Sunday, October 08, 2017

10/10 to 17 Cuban Writer Leonardo Padura tours the Boston Area

Charlie Welch
To  act-ma@act-ma.org  
Padura’s wide popularity is rooted in the series of noir detective
novels he’s written, the first four of which have been made into films.
The “Four Seasons in Havana” quartet is available on Netflix; it is
being made into an English language series for cable starring Antonio
Banderas.  Padura’s writing in general is deeply involved with Cuban
history and politics.

The festival will be screening two Padura films in Spanish with English
subtitles after which there will be Q&A with the author: “Vientos de La
Habana/Winds of Havana,” an expanded version of the first in the Netflix
series that is an introduction to the world of Mario Conde featuring the
whole crew from the old neighborhood and his high school days as well as
police colleagues and Havana itself. In “Regreso a Itaca/Return to
Ithaca,” Leonardo wrote the screenplay about a generation gathering for
a rooftop dinner in Havana and to make sense of the past and present.
The festival showing will be the first time the film has been screened
with English subtitles in this country.

* Tu, Oct 10: 6:30-8:30, Reading/book signing at Brookline Coolidge
Corner Library, 31 Pleasant St., at the Coolidge Corner Green Line
(C train) stop; the Brookline Booksmith will be bringing books.
Facebook Event
<https://www.facebook.com/events/926696674160261/?acontext=%7B%22action_history%22%3A[%7B%22surface%22%3A%22dashboard%22%2C%22mechanism%22%3A%22calendar_tab_event%22%2C%22extra_data%22%3A%22[]%22%7D]%2C%22ref%22%3A1%2C%22source%22%3A2%7D>
* Wed, Oct 11: 7:00-9:00, U.S. premiere with English subtitles,
“Regreso a Itaca/Return to Ithaca,” Q&A, Boston University School of
Theology, 745 Commonwealth, at the BU Central stop on the Green Line
B train.
* Ths, Oct 12: noon-2:00 Northeastern University, 909 Renaissance
Park, 1135 Tremont, at/just south of the Ruggles St. station on the
Orange Line and the parking garage on Columbus Ave., #63 on the
campus map <http://www.northeastern.edu/campusmap/map/index.html>.
* Fri, Oct 13: 2:00-4:00, “A conversation about Culture and Politics
with Leonardo Padura (in Spanish)” Tufts University, Cabot Center,
7th floor, 170 Packard Ave. with parking and public access on campus
map <http://campusmaps.tufts.edu/medford/>..
* Fri, Oct 13: 7:00-9:30, “Vientos de La Habana/Winds of Havana,” Q&A,
Northeastern University, 010 Behrakis Health Sciences Center (BK),
30 Leon St., near the MFA Green Line stop (D train) on Huntington
Ave., #26 on the campus map
<http://www.northeastern.edu/campusmap/map/index.html>.
* Tu Oct 17: 2:00-4:30, “A Conversation with Celebrated Author
Leonardo Padura Fuentes, Boston University, Mugar Memorial Library,
Richards-Roosevelt Room, 1st Floor, 771 Commonwealth Ave, at the BU
Central stop on the Green Line B train.
* Tu Oct 17: 7:00-8:30 – July26.org/Leonardo Padura joint program with
the Witness for Peace-sponsored tour with Cuban poet and popular
educator Marcel Lueiro Reyes, Northeastern University, 305 Shillman
Hall, 115 Forsythe St., half a block from the Northeastern U Green
Line stop (D train) on Huntington Ave., turn left, #30 on the campus
map <http://www.northeastern.edu/campusmap/map/index.html>.

Padura’s wide popularity is rooted in the series of noir detective
novels he’s written, the first four of which have been made into films.
The “Four Seasons in Havana” quartet is available on Netflix; it is
being made into an English language series for cable starring Antonio
Banderas. Padura’s writing in general is deeply involved with Cuban
history and politics.

