From The 31st Annual Holiday Appeal(2016) Free the Class-War Prisoners! -Same Goes This Year-Same Struggle Same Fight

From The 31st Annual Holiday Appeal(2016)  Free the Class-War Prisoners! -Same Goes This Year-Same Struggle Same Fight

I have not received this year's 32nd Hoilday Appeal so I will use last year's as a stopgap-Same Appeal- Give to those behind the prison walls from those on the outside-these days the difference is a clsoe one. We all could be in the bastinado before this is over.  

18 November 2016

31st Annual Holiday Appeal

Free the Class-War Prisoners!

Featured NYC Speakers: Albert Woodfox and Robert King of the Angola 3

“The path to freedom leads through a prison.... “In one sense of the word the whole of capitalist society is a prison. For the great mass of people who do the hard, useful work there is no such word as freedom. They come and go at the order of a few. Their lives are regulated according to the needs and wishes of a few. A censorship is put upon their words and deeds. The fruits of their labor are taken from them. And if, by chance, they have the instinct and spirit to rebel, if they take their place in the vanguard of the fight for justice, the prisons are waiting.” — James P. Cannon, “The Cause that Passes Through a Prison,” Labor Defender, September 1926 As the Partisan Defense Committee mobilizes for its 31st annual Holiday Appeal to raise funds for monthly stipends and holiday gifts to class-war prisoners, the capitalists’ jails are being filled with hundreds of young activists who have protested the election of racist demagogue Donald Trump, adding to the many more who have been jailed for protesting racist cop terror over the past couple of years. At this year’s New York City benefit, featured speakers will be Albert Woodfox and Robert King, who along with Herman Wallace were known as the Angola 3. These intransigent opponents of racial oppression spent decades in prison, victims of a state vendetta for forming a Black Panther Party chapter in Louisiana’s notorious Angola prison. Woodfox and Wallace were falsely convicted of the 1972 killing of prison guard Brent Miller. King, who was framed up for the killing of a fellow inmate in 1973, was released in 2001, and dedicated himself to fighting to prove the innocence of his imprisoned comrades. Wallace was released in October 2013—just three days before dying of liver cancer! Despite seeing his conviction overturned twice, Woodfox spent nearly 44 years in solitary confinement—the longest stint of any prisoner in the U.S.—before being released this past February, on his 69th birthday. The PDC stipend program is a revival of a tradition of the International Labor Defense (ILD) under its first secretary, James P. Cannon (1925-28), an early leader of the Communist Party who went on to become the founder of American Trotskyism. Like the ILD before us, we stand unconditionally on the side of the working people and the oppressed in struggle against their exploiters and oppressors. We defend, in Cannon’s words, “any member of the workers movement, regardless of his views, who suffered persecution by the capitalist courts because of his activities or his opinion” (First Ten Years of American Communism [1962]). In its early years, the ILD adopted 106 prisoners—socialists, anarchists, union leaders and militants victimized for their struggles to organize the working class and for opposition to imperialist war. The PDC started our class-war prisoner stipend program in 1986, during the Reagan years, a period of rampant reaction. Those years were marked by vicious racist repression, brutal union-busting, anti-immigrant hysteria, malicious cutbacks in social services for the predominantly black and Latino poor as well as government efforts to equate leftist political activity with “terrorism.” Over the decades since, we have supported dozens of prisoners on three continents, among them militant workers railroaded for defending their unions during pitched class battles—including coal miners in Britain and Kentucky. The 1980s were a time of waning class and social struggle, but the convulsive battles for black rights in the 1960s and ’70s still haunted America’s capitalist rulers, who thirsted for vengeance. Among the early recipients of PDC stipends were members and supporters of the Black Panther Party, the best of a generation of black radicals who sought a revolutionary solution to black oppression—a bedrock of American capitalism. Other early stipend recipients were members of the largely black Philadelphia MOVE commune. Among those prisoners to whom we continue to provide stipends are Mumia Abu-Jamal, America’s foremost class-war prisoner, and Ed Poindexter, a leader of the Omaha, Nebraska, Committee to Combat Fascism, whose comrade and fellow stipend recipient Wopashitwe Mondo Eyen we Langa died in March after 45 years in prison. There is every reason to believe that the period we are entering will be no less reactionary than the one we faced 30 years ago. Class-struggle legal and social defense, including support for class-war prisoners—those today behind bars and any militants who join them—is of vital importance to labor activists, fighters for black rights and immigrant rights and defenders of civil liberties. In a small but real way, our prisoner stipend program expresses the commonality of interests between black people, immigrants and the working class. The struggle to free the class-war prisoners is critical to educating a new generation of fighters against exploitation and oppression—a schooling centered on the role of the capitalist state, comprising at its core the military, cops, courts and prisons. Join us in generously donating