Wednesday, November 12, 2014


From The New Brothers Under The Bridge Series-The Iraq And Afghan War Brothers- Brother Tomas Young’s Last Stand  

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman:

A while back, maybe a couple of years ago now, I did a retrospective series of sketches about guys, about war veterans, Vietnam War veterans that I had started in the late 1970s and did not get a chance to complete since the publication that I was writing them for out in California, the East Bay Eye, like a lot of alternative media operations folded up as the 1960s went into a deep ebb tide and the audience went back to the professions, academia, and bourgeois politics. Those sketches centered on some groups of returning veterans who could not cope with the “real” world after Vietnam and build themselves an alternate “community” mostly down in Southern California and who by life’s circumstances got called the “brothers under the bridge.” Let me reproduce my motivation in part for that series because now for different reasons I am finding out stories about guys from the recent Iraq and Afghan occupations that also can’t cope with the “real” world and are forming, well, I don’t know exactly what they are forming but I damn well know it feels a lot like “brothers under the bridge.”:

“In the first installment of this series of sketches [Brothers Under The Bridge] space provided courtesy of my old 1960s yellow brick road magical mystery tour merry prankster fellow traveler, Peter Paul Markin, I mentioned, in grabbing an old Bruce Springsteen CD compilation from 1998 to download into my iPod, that I had come across a song that stopped me in my tracks, Brothers Under The Bridge. I had not listened to or thought about that song for a long time but it brought back many memories from the late 1970s when I did a series of articles for the now defunct East Bay Eye (Frisco town, California East Bay, naturally) on the fate of some troubled Vietnam veterans who, for one reason or another, could not come to grips with “going back to the real world” and took, like those a Great Depression generation or two before them, to the “jungle”-the hobo, bum, tramp camps located along the abandoned railroad sidings, the ravines and crevices, and under the bridges of California, mainly down in Los Angeles, and created their own “society.”

The editor of the East Bay Eye, Owen Anderson, gave me that long ago assignment after I had done a smaller series for the paper on the treatment, the poor treatment, of Vietnam veterans by the Veterans Administration in San Francisco and in the course of that series had found out about this band of brothers roaming the countryside trying to do the best they could, but mainly trying to keep themselves in one piece. My qualifications for the assignment other than empathy for fellow veterans since I had been in the military, grudgingly, during the Vietnam War period although not in combat were based simply on the fact that back East I had been involved, along with several other radicals, in running an anti-war GI coffeehouse near Fort Devens in Massachusetts and another down near Fort Dix in New Jersey. During that period I had run into many soldiers of my 1960s generation who had clued me in on the psychic cost of the war so I had a running start.

After making connections with some Vietnam Veterans Against The War (VVAW) guys down in L.A. who I had worked with after my own military service was over knew where to point me I was on my way. I gathered many stories, published some of them in the Eye, and put the rest in my helter-skelter files. A while back, after having no success in retrieving the old Eye archives on the Internet, I went up into my attic and rummaged through what was left of those early files. I could find no newsprint articles that I had written but I did find a batch of notes, specifically notes from stories that I didn’t file because the Eye went under before I could round them into shape.

The ground rules of those long ago stories was that I would basically let the guy I was talking to give his spiel, spill what he wanted the world to hear, and I would write it up without too much editing (mainly for foul language). I, like with the others in this current series, have reconstructed this story as best I can although at this far remove it is hard to get the feel of the voice and how things were said.

Not every guy I interviewed, came across, swapped lies with, or just snatched some midnight phrase out of the air from was from hunger. Most were, yes, in one way or another but some had no real desire to advertise their own hunger but just wanted to get something off their chest about some lost buddy, or some event they had witnessed. I have presented enough of these sketches both back in the day and here to not make a generalization about what a guy might be hiding in the deep recesses of his mind.

Some wanted to give a blow by blow description of every firefight (and every hut torched) they were involved in, others wanted to blank out ‘Nam completely and talk of before or after times, or talk about the fate of some buddy, some ‘Nam buddy, who maybe made it back the “real world” but got catch up with stuff he couldn’t handle, or got caught up in some stuff himself that he couldn’t handle, couldn’t handle because his whole blessed life pointed the other way…”

Now, after having recently as a favor to an old high school classmate tried to find his son, Jack, who served in both Afghanistan and Iraq and upon discharge got caught up in some stuff he could not handle, another generation of soldiers needs to be heard, need their stories told. In the old series I noted that I liked to finish up these introductions by placing the sketches under a particular sign; no question Brother Tomas Young’s sign is the sign of the last stand.

