*In Honor Of Our Class-War Prisoners- Free All The Class-War Prisoners!- The MOVE Prisoners-Charles Simms Africa, Debbie Sims Africa, Delbert Orr Africa, Edward Goodman Africa, Janet Holloway Africa, Janine Phillips Africa, Michael Davis Africa

*In Honor Of Our Class-War Prisoners- Free All The Class-War Prisoners!- The MOVE Prisoners-Charles Simms Africa, Debbie Sims Africa, Delbert Orr Africa, Edward Goodman Africa, Janet Holloway Africa, Janine Phillips Africa, Michael Davis Africa



http://www.thejerichomovement.com/prisoners.html



A link above to more information about the class-war prisoner honored in this entry.



Make June Class-War Prisoners Freedom Month

Markin comment (reposted from 2010)



In “surfing” the National Jericho Movement website recently in order to find out more, if possible, about class- war prisoner and 1960s radical, Marilyn Buck [now deceased], whom I had read about in a The Rag Blog post I linked to the Jericho list of class war prisoners. I found Marilyn Buck listed there but also others, some of whose cases, like that of the “voice of the voiceless” Pennsylvania [former] death row prisoner, Mumia Abu-Jamal, are well-known and others who seemingly have languished in obscurity. All of the cases, at least from the information that I could glean from the site, seemed compelling. And all seemed worthy of far more publicity and of a more public fight for their freedom.



That last notion set me to the task at hand. Readers of this space know that I am a long -time supporter of the Partisan Defense Committee, a class struggle, non-sectarian legal and social defense organization which supports class- war prisoners as part of the process of advancing the international working class’ struggle for socialism. In that spirit I am honoring the class war prisoners on the National Jericho Movement list this June as the start of what I hope will be an on-going attempt by all serious leftist militants to do their duty- fighting for freedom for these brothers and sisters. We will fight out our political differences and disagreements as a separate matter. What matters here and now is the old Wobblie (IWW) slogan - An injury to one is an injury to all.



Note: This list, right now, is composed of class-war prisoners held in American detention. If others are likewise incarcerated that are not listed here feel free to leave information on their cases here. Likewise any cases, internationally that may come to your attention. I am sure there are many, many such cases out there. Make this June, and every June, a Class-War Prisoners Freedom Month- Free All Class-War Prisoners Now!

AFRICA, CHARLES SIMS

MOVE POLITICAL PRISONER

AFRICA, DEBBIE SIMS

MOVE POLITICAL PRISONER

AFRICA, DELBERT ORR

MOVE POLITICAL PRISONER

AFRICA, EDWARD GOODMAN

MOVE POLITICAL PRISONER

AFRICA, MERLE AUSTIN

MOVE POLITICAL PRISONER

AFRICA, MICHAEL DAVIS

MOVE POLITICAL PRISONER

The 50th Anniversary Of The Summer Of Love (1967)-From The Archives-FEAR AND LOATHING ON CAMPAIGN TRAIL 2008

The 50th Anniversary Of The Summer Of Love (1967)-From The Archives-FEAR AND LOATHING ON CAMPAIGN TRAIL 2008

Zack James’ comment (June 2017):

You know it is in a way too bad that “Doctor Gonzo”-Hunter S Thompson, the late legendary journalist is not with us in these times both this 50^th anniversary commemoration of the Summer of Love, 1967 which he worked the edges of while he was doing research (live and in your face research by the way) on the notorious Hell’s Angels. His “hook” through Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters down in Kesey’s place in La Honda where many an “acid test” took place and where for a time the Angels, Hunter in tow, were welcomed. He had been there and later as well when he saw the ebb tide of the 1960s coming a year or so later. He would have “dug” the exhibition at the de Young Museum at the Golden Gate Park highlighting the events of the period.    

Better yet he would have had this Trump thug wrapped up and bleeding from all pores just like he regaled us with the tales from the White House bunker back in the days when Trump’s kindred one Richard Milhous Nixon, President of the United States and common criminal was running the same low rent trip before he was run out of town by his own like some rabid rat. Hunter Thompson wherever you are –help. Selah. Enough said-for now  

COMMENTARY


In my old age I am getting a little weak-kneed about having to wade through the basically vacuous blather coming out of the Democratic and Republican presidential nominating processes. While we are in a little period of ‘doldrums’ before the deluge I keep falling back to the work of Hunter Thompson on earlier presidential campaigns to try to keep a little sanity. Here’s a little tribune to the fallen journalist. Damn, Hunter we sure as hell could use you now. Call me collect from wherever you are. I’ll gladly accept the charges. Selah.

This commentary was originally used as part of a review of Hunter Thompson's Songs of the Doomed. Since most of the points I made in my review of that book apply here I will let that review stand in here for the essential thrust of his whole body of political work. Obviously each book written by Thompson on the various presidential campaigns is formatted differently but whether Thompson was skewering the Nixon era, the Reagan era, the Clinton era or the Bush eras the song is the same. And it was not (and is not) pretty.