and building our annual Holiday Appeal. An injury to one is an injury to all! The 12 class-war prisoners receiving stipends from the PDC are listed below. *   *   * Mumia Abu-Jamal is a former Black Panther Party spokesman, a well-known supporter of the MOVE organization and an award-winning journalist known as “the voice of the voiceless.” Framed up for the 1981 killing of a Philadelphia police officer, Mumia was sentenced to death explicitly for his political views. Federal and state courts have repeatedly refused to consider evidence proving Mumia’s innocence, including the sworn confession of Arnold Beverly that he, not Mumia, shot and killed the policeman. In 2011 the Philadelphia district attorney’s office dropped its longstanding effort to legally lynch Mumia. In a significant development in the decades-long battle for his freedom, on August 7, attorneys for Mumia Abu-Jamal filed a new petition under Pennsylvania’s Post Conviction Relief Act (PCRA). Mumia’s application seeks to overturn the denial of his three prior PCRA claims by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. If successful, he would be granted a new hearing before that court to argue for reversal of his frame-up conviction. In the meantime he remains condemned to life in prison with no chance of parole. Mumia also faces a life-threatening health crisis related to active hepatitis C, which brought him close to death in March 2015. On August 31, eight months after oral argument in Mumia’s lawsuit to obtain crucial medication, a federal judge rejected his claim on the pretext that the lawsuit should have been directed against the members of the state’s hepatitis committee—a secretive body which Mumia’s attorneys had no way of knowing even existed at the time the suit was initiated! The Pennsylvania prison authorities have adamantly refused to treat his dangerous but curable condition. Leonard Peltier is an internationally renowned class-war prisoner. Peltier’s incarceration for his activism in the American Indian Movement has come to symbolize this country’s racist repression of its Native peoples, the survivors of centuries of genocidal oppression. Peltier was framed up for the 1975 deaths of two FBI agents marauding in what had become a war zone on the South Dakota Pine Ridge Reservation. Although the lead government attorney has admitted, “We can’t prove who shot those agents,” and the courts have acknowledged blatant prosecutorial misconduct, the 72-year-old Peltier is not scheduled to be reconsidered for parole for another eight years. Peltier suffers from multiple serious medical conditions and has received a confirmed diagnosis of an abdominal aortic aneurysm—a life-threatening condition which the federal officials have refused to treat. He is incarcerated far from his people and family and is currently seeking executive clemency from Barack Obama. Seven MOVE members—Chuck Africa, Michael Africa, Debbie Africa, Janet Africa, Janine Africa, Delbert Africa and Eddie Africa—are in their 39th year of imprisonment. After the 8 August 1978 siege of their Philadelphia home by over 600 heavily armed cops, they were sentenced to 30-100 years, having been falsely convicted of killing a police officer who died in the cops’ own cross fire. In 1985, eleven of their MOVE family members, including five children, were massacred by Philly cops when a bomb was dropped on their living quarters. After nearly four decades of unjust incarceration, these innocent prisoners are routinely turned down at parole hearings. This year Eddie, Debbie, Janet and Janine were all denied parole. Jaan Laaman and Thomas Manning are the two remaining anti-imperialist activists known as the Ohio 7 still in prison, convicted for their roles in a radical group that took credit for bank “expropriations” and bombings of symbols of U.S. imperialism, such as military and corporate offices, in the late 1970s and ’80s. Before their arrests in 1984 and 1985, the Ohio 7 were targets of massive manhunts. The Ohio 7’s politics were once shared by thousands of radicals but, like the Weathermen before them, the Ohio 7 were spurned by the “respectable” left. From a proletarian standpoint, the actions of these leftist activists against imperialism and racist injustice are not crimes. They should not have served a day in prison. Ed Poindexter is a former Black Panther supporter and leader of the Omaha, Nebraska, National Committee to Combat Fascism. He and his former co-defendant, Wopashitwe Mondo Eyen we Langa, were victims of the FBI’s deadly COINTELPRO operation, under which 38 Black Panther Party members were killed and hundreds more imprisoned on frame-up charges. Poindexter was railroaded to prison and sentenced to life for a 1970 explosion that killed a cop, and he has now spent more than 45 years behind bars. Nebraska courts have repeatedly denied Poindexter a new trial despite the fact that a crucial piece of evidence excluded from the original trial, a 911 audio tape long suppressed by the FBI, proved that testimony of the state’s key witness was perjury. All proceeds from the Holiday Appeal events will go to the Class-War Prisoners Stipend Fund. This is not charity but an elementary act of solidarity with those imprisoned for their opposition to racist capitalism and imperialist depredation. Send your contributions to: PDC, P.O. Box 99, Canal Street Station, New York, NY 10013; (212) 406-4252. For more information about the class-war prisoners, including addresses for correspondence, see: partisandefense.org. * * * (reprinted from Workers Vanguard No. 1100, 18 November 2016) Workers Vanguard is the newspaper of the Spartacist League with which the Partisan Defense Committee is affiliated.

