A View From The Left-NEW WARS / OLD WARS – What Could Possibly Go Wrong?-Damn, End The Endless Wars

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

 

Lesser Evils II

As likely as it is that Americans will continue to face some kind of “lesser evil” decision in the upcoming presidential election, the choice for Syrians is much more stark.  Their lesser evil is considerably worse than anything we might face – but the murderous “greater evil” is positively horrifying.  At our Mass Peace Action forum on Monday, a young Syrian refugee (from a Sunni family) told about the devastation of her country and how moderate or secular Syrians like herself were clinging to the hope that the Assad regime would not be overthrown.  Her response to the analysis written for Peace Action, Syria and Peace was “Exactly what Syrians feel & think...”  Not all Syrians, obviously, but probably a majority at this point. Dictators like Bashar al-Assad or Iraq’s Saddam Hussein repressed open political dissent, but they allowed people to live as they chose in their day-to-day lives. The Islamists in Syria enforce extreme religious dictates that oppress women, promise even less democracy and deny any kind of normal life.  Which is the lesser evil?

 

Incidentally, speaking of our own upcoming “lesser evil” election, journalist Stephen Kinzer pointed out at the same fo rum Monday that if Hillary Clinton had remained secretary of state in Obama’s second administration there likely would not have been an Iran nuclear agreement.

 

“We are from Saudi Arabia and We Are Here to Help!”

One of those well-rehearsed folksy chestnuts that Ronald Reagan used to recite went like this:

I think you all know that I've always felt the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: “I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help.”  

That was always a nonsensical with respect to the US.  However, in the Middle East and many other regions of the world, not so much. Think Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya – and Nicaragua, Chile, Indonesia and many more examples. When coupled with a seeming parallel offer from Saudi Arabia, then it’s probably the time for millions of secular people and members of religious minorities to keep a packed bag near the door.

Saudi ready to send ground troops to Syria

Saudi Arabia is ready to join any ground operation the US-led coalition against the Islamic State group in Syria might decide on, a general from the kingdom said on Thursday.  "If there is any willingness in the coalition to go in the ground operation, we will contribute positively in that," Brigadier General Ahmed al-Assiri told AFP.  US Defence Secretary Ash Carter welcomed the offer, saying increased activity by other countries would make it easier for the United States to accelerate its fight against IS. "That kind of news is very welcome," he told reporters while on a visit to Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada… US senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham have called for 100,000 foreign soldiers, most from Sunni regional states but also including Americans, to fight IS in Syria.   More

 

Saudis Spare Poet His Life, But He’ll Get 800 Lashes

A court in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday revised the punishment given to a stateless Palestinian poet convicted of apostasy, reducing it from death to eight years in prison, 800 lashes and public repentance, his lawyer said.  The poet, Ashraf Fayadh, had been sentenced to beheading because of the apostasy conviction announced in November, based partly on his published poetry.  The sentence stirred outrage among international artists and human rights groups at a time when Saudi officials were seeking to rebut comparisons between their application of Sharia law and the practices of the Islamic State extremist group. The sentence also came near the end of a year in which the Saudi authorities carried out the highest number of executions here in two decades, and just before a mass execution of 47 men on terrorism charges, including a Shiite cleric who had called for the downfall of the royal family.  More

 

America's New Vietnam in the Middle East

Right now, as Americans keep a wary eye on the Islamic State (IS), there are only two competing stories out there about the devolving situation in the Middle East: think of them as the mission-creep and the make-the-desert-glow stories. The Obama administration suggests that we have to “defend” America by gradually ratcheting up our efforts, from air strikes to advisers to special operations raids against the Islamic State. Administration critics, especially the Republican candidates for president, urge us to “defend” ourselves by bombing IS to smithereens, sending in sizeable contingents of American troops, and rapidly upping the military ante. Despite the fact that the Obama administration and Congress continue to dance around the word “war,” both versions are obviously war stories. There’s no genuine peace story in sight.    More

 

REP. JIM MACGOVERN: America Cannot Afford an Endless War in Afghanistan

After decades of war, the United States learned the hard way that we could exit Vietnam and be stronger for it. A perpetual war in Indochina ended when we were chased out, with helicopters rescuing Americans from rooftops.  Today in Afghanistan, we are at a crossroads similar to the one we faced in Vietnam. We must remember the lessons we learned and stop Afghanistan from becoming another endless war.  In Afghanistan, there is no clear end game and no clear formula for success. This is the longest war in our country's history and another five or 10 or 25 years are not likely to bring about democracy, a stable government or a definitive end to the Taliban's threat to Kabul.  The simple truth is that there is no military solution to the crisis in Afghanistan, only a political solution. And only the Afghan people themselves can determine the fate of their future.   More

 

Despite promises of no boots on the ground, we have thousands of troops in Iraq and Syria

