Thursday, May 14, 2015

Free Chelsea Manning - President Obama Pardon Chelsea Manning Now!

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Amnesty renews call on US govt to free Manning
                                                       

Join us in urging President Obama to Pardon Chelsea Manning!


July 30, 2014 by the Chelsea Manning Support Network

One year after Chelsea Manning’s conviction, Amnesty International is still calling on the US government to grant her clemency.  Amnesty demands that Chelsea be freed immediately, and for the US government to, “implement a thorough and impartial investigation into the crimes she uncovered.”  Read the full statement from Amnesty International below or click here to view it on amnesty.org:
Exactly one year after Chelsea Manning was convicted of leaking classified government material, Amnesty International is renewing its call on the US authorities to grant her clemency, release her immediately, and to urgently investigate the potential human rights violations exposed by the leaks.

Chelsea Manning has spent the last year as a convicted criminal after exposing information which included evidence of potential human rights violations and breaches of international law. By disseminating classified information via Wikileaks she revealed to the world abuses perpetrated by the US army, military contractors and Iraqi and Afghan troops operating alongside US forces.

“It is an absolute outrage that Chelsea Manning is currently languishing behind bars whilst those she helped to expose, who are potentially guilty of human rights violations, enjoy impunity,” said Erika Guevara Rosas, Americas Director Amnesty International.

“The US government must grant Chelsea Manning clemency, order her immediate release, and implement a thorough and impartial investigation into the crimes she uncovered.”

After being convicted of 20 separate charges Chelsea Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison, much longer than other members of the military convicted of charges such as murder, rape and war crimes.

Before her conviction, Chelsea Manning had already been held for three years in pre-trial detention, including 11 months in conditions which the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture described as cruel and inhumane.

Chelsea Manning has always maintained that her motivation for releasing the documents to Wikileaks was out of concern for the public and to foster a meaningful debate on the costs of war and the conduct of the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Notable amongst the information revealed by Private Manning was previously unseen footage of journalists and other civilians being killed in US helicopter attacks.


 "The US government appears to have its priorities warped. It is sending a worrying message through its harsh punishment of Chelsea Manning that whistleblowers will not be tolerated. On the other hand, its failure to investigate allegations that arose from Chelsea Manning’s disclosures means that those potentially responsible for crimes under international law, including torture and enforced disappearances, may get away scot-free,” said Erika Guevara.

“One year after the conviction of Chelsea Manning we are still calling on the US government to grant her clemency in recognition of her motives for acting as she did, and the time she has already served in prison.” 

Amnesty International has previously expressed concern that a sentence of 35 years in jail was excessive and should have been commuted to time served. The organization believes that Chelsea Manning was overcharged using antiquated legislation aimed at dealing with treason, and denied the opportunity to use a public interest defense at her trial.

In addition, there is little protection in US law for genuine whistleblowers, and this case underlines the need for the US to strengthen protections for those who reveal information that the public has the right to know.

It is crucial that the US government stops using the Espionage Act to prosecute whistleblowers like Chelsea Manning.
Markin comments (Winter 2014):   

There is no question now that Chelsea Manning’s trial, if one can called what took place down in Fort Meade a trial in the summer of 2013 rather than a travesty, a year after her conviction on twenty plus counts and having received an outrageous thirty-five year sentence essentially for telling us the truth about American atrocities and nefarious actions in Iraq, Afghanistan and wherever else the American government can stick its nose that her case has dropped from view. Although she occasionally gets an Op/Ed opportunity, including in the New York Times, a newspaper which while recoiling at the severity of the sentence in the immediate reaction did not question the justice of the conviction, and has several legal moves going from action to get the necessary hormonal treatments reflecting her real sexual identity (which the Army has stonewalled on and which even the New York Times has called for implementing) to now preparing the first appeal of her conviction to another military tribunal the popular uproar against her imprisonment has become a hush. While the appeals process may produce some results, perhaps a reduction in sentence, the short way home for her is a presidential pardon right now. I urge everybody to Google Amnesty International and sign on to the online petition to put the pressure on President Barack Obama for clemency.                   

