***Poet’s Corner- Langston Hughes- The Weary Blues

 

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

 

February is Black History Month

 

The Weary Blues

 

Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
I heard a Negro play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
He did a lazy sway ....
He did a lazy sway ....
To the tune o' those Weary Blues.
With his ebony hands on each ivory key
He made that poor piano moan with melody.
O Blues!
Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool
He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.
Sweet Blues!
Coming from a black man's soul.
O Blues!
In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone
I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan--
"Ain't got nobody in all this world,
Ain't got nobody but ma self.
I's gwine to quit ma frownin'
And put ma troubles on the shelf."

Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor.
He played a few chords then he sang some more--
"I got the Weary Blues
And I can't be satisfied.
Got the Weary Blues
And can't be satisfied--
I ain't happy no mo'
And I wish that I had died."
And far into the night he crooned that tune.
The stars went out and so did the moon.
The singer stopped playing and went to bed
While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.
He slept like a rock or a man that's dead.

Langston Hughes



…he, black as night, black as forbear Mother Africa could make him come to the slave ship new world all shackled but left alone by master and the overseer still hearing in some womb moment the siren call of some Africa left beat some ancient young prince putting metal to metal or string to string, big, big lungs, born of a thousand crying generations, crying since the fall the banishment of the high white note east of Eden, but only banishment for the fallen sin. He, some young son, hell, maybe grandson, of the president, no not that president, guys like him never mixed the search for the fallen high white note with politics, loose rhetoric, all manic, so much mechanic, the Prez, sainted Lester Young who howled behind the Duke, made Billie all smooth and sentimental without being sappy, yeah, so the lines were there, the bloodlines and the search for the fallen high white note that he heard the prez blow from some mother’s womb. He, showing some schooling like all the new guys do, do so they know what grandpas blew when they blew after hours when the real jam began after the staid white-breads took to their sullen beds thinking they heard the real thing before midnight cabs took them home .

He showed his stuff and stuff school stuff style maybe from Berkeley up in Boston where all the new cats learned to blow, learned to take those big lungs and riff them, learned about the high white note, learned about that sound going back to Mother Africa before the chains. He home now sat on a dead-ass bench on a lonely wind-blown winter corner of 125^th Street in high Harlem, Harlem with the ghosts of the Prez, Billie, the Duke, all the royalty just like he never spent day one in school, and blew, blew playful, put some passer-by money in the brother’s basket playful, stop and listen to that brother blast, sweet white notes this way and that on a big sexy sax, tenor sax for the aficionados, against the moving traffic blowing those notes back in his face. And he back to the honking noise, the hustle and the bustle started drawing a foot-sore crowd, a crowd hurrying by but stopped by the play between those big-lunged riffs and the cab cadence. Nice. 

 

He, on 125^th Street although truth be told he had never before worked those corners, Grandma said to stay away from the riff-raff reefer rats (her term, he, hell Berkeley-bound, knew those sweet smokes from about fifteen) even though he only lived over in the Bronx, evoking some big joyous immense faded tale remembrance when Duke, yes, that Duke, and all the jazz age cats, big and small, held forth nightly at the old Cotton Club where the Mayfair swells got their high-hats flattened, got their expensive illegal liquor chilled, and their high yella dream nights sated, were chasing that faded high white note, chasing it far into the street.

There on that street-wise corner he, the princeling anointed now paying his dues, his street-wise dues once some professor told him he needed to see if he could out-blow those Harlem cabs, remembered what his father, or maybe it was old grandfather told him about the night Johnny H., yes again, that Johnny blew the high white note, blew it to hell and back, and it never came back in his face, never. Yes, Johnny blew that big sexy sax, all dope high, sister, legal in those days, legal when Mister didn’t know he could make a dollar off of it, rather than let some iffy druggist sell it over the counter, maybe a little reefer to flatten the effect and then he blew, blew that big note on A Train, a high white note that trailed out the club door, headed down to the river, make that the East River for those not familiar with New Jack City, or high Harlem, and hit this guy, this lonely black guy, maybe just up from Mississippi goddam or red tide ‘Bama from his ragged attire and head down demeanor learned, hard-headed learned from Mister James Crow , who started grooving (maybe not using that word, maybe not even knowing that word, proving how raw he was, how new city) on that note, started to patter on that note-be-bop, be-bop, be-bop, be-bop (and this before Dizzy crowned boppy be-bop and Charlie swaggered that big sexy horn).