Generally thinkers and writers who work outside the realm of bourgeois society, notably socialists and other progressive thinkers, have done the most the trenchant social criticism, commentary and analysis complete with a prescriptive social program ripe for implementation. Bourgeois society rarely allows itself, in self-defense, to be skewered by trenchant criticism from within. This was particularly true when it came from a known dope fiend, gun freak and all-around lifestyle addict like the late, lamented Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. Although he was far from any thought of a socialist solution and would reject such a designation we could travel part of the way with him. We saw him as a kindred spirit. He was not one of us- but he was one of us. All honor to him for pushing the envelope of journalism in new directions and for his pinpricks at the hypocrisy of bourgeois society. Such men are dangerous.

I am not sure whether at the end of the day Hunter Thompson saw himself or wanted to been seen as a voice, or the voice, of his generation but he would not be an unworthy candidate. In any case, his was not the voice of the generation of 1968 being just enough older to have been formed by the earlier, less forgiving milieu of the 1950's. His earlier writings show his struggle to break out of formalistic journalism. Nevertheless, only a few, and with time it seems fewer in each generation, allow themselves to search for some kind of truth even if they cannot go the whole distance. This compilation under review is a hodgepodge of articles over the best part of Thompson's career. As with all journalists, as indeed with all writers especially those who are writing under the gun of a deadline for mass circulation media these works show an uneven quality. However the total effect is to blast old bourgeois society almost to its foundations. Others will have to push on further.

One should note that `gonzo' journalism is quite compatible with socialist materialism. That is, the writer is not precluded from interpreting the events described within himself/herself as an actor in the story. The worst swindle in journalism, fostered by the formal journalism schools, as well as in other disciplines like history and political science is that somehow one must be `objective'. Reality is better served if the writer puts his/her analysis correctly and then gets out of the way. In his best work that was Hunter's way.

As a member of the generation of 1968 I would note that this was a period of particular importance which won Hunter his spurs as a journalist. Hunter, like many of us, cut his political teeth on one Richard Milhous Nixon, at one time President of the United States and all- around political chameleon. Thompson went way out of his way, and with pleasure, skewering that man when he was riding high. He was moreover just as happy to kick him when he was down, just for good measure. Nixon represented the `dark side' of the American spirit- the side that appears today as the bullyboy of the world and as craven brute. Sound familiar? If for nothing else Brother Thompson deserves a place in the pantheon of journalistic heroes for this exercise in elementary political hygiene. Anyone who wants to rehabilitate THAT man before history please consult Thompson's work. Hunter, I hope you find the Brown Buffalo wherever you are. Read this book. Read all his books.

The 50th Anniversary Of The Summer Of Love (1967)-In The 1960s Time Of Fear And Loathing- The Movie-Hunter S. Thompson’s “Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas”

The 50th Anniversary Of The Summer Of Love (1967)-In The 1960s Time Of Fear And Loathing- The Movie-Hunter S. Thompson’s “Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas” 

Zack James’ comment:

You know it is in a way too bad that “Doctor Gonzo”-Hunter S Thompson, the late legendary journalist is not with us in these times both this 50^th anniversary commemoration of the Summer of Love, 1967 which he worked the edges of while he was doing research (live and in your face research by the way) on the notorious Hell’s Angels. His “hook” through Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters down in Kesey’s place in La Honda where many an “acid test” took place and where for a time the Angels, Hunter in tow, were welcomed. He had been there and later as well when he saw the ebb tide of the 1960s coming a year or so later. He would have “dug” the exhibition at the de Young Museum at the Golden Gate Park highlighting the events of the period.    

Better yet he would have had this Trump thug wrapped up and bleeding from all pores just like he regaled us with the tales from the White House bunker back in the days when Trump’s kindred one Richard Milhous Nixon, President of the United States and common criminal was running the same low rent trip before he was run out of town by his own like some rabid rat. Hunter Thompson wherever you are –help. Selah. Enough said-for now   

Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas, starring Johnny Depp, based on the gonzo journalism of Doctor Hunter S. Thompson.

Make no mistake I have read everything of Hunter Thompson’s that I could get my hands on. I love Johnny Depp as an actor. However, this film does a true disservice to both of their talents. Johnny makes no sense as Hunter, although he was legitimate wild man Hunter’s friend. More importantly, Fear and Loathing, driven by stuff internally spinning in Thompson’s head, does not translate on the screen as anything but a diffused and nonsensical homage to late counter-cultural self-indulgence, drug division. Of the worse sort.