I attended some of the sessions of Chelsea Manning’s court-martial in the summer of 2013 and am often asked these days in speaking for her release about what she could expect from the various procedures going forward to try to “spring” her from the clutches of the American government, or as I say whenever I get the chance to “not leave our buddy behind” in the time-honored military parlance. I have usually answered depending on what stage her post-conviction case is in that her sentence was draconian by all standards for someone who did not, although they tried to pin this on her, “aid the enemy.” Certainly Judge Lind though she was being lenient with thirty-five years when the government wanted sixty (and originally much more before some of the counts were consolidated). The next step was to appeal, really now that I think about it, a pro forma appeal to the commanding general of the Washington, D.C. military district where the trial was held. There were plenty of grounds to reduce the sentence but General Buchanan backed up his trial judge in the winter of 2014. Leaving Chelsea supporters right now with only the prospect of a presidential pardon to fight for as the court appeals are put together which will take some time. This is how I put the matter at one meeting:

“No question since her trial, conviction, and draconian sentence of thirty-five years imposed by a vindictive American government heroic Wiki-leaks whistle-blower Chelsea Manning’s has fallen off the radar. The incessant news cycle which has a short life cycle covered her case sporadically, covered the verdict, covered the sentencing and with some snickers cover her announcement directly after the sentencing that she wanted to live as her true self, a woman. (A fact that her supporters were aware of prior to the announcement but agreed that the issue of her sexual identity should not get mixed up with her heroic actions during the pre-trial and trial periods.) Since then despite occasional public rallies and actions her case had tended, as most political prisoner cases do, to get caught up in the appeals process and that keeps it out of the limelight.”            

Over the past year or so Chelsea Manning has been honored and remembered by the Veterans For Peace, Smedley Butler Brigade in Boston in such events as the VFP-led Saint Patrick’s Day Peace Parade, the Memorial Day anti-war observance, the yearly Gay Pride Parade, the Rockport July 4th parade, the VFP-led Veterans Day Peace Parade, and on December 17th her birthday. We have marched with a banner calling for her freedom, distribute literature about her case and call on one and all to sign the pardon petitions. The banner has drawn applause and return shouts of “Free Chelsea.” The Smedley Butler Brigade continues to stand behind our sister. We will not leave her behind. We also urge everybody to sign the Amnesty International on-line petition calling on President Obama to use his constitutional authority to pardon Chelsea Manning


http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/usa-one-year-after-her-conviction-chelsea-manning-must-be-released-2014-07-30  


Additional Markin comment on his reasons for supporting Chelsea Manning:


I got my start in working with anti-war GIs back in the early 1970s after my own military service was over. After my own service I had felt a compelling need to fight the monster from the outside after basically fruitless and difficult efforts inside once I got “religion” on the war issue first-hand. That work included helping create a couple of GI coffeehouses near Fort Devens in Massachusetts and down at Fort Dix in New Jersey in order for GIs to have a “friendly” space in which to think through what they wanted to do in relationship to the military.


Some wanted help to apply for the then tough to get discharge for conscientious objection. Tough because once inside the military, at least this was the way things went then, the military argued against the depth of the applying soldier’s convictions and tended to dismiss such applications out of hand. Only after a few civil court cases opened up the application process later when the courts ruled that the military was acting arbitrarily and capriciously in rejecting such applications out of hand did things open up a little in that channel. Others wanted to know their rights against what they were told by their officers and NCOs. But most, the great majority, many who had already served in hell-hole Vietnam, wanted a place, a non-military place, a non-GI club, where they could get away from the smell, taste, and macho talk of war.


Although there are still a few places where the remnants of coffeehouses exist like the classic Oleo Strut down at Fort Hood in Texas the wars of the past decade or so has produced no great GI resistance like against the Vietnam War when half the Army in America and Vietnam seemed to be in mutiny against their officers, against their ugly tasks of killing every “gook” who crossed their path for no known reason except hubris, and against the stifling of their rights as citizens. At one point no anti-war march was worthy of the name if it did not have a contingent of soldiers in uniform leading the thing. There are many reasons for this difference in attitude, mainly the kind of volunteer the military accepts but probably a greater factor is that back then was the dominance of the citizen-soldier, the draftee, in stirring things up, stirring things up inside as a reflection of what was going on out on the streets and on the campuses. I still firmly believe that in the final analysis you have to get to the “cannon fodder,” the grunts, the private soldier if you want to stop the incessant war machine. Since we are commemorating, if that is the right word the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I check out what happened, for example, on the Russian front when the desperate soldiers left the trenches during 1917 after they got fed up with the Czar, with the trenches, with the landlords, and the whole senseless mess.