But that brother, that ebony night brother, just couldn’t quite get the hang of the thing, was wrapped up in some old time no electricity juke joint “blues ain’t nothing but a good woman on your mind,”  or “old Mister take your hand off me” delta fade-out.

So that Johnny deflated note floated down to the sea, out to some homeland Africa fate. And that down south brother never did get another chance to grab the high white note, and probably would have just faded away except he had a son, or was it a grandson, who knew how to be-bop beat that drowsy old delta gimme, knew how to curl it around his big lung sexy sax and blow that thing from the East River haunts all the way up to 125^thStreet, all the way up to faded Cotton Club Johnny dreams and endless Mayfair swells reeling out the door (with or without their high yellas) early in the harsh Harlem morning. He…




 

Free Chelsea Manning Now!

 

No Chelsea morning for hypocritical world leaders in Paris

BY 

MATTHEW BEHRENS

 | JANUARY 19, 2015

http://rabble.ca/columnists/2015/01/no-chelsea-morning-hypocritical-world-leaders-paris

When a former U.S. army private awoke in her jail cell just over a week ago -- some 17 months into a 35-year jail sentence -- she could have been forgiven for thinking, in the immediate aftermath of the terrible Paris magazine attacks, that the commutation of her punitive sentence for exercising freedom of speech and conscience was about to be placed on President Obama's desk. Obama, like many world leaders, had just issued stunning, passionate statements about freedom of the press, human dignity, and all the great things that make countries like Canada and the U.S. just so undeniably terrific.

For the now 26-year-old Chelsea (previously known as Bradley) Manning, though, it was not to be. She had had the audacity to challenge terrorism by exposing it, not in a manner that humiliated or denigrated her targets, but simply to inform the public, generate discussion, bolster democracy and hold accountable those who had committed atrocities. "If you had free reign over classified networks…and you saw incredible things, awful things...things that belonged in the public domain, and not on some server stored in a dark room in Washington DC...what would you do?" she had asked in an online chat room.

Her answer was simple: copy those documents and videos on a flash drive and share them with the world through Wikileaks. What she revealed threatened no one's national security, but certainly put the lie to the notion that wars of "freedom and liberation" being led by our great democracies were shams built on massive repression, indiscriminate bombing and torture. Most people outside of the "free world" knew this, usually from first-hand experience, but here were cold hard facts, government cables, and the shocking "collateral damage video" in which two Reuters journalists and nine other civilians are ruthlessly gunned down by laughing American soldiers.

But unlike the global reaction to the Charlie Hebdo attacks, Manning's picture (and most of her revelations) rarely appeared front and centre in newspapers around the world in a show of defiance against those brutal authorities that were punishing her for speaking out. Her case was not trumpeted by brave media and mass rallies of global citizens chanting "Je Suis Chelsea"; her revelations were not printed by the millions and funded by government (the French government spent over a million euros to print the post-attack issue of Charlie Hebdo, knowing that the front cover would be flipping the bird to many of its Muslim citizens); the symbol of the flash drive was not held aloft as the real way to defeat terrorism (as pencils were in the Hebdo case); self-righteous publishers and columnists were not saying "if you don't like her revelations, just don't look at them" (most preferred to either ignore them, treat them as isolated instances or make personal attacks against Manning).

Instead, Manning was hustled away for three and a half decades while those whose crimes she exposed (including Bush and Cheney) continued gloating about their decisions, even after the damning U.S. Senate report on torture, one whose revelations were quickly banished to the back pages after the Paris attacks. (Manning herself was subjected to over three years of pre-trial solitary confinement, often refused clothing, in conditions that the UN concluded constituted "cruel and inhumane" treatment.)

French government terrorism

Manning's plight is worthy of consideration in the wake of the Paris attacks, since it reminds us of a basic truism: when our side commits the terrorist acts, they aren't seen as terrorist, and are always justified (if they are even deemed worthy of justification) for reasons ranging from support of oppressed women to bringing democracy to foreign lands. But when somebody else does it against us (read the "free world" or the Eurocentric "West"), they are simply cruel, barbaric and evil. Neither can be justified or defended, whether it is the terrorist attack against the Charlie Hebdo offices and kosher Paris grocery or any number of a lengthy series of terrorist acts committed by the French government: the French terrorist bombing of a Greenpeace ship in New Zealand, the French government's criminal open-air testing of nuclear weapons in the South Pacific (knowing such actions were leading to the slow but sure genocidal destruction of the region's residents), or the 1961 Paris police massacre of over 200 demonstrators calling for peace in Algeria, after which over 11,000 demonstrators were detained in, among other locations, the same stadium where two decades earlier, Jews bound for Nazi extermination had been held.