Thompson always claimed that his literary attempt to use the tenets of ‘gonzo’ journalism in the book was a failure. I disagree with that evaluation for the book but certainly not for the film. Let us face it this is classic case of the film being very, very inferior to the book, although the episodes and language hew fairly close to it. Please, please read the book. And please, please read many times that little gem snippet of his about his take on the high (and low) side of the 1960s experience, what it meant to those who got caught up in the excitement and danger, and when he could see the whole thing literally ebbing. Classic. You will also laugh and be entertained by his drug-induced attempt to find the meaning of the American experience in the post-World War II world. As for the film it will give you nothing but fear and loathing.

The 50th Anniversary Of The Summer Of Love-A Random Word … On The Late Hunter S. Thompson-Doctor Gonzo

The 50th Anniversary Of The Summer Of Love-A  Random Word … On The Late Hunter S. Thompson-Doctor Gonzo   

Zack James’ comment:

You know it is in a way too bad that “Doctor Gonzo”-Hunter S Thompson, the late legendary journalist is not with us in these times both this 50^th anniversary commemoration of the Summer of Love, 1967 which he worked the edges of while he was doing research (live and in your face research by the way) on the notorious Hell’s Angels. His “hook” through Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters down in Kesey’s place in La Honda where many an “acid test” took place and where for a time the Angels, Hunter in tow, were welcomed. He had been there and later as well when he saw the ebb tide of the 1960s coming a year or so later. He would have “dug” the exhibition at the de Young Museum at the Golden Gate Park highlighting the events of the period.    

Better yet he would have had this Trump thug wrapped up and bleeding from all pores just like he regaled us with the tales from the White House bunker back in the days when Trump’s kindred one Richard Milhous Nixon, President of the United States and common criminal was running the same low rent trip before he was run out of town by his own like some rabid rat. Hunter Thompson wherever you are –help. Selah. Enough said-for now  

Make no mistake the late, lamented Hunter Thompson was always something of a muse for me going way back to the early 1970’s when I first read his seminal work on the outlaw bikers, Hell’s Angels. Since then I have devoured, and re-devoured virtually everything that he has written. I have reviewed many of those efforts elsewhere in this space. As I noted recently in reviewing his 2004 work Hey, Rube not all his efforts have been equally compelling. That was the case in panning Hey, Rube but here we are on much more solid tradition ‘gonzo’ style from the old days. Maybe it is because this work is in the form of a memoir and thus intentionally places the good Doc’s actions in the center of the writing that makes this more in the mold of his better compilations like the Great Shark Hunt and Songs of the Doomed.

Thompson uses a stream of consciousness trope going from the present (early 2000’s) and his then current doings and splices them together, in some segments randomly, to events as far back as his childhood in Louisville, Kentucky. Along the way we find out him at age nine in trouble with the FBI. Down and dirty in Rio with the crazies. Incessantly testing his beloved guns and various hot motorcycles at various and sundry appropriate and inappropriate times. Taking trips to places like Vietnam just before the fall, Cuba, Grenada after the invasion and elsewhere where the journalistic action might be and a story, in the Thompson style, might develop. Needless to say there is plenty of ink about sex, drug and rock and rock including his deeply affecting and traumatic tangle with the law in the early 1990’s. That, my friends, was a close call. And throughout, as usual, there are pithy political comments about the various idiots-in-chiefs and their henchman that he spent his life hammering. Maybe not your way, definitely not my way but his way. His fateful run for Sheriff of Aspen on the Freak Power ticket in 1970 probably set the tone of his politics accurately. For those who have read other works by Thompson some of the signature language may be old hat as he meanders along in this volume. For others it is a chance to learn the lingo. Enough said.               

In The Time Of The Soviet-American World War II Friendship-With Edward Myrtryk’s Seven Miles From Alcatraz In Mind

In The Time Of The Soviet-American World War II Friendship-With Edward Myrtryk’s Seven Miles From Alcatraz In Mind  

By Film Critic Emeritus Sam Lowell

Okay, okay regular readers of this space (and of the on-line version of the American Film Gazette) know that I have, how did Pete Markin put it, oh yeah, put myself out to pasture. In other words retired from the day to day grind of film reviews what with the inevitable deadlines sneaking up and giving me heartburn when I haven’t figured out a “hook” to tie the review up with and Pete is e-mailing every other minute I had had enough. I had conned my old friend, colleague and competitor Sandy Salmon (from that same American Film Gazette where he was a regular film critic with a by-line long before I began to occasionally write for the publication) into doing the yeoman’s work until he in his turn will retire and let younger hands get their chance. I also mentioned in that notice of retirement that I would occasionally comment on whatever I felt like commenting on as long as I didn’t have to meet some damn deadline.     

