ISRAEL, PALESTINE AND THE US

 

Not if they're from Massachusetts, it seems.

Will Progressives in the U.S. Congress Support Palestinian Children’s Human Rights?

13 Members of Congress have now joined the call for Palestinian children’s human rights. Led by U.S. Representative Betty McCollum, these elected officials are signing a letter (PDF) to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry that urges him to raise the human rights of Palestinian children in his dealings with the Government of Israel. Many – but not all – of the signers are members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.  But many members of the Progressive Caucus have yet to sign the letter. According to UNICEF (PDF), since 2003, more than 7,000 Palestinian children living in the occupied West Bank have been detained, interrogated, prosecuted, and/or imprisoned within the Israeli military justice system.  The UN has separately reported that Israeli forces have been responsible for injuring more than 1,500 Palestinian children there in the span of three years.  More

 

The letter includes the following message to Secretary of State John Kerry:

“Secretary Kerry, we urge the Department of State to elevate the human rights of Palestinian children to a priority status in our bilateral relationship with the Government of Israel.  Furthermore, we fully expect the State Department to address the status of Israel’s military detention system’s treatment of Palestinian children in its annual human rights report.”

 

No Mass Representatives signed the letter as of yesterday.

 

Israel exonerates itself over killing of Gaza boys on beach

The results of an inquiry into one of the most heavily-publicised episodes of the 50-day war were released quietly by text and email at just after 9.30pm local time on Thursday - the end of the Israeli working week. The timing may have been calculated in the hope that it would escape widespread media attention.  The report was published in advance of an anticipated visit to the region by a delegation from the International Criminal Court (ICC), which the Palestinian Authority formally joined in April. The court's chief prosecutor has ordered a preliminary inquiry to assess whether war crimes may have committed in the occupied Palestinian territories… However, journalists who reported seeing the incident - at least one of them British - said that no attempt was made to interview them, although they brought it to the military advocate general's attention that they had witness testimony…  Sarit Michaeli, spokesperson for B'tselem, an Israeli human rights group, said the inquiry conducted by the army's own investigators lacked credibility.   More

 

Can US Stop Enabling Israel?

There are those who argue that Israel is a sovereign state and no other country, including the U.S., can dictate what Israel can or cannot do. The problem is that Israel depends on the U.S. politically, and to safeguard its national security, and cannot at the same time defy the U.S. and continue to expect this unconditional support… The U.S. must now work closely with its European and Arab allies to come up with a binding United Nation’s Security Council resolution that will compel both Israelis and Palestinians to sit down and negotiate a peace agreement.  If Israel refuses to abide by the resolution or negotiate in good faith, the U.S. should withdraw its political cover, thereby exposing Israel to international censure.   More

 

BDS and Israel: A new kind of war

Israel is not at war, but its political leaders are showing rare unity over what they see as a potent new threat to the survival of the Jewish state.  That threat is Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), an umbrella campaign of international activists that models itself on the movement that helped topple apartheid in South Africa. Though a decade old, BDS’s message — that Israel should be isolated economically for its occupation of Palestinian lands — has appeared to come into its own in recent weeks. A series of votes by overseas groups condemning Israel and a high-profile flap between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and Orange, the French telecoms group, have contributed to the sense that BDS is becoming a force to be reckoned with… The dimming of hope for a negotiated solution to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, BDS activists say, buoyed their argument that only concerted economic pressure on Israel will sway its actions.   More

 

Israel’s behaviour will bankrupt it over time

The Rand Corporation’s research shows that Israel could lose $250 billion (Dh919bn) over the next decade if it fails to make peace with the Palestinians and there is a return to violence. Ending the occupation, on the other hand, could bring a dividend of more than $120 billion into the nation’s coffers.Meanwhile, the Israeli finance ministry predicts an even more dismal future unless Israel reinvents itself. It is likely to be bankrupt within a few decades, the finance ministry report says, because of the rapid growth of two unproductive groups.

By 2059, half the population will be either ultra-Orthodox Jews, who prefer prayer to work, or members of Israel’s Palestinian minority, most of whom are failed by their separate education system and then excluded from much of the economy… Despite this doomsday scenario, Israel seems far from ready to undertake the urgent restructuring needed to salvage its economy. Zionism, Israel’s official ideology, is predicated on core principles of ethnic separation, Judaisation of territory and Hebrew labour. It has always depended on the marginalisation at best, exclusion at worst, of non-Jews.   More

 

 

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GIVE WAR A CHANCE?

 

Will Iranian military sites be stumbling block for nuke talks?