Everyone who has the least bit of sympathy for the anti-war struggles of the past decade should admire what Chelsea Manning has done by her actions releasing that treasure trove of information about American atrocities in Iraq and elsewhere. She has certainly paid the price for her convictions with a draconian sentence. It is hard to judge how history will record any particular heroic action like hers but if the last real case with which her action can be compared with is a guide, Daniel Ellsberg and The Pentagon Papers, she should find an honored spot. Moreover Chelsea took her actions while in the military which has its own peculiar justice system. Her action, unlike back in Vietnam War times, when the Army was half in mutiny was one of precious few this time out. Now that I think about she does not have to worry about her honored place in history. It is already assured. But just to be on the safe side let’s fight like hell for her freedom. We will not leave our sister Chelsea behind.              
 
 
 
 
 
 






    



 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 

Boston-Park Street Station Weekly Vigil-May 30th-Five Years In Jail Is Enough, More Than Enough- President Obama Pardon Chelsea Manning Now!

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Boston vigil details:

1:00-2:00 PM Saturday, May 30, 2015
Park Street Station Entrance on the Boston Common

Chelsea Manning’s Five Years Of Confinement

Taken into Army MP custody on May 27, 2010 and later held for months under torturous conditions at the Quantico Marine Base in Virginia Chelsea Manning was tried and sentenced in a military court-martial at Fort Meade in Maryland to 35 years in August 2013 for releasing many military secrets through Wikileaks about U.S. crimes in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan among other revelations. If this sentence stands she will be out in 2045. We cannot let this happen– we have to get her out! Join us on May 30th and encourage others to attend. Sign the on-line petition for a presidential pardon from President Barack Obama at the Chelsea Manning Support Network website- http://www.chelseamanning.org/. We will not leave our sister behind.  

“Protect the public’s right to free speech & free press”: Manning’s latest Guardian op-ed

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May 6th, 2015 by Chelsea E. Manning

“We’re citizens, not subjects. We have the right to criticize government without fear.”