Unfortunately today this is all I have to be able to pass on. Tomas Young Presente!

Tomas Young, Iraq War Veteran And Activist, Dies At 34




A vocal critic of the Iraq war and the Bush administration has died. In 2004, Army veteran Tomas Young deployed to Baghdad, where a bullet left him paralyzed. Young passed away at his home in Seattle.
 
Copyright © 2014 NPR. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Now let's remember an American veteran, Tomas Young, paralyzed in the Iraq War, who became a critic of that war. He died in Seattle, as NPR's Quil Lawrence reports.

QUIL LAWRENCE, BYLINE: Tomas Young joined the Army after seeing President George W. Bush speak at Ground Zero after the 9/11 attacks.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "BODY OF WAR")

TOMAS YOUNG: And I wanted to go to Afghanistan and get the people that did this to us. But after I joined the Army, it became clearer and clearer to me that we weren't going to go to Afghanistan, that we were going to go to Iraq.

LAWRENCE: That's Young in the documentary, "Body Of War." The film tells how Young came home in a wheelchair. He began speaking against the war because Iraq had no connection to 9/11. His health declined. A blood clot left him quadriplegic, racked with pain and almost unable to speak. Young said last year he could no longer bear to watch the film.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

YOUNG: I'm glad that it came out and people saw the reality of war. But now I can't even watch it because it serves as a reminder of what I used to be able to do.

LAWRENCE: Contemplating suicide, Young wrote a letter to Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney labeled, a message from a dying vet. But last December, Young told NPR he'd changed his mind. He wanted to spend a little more time with his wife. She says he died in his sleep sometime Monday morning. Quil Lawrence, NPR News.
 
Copyright © 2014 NPR. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to NPR. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.

November 4th is not the end of 15 Now in Boston or New England. We are continuing to fight for working people to receive a real living wage of $15 with new, exciting campaigns in the new year! Get in touch to get involved.
CONTACT
15NowNewEngland@gmail.com

Like us on Facebook 

Follow us on Twitter
More Minimum Wage Victories:
San Francisco, CA
Proposition J brings $15 an hour to the city!

Oakland, CA
Proposition FF increases city minimum wage to $12.25

17 Other States have now seen overwhelming support to increase their minimum wages

WE ARE WINNING

FORWARD TO 15 IN ALL 50

WE DID IT!
 10th Suffolk Votes for $15 an Hour!


On Tuesday, the 10th Suffolk District of Massachusetts made history by voting yes on Question 5 - the advisory question supporting a $15 an hour minimum wage! By an overwhelming majority of 63% working people in West Roxbury, portions of Roslindale and Brookline said 'yes' to a city in which we all can afford to live.

State Representative Ed Coppinger of the 10th Suffolk District will now be held to account on where he stands on the issue of true living wage. Will he listen to the voice of working people in Greater Boston or will he support poverty wages?

Question 5 demonstrates that when we organize in our communities, we can win support from our friends and neighbors in the fight for a better Boston. However, we need you to get involved!

15 Now New England will be continuing the fight in the New Year, building upon the success of the referendum. We need more resources - donations to fund materials and organizers, endorsements from unions and community organizations, and most importantly, involvement from activists like yourself to turn this success into an even bigger victory in the fight back against the corporate attacks on our living standards.

Please donate to 15 Now today or contact us to get involved! 

