*****Damn It- Free Leonard Peltier Now-He Must Not Die In Jail!

*****Damn It- Free Leonard Peltier Now-He Must Not Die In Jail!

Leonard Peltier in 1972

I am passing this along which was passed to me so check it out. (November 2015) 

Anonymous7:57 PM

 

The correct contact information for Peltier's defense committee (and ACCURATE information regarding Leonard Peltier, his case, and the campaign for freedom) is ILPDC, PO Box 24, Hillsboro, OR 97123. Web: www.whoisleonardpeltier.info.

Click to a Leonard Peltier Defense Committee site.

http://www.leonardpeltier.net/ 

Leonard Peltier is an internationally renowned class-war prisoner. Peltier’s incarceration for his activism in the American Indian Movement has come to symbolize this country’s racist repression of its native peoples, the survivors of centuries of genocidal oppression. Peltier was framed up for the 1975 deaths of two FBI agents marauding in what had become a war zone on the South Dakota Pine Ridge Reservation. Although the lead government attorney has admitted, “We can’t prove who shot those agents,” and the courts have acknowledged blatant prosecutorial misconduct, the 69-year-old Peltier is not scheduled to be reconsidered for parole for another eleven years! Peltier suffers from multiple serious medical conditions and is incarcerated far from his people and family.

Commentary

This entry is passed on from the Partisan Defense Committee. I need add little except to say that this man, a natural leader of the American Indian Movement (AIM), should never have spent a day in jail. Free him now.

"We, along with millions of others, do not believe that Leonard Peltier should have been incarcerated at all. We demand his unconditional release from prison."

************
Leonard Peltier was arrested in Canada on February 6, 1976, along with Frank Blackhorse, a.k.a. Frank Deluca. The United States presented the Canadian court with affidavits signed by Myrtle Poor Bear who said she was Mr. Peltier’s girlfriend and allegedly saw him shoot the agents. In fact, Ms. Poor Bear had never met Mr. Peltier and was not present during the shoot-out. Soon after, Ms. Poor Bear recanted her statements and said the FBI threatened her and coerced her into signing the affidavits.

• Mr. Peltier was extradited to the United States where he was tried in 1977. The trial was held in North Dakota before United States District Judge Paul Benson, a conservative jurist appointed to the federal bench by Richard M. Nixon. Key witnesses like Myrtle Poor Bear were not allowed to testify and unlike the Robideau/Butler trial in Iowa, evidence regarding violence on Pine Ridge was severely restricted.
• An FBI agent who had previously testified that the agents followed a pick-up truck onto the scene, a vehicle that could not be tied to Mr. Peltier, changed his account, stating that the agents had followed a red and white van onto the scene, a vehicle which Mr. Peltier drove occasionally.
• Three teenaged Native witnesses testified against Mr. Peltier, they all later admitted that the FBI forced them to testify. Still, not one witness identified Mr. Peltier as the shooter.
• The U.S. Attorney prosecuting the case claimed that the government had provided the defense with all FBI documents concerning the case. To the contrary, more than 140,000 pages had been withheld in their entirety.
• An FBI ballistics expert testified that a casing found near the agents’ bodies matched the gun tied to Mr. Peltier. However, a ballistic test proving that the casing did not come from the gun tied to Mr. Peltier was intentionally concealed.
• The jury, unaware of the aforementioned facts, found Mr. Peltier guilty. Judge Benson, in turn, sentenced Mr. Peltier to two consecutive life terms.
• Following the discovery of new evidence obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, Mr. Peltier sought a new trial. The Eighth Circuit ruled, “There is a possibility that the jury would have acquitted Leonard Peltier had the records and data improperly withheld from the defense been available to him in order to better exploit and reinforce the inconsistencies casting strong doubts upon the government's case." Yet, the court denied Mr. Peltier a new trial.
• During oral argument, the government attorney conceded that the government does not know who shot the agents, stating that Mr. Peltier is equally guilty whether he shot the agents at point-blank range, or participated in the shoot-out from a distance. Mr. Peltier’s co-defendants participated in the shoot-out from a distance, but were acquitted.
• Judge Heaney, who authored the decision denying a new trial, has since voiced firm support for Mr. Peltier’s release, stating that the FBI used improper tactics to convict Mr. Peltier, the FBI was equally responsible for the shoot-out, and that Mr. Peltier's release would promote healing with Native Americans.
• Mr. Peltier has served over 29 years in prison and is long overdue for parole. He has received several human rights awards for his good deeds from behind bars which include annual gift drives for the children of Pine Ridge, fund raisers for battered women’s shelters, and donations of his paintings to Native American recovery programs.
• Mr. Peltier suffers from diabetes, high blood pressure, and a heart condition. Time for justice is short.
• Currently, Mr. Peltier’s attorneys have filed a new round of Freedom of Information Act requests with FBI Headquarters and all FBI field offices in an attempt to secure the release of all files relating to Mr. Peltier and the RESMURS investigation. To date, the FBI has engaged in a number of dilatory tactics in order to avoid the processing of these requests.