The American public needs more access to what the government is doing in its name. That requires increasing freedom of information and transparency.
The US government still hides vast amounts of its national security actions from the public. Photograph: Miguel Juarez Lugo/Zuma Press/Corbis
The US government still hides vast amounts of its national security actions from the public. Photograph: Miguel Juarez Lugo/Zuma Press/Corbis
When freedom of information and transparency are stifled, then bad decisions are often made and heartbreaking tragedies occur – too often on a breathtaking scale that can leave societies wondering: how did this happen? Think about the recent debates on torture, assassination by unmanned aircraft, secret warrants and detentions, intelligence and surveillance courts, military commissions, immigration detention centers and the conduct of modern warfare. These policies affect millions of people around the world every day and can affect anyone – wives, children, fathers, aunts, boyfriends, cousins, friends, employees, bosses, clergy and even career politicians – at any time. It is time that we bring a health dose of sunlight to them.
I believe that when the public lacks even the most fundamental access to what its governments and militaries are doing in their names, then they cease to be involved in the act of citizenship. There is a bright distinction between citizens, who have rights and privileges protected by the state, and subjects, who are under the complete control and authority of the state.
In the past decade or so there have been an increasing number of clashes – both in the public and behind the scenes – between the US government, the news media and those in the public who want fair access to records that pertain to the implementation of policies by their government.
After the establishment of the National Security Division of the Department of Justice in 2006, there have been more national security and criminal investigations into journalists and prosecutions of their sources than at any other time in the nation’s memory. Eight people have been charged under provisions of the Espionage Act of 1917 for giving documents and information to the media by this administration alone – including me, former CIA officers Jeffrey Sterling and John Kiriakou, and the former Department of State analyst Stephen Jin-Woo Kim.
The roots of this crackdown seem to have begun before the administration took office: Steven Rose and Keith Weissman were prosecuted for sharing information about classified foreign policy issues to members of the media, analysts, and officials of a foreign nation, though neither man worked for the government or had a security clearance. The lawyers who prosecuted Rose and Weissman successfully established their broad interpretation of the Espionage Act before Judge TS Ellis III; though he ruled in their favor, he also warned that “the time is ripe for Congress to engage in a thorough review and revision of [the Espionage Act of 1917] to ensure that they reflect … contemporary views about the appropriate balance between our nation’s security and our citizens’ ability to engage in public debate about the United States’ conduct in the society of nations.
And, when I was court-martialed for providing government documents and information that I felt were in the public interest to a media organization, the government charged me with “aiding the enemy” – a treason-related offense under the US constitution and military justice system that even civilians may be charged with. During one of my pre-trial hearing in January 2013, the military judge in my case, US Army Colonel Denise Lind, asked the government lawyers: “Does it make any difference – if we substituted Wikileaks for The New York Times, would the government still be charging this case in the manner that it has and proceeding as you’re doing?” An assistant trial counsel for the government answered a straightforward “Yes, Ma’am”; the lead trial counsel elaborated with a reference to a US Civil War era court-martial, in which the soldier was sentenced to six months imprisonment without a trained lawyer representing him, or any post-trial appeals process: “This isn’t the first time that Article 104 has been charged for a service member providing information to the enemy through a member of the news media.”
The government further argued that there was no distinction to be made between any media organizations that provided information to the public, if the government felt would “aid” the enemy: whether such information was published by a small-time blog, a controversial website like Wikileaks, a national newspaper like the Washington Post, or an international one like the Guardian, to the government, they can all be “aiding the enemy”.
After 9/11, a dedicated office of lawyers specializing in novel applications of law for national security issues, the National Security Division (NSD), was created and now, with a small caseload and an enormous amount of resources, this division of the Department of Justice has been waging a quiet war against the media, their sources and the right to free speech and a free press, using the growing national security and surveillance apparatus to prosecute various cases and, occasionally, target the media.
Consider the Department of Justice’s admission in May 2013 that they had secretly seized sensitive office, home and cellular telephone records from more than 20 reporters working for the Associated Press while investigating a leak leading to a 2012 AP news story reporting on an operation foiling a terrorist plot. The president of the AP, Gary Pruitt, called the actions a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” and noted that the government’s actions were creating a profound chilling effect on sources and members of the press. The president personally defended the actions of the Department of Justice, saying: “I make no apologies”.
The US needs legislation to protect the public’s right to free speech and a free press, to protect it from the actions of the executive branch and to promote the integrity and transparency of the US government.
We need to create a media “shield” law with teeth and substance that creates an effective federal privilege for communications between a journalist and her sources, preventing the government from compelling testimony from the journalist and to protect the documents, records and other information created by the journalist and the actual communications between the journalist and her sources. The privilege should be in effect unless the government can prove with clear and convincing evidence that very clear and dangerous circumstances should merit an exception.
We also need to narrow the murky and awkward military offense of “aiding the enemy” into a time of war offense and restrict its application to military personnel. It can be replaced through the creation of an explicit “treason” and “misprision of treason” offense under military law – based on existing US civilian law – for those who openly wage war and attempt to overthrow the US government.
It is also long past time for the government to live up to its commitment to transparency by enacting the changes to the Freedom of Information Act (Foia) and records retention rules that were in the Foia Improvement Act of 2014, which nearly passed in the US Congress at the end of last year and were re-introduced this year. It should also amend the Espionage Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to require that the government prove a clear intent to harm the government or anyone else and to make the motive of the accused relevant at trial.
These changes would go far – but certainly not all the way – toward ensuring that future citizens under future administrations can continue to be able to question and criticize their government without fear of being publicly humiliated and prosecuted by their government. It would also set a clear example to the rest of the world that, in a truly modern democratic republic, the suppression of the press and sources by criminal prosecutions cannot be tolerated. Then the US could no longer be used as an excuse by repressive governments around the world to say: “Well, they do it in America, too.”
UPDATE 05/07/15: Chelsea has written the bill she mentions in this Guardian op-ed. Read her proposed bill and her section-by-section analysis of the bill here.