“The boots on the ground have to be Iraqi,” President Obama insisted in a September 2014 interview.  “The resolution we’ve submitted today does not call for the deployment of U.S. ground combat forces to Iraq or Syria,” he maintained in a speech at the White House in February 2015. Obama added, “As I’ve said before, I’m convinced that the United States should not get dragged back into another prolonged ground war in the Middle East.”  “Local forces on the ground who know their countries best are best positioned to take the ground fight to ISIL, and that’s what they’re doing,” he asserted.  Despite Obama’s frequent insistence to the contrary, nevertheless, today there are thousands of American troops on the ground in Iraq. The New York Times quietly noted in its Jan. 28 article “More Is Needed to Beat ISIS, Pentagon Officials Conclude” that 3,700 U.S. troops have been deployed to Iraq.   More

 

Number of US Troops in Iraq More Than 4,000, Exceeds Previous Claims

The U.S. routinely has more troops on the ground in Iraq than the 3,500-3,600 frequently cited by Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, the high command and President Barack Obama, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad said Wednesday.  "It's fair to say" that the number of U.S. troops in Iraq serving as trainers and advisors -- or in support or on special assignment -- was well above 4,000 on a daily basis, said Army Col. Steve Warren, a spokesman for Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve led by Army Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland.  In a video briefing from Baghdad to the Pentagon, Warren essentially confirmed a Daily Beast report that the current number of U.S. troops in Iraq was about 4,450.   More

 

U.S. killing more civilians in Iraq, Syria than it acknowledges

In almost a-year-and-a-half of bombing Iraq and Syria, the United States admits to killing just 22 innocent people. An independent monitoring group says the real figure could be more than a thousand. The explanation for the U.S. military’s impossibly low number can be found in the very way it investigates its own airstrikes. A CENTCOM spokesman told us that all civilian casualties were investigated — even if something as insubstantial as an anonymous post to Twitter was the only source. But some U.S. investigations were cursory at best, amounting to what appears to be willful blindness… “You build in your countries and destroy in ours?” asked Abdul-Aziz al Hassan, who lost his father in the bombing at al Gharra. “Is this how you bring democracy? Stop it. Really, stop it. People are tired.”   More

 

A View From The Left- WARS ABROAD, WARS AT HOME-End The Endless Wars-Black Lives Matter

WARS ABROAD, WARS AT HOME

 

DEMOCRACY OF THE BILLIONAIRES - The Big Money and What It Means in Election 2016

Speaking of the need for citizen participation in our national politics in his final State of the Union address, President Obama said, “Our brand of democracy is hard.” A more accurate characterization might have been: “Our brand of democracy is cold hard cash.”  … In this election season, it’s clear that these skirmishes involving the ultra-wealthy and their piles of cash are transforming modern American politics into a form of theater. And the correlation between big money and big drama seems destined only to rise.   More

 

FEEDING THE MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

America’s military procurement machine may be the single most successful system of wealth transfer ever devised — moving tens of billions of dollars every year from ordinary taxpayers into the pockets of big defense contractors and their allies in Congress. But as a provider of working equipment to defend the United States against realistic threats, it is becoming more and more dysfunctional with every passing year… Spending on major military acquisition programs is projected to soar 23 percent, after adjusting for inflation, from fiscal year 2015 to 2022. Worse yet, Congress and the administration are spending much of that money on weapons that don’t even work as advertised.  More

 

MICHAEL MOORE: 10 Things They Won't Tell You About the Flint Water Tragedy

When Governor Snyder took office in 2011, one of the first things he did was to get a multi-billion dollar tax break passed by the Republican legislature for the wealthy and for corporations. But with less tax revenues, that meant he had to start cutting costs.

So, many things -- schools, pensions, welfare, safe drinking water -- were slashed. Then he invoked an executive privilege to take over cities (all of them majority black) by firing the mayors and city councils whom the local people had elected, and installing his cronies to act as "dictators" over these cities.  Their mission? Cut services to save money so he could give the rich even more breaks. That's where the idea of switching Flint to river water came from. To save $15 million! It was easy. Suspend democracy. Cut taxes for the rich. Make the poor drink toxic river water. And everybody's happy.  Except those who were poisoned in the process. All 102,000 of them.    More

 

Story Goes National: RACIAL HOSTILITIES SIMMERED AT HISTORIC BOSTON LATIN SCHOOL

With court-ordered desegregation of public schools unfolding violently across this city in the mid-1970s, Boston Latin, then about 90 percent white, began admitting more minority students, remaining a place of relative calm in a city engulfed in protest.  But in the last two weeks, the school, a beacon of high achievement founded by Puritans in 1635, has emerged at the center of a new discussion of racial tensions. Two black students, employing YouTube videos and a hashtag, started a campaign to expose what they see as a hostile school climate — one in which, they said, racial insensitivity is too common and hate speech is not effectively punished… At Boston Latin, the students’ campaign has prompted calls for a sweeping discussion about racial equality in a city where the violence of a busing crisis has cast a long shadow.  “It is about time that we actually have the very real conversation about race, race relations and inequality that we need to move forward together as the city of Boston,” said Tito Jackson, a city councilor. “I don’t think that we’ve had the watershed conversation that we need to have on this topic and this issue.”   More

 

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Boston’s Airport Workers Need You!