Another truism that arises is that such attacks will inspire a barely contained sense of joy in the offices of intelligence agencies like CSIS, the RCMP and their brother agencies across the planet. In addition to blanket coverage that unquestionably parrots their opinions and press releases (and helps to deflect from their blood-stained reputations for complicity in torture), these agencies will see new legislation passed at home and abroad that further legalizes the dangerous practices in which they have long engaged, placing human rights in grave peril through increased surveillance, kidnapping, rendition to torture, drone strikes and other insidious tools of repression. In an Orwellian moment, the attacks on free expression will allow governments to suppress free expression with new laws resulting in more pre-emptive arrests for alleged thought crime.

We already see the results in Paris and throughout France, where tens of thousands of armed men patrol the streets and scores of individuals have been rounded up under suspicious circumstances. As the Globe and Mail's European correspondent Mark MacKinnon reported earlier this week, "dark-skinned" individuals who allegedly say something viewed as "uncomfortable" are brazenly nabbed in Paris cafes by heavily armed police. Journalists who try to cover such kidnappings are told to stop filming and leave the scene, "That is, if you're with us." The us-versus-them dynamic is clearly as evident here as it was post 9/11.

Then there was the swift sword of vengeance from French authorities, who quickly tried and convicted a drunk driver of "glorifying terrorism," for the uncomfortable, indelicate act of telling a police officer, while clearly under the influence of alcohol, that he allegedly agreed with the two brothers who spearheaded the Hebdo attack. He will be in jail for four years. Another individual received a one-year sentence for allegedly proclaiming, "I am proud to be a Muslim. I do not like Charlie. They were right to do that." While certainly problematic and insensitive, do such statements seriously deserve draconian punishment? No one in France, or anywhere else on Planet Earth, was subjected to such punishment for publicly celebrating and glorifying the assassination of Osama bin Laden, a clearly illegal act of terrorism, especially considering he was unarmed and could have been easily arrested, detained, and put on trial to face the allegations against him.

Scores in France have been arrested for "defending" terrorism. They have also been picked up for alleged hate speech and anti-Semitism. One can guess with a certain probability the colour and religion of those who have been nailed. Rarely discussed is the problematic, selective use of free speech celebrations. Given that the definition of anti-Semitism is now so broad that it includes any criticism of Israeli government policies, it is a perfect way to clamp down on any discussion of Palestinian rights, especially at a time when the Palestinians are being punished for seeking a war crimes inquiry at the International Criminal Court. Indeed, Canada has been clear that Palestinians will face "consequences" for even pursuing a rule-of-law solution.

A racist magazine

If the French were really concerned about hate speech and images, why are they officially subsidizing Charlie Hebdo? As Teju Cole writes in The New Yorker, asking if it is not possible to condemn the terrorist act without condoning the activities of the victims:

"in recent years the magazine has gone specifically for racist and Islamophobic provocations, and its numerous anti-Islam images have been inventively perverse, featuring hook-nosed Arabs, bullet-ridden Korans, variations on the theme of sodomy, and mockery of the victims of a massacre. It is not always easy to see the difference between a certain witty dissent from religion and a bullying racist agenda, but it is necessary to try. Even Voltaire, a hero to many who extol free speech, got it wrong. His sparkling and courageous anti-clericalism can be a joy to read, but he was also a committed anti-Semite, whose criticisms of Judaism were accompanied by calumnies about the innate character of Jews... Blacks have hardly had it easier in Charlie Hebdo: one of the magazine's cartoons depicts the Minister of Justice Christiane Taubira, who is of Guianese origin, as a monkey (naturally, the defence is that a violently racist image was being used to satirize racism); another portrays Obama with the black-Sambo imagery familiar from Jim Crow-era illustrations."