Chelsea Manning featured in performance piece TRUTH

November 7, 2014 by the Chelsea Manning Support Network
A small section of Unfinished Portrait: A 12 x 12 inch panel with passport-size painted portraits of fallen American soldiers. Each panel has 120 faces. Click to see more of Unfinished Portrait.
Chelsea Manning will be represented in the performance art presentation, TRUTH, Tuesday, November 11th, 2014 in Salina, KS. TRUTH is part of a collaboration with Unfinished Portrait, an exhibit that brings audiences face-to-face with the US-led invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan by presenting images of those that have died as a direct result of the conflicts. Sarah Crews and Priti Gulati Cox of CODEPink take on the performance aspects of the piece.
From Unfinished Portrait and CODEPink on TRUTH:
TRUTH, puts emphasis on the costs of war and the predicament of Chelsea Manning.  Chelsea has become the poster child of truth in this country, at least in the eyes of those that are willing to acknowledge it. But her treatment is not separate from the truth that is actually available for people to access but choose not to.  One supposedly broke the law, while the other didn’t.  And they’re both hidden.
Performance Information:
Where: The Gallery, Sams Hall of Fine Arts – 100 E. Claflin Ave, Salina, KS 67401
When: Tuesday, November 11th, 12:00 PM
Guests are encouraged to bring a brown bag lunch if desired. Snacks and drinks will be provided.

50+ celebrities support Chelsea, whistleblowers in statement

November 10, 2014 by the Chelsea Manning Support Network
In a statement released on Monday, November 10th 2014, 50+ celebrities and public icons have come forward in support of Chelsea Manning, Wikileaks, Snowden, and whistleblowers. The statement reads:
We stand in support of those fearless whistleblowers and publishers who risk their lives and careers to stand up for truth and justice. Thanks to the courage of sources like Daniel Ellsberg, Chelsea Manning, Jeremy Hammond, and Edward Snowden, the public can finally see for themselves the war crimes, corruption, mass surveillance, and abuses of power of the U.S. government and other governments around the world. WikiLeaks is essential for its fearless dedication in defending these sources and publishing their truths. These bold and courageous acts spark accountability, can transform governments, and ultimately make the world a better place.
The statement has been signed by artists such as Susan Sarandon, MIA, Vivenne Westwood, Peter Sarsgaard, Russell Brand, Tom Morello and Viggo Mortensen.
Tom Morello on his support of whistleblowers:
Those courageous enough to expose the crimes of government and unmask corruption embody the spirit of democracy and justice. Rather than being celebrated as the truth-tellers and champions of accountability that they are, they are persecuted and find themselves the target of a draconian legal system that punishes them for the act of exposing crimes.
Viggo Mortenson:
As Albert Camus once put it, governments, by definition, do not have consciences; they have policies and nothing more. Therefore, it is up to all of us as free-thinking citizens to demand truly transparent democracy and high, unbiased moral standards from those who govern us.
The statement was released by the Courage Foundation, who run and accept donations for the official defense fund for Edward Snowden.  To view the full list of celebrity donors and to learn more about the Courage Foundation click here.

The Chelsea Manning Support Network has covered 100% of Chelsea’s legal fees.

Please contribute to help us fund Chelsea’s legal appeals today!

 

Free Chelsea Manning 

 

NYT calls out DoD on missing Medical care for Manning

November 11, 2014 by the Chelsea Manning Support Network
On November 8th, the New York Times editorial board published a powerful editorial supporting Chelsea Manning’s request for gender-related health care and tearing down the Army for their continued failure to do so. Although Manning has made repeated requests for care since the first day of her sentence, the NYT times notes that, “Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and other officials continue to deny medically necessary care to Chelsea Manning”.
The NYT times adds that, “Civilian jails and prisons around the country are figuring out ways to meet the particular needs of transgender inmates. Surely, Mr. Hagel, who oversees the far more complicated logistics of war, can figure it out, too.”
NYTlogo