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!

 

11 thoughts on ““Protect the public’s right to free speech & free press”: Manning’s latest Guardian op-ed

  1. What Chelsea writes about freedom of speech is very true and extremely important for the future of mankind.
  2. I support Chelsea. She should be pardoned. Please Mr. President pardon her, do this kind act before your term expires. Thank you.
  3. Secrecy, meddling and miscalculations by government are what often lead to suspicion, lack of trust and confidence, conflict and war, but the wars that government commit us to are not fought by the government that sends its citizens to kill, be injured and die. Under these circumstances it is imperative that the citizens have information about what the government is up to.
    Before committing a nation to war it should be a requirement that the government nominate members of their own families that will also be sent to fight on the front lines in order to ensure that wars are not entered into lightly, because there are no significant consequences for the government and those who make the decision to go to war.
    In the absence of war and risk of war, much of the secrecy and surveillance would become unnecessary.
    Instead of the trappings of war, investment in war, and war oriented thinking governments ought to have a program of engagement that equals international sports and cultural events, to ensure that leaders form relationships and cement bonds with other leaders leading to greater understanding and trust.
    Isolation and introspection has the opposite effect, and should be avoided at all costs. Being in touch by phone is only a first step as this still sustains a kind of distance and separation that does not break down the barriers that regular face to face meetings can and do.
    Much will have to change if the human species is to have any real possibility of avoiding extinction in the short and medium term. Our leaders continue to allow the world to be volatile and unsafe one, and to walk a path that too often comes close to disaster.
    Considering global warming and climate change, this one single situation could reach a point where conditions cannot be managed by science short of injecting vast amounts of heat reflecting and excluding dust into the atmosphere ignoring the consequences on weather in some parts of the world and the consequences for health and survivability.
    This planet is the only natural survival vessel, a virtual lifeboat in our solar system. According to NASA the next closest star system to ours also has a planet in the habitable zone of its sun, as defined by the survival conditions for humans, but this planet is 1600 human lifetimes travelling distance away at the speeds permitted by our current space vehicle technology. We are therefore so far apart from other parts of the universe and even our own galactic near neighbours as to be alone in the vast empty reaches of time and space.
    This consideration alone should convince our leaders to begin moderating their behaviour and relationships to become much less isolationist, selfish and reckless in the combined interests of our species. As things stand, the obsession with wealth and resources places the survival of the human species in serious doubt and war and conflict deriving from greed, religious differences, suspicion, prejudice, secrecy and misunderstanding one of the three or four most likely contenders for the catalytic causes for catastrophe.
    Moving away from the capitalist system and the monetary system would be one way to accomplish this, but the least controversial and simplest way to bring about significant social evolution is through introducing an education system that serves the survival prospects of our species, not merely the short term, short sighted and destructive capitalists imperative around which our present education system is designed and based.
    Education is probably the most achievable and least controversial opportunity and pathway for change, which in turn will contribute to greatly increasing our survival prospects, but no achievable such as Chelsea’s initiative should be overlooked. We should implement every idea that contributes to openness, trust and mutual understanding in the interests of achieving what has to be our primary common goal, survival. The reproductive elements of nature alone can only guarantee survival for a time under survivable conditions, further survival is dependant upon our combined intellect and good choices.
    At present most of our choices are not ideal choices, and too many are poor, and ultimately self destructive choices. We have to discover a way to pass over the bridge from a world of self destructive mutually assured self destruction choices, to one of mutual self preservation choices.

