From The Partisan Defense Commitee-Facing 80 Years for Protesting Trump’s Inauguration

25 August 2017

Facing 80 Years for Protesting Trump’s Inauguration

In Donald Trump’s America, the penalty for leftist protest could well be life behind bars. Thousands hit the streets of Washington, D.C., on January 20 to protest Trump’s inauguration. Amid an orgy of police violence, more than 200 were arrested and slammed with felony riot charges carrying jail sentences of up to ten years and $25,000 fines. But these frame-up charges were not enough for the vindictive ruling class. On April 27, prosecutors piled on eight new felony charges—including urging to riot, conspiracy to riot and destruction of property—while also charging three additional protesters. Filed at the behest of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for D.C., the fiefdom of notorious racist and defender of the Confederacy, Jeff Sessions, these charges carry jail terms of up to 80 years. It is in the vital interest of the labor movement and all opponents of state repression to protest this legal witchhunt and demand: Drop all the charges! Now, Sessions’s Department of Justice (DOJ) is trying to learn the identities of everyone who visited disruptj20.org. Claiming this website was used to organize “a violent riot,” the DOJ is demanding that the web hosting service DreamHost turn over 1.3 million visitor IP addresses, in addition to contact information, photos and email content of thousands of people. This fishing expedition would expose untold numbers to the prying eyes of government prosecutors, setting them up for legal victimization. On June 21, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on behalf of those charged. The suit detailed how detainees were held for hours without food or water or access to toilets. Two of the plaintiffs, Shay Horse and Milo Gonzalez, described the cops yanking their testicles and sticking fingers into their rectums while laughing. “I felt like they were using molestation and rape as punishment,” Horse said later. “It felt like they were trying to break me and the others.” In addition to the threat posed by state prosecution, many of the defendants have been “doxxed” by fascists—their names and addresses have been plastered all over the web. Meanwhile, those charged are facing mounting travel and legal expenses and, in some cases, job losses. Facing massive prison terms, several of the defendants have been pushed into pleading guilty to lesser charges. At the same time, more than 130 defendants assisted by anarchist support groups like Dead City Legal Posse have, in a show of solidarity, pledged to reject any potential plea deals and to refuse to rat out any of their codefendants. It is clear that the Trump administration is trying to muzzle dissent—to intimidate and silence black people, minorities, leftists and workers seeking to protest or in any way challenge this deeply racist, exploitative capitalist order. But the “fight the right” anti-Trump forces, in both their “peaceful, legal” and anarchist garb, at bottom aim to bolster the fortunes of the Democratic Party as some kind of “lesser evil.” The Democrats represent the same repressive capitalist system—witness Bill Clinton’s mass incarceration of young black men and Barack Obama’s mass deportation of immigrants. We seek to mobilize the working class at the head of all the oppressed, independent of all capitalist parties and in opposition to the capitalists and their state. In “Defend Arrested Anti-Trump Protesters!” (WV No. 1104, 27 January), we underlined: “As the Trump presidency unfolds in all its viciousness, protests against it will continue, as will state violence and repression. Anger against poverty and racial and sexual oppression must be given an organized political expression aimed at breaking the hold of the Democratic Party over workers, women and minorities. We fight to build a revolutionary workers party that can lead the struggle to get rid of the entire capitalist system.” * * * (reprinted from Workers Vanguard No. 1116, 25 August 2017) Workers Vanguard is the newspaper of the Spartacist League with which the Partisan Defense Committee is affiliated.

In Boston-Children's Protest: Stop the Detentions and Deportations! Sunday December 10th, 2- 3pm

https://www.facebook.com/events/553810711677514/

Children's Protest: Stop the Detentions and Deportations!

Sunday December 10th, 2- 3pm

Join the Boston Workmen's Circle Sunday School's 5th grade class in its annual labor protest! This year, the fifth grade students are calling for an end to unjust immigration laws and practices, and standing in solidarity with Francisco Rodriguez. 

Francisco came to the U.S. in 2006 after fleeing violence in his home country of El Salvador, and lives in Chelsea with his wife and three children. He has been a janitor at MIT for the last five years, owns his own carpet cleaning business, and is a member of SEIU Local 32BJ. He was detained this July at a regular ICE check-in, and was not permitted to leave to witness the birth of his youngest child.