Harvard Square, Cambridge, Ma Stand-Out-Free Heroic Russian Election Interference Whistle-Blower Reality Leigh Winner

Harvard Square, Cambridge, Ma Stand-Out-Free Heroic Russian Election Interference Whistle-Blower Reality Leigh Winner

5 PM - 6 PM Wednesday December 13, 2017

Holidays are tough times for political prisoners- show your support for those inside the walls so that they know they do not stand alone   

We Will Not Leave Our Sister Behind-Don’t Prosecute The Truth

Winner, a recent Air Force veteran, has been charged under the Espionage Act, a 100-year-old statute originally designed for spies and saboteurs aiding foreign governments in time of war, for allegedly giving a document vital to the public’s understanding of potential Russian interference in U.S. election systems to a news organization. (Information which is in the news every day as Trump agents fall all over themselves to lie about their involvement. She faces up ten years and a $250, 000 fine. She is now scheduled for trial in Augusta, Georgia in March, 2018.

The charge against Winner is grossly disproportionate to her alleged offense, and is designed to create a chilling effect on investigative journalism by dissuading sources from sharing information that is critical to the public interest. We are dedicated to raising public awareness of Winner’s case especially since the federal magistrate judge down in Augusta denied her bail-again in October (which is being appealed)- and in light of the U.S. government’s persistent abuse of the Espionage Act to silence its critics and stifle journalism.

For more information-Goggle Stand With Reality or Courage To Resist (the same organization that led the fight to free Wiki-leaks whistleblower Chelsea Manning)  

In Harvard Square Cambridge, Ma Wednesday December 13^th 5 PM to 6 PM we will have our fourth stand-out in defense of whistle-blower Reality Leigh Winner-The Committee For International Labor Defense-Smedley Butler Brigade - Veterans for Peace (labor donated)

Sitting On The Rim Of The World- With The Son Of The Neon Wilderness Nelson Algren In Mind-Take Four

Sitting On The Rim Of The World- With The Son Of The Neon Wilderness Nelson Algren In Mind-Take Four

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

He wrote of small-voiced people, mostly people who had started out in the world with small voices, small voices which never got louder, never were heard over the rumble of the subway, working stiffs and their women, sometimes their kids, their kids growing up like weeds, who turned out to be disappointments but what could expect more from the progeny of small-voiced people, guys who sat around gin mills all night (maybe all day too I knew a few who inhabited the Dublin Grille in my old hometown of North Adamsville, another town filled with small-voice people). Never wrote, or wrote much, about big-voiced people who tumbled down to the sound of rumble subway stops out their doors, people who fell off the rim of the world from some high place due to their hubris, their addictions, their outrageous wanting habits never sated before the fall (not some edenic fall but just a worldly fall that once it happened the world moved on and ignored). Wrote of the desperately lonely, a man talking to himself on some forsaken park bench the only voice, not a big voice but a voice that had to be reckoned with, of the stuffed cop swaggering his billy club menacingly to him move on, or else, a woman, unhappy in love, hell maybe jilted at the altar, sitting alone like some Apple Annie in that one Ladies Invited tavern on the corner, the one just off Division where she had met that man the first time and meets all men now, all men with the price of a drink, no more. Yeah, a big old world filled with the lonely hearing only their own heartbeats, heard no other heartbeats as they waited out their days. What did Eliot call it, oh yeah, measured out their lives in coffee spoons. 