I have of late been impressed by some of Sandy’s reviews which are pretty good and which I have no quarrel with. What I have noticed when he reviews older films which is what this space is more and more dedicated to is that some remark he makes or some insight of his gets me to the computer to make a comment. That is what I am up to today in regard to a recent review he did of a 1940s World War II film, part propaganda, part action thriller entitled Seven Miles From Alcatraz. The “hook” for me was not the fact that it was directed by Edward Myrtryk who would after the war be red-baited and scapegoated as one of the Hollywood Ten, guys who wouldn’t snitch on their fellows who might have in the past been reds, you know, communists . Honorably done at the time although unlike Howard Fast and Dalton Trumbo he eventually spilled his guts to whoever would listen to save his career. That direction might have been part of what I was looking at which I will explain in a minute since the thrust of the film fit in very well with what the American Communist Party on orders from Moscow were doing to help the war effort once the Soviets became allies in 1941.        

No, what got me about this film was that even hardened criminals could under the story-line presented aid the war effort, could in this case be anti-Nazi fighters. My first reaction was WTF, yeah, that is exactly what I thought. Here is the gist of the story. A couple of hard cases tired of Alcatraz, the “Rock”, the supposedly inescapable Rock out in the dangerous Frisco Bay escaped to a lighthouse out in the harbor, out by the Japan currents from what I could gather. At that lighthouse there was the lighthouse keeper (an important job in the treacherous waters in the Bay), his daughter and a couple of other guys, one a goof but the other who just so happened to turn out to be a Nazi spy. A Nazi spy who is connected in with a group of fellow conspirators who have plans to blow up half of Frisco town once they grab a submarine off that lighthouse and get back to the Fatherland. Naturally they get nowhere once these cons get their patriotic fervor up after they “realize” that if Frisco town goes the Rock goes too if they get captured and are returned there before that event takes place. The conspiracy and the sub once the military gets a fix on them from the lighthouse keeper after the cons struggle with the Nazi agents trying to get back home goes to the briny deep. Fair enough nobody liked the idea, least of all me, of half of Frisco town being blown up.

What is really galling though is the idea that these hardened hoods were to be considered cinematically part of the great united front to wipe the Nazis and their allies off the face of the earth. Such guys from Steubenville, Ohio and Hazard, Kentucky who were itching to volunteer once the Japanese did their dastardly deeds at Pearl Harbor I understand as part of the front. Guys building ships, welding like crazy on three shifts to produce a ship a day I get it. Rosy the riveter picking up the slack when the menfolk went off to war great. Granny planting her Victory Garden, nice work. Kids running around getting string and aluminum foil for the war effort good young citizens. But cons who would as soon as put a slug in you, hey, in that light-keeper if it came to it before they “got religion” on what was what with the damn Nazis no I cannot buy that. What was Dmytryk thinking anyway when he took on this film.                

  

Out In The 1940s Crime Noir Night –Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall’s “Key Largo”

Out In The 1940s Crime Noir Night –Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall’s “Key Largo”

DVD Review

Key Largo, starring Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Edward G. Robinson, Lionel Barrymore, and Claire Trevor, Warner Brothers, 1948



“One Johnny Rocco, more or less, in the world is no business of mine.” So says one world-wise, world weary, been-through- the-mill ex-World War II military man, Frank McCloud (played, understatedly, by one cinematic 1940s tough guy, Humphrey Bogart) in the film under review, Key Largo. And he was right, dead right that a single guy , a single guy singed by life’s pitfalls could, would, or should take on one more hoodlum in this wicked old world.

But, of course dead right or not, this would be an exceedingly short film if Frank threw in the towel when he faced one real live Johnny Rocco hoodlum (played to a sleazy tee by serious 1940s gangster-type Edward G. Robinson). Moreover I set up the last paragraph to see if those who follow crime noir in all its glory were paying attention. Crime noir, for the one hundredth time, no, the one thousandth time, is based, for good or evil, on one premise, crime at the end of the day does not pay. And criminals must pay, either forfeiting their lives or doing one to ninety-nine in stir, the can, prison, okay.

And so world-weary, world wary, seen it all Frank McCloud must once more call on the better angel of his nature to eradicate one very live Johnny Rocco. Let’s give a few plot details to flush on this story and see why Frank had to bust up some two-bit racketeer. One Johnny Rocco and his courtly entourage of petty thugs decided to hit Key Largo, specifically the Key Largo Hotel, off-season, maybe to save a little dough on the room rates. No, no, no to make a score off of some counterfeit dough hot off the presses that his old crony Ziggy will pass off as real kale. But see Johnny has a problem because although a few years back he was king of the hill up in the Midwest he has been deported as, if you can believe this, an undesirable alien and has been cooling his heels in anything goes Batista-era Cuba waiting for his big comeback. So this deal, real dough for fake (at a serious discount of course) brings him back to old Estatos Unidos, well, Key Largo which is only a stone’s throw from Cuba.

And everything would have been fine except just then one ex-serviceman, our friend Frank McCloud, who happened to have been the hotel owner’s (played by Lionel Barrymore) killed in action son’s commanding officer in the European Theater, decided to stop by and commiserate on his way to Key West. And everything would have been very fine if a big blow, a hurricane, did not also gum up the works forcing everybody (everybody except the Native Americans left to fend for themselves during the storm) into the claustrophobic hotel lobby area where the frayed nerves of all were exposed.