**************
THIS ARTICLE FROM PARTISAN DEFENSE NOTES WAS PASSED ON TO THE WRITER BY THE PARTISAN DEFENSE COMMITTTEE, P.O. BOX 99 CANAL STREET STATION, NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10013. 

THERE IS NOTHING THAT I NEED TO ADD EXCEPT THAT HISTORIANS OVER THE LAST GENERATION HAVE STEPPED OVER ALL OVER THEMSELVES TO CORRECT THE PREVIOUS FALSE ROLE ASSIGNED TO INDIGENOUS PEOPLES. THAT IS TO THE GOOD. BUT THE WRITER HAS ONE QUESTION –WHY IS THIS NATIVE AMERICAN LEADER STILL IN JAIL? ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.

Thirty years ago, on 6 February 1976, American Indian Movement (AIM) leader Leonard Peltier was seized by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in western Canada. Peltier had fled there after a massive U.S. government attack the previous June—by FBI and Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) agents, SWAT cops and white vigilantes—on South Dakota's Pine Ridge reservation during which two FBI agents were killed. After Canadian authorities held Peltier for ten months in solitary confinement in Oakalla Prison, he was extradited to the U.S. on the basis of fabricated FBI testimony. In 1977, Peltier, a member of the Anishinabe and Lakota Nations, was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive life sentences on frame-up murder charges stemming from the shooting of the two FBI agents.

While Peltier had sought refuge in Canada, two others charged in the agents' killings were acquitted in a federal court in Iowa. Jurors stated that they did not believe the government witnesses and that it seemed "pretty much a clear-cut case of self-defense" against the FBI invasion. In Peltier's trial the prosecution concealed ballistics tests showing that his gun could not have been used in the shooting, while the trial judge ruled out any chance of another acquittal on self-defense grounds by barring any evidence of government terror against the Pine Ridge activists. At a 1985 appeal hearing, a government attorney admitted, "We can't prove who shot those agents."

AIM had been in the Feds' gun sights because of its efforts to fight the enforced poverty of Native Americans and the continued theft of their lands by the government and energy companies, which were intent on grabbing rich uranium deposits under Sioux land in South Dakota. The Leonard Peltier Defense Committee stated in 2004: "Virtually every known AIM leader in the United States was incarcerated in either state or federal prisons since (or even before) the organization's formal emergence in 1968, some repeatedly." Between 1973 and 1976, thugs of the Guardians of the Oglala Nation (GOON), armed and trained by the hated BIA and FBI, carried out more than 300 attacks in and around Pine Ridge, killing at least 69 people.
As we wrote during the fight against Peltier's threatened deportation, "The U.S. case against Peltier is political persecution, part of a broader attempt by the FBI to smash AIM through piling up criminal charges against its leaders, just as was done against the Black Panthers" (PTFNo. 112, 4 June 1976). AIM and Peltier were targeted by the FBI's deadly Counter-intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) of disruption, frame-up and murder of the left, black militants and others. Under COINTELPRO, 38 Black Panthers were killed by the FBI and local cops. Panther leader Geronimo ji Jaga (Pratt) spent 27 years in prison for a crime the FBI knew he could not have committed before finally winning release in 1997. Mumia Abu-Jamal—also an innocent man— remains on Pennsylvania's death row today.

In November 2003, a federal appeals court ruled, "Much of the government's behavior at the Pine Ridge Reservation and in its prosecution of Mr. Peltier is to be condemned. The government withheld evidence. It intimidated witnesses. These facts are not disputed." But the court still refused to open the prison doors for Peltier. Last year, U.S. District Court judge William Skretny turned down Peltier's request for documents suppressed by the government, even while acknowledging that he could have been acquitted had the government not improperly withheld them. Peltier attorney Michael Kuzma stated that the evidence withheld by the government amounts to a staggering 142,579 pages!