Your support of the workers' struggle for justice and respect at Logan Airport has been instrumental in moving this campaign forward. Last year, we won an $11/hour minimum wage for over 1,500 workers at the airport.

This year, we're fighting for $15 - but we can't do it without you. We need your support for a bill that would guarantee a $15 minimum wage for all airport workers.

Here are two ways you can help:

1.      Join us at the State House on Tuesday, February 9th! Press conference at 1:30pm followed by hearing at 2:00pm before the Labor & Workforce Development Committee (Room number TBD)

2.      Call your legislators and let them know you support $15 for all airport workers. You can find out who your State Senator and Representative are here.

 

New evidence that voter ID laws ‘skew democracy’ in favor of white Republicans

Voter fraud is, for all intents and purposes, practically nonexistent. The best available research on the topic, by Loyola Law School professor Justin Levitt, found only 31 credible incidents of voter impersonation in an investigation of over 1 billion votes cast.

But that hasn't dampened Republican efforts to pass a spate of strict voter ID laws since 2008. And it hasn't hurt the public's overall enthusiasm for those laws, either… The net effect of all this? "Democratic turnout drops by an estimated 7.7 percentage points in general elections when strict photo identification laws are in place." Democrats weren't the only ones affected, either. The data showed that Republican turnout was depressed by 4.6 percentage points too.  But the laws disproportionately affected Democratic voters. "The turnout advantage of those on the right is three to five times larger in strict photo identification states, all else equal. These results suggest that by instituting strict photo ID laws, states could minimize the influence of voters on the left and could dramatically alter the political leaning of the electorate. "   More

 

Rightwing Protesters:  WAAAHHHH…but we don’t wanna get arrested!!

Let’s see what happens as their armed insurrection winds down.  How will the system treat the militant bullyboys?  Will they get pepper-sprayed in the face as did the college students peacefully sitting in a driveway at UC Davis during Occupy protests, or shot in the head with a police projectile as did Veterans For Peace member Scott Olson in Oakland?  Will they get two months in jail like Ed Kinane for stepping across a line at the School of the Americas; or six months in jail like grandmother Mary Anne Grady, for taking pictures of demonstrators outside the Reaper drone base in upstate NY; or a $20,000 fine like Kathy Kelly’s peace group, for taking medicine to people in Iraq before we invaded their country in 2003… So let’s see how the Rambo wannabes of Eastern Oregon handle themselves.  Seems they could use a few lessons in toughness from nonviolent peace and justice activists.     More

 

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A View From The Left-A Libya Call That Still Haunts Hillary Clinton-And Should All The Way Back To 125th Street

A Libya Call That Still Haunts Hillary Clinton

When Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton walked into the gilded Elysee Palace in Paris on March 14, 2011, she found a fired-up French President Nicolas Sarkozy eager to launch military strikes in Libya… A few hours later, after consultations with British and Arab allies and a leader of the Libyan opposition all demanding action, Clinton joined a White House meeting of President Obama’s National Security Council by phone and forcefully urged the president to take military action…  Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, national security adviser Thomas E. Donilon and others were against military action, contending that the United States had no clear national interests at stake and that operations could last far longer and cost more lives than anyone anticipated.  But Clinton joined U.N. Ambassador Susan E. Rice and White House adviser Samantha Power in pressing Obama to back a U.S.- and NATO-led military campaign, arguing that the United States could not let Gaddafi butcher his citizens.    More

A View From The Left-Adding Up the Costs of Hillary's Wars

Adding Up the Costs of Hillary's Wars

Would Hillary be more inclined toward an aggressive foreign policy? Certainly more than Obama’s—Clinton pressed the White House to directly intervene in Syria and was far more hard line on Iran. More than the Republicans? It’s hard to say, because most of them sound like they have gone off their meds. For instance, a number of GOP candidates pledge to cancel the nuclear agreement with Iran, and, while Clinton wanted to drive a harder bargain than the White House did, in the end she supported it.  However, she did say she is proud to call Iranians “enemies,” and attacked Sanders for his remark that the U.S. might find common ground with Iran on defeating the Islamic State. Sanders then backed off  and said he didn’t think it was possible to improve relations with Teheran in the near future.  The danger of Clinton’s view of America’s role in the world is that it is old fashioned imperial behavior wrapped in the humanitarian rationale of R2P and thus more acceptable than the “make the sands glow” atavism of most the Republicans. In the end, however, R2P is just death and destruction in a different packaging.   More