Meanwhile, as Reporters Without Borders, among others, pointed out, many of the world leaders who rushed to take part in what, in some respects, uncomfortably resembled a Nuremberg-like rally -- beware of mass gatherings organized with the support and participation of governments involved in war crimes -- are responsible for grave violations against freedom of the press in their home countries. To take our closest neighbour, for example, the U.S. under Obama has cracked down with more uses of the Espionage Act to silence and jail whistleblowers and journalists than all presidents of the last century combined. For talking about U.S. involvement in torture and other crimes, folks like James Risen of the New York Times are facing time in prison.

These prosecutions are part of a larger pattern that has physically targeted media which seek to expose U.S. atrocities. It is no secret that the U.S. has targeted Al Jazeera outlets in Iraq and Kabul for bombing, even though the network always informs militaries of its exact coordinates. Six weeks after the network wrote to U.S. military officials in 2003 to inform them of their Baghdad office location, a U.S. missile hit the Al Jazeera office, killing reporter Tareq Ayyoub. Former U.K. Home Secretary David Blunkett wrote in his 2006 memoir that he clearly advised Tony Blair to bomb Al Jazeera's Baghdad TV transmitter in 2003. At the same time, Fox News called on the Bush administration to "take out Al Jazeera," reminding viewers that, "To those who will decry this as censorship, they should be reminded of President Bush's injunction shortly after we were attacked two years ago: In the War on Terror, you are either with us or with the terrorists."

Assassinating Al Jazeera journalists

The assassination call emanating from Fox News was not simply wishful thinking. It was state policy. That strategy was confirmed in the infamous (though little discussed) Al Jazeera bombing memo, details of which had been published by the U.K.'s Daily Mirror. During the commission of U.S. war crimes in Fallujah in 2004, George W. Bush and U.K. PM Tony Blair apparently discussed the idea of bombing the Al Jazeera offices in Qatar in retaliation for their honest coverage of what had been taking place in Iraq. A memo relating to that discussion had been circulated but was ultimately quashed with the arrests of two U.K. men (one a Labour Party researcher, the other a civil servant), both eventually sentenced to three- and six-month jail terms for violating the Official Secrets Act, this following a completely secret trial. Meanwhile, the British government threatened most of the U.K. press with official sanction under the Official Secrets Act as well.

Reporters without Borders issued a statement at that time, declaring:

"We are also shocked by the British government's decision to ban the British press from publishing any information about the content of this memo, classified 'top secret.' Invoking the 1989 Official Secrets Act and threatening to take newspapers to court is disturbing in a country that is usually careful to respect press freedom."

Similarly, the British attempted to prosecute foreign office official Derek Pasquill for revealing information about the U.K. role in the rendition to torture program, but eventually dropped the case given the prosecutors' conclusion that "documents to be disclosed as part of legal proceedings would have undermined its case that the leaks were damaging" in the first place. The New Statesmen's editor concluded:

"This was a misguided and malicious prosecution, particularly given that a number of government ministers privately acknowledged from the outset that the information provided to us by Derek Pasquill had been in the public interest and was responsible in large part for changing government policy for the good in terms of extraordinary rendition and policy towards radical Islam [sic]."

The U.S. discussion about bombing Al Jazeera is part of that country's long tradition of seeking to squelch a free press by whatever means necessary. Recall that President Richard Nixon, who kept an up-to-date enemies list for neutralization, fretted about what he should do with critical columnist Jack Anderson, whose stories about Nixon's war crimes and illegal acts got under the impeached president's skin. A White House memo reported, "We examined all of the alternatives and very quickly came to the conclusion [that] the only way you're going to be able to stop him is to kill him."

Canada's new laws

Meantime, the Canadian government continues to provide all-out support for the Egyptian dictatorship, which has crushed any notion of press freedom, including the jailing for over one year of Canadian Al Jazeera correspondent Mohamed Fahmy. The Harper government has similarly supported post-coup regimes in countries like Honduras, where being a journalist can get you killed for questioning state abuses. Harper has also been less than willing to operate in the sunshine of transparency and freedom. In 2013, the Halifax-based Centre for Law and Democracy ranked Canada 55th out of 93 nations, behind Colombia and Mongolia, among others, with respect to government openness and respect for freedom of information.