On February 24, Skretny again ruled that the FBI can keep part of its records secret in the name of "national security." Peltier noted in a message to the March 18 protests against the Iraq occupation, "Our government uses the words 'national security' and fighting the war on transnational terrorism as a smoke screen to cover up further crimes and misconduct by the FBI." Also this February, defense attorney Barry Bachrach argued in St. Louis federal court that the federal government had no jurisdiction in Peltier's case, since the shootings occurred on a reservation.

Millions of people have signed petitions for Peltier over the years, including by 1986 some 17 million people in the former Soviet Union. His frame-up, like that of Geronimo ji Jaga and Mumia Abu-Jamal, demonstrates that there is no justice in the capitalist courts of America. While supporting all possible legal proceedings on behalf of the class-war prisoners, we place no faith whatever in the "justice" of the courts and rely solely on the power of mass protest centered on the integrated labor movement.

After Peltier's third appeal for a new trial was denied in 1993, thousands of prominent liberals, celebrities and others—ranging from Willie Nelson to Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Mother Teresa—called for a presidential pardon. In a recent column titled "Free Leonard Peltier!" (5 February), Mumia Abu-Jamal wrote: "Many Peltier supporters put their trust in a politician named Bill Clinton, who told them that when he got elected he 'wouldn't forget' about the popular Native American leader. Their trust (like that of so many others) was betrayed once Clinton gained his office, and the FBI protested. In the waning days of his presidency, he issued pardons to folks like Marc Rich, and other wealthy campaign contributors. Leonard Peltier was left in his chains!"

Peltier is one of 16 class-war prisoners to whom the Partisan Defense Committee sends monthly stipends. For more information on his case, or to contribute to Peltier's legal defense, write to: Leonard Peltier Defense Committee, 2626 North Mesa #132, El Paso, TX 79902. Free Leonard Peltier and all class-war prisoners!  

*****From Veterans For Peace In Massachusetts-Stop The Damn Endless Wars-Revelations

*****From Veterans For Peace In Massachusetts-Stop The Damn Endless Wars-Revelations

What VFP Stands For - 

 

 

 

 

 

Revelations-From The Sam Eaton-Ralph Morris Series

From The Pen Of Bart Webber

Ralph Morris had always considered himself a straight-up guy. Straight up when he dealt with customers in his high-precision electrical shop in Troy, New York inherited from his father after he retired before he himself recently retired and turned it over to his youngest son, James, who would bring the operation into the 21^st century with the high tech equipment precision electrical work needs nowadays. Straight up when he confronted the trials and tribulations of parenthood and told the kids that due to his political obligations (of which more in a minute) he would be away and perhaps seem somewhat pre-occupied at times he would answer any questions they had about anything as best he could (and the kids in turn when characterizing their father to me, told me that he was hard-working, distant but had been straight up with them although those sentiments said in a wistful, wondering, wishing more manner like there was something missing in the whole exchange and Ralph agreed when I mentioned that feeling to him that I was probably right but that he did the best he could). Straight up after sowing his wild oats along with Sam Eaton, Pete Markin, Frankie Riley and a bunch of other guys from the working class corners who dived into that 1960s counter-cultural moment and hit the roads, for a short time after the stress of eighteen months in the bush in Vietnam. Meaning sleeping with any young woman who would have him in those care-free days when we were all experimenting with new ways to deal with that fretting sexual issue and getting only slightly less confused that when we got all that god-awful and usually wrong information in the streets where most of us, for good or evil learned to separate our Ps and Qs. After which he promised his high school sweetheart, Lara Peters, who had waited for him to settle down to be her forever man. And straight up with what concerns us here his attitude toward his military service in the Army during the height of the Vietnam War where he did his time, did not cause waves while in the service but raised, and is still raising seven kinds of holy hell, once he became totally disillusioned with the war, with the military brass and with the American government (no “our government” his way of saying it not mine) who did nothing but make thoughtless animals out of him and his buddies.             