 

A Libya Call That Still Haunts Hillary Clinton

When Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton walked into the gilded Elysee Palace in Paris on March 14, 2011, she found a fired-up French President Nicolas Sarkozy eager to launch military strikes in Libya… A few hours later, after consultations with British and Arab allies and a leader of the Libyan opposition all demanding action, Clinton joined a White House meeting of President Obama’s National Security Council by phone and forcefully urged the president to take military action…  Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, national security adviser Thomas E. Donilon and others were against military action, contending that the United States had no clear national interests at stake and that operations could last far longer and cost more lives than anyone anticipated.  But Clinton joined U.N. Ambassador Susan E. Rice and White House adviser Samantha Power in pressing Obama to back a U.S.- and NATO-led military campaign, arguing that the United States could not let Gaddafi butcher his citizens.    More

A View From The Left-ELECTIONS AND LESSER EVIL

ELECTIONS AND LESSER EVILS

 

The Missing Peace

It’s safe to say that most readers of this Update are supporting Bernie Sanders for president.  Me too.  At the same time, it is disappointing to observe what a weak case Sanders has made for a radical change in US foreign policy, even as he has focused so eloquently on the domestic politics of plutocracy that underlies it.  This was very much on display at the debate last night.  A commentator at a liberal website generally supportive of Clinton made this depressing  observation in a rundown of “winners and losers” in the debate.  It’s worth quoting in full:

 

It's curious that Bernie Sanders is so completely apathetic about foreign policy, since it's arguably the issue where Clinton is most vulnerable. Sure, she's more experienced, and sure, she will all come across as more knowledgeable, but she's also genuinely to the right of the Democratic Party as a whole when it comes to matters of war and peace.

 

There's space for a challenger to make the argument that Barack Obama made in 2008: She's too quick to go to war. The Libya intervention in 2011 was a mistake. So were her calls to intervene early against Bashar al-Assad in Syria. So was her hawkish rhetoric toward Iran, which arguably made life worse for Americans held there. She has clearly not learned the right lesson from Iraq, and she'd repeat her 2002 mistake by launching yet more ill-advised wars as commander in chief.

 

Sanders is not making this case. He's invoking the war vote, sure, but more as a thumb in Clinton's eye than as a pivot to explaining why a Sanders presidency would be different and less bellicose. That's largely because it probably wouldn't be that much less bellicose. Sanders's plans for ISIS and Afghanistan are basically identical to Clinton's. He supports the drone war.

 

If Wall Street was left without allies in the Democratic field tonight, then so were genuine doves. Lincoln Chafee, the only Democratic candidate to make a straightforwardly antiwar case, was treated as a punchline and dropped out early. And with two candidates left, doves are completely without a champion.

 

There is little doubt that a Sanders administration would promote a somewhat less bellicose foreign policy than Clinton’s. But really we need much better than that.  Even more daunting is to consider what kind of “lesser evil” choice will face progressive voters and peace advocates in the likely event that Clinton wins the nomination and faces some Neanderthal Republican?  Not a cheering prospect.

 

WHAT IS THE SANDERS FOREIGN POLICY DOCTRINE?

If Sanders is sincere, as he may well be, it means that even if America elects a radical candidate as president the failed war on terrorism will roll on destroying lives and undermining the very democracy Sanders claims he wants to save and expand.  There has been a concerted effort by various forces in American politics to bifurcate domestic concerns from the US’ sprawling global empire. But such a project is pure folly as imperial concerns always invade domestic ones, whether they be budgetary, military, civil liberties, or the limits of state power... For if this truly is a radical moment, why not go all the way and fight to liberate Americans from the sorrows of empire, as well as the precarity and corruption of a plutocracy?    More

 

Define ‘establishment candidate’: Rubio and Clinton both love Netanyahu

One of the main storylines coming out of Iowa is that two Establishment candidates won out there. Hillary Clinton, with her razor thin margin over Bernie Sanders. And Senator Marco Rubio, with his surprising 3d place finish at 23 percent, just behind Donald Trump. Both are hailed as Establishment candidates, and the mainstream press is firming up around them out of fear of the abyss that is represented by Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump… Of course, the Israel lobby is still such a powerful force in the Democratic Party that even the president was fawning to the Netanyahu administration last week at the Israeli Embassy, but the liberal Zionist branch of the Israel lobby (J Street, Beinart, Peace Now) doesn’t like Netanyahu either. But that’s the establishment! Bernie Sanders is an anti-establishment candidate. Shouldn’t he be running against Netanyahu right now? He wants to expose substantive differences between himself and Clinton. This is one of them.   More

 