The festival will be screening two Padura films in Spanish with English
subtitles after which there will be Q&A with the author: “Vientos de La
Habana/Winds of Havana,” an expanded version of the first in the Netflix
series that is an introduction to the world of Mario Conde featuring the
whole crew from the old neighborhood and his high school days as well as
police colleagues and Havana itself. In “Regreso a Itaca/Return to
Ithaca,” Leonardo wrote the screenplay about a generation gathering for
a rooftop dinner in Havana and to make sense of the past and present.
The festival showing will be the first time the film has been screened
with English subtitles in this country.

https://july26.org/october-2017-leonardo-padura-festival/
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Supporters Condemn Decision to Deny Bail to Accused Whistleblower Reality Winner

Supporters Condemn Decision to Deny Bail to Accused Whistleblower Reality Winner

October 5, 2017
The Stand With Reality support group strongly condemns the court’s unfair decision today to continue the unjust imprisonment of Reality Leigh Winner. Winner faces a March 2018 trial for sharing a classified NSA document with the media that outlined how foreign agents attempted to undermine US election systems leading up to the 2016 presidential election.
Winner, a decorated Air Force veteran with no criminal record, who has already served four months in jail despite being convicted of no crime, and displaying every intention to face the single charge against her in court, will now be jailed for at least six more months, regardless of the jury’s eventual verdict.
Winner’s step-father Gary Davis stated, “A great miscarriage of justice has taken place today. Justice is supposed to be based on proof and evidence not unsubstantiated innuendo, fabrication, and misrepresentation of selected snippets of conversations taken out of context.”
This decision comes in spite of the prosecution’s admission it made false statements and misrepresented evidence in Winner’s original bail hearing on June 8th. Assistant U.S. attorney Jennifer G. Solari admitted she did not listen to the contents of a phone call used as evidence against Winner in her original bail hearing, instead relying on a “verbal summary” Solari later said was inaccurate.
Support group organizer, and previous director of Chelsea Manning’s defense fund, Jeff Paterson noted, “The prosecution falsely claimed that Reality had more classified documents in her possession, suggesting that she’d leak those documents too if given a chance. That turned out be a lie.”
“The prosecution also manipulated Winner’s politics to paint her as a danger to society and a flight risk,” added Paterson. “She expressed a desire to travel to conflict zones as a peacekeeper. The prosecution twisted her humanitarian outlook to characterize her as a future terrorist.”
“This is the opening salvo in the new war on whistleblowers and sets an extremely dangerous precedent,” explained government transparency advocate Rainey Reitman. “By this logic, anyone who has ever held a security clearance and disagrees with the U.S. government is a danger to society and should be in jail. But where does this end? Should Winner be in prison for life because of opinions and information she has in her head?”
Reitman continues, “Reality Winner is innocent of her charges under the Espionage Act. This 100 year old law, designed to prosecute spies during World War I, is being misused to deny Reality Winner legally-guaranteed whistleblower protections.”
Winner’s mother, Billie Davis-Winner, shared, “I am truly heartbroken and crushed. I am disappointed in the court’s decision and believe it is unfair. Her service to the country, and every community she has ever lived in, should have been weighted.”
Matt Boyle, a close friend of Winner’s, declared, “I’m incredibly saddened today. Reality will spend nearly a year in jail before even having her day in court. David Petraeus, on the other hand, didn’t serve a day behind bars. The degree to which our government has gone after her shakes my faith in our justice department.”
Winner has a top notch defense team determined to prove her innocence in court, despite the prosecution’s ongoing campaign to deny her the right to a fair and open trial. The Stand With Reality Winner support group has been the primary source of fundraising for Winner’s legal defense team and is leading public education efforts regarding this precedent setting First Amendment vs. Espionage Act case.
For complete campaign information:
https://StandWithReality.org
# # #


Eric Brooks
+1 317-796-1772
@ebrooks

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Veterans For Peace on Afghanistan-As We Enter Year 17