Private Manning’s Missing Medical Care

By the New York Times Editorial Board, Nov. 8 2014
As a matter of constitutional rights and basic decency, prisoners — including military prisoners — are entitled to proper care for their serious medical conditions. Yet, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and other officials continue to deny medically necessary care to Chelsea Manning, the military prisoner formerly known as Pfc. Bradley Manning, who was convicted in August 2013 of leaking a vast cache of classified government documents.
Her ill-treatment is no minor lapse. On the day after her sentencing to a 35-year prison term, Private Manning publicly declared herself a transgender woman, along with her wish to begin hormone therapy “as soon as possible.” Clinical evaluations since have confirmed the need for care that includes hormone treatment, psychotherapy with someone qualified to treat gender dysphoria, and access to grooming standards for female prisoners — allowing her to grow longer hair, for example, to express her gender identity. A failure to follow this standard protocol for people with Private Manning’s medical condition can have a dire impact — creating a growing risk of serious depression, self-mutilation and suicide.
The military’s backward policy against providing hormone therapy or sexual reassignment surgery has left Private Manning, who is incarcerated at the military prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kan., without essential treatment for well over a year now. Repeated requests for treatment have been denied or totally ignored.
In September, Private Manning filed a federal lawsuit seeking to compel the missing medical treatment. The complaint filed on her behalf by lawyers with the American Civil Liberties Union and her court-martial attorney, David Coombs, asserted that the withheld medical care amounts to a violation of her constitutionally protected rights.
The government’s reply brief is not due until Nov. 20 and a spokesman for the Justice Department, which is representing the Defense Department in the case, would not say whether the government will fight the suit or finally arrange to provide the withheld treatment. Continuing to deny it would be legally and morally wrong, and several federal appellate courts have found failures by states to meet the specialized needs of transgender prisoners to violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
Transgender inmates are especially vulnerable to sexual assaults and special care must be taken to ensure their safety with accommodations like private showering, but without imposing an excessively isolated prison environment. Anger over Private Manning’s offense may add to safety worries. And it may be that the all-male prison at Fort Leavenworth is not the right institution for her. Civilian jails and prisons around the country are figuring out ways to meet the particular needs of transgender inmates. Surely, Mr. Hagel, who oversees the far more complicated logistics of war, can figure it out, too.

Help us provide support to Chelsea in prison, maximize her voice in the media, continue public education and build a powerful movement for presidential pardon.

Please donate today!

Frontline Defenders Of The Working Class!-Bob Marley’s “Get Up, Stand Up!”

 


An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The International Working Class Everywhere!
********
Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
********
A Five-Point Program As Talking Points

*Jobs For All Now!-“30 For 40”- A historic demand of the labor movement going back to the 1930s Great Depression the last time that unemployment, under-employment, and those who have just plain quit looking for work was this high in the American labor force, although it is admittedly down from the Great Recession highs. Thirty hours work for forty hours pay is a formula to spread the available work around. This is no mere propaganda point but shows the way forward toward a more equitable distribution of available work.

The basic scheme, as was the case with the early days of the longshoremen’s and maritime unions, is that the work would be divided up through local representative workers’ councils that would act, in one of its capacities, as a giant hiring hall where the jobs would be parceled out. This would be a simpler task now than when it was when first proposed in the 1930s with the vast increase in modern technology that could fairly accurately, via computers, target jobs that need filling and equitably divide up current work.
Without the key capitalist necessity of keeping up the rate of profit the social surplus created by that work could be used to redistribute the available work at the same agreed upon rate rather than go into the capitalists’ pockets. The only catch, a big catch one must admit, is that no capitalist, and no capitalist system, is going to do any such thing as to implement “30 for 40” –with the no reduction in pay proviso, although many low –end employers are even now under the “cover” of the flawed Obamacare reducing hours WITH loss of pay-so that to establish this work system as a norm it will, in the end, be necessary to fight for and win a workers government to implement this demand.

Organize the unorganized is a demand that cries out for solution today now that the organized sectors of the labor movement, both public and private, in America are at historic lows, just over ten percent of the workforce. Part of the task is to reorganize some of the old industries like the automobile industry, now mainly unorganized as new plants come on line and others are abandoned, which used to provide a massive amount of decent jobs with decent benefits but which now have fallen to globalization and the “race to the bottom” bad times. The other sector that desperately need to be organized is to ratchet up the efforts to organize the service industries, hospitals, hotels, hi-tech, restaurants and the like, that have become a dominant aspect of the American economy. Support the recent militant efforts, including the old tactic of civil disobedience, by service unions and groups of fast-food workers to increase the minimum socially acceptable wage in their Fight For 15.
Organize the South-this low wage area, this consciously low-wage area, where many industries land before heading off-shore to even lower wage places cries out for organizing, especially among black and Hispanic workers who form the bulk of this industrial workforce. A corollary to organizing the South is obviously to organize internationally to keep the “race to the bottom” from continually occurring short of being resolved in favor of an international commonwealth of workers’ governments. Hey, nobody said it was going to be easy.