Why Bernie Sanders Trounced Hillary Clinton Among Young Voters

Today's Democratic Party isn't the same coalition that gave Bill Clinton the presidency in the 1990s. While Democrats at the time savored his electoral strength, the major elements of his governing legacy -- welfare reform, Wall Street deregulation and tough-on-crime criminal justice policies -- were Republican priorities…  Today's Democratic base is far more skeptical of corporate power than the party of the 1990s was. A bipartisan consensus has emerged that Bill's GOP-backed crime bill fueled mass incarceration. Even conservative boosters of his welfare reform have acknowledged that it fails during the recessions, hurting the poor… But Sanders' massive 84 to 14 margin over Clinton among voters under 30 shows that the party's future is eager to break with its past. This is a wing of the party that wanted to see Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) run for president on an anti-Wall Street platform, which Sanders has adopted. It's a wing of the party that is uneasy with a candidate who served on Walmart's board of directors and made millions of dollars giving speeches to Wall Street, even after her family had amassed a nine-figure fortune.   More

 

Highlighting Bernie's Broad Appeal, Former NAACP Head Readies Key Endorsement

Adding to a growing list of prominent African American voices backing Bernie Sanders in his presidential bid, former NAACP head Ben Jealous will reportedly endorse the Vermont senator and campaign with him this weekend in New Hampshire… "The endorsement is a potential boost to Sanders who has struggled to gain traction among African-American voters," wrote CNN… Michelle Alexander wrote in a Facebook post last week: “If anyone doubts that the mainstream media fails to tell the truth about our political system (and its true winners and losers), the spectacle of large majorities of black folks supporting Hillary Clinton in the primary races ought to be proof enough. I can't believe Hillary would be coasting into the primaries with her current margin of black support if most people knew how much damage the Clintons have done—the millions of families that were destroyed the last time they were in the White House thanks to their boastful embrace of the mass incarceration machine and their total capitulation to the right-wing narrative on race, crime, welfare and taxes.”    More

 

CARPE DIEM, SENATOR WARREN

If destiny offers someone like Warren the opportunity to swing the tide of the nation toward a more honest and just governance and they hesitate, well then ultimately they weren’t the leader we hoped for.  Warren has had this opportunity served up to her by Bernie Sanders in the most admirable way.  There is no room for her to pretend the moment of decision is not upon her… The progressive movement widely and justly recognizes that Elizabeth Warren can be a great president.  Her own judgment has left that prospect to the future.  In the present moment, however, she is called to recognize she can be a great leader now in a moment in our history that may not come again for a planet imperiled by climate change and an accelerating concentration of wealth… This partnership between Sanders and Warren is an obvious step so easily available to bringing exponentially increased momentum to a movement that is on the cusp of making history.   More

 

Clinton blasts Wall Street, but still draws millions in contributions Even as Hillary Clinton has stepped up her rhetorical assault on Wall Street, her campaign and allied super PACs have continued to rake in millions from the financial sector, a sign of her deep and lasting relationships with banking and investment titans.  Through the end of December, donors at hedge funds, banks, insurance companies and other financial services firms had given at least $21.4 million to support Clinton’s 2016 presidential run — more than 10 percent of the $157.8 million contributed to back her bid, according to an analysis of Federal Election Commission filings by The Washington Post.  The contributions helped Clinton reach a fundraising milestone: By the end of 2015, she had brought in more money from the financial sector during her four federal campaigns than her ­husband did during his ­quarter-century political career.

Bingo!

 

Billionaire Israel Supporter Funneling Millions Into Clinton Campaign

Recent disclosures show media mogul and controversial Israel supporter Haim Saban is pouring millions of dollars into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid.  Haim Saban and his wife Cheryl together contributed $5 million to the Hillary Clinton Super PAC—Priorities USA Action—between 2015 and 2016 alone, according to disclosures available on OpenSecrets.org, affiliated with the Center for Responsive Politics.  While the contributions are not surprising from long-time Clinton-backers, $3 million of them notably poured in after the presidential hopeful authored a letter to Haim Saban in July of 2015, seeking advice on "how we can work together” to defeat the growing movement to Boycott, Divest from, and Sanction (BDS) Israel.    More

 

Adding Up the Costs of Hillary's Wars

Would Hillary be more inclined toward an aggressive foreign policy? Certainly more than Obama’s—Clinton pressed the White House to directly intervene in Syria and was far more hard line on Iran. More than the Republicans? It’s hard to say, because most of them sound like they have gone off their meds. For instance, a number of GOP candidates pledge to cancel the nuclear agreement with Iran, and, while Clinton wanted to drive a harder bargain than the White House did, in the end she supported it.  However, she did say she is proud to call Iranians “enemies,” and attacked Sanders for his remark that the U.S. might find common ground with Iran on defeating the Islamic State. Sanders then backed off  and said he didn’t think it was possible to improve relations with Teheran in the near future.  The danger of Clinton’s view of America’s role in the world is that it is old fashioned imperial behavior wrapped in the humanitarian rationale of R2P and thus more acceptable than the “make the sands glow” atavism of most the Republicans. In the end, however, R2P is just death and destruction in a different packaging.   More