Wrote of alienated people too, not the Chicago intellectuals who were forever belly-aching about the de-humanization of man, about how we had built a mechanical world from which we had to run but the common clay, the ones who manned the conveyor belts, ran the damn rumbling subways, shoveled the snow, hell, shoveled shit day and night. Wrote of the night people, of the ones who would show up after midnight in some police precinct line-up, the winos, the jack-rollers, the drifters, the grifters, the midnight sifters, maybe a hooker who had not paid the paddy and thus was subject to the grill. Wrote of the  people who inhabit the Nighthawk Diner (artist Edward Hopper’s all shape angles, all dim lights outside, bright fluorescent no privacy, no hiding lights inside, all the lonely people eating their midnight hamburgers fresh off the greased grill, another grill that forlorn hooker knew well, or Tom Waits’ rummies, bummies, stumblers, street-walkers looking for respect all shadows left behind, take your pick), the restless, the sleepless, the shiftless, those who worked the late shift, those who drew the late shift of life, those who worked better under the cover of night in the dark alleyways and sullen doorways.

He wrote big time, big words, about the small-voiced people, big words for people who spoke in small words, spoke small words about small dreams, or no dreams, spoke only of the moment, the eternal moment. The next fix, how to get it, the next drink, how to get it, the next bet, how to con the barkeeper to put him on the sheet, the next john, how to take him, the next rent due, how to avoid the dun and who after all had time for anything beyond that one moment. Waiting eternally waiting to get well, waiting for the fixer man to walk up the stairs and get you well, well beyond what any doctor could prescript, better than any priest could absolve, to get some kicks. (Needle, whiskey, sex although that was far down the list by the time that needle was needed or that shot of low-shelf whiskey drove you to your need, again.) Waiting for the fixer man, waiting for the fixer man to fix what ailed them. Not for him the small voice pleasant Midwestern farmers providing breadbaskets to the world talking to kindred about prices of wheat and corn, the prosperous small town drugstore owners filling official drug prescriptions and selling the under-aged liquor as medicine or whatever the traffic would bear, or of Miss Millie’s beauty salon where the blue-haired ladies get ready for battle and gossip about how Mister so and so had an affair with Miss so and so from the office and how will Mildred who of course they would never tell do when the whole thing goes public (although one suspects that he could have written that stuff, written and hacked away his talent)who in the pull and push of the writing profession they had (have) their muses. Nor was he inclined to push the air out of the small town banker seeking a bigger voice (calling in checks at a moment’s notice), the newspaper publisher seeking to control the voices or the alderman or his or her equivalent who had their own apparatuses for getting their small voices heard (although again one suspects he could have, if so inclined, shilled for that set). No, he, Nelson Algren, he, to give him a name took dead aim at the refuge of society, the lumpen as he put it in the title of one short story, those sitting on the rim of the world.

And he did good, did good by his art, did good by his honest snarly look at the underside of society, and, damn, by making us think about that quarter turn of fate that separated the prosperous farmer (assuming as we must that he, secretly, was not short-weighting the world), the drugstore owner (assuming as we must that he, secretly, was not dispensing his wares, his potent drugs, out the back door to a craving market) , Miss Millie (assuming as we must that she, secretly, was not running a call girl service on the side), the banker (assuming as we must that he, maybe secretly maybe not, was not gouging rack rents and usurious interest), the newspaper editor (assuming as we must that he, very publicly, in fact was printing all the news fit to print), and the politician (assuming as we must that he, secretly, was not bought and paid for by all of the above, or others) from the denizens of his mean streets. The mean city streets, mainly of Chicago, but that is just detail, just names of streets and sections of town to balance his work where his characters eked out an existence, well, anyway they could, some to turn up face down in some muddy ravine, under some railroad trestle, in some dime flop house, other to sort of amble along in the urban wilderness purgatory.

Brother Algren gave us characters to chew on, plenty of characters, mostly men, mostly desperate (in the very broadest sense of that word), mostly with some jones to work off, mostly with some fixer man in the background to wreak havoc too. He gave us two classics of the seamy side genre, one, the misbegotten Frankie Machine, the man with the golden arm, the man with the chip on his shoulder, the mid-century(20^th century, okay) man ill at ease in his world, ill at ease with the world and looking, looking for some relief, some kicks in that mid-century parlance, and, two, that hungry boy, that denizen of the great white trash night, Dove Linkhorn, who, perhaps more than Frankie spoke to that mid-century angst, spoke to that world gone wrong, for those who had just come up, come up for some place where time stood still to gain succor in the urban swirl, to feast at the table, come up from the back forty lots, the prairie golden harvest wheat fields, the Ozarks, all swamps and ooze, mountain wind hills and hollows, the infested bayous and were ready to howl, howl at the moon to get attention.