Organize Wal-Mart- millions of workers, thousands of company-owned trucks, hundreds of distribution centers. A victory here would be the springboard to a revitalized organized labor movement just as auto and steel lead the industrial union movements of the 1930s. The key here is to organize the truckers and distribution workers the place where the whole thing comes together. We have seen mostly unsuccessful organizing of retail stores. To give an idea of how hard this task might be though someone once argued that it would be easier to organize a workers’ revolution that organize this giant. Well, that’s a thought.

Defend the right of public and private workers to unionize. Simple-No more defeats like in Wisconsin in 2011, no more attacks on collective bargaining the hallmark of a union contract. No reliance on labor boards, arbitration, courts or bourgeois recall elections either. Unions must keep their independent from government interference. Period.

* Defend the independence of the working classes! No union dues for Democratic (or the stray Republican) candidates. In 2008 and 2012 labor, organized labor, spent over 450 million dollars respectively trying to elect Barack Obama and other Democrats (mainly). The “no show, no go” results speak for themselves as the gap between the rich and poor has risen even more in this period. For those bogus efforts the labor skates should have been sent packing long ago. The idea in those elections was that the Democrats (mainly) were “friends of labor.” The past period of cuts-backs, cut-in-the-back give backs should put paid to that notion. Although anyone who is politically savvy at all knows that is not true, not true for the labor skates at the top of the movement.

The hard reality is that the labor skates, not used to any form of class struggle or any kind of struggle, know no other way than class-collaboration, arbitration, courts, and every other way to avoid the appearance of strife, strife in defense of the bosses’ profits. The most egregious recent example that I can recall- the return of the Verizon workers to work after two weeks in the summer of 2011 when they had the company on the run and the subsequent announcement by the company of record profits. That sellout strategy may have worked for the bureaucrats, or rather their “fathers” for a time back in the 1950s “golden age” of labor, but now we are in a very hard and open class war. The rank and file must demand an end to using their precious dues payments for bourgeois candidates all of whom have turned out to be sworn enemies of labor from Obama on down.
This does not mean not using union dues for political purposes though. On the contrary we need to use them now more than ever in the class battles ahead. Spent the dough on organizing the unorganized, organizing the South, organizing Wal-Mart, and other pro-labor causes. Think, for example, of the dough spent on the successful November, 2011 anti-union recall referendum in Ohio. That type of activity is where labor’s money and other resources should go. And not on recall elections against individual reactionaries, like in Wisconsin, as substitutes for class struggle (and which was overwhelmingly unsuccessful to boot-while the number of unionized public workers has dwindled to a precious few).  
*End the endless wars!- As the so-called draw-down of American and Allied troops in Iraq reached its final stages back in 2011, the draw- down of non-mercenary forces anyway, I argued that we must recognize that we anti-warriors had failed, and failed rather spectacularly, to affect that withdrawal after a promising start to our opposition in late 2002 and early 2003 (and a little in 2006).As the endless American-led wars (even if behind the scenes, as in Libya, Yemen, Somalia, and other proxy wars) continue now with a new stage against ISIS (Islamic State) in Iraq we had better straighten out our anti-war, anti-imperialist front quickly if we are to have any effect on the U.S. troop escalation we know is coming before that fight is over. Not Another War In Iraq! No Intervention In Syria! Stop The Arms Shipments To The Middle East! Stop The Bombing Campaign! Defend The Palestinian People-End The Blockade of Gaza. And as always since 2001 Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops (And Mercenaries) From Afghanistan!  
U.S. Hands Off Iran! Hands Off Syria!- American (and world) imperialists have periodically ratcheted up their propaganda war (right now) and increased economic sanctions that are a prelude to war well before the dust has settled on the now unsettled situation in Iraq and well before they have even sniffed at an Afghan withdrawal of any import. We will hold our noses, as we did with the Saddam leadership in Iraq and on other occasions, and call for the defense of Iran against the American imperial monster. A victory for the Americans (and their junior partner on this issue, Israel) in Iran is not in the interests of the international working class. Especially here in the “belly of the beast” we are duty-bound to call not just for non-intervention but for defense of Iran. We will, believe me we will, deal with the mullahs, the Revolutionary Guards, and the Islamic fundamentalist in Iran in our own way in our own time.