Manning, Assange, Snowden statue unveiled in Berlin

May 5, 2015 by the Chelsea Manning Support Network
anythingtosayOn May 1st, a statue of Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange, and Edward Snowden was unveiled in Berlin, Germany.  The statue, titled “Anything to Say?”, features bronze life-size portrayals of Manning, Assange, and Snowden standing on three chairs next to an empty fourth chair.
The fourth chair is left empty for the public, “It is for you.” says the sculpture’s artist, Davide Dormino. Dormino continues:
“I believe in acts. Public Art has the power to make people grow and change their point of view. The chair has a double meaning. It can be comfortable, but it can also be a pedestal to rise higher, to get a better view, to learn more. They all chose to get up on the chairs of courage. They made their move in spite of becoming visible and thus judged. Many think they are traitors and terrorists. History never had a positive opinion of contemporary revolutionaries. You need courage to act, to stand up on that empty chair even if it hurts.
The idea was conceived by American author Charles Glass:
Thanks to Assange, Snowden and Manning, you know the limits of freedom. You know you are spied on every hour of every day. You know how governments kill and torture alleged enemies…. Chelsea Manning is serving thirty-five years in an American federal prison. Julian Assange has been confined in England for four years without a single charge brought against him. Edward Snowden is trapped in Moscow. We will honour their courage by erecting a monument, designed by Italian sculptor Davide Dormino… Most statues in public spaces commemorate warriors. The Dormino statue pays homage to three who said no to war, to the lies that lead to war and to the intrusion into private life that helps to perpetuate war. Manning, Assange and Snowden accepted their loss of freedom. While you remain free, thank them by erecting this reminder that we can refuse to collaborate with unaccountable power.”

Wednesday, May 13, 2015


In Honor Of May Day 2015-From The American Left History Blog Archives -From The May Day Organizing 2012 Organizing Archives –May Day 2013 Needs The Same Efforts

 
 
 
Boston's International Workers Day 2013



BMDC International Workers Day Rally
Wednesday, May 1, 2013 at Boston City Hall
Gather at 2PM - Rally at 2:30PM
(Court St. & Cambridge St.)
T stops Government Center (Blue line, Green line)

To download flyer click here. (Please print double-sided)

Other May Day events:

Revere - @ City Hall - gather at 3:pmbegin marching at 3:30 (to Chelsea)
Everett - @ City Hall - gather at 3:pm begin marching at 3:30 (to Chelsea)
Chelsea - @ City Hall - rally a 3:pm (wait for above feeder marches to arrive) will begin marching at 4:30 (to East Boston)
East Boston - @ Central Square - (welcome marchers) Rally at 5:pm

BMDC will join the rally in East Boston immediately following Boston City Hall rally

Supporters: ANSWER Coalition, Boston Anti Authoritarian Movement, Boston Rosa Parks Human Rights Day Committee, Greater Boston Stop the Wars Coalition, Harvard No-Layoffs Campaign, Industrial Workers of the World, Latinos for Social Change, Mass Global Action, Sacco & Vanzetti Commemoration Society, Socialist Alternative, Socialist Party of Boston, Socialist Workers Party, Student Labor Action Movement, USW Local 8751 - Boston School Bus Drivers Union, Worcester Immigrant Coalition, National Immigrant Solidarity Network, Democracy Center - Cambridge, Cambridge, Cambridge/Somerville/Arlington United for Justice with Peace, International Socialist Organization, Community Church of Boston

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All Out May Day 2012: A Day Without the 99% -General Strike Occupy Boston Working Group

In late December 2011 the General Assembly (GA) of Occupy Los Angeles, in the aftermath of the stirring and successful November 2nd Oakland General Strike and December 12th West Coast Port Shutdown, issued a call for a national and international general strike centered on immigrant rights, environmental sustainability, a moratorium on foreclosures, an end to the wars, and jobs for all. These and other political issues such as transparency and horizontal democracy that have become associated with the Occupy movement are to be featured in the actions set for May Day 2012.

May Day is the historic international working class holiday that has been celebrated each year in many parts of the world since the time of the Haymarket Martyrs in Chicago in 1886 and the struggle for the eight-hour work day. More recently it has been a time for the hard-pressed immigrant communities here in America to join together in the fight against deportations and other discriminatory aspects of governmental immigration policy.

Some political activists here in Boston, mainly connected with Occupy Boston (OB), decided just after the new year to support that general strike call and formed the General Strike Occupy Boston working group (GSOB). GSOB has met, more or less weekly, since then to plan our own May Day actions. The first step in that process was to bring a resolution incorporating the Occupy Los Angeles issues before the GA of Occupy Boston for approval. That resolution was approved by GA OB on January 8, 2012.