The Boston Workmen's Circle Shule labor protest is inspired by the history of Jewish immigrant workers who toiled in textile sweatshops. Today, students are demanding that ICE stop the deportations and #FreeFrancisco. Help put pressure on ICE by marching with our 5th grade class on Sunday, December 10th! Stop the detentions, stop the deportations!

#Not1MoreDeportation
#FreeFrancisco

Art As The Highest Accumulation Of Human Culture-With George Clooney’s “The Monument Men” (2014) In Mind

Art As The Highest Accumulation Of Human Culture-With George Clooney’s “The Monument Men” (2014) In Mind

DVD Review

By Film Critic Emeritus Sam Lowell

The Monument Men, starring George Clooney, Matt Damon, John Goodman, Bill Murry,  Cate Blanchett, 2014     

My old friend from back in the “from hunger” North Adamsville neighborhood days, the late James Jackson, was crazy for art, was crazy to see works of art in art museums large and small right up until his somewhat recent passing, a passing which left the world shorter by a lot more than a single individual passing. James (nobody ever called him Jim or Jimmy he was not that kind of guy) from very early on was fascinated by works of art probably at least from the time when in 5^th grade, maybe 6^th, grade we have her for two years, Miss Winot brought in photographs she had taken during summer vacation on a trip to Egypt to see the Pyramids and all of that.

One Saturday he and his brother Kenny took the bus over to Boston and spent the day at the Museum of Fine Arts looking at the extension collection of Pharaonic artifacts which several teams of Harvard University archeologists had uncovered. More importantly he went crazy for the Impressionists like Monet, the Renaissance artists like Bellini and such. (Kenny just went along because their mother would not have let James go alone at that age and James did not want to hassle with her over that and so Kenny tagged along although more than once when James would go on and on about some work of art “discovered” that day Kenny would say he “didn’t give a fuck about any of it.”

Here is the surprising part about James though. In those days he, along with the late Pete Markin, was knee-deep in every kind of scam, con, or midnight creep (you can figure out where that creep led) to make dough to survive on since he was (we were) not likely to get anything extra from hard-pressed parents. I asked him one time, a time when a Van Gogh had been sold at auction for several million dollars (yes, it was a long time ago at that price which seemed astronomical then) whether he would consider stealing a work of art to sell. Jesus did he rear up on his high horse and practically punch me for saying such a blasphemous thing. He said, and I paraphrase here, art, all of it from ancient drawing on caves to Pop Art (then emerging as the next big turn in the already saturated art world) represented the collective accumulation of human culture, something to gauge how far we have come from the slime and the caves. The next day I vividly recall he and Markin went into a department store and “clipped” a record player, two radios, a television, a set of golf clubs and a couple of  other items to sell to a “fence.” Yes, James had those build-in contradictions, hey, Markin too come to think of it although his thing was literature not art.                    

All of this as foreplay as to my purpose for grabbing a review of this film, Monument Men, from Alden Riley who would normally draw this assignment. These “monument men,” played by George Clooney, John Goodman, Matt Damon, Bill Murry and a couple of other guys were all professional artists or architects who were assigned, as soldiers during the later stages of World War II, the momentous task of retrieving the vast array of art treasures that Hitler and his minions vandalized and stole from every source in their Occupied European domains. Stole it from hapless Jewish private collector and other such collectors and whatever public museums they could loot. This to the ever larcenous James Jackson would have been unbelievable and cause enough if he had been alive then to have volunteered to run the rails right into Berlin to retrieve those ill-gotten gains. Moreover he would have gone apoplectic if he had known that the German’s as they were losing the war, as the Russians were coming from the East and the Allies from the West, had a scorched earth policy about all the art that they could not take with them. Burned, vandalized, and committed every other travesty to who knows how many great art works of European history. Moreover the Nazis were known, in fact made a public spectacle out of, destroying in those public places all “degenerate art” meaning almost all modern art during their regime.  Yes, James would have been chomping at the bit to get on the road to Germany to tell those bastards what was what.         

To their credit in dicey retreat and burn times while serious military actions were going on around them the Monument Men were able to save an extraordinary amount of art through perseverance, through pluck, through help from the French Resistance and through capturing some German officers who were charged with transporting and/or destroying those works. As in all wars though they were not able to escape casualties and deaths during the mission. So this was no cakewalk, especially when from high places in Washington to field commanders in Europe there was concern that military men should not be sacrificed for works of art no matter how valuable.      