Naturally since old Johnny had all the guns, all the gunsels, and a very nasty disposition when he was crossed he was hands down the winner, right. No, no you were not paying attention. See a dame, well, actually two dames, come in to muck things up. No femme fatales here though, just Nora (played, very understatedly by Lauren Bacall), who was married to the owner’s deceased son and is pretty easy on the eyes. While the sparks between Bogart and Bacall do not light up the screen like they did in To Have And Have Not they go for each other. So Frank’s hands off the world approach is doomed, doomed big time, if he wants to get anywhere with Ms. Nora. And then there is Johnny’s lush girlfriend, Gaye, who old Johnny does not treat right, no way. Add a slap or two to Nora by Johnny and Johnny is doomed, doomed big time. RIP. Thus there is, whether it makes any different in the great mandela in fact one less Johnny Rocco in the world. Got it.

DEMAND THAT CONGRESS END ALL WEAPONS SALES TO THE SAUDI REGIME

DEMAND THAT CONGRESS END ALL WEAPONS SALES TO THE SAUDI REGIME  

Click here to send an email to your Senators and your Representative.

Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy ruled by Wahhabism, an intolerant form of Sunni Islam, and the Saudi state has supported movements such as Al Qaeda, ISIS and the Taliban. The Saudi government fiercely discriminates against Muslims of other sects, bans public worship by Christians, and supports gender inequality. The Saudis opposed the 2015 U.S.-Iran nuclear deal even though it guarantees a world with fewer nuclear weapons.

Saudi Arabia invaded Bahrain to support that country's rulers during the 2011 Arab Spring, and it is presently making war in Yemen, where its airstrikes have led to many thousands of civilian deaths and risks a serious famine. Our country is providing indispensable military aid and support for the Saudi war in Yemen; in the last two years our government has sold over $20 billion in weapons to Saudi Arabia. We refuel Saudi warplanes that have bombed schools, hospitals, marketplaces, weddings, and funerals.

Additionally, Saudi military actions have disrupted the food supply in Yemen. Yemen  imports nearly 90% of its food; according to the UN, 17 million Yemenis suffer from severe food insecurity.

The Numbers Don’t Lie: White Far-Right Terrorists Pose a Clear Danger to Us All

The Numbers Don’t Lie: White Far-Right Terrorists Pose a Clear Danger to Us All

Compare and contrast: Islamist terrorists are depicted as wild-eyed fanatics driven to kill by their religious faith or ideology, while far-right terrorists — be it the shooter of two Hindus in a bar in Kansas in February, or the killer of nine black worshippers in a church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015, or the murderer of six Sikh worshippers in a temple in Duffy’s own state of Wisconsin in 2012 — are almost always “mentally ill.” After the recent double murder in Oregon, it didn’t take long for Portland police spokesperson Pete Simpson to announce: “We don’t know if [the suspect] has mental health issues.”  …Today, the terror threat from far-right white supremacists is the terror threat that dare not speak its name… Yet the numbers don’t lie — even if the Islamophobes do. “Since September 12, 2001,” noted a recent report prepared for Congress by the Government Accountability Office, “the number of fatalities caused by domestic violent extremists has ranged from 1 to 49 in a given year. … Fatalities resulting from attacks by far-right wing violent extremists have exceeded those caused by radical Islamist violent extremists in 10 of the 15 years, and were the same in 3 of the years since September 12, 2001.”   More

A View From The Left-WARS ABROAD, WARS AT HOME-Join The Resistance

WARS ABROAD, WARS AT HOME

“YOU’RE FIRED, PARIS CLIMATE ACCORD!”

Trump’s announcement of the US withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement  --  as usual before an audience that included an applause claque of administration supporters – was full of lies and distortions.  Partial fact checks here and here.

BILL MCKIBBEN:

Trump's Stupid and Reckless Climate Decision

The Paris accord was a high achievement of the diplomatic art, a process much messier than science, and inevitably involving compromise and unseemly concession… Those changes, and similar ones agreed to by other nations, would not have ended global warming. They were too small. But the hope of Paris was that the treaty would send such a strong signal to the world’s governments, and its capital markets, that the targets would become a floor and not a ceiling; that shaken into action by the accord, we would start moving much faster toward renewable energy, maybe even fast enough to begin catching up with the physics of global warming. There are signs that this has been happening: The plummeting price of solar energy just this spring persuaded India to forgo a huge planned expansion of coal plants in favor of more solar panel arrays to catch the sun. China is shutting coal mines as fast as it can build wind turbines. And that’s precisely the moment President Trump chose to make his move.  More

Could Trump and his Climate Deniers Kill the Planet?

