turn in the political mood toward military spending. Twelve months ago, the wartime culture of "endless money," as former Defense Secretary Robert Gates dubbed it, with its endless "emergency" funding from Congress (nearly $2 trillion in more than 30 special funding bills) - was finally coming to an end… But now that's all so-last-fiscal-year. The new trend is ramping up Pentagon spending.   More

 

Stop The Wars -Stop The Desecration Of Mother Earth 

 

As The 100th Anniversary Of The First Year Of World War I (Remember The War To End All Wars) Continues ... Some Remembrances-Poet’s Corner  

THE VIGIL


England! where the sacred flame
    Burns before the inmost shrine,
Where the lips that love thy name
    Consecrate their hopes and thine,
Where the banners of thy dead
Weave their shadows overhead,
Watch beside thine arms to-night,
Pray that God defend the Right.

Think that when to-morrow comes
    War shall claim command of all,
Thou must hear the roll of drums,
    Thou must hear the trumpet's call.
Now, before thy silence ruth,
Commune with the voice of truth;
England! on thy knees to-night
Pray that God defend the Right.

Single-hearted, unafraid,
    Hither all thy heroes came,
On this altar's steps were laid
    Gordon's life and Outram's fame.
England! if thy will be yet
By their great example set,
Here beside thine arms to-night
Pray that God defend the Right.

So shalt thou when morning comes
    Rise to conquer or to fall,
Joyful hear the rolling drums,
    Joyful tear the trumpets call,
Then let Memory tell thy heart:
"England! what thou wert, thou art!"
Gird thee with thine ancient might,
Forth! and God defend the Right!

_Henry Newbolt_

From The Pen Of American Communist Party Founder And Trotskyist Leader James P. Cannon

Click below to link to the “James P. Cannon Internet Archives.”

http://www.marxists.org/archive/cannon/works/index.htm

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

Markin comment on founding member James P. Cannon and the early American Communist Party taken from a book review, James P. Cannon and the Early American Communist Party, on the “American Left History” blog:

If you are interested in the history of the American Left or are a militant trying to understand some of the past mistakes of our history and want to know some of the problems that confronted the early American Communist Party and some of the key personalities, including James Cannon, who formed that party this book is for you.

At the beginning of the 21st century after the demise of the Soviet Union and the apparent ‘death of communism’ it may seem fantastic and utopian to today’s militants that early in the 20th century many anarchist, socialist, syndicalist and other working class militants of this country coalesced to form an American Communist Party. For the most part, these militants honestly did so in order to organize an American socialist revolution patterned on and influenced by the Russian October Revolution of 1917. James P. Cannon represents one of the important individuals and faction leaders in that effort and was in the thick of the battle as a central leader of the Party in this period. Whatever his political mistakes at the time, or later, one could certainly use such a militant leader today. His mistakes were the mistakes of a man looking for a revolutionary path.

For those not familiar with this period a helpful introduction by the editors gives an analysis of the important fights which occurred inside the party. That overview highlights some of the now more obscure personalities (a helpful biographical glossary is provided), where they stood on the issues and insights into the significance of the crucial early fights in the party.

These include questions which are still relevant today; a legal vs. an underground party; the proper attitude toward parliamentary politics; support to third- party bourgeois candidates;trade union policy; class-war prisoner defense as well as how to rein in the intense internal struggle of the various factions for organizational control of the party. This makes it somewhat easier for those not well-versed in the intricacies of the political disputes which wracked the early American party to understand how these questions tended to pull it in on itself. In many ways, given the undisputed rise of American imperialism in the immediate aftermath of World War I, this is a story of the ‘dog days’ of the party. Unfortunately, that rise combined with the international ramifications of the internal disputes in the Russian Communist Party and in the Communist International shipwrecked the party as a revolutionary party toward the end of this period.

In the introduction the editors motivate the purpose for the publication of the book by stating the Cannon was the finest Communist leader that America had ever produced. This an intriguing question. The editors trace their political lineage back to Cannon’s leadership of the early Communist Party and later after his expulsion to the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party so their perspective is obvious. What does the documentation provided here show? I would argue that the period under study represented Cannon’s apprenticeship. Although the hothouse politics of the early party clarified some of the issues of revolutionary strategy for him I believe that it was not until he linked up with Trotsky in the late 1920’s that he became the kind of leader who could lead a revolution. Of course, since Cannon never got a serious opportunity to lead revolutionary struggles in America this is mainly reduced to speculation on my part. Later books written by him make the case better. One thing is sure- in his prime he had the instincts to want to lead a revolution.

As an addition to the historical record of this period this book is a very good companion to the two-volume set by Theodore Draper - The Roots of American Communism and Soviet Russia and American Communism- the definitive study on the early history of the American Communist Party. It is also a useful companion to Cannon’s own The First Ten Years of American Communism. I would add that this is something of a labor of love on the part of the editors. This book was published at a time when the demise of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe was in full swing and anything related to Communist studies was deeply discounted. Nevertheless, for better or worse, the American Communist Party (and its offshoots) needs to be studied as an ultimately flawed example of a party that failed in its mission to create a radical version of society in America. Now is the time to study this history.

*********

BOOK REVIEW

NOTEBOOK OF AN AGITATOR- JAMES P. CANNON, PATHFINDER PRESS, NEW YORK, 1971

If you are interested in the history of the American Left or are a militant trying to understand some of the past lessons of our history concerning the socialist response to various social and labor questions this book is for you. This book is part of a continuing series of the writings of James P. Cannon that was published by the organization he founded, the Socialist Workers Party, in the 1970’s. Look in this space for other related reviews of this series of documents on and by an important American Communist.