It is in this fearsome environment where the act of speaking certain words and writing of uncomfortable truths is becoming increasingly risky (though certainly no less necessary). In this context, the Harper government, whose leader declared an "international jihadist movement" has "declared war on any country like ourselves that values freedom, openness and tolerance," is set to introduce even more repressive measures that mock those stated values. These include lowering even further the threshold to make preventive arrests, reducing personal privacy and easing the sharing of personal information with intelligence agencies (exactly the kind of thing that led to the torture of numerous Canadian citizens). Also on tap is having Canada's national police force -- one complicit in torture of Canadians abroad, harassment of and violence against female officers at home, and various other crimes -- lead a campaign against those who are angry about such injustices (i.e., those who have become "radicalized.")

Even before such legislation is on the books, growing numbers of young men are being picked up and charged with terrorism-related offences, three last week in Ottawa, for allegedly wanting to join the fighting in Syria. Details remain very sketchy, and it is likely the government will invoke "national security confidentiality" to prevent full disclosure of the case against them. The men have already been declared guilty by much of the media and unwelcome in certain communities as "radicalized" individuals.

In an eerie Kafkaesque moment, individuals under potential new laws against glorifying terrorism will likely face the prospect of secret trials for a very simple reason. If it becomes illegal to "glorify" terrorism (whatever that means, and however broadly that is defined), then receiving pubic disclosure of the case against you will become impossible, for said information will, if made public in court, violate the very law which brought you there in the first place.

The events of the past week also serve as useful arrows in the quivers of governments who need headline-stealing events they can point to as rationales for repression. Canadian officials in speeches and parliamentary presentations lovingly recall the convictions of individuals in the 2006 Brampton case every time they testify in favour of new restrictive laws (recall the one in which two government informers, paid between $400,000 and $1.5 million apiece, essentially entrapped a group of misguided men -- some with some pretty sick opinions -- into a bombing plot, resulting in numerous life sentences). Similarly, the French government, as it seeks Patriot Act-style legislation in the coming weeks, will also now have a fallback. In the words of Humphrey Bogart, they'll always have Paris.

Matthew Behrens is a freelance writer and social justice advocate who co-ordinates the Homes not Bombs non-violent direct action network. He has worked closely with the targets of Canadian and U.S. 'national security' profiling for many years.

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Wed, Jan 21, 2015 01:50 PM

Stop Fast Track Last night during the State of the Union address, President Obama defended his historic iniative to open up relationships with Cuba and promised to veto any new sanctions on Iran which might disrupt promising negotiations currently underway. Sadly, however, the President also defended failed policies in the endless war approach to Syria, Iraq, and Afganistan and the attempted bullying of Russia, and described his drone war as restrained. He proposed positive economic programs designed to create jobs, help the middle class, provide internet access and protect our environment from devastation.   Unfortunately, at the same time he asked Congress to give him Fast Track legislation, which would allow the passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and other free trade agreements with very limited debate and no possibility of amendment.  But Fast Track  would undermine all of the positives President Obama advanced -- devouring jobs, driving down middle class incomes, ending equal access to the internet, and allowing multinationals to devastate the environmant and march ahead with climate destruction.  Make sure your representative knows that you oppose the Fast Track to Job Loss. Fast Track would allow the President to sign the TPP before Congress has seen it, and then railroad the deal through Congress in only 90 days with limited debate and no amendments allowed. That is how NAFTA and the World Trade Organization got passed, and they led to decades of job loss and floods of unsafe imported food and products. Tell Senators Markey and Warren and your Representative not to abdicate their responsibilty to carefully review trade agreements! Unfortunately, President Obama made it clear in his State of the Union speech that he plans to side with Wall Street and team up with Speaker Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to try to get Fast Track for the TPP passed as soon as possible. Join the majority of House Democrats and over 550 labor, environmental, food safety, faith and consumer groups to  make sure that there will be no Fast Track in 2015!  Read a longer version of this article. Please make sure your representative will vote ‘No’ on Fast Track, or call 1-888-804-8311! When you are connected, say: Hi, my name is ______.  I am one of your constituents from _______ and I am strongly opposed to Fast Track. We elected you to ensure that public policies meet and protect our needs and priorities. We did NOT elect you to give away your constitutional right and responsibility to make sure that trade agreements do not threaten our jobs, our environment, our food safety, our access to medicines, and our democracy. If Fast Track passes, you will not be able to do the job you promised us you would do. Please make a public statement opposing Fast Track today. In solidarity, John Ratliff Massachusetts Peace Action Peace Economy Working Group Join Massachusetts Peace Action - or renew your membership in advance for 2015!   Dues are $40/year for an individual, $65 for a family, or $10 for student/unemployed/low income.  Members vote for leadership and endorsements, receive newsletters and discounts on event admissions.  Donate now and you will be a member in good standing through December 2015!  Your financial support makes this work possible! Massachusetts Peace Action, 11 Garden St., Cambridge, MA 02138 617-354-2169  • info@masspeaceaction.org • Follow us on Facebook or Twitter Click here to unsubscribe