James Jackson would have had a no holds bar answer to those parties- “art, all of it from ancient drawing on caves to modern masters represented the collective accumulation of human culture, something to gauge how far we have come from the slime and the caves.” I think after watching this film I finally agree with him.

“Stop VA Privatization, Fix, Fund & Fully Staff the VA”

Date: 11-26-17

To:  Chapter Contacts and Members of VFP All List!

Fr:  Buzz Davis, member “Stop VA Privatization, Fix, Fund & Fully Staff the VA” Work Group. 608-239-5354 cell# in Tucson

REQUEST:  Chapter Contacts, would you please forward this email to all the members of your chapter?  Each of your chapter members, your chapter as a whole and all VFP members of the discussion list are invited to take action.

The VA YOU help Save will be YOUR own!  Thank you!

Background:  As you know the Congress, VA, VA contractors and the White House are pushing as many veterans into private sector healthcare via the Community Care and Choice programs.  Both administratively and legislatively these privatizers have been very successful.  They are very smart, the effort is well funded and the privatizers get help from many quarters including the corporate owned media.

Presently a high percentage of veterans asking for outpatient doctor appointments are being sent to the private sector for care.  The email you received from me yesterday including Suzanne Gordon’s article provide more information.

If you are interested in learning more about VA privatization, please study the documents at this website:  https://ffvhc.org/

This is the Fighting for Veterans Healthcare non-profit group that has been organized by a group of individuals who are very concerned with the effort by the Koch brothers and many others to eliminate VA healthcare and move all care into the private healthcare sector.  This is the only organization that is keeping up with, writing about and trying to stop the VA privatization.  This is the website to go to to keep up to date.  Privatization bills are flying around Congress like waste paper from a high speed garbage truck.

Veteran service organizations like the VFW, DAV, Am. Legion, etc. are becoming stronger and stronger advocates for fightingback against VA privatization but being non-profits chartered by the Congress they have to be very careful in how they fight.

Unions, except for the Am. Fed. of Government Employees (AFGE), have not really started to fightback at their state and local union levels.  AFGE which represents 700,000 federal workers and about 220,000 of those who are Veterans Affairs Department workers, is the only federal union that has an organized fightback effort at the local level.  Rather I should say they are in the middle of implementing a local fightback effort.  And they lobby hard in Congress to stop those garbage VA privatization bills flying around the halls of Congress.

REQUEST:  Below is a laundry list of actions that need to be taken to help us stop VA privatization and instead improve the VA’s ability to meet present and future veterans’ medical needs.

1.  Letters to the editors of newspaper, op eds to newspapers (we have examples)

2.  Press conferences by VFP members and members of any other veterans groups, unions or peace groups, issuing press alerts before the press conference and press releases with pictures after the press conference, publicity/invitations to attend/rally before the press conference, etc.  (we have info on how to do this)

3.  Group meetings with local US House members or staffers and meeting with US Senate members or staffers, how to organize a little rally before the meeting in front of the congress members office, with Save Our VA banner and flyers, etc. (we have a letter and over 1,400 person signed petition on Stopping VA Pvt. that you can give to your Congressional members or staffers and have a group picture taken turning in the petition, etc.)

4.  Group meetings with local newspaper, TV and radio editorial boards, editors, news managers or reporters

5.  Appearances or interviews on local radio talk shows or TV talk shows

6.  Rallies or events on Stop VA Privatization or speak at other groups rallies or events with Save Our VA banners and flyers to distribute, etc.

7.  Coordinate efforts with local VA hospital Am. Fed. of Government Employees (AFGE) local union (you can call your local VA switchboard and ask for the AFGE office and ask to talk to the president, ask what actions they are taking, urge president to ask union to co-sponsor a press conference or rally, etc.)

8.  Distribute Stop VA Privatization flyers in local communities at events, on busy streets

(we have examples of flyers you can take, run off and then distribute or take and modify into your own flyers, a background flyer on privatization by FFVHC is attached and we have others that are ¼ or ½ half page flyers ready to use)  Fly the Save Our VA banner at such events/actions

9.  Display the Save Our VA banner on busy street corners, at events and at above events.  Below is a group of Nashville VFP members at a Nov. 11^th parade carrying the banner.

 

TO GET A BANNER MAILED TO YOUR HOME:  Send an email to Buzz Davis atdbuzzdavis@aol.com with your contact info. including Chapter, community and state and how you think you can use the banner.  FFVHC put up the money for about 27 banners and we have about 10 or more left to distribute.  The banners are free.