Giving this “straight up” character business is important here because Ralph several years ago along with Sam Eaton, a non-Vietnam veteran having been exempted from military duty due to being the sole support of his mother and four younger sisters after his ne’er-do-well father died of a massive heart attack in 1965, joined a peace organization, Veterans For Peace (VFP), in order to work with others doing the same kind of work (Ralph as a  full member, Sam an associate member in the way membership works in that organization although both have full right to participate and discuss the aims and projects going forward) once they decided to push hard against the endless wars of the American government (both Ralph and Sam’s way of putting the matter). Without going into great detail Sam and Ralph had met down in Washington, D.C. on May Day 1971 when they with their respective groups (Sam with a radical collective from Cambridge and Ralph with Vietnam Veterans Against the War) attempted to as the slogan went-“shut down the government if it did not shut down the war.” Unfortunately they failed but the several days they spent together in detention in RFK Stadium then being used as the main detention area cemented a life-time friendship, and a life-time commitment to work for peace. (Sam’s impetus the loss of his best corner boy high school friend, Jeff Mullins, in the Central Highlands of Vietnam in 1968 who begged him to tell everybody what was really going on with war if he did not make it back to tell them himself.)        

That brings us to the Ralph straight up part. He and Sam had worked closely with or been member of for several years in the 1970s VVAW and other organizations to promote peace. But as the decade ended and the energy of the 1960s faded and ebbed they like many others went on with their lives, build up their businesses, had their families to consider and generally prospered. Oh sure, when warm bodies were needed for this or that good old cause they were there but until the fall of 2002 their actions were helter-skelter and of an ad hoc nature. Patch work they called it. Of course the hell-broth of the senseless, futile and about six other negative descriptions of that 2003 Iraq war disaster, disaster not so much for the American government (Sam and Ralph’s now familiar term) as for the Iraqi people and others under the cross-fires of the American military juggernaut (my term). So they, having fewer family and work responsibilities were getting the old time anti-war “religion” fires stoked in their brains once again to give one more big push against the machine before they passed on. They started working with VFP in various marches, vigils, civil disobedience actions and whatever other projects the organization was about (more recently the case of getting a presidential pardon and freedom for the heroic Wiki-leaks whistle –blower soldier Chelsea Manning sentenced to a thirty-five year sentence at Fort Leavenworth for telling the truth about American atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan). Did that for a couple of years before they joined. And here is really where that straight up business comes into play. See they both had been around peace organizations enough to know that membership means certain obligation beyond paying dues and reading whatever materials an organization puts out-they did not want to be, had never been mere “paper members” So after that couple of years of working with VFP in about 2008 they joined up, joined up and have been active members ever since.        

Now that would be neither here nor there but Ralph had recently been thinking about stepping up his commitment even further by running for the Executive Committee of his local Mohawk Valley  chapter, the Kenny Johnson Chapter. (Sam as an associate member of his local chapter, the James Jencks Brigade is precluded as a non-veterans from holding such offices the only distinction between the two types of membership.) He ran and won a seat on the committee. But straight up again since he was committed to helping lead the organization locally and perhaps take another step up at some point he decided this year to go to the National Convention in San Diego (the geographic location of that site a definitive draw) and learn more about the overall workings of the organization and those most dedicated to its success.

So Ralph went and immersed himself in the details of what is going on with the organization. More importantly he got to hear the details of how guys (and it is mostly guys reflecting the origins of the organization in 1985 a time when women were not encouraged to go into the service), mostly guys from his Vietnam War generation as the older World War II and Korea vets pass on and the Iraq and Afghan war vets are still finding their “voice” came to join the organization. What amazed him was how many of the stories centered on various objections that his fellow members had developed while in whatever branch of the military they were in. See Ralph had kept his “nose clean” despite his growing disenchantment with the war while serving his eighteen months in country. He had been by no means a gung-ho soldier although he had imbibed all the social and political attitudes of his working class background that he had been exposed to concerning doing service, fighting evil commies and crushing anything that got in the way of the American government. He certainly was not a model soldier either but he went along, got along by getting along. These other guys didn’t.

One story stood out not because it was all that unusual in the organization but because Ralph had never run up against anything like it during his time of service from 1967-1970. Not in basic training AIT, not in Vietnam although he had heard stuff about disaffected soldiers toward the end of his enlistment. This guy, Frank Jefferson, he had met at one of the workshops on military resisters had told Ralph when he asked that he had served a year in an Army stockade for refusing to wear the uniform, refusing to do Army work of any kind. At least voluntarily. The rough details of Frank’s story went like this. He had been drafted in late 1968 and was inducted into the Army in early 1969 having had no particular reason not to go in since while he was vaguely anti-war like most college students he was not a conscientious objector (and still doesn’t since he believes wars of national liberation and the like are just and supportable, especially those who are facing down the barrel of American imperialism, was not interested in going to jail like some guys, some draft resisters, from his generation who refused to be inducted an did not even think about the option of Canada or some such exile. Moreover the ethos of his town, his family, his whole social circle was not one that would have welcomed resistance, would not have been understood as a sincere if different way of looking at the world. Add to that two guys had been killed in Vietnam from his neighborhood and the social pressure to conform was too great to buck even if he had had stronger convictions then. 