With a June 30 deadline for a comprehensive nuclear agreement between the P5+1 and Iran fast approaching, the question of whether international inspectors will have access to military sites in Iran is being presented as a major stumbling block. However, while some work remains, the parties are closer to a solution than the differing domestic narratives would indicate. A relatively straight-forward solution exists. While the administration has reflected the messaging of many Iran hawks in claiming that a final agreement will provide for “anytime, anywhere” access for inspectors, Iran has bristled at such proclamations and stated that military sites are off limits.  More

 

The Great Iran PMD Freakout

It was always going to happen this way. As talks between Iran and key world powers approached a June 30 deadline, the toughest issues would emerge not only as sticking points in the negotiations themselves but as political footballs to be fought over by opponents of talks on both sides. Such a case came to the fore over the past week: the so-called PMD issue, what diplomats call the “possible military dimensions” of Iran’s nuclear program.  News came down last week, in a report from the Associated Press, that the five UN Security Council countries plus Germany—known as the P5+1—appeared poised to accept a final deal that did not resolve these questions… What these critics of diplomacy seem to miss at every step, then, is that a deal was always going to be a compromise. When many critics spit out the word “concession” with derision, what they’re actually talking about are “compromises”—the foundation of any successful nuclear deal. Critics, if they want, can consider each compromise a “cave-in” or “collapse” of the American position, but that’s how negotiations work: both sides have opening bids and they meet in the middle.  Yet the critics want none of it, and that makes perfect sense: they don’t really want a deal.  More

 

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NEW WARS / OLD WARS – What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

 

House Rejects Bid to Force Troop Withdrawal in Iraq, Syria

The House on Wednesday refused to order the withdrawal of U.S. forces deployed to fight Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria by the end of the year. The measure was defeated, 288-139. It would have directed that troops be withdrawn within 30 days of passage, or by the end of the year, if Congress fails to authorize the fight against Islamic State militants. Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., said the resolution was needed to "force Congress to do its job" and vote on whether to formally authorize military action against Islamic State militants. President Barack Obama requested such a resolution in February, but it has stalled in Congress.  More

 

All Mass Reps – with the exception of Scott Moulton -- voted for the measure.

 

BACEVICH: Washington in Middle East Wonderland

So what the former secretary of defense, think tank CEO, and retired general chose not to say in fretting about ISIS is as revealing as what they did say.  Here are some of the things they chose to overlook:

  * ISIS would not exist were it not for the folly of the United States in invading -- and breaking -- Iraq in the first place; we created the vacuum that ISIS is now attempting to fill.

  * U.S. military efforts to pacify occupied Iraq from 2003 to 2011 succeeded only in creating a decent interval for the United States to withdraw without having to admit to outright defeat; in no sense did “our” Iraq War end in anything remotely approximating victory, despite the already forgotten loss of thousands of American lives and the expenditure of trillions of dollars.

  * For more than a decade and at very considerable expense, the United States has been attempting to create an Iraqi government that governs and an Iraqi army that fights; the results of those efforts speak for themselves: they have failed abysmally.

Now, these are facts.  Acknowledging them might suggest a further conclusion: that anyone proposing ways for Washington to put things right in Iraq ought to display a certain sense of humility.  The implications of those facts -- behind which lies a policy failure of epic proportions -- might even provide the basis for an interesting discussion on national television.  But that would assume a willingness to engage in serious self-reflection.  This, the culture of Washington does not encourage, especially on matters related to basic national security policy.   More

 

The secret of ISIL’s appeal

As a show of good faith, the U.S. should cut off all funding for substate and nonstate proxies and end unconditional military and geopolitical assistance for Middle Eastern tyrants and Israel. Perhaps most important, the U.S. should cease picking sides and intervening in conflicts in which there are no direct and urgent national security imperatives — although even most of these challenges can be well managed through domestic security measures to repel any immediate threats and by leveraging diplomatic and humanitarian measures or policy reforms to address underlying issues.  More

 

As Stress Drives Off Drone Operators, Air Force Must Cut Flights

After a decade of waging long-distance war through their video screens, America’s drone operators are burning out, and the Air Force is being forced to cut back on the flights even as military and intelligence officials are demanding more of them over intensifying combat zones in Iraq, Syria and Yemen.  The Air Force plans to trim the flights by the armed surveillance drones to 60 a day by October from a recent peak of 65 as it deals with the first serious exodus of the crew members who helped usher in the era of war by remote control. Air Force officials said that this year they would lose more drone pilots, who are worn down by the unique stresses of their work, than they can train.   More

 

Death of al-Qaida leader masks reality of drone strikes: they don't bring stability

 “We are constantly told that US drones are surgically precise,” said Cori Crider of the human rights charity Reprieve. “But any weapon – especially a remote-controlled one – is only as accurate as the intelligence behind it. At least 38 people died before a CIA strike finally killed this man. Who were the rest? How many lives did we take in the effort to assassinate al-Wuhayshi? How many have we driven into the arms of militants with the 38 others we killed? The secret drone war conceals a mountain of hidden costs, and the idea we can bomb our way out of the problem of terrorism is short-sighted and, ultimately, false.”  More

 