I remember reading somewhere, and I have forgotten where now, that someone had noted that Nelson Algren’s writing on Dove Linkhorn’s roots was the most evocative piece on the meaning of the okie–arkie out migration segment of that mid-century America ever written, the tale of the wandering boys, the railroad riders, the jungle camp jumpers, the skid row derelicts. Hell, call it by its right name, the white trash, that lumpen mush. And he or she was right, of course, after I went back and re-read that first section of Walk On The Wild Side where the Linkhorn genealogy back unto the transport ships that brought the first crop of that ilk from thrown out Europe are explored. All the pig thieves, cattle-rustlers, poachers, highwaymen, the -what did some sociologist call them?, oh yeah, “the master-less men,” those who could not or would not be tamed by the on-rushing wheels of free-form capitalism as the system relentlessly picked up steam, the whole damn lot transported. And good riddance.

The population of California after World War II was filled to the brim with such types, the feckless “hot rod” boys, boys mostly too young to have been though the bloodbaths of Europe and Asia building some powerful road machines out of baling wire and not much else, speeding up and down those ocean-flecked highways looking for the heart of Saturday night, looking for kicks just like those Chicago free-flow junkies, those twisted New Orleans whoremasters. Wandering hells angels riding two by two (four by four if they felt like it and who was to stop them) creating havoc for the good citizens of those small towns they descended on, descended on unannounced (and unwelcomed by those same good citizens). In and out of jail, Q, Folsom, not for stealing pigs now, but armed robberies or some egregious felony, but kindred to those lost boys kicked out of Europe long ago. Corner boys, tee-shirted, black leather jacket against cold nights, hanging out with time on their hands and permanent smirks, permanent hurts, permanent hatreds, paid to that Algren observation. All the kindred of the cutthroat world, or better “cut your throat” world, that Dove drifted into was just a microcosm of that small-voiced world.

He spoke of cities, even when his characters came fresh off the farm, abandoned for the bright lights of the city and useless to that short-weighting farmer who now is a prosperous sort, making serious dough as the breadbasket to the world. They, the off-hand hot rod king, the easy hell rider, the shiftless corner boy, had no existence, no outlets for their anger and angst, in small towns and hamlets for their vices, or their virtues, too small, too small for the kicks they were looking for. They needed the anonymous city rooming house, the cold-water flat, the skid- row flop house, the ten- cent beer hall, hell, the railroad jungle, any place where they could just let go with their addictions, their anxieties, and their hunger without having to explain, endlessly explain themselves, always, always a tough task for the small-voiced of this wicked old world. They identified with cities, with city 24/7/365 lights, with Algren’s blessed neon lights, city traffic (of all kinds), squalor, cops on the take, cops not on the take, plebeian entertainments, sweat, a little dried blood, marked veins, reefer madness, swilled drinks, white towers, all night diners (see it always comes back to that lonely, alienated Nighthawk Diner just ask Waits), the early editions (for race results, the number, who got dead that day, the stuff of that world), a true vision of Edward Hopper’s Nighthawk for a candid world.

He spoke of jazz and the blues, as if all the hell in this wicked old world could be held off for a minute while that sound sifted thought the night fog air reaching the rooming house, the flop, the ravine, the beer hall as it drifted out to the river and drowned. Music not upfront but as a backdrop to while the steamy summer nights away, and maybe the frigid lake front winter too. Strangely, or maybe not so strangely, he spoke of a small-voiced white world, residents of white slums and pursuers of white- etched dreams and only stick character blacks but his beat, his writing rhythm made no sense without the heat of Trouble In Mind or that cool blast of Charlie Parker, Miles, Dizzie be-bopping, made absolutely no sense, and so it went.

He spoke of love too. Not big flamed love, big heroes taking big falls for some hopeless romance like in olden times but squeezed love, love squeezed out of a spoon, maybe, but love in all its raw places. A guy turning his woman into a whore to feed his endless habit love, and her into a junkie love. A woman taking her man through cold turkey love. A man letting his woman go love, ditto woman her man when the deal went wrong. When the next best thing came by. Not pretty love all wrapped in a bow, but love nevertheless. And sometimes in this perverse old world the love a man has for a woman when, failing cold turkey, he goes to get the fixer man and that fixer man get his woman well, almost saintly and sacramental. Brothers and sisters just read The Last Carousel if you want to know about love. Hard, hard love. Yah, Nelson Algren knew how to give voice, no holds barred, to the small-voiced people.