Veterans For Peace on Afghanistan

At the beginning of the 17th year of the U.S. war in Iraq, Veterans For Peace continues to call on the government of the United States to immediately withdraw all military and intelligence forces from Afghanistan and Pakistan. We call on the government of the United States to provide humanitarian aid directly to the people of Afghanistan, in non-coercive forms, to help the Afghan people rebuild their own nation and their lives in cooperation with other nations in the region; to allow the people of Afghanistan to freely determine their own government without interference by the US; and to issue an official apology to the people of Afghanistan.
President Trump is the third president to continue the depraved and failed U.S. war policy in Afghanistan. He and Presidents Bush and Obama have claimed that the U.S. has a winning strategy in Afghanistan and that the U.S. public must continue to support the war efforts to maintain U.S. security and to help the people of Afghanistan. However, the truth is the war is killing the people of Afghanistan. After 16 years, civilian deaths are rising. A New York Times July 27th article reported that the United Nations Afghanistan Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict report states 1,662 civilians were killed in the first six months of 2017, a 2 percent increase from last year and 3,581 additional civilians were wounded. The report also states there is a 23 percent rise in the number of women killed and child deaths are up 9 percent.
The presence of U.S. forces is the primary driver of violence in Afghanistan and that 17 years ago there was no negotiations or dialogue with the former Afghan Taliban government to extradite Osama bin Laden. Instead the U.S. invaded Afghanistan and ousted a government the U.S. had formerly worked with. War was the first and only tool employed by the U.S.  Since 2001, violence has increased significantly within Afghanistan, as well as the rise of militant groups.  It is beyond clear that our presence is only aiding the further destabilizing of that entire region.
War is a death factory. Thousands of U.S. and coalition troops have died. Tens of thousands of service members have been wounded. Veteran suicide rates have increased dramatically since 2001.  While the U.S. government claims to protect the people of Afghanistan, the Afghan people have lost the most to U.S. foreign policy. According to the Costs of War project at Brown University’s Watson Institute, that as of mid 2016 the combined total of deaths in Afghanistan and Pakistan stood at 173,000 with over 183,000 people seriously injured. Constant warfare and deaths can do nothing but inflame rage against the U.S. The U.S. must stop endless war. It is time to bring all our troops home now!
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The 50th Anniversary Of The Anti-Vietnam War March On The Pentagon (1967)-With Norman Mailer’s “Armies Of The Night” In Mind (1968)

The 50th Anniversary Of The Anti-Vietnam War March On The Pentagon (1967)-With Norman Mailer’s “Armies Of The Night” In Mind (1968)  




By Political Commentator Frank Jackman  
  
Earlier this year driven by my old corner boys, Alex James and Sam Lowell, I had begun to write some pieces in this space about things that happened in a key 1960s year, 1967. The genesis of this work has been based on of all things a business trip that Alex took to San Francisco early this spring. While there he noted on one of the ubiquitous mass transit buses that crisscross the city an advertisement for an exhibition at the de Young Art Museum located in Golden Gate Park. That exhibition The Summer of Love, 1967 had him cutting short a meeting one afternoon in order to see what it was all about. See if he was just having a “flashback” (not uncommon back the day for those who did not take their Kool-Aid straight but laced with mysterious chemical imbalances). What it was all about aside the nostalgia effect for members of the now ragtag Generation of ‘68 (an AARP-worthy generation but I prefer the less commercial Generation of ’68 to tag that crowd, my crowd) an entire floor’s worth of concert poster art, hippy fashion, music and photographs of that noteworthy year in the lives of some of those who came of age in the turbulent 1960s. The reason for Alex playing hooky from his important business meeting was that he had actually been out there that year, had been out in Haight-Ashbury-etched 1967) and had stayed and imbibed deeply of the counter-culture for a couple of years after that. (Imbibed not in running out of steam fast Frisco but on a magical mystery tour yellow brick road former school bus courtesy of Captain Crunch which went up and down the West Coast searching, hell, just searching.)