Prelude to a Quagmire

U.S. leaders often repeat that the overall goal in Iraq is to “ultimately defeat” the Islamic State… If U.S. forces plan, resource, and command these campaigns, then they will be tempted to do other things, as well… The president and his advisors are probably aware that they are on the slippery slope. They hope that the Islamic State will be defeated by a reinvigorated, multi-sectarian Iraqi Army, backed by limited and selective use of U.S. air power. But if this new security force cannot be built — and experience suggests that it cannot — the United States will be faced with two choices: It can follow the path traced above, a path that leads the United States back into direct participation in conventional combat in Iraq, as well as open-ended stabilization operations. Or the president can admit that all this talk of ultimately defeating the Islamic State is exactly that — talk. Instead, the United States will have to settle for containment, which can be achieved at bargain prices, with a low U.S. profile.   More

 

Neocon Victoria Nuland, the Undiplomatic Diplomat, pushes Ukraine Intervention

McCain’s gushing approval of Nuland is shared by many on Capitol Hill, including large numbers of Democrats. But there’s one place where Nuland is far more polarizing: Europe, the very continent where her job requires her to cultivate strong and trusting relationships.

In interviews with Foreign Policy, her European colleagues have described her as “brash,” “direct,” “forceful,” “blunt,” “crude,” and occasionally, “undiplomatic.” But they also stressed that genuine policy differences account for their frustrations with her — in particular, her support for sending arms to Ukraine as the country fends off a Russian-backed rebellion, a policy not supported by the White House… The great irony of Victoria Nuland is that the same qualities that make her a superstar in Washington make her controversial in Europe at a time when transatlantic ties are under incredible strain… In Europe, Nuland is widely presumed to be the leading advocate for shipping weapons to Kiev — a proposal bitterly opposed by the Germans, Hungarians, Italians, and Greeks who fear setting off a wider conflict with Moscow.  More

 

Why Arming Ukraine Is a Really Bad Idea

Ending Russia’s military involvement in Ukraine should be an important objective of U.S. policy and is an essential first step in stabilizing the country and facilitating political and economic reforms there. Moreover, the longer the conflict continues, the greater the risks to Ukraine’s fragile political order and to wider U.S. security aims in Europe. Nevertheless, advocates of lethal arms supplies to Ukraine have not yet met the first requirement of policy making—demonstrating with reasonable confidence that their proposed course of action will produce the results they want and expect, rather than something worse.   More

 

WARS ABROAD, WARS AT HOME

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WARS ABROAD, WARS AT HOME

 

Racist Massacre in Charlestown

The murders of African-American worshippers took place in an historic church with roots in the struggle against slavery and in the still-unfinished mission to achieve equality in our country. These Are The Victims Of The Charleston Church Shooting.

 

The massacre also illustrates the connectedness of racist violence at home with the wars and US support for oppressions abroad.  The killer proudly displayed the symbols of Apartheid South Africa and colonial Rhodesia.  During the 1980’s, it was a core mission of the US reactionaries and racists to support those regimes – along with backing rightwing terrorists in Central America and Southern Africa. (The US Congress eventually passed sanctions against South Africa over the veto of Pres. Ronald Reagan.) 

 

Not incidentally, Israel – which South Africans today call an Apartheid State – was the principle arms supplier to the white government in Pretoria. Just last week, a historic Catholic church on the Sea of Galilee was torched by Jewish religious extremists – and years before a US-born Israeli Baruch Goldstein massacred 29 worshippers at the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron.  Goldstein is venerated as a martyr by West Bank settlers.  Meanwhile, Israel has for many years been the largest recipient of US foreign aid and is faithfully shielded by our government from international censure.

 

Racism is embedded in US history and was institutionalized in our very founding Constitution.  It also undergirds US foreign and military policy today. Conversely, the struggle for equality at home has always made links with the drive for justice abroad – going back to the missions of abolitionist Frederick Douglass to Ireland and Haiti and continuing with the solidarity from Ferguson to Palestine (and including Hip-hop music).

 

Murders in Charleston

The daisy chain of racial outrages that have been a constant feature of American life since Trayvon Martin’s death, three years ago, are not a copycat phenomenon soon to fade from our attention.  At the same time, what happened at Emanuel A.M.E. belongs in another terrible lineage—the modern mass shooting. We have, quite likely, found at 110 Calhoun Street, in Charleston, South Carolina, the place where Columbine, Aurora, and Newtown cross with Baltimore, Ferguson, and Sanford. We periodically mourn the deaths of a group of Americans who die at the hands of another armed American. We periodically witness racial injustices that inspire anger in the streets. And sometimes we witness both. This is, quite simply, how we now live.  More

 

Charleston and the Age of Obama

Between 1882 and 1968, the year Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated, three thousand four hundred and forty-six black men, women, and children were lynched in this country—a practice so vicious and frequent that Mark Twain was moved, in 1901, to write an essay called “The United States of Lyncherdom.” … That legacy of extreme cruelty and unpunished murder as a means of exerting political and physical control of African-Americans cannot be far from our minds right now…  No small part of our outrage and grief—particularly the outrage and grief of African-Americans—is the way the Charleston murders are part of a larger picture of American life, in which black men and women, going about their day-to-day lives, have so little confidence in their own safety. One appalling event after another reinforces the sense that the country’s political and law-enforcement institutions do not extend themselves as completely or as fairly as they do for whites.  More

