From Protest to Resistance: On the 50th Anniversary of the October 1967 March on the Pentagon

• HOME
• ABOUT 
• PBS VIETNAM SERIES 
• OCT 21 EVENT 
• RESOURCES
• BLOG
• DONATE
• CONTACT

• October 20-21 Event

  Learn more and register to attend this event in Washington, DC

  

  From Protest to Resistance:

  On the 50th Anniversary of the October 1967 March on the Pentagon

  
  The October 1967 March on the Pentagon was a landmark event in the history of the US peace movement. Not only was it one of the largest gatherings to oppose the Vietnam War up to that time, it was also notable for its escalation of tactics from protest to mass resistance. Over 600 activists were arrested on October 21 in both planned and spontaneous acts of nonviolent civil disobedience, signaling a new strategy for anti-war organizing. Interaction between protestors and soldiers lay the groundwork for both confrontation and engagement.

  
  

  During twenty-four hours in Washington, DC, we will remember and reflect on the significance of that action and the overall impact of the peace movement on ending the Vietnam War, as well as on lessons for today‘s resistance.

  
  

  FRIDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 20 - 5-7 PM

  Gather at the Pentagon for a commemorative vigil on US responsibility for the legacies of war: land mines, unexploded ordnance, Agent Orange, forced relocations of rural people, and on the struggles of veterans.
  
  Featured will be Peter Yarrow of the legendary folk group Peter, Paul and Mary, performers at the 1967 rally at the Lincoln Memorial, draft resisters whose cards were turned into the Justice Department on the same date fifty years ago, and advocates of taking responsibility for war legacies.
   

  SATURDAY, OCTOBER 21 – ALL DAY

  An all-day gathering at the Western Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC, in four sessions:
   

  1) Understanding the Historical Context
  What was happening in Vietnam and in the peace movement; public opinion about the war; in the White House; in the Pentagon; and internationally;

  
  

  2) Recalling the Event
  The many moving parts of the demonstration, from the rally at the Lincoln Memorial and the counterculture's "levitation" of the Pentagon, to the sit in on the steps and detention at Occoquan; what actually took place and who was there; an opportunity to share personal experiences. *

  
  

  3) The Impact of the Pentagon March and the Antiwar Movement
  The effect of the 1967 march and of a multi-faceted peace movement on the war and on US politics, culture and society; the emergence of a GI movement and its relation to civilian activists.

  
  

  4) The PBS Series and Unlearned Lessons

  The 18 hour documentary by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick is creating a new national memory of the war. Did it get the history right and give fair treatment to the role of the anti-war movement of civilians, serving military and veterans? What lessons were conveyed for current and future US military conflicts and opposition to them?

  
  

  Post Gathering Commemorative Walk to Vietnam Veterans Wall

  After the conference, we'll conclude with a walk from the church to the nearby Vietnam Wall and Lincoln Memorial, paying tribute to all who were victims of a tragically unnecessary war.

  
  

  SCHEDULE AND PANELISTS >

  PANELIST BIOS >
   

  We hope you will come and help spread the word about this history rich and moving program. Be sure to contact us as soon as possible if you were part of, or strongly affected by, October 21, 1967, so we can incorporate your experience in the commemoration.

  
  

  * Daniel Ellsberg will share his experience by video of beginning the day in the peace march and ending it at his office in the Pentagon watching the occupation of the steps alongside Secretary of Defense McNamara.
   

  EVENT SPONSORS

  
  

  The event is organized by the Vietnam Peace Commemoration Committee (VPCC).

  
  

  Co-sponsors for the event include: Partnerships for International Strategies in Asia (PISA) of George Washington University, Historians for Peace and Democracy, Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars/Critical Asian Studies, Fund for Reconciliation and Development, Veterans For Peace, and The Norman Mailer Society.

  
  

  HOUSING INFORMATION > (PDF)

  

  REGISTER FOR THE EVENT

  Everyone is welcome to attend.

  
  Cost for the two-day event is $25

  + $10 for lunch on Saturday
  
  Click below to register on New York Charities site.