Alex had not been the only one who had been smitten by the Summer of Love revival bug because when he returned to Riverdale outside of Boston where he now lives he gathered up all of the corner boys from growing up North Adamsville still standing to talk about, and do something about, commemorating the event. His first contact was with Sam Lowell the old film critic who also happened to have gone out there and spent I think about a year, maybe a little more. As had most of the old corner boys for various lengths of time usually a few months. Except me which I will explain in a minute. Alex’s idea when he gathered all of us together was to put up a small commemoration book in honor of the late Peter Paul Markin with memory pieces by each of us. See Markin, always known as “Scribe” after he was dubbed that by our leader Frankie Riley (now a big time lawyer with a swanky office in downtown Boston but then poor as a church mouse and nothing but a serious con artist), was the first guy to go out there when he sensed that the winds of change he kept yakking about around the corner on desolate Friday and Saturday nights when we had no dough, no girls, no cars and no chance of getting any of those quickly were coming west to east.

Once everybody agreed to do the book Alex contacted his youngest brother Zack, the fairly well known writer, to edit and organize the project. I had agreed to help as well. The reason I had refused to go to San Francisco then had been that I was in the throes of trying to put together a career as a political operative by attempting to get Robert Kennedy to run against that naked sneak thief of a sitting President, Lyndon Baines Johnson, who had us neck deep in the big muddy of Vietnam and so I had no truck with hippies, druggies or “music is the revolution” types like those who filled the desperate streets around Haight-Ashbury. Then.  Zack did a very good job and we are proud of tribute to the not forgotten still lamented late Scribe who really was a mad man character and maybe if he had not got caught up in the Army, in being drafted, in being sent to Vietnam which threw him off kilter when he got back to the real world he might still be around to tell us what the next big trend will be.              

[I should mention here for the young or clueless something about corner boy culture since you no longer see guys hanging around corners at variety stores, pizza parlors, bowling alleys and the like as that scene has successively been replaced by mall “rat-dom” and now “don’t look up from the fucking phone” social media. (Don’t see gals either for the same reasons although back in the day the gals hanging around corners were with guys, glued to guys, otherwise they generally were inside say Doc’s Drugstore soda fountain or the pizza parlor spending their who knows where they got it discretionary money throwing dimes and quarters into the jukebox to play the latest heartthrob tunes). Corner boy-dom was a rite of passage in working class neighborhoods like the Acre section of North Adamsville where we grew up having certain corners passed on to you as you grew older like our progression from Harry’s Variety in elementary school to Doc’s Drugstore in junior high to Tonio Pizza Parlor in high school and beyond.

You, we, I hung on the corner for a very simple reason in those days- no dough. No serious dough although everybody had some scam from roughing up younger siblings for coin or a back door sneak at mother’s pocketbook to the midnight creep which best be left at that since who knows if the statute of limitations has run out on those high crimes and misdemeanors. No dough meant no car, meant nowhere in golden age of the automobile America where any guy with a car, handsome or ugly, had some young thing sitting very close in the front seat of his Chevy something. Meant even if you could find a girl who didn’t mind taking the bus or walking you had no money for dates even for a cheapjack movie date much less say hitting a drive-n restaurant. And no dates meant no girls hovering around which meant the corner with that cohort of guys in the same condition as you. Meant having a bunch of sullen surly guys with time on their hands, lust and larceny in their hearts, and an overweening desire to fall outside the law. That most of us survived is amazing but it was a close thing, very close.]