U.S. Hands Off The World! And Keep Them Off!- With the number of “hot spots” that the American imperialists, or one or another of their junior allies, have their hands on in this wicked old world this generic slogan would seem to fill the bill.
Down With The War Budget! Not One Penny, Not One Person For The Wars! Honor World War I German Social-Democratic Party MP, Karl Liebknecht, who did just that in 1915 in the heat of war and paid the price unlike other party leaders who were pledged to stop the war budgets by going to prison. The only play for an honest representative of the working class under those conditions. The litmus test for every political candidate must be first opposition to the war budgets (let’s see, right now no new funding in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran preparations, China preparations, etc. you get my drift). Then that big leap. The whole damn imperialist military budget. Again, no one said it would be simple. Revolution may be easier that depriving the imperialists of their military money. Well….okay.

*Fight for a social agenda for working people! Free Quality Healthcare For All! This would be a no-brainer in any rationally based society. The health and welfare of any society’s citizenry is the simple glue that holds that society together. It is no accident that one of the prime concerns of workers states like Cuba, whatever their other political problems, has been to place health care and education front and center and to provide to the best of their capacity for free, quality healthcare and education for all. Even the hide-bound social-democratic-run capitalist governments of Europe have, until recently anyway, placed the “welfare state” protections central to their programs. Be clear Obamacare is not our program and has been shown to be totally inadequate and wasteful however we will defend that program against those who wish to dismantle it and leave millions once again uninsured and denied basic health benefits.  
Free, quality higher education for all! Nationalize the colleges and universities under student-teacher-campus worker control! One Hundred, Two Hundred, Many Harvards!
 
This would again be a no-brainer in any rationally based society. The struggle to increase the educational level of a society’s citizenry is another part of the simple glue that holds that society together. Today higher education is being placed out of reach for many working-class and minority families. Hell, it is getting tough for the middle-class as well.
Moreover the whole higher educational system is increasing skewed toward those who have better formal preparation and family lives leaving many deserving students from broken homes and minority homes in the wilderness. Take the resources of the private institutions and spread them around, throw in hundreds of billions from the government (take from the military budget and the bank bail-out money if you want to find the money quickly to do the job right), get rid of the top heavy and useless college administration apparatuses, mix it up, and let students, teachers, and campus workers run the thing through councils on a democratic basis.
Forgive student debt! The latest reports indicate that college student debt is something like a trillion dollars, give or take a few billion but who is counting. The price of tuition and expenses has gone up dramatically while low-cost aid has not kept pace. What has happened is that the future highly educated workforce that a modern society, and certainly a socialist society, desperately needs is going to be cast in some form of indentured servitude to the banks or other lending agencies for much of their young working lives. Let the banks take a “hit” for a change!
Stop housing foreclosures and aid underwater mortgages now! Although the worst of the crunch has abated there are still plenty of problems and so this demand is still timely if not desperately timely like in the recent past. Hey, everybody, everywhere in the world not just in America should have a safe, clean roof over their heads. Hell, even a single family home that is part of the “American dream,” if that is what they want. We didn’t make the housing crisis in America (or elsewhere, like in Ireland, where the bubble has also burst). The banks did. Their predatory lending practices and slip-shot application processes were out of control. Let them take the “hit” here as well.
*We created the wealth, let’s take it back. Karl Marx was right way back in the 19th century on his labor theory of value, the workers do produce the social surplus appropriated by the capitalists. Capitalism tends to beat down, beat down hard in all kinds of ways the mass of society for the benefit of the few. Most importantly capitalism, a system that at one time was historically progressive in the fight against feudalism and other ancient forms of production, has turned into its opposite and now is a fetter on production. The current multiple crises spawned by this system show there is no way forward, except that unless we push them out, push them out fast, they will muddle through, again.
Take the struggle for our daily bread off the historic agenda. Socialism is the only serious answer to the human crisis we face economically, socially, culturally and politically. This socialist system is the only one calculated to take one of the great tragedies of life, the struggle for daily survival in a world that we did not create, and replace it with more co-operative human endeavors.
Build a workers’ party that fights for a workers government to unite all the oppressed. None of the nice things mentioned above can be accomplished without as serious struggle for political power. We need to struggle for an independent working-class-centered political party that we can call our own and where our leaders act as “tribunes of the people” not hacks. The creation of that workers party, however, will get us nowhere unless it fights for a workers government to begin the transition to the next level of human progress on a world-wide scale.
As Isaac Deutscher said in his speech “On Socialist Man” (1966):
“We do not maintain that socialism is going to solve all predicaments of the human race. We are struggling in the first instance with the predicaments that are of man’s making and that man can resolve. May I remind you that Trotsky, for instance, speaks of three basic tragedies—hunger, sex and death—besetting man. Hunger is the enemy that Marxism and the modern labour movement have taken on.... Yes, socialist man will still be pursued by sex and death; but we are convinced that he will be better equipped than we are to cope even with these.” 
Emblazon on our red banner-Labor and the oppressed must rule!
********
Bob Marley Get Up, Stand Up Lyrics
 