 

This is American terrorism: White supremacy’s brutal, centuries-long campaign of violence

It’s 2015, and Black people in America are under a sustained and lethal terrorist attack… Meanwhile, the same media that declared a deadly shootout between biker gangs in Waco, TX, a “brawl,” has labelled the murder of 9 in Charleston a “shooting.” But this was no mere shooting. It was a cold-blooded, pre-meditated, white supremacist terrorist attack that ended the lives of nine unarmed Black people in the same church co-founded by the revolutionary Denmark Vesey, who sought to overthrow America’s wicked regime of human bondage and chattel slavery.  More

 

Take Down the Confederate Flag—Now

Yet the Confederate battle flag—the flag of Dylann Roof—still flies on the Capitol grounds in Columbia.  The Confederate flag’s defenders often claim it represents “heritage not hate.” I agree—the heritage of White Supremacy was not so much birthed by hate as by the impulse toward plunder… That the Confederate flag is the symbol of white supremacists is evidenced by the very words of those who birthed it: “Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth...”  More

 

Democrats block defense spending bill, amid budget fight

Democrats blocked the fiscal 2016 defense spending bill in the U.S. Senate on Thursday, part of a campaign to force Republicans to start budget negotiations by refusing to allow any appropriations measure to advance to a final vote… Senate Democrats and Republicans are fighting over how to deal with so-called "sequestration" spending caps, especially a Republican-led plan to use $38 billion in special war contingency funds to let the Department of Defense sidestep the mandatory restrictions put in place under the 2011 Budget Control Act… Democrats say other programs, including health research and education, are as important as the military. They dismiss the use of the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) funds a "gimmick" to avoid making difficult decisions. "To have a secure nation, it's more than the people who are in armed services," Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said. "  More

 

After 25 Years of Losing to Wall Street, Are Left-Wing Democrats Winning?

The rebellion of House Democrats that blocked the president’s trade deal with Asia is more than political humiliation for Barack Obama. It is the start of something far bigger—the revival of the Democratic Party as a born-again advocate for working people and economic justice.  The congressional defeat shocked Washington, where the cynical rule is “to get along, you go along.” Even though the Obama-Boehner-McConnell forces are attempting to resuscitate the “fast track” gimmick, the TPP fiasco will be remembered as a fundamental turn in the road… On the Democratic left, the spirit of reform is resurgent. Both politicians and freelance advocates are advancing strong new ideas for confronting inequality and repairing the damage done to ordinary Americans—and not only by the Republicans. The media usually portray these ruptures as symptoms of dysfunctional politics. But these intramural fights may actually be leading toward something far more positive for the country.  More

 

THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF JUNETEENTH

THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF JUNETEENTH

On June 19, 1865, U.S. Major General Gordon Granger, newly arrived with 1,800 men in Texas, ordered that “all slaves are free” in Texas and that there would be an “absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves.” The idea that any such proclamation would still need to be issued in June 1865 – two months after the surrender at Appomattox - forces us to rethink how and when slavery and the Civil War really ended. And in turn it helps us recognize Juneteenth as not just a bookend to the Civil War but as a celebration and commemoration of the epic struggles of emancipation and Reconstruction… Now, as we approach the 150th anniversary of the events that ended slavery and constructed meaningful rights for all Americans, we should look to Juneteenth as a model for commemorating Reconstruction. By grappling publicly—in parks and in programs—with the accomplishments of ending slavery and constructing equal rights, as well as the overthrow of Reconstruction and equal rights in Jim Crow, we can begin to wrestle with the impact that events like Juneteenth had upon the nation we live in.   More

 

Friday, June 19: "From Emancipation to Selma to Ferguson," 4:00pm - 8:00pm, Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists, Inc. 300 Walnut Ave, Roxbury.  Join the Boston Juneteenth Committee at the 5th Annual Boston Juneteenth Emancipation Observation. Keynote Address by Patrick Sylvain (Educator, Writer, & Social Critic); Poetry Reading by Danielle Georges (City of Boston Poet Laureate);  Music and Entertainment / Face Painting / Food and Community Vendors / Community Quilt with sparc! the Artmobile / Encampment of the 54th Regiment / Books Checkout at the Bibliocycle (bring your library cards)

 

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WARS ABROAD, WARS AT HOME

 

Racist Massacre in Charlestown

The murders of African-American worshippers took place in an historic church with roots in the struggle against slavery and in the still-unfinished mission to achieve equality in our country. These Are The Victims Of The Charleston Church Shooting.

 

The massacre also illustrates the connectedness of racist violence at home with the wars and US support for oppressions abroad.  The killer proudly displayed the symbols of Apartheid South Africa and colonial Rhodesia.  During the 1980’s, it was a core mission of the US reactionaries and racists to support those regimes – along with backing rightwing terrorists in Central America and Southern Africa. (The US Congress eventually passed sanctions against South Africa over the veto of Pres. Ronald Reagan.) 