That initial impetus to think about 1967 at a time when I was in love with Robert Kennedy and that kind of grass-roots progressive politics of which we see very little now led me to do a piece about the first Monterrey International Pops Festival held at the beginning of that summer and where revered names for the Generation of ’68 like Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Ravi Shankar (he, additionally the papa of today’s Norah Jones) had made their first big splashes. I always loved the music, always loved to go to concerts, generally free or cheap concerts if you can believe that in these days of nostalgia high-priced tickets for groups and singles well beyond their primes on Boston Common and elsewhere and hear what was what. Those were the days when I heard the first stirrings, and maybe half wanted to believe it was true, that “the music was the revolution.” That somehow new sounds and the emerging lifestyle, the hippie lifestyle of communal sharing, good vibes and easy going would be the impetus for a new ethos. That some idea of “dropping out” of bourgeois society (not a term I would have used then but which now kind of fits what I am getting at) would bring the new utopia onto our doorsteps. The Scribe and the others at the time having been through the initial stages of the Summer of Love out in the West were filled with such ideas to the extent that they could articulate such a vision. (The Scribe was able to and did at the time and carried the others with him.) I was having none of it, or very little, since at that time I neither believed in any kind of revolution nor did I think that society needed anything more than tweaking (with me helping the throw the tweak switch.) I argued against and I believe, unfortunately, that those who professed the “music is the revolution” idea have been shown to have been totally over their heads and left no serious mark on the social fabric.                        

There was another trend, another 50th anniversary trend which I would argue was counter-posed to the above mentioned theory. This event is the 50th anniversary of the famous, or infamous, March on the Pentagon in October of that year. The one that the late writer Norman Mailer wrote about in his well-received and highly honored The Armies Of The Night a review of which I have reposted elsewhere on this blog. That event was not the first massive Washington anti-Vietnam War demonstration (the first had been in New York in 1965) nor the first to feature acts of civil disobedience but it was the first threshing out, the first understanding that something big was going to be needed to stop the fucking war. That the government was not going to stop the madness on its own hook. Moreover that despite whatever residue remained from the intoxicating Summer of Love “dropping out” under the rubric of the “music is the revolution” mantra was not going to create the “newer world” in the words of the English poet Alfred Lord Tennyson those of us from supporters of Robert Kennedy to the left were seeking.         

Of course as described in detail including an overabundance of detail about his own part, his own arrest in the melee by Mailer this effort was very much a helter-skelter thing with mixed results. The key idea to be taken by any serious anti-war militants that the government (run by either major party as it later turned) was going to viciously thwart any such people’s efforts to bring an end to the damn thing. There would be a parting of the ways essentially not only between “drop out” and “confrontation” partisans but within the confrontationists camp a split over peaceful mass marches and more vigorous actions. The March on the Pentagon was the laboratory for all those ideas from “levitating” the place to a guerilla warfare-type actions to shut the place down.    

Of course today I am commemorating an event, not for the first time, that at the time I was adamantly opposed to, saw as very disruptive to the attempts by first Senator Eugene McCarthy and his insurgent run at Lyndon Baines Johnson and later after Johnson’s withdrawal from candidacy by Robert Kennedy to solve this problem through parliamentary means. In short while I was vaguely anti-war, or thought I was only at that level, I did not participate in or honor such efforts. The turning point would be later, the next year as it turned out, when I was drafted by my “friends and neighbors” at the Draft Board in North Adamsville (that greeting was how the letter of induction actually started) and accepted induction even if half-heartedly in the U.S. Army. I have written, and others have written as well, about my complete turnaround once I was inducted and of my two year struggle including serious stockade time for refusing to go to Vietnam. One of the books I read during that time was Mailer’s The Armies Of The Night taking to heart some of the lessons from that experience (although still a bit put off by the centrality of Mailer’s ego in the whole process).