  REGISTER

  

  
  

  
  

  DOWNLOAD EVENT FLYER (PDF) >

  Share with friends and colleagues

  
  

  
  

  
  
• Join Us

  Signup to stay informed of our plans and upcoming events

  Email

  SUBMIT

Home
About VPCC

PBS Vietnam Series

Oct 20-21 Event

Challenging Pentagon

MLK Events
Resources

Donate

Contact Us
Join Our List

site by LaddMedia

© 2017 Vietnam Peace Commemoration Committee. All Rights R

T For Texas, Texas Blues-Willie Nelson’s Milk Cow Blues (2000)-A CD Review

T For Texas, Texas Blues-Willie Nelson’s Milk Cow Blues (2000)-A CD Review

CD Review

By Zack James

Milk Cow Blues, Willie Nelson and others, 2000

My old high school friend Greg Garret whom I am still in close touch with reminded me the other day when he was over at my house and I had the CD under review playing in the background, Willie Nelson’s Milk Cow Blues, that back in the early 1980s he recalled that I had had what he called my “outlaw country cowboy moment.” I didn’t recall that I uttered that particular expression although I did recall that I had for a brief period been drawn to the likes of Willie, Waylon Jennings, Townes Van Zandt and a number of other singer-songwriters who broke out of the traditional stylized Nashville formula mold epitomized then by guys like George Jones and gals like Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette. Just then rock and roll was taking one of its various detours which I could not follow, folk music, the social protest kind anyway that had attracted me in my youth was fading fast even among aficionados and the blues was losing its star performers by the day and the younger crowd was heading to what would become the hip-hop tradition so I was up for listening to something different. Willie, not clean-shaven, pony-tailed, not shining sparkly suit Willie filled the bill.           

Yeah, Willie filled the bill with songs about two-timing men, women too, lost love, the heartache of love relationships, getting out from under some rock that was weighting him down but down in soulful, thoughtful way with a bit of a gravelly voice, a kind of voice that always had the ability to draw me in, to make me stop what I was doing and listen up. Of course I had remembered back then that Willie had written a song that Patsy Cline whom I had always liked had made famous in the late 1950s, Crazy, which I had learned about when I was at Cheapo Records over in Cambridge looking for some bluesy stuff back in the 1960s. 

Fast forward to 2000 and this CD. I had expected that Willie, now ancient Willie if he had written Crazy back in the 1950s, would still be grinding out in his twangy way the old classics which fill out this album. Would put his Texas touch on these standards. Guess what-he switched up on me, made an album of well-known covers made hits by some very famous like Cline, Bessie Smith, B.B. King (who is featured on a couple of songs here), Jerry Lee but changed the tempo. Put everything in a bluesy frame, and let the beat go on. Let the music carry the day with whoever was singing along with him on each cut. Not a recognizable cowboy sound in the house. Now part of that switch-up represented the hard fact that age had like with Bob Dylan rusted up his voice and so he no longer tried, or was capable of , hitting the high white notes. Part of it was to let the other singers or the musicians carry the force of the songs. But guess what if you, and Greg agreed with me on this, need some nice jazzy, bluesy background music this one fills the bill. Yeah, we all have come a long way from that old “outlaw country cowboy moment” Greg claimed I was in thrall to. Enough said.      

In South Station- Boston-Standout to Protest US Threats against North Korea October 17 @ 5:00 pm - 6:00 pm

Standout to Protest US Threats against North Korea October 17 @ 5:00 pm - 6:00 pm South Station, 700 Atlantic Ave Boston, MA 02110 United States + Google Map Veterans for Peace will protest US threats against North Korea and call for peaceful solution of our differences with that country. All are welcome to join.   Find out more »

Gene Kelly And Fred Astaire Go Mano a Mano, Part 2 - Astaire’s “Shall We Dance” (1937)-A Film Review

Gene Kelly And Fred Astaire Go Mano a Mano, Part 2 - Astaire’s “Shall We Dance” (1937)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Senior Film Critic Sandy Salmon

Shall We Dance, starring Fred Astaire, Ginger Rodgers, music and lyrics by George and Ira Gershwin, 1937