In the introduction the editors motivate the purpose for the publication of the book by stating the Cannon was the finest Communist leader that America had ever produced. This an intriguing question. The editors trace their political lineage back to Cannon’s leadership of the early Communist Party and later after his expulsion to the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party so their perspective is obvious. What does the documentation provided here show? This certainly is the period of Cannon’s political maturation, especially after his long collaboration working with Trotsky. The period under discussion- from the 1920’s when he was a leader of the American Communist Party to the red-baiting years after World War II- started with his leadership of the fight against the degeneration of the Russian Revolution and then later against those who no longer wanted to defend the gains of the Russian Revolution despite the Stalinist degeneration of that revolution. Cannon won his spurs in those fights and in his struggle to orient those organizations toward a revolutionary path. One thing is sure- in his prime which includes this period- Cannon had the instincts to want to lead a revolution and had the evident capacity to do so. That he never had an opportunity to lead a revolution is his personal tragedy and ours as well.


I note here that among socialists, particularly the non-Stalinist socialists of those days, there was controversy on what to do and, more importantly, what forces socialists should support. If you want to find a more profound response initiated by revolutionary socialists to the social and labor problems of those days than is evident in today’s leftist responses to such issues Cannon’s writings here will assist you. I draw your attention to the early part of the book when Cannon led the Communist-initiated International Labor Defense (ILD), most famously around the fight to save the anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti here in Massachusetts. That campaign put the Communist Party on the map for many workers and others unfamiliar with the party’s work. For my perspective the early class-war prisoner defense work was exemplary.

The issue of class-war prisoners is one that is close to my heart. I support the work of the Partisan Defense Committee, Box 99 Canal Street Station, New York, N.Y 10013, an organization which traces its roots and policy to Cannon’s ILD. That policy is based on an old labor slogan- ‘An injury to one is an injury to all’ therefore I would like to write a few words here on Cannon’s conception of the nature of the work. As noted above, Cannon (along with Max Shachtman and Martin Abern and Cannon’s long time companion Rose Karsner who would later be expelled from American Communist Party for Trotskyism with him and who helped him form what would eventually become the Socialist Workers Party) was assigned by the party in 1925 to set up the American section of the International Red Aid known here as the International Labor Defense.

It is important to note here that Cannon’s selection as leader of the ILD was insisted on by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) because of his pre-war association with that organization and with the prodding of “Big Bill’ Haywood, the famous labor organizer exiled in Moscow. Since many of the militants still languishing in prison were anarchists or syndicalists the selection of Cannon was important. The ILD’s most famous early case was that of the heroic anarchist workers, Sacco and Vanzetti. The lessons learned in that campaign show the way forward in class-war prisoner defense.

I believe that it was Trotsky who noted that, except in the immediate pre-revolutionary and revolutionary periods, the tasks of militants revolve around the struggle to win democratic and other partial demands. The case of class-war legal defense falls in that category with the added impetus of getting the prisoners back into the class struggle as quickly as possible. The task then is to get them out of prison by mass action for their release. Without going into the details of the Sacco and Vanzetti case the two workers had been awaiting execution for a number of years and had been languishing in jail. As is the nature of death penalty cases various appeals on various grounds were tried and failed and they were then in imminent danger of execution.

Other forces outside the labor movement were also interested in the Sacco and Vanzetti case based on obtaining clemency, reduction of their sentences to life imprisonment or a new trial. The ILD’s position was to try to win their release by mass action- demonstrations, strikes and other forms of mass mobilization. This strategy obviously also included, in a subordinate position, any legal strategies that might be helpful to win their freedom. In this effort the stated goal of the organization was to organize non-sectarian class defense but also not to rely on the legal system alone portraying it as a simple miscarriage of justice. The organization publicized the case worldwide, held conferences, demonstrations and strikes on behalf of Sacco and Vanzetti. Although the campaign was not successful and the pair were executed in 1927 it stands as a model for class war prisoner defense. Needless to say, the names Sacco and Vanzetti continue to be honored to this day wherever militants fight against this system.

I also suggest a close look at Cannon’s articles in the early 1950’s. Some of them are solely of historical interest around the effects of the red purges on the organized labor movement at the start of the Cold War. Others, however, around health insurance, labor standards, the role of the media and the separation of church and state read as if they were written in 2006. That’s a sorry statement to have to make any way one looks at it.

 

On The 13^th Anniversary Of The Afghan War-Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S. Troops!-A Cautionary Tale- Private Jack Dawson’s Private War

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman                                                                       

John Dawson who had been in my class in North Adamsville High School when we graduated back in 1964 is the source for this sketch. John, a Vietnam veteran who saw military service early in that war around the hellhole of Da Nang when the blossom was still on the American adventure there and was proud of his service and also knew that I had done my military service during a little later period during that war grudgingly and had been involved after that service with the Vietnam Veterans Against The War (VVAW) and later worked with a group called Veterans for Peace (VFP). So we, when we met around town on occasion or at a reunion, would argue about those times and about then current American military policy. When 9/11 in 2001 happened and the subsequent occupation of Afghanistan and then later the second Iraq war, the ‘shock and awe’ war, both of which I opposed with had plenty of disagreements.