Here is the payoff though. In the spring of 1971 shortly after I had been released from the Army I started hanging around with a bunch of Cambridge radicals. The big idea at the time was to have a massive May Day civil disobedience action in Washington around the theme-“if the government does not shut down the war, we will shut down the government.” I did not even think twice about not going, of not getting arrested and of thinking that such as action was desperately necessary. Although I drew some other conclusions about how to end war from that aborted experience I saw it as a continuation of that struggle at the Pentagon in 1967. And whatever else I never regretted my actions in 1971 and I hope those who were at the Pentagon in 1967 have not either, not in these desperate times.       
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From The Marxist Archives-Karl Liebknecht-No Unity With The Class Enemy-Build The Resistance







From The Marxist Archives-Karl Liebknecht-No Unity With The Class Enemy-Build The Resistance  


Workers Vanguard No. 1104
27 January 2017

TROTSKY

LENIN
No to Unity with Class Enemy!
(Quote of the Week)
Today, the reformist left calls for “unity” to fight against Trump. This boils down to uniting behind the Democratic Party, political representatives of the class enemy. Writing in 1918, as the German Revolution was unfolding, revolutionary leader Karl Liebknecht warned against the dangers of unity with those defending the capitalist order. Liebknecht, along with Rosa Luxemburg, belatedly split with the socialist conciliators who wanted to unite with the Social Democratic Party (SPD), which had betrayed the working class by supporting German imperialism during World War I. In January 1919, shortly after founding the German Communist Party, Liebknecht and Luxemburg were murdered by right-wing paramilitary forces at the behest of the SPD government and the revolution was defeated.
Unity! Who could yearn and strive for it more than we? Unity, which gives the proletariat the strength to carry out its historic mission.
But not all “unity” breeds strength. Unity between fire and water extinguishes the fire and turns the water to steam. Unity between wolf and lamb makes the lamb a meal for the wolf. Unity between the proletariat and the ruling classes sacrifices the proletariat. Unity with traitors means defeat.
Only forces pulling in the same direction are made stronger through unity. When forces pull against each other, chaining them together cripples them both.
We strive to combine forces that pull in the same direction. The current apostles of unity, like the unity preachers during the war, strive to unite opposing forces in order to obstruct and deflect the radical forces of the revolution. Politics is action. Working together in action presupposes unity on means and ends. Whoever agrees with us on means and ends is for us a welcome comrade in battle. Unity in thought and attitude, in aspiration and action, that is the only real unity. Unity in words is an illusion, ​self-​deception, or a fraud. The revolution has hardly begun, and the apostles of unity already want to liquidate it. They want to steer the movement onto “peaceful paths” to save capitalist society. They want to hypnotize the proletariat with the catchword of unity in order to wrench power from its hands by reestablishing the class state and preserving economic class rule. They lash out at us because we frustrate these plans, because we are truly serious about the liberation of the working class and the world socialist revolution.
Can we unify with those who are nothing more than substitutes for the capitalist exploiter, dressed as socialists?
Can we, may we join with them without becoming accomplices in their conspiracies?
Unity with them would mean ruin for the proletariat. It would mean renouncing socialism and the International. They are not fit for a fraternal handshake. They should be met not with unity, but with battle.
The toiling masses are the prime movers of social revolution. Clear class consciousness, clear recognition of their historic tasks, a clear will to achieve them, and unerring effectiveness—these are the attributes without which they will not be able to complete their work. Today more than ever the task is to clear away the unity smokescreen, expose half measures and halfheartedness, and unmask all false friends of the working class. Clarity can arise only out of pitiless criticism, unity only out of clarity, and the strength to create the new socialist world only out of unity in spirit, goals, and purpose.
—Karl Liebknecht, “The New ‘Civil Peace’” (19 November 1918), printed in The German Revolution and the Debate on Soviet Power (Pathfinder Press, 1986)
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Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By-Buffy-Sainte Marie’s “Universal Soldier”

Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By-Buffy-Sainte Marie’s “Universal Soldier”



In this series, presented under the headline “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here.
********
Markin comment on the lyric here:

While I have always considered this a very good anti-war song the tone of the lyrics leave me a little off-put these days. There are, in this wicked old world, some just wars, the Northern side in the American Civil War, The American side in the struggle for independence, The Irish side in the struggle against the British on Easter, 1916 and so on. Thus, until we take the guns away from those cruel oppressors of the mass of humanity we had best keep our own guns at the ready-and our class struggle soldiers prepared. Then someday this song will be an interesting relic for archeologists to uncover and laugh about the follies of primitive humankind.