Those of you who saw my recent review of song and dance man Gene Kelly’s performance in An American In Paris know that that review had come about after a dispute I had had with the general editor of this space, one Pete Markin, over who was the better popular music male dancer Kelly or Fred Astaire. (Neither party disputes the proposition that nobody today, maybe nobody since their respective times, is even close to this pair so don’t bother to bring up any other contenders if that is what you are thinking about). Markin, after years, decades of honorable service to the memory of Mister Astaire’s talents was swayed by Kelly’s performance in that above-mentioned and corralled me by the water cooler one office morning and laid that dead-ass bombshell on me. Naturally I had to upbraid him for his treason, there is no other way to put it even though I would be hard-pressed to have him prosecuted and tried on the charge since I lack a second witness to the travesty and whether it is wartime, declared by Congress wartime, currently is disputable, and error. Now I am reviewing Mister Astaire’s stellar efforts in a second string song and dance genre classic, Shall We Dance, (the seventh of ten in which he shared the dance floor with Ms. Rogers the earlier ones being usually better so here the dancing really shows his superiority) a vehicle like An American In Paris for the music and lyrics of super talented composer and lyrist George and Ira Gershwin.  

I mentioned in the lead-up to the Kelly review that someday I would give you the long suffering reader the complete story of how a film critic gets his or her assignments from “upstairs,” from the general editor, from a guy just like Markin (unless of course that person is hard road free-lancing and is just submitting pieces to publications “on spec”). I noted then that I should know the ropes of that slippery slope after some thirty plus years of doing this type of work recently here and for many years at the American Film Gazette (where I still do on-line reviews and where I started out as that free-lancer submitting pieces “on spec” when the publication was strictly hard copy before I was taken on as a staff member). A reader, a thoughtful reader I assumed, wrote in to ask for a specific example of such behavior, of an odd-ball experience in assignment world to give her an inside view of the madhouse. I immediately explained the genesis of this current review (and the Kelly review) as nothing but hubris from Markin. I explained that the only reason that I was on a “run” was I got this assignment to review first Gene Kelly’s An American In Paris and now this film because Markin had grabbed these two films via Amazon for one purpose and one purpose only-to see who was the better dancer back in the day -Kelly or Astaire.

Here is another one, another prime example of odd-ball assignments out of the blue. A few months ago Markin was all hopped up on some exhibition out at the de Young Museum in San Francisco that one of his growing up childhood friends had told him about after viewing what was called The Summer Of Love Experience (from 1967 so they were commemorating the 50^th anniversary of the events in style) he had me and my associate film critic Alden Riley working like seven whirling dervishes to write up a ton of stuff on the music (deemed “acid” rock for its connection with LSD), films and documentaries of the times. After I had reviewed a break-through documentary by D.A. Pennebaker chronicling the first Monterey International Pops Festival held that same 1967 year where Janis Joplin (and others like Otis Redding and Ravi Shankar) made her big splash in the rock icono-sphere I asked Alden, a much younger man than I, what he thought of Janis Joplin. He stated to me that he had never heard of her. Somehow Markin heard about that remark and being very much connected with that whole Summer of Love, 1967 scene (having actually gone out there from his growing up home in North Adamsville, Massachusetts hitchhiking out with a couple of friends) told Alden, by-passing me, that his next assignment would be a biopic about Janis Joplin titled Little Girl Blues. That will give you just a rather current example of the inside the pressure cooker atmosphere we work under.     

But back to the Astaire-Kelly controversy what I called a tempest in a teapot in that Kelly review. A remark that I now wish to publicly apologize to Mister Markin for making in the heat of a writing a review under deadline. Of course in a world going to hell in a handbasket with rightwing movements sprouting up all over the world, with bare-faced  nuclear war threats on the table, with climate change dramatic weather and natural disasters on the rise and  with the social fabric coming undone in this American society (what the political commentator Frank Jackman has rightly I think called the first stages of a “cold civil war” likely to get hot) there is no question that the presses (or cyberspace) should stop while we haggle over which of two long dead  popular culture dancers was the max daddy of the genre. But to the lists once again to right a minor wrong in this crooked little orb of a planet. 