But John also knew that I had done a lot of work with returning veterans, had written several series under the title Brothers Under The Bridge publicizing the plight of those from the Vietnam War who could not adjust to the “real world” and had formed an alternative “community” in the style of the old hobo jungles out in the arroyos, river banks and bridges of Southern California. Knew that whatever opposition I had to American governmental war policy that my brother-soldiers were not the target of that ire. He had urged his son, called Jack from childhood to join up after 9/11 when Jack was gung-ho to go get the bastards who did that criminal deed in New York and elsewhere. After Jack finished up his tours of duty in 2004 and returned state-side for discharge something snapped in him and his world turned upside down.  Jack fell through the cracks and after John had not heard from his son for a couple of years he contacted me to see if I could through my contacts find out where he was, whether he was alright, and whether he wanted to come home. I found out what happened to Jack and the end of this sketch details what I found out. As with my old series about the Vietnam veterans from my time I will put this one under a sign-here is Private Jack Dawson’s Private War:  

Jack Dawson was angry, angry as hell if he was asked and he was on more than one occasion that those dirty Arabs, those cutthroat barbarians, those damn sand n----rs, those slimy rug merchants and anything that he could think to call them (strangely until the news media started touting the names Al-Qaeda, Taliban, and mujahedeen around he did not think to call them those names although all three were reasonably well known names for those extremist Islamists who were going to make life tough for the new American century). Hell, they had blown up the World Trade Center buildings without blinking an eyelash, were ready to do the same to the White House and probably thinking that the Pentagon would be a sweet ass legitimate target of war and the nerve center for the American war machine had hit that building across the Potomac.

Not only was one Jack Dawson (everybody called him Jack to distinguish between him and his father John) angry but he was made of the stuff that required him to personally do something about this latest menace to the peace of the world (like his father who had been an early soldier in Vietnam, not quite at the advisor stage but well before the huge troop build-ups in the mid to late 1960s, who had enlisted when Lyndon Baines Johnson called in order hold back the “red menace,” our generation’s bugaboo). So in the fall of 2001 Jack Dawson dropped out of Northeastern University in Boston where he had been a Co-op student (this was a five year work-study program very popular in my day with those working-class kids from places like North Adamsville who could not have swung the tuition without some work to make ends meet. Jack was a prime example of that for this generation) and enlisted in the United States Army. Before that decisive event he had tried to rally his friends and relatives, the young ones anyway, to follow his lead and join up as well as millions had done when those “Nips” (his term)  blew away Pearl Harbor back in 1941 like his grandfather had told him about when he was just a kid.

Strangely although he harangued the hell out of them, made a nuisance at the Quad just off Huntington Avenue (a place where students went to eat or chill out and at this campus unlike say Boston University in the old days not a place to be harassed by political salesmen of any kind or a place where anti-war activity fared any better especially in the heated atmosphere after 9/11)  where he would use his bullhorn purchased for the occasion to gather in the fellow recruits to the great mission of saving Western Civilization from the heathens, again he was almost totally unsuccessful in his ambitions. He did find a guy, a young guy from Wakefield who was thinking of dropping out of the Co-op program, out of school anyway to join up with the Massachusetts National Guard where he served out his time guarding the Armory in Wakefield every weekend and did monthly duties monitoring traffic patterns in Boston in case emergency evacuation were necessary).

Amid the usual tears that generations of American families have gotten used to when the war drums start beating Jack Dawson left for basic training down at Fort Dix in New Jersey (the same post that his father trained at in the Vietnam times and I did as well) expecting to put fire into whatever recruits he found there to go destroy those who would destroy the innocent of his country, and just the plain innocent at the World Trade buildings. When the now freshly shave-headed Private Jack Dawson wrote his first letter home he made his father laugh a knowing laugh. The guys in his unit were mainly from the ghettos and barrios (he noted in his letter that he would have to avoid the word “n----r” and “spic” that he liberally used at home (learned from father John), the hill white hillbilly hills of Kentucky and farm boys from Ohio. The knowing laugh from father John was that those were the same comrades who populated his unit back in the day. What John knew from somewhat bitter experience in Vietnam with many of those same comrades when the hard fighting began was that the guys who wrote and talked about beating the war drums were not the guys who did the fighting. Private Jack was learning that lesson early on as John pointed in a return letter. Still father John was proud that Jack would be the fourth generation of Dawsons who served their country when called.

Private Jack went through basic like every other gung-ho physically fit recruit (he of wiry frame, six two, and one hundred and seventy five pounds, and good looking- that last a comment by his father). He learned to fire weapons, take drill, and walk nice long twenty mile walks. But here is where Jack learned the hard realities of war policy when the drums are beating and men are desperately needed to fill the units. Private Jack had missed the initial fighting in Afghanistan since the thing had been a “walkover” against the Taliban who evaporated under the hail of American aerial bombings and firepower on the ground. But the first units were scheduled to rotate out after a year once the occupation forces began the task of training the Afghans to fight for themselves. Jack had signed up with the expectation that he would go to computer school after basic.

Naturally once you decide to sign on the dotted line with “Uncle” you absolutely need to read the fine print since everything (backed up by plenty of court decisions supporting the government when cases have been brought on breach of contract grounds) is conditional. Conditional on the needs of the Army at any given moment. And at that moment the “grunt-hungry” army was in need of boots on the ground and so Private Jack was assigned to Fort Bragg for Advanced Infantry Training (AIT), the “paradise” of grunt-dom. Unhappy with this result since he expected to learn enough computer skills to get a good job after the service instead of wasting a few more years in a Co-op program to do the same thing and have overhanging debt for a long time Jack nevertheless dug in and became one of the best soldiers in his unit.