Universal Soldier-Buffy Sainte-Marie

He's five feet two and he's six feet four
He fights with missiles and with spears
He's all of 31 and he's only 17
He's been a soldier for a thousand years

He's a Catholic, a Hindu, an atheist, a Jain,
a Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew
and he knows he shouldn't kill
and he knows he always will
kill you for me my friend and me for you

And he's fighting for Canada,
he's fighting for France,
he's fighting for the USA,
and he's fighting for the Russians
and he's fighting for Japan,
and he thinks we'll put an end to war this way

And he's fighting for Democracy
and fighting for the Reds
He says it's for the peace of all
He's the one who must decide
who's to live and who's to die
and he never sees the writing on the walls

But without him how would Hitler have
condemned him at Dachau
Without him Caesar would have stood alone
He's the one who gives his body
as a weapon to a war
and without him all this killing can't go on

He's the universal soldier and he
really is to blame
His orders come from far away no more
They come from him, and you, and me
and brothers can't you see
this is not the way we put an end to war.
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Saturday, October 07, 2017

From The Gals And Guys Who Know The Face Of War Up Close And Personal-The Iraq And Afghan War Veterans Against The War (IVAW)



From The Gals And Guys Who Know The Face Of War Up Close And Personal-The Iraq And Afghan War Veterans Against The War (IVAW)





Frank Jackman comment:

On more than one occasion I have noted there is an overweening respect for the military, for military officers mainly, the guys and gals who have led and lead the bloody endless wars of this century. (Although the most recent example is more than fifty years old with General Eisenhower this has been at certain points reflected in elevating such personages to the American presidency starting with General Washington. The decline in military service among the political and social elites and their offspring over the past couple of generations leaving it to marginal lower middle class and working class cadre probably signals the demise of the that trend. That and the indecisive nature of the endless wars which produce no certifiably mass leader-heroes.) Nevertheless these specimens look good on camera, all austere and all business as they lead the general population by the nose into the next ambush with the acquiescence of civil authority including non-veteran “chicken-hawk” presidents and their associated.

But starting back in Vietnam, starting back in the war of my generation soldiers, sailors, air personnel, regular rank and file guys (almost all guys then) started balking at their fate in a very public manner out on the streets. (All wars, all military service produces a certain among of grousing, a very definite questioning of command decisions down in the trenches even in popular wars like World War II but that is far removed from opposition in the streets, sometimes in uniform, that became somewhat epidemic in Vietnam times when the Army at least was half in mutiny and in any case unreliable as a military force against a determined foe). Like I say these guys (and later when the female military population increased gals) started to talk back, to say stop the madness. And if they could not do so when they were service-bound for obvious and mainly understandable reasons concerning hard time in stockades and prisons they certainly did so in their thousands after they got out of the service. (Many Army recruits during basic training probably had “do this, do that unless you want to wind up in Fort Leavenworth”-the bad ass Army facility thrown at them by worrisome drill sergeants which surely caused to pause over that possibility.)

That “could not do when they were service-bound” no mean hurtle since a lot of the constitutional rights we take for granted out in the civilian world wind up in the latrine once you take the oath. Even more so then than now since there have been some court decisions reining in the military brass as they try to trash a soldier’s will. Let me tell you though many a soldier who couldn’t speak out because he was in Vietnam and under fire or stateside trying to keep out of the line of fire spent many a tortuous night trying to figure out whether to just say “fuck it,” to refuse to go along, to fight. (The more I investigate this issue among the remaining male brethren from the “Generation of ’68 I find that even among those who served without question, who volunteered in order to get a trade or profession rather than be left in that same latrine as the infantrymen almost all draftees the question of what to do hung over their heads just as much as Boston college guys who refused induction, who burned their draft cards, who hit the road for Canada and other foreign shores, or who tried every diversion from physically harming themselves to claiming mental disorders to declaring themselves, falsely declaring themselves let’s be clear homosexuals. Yes, it was that kind of time-another time to try men’s souls.]     