I noted in that review of An American In Paris with its paper thin plotline that it might not be the best place to critique Mister Kelly’s dancing (or acting efforts which whatever faults I find in his dancing they do not compare to his wooden glad hand acting in that role) but I did not throw down the gauntlet this time. Frankly although Shall We Dance has a plotline a bit superior to the Kelly vehicle it would not be out of place to call that paper thin as well. Apparently in the song and dance genre all the dough goes for staging and about three dollars to screenwriters to come up with a plausible scenario to justify all the sprouting out to sing and dance at the drop of a hat.  

As with An American in Paris I do not utter that term “paper thin” lightly here. Here’s the play as my predecessor and friend in this department Sam Lowell always liked to say in his reviews. Astaire whose character is called Petrov is actually an American ballet dancer working in Paris whose most fervent desire is to blend that youthful ballet training with modern jazz that is running rampart in the land and hence the need for the services of the Gershwin brothers to do the music and lyrics in this film. But I am getting ahead of myself. Petrov spies this dishy tap-dancer, Linda, Ginger Roger’s role, and immediately makes a play for her for love (and maybe, just maybe as a dance partner who might have the moves to jazz dance). She of course gives him the cold shoulder-sees him as some Russian stupe. Naturally there has to be a nefarious plan hatched by others to get them together. Bingo a rumor is started that the “lovebirds” are married, which they are not at first, and to make this thing go away they do get married with Linda intending to get a divorce ASAP.      

Get this though. She starts falling for the big Russian turned American cuckoo until she finds that he is playing footsies with another dame. Then the big freeze is on. But you know the thaw is on the wings and they will be lovebird back together again before twelve more song and dances are completed. Like I said with the Kelly plotline watch the song and dance stuff and go numb in between.      

Of course this whole dispute, this tempest in a teapot, no I already said I apologized for my indiscretion on that score so forget I said that expression, brewed up by Mister Markin is not about the qualities of the storyline but about Kelly’s dancing superiority. I have already conceded that on the question of pure physical energy and verve Kelly is not bad reflecting I think the hopped up (maybe drugged up) post-World War II period when everybody who had slogged through the war was in a rush to get to wherever they thought they should be going. But Fred did the Gershwins proud in all the numbers that he performed with Rogers despite the silly plotline. Catch classic Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off and They Can’t Take That Away From Me and you will get my drift. He had his own sense of controlled athleticism and looking at any one number like his tap dance in the ship’s hull with a black ship’s crew for support shows his physical prowess. But where Astaire had it all over Kelly was his grace, his long reaches and close insteps. Notice in contrast that Kelly never did much pair dancing with Caron and Astaire waltzed and two-stepped Ginger right out of her shoes. Like I said in the Kelly review how the usually level-headed Markin could have turned traitor on a dime tells a lot. Tells me he, he Mister fancy general editor has maybe really has been at the hash pipe too long of late. Touché-again.      

 10/17 Boston Day in Solidarity with African People: Unity Through Reparations

9:42 AM

H via Act-MA

To  act-ma@act-ma.org  

• Quick reply all
• Reply
• Forward
• Delete
• Actions

Boston Day in Solidarity with African People: Unity Through Reparations

Tues. Oct 17th, 7pm-9:30pm

@ First Baptist Church in JP, 633 Centre St, Jamaica Plain

free, wheelchair accessible

Come out to hear dynamicpresentations by electoral candidates Akilé Anai
and Jesse Nevel,  community activists who challenged the status quo of
St. Petersburg, Florida over the summer with bold revolutionary
campaigns for people’s power. Anai ran for St. Petersburg’s District 6
City Council seat and Nevel, for Mayor. Their campaigns, and the
people’s movement they represent, exposed the brutal conditions of life
imposed on African people, sparking critical conversations in St.
Petersburg about reparations, gentrification and black community control
of the police. Anai and Nevel will join keynote speaker Omali Yeshitela,
Chairman of the African People’s Socialist Party, and Penny Hess,
Chairwoman of the African People’s Solidarity Committee.

Hosted by Uhuru Solidarity Movement Boston.