Of course in the world of the “new world order” in the fall of the year 2002 the only place where a grunt’s skills were needed by the American military was humping through the killing fields (some say the poppy killing fields) of a place like Helmut province in Afghanistan  and thus was Jack so ordered. Although he had some trepidations about going into a combat zone half way across the world with guys he trusted but hardly knew  he only needed to look at a photograph of the smoking ashes at Ground Zero to get his blood rising. And so in that fall of 2002 he left America (for the first time although the family had taken short trips to Canada) on the troop transports that was bringing his unit and his brigade to Kabul and then Helmut province. Jack left the States with his belief in his mission, in his country’s mission to stamp out the virus of Islamic craziness (his term), in the virtues that had been produced in country and by his family intact.

There is no need to go into all the gory details of war, of the ways of the Afghan war, of the kicking all of the doors in of some isolated village looking for terrorists who allegedly supported the Taliban on the information of paid informants (who half the time were paying of old time personal grudges of some poor guy whose only crime was not to smart enough to get to the American paymasters first), of the calling in of American airpower to incinerate some off-hand village where a sniper’s fire might be pinning a platoon down (and on more than one occasion bringing the fire on themselves when some GI misread the coordinates or those friendly Afghan trainees panicked), of blowing of the head of some kid who had at the wrong moment popped his head up from the rocks (later when the field was cleared and the gruesome body discovered that child of about ten was listed as a “terrorist” KIA, in shades of Vietnam time). Nor of the fire fights in the night with real Taliban forces who killed the guy next to you, wounded the guy of the other side, maybe nicked you up too (Private Jack would receive two Purple Hearts from Afghan duty), of coming under attack by raw Afghan recruits who panicked when an ambush went awry, and of actually taking out a few bad guys (who in at least one case were working both sides, the Taliban who protected their poppy fields in exchange for tribute and the Americans for arms). Yeah all the confusions of war, all the modern confusions of wars with unsure aims and unlikely allies. Yeah, too the little acts of kindness when the unit brought in much needed water or other desperately needed materials and in return teaching American GIs how to ride a donkey, and how to celebrate various unknown holidays with feasting and dancing.

Yes, Private First Class Jack saw all that, saw the myriad faces of war in that tour of duty, in that year of living dangerously. Jack came back to the States with his belief in his mission, in his country’s mission to stamp out the virus of Islamic craziness (his term), in the civic virtues that had been produced in this country and by his family intact. Came back for some rest and recreation in the bosom of his family proud to have served and proud that his town recognized his efforts with “Welcome Home, Jack” signs all over the place. Then the other shoe of world politics, of international war strategy moved Afghanistan to the back-burner, made the place an afterthought, moved men and materials out for the new danger, and placed hard-boiled Iraq on the front-burner. And in the year 2004 if you were a grunt in the American Army then if you were not gainfully employed in those Afghan poppy field then your “young ass” was stepping off the tarmac in the outskirts of Baghdad, I-raq.  And so once again Jack left the States with his belief in his mission, in his country’s mission to stamp out the virus of Islamic craziness (his term), in the virtues that had been produced in by country and by his family intact.

And yet again there is no to go into all the gory details of war, of the Iraq. Of playing some James Jones from Here To Eternity  World War II civic pride and good old boys story. The wars come and go but the motifs stay. Once again Sergeant Jack had his fill of kicking all of the doors in of some isolated village looking for terrorists who allegedly supported the insurgents on the information of paid informants (they really should form and international union to peddle their wares to the gullible American paymasters who took too much stuff on good faith going back to Vietnam days as well), of yet again calling in American airpower to incinerate some off-hand village where a sniper’s fire might be pinning a platoon down, of yet again blowing some kid’s head off who had at the wrong moment popped his head up from the rocks (and don’t forget the yet again after the field was cleared and the gruesome body was discovered that child of about ten was listed as an “insurgent” KIA, in yet again shades of Vietnam time). Nor of the fire fights in the night with real insurgent forces who killed the guy next to you, wounded the guy of the other side, maybe nicked you up too (Sergeant Jack would receive a Bronze Star in Iraq), of coming under attack by raw Iraq recruits who panicked when an ambush went awry, and of actually taking out a few bad guys, guys who were selling arms to the insurgents provided by the American arms caches ripe for the taking guarded by raw Iraqi recruits. Yeah all the confusions of war, all the modern confusions of wars with unsure aims and unlikely allies. Yeah, too the little acts of kindness when the unit brought in much needed water or other desperately needed materials and in return teaching American GIs how to ride a camel, and how to celebrate various unknown holidays with feasting and dancing. And at the end of his tour Sergeant Jack yet  again came back to the States with his belief in his mission, in his country’s mission to stamp out the virus of Islamic craziness (his term), in the virtues that had been produced in by country and by his family intact. Came back with his mission accomplished and his sense of duty filled and so left the Army when his time was up despite many entreaties for him to stay in.

Then all hell broke loose. Some of details were sketchy as John Dawson related the details to me since he had not been in touch with his son for a couple of years at that point. The long and short of matter was that Jack Dawson suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSS) from his experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq. Part of the problem had to do with the two close deployments which when Jack told the in-take worker at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Bedford he dismissed out of hand. Told Jack that many guys had done multiple tours, no sweat, so suck it up and get back into the real world. Those comments had Jack flying out the door never to return.