 

Not incidentally, Israel – which South Africans today call an Apartheid State – was the principle arms supplier to the white government in Pretoria. Just last week, a historic Catholic church on the Sea of Galilee was torched by Jewish religious extremists – and years before a US-born Israeli Baruch Goldstein massacred 29 worshippers at the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron.  Goldstein is venerated as a martyr by West Bank settlers.  Meanwhile, Israel has for many years been the largest recipient of US foreign aid and is faithfully shielded by our government from international censure.

 

Racism is embedded in US history and was institutionalized in our very founding Constitution.  It also undergirds US foreign and military policy today. Conversely, the struggle for equality at home has always made links with the drive for justice abroad – going back to the missions of abolitionist Frederick Douglass to Ireland and Haiti and continuing with the solidarity from Ferguson to Palestine (and including Hip-hop music).

 

Murders in Charleston

The daisy chain of racial outrages that have been a constant feature of American life since Trayvon Martin’s death, three years ago, are not a copycat phenomenon soon to fade from our attention.  At the same time, what happened at Emanuel A.M.E. belongs in another terrible lineage—the modern mass shooting. We have, quite likely, found at 110 Calhoun Street, in Charleston, South Carolina, the place where Columbine, Aurora, and Newtown cross with Baltimore, Ferguson, and Sanford. We periodically mourn the deaths of a group of Americans who die at the hands of another armed American. We periodically witness racial injustices that inspire anger in the streets. And sometimes we witness both. This is, quite simply, how we now live.  More

The Hills And Hollas Of Home- In Honor Of The Late Hazel Dickens

 

 

 
 
 

Kenny Jackman heard the late Hazel Dickens (d. 2011) for the very first time on her CD album It’s Hard To Tell The Singer From The Song some years back, maybe in 2005, when he was in thrall to mountain music after being hit hard by Reese Witherspoon’s role as June Carter in the film about her husband Johnny Cash, his addictions, his pursuit of her, and her settling him down a bit Walk The Line. At that time Kenny, like a lot of us who get the bug on some subject, got into all things Carter Family unto the nth generation. A friend, a Vermont mountain boy whom he had met many years before in the early 1970s on the road out in California and whom Kenny would go up and see up in the remnant of his communal cabin which he had shared with a revolving door mix of ex-hippies, wannabe hippies and the just misbegotten when he had a chance, had hipped him to Hazel during his frenzy and he picked up the CD second-hand in Harvard Square. (Really at Sandy’s located between Harvard and Central Squares, a folk institution around town where until recently Sandy had held forth since the early 1960s folk minute when everybody was desperately looking for roots music and that was the place around Boston to look first. Hazel’s You’ll Get No More Of Me, A Few Old Memories and the classic Hills of Home knocked Kenny out. The latter, moreover, seemed kind of familiar and later, a couple of months later, he finally figured out why. He had really first heard Hazel back in 1970 when as part of his then seemingly never-ending hitchhike road drama had headed back east through the Southern route since the weather was starting to get cold in the Rockies and was down in the those very hills and hollows that are a constant theme in her work, and that of the mountain mist winds music coming down the crevices. What was going on though? Was it 2005 when he first heard Hazel or that 1970 time? Let me go back and tell that 1970 story.

Kenny Jackman like many of his generation of ’68 was feeling foot loose and fancy free, especially after he had been mercifully declared 4-F by his friendly neighbors at the local draft board in old hometown North Adamsville (declared 4-F in those high draft days because he had a seriously abnormal foot problem which precluded walking very far, a skill that the army likes its soldiers to be able to do and a constant problem on the hitchhike road if he needed to walk any distance between rides). Kenny, every now and again, took to the hitchhike road, not like his (our) mad man friend the late Peter Paul Markin with some heavy cultural message a la Jack Kerouac and his beat brothers (and a few sisters) but just to see the country while he, and it, were still in one piece no pun intended Kenny told me since the country was in about fifteen pieces then).

On one of these trips he found himself stranded just outside Norfolk, Virginia at a road-side campsite. Feeling kind of hungry one afternoon, and tired, tired unto death of camp-side gruel and stews he stopped at a diner, Billy Bob McGee’s, an old-time truck stop diner a few hundred yards up the road from his camp for some real food, maybe meatloaf or some pot roast like his Irish grandma used to make in a huge pot on the old iron stove in her kitchen or that was how it was advertised. When he entered the mid-afternoon half-empty diner he sat down at one of the single stool counter seats that always accompany the vinyl-covered side booths in such places. But all of this was so much descriptive noise that could describe a million, maybe more, such eateries. What really caught his attention though was a waitress serving them “off the arm” that he knew immediately he had to “hit” on (although that is not the word used in those days but “hit on” conveys what he was up to in the universal boy meets girl world). As it turned out she, sweetly named Fiona Fay, and, well let’s just call her fetching, Kenny weary-eyed fetching, was young, footloose and fancy free herself and had drawn a bead on him as he entered the place, and, …well this story is about Hazel, so let us just leave it as one thing led to another and let it go at that.