Three days, maybe less after Frank was deposited at Fort Jackson in South Carolina in January, 1969 for basic training he knew he had made a great mistake, had had stronger anti-war feelings, maybe better anti-military feelings than he suspected and was heading for a fall. This was a period when draftees, those fewer and fewer men who were allowing themselves to be drafted, were being channeled toward the infantry, the “grunts,” the cannon-fodder (words he learned later but not known as he came in) and that was his fate. He was trained as an 11 Bravo, killer soldier. Eventually he got orders to report to Fort Lewis in Washington for transport to Vietnam. On a short leave before he was requested to report Frank went back to Cambridge where he grew up and checked in with the Quakers which somebody had told him to do if he was going to challenge his fate in any way. The counsellor there advised him to put in a CO application at Fort Devens nearby. He did so, was turned down because as a Catholic objector he did not qualify under the doctrine of that church. (And he still held to his “just war” position mentioned above). He tried to appeal that decision through military then civilian channels with help from a lawyer provided by the Quakers (really their American Friends Service Committee) although that was dicey at best. Then, despite some counsel against such actions Frank had an epiphany, a day of reckoning, a day when he decided that enough was enough and showed up at parade field for the Monday morning report in civilian clothes carrying a “Bring The Troops Home” sign. Pandemonium ensued, he was man-handled by two beefy lifer-sergeants and was thrown in the stockade. Eventually he was tried and sentenced to six month under a special court-martial for disobeying orders which he served. He got out after during that stretch and continued to refuse to wear the uniform or do work. So back to the stockade and re-trial getting another six months, again for disobeying lawful orders. Fortunately that civilian lawyer had brought the CO denial case to the Federal Court in Boston on a writ of habeas corpus and the judge ruled that the Army had acted wrongly in denying the application. A few weeks later he was released. Frank said otherwise he still might forty plus years later be doing yet another six month sentence. So that was his story and there were probably others like that during that turbulent time when the Army was near mutiny.

Ralph said to himself after hearing the Jefferson story, yeah, these are the brethren I can work with, guys like Jefferson really won’t fold under pressure. Yeah, that’s right.           

Letters from France I:France’s greatest gift to America was our independence-By David P. Hamilton / The Rag Blog / May 19, 2011

Letters from France I:France’s greatest gift to America was our independence

By David P. Hamilton / The Rag Blog / May 19, 2011

[This is the first of a series of dispatches from France by The Rag Blog's David P. Hamilton.]

PARIS -- Tea Party types love to bash France and worship the “Founding Fathers." The historical reality makes this a perfect example of their ignorance. Without France, the American Revolution would have failed and the U.S. would have been a British colony for at least several decades longer.

Besides that, the “Founding Fathers” were a bunch of francophiles. Franklin, Jefferson, and Madison were all delighted to serve as American ambassadors to France, Washington incorporated Frenchmen into his General staff, and Tom Paine rushed off to join the French Revolution.

If one polled Americans about what was the most important gift France had ever given the U.S., they would probably say French fries, which actually came from Belgium. The more well-informed would more likely respond that it was the Statue of Liberty. While not wishing to denigrate that monumental work of art, the best answer would be independence from the British Empire. Without France, the 13 colonies would not have won the American Revolutionary War.

Those who have any knowledge concerning France’s contribution to American independence would likely point to the Marquis de Lafayette who was indeed an important military leader of American forces. Having been made a Major General at age 20, he commanded American troops in numerous successful engagements and was a close aide to General Washington.

But actually, there were hundreds of such French volunteers; men like Brigadier General Du Buysson des Aix of the North Carolina militia, Major General Louis Le Begue de Presle du Portail, Brigadier General Preudhomme de Borre, Major General Philippe Charles Jean Baptiste Tronsoin de Courdray, Brigadier General Tuffin, Marquis de La Rouerie, Brigadier General Jean Baptiste Joseph Laumoy, all serving in the American Continental Army, and Captain Pierre Landais, commander of the frigate “Alliance” of the Continental Navy.