Of course like a lot of military- related issues that I have seen over years (including my own war horrors drowned in cocaine and whatever else I could get my hands on at one point) the first signs of problems came when Jack started to drink heavily, drank heavily into dawn, drank during the day causing him to lose a job or two when his absenteeism became a problem for his team manager at the computer firm that had taken him on as a veteran as a favor to his father. Then came the drugs, at first a little marijuana to calm the nerves, then some cocaine and then the “graduate program” once heroin became the drug of choice and relatively inexpensive (strangely although Jack had like lots of working-class kids, and not just them, experimented with liquor in high school he had not smoked dope, even a puff, until after the Army although in any given barrack or tent you could find about twelve varieties for your smoking pleasure).  Then came the loss of menial jobs, the breaking up with his fiancé (a young woman whom he had met at Northeastern and who had waited for him despite several other tempting offers while he was overseas-no Dear John letters from her) who could not endure the slide downhill, bailed out, and subsequently married one of those tempting offers, and the first flirting with drug dealing to pay for the habit and keep body and soul together. That is when John Dawson started to lose contact with Jack as he travelled around, did “mule” work to feed his habit. Then something happened, some drug deal went south and Jack disappeared from view. As I pointed out earlier I had contacts with various veterans organizations (not the VFW or American Legion stuff but veterans self-help or political groups) and so John asked me to find Jack if I could.

Well eventually I did in an arroyo encampment down in Los Angeles which was essentially like the old hobo jungles that I frequented back in the 1970s when guys who couldn’t adjust after Vietnam set up an alternative life under the bridges, brothers under the bridges to steal a title from one of Bruce Springsteen’s songs (and which I used for several series I did on the “lost” brothers). He was in pretty tough circumstances and refused my help, said his help was a needle and a spoon and guys who had been there, seen what he had seen. I could    not tell John Dawson that about his son and so for a long time I did not tell him about his son’s fate out west. Said I was still looking and hoping (which in a funny way I was but I knew from my 1970s experiences that the odds were not with me.)

Although I was in contact with John periodically there was nothing further to report. Then back in 2011 when I was up in Maine for some conference I got a call from John on my cellphone. They had found Jack Dawson’s bruised and battered body along the railroad tracks near Westminster, California. Cause of death a heart attack or an overdose, take your pick. I told John it was probably a heart attack without the rider of the overdose. So yes while we are today commemorating the 13th long bloody year of the failed American expedition in Afghanistan (and apparently getting restarted in Iraq at some level if not yet “boots on the ground”) let’s remember Private Jack Dawson’s private war.          

As The 100th Anniversary Of The First Year Of World War I (Remember The War To End All Wars) Continues ... Some Remembrances-Poet’s Corner  

PRINCETON, MAY, 1917


_Here Freedom stood by slaughtered friend and foe,
And, ere the wrath paled or that sunset died,
Looked through the ages; then, with eyes aglow,
Laid them to wait that future, side by side._

(Lines for a monument to the American and British soldiers
of the Revolutionary War who fell on the Princeton
battlefield and were buried in one grave.)

Now lamp-lit gardens in the blue dusk shine
  Through dogwood, red and white;
And round the gray quadrangles, line by line,
  The windows fill with light,
Where Princeton calls to Magdalen, tower to tower,
  Twin lanthorns of the law;
And those cream-white magnolia boughs embower
  The halls of "Old Nassau."

The dark bronze tigers crouch on either side
  Where redcoats used to pass;
And round the bird-loved house where Mercer died,
  And violets dusk the grass,
By Stony Brook that ran so red of old,
  But sings of friendship now,
To feed the old enemy's harvest fifty-fold
  The green earth takes the plow.

Through this May night, if one great ghost should stray
  With deep remembering eyes,
Where that old meadow of battle smiles away
  Its blood-stained memories,
If Washington should walk, where friend and foe
  Sleep and forget the past,
Be sure his unquenched heart would leap to know
  Their souls are linked at last.

Be sure he waits, in shadowy buff and blue,
  Where those dim lilacs wave.
He bends his head to bless, as dreams come true,
  The promise of that grave;
Then, with a vaster hope than thought can scan,
  Touching his ancient sword,
Prays for that mightier realm of God in man:
  "Hasten thy kingdom, Lord.

"Land of our hope, land of the singing stars,
  Type of the world to be,
The vision of a world set free from wars
  Takes life, takes form from thee;
Where all the jarring nations of this earth,
  Beneath the all-blessing sun,
Bring the new music of mankind to birth,
  And make the whole world one."

And those old comrades rise around him there,
  Old foemen, side by side,
With eyes like stars upon the brave night air,
  And young as when they died,
To hear your bells, O beautiful Princeton towers,
  Ring for the world's release.
They see you piercing like gray swords through flowers,
  And smile, from souls at peace.

_Alfred Noyes_

As The 100th Anniversary Of The First Year Of World War I (Remember The War To End All Wars) Continues... Some Remembrances-The First Small Anti-War Cries- The Zimmerwald Manifesto      

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

The events leading up to World War I from the massive military armament of almost all the capitalist and imperialist parties in Europe and elsewhere in order to stake their claims to their unimpeded share of the world’s resources to the supposedly eternal pledges not honored by most of the Social-Democrats and other militant leftist formations representing the historic interest of the international working-class to stop those parties in their tracks at the approach of war were decisive for 20^th century history. Also decisive although shrouded in obscurity early in the war in exile was the soon to be towering figure of one Vladimir Lenin (a necessary nom de guerre in hell broth days of the Czar’s Okhrana ready to send one and all to the Siberian frosts and that moniker business not a bad idea in today’s NSA-driven frenzy to know all, to peep at all), leader of the small Russian Bolshevik Party ( a Social-Democratic Party in name anyway adhering to the Second International although not for long), architect of the theory of the “vanguard party” building off of many revolutionary experience in Russia and Europe in the 19^th century), and author of an important, important to the future communist world perspective, study on the tendencies of world imperialism, the ending of the age of progressive capitalism, and the hard fact that it was a drag on the possibilities of human progress and needed to be replaced by the establishment of the socialist order. But that is the wave of the future as the sinkhole trenches of Europe are already a death trap for the flower of the European youth.   