Not only has Trump previously dismissed climate change as a “hoax,” but he has already taken a series of steps that will ensure the ongoing warming of the planet. Trump has filled his administration with men who deny that human activity is causing global warming… Trump’s actions have already had serious consequences. Perhaps most significant is the weakening of the Paris Agreement, one of the last, best hopes to slow global warming. “Mr. Trump has not yet decided whether to formally withdraw from the Paris agreement,” The New York Times reported in March. “But by rolling back the policies needed to meet American commitments, the United States essentially announced that it would not comply.”  As the crisis worsens, the fate of the world grows increasingly precarious. Global warming is continuing at record levels, but the leaders of the United States are ignoring this existential threat to the planet…  The denialist attitude does not bode well for the future of the planet. With temperatures rising and greenhouse gases still being pumped endlessly into the atmosphere, the planet appears to be heading for a major catastrophe.  More

NAOMI KLEIN: Will Trump Finally Provoke Consequences for Planetary Arson?

The power of the Paris Agreement was always in what social movements resolved to do with it. Having a clear commitment to keep warming below 2 degrees Celsius, while pursuing “efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 C,” means there is no room left in the global carbon budget to develop new fossil fuel reserves…  And this was always the task for the global climate justice movement when it came to Paris: to try to hold governments to the strong spirit, rather than the weak letter, of the agreement. The trouble is that as soon as Trump moved into the White House, it was perfectly clear that Washington was no longer susceptible to that kind of pressure… And there is another call that is increasingly being heard from social movements around the world — for economic sanctions in the face of Trump’s climate vandalism. Because here’s a crazy idea: Whether or not it’s written into the Paris Agreement, when you unilaterally decide to burn the world, there should be a price to pay. And that should be true whether you are the United States government, or Exxon Mobil — or some Frankenstein merger of the two.  More

Bucking Trump, These Cities, States and Companies Commit to Paris Accord

Representatives of American cities, states and companies are preparing to submit a plan to the United Nations pledging to meet the United States’ greenhouse gas emissions targets under the Paris climate accord, despite President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the agreement.  The unnamed group — which, so far, includes 30 mayors, three governors, more than 80 university presidents and more than 100 businesses — is negotiating with the United Nations to have its submission accepted alongside contributions to the Paris climate deal by other nations.    More

TRUMP'S BUDGET PLAN LANDS WITH A THUD IN MIDDLE AMERICA

When Trump promised to bring back manufacturing jobs, voters there lined up behind him.  But last week when Trump released his budget, the message they got from the president was that they were on their own…  “The federal budget is not just a national story, it really is a state-by-state story,” said Anne Stauffer, director of Pew’s Fiscal Federalism program. “When people think about the federal budget they don’t connect it to their lives or the services they get from their state or their city.”  … Rural America in particular — where Trump got more than 60 percent of the vote — is struggling with high unemployment, slow economic growth and tepid home price appreciation. Three in four rural counties still haven’t fully recovered from the recession, according to the National Association of Counties.  More

Class, race and politics in the rust belt

It is arguable that the campaign had—and the corporate wing of the Democratic Party has—little to offer voters in the rust belt…  a small but significant slice of working class rust belt voters voted against business as usual. Again, as Davis points out, “several hundred thousand white, blue-collar Obama voters, at most, voted for Trump’s vision of fair trade and reindustrialization, not the millions usually invoked.” In a narrow race, that provided the margin of defeat… Beltway insiders in the Democratic Party are ready to throw over the traditional Democratic base in the rust belt. They can dismiss working class Trump supporters as inveterate racists, as “deplorables.” … If you believe Trump’s working class base voted for him because of his racist appeals, and all you are interested in is electoral victory, then looking away from this fraction of the working class makes sense. This is certainly true of a portion of them but it is our contention that a significant element of that base voted against Clinton, against Washington, against business as usual. They were, in fact, so disaffected with Washington that they were willing to overlook Trump’s racism and misogyny: They voted Trump in spite of his crass scapegoating and hubris, not because of them.   More

The Numbers Don’t Lie: White Far-Right Terrorists Pose a Clear Danger to Us All

Compare and contrast: Islamist terrorists are depicted as wild-eyed fanatics driven to kill by their religious faith or ideology, while far-right terrorists — be it the shooter of two Hindus in a bar in Kansas in February, or the killer of nine black worshippers in a church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015, or the murderer of six Sikh worshippers in a temple in Duffy’s own state of Wisconsin in 2012 — are almost always “mentally ill.” After the recent double murder in Oregon, it didn’t take long for Portland police spokesperson Pete Simpson to announce: “We don’t know if [the suspect] has mental health issues.”  …Today, the terror threat from far-right white supremacists is the terror threat that dare not speak its name… Yet the numbers don’t lie — even if the Islamophobes do. “Since September 12, 2001,” noted a recent report prepared for Congress by the Government Accountability Office, “the number of fatalities caused by domestic violent extremists has ranged from 1 to 49 in a given year. … Fatalities resulting from attacks by far-right wing violent extremists have exceeded those caused by radical Islamist violent extremists in 10 of the 15 years, and were the same in 3 of the years since September 12, 2001.”   More