Colonel Teissedre de Fleury was the only foreigner serving in the American army to ever be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. But individual French volunteers were just the beginning, icing on a much larger cake. They were not the crucial element.

One cannot understand the American Revolutionary War without understanding that it took place in the context of a long struggle between France and England. As a result of the Seven Years War (1756-63), France suffered considerable losses, including its North American colonies, Canada and the Louisiana Territory. Over a million people died in that war and the French navy was decimated. France remained bitter over these losses, reorganized its military and sought a means to recoup and to weaken its perennial rival, Great Britain.

When the American Revolution broke out, France had little confidence in its success. It did, however, allow individual young Frenchmen to join the American cause, including Lafayette. The ship that carried Lafayette and several other volunteers to America was bought with funds provided covertly by the French government. Early in the war France authorized the clandestine provision of military equipment to the American colonies.

Benjamin Franklin arrived in Paris as the American ambassador in late 1776 to seek French aid and was highly successful, becoming a phenomenon at the court of Louis XVI in the process. In October 1777, the Americans won the Battle of Saratoga, which convinced the French that the Americans could win.

In February 1778, Franklin signed a Treaty of Alliance with France. In response, England declared war on France the following month. They fought each other not only in America, but also in India, Africa, and the West Indies. Aid to the Americans from the French government had nothing to do with support for democracy. They were merely exploiting ways to diminish Great Britain.


The forces of British Major General Charles Cornwallis surrender to French and American forces after the Siege of Yorktown in 1781. Painting by John Trumbull, 1820, from the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol. Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

Much of the costs of the American Continental Army were paid by France. But the biggest contribution was the participation of the French military, both regular French army troops and the French navy. Most notably, in early 1780, 6,000 French troops landed at Newport, Rhode Island under the command of General Rochambeau who had 40 years of military leadership experience.

After several months debating strategy with Washington, a plan to move south to attack the forces of British General Cornwallis in Virginia with the support of the French fleet under Admiral De Grasse was agreed upon. This was Rochambeau’s plan. He had conducted all the arrangements with De Grasse. Washington had wanted to attack New York, but his plan was essentially overruled by the French.

Unfortunately, while on their way south the American troops mutinied in Philadelphia over not being paid. The French picked up the tab and they moved on.

The decisive battle of the American Revolutionary War was a naval engagement between the British and French fleets, the Battle of Chesapeake Bay in September 1781. The French won. The British fleet retreated to New York. American naval forces were not involved. The defeat of the British fleet meant that Cornwallis had no means of escape from Yorktown, located on the end of peninsula. He was surrounded and outnumbered 2 to 1 by French and American troops on land and the French navy on the water. His defeat was only a matter of time.

Although fighting at Yorktown continued until October 17th, the British surrendered 8,000 men after only sustaining at most 300 killed. But their situation was hopeless and they were raked with dysentery. There were more French troops at Yorktown than American, not including the French naval personnel or individual Frenchmen fighting with the Americans. Some estimates say the disparity was as great as four Frenchmen to one American. French casualties in the battle were twice those of the Americans.

A contemporary observer described the French and American forces present at the surrender. “Among the Americans, the wide variety in age -- 12- to 14-year-old children stood side by side with grandfathers -- the absence of uniformity in their bearing and their ragged clothing made the French allies appear more splendid by contrast. The latter, in their immaculate white uniforms and blue braid, gave an impression of martial vigor despite their fatigue.”

Yorktown was the last major battle of the war. American independence was recognized by Great Britain at the Treaty of Paris in September 1783 as a direct result of the British defeat there.

Ironically, the war had been triggered by British attempts to make the colonists pay for their own protection, England being in dire financial straits as a result of the cost of the Seven Years War. After it was over, the cost France incurred in support of the American cause led to the bankruptcy of the French monarchy, which contributed enormously to triggering the French Revolution in 1789.

Such profound unintended consequences seem common in floundering empires in decline. The U.S. squandering a trillion dollars in the Iraq War is a prominent case in point.

[David P. Hamilton has been a political activist in Austin since the early 1970s when he worked with SDS and wrote for The Rag, Austin's underground newspaper. Read more articles by David P. Hamilton on The Rag Blog.]

In Massachsetts -Stop The Pipeline From 350.org

Dear friends,



Yesterday afternoon, our State Senate passed a really, really, really good energy bill. The bill significantly increases our state's renewable energy requirements. It includes 2,000 MW of offshore wind -- the largest offshore wind commitment in the nation. And it bans the pipeline tax, thanks to an amendment that passed 39 to zero.