The ability to inflict industrial-sized slaughter and mayhem on a massive scale first portended toward the end of the American Civil War once the Northern industrial might tipped the scales their way almost could not be avoided in the early 20^th century once the armaments race got serious, and the technology seemed to grow exponentially with each new turn in the war machine. The land war, the war carried out by the “grunts,” by the “cannon fodder” of many nations was only the tip of the iceberg and probably except for the increased cannon-power and rapidity of the machine-guns would be carried out by the norms of the last war. However the race for naval supremacy, or the race to take a big kink out of British supremacy, went on unimpeded as Germany tried to break-out into the Atlantic world and even Japan, Jesus, Japan tried to gain a big hold in the Asia seas.

The deeply disturbing submarine warfare wreaking havoc on commerce on the seas, the use of armed aircraft and other such technological innovations of war only added to the frenzy. We can hundred years ahead, look back and see where talk of “stabs in the back” by the losers and ultimately an armistice rather than decisive victory on the blood-drenched fields of Europe would lead to more blood-letting but it was not clear, or nobody was talking about it much, or, better, doing much about calling a halt before they began among all those “civilized” nations who went into the abyss in July of 1914. Sadly the list of those who would not do anything, anything concrete, besides paper manifestos issued at international conferences, included the great bulk of the official European labor movement which in theory was committed to stopping the madness.

A few voices, voices like Karl Liebknecht (who against the party majority bloc voting scheme finally voted against the Kaiser’s war budget, went to the streets to get rousing anti-war speeches listened to in the workers’ districts, lost his parliamentary immunity and wound up honorably in the Kaiser’s  prisons) and Rosa Luxemburg ( the rose of the revolution also honorably prison bound) in Germany, Lenin and Trotsky in Russia (both exiled at the outbreak of war and just in time), some anti-war anarchists like Monette in France and here in America Big Bill Haywood (who eventually would controversially flee to Russia to avoid jail for his opposition to American entry into war) and the stalwart Eugene V. Debs (who also went to jail, “club fed” and ran for president in 1920 out of his jail cell),  were raised and one hundred years later those voices have a place of honor in this space.

Those voices, many of them in exile, or in the deportations centers, were being clamped down as well as the various imperialist governments began closing their doors to political refugees when they were committed to clapping down on their own anti-war citizens. As we have seen in our own times, most recently in America in the period before the “shock and awe” of the decimation of Iraq in 2002 and early 2003 the government, most governments, are able to build a war frenzy out of whole cloth. At those times, and in my lifetime the period after 9/11 when we tried in vain to stop the Afghan war in its tracks is illustrative, to be a vocal anti-warrior is a dicey business. A time to keep your head down a little, to speak softly and wait for the fever to subside and to be ready to begin the anti-war fight another day. So imagine in 1914 when every nationality in Europe felt its prerogatives threatened how the fevered masses, including the beguiled working-classes bred on peace talk without substance, would not listen to the calls against the slaughter. Yes, one hundred years later is not too long or too late to honor those ardent anti-war voices as the mass mobilizations began in the countdown to war, began four years of bloody trenches and death.                   

Over the next period as we continue the long night of the 100^th anniversary of the start of World War I and beyond I will under this headline post various documents, manifestos and cultural expressions from that time in order to give a sense of what the lead up to that war looked like, the struggle against its outbreak before, the forlorn struggle during and the massive struggles after it in order to create a newer world out of the shambles of the battlefields.     

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

International Socialist Conference at Zimmerwald

Manifesto

---

Source: The Bolsheviks and War, by Sam Marcy ;
Transcribed: by Andy Blunden.

---

Proletarians of Europe!