 

A Libya Call That Still Haunts Hillary Clinton

When Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton walked into the gilded Elysee Palace in Paris on March 14, 2011, she found a fired-up French President Nicolas Sarkozy eager to launch military strikes in Libya… A few hours later, after consultations with British and Arab allies and a leader of the Libyan opposition all demanding action, Clinton joined a White House meeting of President Obama’s National Security Council by phone and forcefully urged the president to take military action…  Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, national security adviser Thomas E. Donilon and others were against military action, contending that the United States had no clear national interests at stake and that operations could last far longer and cost more lives than anyone anticipated.  But Clinton joined U.N. Ambassador Susan E. Rice and White House adviser Samantha Power in pressing Obama to back a U.S.- and NATO-led military campaign, arguing that the United States could not let Gaddafi butcher his citizens.    More

 

***Poet’s Corner- Langston Hughes- I, Too, Sing America

***Poet’s Corner- Langston Hughes- I, Too, Sing America 

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

 

February is Black History Month

 

 

 

I, Too, Sing America

 

Langston Hughes, 1902 - 1967

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.

They send me to eat in the kitchen

When company comes,

But I laugh,

And eat well,

And grow strong.

Tomorrow,

I’ll be at the table

When company comes.

Nobody’ll dare

Say to me,

“Eat in the kitchen,"

Then.

Besides, 

They’ll see how beautiful I am

And be ashamed—

I, too, am America.

 

From The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, published by Knopf and Vintage Books. Copyright © 1994 by the Estate of Langston Hughes. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Harold Ober Associates Incorporated.

 

 

…he, black warrior prince proud, sage of the darkened night, spoke, spoke curse and celebration just to keep the record, the historical record straight. He spoke of ancient Spanish conquistador enslavement down in Saint Augustine prison houses. Of ancient Dutchman and Anglo-Saxon slave markets down in fetid Jamestown. Of Middle Passage ocean dumps of human flesh, sold, sold cheap, sold as the overhead price from sweated labors. Of great bustling Atlantic world ports and hectic triangular trade, sugar, rum, slaves, or was it slaves, sugar, and rum, he was not sure of the exact combination but those were the three elements.

He spoke of Cripsus Attucks and Valley Forge fights, black soldierly fights for white freedom all parchment etched, all false, all third-fifths of a man false embedded deep in that founding document. Of compromises, great and small, Missouri 1820, that damn Mex bracero land- eating war against the ghost of those long ago conquistadores, of 1850 compromises, of fugitive slave laws, enforced, enforced and incited. Of Kansas, Kansas for chrissakes, out on the plains all bleeding, and bloody, and no end in sight.

He spoke of righteous push back, of the brothers (and maybe sisters too but they got short shrift in the account books) who made old Mister scream, made him swear in his concubine bed night. Of brave hard-scrabble Nat Turner, come and gone, old Captain Brown and his brave integrated band (one kin to a future poet) at Harpers Ferry fight, and above all of heroic stand-up Massachusetts 54^th before Fort Wagner fight. Of Father Abraham and those coming 200, 000 strong what were they, contraband, or men. Of fighting back against the old rascal Mister down in Mississippi goddam, Alabama goddam and the other goddams.

He spoke of rascally push back against the democratic night. Of Mister James Crow and nigra sit here, not there, of get on the back of the bus, or better walk, it’s good for you, eat here, not there, drink here, not there, jesus, breath here, not there. Of race riots and other tumults in northern ghetto cities teeming with those who tired of eat heres, drink theres, stand over theres, and charted breathes.

He spoke of that good night, that push back against black stolen dignity. Of struggle, hard struggle against the 1930s Great Depression Mister night. Of no more backing down the minute Mister said, no, thought to say, get back. Of riding with the king, of the simple act of saying no, no more. Of great heroic figures risen from the squatter farms, the share-cropped farms, the janitor and maid cities, the prisons, above all the prisons. Of Malcolm and the “new negro” and the bust up of that old fogey “talented tenth” white man fetch. Of brothers (again sisters short-shrifted from the account book) from North Carolina, from Louisiana, from Oakland who said defend yourselves-by any means necessary -if you want to hold your head up high.