Cut Corporate Taxes? This Is How the Biggest Companies Cheated on Taxes in 2016

Donald Trump wants to cut what some call the "highest corporate tax rate in the world." The tax cut will, according to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, "pay for itself with economic growth."  "Corporations make billions from U.S. research and education, but then they turn around and cheat us on taxes."Two delusions in one. The realities are far different for anyone who actually considers the facts. And some of the facts about 2016 tax avoidance are shocking and depressing. For example, two of the big banks (JP Morgan and Bank of America) together underpaid their taxes by more than Trump's proposed $10.6 billion education cuts, which would eliminate or reduce after-school programs, work-study programs, state grants, teacher training, arts programs, and physical education. The two banks combined to DEFER nearly $10 billion…  Ten companies mentioned in this report collectively withheld nearly $15 billion in tax money in 2016.   That's as much as Trump's proposed cut for Health and Human Services, which carries out essential research on cancer and deadly threats like the Ebola and Zika viruses.   More

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NEW WARS / OLD WARS – What Could Possibly Go Wrong

Europe May Finally Rethink NATO Costs

Over time, even the most sophisticated propaganda wears thin, and more and more Europeans will realize that NATO, in its present form, is an unnecessary, vestigial organ already a quarter-century beyond its expiration date – and that it can flare up painfully, like a diseased appendix. At a time when citizens of many NATO countries are finding it harder and harder to make ends meet, they will be reluctant to sink still more money into rehab for a vestigial organ.  That there are better uses for the money is already clear, and President Trump’s badgering of NATO countries to contribute ever more for defense may well backfire. Some are already asking, “Defense against what?” Under the painful austerity that has been squeezing the Continent since the Wall Street crash nearly a decade ago, a critical mass of European citizens is likely to be able to distinguish reality from propaganda – and perhaps much sooner than anyone anticipates.   More

In Praise of a Transatlantic Divorce

The foreign-policy establishment is in a dither this week over Donald Trump’s recent truculent, bumbling, and boorish conduct in Europe. Their concerns hit a new high when German Chancellor Angela Merkel gave a speech back homedeclaring “the times in which we could rely fully on others” are “somewhat over” and suggesting Europe “really take our fate into our own hands.”  The reaction back in the United States was swift and bordered on hysterical…  Donald Trump is a symptom of the larger crisis that has been brewing for NATO ever since the Cold War ended. Alliances are first and foremost a collective response to threats, and NATO’s primary rationale disappeared when the Soviet Union collapsed. Attempts to give NATO important new missions “out of area” did not go well, whether one looks at Libya or Kosovo or Afghanistan, and some of America’s other initiatives — most notably the invasion of Iraq — did considerable damage to transatlantic solidarity as well.   More

Libya’s Link to Manchester’s Tragedy

The alleged suicide bomber, Salman Abedi, was part of an extremist group, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, that thrived in Manchester and was cultivated and used by MI5 for more than 20 years. The LIFG is proscribed by Britain as a terrorist organization, which seeks a “hardline Islamic state” in Libya and “is part of the wider global Islamist extremist movement, as inspired by al-Qaida.”  The “smoking gun” is that when Prime Minister Theresa May was Home Secretary, LIFG jihadists were allowed to travel unhindered across Europe and encouraged to engage in “battle”: first to remove Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, then to join al-Qaida affiliated groups in Syria…  The Manchester atrocity lifts the rock of British foreign policy to reveal its Faustian alliance with extreme Islam, especially the sect known as Wahhabism or Salafism, whose principal custodian and banker is the oil kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Britain’s biggest weapons customer.  More

After two years of war, Yemenis face cholera, famine and state collapse

Yemen and its people are engulfed by utter devastation. In the two-plus years of the conflict between the Houthi movement and its allies, including ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh, and an interim government supported by a Saudi-led military coalition, more than 10,000 people have died – and not just because of violence.  Two thirds of Yemen’s 26m people live with the reality of famine, with around 7m already suffering from acute malnutrition. Of this number, more than 3m face acute malnourishment. In these conditions, a child under five dies every 10 minutes. What’s more, the World Health Organisation is sounding the alarm over a new cholera outbreak in the country, which has killed hundreds of people and put some 150,000 at risk…  The situation could deteriorate further yet. The Saudis and their allies have long been preparing an attack on the Houthi-controlled port city of Hodeida, so far a crucial supply route and lifeline for Yemenis, and have requested direct US military aid. In response to that request, a bipartisan group of members of Congress wrote to Donald Trump and his defence secretary, James Mattis, demanding that they end the US’s support for the Saudi campaign.   More

DEMAND THAT CONGRESS END ALL WEAPONS SALES TO THE SAUDI REGIME  

Click here to send an email to your Senators and your Representative.

Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy ruled by Wahhabism, an intolerant form of Sunni Islam, and the Saudi state has supported movements such as Al Qaeda, ISIS and the Taliban. The Saudi government fiercely discriminates against Muslims of other sects, bans public worship by Christians, and supports gender inequality. The Saudis opposed the 2015 U.S.-Iran nuclear deal even though it guarantees a world with fewer nuclear weapons.

Saudi Arabia invaded Bahrain to support that country's rulers during the 2011 Arab Spring, and it is presently making war in Yemen, where its airstrikes have led to many thousands of civilian deaths and risks a serious famine. Our country is providing indispensable military aid and support for the Saudi war in Yemen; in the last two years our government has sold over $20 billion in weapons to Saudi Arabia. We refuel Saudi warplanes that have bombed schools, hospitals, marketplaces, weddings, and funerals.

Additionally, Saudi military actions have disrupted the food supply in Yemen. Yemen  imports nearly 90% of its food; according to the UN, 17 million Yemenis suffer from severe food insecurity.

Will America Once Again Undermine Iran’s Pro-Democracy Movement?

Washington’s approach is motivated by an irrational fear of losing Iran as an enemy. Instead of welcoming the country’s courageous democratic steps—which Washington for decades has claimed it desires—President Trump clenched his fist and doubled down on enmity by calling for regime change and Iran’s isolation. Only Saudi Arabia and hard-line elements of Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet in Israel welcomed this belligerent move—the same two countries that also opposed the nuclear deal.

But it isn’t just the path to US-Iran reconciliation that Trump is blocking by outsourcing Middle East policy to Saudi Arabia and Israel. He also risks jeopardizing Iran’s path toward reform and democratization. And it wouldn’t be the first time the United States stood in the way of the Iranian people’s yearning for democracy…  Just as the Iranian people sent an unmistakable invitation for further engagement and dialogue, Trump took the United States back to the Bush-era policy of confrontation. It’s a policy with only one clear winner: Iran’s hard-line elements, who oppose both Iranian society’s desire for more democracy and closer relations with the United States.   More

US boosts 'combat power' in south Syria

The US military says it has bolstered its "combat power" in southern Syria, warning that it viewed Iran-backed fighters in the area as a threat to nearby coalition troops fighting Islamic State.  The remarks by a Baghdad-based spokesman for the US-led coalition battling Islamic State was the latest sign of tension in the region, where the United States has forces at the base around the Syrian town of Tanf supporting local fighters.  "We have increased our presence and our footprint and prepared for any threat that is presented by the pro-regime forces," said the US army spokesman Ryan Dillon on Thursday, referring to Iran-backed forces supporting the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad.   More

In Boston-Come to the next monthly Dorchester Standout for Black Lives Thursday June 15, 5:30-6:30 PM

Come to the next monthly 

Dorchester Standout for Black Lives

Thursday June 15, 5:30-6:30 PM 

(and the third Thursday of every month)

at Ashmont T station plaza

We will hold a big banner saying "We Believe that Black Lives Matter" Black Lives Matter and signs (including about a variety of issues that impact Black lives), and hand out fliers to pedestrians and drivers stopped at red lights.  Please join us; all are welcome! Remaining dates this spring and summer are: June 15, July 20, August 17, and September 21.  For more info: writeKelley or Becky, kelready@msn.com,beckyp44@verizon.net, or call Dorchester People for Peace 617-282-3783

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In Massachusetts- State House Hearing Friday, June 9 SAFE COMMUNITIES ACT-Defend Immigrants-Join The Resistance!

State House Hearing Friday, June 9

SAFE COMMUNITIES ACT

See info about the Safe Communities Act here

Take Action - Testify or attend the hearing

The Massachusetts Immigrant & Refugee Advocacy Coalition (MIRA) seeks compelling testimony and support to educate the Joint Committee about the impact that Trump's aggressive enforcement and rhetoric are having on the ground, driving immigrants away from seeking public services and assistance, including public school, healthcare, and police assistance. Written testimony is also needed.

See guidelines for oral & written testimony here.

IF YOU WISH TO TESTIFY:

Arrive by 9:15 a.m. to sign up as an individual or a panel (3 or 4 people testifying together - sign all your names together). Expect to wait in line - it's first come, first serve. Three minute maximum per person. IF YOU ARE UNABLE OR DON'T WANT TO TESTIFY it's critical that you come to show your support. Plan to stay all day if you can. If the hearing room is full, use that time to visit your legislators. Find out who your representatives are here. No signs allowed in the building, but MIRA will have stickers to wear inside. EITHER WAY, PLEASE SUBMIT WRITTEN TESTIMONY. THE COMMITTEE NEEDS TO HEAR FROM YOU.