The war has lasted more than a year. Millions of corpses cover the battlefields. Millions of human beings have been crippled for the rest of their lives. Europe is like a gigantic human slaughterhouse. All civilization, created by the labor of many generations, is doomed to destruction. The most savage barbarism is today celebrating its triumph over all that hitherto constituted the pride of humanity.
Irrespective of the truth as to the direct responsibility for the outbreak of the war, one thing is certain. The war which has produced this chaos is the outcome of imperialism, of the attempt on the part of the capitalist classes of each nation, to foster their greed for profit by the exploitation of human labor and of the natural treasures of the entire globe.
Economically backward or politically weak nations are thereby subjugated by the Great Powers who, in this war, are seeking to remake the world map with blood and iron in accord with their exploiting interests. Thus entire nations and countries, like Belgium, Poland, the Balkan states, and Armenia are threatened with the fate of being torn asunder, annexed as a whole or in part as booty in the game of compensations.
In the course of the war, its driving forces are revealed in all their vileness. Shred after shred falls the veil with which the meaning of this world catastrophe was hidden from the consciousness of the peoples. The capitalists of all countries who are coining the red gold of war-profits out of the blood shed by the people, assert that the war is for defense of the fatherland, for democracy, and the liberation of oppressed nations! They lie. In actual reality, they are burying the freedom of their own people together with the independence of the other nations in the places of devastation.
New fetters, new chains, new burdens are arising, and it is the proletariat of all countries, of the victorious as well as of the conquered countries, that will have to bear them. Improvement in welfare was proclaimed at the outbreak of the war – want and privation, unemployment and high prices, undernourishment and epidemics are the actual results. The burdens of war will consume the best energies of the peoples for decades, endanger the achievements of social reform, and hinder every step forward. Cultural devastation, economic decline, political reaction these are the blessings of this horrible conflict of nations. Thus the war reveals the naked figure of modern capitalism which has become irreconcilable, not only with the interests of the laboring masses, not only with the requirements of historical development, but also with the elementary conditions of human intercourse.
The ruling powers of capitalist society who held the fate of the nations in their hands, the monarchic as well as the republican governments, the secret diplomacy, the mighty business organizations, the bourgeois parties, the capitalist press, the Church – all these bear the full weight of responsibility for this war which arose out of the social order fostering them and protected by them, and which is being waged for their interests.
Workers!
Exploited, disfranchised, scorned, they called you brothers and comrades at the outbreak of the war when you were to be led to the slaughter, to death. And now that militarism has crippled you, mutilated you, degraded and annihilated you, the rulers demand that you surrender your interests, your aims, your ideals – in a word, servile subordination to civil peace. They rob you of the possibility of expressing your views, your feelings, your pains; they prohibit you from raising your demands and defending them. The press gagged, political rights and liberties trod upon – this is the way the military dictatorship rules today with an iron hand.
This situation which threatens the entire future of Europe and of humanity cannot and must not be confronted by us any longer without action. The Socialist proletariat has waged a struggle against militarism for decades. With growing concern, its representatives at their national and international congresses occupied themselves with the ever more menacing danger of war growing out of imperialism. At Stuttgart, at Copenhagen, at Basel, the international Socialist congresses have indicated the course which the proletariat must follow.
Since the beginning of the war, Socialist parties and labor organizations of various countries that helped to determine this course have disregarded the obligations following from this. Their representatives have called upon the working class to give up the class struggle, the only possible and effective method of proletarian emancipation. They have granted credits to the ruling classes for waging the war; they have placed themselves at the disposal of the governments for the most diverse services; through their press and their messengers, they have tried to win the neutrals for the government policies of their countries; they have delivered up to their governments Socialist Ministers as hostages for the preservation of civil peace, and thereby they have assumed the responsibility before the working class, before its present and its future, for this war, for its aims and its methods. And just as the individual parties, so the highest of the appointed representative bodies of the Socialists of all countries, the International Socialist Bureau, has failed them.
These facts are equally responsible for the fact that the international working class which did not succumb to the national panic of the first war period, or which freed itself from it, has still, in the second year of the slaughter of peoples, found no ways and means of taking up an energetic struggle for peace simultaneously in all countries.
In this unbearable situation, we, the representatives of the Socialist parties, trade unions and their minorities, we Germans, French, Italians, Russians, Poles, Letts, Rumanians, Bulgarians, Swedes, Norwegians, Dutch, and Swiss, we who stand, not on the ground of national solidarity with the exploiting class, but on the ground of the international solidarity of the proletariat and of the class struggle, have assembled to retie the torn threads of international relations and to call upon the working class to recover itself and to fight for peace.
This struggle is the struggle for freedom, for the reconciliation of peoples, for Socialism. It is necessary to take up this struggle for peace, for a peace without annexations or war indemnities. Such a peace, however, is only possible if every thought of violating the rights and liberties of nations is condemned. Neither the occupation of entire countries nor of separate parts of countries must lead to their violent annexation. No annexation, whether open or concealed, and no forcible economic attachment made still more unbearable by political disfranchisement. The right of self-determination of nations must be the indestructible principle in the system of national relationships of peoples.
Proletarians!
Since the outbreak of the war, you have placed your energy, your courage, your endurance at the service of the ruling classes. Now you must stand up for your own cause, for the sacred aims of Socialism, for the emancipation of the oppressed nations as well as of the enslaved classes, by means of the irreconcilable proletarian class struggle.
It is the task and the duty of the Socialists of the belligerent countries to take up this struggle with full force; it is the task and the duty of the Socialists of the neutral states to support their brothers in this struggle against bloody barbarism with every effective means. Never in world history was there a more urgent, a more sublime task, the fulfillment of which should be our common labor. No sacrifice is too great, no burden too heavy in order to achieve this goal: peace among the peoples.
Working men and working women! Mothers and fathers! Widows and orphans! Wounded and crippled! We call to all of you who are suffering from the war and because of the war: Beyond all borders, beyond the reeking battlefields, beyond the devastated cities and villages –
Proletarians of all countries, unite!

Zimmerwald, September 1915.

In the name of the International Socialist Conference:

For the German delegation: Georg Ledebour, Adolf Hoffmann.
For the French delegation: A. Bourderon, A. Merrheim.
For the Italian delegation: G.E. Modigliani, Constantino Lazzari.
For the Russian delegation: N. Lenin, Paul Axelrod, M. Bobrov.
For the Polish delegation: St. Lapinski, A. Warski, Cz. Hanecki.
For the Inter-Balkan Socialist Federation: In the name of the Rumanian delegation: C. Rakovsky; In the name of the Bulgarian delegation: Wassil Kolarov.
For the Swedish and Norwegian delegation: Z. Hoglund, Ture Nerman.
For the Dutch delegation: H. Roland-Holst.
For the Swiss delegation: Robert Grimm, Charles Naine.