He spoke of ebb and flow, of hope, and of no hope in the benighted black America land …

The Night Captain Crunch Cashed His Check-With Jeanbon Kerouac In Mind

The Night Captain Crunch Cashed His Check-With Jeanbon Kerouac In Mind

By Bradley Fox

It was a dark, drizzly night the night in October, 2015 when Bart Webber and Sam Lowell heard from their old on the road friend from up in Maine Josh Breslin that Captain Crunch had cashed his check (for those not in the know that was an old-time 1950s and 1960s expression among hipsters, be-boppers, beats and along the edges of hippie-dom to say that somebody had passed on to the great beyond just like among the hobos, tramps and bums out in the great railroad “jungles” of the West the expression that some compadre had “caught the freight train West” meant the same thing). That night, or whenever the old gang still left heard about his demise, there must have been consideration gnashing of teeth among guys, gals too, in places like Sam and Bart’s Carver, Josh’s Olde Saco, North Adamsville, Riverdale, Steubenville, Ohio, Omaha, Saint Louie, and a thousand other places where those who knew the Captain in his prime and their primes wound up. Maybe wept a tear for their lost youth when everything was possible and knowing the Captain made you believe that hard fact even in the face of contrary evidence as the decade of the 1960s moved along. Yeah, that’s it, maybe wept a tear for their lost youth.   

See Captain Crunch, real name Jonathan Fuller, Yale Class of 1957, but always Captain Crunch to all who knew him in that time when everybody and the uncles and aunts were shedding their real names and reinventing, or trying to reinvent themselves, in many cases that was a close thing, had caught the fever caused by the stir of Jeanbon Kerouac’s classic 1950s road novel On The Road (although the events in that book had actually occurred in the late 1940s the vagaries of the publishing industry and Jack’s hubris combined to delay the news of the new dispensation much to his chagrin). That novel had come out the year the Captain had graduated from Yale and having been foot loose and fancy free coming from an old moneyed family and thus unlike many others who graduated that year not in need of a job to set himself up the world headed out to San Francisco to check out the scene there. Took the train out if anybody was wondering if he followed Jack’s hitchhike trail to breathe deeply of the American night.

The scene that was happening in that town, its doings, and its characters would eventually be widely called the “beat generation.” (The genesis of that term “beat” has a checkered history since both John Holmes who used it in an article in the later 1940s and Jack who personified “beat” claimed fatherhood to the idea but in any case Jack made the term more widely known and more interesting.) The Captain had landed in Frisco in late 1957 and headed straight to the City Lights bookstore over on Columbus run by the poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti and a couple of other associates to see what was what. One day a few months thereafter he had met Kerouac who had just come off one of his famous, or infamous, three day drunk-doped up-sexed up binges and looked like hell but who answered his questions about his take on the scene. Jack had told him all the media stuff was all bullshit, all bullshit now not when the events depicted in the novel occurred and that the so-called hipster beatnik clowns (his term according to the Captain) running around with beards, berets, and bennies were all fakers and punks although the girls, especially those all dressed in black including their lingerie and wearing black eyeliner, who were willing to go down for him, or on him, just because he was famous now was okay as long as they didn’t expect anything of him except to get laid. The Captain (who had not taken on that persona then that would come later when he drew his own acolytes around him like Bart and Sam) hung around that scene, the edges of that Frisco beat scene for a few years until it kind of petered out of its own inertia.             

The Captain had said later when a new generation familiar with On The Road and not much else began to ask questions about what happened then that he had learned a lot from the beat poets, artists and performers no question. Knew many of them who were already famous or who would become famous in the folklore of the town Ginsberg, Kerouac, Corso, Snyder, and Cassady or have a local fame like Jake Arbus, Dixie Davis, and Guy Daniels. But as that that movement drifted into dust he had become more interested in expanding his self-consciousness, his karmic being, when he fit in the universe and so he slowly drifted south to La Honda where Ken Kesey was putting together a new dispensation around Jack’s on the road idea and the serious use of drugs to create a new consciousness (or as Kesey would say with some candor before he himself got famous just to get through the fucking horrible day).

The biggest thing that the Captain picked up though as the 1950s drifted forlornly into the 1960s since the drugs could only take him so far was the idea of the road, the road constantly travelled, in the end the idea of being “on the bus” that he grabbed straight off from Kesey and his Merry Pranksters about 1964, 65. Kesey’s bus, a converted real live yellow brick road school bus, the Further On was a combination floating commune for the aimless homeless young who could not deal with the nine to five world, a moving concert hall complete with state of the art sound system that could handle the explosive new music coming out of the Bay area (the uprisings of the Doors, the Dead, Jefferson Airplane and a million other acts which the impresario Bill Graham put on at the Fillmore West and other locales), a dope-infested caravan with every kind of dope from LSD to horse to grass to bennies and back, and a free-lance free sex sex parlor. That idea or series of ideas attracted the Captain and after a short stay on Kesey’s bus he broke out on his own like a lot of people were starting to do and put together his own bus. Whereas say in 1965 Kesey’s bus would have been subject to talk by hipsters and gawks by the tinny tourists by the time the Captain put his bus together named Jade Karma there were many roaming up and down the Coast highway looking, well looking for something. That was the time, after he picked a few acolytes, a few fellow-travelers if you like, grabbed a girlfriend, Mustang Sally (Susan Stein, Bryn Mawr Class of 1960, who gave him all the trouble of heart and mind he ever needed since she was truly a free spirit and free with her love, Jonathan Fuller one night, one laced LSD night, transformed himself into Captain Crunch.          