For more information, please contact:usmboston@riseup.net
<usmboston@riseup.net> and www.facebook.com/usmboston
<usmboston@riseup.net>To register: dsap2017boston.evntbrite.com

Donate to our fundraising to make the event possible:
tinyurl.com/bostonDSAP2017
_______________________________________________
Act-MA mailing list
Act-MA@act-ma.org
http://act-ma.org/mailman/listinfo/act-ma_act-ma.org
To set options or unsubscribe
http://act-ma.org/mailman/options/act-ma_act-ma.org

Mark Rothko At The MFA In Boston

Trump is about to make the defining mistake of his foreign policy-Stop The Rush To War With Iran

Trump is about to make the defining mistake of his foreign policy

The nuclear deal removed the threat of war with Iran. That was an important strategic win given Iran’s size, location and importance to stability in a vast region stretching from Central Asia to the Mediterranean. There were other benefits. The deal made it possible for Iran and the United States to tacitly cooperate in the fight to roll back the Islamic State’s gains in Iraq. At stake in Trump’s new Iran policy will be the stability of the central government in Iraq and its ability to arrive at a political understanding with the country’s Sunnis and its restless autonomous Kurdish region. It is difficult to see how the crisis generated by the Kurdish referendum for independence could be defused without Iran. It is likewise difficult to envision a quick end to wars in Syria and Afghanistan if those countries become the theater for protracted U.S.-Iranian confrontation.    More

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

WARS ABROAD, WARS AT HOME

THE EMPIRE COMES HOME

As in Baghdad, so in Baltimore. It’s connected, you see. Scholars, pundits, politicians, most of us in fact like our worlds to remain discretely and comfortably separated. That’s why so few articles, reports, or op-ed columns even think to link police violence at home to our imperial pursuits abroad or the militarization of the policing of urban America to our wars across the Greater Middle East and Africa…  It may be something of a cliché that distant wars have a way of coming home, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Policing today is being Baghdadified in the United States.  Over the last 40 years, as Washington struggled to maintain its global military influence, the nation’s domestic police have progressively shifted to military-style patrol, search, and surveillance tactics, while measuring success through statistical models familiar to any Pentagon staff officer…  What’s global is local. And vice versa. American society is embracing its inner empire. Eventually, its long reach may come for us all.   More

THE SCANDAL OF PENTAGON SPENDING

Your Tax Dollars Support Troops of Defense Contractor CEOs 

Hawks on Capitol Hill and in the U.S. military routinely justify increases in the Defense Department's already munificent budget by arguing that yet more money is needed to “support the troops.”  If you’re already nodding in agreement, let me explain just where a huge chunk of the Pentagon budget -- hundreds of billions of dollars -- really goes.  Keep in mind that it’s your money we’re talking about.  The answer couldn’t be more straightforward: it goes directly to private corporations and much of it is then wasted on useless overhead, fat executive salaries, and startling (yet commonplace) cost overruns on weapons systems and other military hardware that, in the end, won’t even perform as promised.  Too often the result isweapons that aren’t needed at prices we can’t afford.  If anyone truly wanted to help the troops, loosening the corporate grip on the Pentagon budget would be an excellent place to start.    More

US police killings undercounted by half, study using Guardian data finds

Over half of all police killings in 2015 were wrongly classified as not having been the result of interactions with officers, a new Harvard study based on Guardian data has found.  The finding is just the latest to show government databases seriously undercounting the number of people killed by police.  “Right now the data quality is bad and unacceptable,” said lead researcher Justin Feldman. “To effectively address the problem of law enforcement-related deaths, the public needs better data about who is being killed, where, and under what circumstances.”    More

Trump’s acting like Obamacare is just politics. It’s people’s lives.

Donald Trump has long predicted the implosion of Obamacare. He just took a huge step to fulfilling his own prophecy.

The White House announced late Thursday morning it would cut off a key Obamacare subsidy that makes copayments and deductibles more affordable for low-income Americans. Trump pulled the trigger on the plan late Thursday night. Trump has spent months toying with the idea of ending these payments, which are drawn from a $7 billion fund set up specifically to cover these costs. House Republicans havechallenged these payments in court, arguing that they were never appropriated in Obamacare and thus being illegally distributed…  To recap: Trump is enacting a policy where the government spends billions more to insure fewer people. This is a policy that helps nobody and hurts millions. And that is actually different from the other health care policies Trump and congressional Republicans have pursued.    More