10.  Tell your story on how you use VA healthcare and how you are against Privatizing the VA on a VFP weekly radio show in Nashville, TN organized and led by Harvey Bennett bennethe2@gmail.com  and Jim Wohlgemuth,  jrwohlgemuth@juno.com of the local VFP Chap. (a few of us have already been guests on this show and they are looking for other guests)

11.  Join the VFP Work Gr. To Stop VA Privatization to help plan and manage all the above type of activities.  Contact Buzz Davis to join dbuzzdavis@aol.com

12.  And most importantly recruit a few people in your chapter to work on local activities they choose to do.  You cannot be successful alone.

13.  Get your chapter to consider and pass a resolution on VA privatization and healthcare.  (we have an example resolution for you to start with)

For all the above activities we have drafts or examples of what you can do including letters to the editors and op eds, resolutions, etc.

YOU SHOULD NOT TRY TO REINVENT THE WHEEL.  We ask YOU to volunteer to work and then others will help YOU pull off what you decide YOU want to do!

TIMING:  We need to take actions, as many as we can, starting immediately and during the next year before the Nov. 2018 House and Senate elections.  In this effort no one approves what you want to do, just decide to do and away you go, and ask us for help

THE “VA” IS A DIFFICULT & COMPLEX ISSUE.  The VA did not develop is successes and problems in a day and none of us are going to “fix” the VA in a week or so of work.

To help win this battle YOU have to turn yourself into a community organizer.  If you are already such an organizer, then please round up some other volunteers and mentor them on raising hell in the community.

In this game, in these political times, nice guys end up being run over by the Koch Brothers’ Bulldozers. 

We much fightback hard and smart!  We do not have the big bucks.  We have the people power if we can organize it.  The people we are fighting do not and will not respond to rational arguments.  They have received their marching orders and they will not be deterred by veterans or community members.  It is their way or the highway!

Dialoguing with elected officials who are privatization advocates (and who are probably receiving political contributions as pay offs from the Koch brothers and their front organizations) are not worth the energy to sincerely help them change their minds.  It is very unlikely that you will receive any time to “talk” with them unless they are setting you up to be a knock down target.

SO YOUR FIRST STEP IS CONTACT US AND TELL US WHAT ACTIONS YOU WANT TO WORK ON.  WE CAN GO FORWARD TOGETHER FROM THAT.

Thank you for reading this and Peace!

Buzz Davis, member Stop VA Privatization Work Group, 608-239-5354 in Tucson

In Boston-12/02 Save TPS! Defend DACA! Resist Deportations! Mobilize Saturday,

12/02 Save TPS! Defend DACA! Resist Deportations! Mobilize Saturday,

Charlie Welch via Act-MA

8:36 AM

To  act-ma@act-ma.org  

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Save TPS!
Mobilize Saturday, December 2  (note start time was changed)
Defend DACA!  Resist Deportations!
No Wall! No border militarization!
No Muslim ban!
Permanent Legal Residence for Migrants!
Jail Joe Arpaio -- Not Migrants!
Resist Fascism!

Rally: 12:00 Noon, steps across from the Massachusetts Statehouse
March to the JFK Federal Building

The U.S. Government is leading a generalized assault on our lives,
rights, and living conditions. In yet another attack, the Trump
administration has now terminated the Temporary Protected Status (TPS)
program for 2,500 Nicaraguans and 50,000 Haitians living in the US.
Similar decisions are anticipated from the White House for 57,000
Hondurans and almost 200,000 Salvadorans, who are also living in the US
under TPS. These attacks are coming down in an effort to terrorize
working people and normalize these police state tactics so they can be
used against the rest of us. They also seek to scapegoat and blame
migrants for the pressing problems faced by working people and youth
today. They have no solutions that benefit us as working people. Our
only choice is to build a fighting movement. An injury to one is an
injury to all!          bostonmayday.org

https://www.facebook.com/events/2062238520729058/

Flyer is available at

https://www.dropbox.com/s/pzeexmz6j2i7e50/Save%20TPS.doc?dl=0

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In Boston- 11/30 Film screening of "The Battle of Algiers", fundraiser for black power & reparations to African people

 11/30 Film screening of "The Battle of Algiers", fundraiser for black power & reparations to African people

H

7:40 AM

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Thursday 11/30, 6:30-9:30pm
Film screening of "The Battle of Algiers", fundraiser for black power &
reparations to African people
@ Parts & Crafts, 577 Somerville Ave in Somerville
Wheelchair accessible
$10 at the door to support Black Star Industries, the liberated African
economy.
Includes vegan snacks

Join the Boston chapter of the Uhuru Solidarity Movement for a screening
& discussion of the classic film "The Battle of Algiers". (in french
with english subtitles)

We will have literature available, books by Chairman Omali Yeshitela of
the African People's Socialist Party, T-shirts, patches and free lit to
take home to learn more about white reparations to African people.