 
Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!

 
 
 


 
Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: don't give up the fight!
Preacher man, don't tell me,
Heaven is under the earth.
I know you don't know
What life is really worth.
It's not all that glitters is gold;
'Alf the story has never been told:
So now you see the light, eh!
Stand up for your rights. come on!
Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: don't give up the fight!
Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: don't give up the fight!

Most people think, Great god will come from the skies,
Take away everything
And make everybody feel high.
But if you know what life is worth,
You will look for yours on earth:
And now you see the light,
You stand up for your rights. jah!
Get up, stand up! (jah, jah! )
Stand up for your rights! (oh-hoo! )
Get up, stand up! (get up, stand up! )
Don't give up the fight! (life is your right! )
Get up, stand up! (so we can't give up the fight! )
Stand up for your rights! (lord, lord! )
Get up, stand up! (keep on struggling on! )
Don't give up the fight! (yeah! )
We sick an' tired of-a your ism-skism game -
Dyin' 'n' goin' to heaven in-a Jesus' name, lord.
We know when we understand:
Almighty god is a living man.
You can fool some people sometimes,
But you can't fool all the people all the time.
So now we see the light (what you gonna do?),
We gonna stand up for our rights! (yeah, yeah, yeah! )
So you better: Get up, stand up! (in the morning! git it up! )
Stand up for your rights! (stand up for our rights! )
Get up, stand up!
Don't give up the fight! (don't give it up, don't give it up! )
Get up, stand up! (get up, stand up! )
Stand up for your rights! (get up, stand up! )
Get up, stand up! (... )
Don't give up the fight! (get up, stand up! )
*************
We Don’t Want Your Ism-Skism Thing- Dreadlocks Delight- “One Love: The Very Best of Bob Marley And The Wailers”- A CD Review

One Love: The Very Best of Bob Marley And The Wailers, Bob Marley And The Wailers, UTV Records, 2001
Admit it, back in the late seventies and early eighties we all had our reggae minute, at least a minute anyway. And the center of that minute, almost of necessity, had to be a run-in with the world of Bob Marley and the Wailers, probably I Shot The Sheriff.Some of us stuck with that music and moved on to its step-child be-bop, hip-hop when that moved on the scene. Others like me just took it as a world music cultural moment and put the records (you know records, those black vinyl things, right?) away after a while. And that was that.

Well not quite. Of late the Occupy movement, the people risen, has done a very funny musical thing, at least funny to my ears when I heard it. They, along with the old labor song, Solidarity Forever, and, of course Brother Woody Guthrie’s This Land Is Your Land , have resurrected Bob Marley’s up-from-under fight song, Get Up, Stand Up to fortify the sisters and brothers against the American imperial monster beating down on all of us and most directly under the police baton and tear gas canister. And that seems, somehow, eminently right. More germane here it has gotten me to dust off those old records and give Brother Marley another hear. And you should too if you have been remiss of late with such great songs as (aside from those mentioned already) No Woman, No Cry, Jamming, One Love/People Get Ready (ya, the old Chambers Brother tune), and Buffalo Soldier. And stand up and fight too.