Well, not quite let’s let it go at that because when Kenny left Norfolk a few days later one ex-waitress Fiona Fay was standing by his side on the road south. And the road south was leading nowhere, nowhere at all except to Podunk, really Prestonsburg, Kentucky, and really, really a dink town named Pottsville, just down the road from big town Prestonsburg, down in the hills and hollows of Appalachia, wind-swept green, green, mountain mist, time forgotten . And the reason two footloose and fancy free young people were heading to Podunk is that a close cousin of Fiona’s lived there with her husband and child and wanted Fiona to come visit (visit “for a spell” is how she put it but I will spare the reader the localisms). So they were on that hell-bend road but Kenny, Kenny was dreading this trip and only doing it because, well because Fiona was the kind of young woman, footloose and fancy free or not, that you followed, at least you followed if you were Kenny Jackson and hoped things would work out okay.

What Kenny dreaded that day was that he was afraid to confront his past. And that past just then entailed having to go to his father’s home territory just up the road in Hazard. See Kenny saw himself as strictly a Yankee, a hard “we fought to free the slaves and incidentally save the union” Yankee for one and all to see back in old North Adamsville. And denied, denied to the high heavens, that he had any connection with the south, especially the hillbilly south that everybody was making a fuse about trying to bring into the 20th century around that time. And here he was with a father with Hazard, Kentucky, the poorest of the poor hillbillies, right on his birth certificate although Kenny had never been there before. Yeah, Fiona had better be worth it.

Kenny had to admit, as they picked up one lonely truck driver ride after another (it did not hurt in those days to have a comely lass standing on the road with you in the back road South, or anywhere else, especially if you had longish hair and a wisp of a beard), that the country was beautiful. As they entered coal country though and the shacks got crummier and crummier he got caught up in that 1960s Michael Harrington Other America no running water, outhouse, open door, one window and a million kids and dogs running around half-naked, the kids that is vision. But they got to Pottsville okay and Fiona’s cousin and husband (Laura and Stu) turned out to be good hosts. So good that they made sure that Kenny and Fiona stayed in town long enough to attend the weekly dance at the old town barn (red of course, run down and in need of paint to keep red of course) that had seen such dances going back to the 1920s when the Carter Family had actually come through Pottsville on their way back to Clinch Mountain.

Kenny buckled at the thought, the mere thought, of going to some Podunk Saturday night “hoe-down” and tried to convince Fiona that they should leave before Saturday. Fiona would have none of it and so Kenny was stuck. Actually the dance started out pretty well, helped tremendously by some local “white lightning” that Stu provided and which he failed to mention should be sipped, sipped sparingly. Not only that but the several fiddles, mandolins, guitars, washboards and whatnot made pretty good music. Music like Anchored in Love and Come All You Fair And Tender Ladies, stuff that he had heard in the folk clubs in Harvard Square when he used to hang out there in the early 1960s. And music that even Kenny, old two left-feet, one way out of whack, draft-free out of whack, Kenny, could dance to with Fiona.

So Kenny was sipping, well more than sipping, and dancing and all until maybe about midnight when this woman, this local woman came out of nowhere and began to sing, sing like some quick, rushing wind sound coming down from the hills and hollas (hollows for Yankees, okay, please). Kenny began to toss and turn a little, not from the liquor but from some strange feeling, some strange womb-like feeling that this woman’s voice was a call from up on top of these deep green hills, now mist-filled awaiting day. And then she started into a long, mournful version of Hills of Home, and he sensed, sensed strongly if not anything he could articulate that he was home. Yes, Kenny Jackson, Yankee, city boy, corner boy-bred was “home,” hillbilly home. So Kenny did really hear Hazel Dickens for first time in 1970, see.

[As for Fiona Fay she stayed on the road with Kenny until they headed toward the Midwest where she veered off home to Valparaiso in Indiana, her hometown, back to the business school she was attending and had taken time off from to “find herself” just as Kenny and ten million other generational wanderers were trying like hell to do. Kenny headed west via Denver and the Utahs to California, to Big Sur and a different mountain ethos, splashed by the sea, splashed by the Japan seas, splashed by everything that in his everlasting life needed to be washed clean. They were supposed to meet out there a few months later after she finished up the semester and attended to some family business. They never did, a not so unusual occurrence of the time when people met and faded along the way, but Kenny thought about her, about that red barn dance night, about that lady of the mountains and that wind-swept mountain coming down the hollows night for a long time after that.]    

   
 

From The Archives-The Struggle To Win The Youth To The Fight For Our Socialist Future

Logo Of The Communist Youth International

Click below to link to a Communist Youth archival site

http://www.marxisthistory.org/subject/usa/eam/yci.html



Markin comment:

One of the declared purposes of this blog is to draw the lessons of our left-wing past, spotty and incomplete as they may be, here in America and internationally, especially from the pro-communist wing. Historically these lessons would be centrally derived from the revolutions of 1848 in Europe, especially in France, the Paris Commune of 1871, and most vividly under the impact of the Lenin and Trotsky-led Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917, a world historic achievement for the international working class whose subsequent demise was of necessity a world-historic defeat for that same class. To that end I have made commentaries and provided archival works in order to help draw those lessons for today’s left-wing activists to learn, or at least ponder over.