International Socialist Commission at Berne,
Bulletin No. 1, p. 2,
September 21, 1915.

Those Who Fought For Our Communist Future Are Kindred Spirits-James P. Cannon

 Click below to link to the James Cannon Internet Archives 

http://www.marxists.org/archive/cannon/works/

Peter Paul Markin comment (2008):

Every January, as readers of this blog are now, hopefully, familiar with the international communist movement honors the 3 Ls-Lenin, Luxemburg and Liebknecht, fallen leaders of the early 20th century communist movement who died in this month (and whose untimely deaths left a huge, irreplaceable gap in the international leadership of that time). January is thus a time for us to reflect on the roots of our movement and those who brought us along this far. In order to give a fuller measure of honor to our fallen forbears this January, and in future Januarys, this space will honor others who have contributed in some way to the struggle for our communist future. That future classless society, however, will be the true memorial to their sacrifices. This year we pay special honor to American Communist Party and American Trotskyist leader  James P. Cannon.

Note on inclusion: As in other series on this site (“Labor’s Untold Story”, “Leaders Of The Bolshevik Revolution”, etc.) this year’s honorees do not exhaust the list of every possible communist worthy of the name. Nor, in fact, is the list limited to Bolshevik-style communists. There will be names included from other traditions (like anarchism, social democracy, the Diggers, Levellers, Jacobins, etc.) whose efforts contributed to the international struggle. Also, as was true of previous series this year’s efforts are no more than an introduction to these heroes of the class struggle. Future years will see more detailed information on each entry, particularly about many of the lesser known figures. Better yet, the reader can pick up the ball and run with it if he or she has more knowledge about the particular exploits of some communist militant, or to include a missing one.

**********
BOOK REVIEW

SPEECHES FOR SOCIALISM- JAMES P. CANNON, PATHFINDER PRESS, NEW YORK, 1971

If you are interested in the history of the American Left or are a militant trying to understand some of the past lessons of our history concerning the socialist response to various social and labor questions this book is for you. This book is part of a continuing series of the writings of James P. Cannon that was published by the organization he founded, the Socialist Workers Party, in the 1970’s. Look in this space for other related reviews of this series of documents on and by an important American Communist.

In the introduction the editors motivate the purpose for the publication of the book by stating the Cannon was the finest Communist leader that America had ever produced. This an intriguing question. The editors trace their political lineage back to Cannon’s leadership of the early Communist Party and later after his expulsion to the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party so their perspective is obvious. What does the documentation provided here show? This certainly is the period of Cannon’s political maturation, especially after his long collaboration working with Trotsky. The period under discussion- from the 1920’s when he was a leader of the American Communist Party to the red-baiting years after World War II- started with his leadership of the fight against the degeneration of the Russian Revolution and then later against those who no longer wanted to defend the gains of the Russian Revolution despite the Stalinist degeneration of that revolution. Cannon won his spurs in those fights and in his struggle to orient those organizations toward a revolutionary path. One thing is sure- in his prime which includes this period- Cannon had the instincts to want to lead a revolution and had the evident capacity to do so. That he never had an opportunity to lead a revolution is his personal tragedy and ours as well.

This volume is a compendium of Cannon’s speeches over most of his active political life beginning with his leadership role in the early American Communist Party and his secondary role in the Communist International. Some of the selections are also available in other parts of the series mentioned above. I would also note here that in contrast to his "Notebook of an Agitator" (also reviewed in this space) the pieces here tend to be longer and based on more general socialist principles. The socialist movement has always emphasized two ways of getting its message out- propaganda and agitation. The selections here represent a more propagandistic approach to that message. Many of the presentations hold their own even today in 2006 as thoughtful expositions of the aims of socialism and how to struggle for it. I particularly draw the reader’s attention to "Sixty Years of American Radicalism" a speech given in 1959 in which Cannon draws a general overview of the ebbs and flows of the socialist movement from the turn of the 20th century until then. At that time Cannon also predicted a new radical upsurge which did occur shortly thereafter but unfortunately has long since ended.

Cannon’s speech correctly marks the great divide in the American socialist movement at World War I and the socialist response American participation in that war and subsequently to the Russian Revolution. Prior to that time socialist activity was a loose, federated affair driven by a more evolutionary approach to ultimate socialist success i.e. reformism. That trend was symbolized by the work of the great socialist leader, Eugene V. Debs. While that approach had many, ultimately, fatal flaws it did represent a solid attempt to draw a class struggle line for independent (from the capitalist parties) political action by the working class.

Drawing on those lessons the early Communist Party, basing itself on support of the Russian Revolution, became dominant on the American left by expanding on that concept. That is, until the mid-1930’s after it had already long been an agency under orders from Moscow in support, by one means or another, of the Rooseveltian Democratic Party, a capitalist party. That was fatal to long term prospects for independent working class political action and Cannon has harsh words for the party’s policy. He also noted that the next upsurge would have to right that policy by again demanding an independent political expression for the working class. Unfortunately, when that radical upsurge did occur in the 1960’s and early 1970’s the party that he formed, the Socialist Workers Party, essentially replicated in the anti-Vietnam War movement and elsewhere the Communist Party’s class collaborationist policy with the remnants of American liberalism. Obviously, as a man in his sixties Cannon was no longer able or willing to fight against that policy by the party that he had created. Thus, the third wave of radicalism also ebbed and the American Left declined. Nevertheless this speech is Cannon’s legacy to the youth today. A new upsurge, and it will come, must learn this lesson and fight tooth and nail for independent political expression for the working class to avoid another failure.