Trump's Latest Attack on Obamacare Violates Oath to Uphold Constitution

President Trump’s executive order Thursday to sabotage the Affordable Care Act—aka Obamacare—is crossing a new legal threshold that could become part of a growing list of ultimately impeachable actions, much like Richard Nixon faced a deepening list of offenses before he resigned from office in 1974.  That’s because Trump’s willful destruction of Obamacare, a law passed by the Congress—not a regulation promulgated by federal departments—would violate his oath to uphold the Constitution, whose Article Two demands that the president “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”  … What’s new and different about Trump’s presidency at this time is his actions—and his threats tied to governmental actions—which are clashing with different constitutional duties and rights he has sworn to uphold.     More

The Billionaire Battle Plan to Destroy Unions

Citizens United was a federal decision, but until 2010 there were 22 states that had their own laws barring or limited corporate spending in politics. All of those were invalidated by the Supreme Court decision. Following that decision, 11 states went from either mixed or Democratic rule to being wall-to-wall Republican, with the GOP in control of both houses of the legislature and the governor’s office. Critically for the labor movement, this included a swath of states in the upper Midwest that included Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin—states that were historically union strongholds and swing states in national elections…   Chamber of Commerce and Republican Party in multiple states say that passing right-to-work legislation is their number one priority. Only seven percent of the private sector is unionized, so why would this be their number one priority?

Because they want to undermine unions now, to limit the possibility down the road that workers will organize.    More

In Boston-November 1- We Need to Remember the Past . . . If We Want to Avoid Another Korean War

In Boston-November 1- We Need to Remember  the Past . . . If We Want to Avoid Another Korean War

Wednesday, November 1

Film and Discussion:

“MEMORY OF A FORGOTTEN WAR”

Adams Street Branch, Boston Public Library

(690 Adams St, Dorchester)

6:30-8:30pm

We Need to Remember 

the Past . . .

If We Want to Avoid Another Korean War

Please join DORCHESTER PEOPLE FOR PEACE for a film-showing and discussion about the first US war against North Korea – and what we can do to avoid another one. A new Korean War would be even more catastrophic than the last one, with the possibility of a nuclear exchange and untold thousands of deaths. 

WE NEED TO PRESS FOR A DIPLOMATIC, NOT A MILITARY SOLUTION TO THE CURRENT CRISIS BETWEEN THE US AND NORTH KOREA.

The film MEMORY OF FORGOTTEN WAR conveys the human costs of military conflict through deeply personal accounts of the Korean War (1950-53) by four Korean-American survivors. Their stories take audiences through the trajectory of the war, from extensive bombing campaigns, to day-to-day struggle for survival and separation from family members across the DMZ. Decades later, each person reunites with relatives in North Korea, conveying beyond words the meaning of family loss. These stories belie the notion that war ends when the guns are silenced and foreshadow the future of countless others displaced by ongoing military conflict today.

In Boston- DORCHESTER STANDOUT FOR BLACK LIVES Thursday October 19, 5:30-6:30 PM at Ashmont T station plaza.

*   *   *   *

Come to the next monthly 

DORCHESTER STANDOUT FOR BLACK LIVES

Thursday October 19, 5:30-6:30 PM 

(and the third Thursday of every month)

at Ashmont T station plaza.

Next dates: November 16 and TBD

Becky writes:

The Sept. 21 standout had almost 30 people participating, including a few children, and a woman who came out of the subway and stopped when she saw us to find out more, and a woman who was driving by and stopped when she saw us, wanting to join in.  We got a lot of enthusiastic yells and honks from cars, and at one point a sustained chorus of honks from a lot of cars, so loud that all the pedestrians turned to look, and asked us what was happening.  I don't think we got any tart "All lives matter!" this time.  (Though we were ready with our answer: "Yes, I completely agree with you!")  We got seven new members of DPP signed up, some of whom are planning to come to the Oct. 16 DPP meeting.  We do need more people to leaflet pedestrians and drivers stopped at lights, so if people can plan to come on Oct. 19 and Nov. 16 and be ready to do some leafletting, that would be great.

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact Kelley, kelready@msn.com or Becky, beckyp44@verizon.net, or call Dorchester People for Peace 617-282-3783