More importantly, for the long haul, and unfortunately given that same spotty and incomplete past the long haul is what appears to be the time frame that this old militant will have to concede that we need to think about, to help educate today’s youth in the struggle for our common communist future. An education that masses of previous generations of youth undertook gladly but which now is reduced to a precious few.  That is beside the question of numbers in any case no small or easy task given the differences of generations (the missing transmission generation problem between the generation of ’68 who tried unsuccessfully to turn the world upside down and failed, the missing in between generation raised on Reagan rations and today’s desperate youth in need of all kinds of help; differences of political milieus worked in (another missing link situation with the attenuation of the links to the old mass socialist and communist organizations decimated by the red scare Cold War 1950s night of the long knives through the new old New Left of the 1960s and little notable organizational connections since); differences of social structure to work around (the serious erosion of the industrial working class in America, the rise of the white collar service sector, the now organically chronically unemployed, and the rise of the technocrats); and, increasingly more important, the differences in appreciation of technological advances, and their uses (today’s  computer, cellphone, and social networking savvy youth using those assets as tools for organizing).

There is no question that back in my youth in the 1960s I could have used, desperately used, many of the archival materials available on-line at the press of  a button today. When I developed political consciousness very early on in my youth, albeit a liberal political consciousness, I could have used this material as I knew, I knew deep inside my heart and mind, that a junior Cold War liberal of the American For Democratic Action (ADA) stripe was not the end of my leftward political trajectory. More importantly, I could have used a socialist or communist youth organization to help me articulate the doubts I had about the virtues of liberal capitalism and be recruited to a more left-wing world view.

As it was I spent far too long in the throes of the left-liberal/soft social-democratic milieu where I was dying politically. A group like the Young Communist League (W.E.B. Dubois Clubs in those days), the Young People’s Socialist League, or the Young Socialist Alliance representing the youth organizations of the American Communist Party, American Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party (U.S.) respectively would have saved much wasted time and energy. I knew they were around but not in my area.

The archival material to be used in this series is weighted heavily toward the youth movements of the early American Communist Party and the Socialist Workers Party (U.S). For more recent material I have relied on material from the Spartacus Youth Clubs, the youth group of the Spartacist League (U.S.), both because they are more readily available to me and because, and this should give cause for pause, there are not many other non-CP, non-SWP youth groups around. As I gather more material from other youth sources I will place them in this series.

Finally I would like to finish up with the preamble to the Spartacist Youth Club’s What We Fight For statement of purpose:

"The Spartacus Youth Clubs intervene into social struggles armed with the revolutionary internationalist program of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. We work to mobilize youth in struggle as partisans of the working class, championing the liberation of black people, women and all the oppressed. The SYCs fight to win youth to the perspective of building the Leninist vanguard party that will lead the working class in socialist revolution, laying the basis for a world free of capitalist exploitation and imperialist slaughter."

This seems to me be somewhere in the right direction for what a Bolshevik youth group should be doing these days; a proving ground to become professional revolutionaries with enough wiggle room to learn from their mistakes, and successes. More later.

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Third Congress of the Communist International

The Communist International and the Communist Youth Movement

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Source: Theses Resolutions and Manifestos of the First Four Congress of the Third International, translated by Alix Holt and Barbara Holland. Ink Links 1980;
Transcribed: by Andy Blunden.

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12 July 1921

1 The young socialist movement came into existence as a result of the steadily increasing capitalist exploitation of young workers and also of the growth of bourgeois militarism. The movement was a reaction against attempts to poison the minds of young workers with bourgeois nationalist ideology and against the tendency of most of the social-democratic parties and the trade unions to neglect the economic, political and cultural demands of young workers.

In most countries the social-democratic parties and the unions, which were growing increasingly opportunist and revisionist, took no part in establishing young socialist organisations, and in certain countries they even opposed the creation of a youth movement. The reformist social-democratic parties and trade unions saw the independent revolutionary socialist youth organisations as a serious threat to their opportunist policies. They sought to introduce a bureaucratic control over the youth organisations and destroy their independence, thus stifling the movement, changing its character and adapting it to social-democratic politics.

2 As a result of the imperialist war and the positions taken towards it by social democracy almost everywhere, the contradictions between the social-democratic parties and the international revolutionary organisations inevitably grew and eventually led to open conflict. The living conditions of young workers sharply deteriorated; there was mobilisation and military service on the one hand, and, on the other, the increasing exploitation in the munitions industries and militarisation of civilian life. The most class-conscious young socialists opposed the war and the nationalist propaganda. They dissociated themselves from the social-democratic parties and undertook independent political activity (the International Youth Conferences at Berne in 1915 and Jena in 1916).