6:30 food is served, hang out & socialize
7pm film starts
9pm discussion

Share the event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/1647050435316407/

---------

The Uhuru Solidarity Movement is the anti-colonial, anti-imperialist
organization of white people organizing for reparations to African
people under the leadership of the African People’s Socialist Party.

Our 3 Principles of Unity are:
1. We are under the leadership of, and are accountable to, the African
People's Socialist Party
2. African people have a right to lead their own struggle
3. We work in the white community to raise reparations to Black Star
Industries, the Black Power economic institutions of the Party
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In Boston Dec 10th-In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of US Global Power with Alfred W. McCoy

In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of US Global Power

with Alfred W. McCoy

December 10 at 3:00pm

Community Church of Boston

565 Boylston Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02116 (Copley Square)

Special Community Church of Boston Program & Book Launch:

Music by Dean Stevens, and Lorraine & Bennett Hammond

Alfred W. McCoy has long been among the most insightful and courageous critics of U.S. empire, and his new book is about the rise and decline of the U.S. empire, with some very fine and unique insights.

Q & A after the program. Books will be available for purchase and signed by the author. This is a Free Event and open to the public - Refreshments will be served

This event has been initiated and is co-sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee and the Campaign for Peace, Justice and Common Security, and co-sponsored by Haymarket Books.

(All Programs are held on the second floor in the Lothrop Auditorium. Wheelchair accessible. CCB is located near the Orange line- Back Bay or the Green line-Copley T Stops. On Street Parking and at Back Bay Parking Garage, 199 Clarendon Street.)

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Senate For. Relations Committee hearing on Pres. Launching Nuke Attack

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I’ve got big news. Tomorrow, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will hold a public hearing on the President’s limitless authority to use nuclear weapons. It’s the first time the Senate has examined the nuclear launch process in more than 40 years, and shows just how deeply we’ve impacted the national debate. As public concerns take on the weight of an official Senate inquiry, we have an opportunity to jumpstart a real process that reins in the president’s powers, reforms the U.S. nuclear system, and lowers the likelihood of nuclear war. The tide is turning in our favor — but we need your help. Tomorrow’s hearing will be a big wake-up call for many U.S. Senators. They’re about to be confronted with a terrifying truth: There are no legal, political or operational restraints on Donald Trump’s power to launch a nuclear attack. Nothing to prevent him from unleashing hell on earth based on misinformation or poor judgment — or in a fit of pique. No need even for him to explain or provide rationale. Like presidents before him, all Trump has to do is open the nuclear briefcase and pick up the phone. After giving the launch command, the system will pause just long enough to confirm his identity. That’s the only check in the process and it takes seconds to clear. From there, the order speeds unquestioned down the chain of command. In as little as 5 minutes, nuclear missiles will fire from their underground silos and submarines, hurtling across the planet at roughly 22 times the speed of sound. There is no way to call them back. They will reach their target cities in 30 minutes or less. During the height of the 2016 election, we put the spotlight on the unjust, undemocratic authority that every American president has to launch nuclear weapons. Our work to expose this autocratic doomsday machine cracked open a sustained national conversation — and thrust this long-ignored issue into the top-tier concerns of the American public. This issue cuts across partisan divides. Scores of political leaders and experts — and a vast majority of Americans — question whether the president can be trusted with civilization-ending weaponry. Months of work to bring to light the inherent dangers of a nuclear system geared for first-strike and rapid-launch — with absolute power vested in the president — has led to this moment. This could be the beginning of the end of the nuclear status quo. With conviction and resolve, Derek Johnson Executive Director, Global Zero Global Zero is the international movement for the elimination of all nuclear weapons. Sent by GLOBAL ZERO | 1342 Florida Avenue NW | Washington, DC 20009 USA This message was sent to amyh@texnology.com. To change your email address or update your contact info, please email us. To remove yourself from this list, please click here.

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