For the bill to become law, it needs to make it past one final legislative hurdle: a conference committee with House leadership that will be making its final deliberations just as we finish our big People Over Pipelines march. 



We are this close to a big victory, but to get there, we need you marching with us.



Can you join the People Over Pipelines march on Sunday, July 17 as we walk the final miles through downtown Boston to the State House? Or can you join us on the morning ofMonday, July 18 as we march into the building to make our voices heard?

After 43 miles and four days, we'll need your support as we finish the home stretch! 



To join us on Sunday, July 17, click here. 



To join us on Monday, July 18, click here. 
Or, to join us for all four and a half days (!) (or parts of that time!), click here!

Monday, July 11, 2016=Prayers for Peace and Love in Ukraine"

Monday, July 11, 2016

"Prayers for Peace and Love in Ukraine"

Fort Russ reports:

Residents of Kharkov walked on a march called "Prayers for peace and love in Ukraine", which began from the Sviatohirsk Lavra in Donbass and has already made it to Kharkov.

In the video filmed by eyewitnesses, people with St. George ribbons [honoring the Soviet defeat of Hitler's Army at the cost of 27 million Soviet lives - the ribbons now declared illegal to wear in the post-coup Ukraine] and badges with Nicholas II are visible among the participants.

It is noted that the Orthodox event was attended by several thousand people.

After Kharkov, the citizens in the march will head to Kiev.

The march will end in the Ukrainian capital on July 27th, before the celebration of the baptism of Kievan Rus.

A View From The Left-Bernie Sanders Abandons Revolution

What did SA expect when it went knee-deep into the Sanders campaign-The Green Party was there before Bernie ever thought about the "revolution"-Political naiveté never helped the workers' movement and does not now.-Frank  Jackman

Bernie Sanders Abandons Revolution

        


                        


                                    

                                

                                    






                                    



                                        
                                        

                                        




                                                                        
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Friends,


In an article published this morning, Seattle’s socialist City Councilmember Kshama Sawant summed up well what we’re all thinking:

“Bernie Sanders’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton has hugely disappointed millions of his supporters. Many of those inspired by his call for a political revolution had held out hope, even until now, that he would refuse to endorse Wall Street’s favored candidate. But those hopes have come crashing down.”

Movement4Bernie will not be following Sanders into the corporate-controlled Democratic Party or support a presidential candidate backed to the hilt by the same billionaire class we’ve been challenging. Instead, we’re calling on Bernie Sanders supporters to continue the political revolution by backing Green Party Presidential candidate Jill Stein and joining our efforts to build a new party for the 99%.


Read Kshama Sawant’s full statement on Bernie Sanders’ endorsement of Hillary Clinton here:

Bernie Sanders Abandons the Revolution
Now more than ever we need to continue the political revolution, but we can’t do this alone. We need YOU.  Please donate $25, $50, $100 today to help us raise the banner for a new party for the 99% at the Democratic National Convention in Philly, which is just two weeks away!  Unlike Clinton who is awash in Wall Street Super PAC money, we accept no money from big business - we are not for sale!
                        


    


    
    


            


 


    

                



#Justice4Alton #Justice4Philando

The recent police killings of Alton and Philando places an urgency to centralize and coordinate our movement’s actions, ideas, and message, especially since the corporate media, two parties of big business, and law enforcement will go on the offensive against the movement after the Dallas events.

A united working-class movement using the method of mass protests, non-violent civil disobedience, walk-outs and strikes, based on a program that puts people’s needs first, will be most effective in fighting back against racial and class oppression.


As we approach the DNC and RNC, we need a massive mobilization to highlight law-enforcement terror, the agenda of Wall Street and the role of both parties in the rise of the prison state and endemic inequality.


We welcome discussion at this meeting on how we can offer solidarity to the #Justice4Alton #Justice4Philando protests and link up with the wider Black Lives Matter movement to strengthen the independent fight for a political revolution. 
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Help us Protest the DNC! 

If you cannot make it to a forum, you can still be a part of the movement!

Help us mobilize as many as possible to the major protests planned for the Democratic National Convention!  The corruption of our democracy by both major parties is clear to millions, and the DNC protests will be the center of the growing debate over whether we should we fight to transform the Democratic Party or build a fighting political alternative independent of corporations and Wall Street Super PACS.

Contribute $25 today to send activists to the DNC!