In their struggle against the war, the young socialist organisations were supported by the most dedicated revolutionary groups and became an important focus for the revolutionary forces. In most countries no revolutionary parties existed and the youth organisations took over their role; they became independent political organisations and acted as the vanguard in the revolutionary struggle.

3 With the establishment of the Communist International and, in some countries, of Communist Parties, the role of the revolutionary youth organisations changes. Young workers, because of their economic position and because of their psychological make-up, are more easily won to Communist ideas and are quicker to show enthusiasm for revolutionary struggle than adult workers. Nevertheless, the youth movement relinquishes to the Communist Parties its vanguard role of organising independent activity and providing political leadership. The further existence of Young Communist organisations as politically independent and leading organisations would mean that two Communist Parties existed, in competition with one another and differing only in the age of their membership.

4 At the present time the role of the Young Communist movement is to organise the mass of young workers, educate them in the ideas of Communism, and draw them into the struggle for the Communist revolution.

The Communist youth organisations can no longer limit themselves to working in small propaganda circles. They must win the broad masses of workers by conducting a permanent campaign of agitation, using the newest methods. In conjunction with the Communist Parties and the trade unions, they must organise the economic struggle.

The new tasks of the Communist youth organisations require that their educational work be extended and intensified. The members of the youth movement receive their Communist education on the one hand through active participation in all revolutionary struggles and on the other through a study of Marxist theory.

Another important task facing the Young Communist organisations in the immediate future is to break the hold of centrist and social-patriotic ideas on young workers and free the movement from the influences of the social-democratic officials and youth leaders. At the same time, the Young Communist organisations must do everything they can to ‘rejuvenate’ the Communist Parties by parting with their older members, who then join the adult Parties.

The Young Communist organisations participate in the discussion of all political questions, help build the Communist Parties and take part in all revolutionary activity and struggle. This is the main difference between them and the youth sections of the centrist and socialist unions.

5 The relations between the Young Communist organisations and the Communist Party are fundamentally different from those between the revolutionary young socialist organisations and the social-democratic parties. In the common struggle to hasten the proletarian revolution, the greatest unity and strictest centralisation are essential. Political leadership at the international level must belong to the Communist International and at the national level to the respective national sections.

It is the duty of the Young Communist organisations to follow this political leadership (its programme, tactics and political directives) and merge with the general revolutionary front. The Communist Parties are at different stages of development and therefore the Executive Committee of the Communist International and the Executive Committee of the Communist Youth International should apply this principle in accordance with the circumstances obtaining in each particular case.

The Young Communist movement has begun to organise its members according to the principle of strict centralisation and in its relations with the Communist International – the leader and bearer of the proletarian revolution – it will be governed by an iron discipline. All political and tactical questions are discussed in the ranks of the Communist youth organisation, which then takes a position and works in the Communist Party of its country in accordance with the resolutions passed by the Party, in no circumstance working against them.

If the Communist youth organisation has serious differences with the Communist Party, it has the right to appeal to the Executive Committee of the Communist International.

Loss of political independence in no way implies loss of the organisational independence which is so essential for political education.

Strong centralisation and effective unity are essential for the successful advancement of the revolutionary struggle, and therefore, in those countries where historical development has left the youth dependent upon the Party, the dependence should be preserved; differences between the two bodies are decided by the EC of the Communist International and the Executive Committee of the Communist Youth International.

6 One of the most immediate and most important tasks of the Young Communist organisations is to fight the belief in political independence inherited from the period when the youth organisations enjoyed absolute autonomy, and which is still subscribed to by some members. The press and organisational apparatus of the Young Communist movement must be used to educate young workers to be responsible and active members of a united Communist Party.

At the present time the Communist youth organisations are beginning to attract increasing numbers of young workers and are developing into mass organisations; it is therefore important that they give the greatest possible time and effort to education.

7 Close co-operation between the Young Communist organisations and the Communist Parties in political work must be reflected in close organisational links. It is essential that each organisation should at all times be represented at all levels of the other organisation (from the central Party organs and district, regional and local organisations down to the cells of Communist groups and the trade unions) and particularly at all conferences and congresses.

In this way the Communist Parties will be able to exert a permanent influence on the movement and encourage political activity, while the youth organisations, in their turn, can influence the Party.

8 The relations established between the Communist Youth International and the Communist International are even closer than those between the individual Parties and their youth organisations. The Communist Youth International has to provide the Communist youth movement with a centralised leadership, offer moral and material support to individual unions, form Young Communist organisations where none has existed and publicise the Communist youth movement and its programme. The Communist Youth International is a section of the Communist International and, as such, is bound by the decisions of its congresses and its Central Committee. The Communist Youth International conducts its work within the framework of these decisions and thus passes on the political line of the Communist International to all its sections. A well-developed system of reciprocal representation and close and constant co-operation guarantees that the Communist Youth International will make gains in all the spheres of its activity (leadership, agitation, organisation and the work of strengthening and supporting the Communist youth organisations).