Wed, Jan 21, 2015 01:50 PM

Stop Fast Track Last night during the State of the Union address, President Obama defended his historic iniative to open up relationships with Cuba and promised to veto any new sanctions on Iran which might disrupt promising negotiations currently underway. Sadly, however, the President also defended failed policies in the endless war approach to Syria, Iraq, and Afganistan and the attempted bullying of Russia, and described his drone war as restrained. He proposed positive economic programs designed to create jobs, help the middle class, provide internet access and protect our environment from devastation.   Unfortunately, at the same time he asked Congress to give him Fast Track legislation, which would allow the passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and other free trade agreements with very limited debate and no possibility of amendment.  But Fast Track  would undermine all of the positives President Obama advanced -- devouring jobs, driving down middle class incomes, ending equal access to the internet, and allowing multinationals to devastate the environmant and march ahead with climate destruction.  Make sure your representative knows that you oppose the Fast Track to Job Loss. Fast Track would allow the President to sign the TPP before Congress has seen it, and then railroad the deal through Congress in only 90 days with limited debate and no amendments allowed. That is how NAFTA and the World Trade Organization got passed, and they led to decades of job loss and floods of unsafe imported food and products. Tell Senators Markey and Warren and your Representative not to abdicate their responsibilty to carefully review trade agreements! Unfortunately, President Obama made it clear in his State of the Union speech that he plans to side with Wall Street and team up with Speaker Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to try to get Fast Track for the TPP passed as soon as possible. Join the majority of House Democrats and over 550 labor, environmental, food safety, faith and consumer groups to  make sure that there will be no Fast Track in 2015!  Read a longer version of this article. Please make sure your representative will vote ‘No’ on Fast Track, or call 1-888-804-8311! When you are connected, say: Hi, my name is ______.  I am one of your constituents from _______ and I am strongly opposed to Fast Track. We elected you to ensure that public policies meet and protect our needs and priorities. We did NOT elect you to give away your constitutional right and responsibility to make sure that trade agreements do not threaten our jobs, our environment, our food safety, our access to medicines, and our democracy. If Fast Track passes, you will not be able to do the job you promised us you would do. Please make a public statement opposing Fast Track today. In solidarity, John Ratliff Massachusetts Peace Action Peace Economy Working Group Join Massachusetts Peace Action - or renew your membership in advance for 2015!   Dues are $40/year for an individual, $65 for a family, or $10 for student/unemployed/low income.  Members vote for leadership and endorsements, receive newsletters and discounts on event admissions.  Donate now and you will be a member in good standing through December 2015!  Your financial support makes this work possible! Massachusetts Peace Action, 11 Garden St., Cambridge, MA 02138 617-354-2169  • info@masspeaceaction.org • Follow us on Facebook or Twitter Click here to unsubscribe