Early discussions within the working group centered on drawing the lessons of the West Coast actions last fall. Above all what is and what isn’t a general strike. Traditionally a general strike, as witness the recent actions in Greece and other countries, is called by workers’ organizations and/or parties for a specified period of time in order to shut down substantial parts of the capitalist economy over some set of immediate demands. A close analysis of the West Coast actions showed a slightly different model: one based on community pickets of specified industrial targets, downtown mass street actions, and scattered individual and collective acts of solidarity like student support strikes and sick-outs. Additionally, small businesses and other allies were asked to close and some did close in solidarity.

That latter model seemed more appropriate to the tasks at hand in Boston given its sparse recent militant labor history and that it is a regional financial, technological and educational hub rather than an industrial center. GSOB also came to a realization that successful actions in Boston on May Day 2012 would not necessarily exactly follow the long established radical and labor traditions of the West Coast. Our focus will be actions and activities that respond and reflect the Boston political situation as we attempt to create, re-create really, an on-going May Day tradition beyond the observance of the day by labor radicals and the immigrant communities.

Over the past several years, starting with the nation-wide actions in 2006, the Latin and other immigrant communities in and around Boston have been celebrating May Day as a day of action on the very pressing problem of immigration status as well as the traditional working class solidarity holiday. It was no accident that Los Angeles, scene of massive immigration actions in the past and currently one of the areas facing the brunt of the deportation drives by the Obama administration, would be in the lead to call for national actions this year. One of the first steps GSOB took was to try to reach out to the already existing Boston May Day Coalition (BMDC), which has spearheaded the annual marches and rallies in the immigrant communities, in order to learn of their experiences and to coordinate actions. After making such efforts GSOB has joined forces with BMDC in order to coordinate the over-all May Day actions.

Taking our cue from the developing Occupy May Day movement, especially the broader and more inclusive messages coming out of Occupy Wall Street, GSOB has centered our slogans on the theme of “Occupy May First - A Day Without the 99%” in order to highlight the fact that in capitalist America labor, of one kind or another, has created all the wealth but has not shared in the accumulated profits. Highlighting the increasing economic gap, political voiceless-ness, and social issues related to race, class, sexual inequality, gender and the myriad other oppressions we face under capitalism is in keeping with the efforts initiated by Occupy Boston last fall.

On May Day GSOB is calling on the 99% to strike, skip work, walk out of school, and refrain from shopping, banking and business in order to implement that general slogan. We encourage working people to request the day off, or to call in sick. Small businesses are encouraged to close for the day and join the rest of the 99% in the streets.

For students at all levels GSOB is calling for a walk-out of classes. Further we call on college students to occupy the universities. With a huge student population of over 250,000 in the Boston area no-one-size-fits- all strategy seems appropriate. Each kindergarten, elementary school, middle school, high school, college, graduate school and wayward think tank should plan its own strike actions and GSOB suggests at some point in the day that all meet at a central location in downtown Boston.

In the early hours on May 1st members of the 99% will converge on the Boston Financial District for a day of direct action to demand an end to corporate rule and a shift of power to the people. The Financial District Block Party will start at 7:00 AM on the corner of Federal Street & Franklin Street in downtown Boston. Banks and corporations are strongly encouraged to close down for the day.

At noon there will be a permit-approved May Day rally at Boston City Hall Plaza jointly sponsored by BMDC and GSOB. Following the rally participants are encouraged to head to East Boston for solidarity marches centered on the immigrant communities that will start at approximately 2:00 PM and move from East Boston, Chelsea, and Revere to Everett for a rally at 4:00 PM. Other activities that afternoon for those who chose not to go to East Boston will be scheduled in and around the downtown area.

That evening, for those who cannot for whatever reasons participate in the daytime actions, there will be a “Funeral March” for the banks forming at 7:00 PM at Copley Square that steps off at 8:00 PM and will march throughout the downtown area.

The GSOB is urging the following slogans for May 1st. - No work. No school. No chores. No shopping. No banking. Let’s show the 1% that we have the power. Let’s show the world what a day without the 99% really means. And let’s return to the old traditions of May Day as a day of international solidarity with our working and oppressed sisters and brothers around the world. GSOB urges -All Out For May Day 2012!