Those irate and lied to military personnel formed an organization Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) that did a hell of a lot to bring the anti-war message home. See they had “street cred”,’ they had been in the hellholes and beyond, had come back to the “real world” a lot wiser than the kids they were who went in with dreams of glory and fistfuls of medals. The guys and gals who fought, and continue to fight don’t forget, the damn Iraq and Afghan wars, the latter in it endless sixteen years ready to turn seventeen come next frost  have that same “street cred.” They our sons and daughters have been through as much hell as those guys from my time, from me in my own experience. Have many mental and physical problems. Have a horrendous daily suicide rate. Are living proof that there are no “walk-over” wars-not in this century. So when they with their well-deserved street “cred” say stop the madness that for this generation means something. Listen up, please.   
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Sculptors' Corner-On The 100th Anniversary Of August Rodin's Death

Sculptors' Corner-On The 100th Anniversary Of August Rodin's Death   


Frtiz Taylor comment; 

No question Rodin was the big sculptor of his time and while we should not forget that he treated his long-time companion and fellow sculptor Camille Claudel rather poorly when the deal went down that reputation still holds up. By the way in these times everybody should take a view of his "The Thinker"-and act on it.
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Veterans For Peace on Afghanistan-As We Enter The 17th Year


Veterans For Peace on Afghanistan

At the beginning of the 17th year of the U.S. war in Iraq, Veterans For Peace continues to call on the government of the United States to immediately withdraw all military and intelligence forces from Afghanistan and Pakistan. We call on the government of the United States to provide humanitarian aid directly to the people of Afghanistan, in non-coercive forms, to help the Afghan people rebuild their own nation and their lives in cooperation with other nations in the region; to allow the people of Afghanistan to freely determine their own government without interference by the US; and to issue an official apology to the people of Afghanistan.
President Trump is the third president to continue the depraved and failed U.S. war policy in Afghanistan. He and Presidents Bush and Obama have claimed that the U.S. has a winning strategy in Afghanistan and that the U.S. public must continue to support the war efforts to maintain U.S. security and to help the people of Afghanistan. However, the truth is the war is killing the people of Afghanistan. After 16 years, civilian deaths are rising. A New York Times July 27th article reported that the United Nations Afghanistan Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict report states 1,662 civilians were killed in the first six months of 2017, a 2 percent increase from last year and 3,581 additional civilians were wounded. The report also states there is a 23 percent rise in the number of women killed and child deaths are up 9 percent.
The presence of U.S. forces is the primary driver of violence in Afghanistan and that 17 years ago there was no negotiations or dialogue with the former Afghan Taliban government to extradite Osama bin Laden. Instead the U.S. invaded Afghanistan and ousted a government the U.S. had formerly worked with. War was the first and only tool employed by the U.S.  Since 2001, violence has increased significantly within Afghanistan, as well as the rise of militant groups.  It is beyond clear that our presence is only aiding the further destabilizing of that entire region.
War is a death factory. Thousands of U.S. and coalition troops have died. Tens of thousands of service members have been wounded. Veteran suicide rates have increased dramatically since 2001.  While the U.S. government claims to protect the people of Afghanistan, the Afghan people have lost the most to U.S. foreign policy. According to the Costs of War project at Brown University’s Watson Institute, that as of mid 2016 the combined total of deaths in Afghanistan and Pakistan stood at 173,000 with over 183,000 people seriously injured. Constant warfare and deaths can do nothing but inflame rage against the U.S. The U.S. must stop endless war. It is time to bring all our troops home now!
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