Fri, Jan 30, 2015 04:06 PM

TELL CONGRESS: Support Diplomacy with Iran, Cancel the Address by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lambasts Obama during his 2011 address to Congress While a negotiated settlement with Iran is hanging in the balance, war hawks in Congress are doing everything they can to undermine the negotiations by imposing more sanctions.  Their latest ploy is to invite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress on March 3 in opposition to President Obama’s diplomatic efforts and to push for measures that would scuttle on-going talks with Iran. Tell your Representative that this is no time to undermine diplomacy with Iran by calling the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121. Republican leaders have taken the unprecedented step of offering a platform for the Israeli leader to attack our President’s policies and sabotage efforts to reach an agreement with Iran.  Instead of letting diplomacy work, Netanyahu wants the U.S. to impose harsher sanctions on Iran.  The result would be the breakdown of current talks, with the loss of progress already made in limiting and closely monitoring Iran’s nuclear program. Call and ask your Congressional Representatives at (202) 224-3121 to oppose the invite to Benjamin Netanyahu. Members of Congress, the White House – and even prominent political figures in Israel -- have expressed outrage that the Netanyahu address was arranged by Republicans behind the back of the President and the Democratic leadership.  Representatives Keith Ellison (D-MN), Maxine Waters (D-CA), and Steve Cohen (D-TN) are organizing a letter to demand that House Speaker John Boehner rescind Netanyahu’s invitation.  They need your help to get as many Representatives as possible to sign the letter and defend US diplomacy with Iran. Please contact your Representative in the House at (202) 224-3121 to sign the Ellison-Waters-Cohen letter today – and ask your Members of Congress to oppose new sanctions legislation that would undermine diplomacy.   Yours for peace and diplomacy, Shelagh Foreman Program Director Massachusetts Peace Action Join Massachusetts Peace Action - or renew your membership today!   Dues are $40/year for an individual, $65 for a family, or $10 for student/unemployed/low income.  Members vote for leadership and endorsements, receive newsletters and discounts on event admissions.  Donate now and you will be a member in good standing through December 2015! Your financial support makes this work possible! Massachusetts Peace Action, 11 Garden St., Cambridge, MA 02138 617-354-2169  • info@masspeaceaction.org • Follow us on Facebook or Twitter Click here to unsubscribe

From #Un-Occupied Boston-This Is Class War-We Say No More-Defend Our Unions! - Defend The Working Class! Take The Offensive! - A Five Point Program For Discussion

LeonTrotsky -Lessons Of The Paris Commune-Listen Up

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. 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” so that 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.

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. Nobody said it was going to be easy.

Organize Wal-Mart- millions of workers, thousands of 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. 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 Wisconsins, 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 labor, organized labor, spent around 450 million dollars trying to elect Barack Obama and other Democrats (mainly). The results speak for themselves. For those bogus efforts the labor skates should have been sent packing long ago. The idea then was (and is, as we come up to the 2012 presidential election cycle) 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- the return of the Verizon workers to work after two weeks last summer (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 period 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, like in Wisconsin, as substitutes for class struggle

*End the endless wars!- As the so-called draw-down of American and Allied troops in Iraq reaches it final stages, the draw- down of non-mercenary forces anyway, we must recognize that we anti-warriors 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 and other proxy wars) continue we had better straighten out our anti-war, anti-imperialist front quickly if we are to have any effect on the troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops (And Mercenaries) From Afghanistan! Hands Off Pakistan!

U.S. Hands Off Iran! Hands Off Syria!- American (and world) imperialists are ratcheting 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, 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!- 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. The litmus test for every political candidate must be first opposition to the war budgets(let’s see, right now winding up 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.

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 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), 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 services have 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 now! 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.

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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!

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Markin comment October 1, 2011:

There is a lot of naive expressed about the nature of capitalism, capitalists, and the way to win in the class struggle by various participants in this occupation. Many also have attempted to make a virtue out of that naive, particularly around the issues of effective democratic organization and relationships with the police (they are not our friends, no way, when the deal goes down). However, their spirit is refreshing, they are acting out of good subjective anti-capitalist motives and, most importantly, even those of us who call themselves "reds" (communists), including this writer, started out from liberal premises as naive, if not more so, than those encountered at the occupation site. We can all learn something but in the meantime we must defend the "occupation" and the occupiers. More later as the occupation continues.
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Markin comment October 9, 2011:
Word comes, via National Public Radio (NPR), that Mayor Menino believes that the time to shut down the Occupy Boston site at Dewey Square is nearing. That despite the hard facts that there have been no problems, no trouble caused, and nothing but good-will on the part of the occupation forces. We must all tell, loudly tell, Mayor Menino- Hands Off The Occupy Boston Site! Hands Off The Occupiers!
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Markin comment October 11, 2011:

Around two o’clock in the morning Boston Police swooped in on a second occupation site established to handle the growing number of people who waned to camp out. The city, Mayor Menino, decided to draw the line at that second site. The Occupy Boston movement decided, after meeting in a democratic General Assembly, to defend the right to use that new space. As a result the police came and arrested about one hundred defenders. Today’s headline in this space says it all. Defend The Occupation Sites And The Occupiers! Drop All The Charges Against The Occupation Defenders!