This is where Bart and Sam (and later others from Carver, Josh from Olde Saco, the late Pete Markin from North Adamsville and many others) enter the story. They like half their freaking generation were restless, bored with what was ahead for them in the nine to five world, worried about draft status and the social situation and decided mostly from what they read in Kerouac, mostly On The Road and Big Sur  and what they heard was happening on the West Coast to hitchhike out. Sam and Bart had gone out together after Frankie Riley also from Carver and a friend of theirs had gone out and had met up with the Captain and the bus in Golden Gate Park one summer day in 1967. So they had gone out, hitched themselves to the bandwagon and travelled with the Captain up and down the coast.

During that Frisco time they had met Josh up on Russian Hill when he came by after hitchhiking from Maine and asked for a joint. Somebody gave him one and that was that. Later Pete Markin came and for a while Bart (known as the Lonesome Cowboy), Sam (Mister Moonbeam), Pete (known as the Scribe), and Josh known as the Prince Of Love) showed up and for a while formed a core of guys who kept things somewhat stable as a ton of other people from all over who would get “on or off the bus” at various points. Of course they all imbibed in the “drugs, sex, rock and roll,” consciousness and some the political stuff although that tended to be discouraged on the bus-the idea being that the nine to five world was there and politics should be left at that door and the denizens of the bus were here so they were on two different universes.       

Bart had not stayed on the bus long, just the summer since he realized after few months of travelling and all the other things that went with it was not for him (he had a girl, Betsy Binstock back in Carver who he eventually married), that while he was not a nine to five guy (then) still he was not built for the road. Some others would follow that same path and eventually all but a remnant would be left to carry on as the 1960s drifted into the ebb tide of the 1970sand the road back to “normalcy.” Sam had stayed longer, a couple of years, had a slew of girlfriends, the longest one an ex-surfer girl Butterfly Swirl that every guy took a shot at, and lovers, did his fair share of dope, learned about lots of things, mind things, dug the music but eventually he saw something coming that looked like a drag, looked like the end of the brave new world experiment they were trying to work out. He would go back East, go to law school and prosper. Josh had stayed even longer about four years since along the way he had realized that he had a writing talent that he could exploit while on the road, got several of his pieces published by the explosion of small and alternative presses created out of the need for their “people of the light” to know something other than the mainstream media pabulum put out daily. Eventually he too saw the writing on the wall and that as the 1970s started drying up everything worthwhile from the 1960s the audience he was trying to reach was disappearing, was going back to whatever they had fled. He would continue to write for small journals and other publications and survive pretty well.

In a lot of ways though the case of Pete Markin kind of wrapped up the ebb tide of the 1960s with a big bow, kind of put a bummer edge on everything since he had stayed on the road the longest, had the most invested in seeing the great generational experiment succeed. He had been bitten hard, had had the Captain’s confidence, had stayed with him for lots of reasons some personal some to have a place to stay against the storms of his life but in the end he too got off the bus. Got off the bus but that is where his childhood growing up wanting habits that had been held in check fell apart. He had been writing but the market for his stuff dried up quicker than Josh’s and he had no backup. No back-up except to get involved in the international drug trade, got involved with the evolving cartels raising their ugly heads down south of the border. Had been blown away by some nasty gunman down in Sonora after some misdirected drug deal went awry. Had as far as anybody got the story right tried to rip the cartel off, go independent. Got a couple of slugs and a potter’s grave in Sonora for his efforts. Josh said he did not know about the others stories, about what happened later to many of those on the bus for a longer or shorter periods of time, how they turned out but probably not much different that the stories he knew, the stories of the ups and downs, the promises and failures of his generation.         

As for the Captain, well until the news came that he had cashed his check he had kind of fallen under the radar, had gotten lost in the mist of time for the Sam, Bart, and Josh. When they had a memorial service for the Captain down at Pfeiffer Beach at Big Sur where he had more or less stayed the last several years of his life and later when some whizzbang kid did a documentary about the Captain it turned out that he had stayed on the road the longest, never really got “off the bus.”   Could be seen driving up and down the Pacific Coast Highway with his increasingly bizarre-looking and funky bus with a couple of graying acolytes and his old-time girlfriend Mustang Sally periodically looking, looking for something. Some of the young who were clueless about what the bus experience meant would come by when they were parked at some campsite and ask batteries of questions about what had happened and sat in awe as the Captain patiently gave them some answers. Yeah, wasn’t that a time though, wasn’t that a time. Captain Crunch, RIP.