ALLIANCE HONDUREÑA-USA-BOSTON STATEMENT TO THE LATIN AMERICAN POPULATION IN THE UNITED STATES, ORGANIZATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND ALL PROGRESSIVES:

ALLIANCE HONDUREÑA-USA-BOSTON
STATEMENT TO THE LATIN AMERICAN POPULATION IN THE UNITED STATES, ORGANIZATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND ALL PROGRESSIVES

Contact:
indymeama@hotmail.com
tmeza2014@gmail.com

On November 26, elections were held in Honduras, even with the palpable rejection of civil society that is aware that re-election of President in Honduras is prohibited by the Constitution.

In 2009, the National Party of Honduras and its current candidate Juan Orlando Hernandez participated in a coup condemned by international organizations, including the United Nations and the Organization of American States.

In 2013, Juan Orlando Hernandez was elected president of Honduras in an election that was questioned by the Honduran population.

Salvador Nasralla, Alliance candidate, has won the most votes, outstripping Hernandez by some 100,000 votes, according to official partial data. Curiously, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) has not declared Nasralla the winner and, to the contrary, has extended the tally of the ballots until Thursday, November 30.

Juan Orlando Hernandez, in his eagerness to continue enjoying his lucrative sacking of the state of Honduras, through corruption and in violation of the Constitution, ran for re-election, thanks to the clear complicity of the Supreme Court of Justice, controlled by the National Party to which he belongs.
 
We, Hondurans living in Boston, Massachusetts, and other cities in the United States, express our profound condemnation of the fraudulent and de facto regime of Juan Orlando Hernandez, who has contributed to Honduras becoming the most violent country in the world, corruption, organized crime, death squads, repression, persecution of the media, drug trafficking, militarization and the mass exodus of Hondurans, men, women and children fleeing extreme poverty, violence and impunity.

We warn human rights organizations here in the United States to be alert, as election fraud is looming. Mr. Hernandez has declared himself winner before receiving the Supreme Electoral Tribunal's calculations, so it is clear his intention to win these elections through fraud.

Why do not they give the final results to the Honduran people? The population has no reason to believe the Honduran authorities since the government and its party have usurped the state's institutions for their own benefit.

This electoral process has taken place amid accusations and repressive acts against the opposition and very well-paid campaigns against the opposition and its candidate.

Hondurans long to live in prosperity and democracy, but oligarchic sectors of Juan Orlando Hernandez's circle keep Hondurans in poverty and backwardness.

Resist Deportations! Save TPS!

Resist Deportations! Save TPS!

Mobilize Saturday, December 2nd

Rally: 12:00 PM, steps across from the Statehouse

March to the JFK Federal Building

			Save TPS! Defend DACA! Resist Deportations! No Wall! No border militarization! No Muslim ban! Permanent Legal Residence! Jail Joe Arpaio -- Not Migrants! Resist Fascism!

 

Volunteers needed! Please come to our sign making party and volunteer orientation:

Thursday, November 30, 7:00 PM @ Encuentro Cinco, 9A Hamilton Place, (near Park Street T stop)

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 55,000 Haitians living in theUS. Similar decisions are anticipated from the White House for the 57,000 Hondurans, and almost 200,000 Salvadorans who are also living in the under TPS. These attacks are an effort to terrorize working people and normalize these police state tactics so they can be used against the rest of us.

Local law enforcement, the FBI, and ICE collaborate to mass surveil, interrogate, stigmatize, blackmail, infiltrate, and detain Muslims, migrants, and oppressed nationalities who are then fed into the prison industrial complex. Even in "Sanctuary cities", migrants who have previous nonviolent convictions, traffic violations, or who are placed under suspicion for lawful activity, have been picked up by ICE to be deported. In addition to scapegoating these vulnerable populations, this police repression is increasingly carried out against working people, including people of color, and youth.

The powers in Washington have no solution that benefit us as working people. Our only choice is to build a fighting movement. An injury to one is an injury to all!

Cosponsoring Organizations: Boston May Day Coalition, Massachusetts Teachers Association, Boston Teachers Union, USW Local 8751 - Boston School Bus Drivers Union, Indivisible Somerville,  ANSWER Coalition - Boston, Anarchist Black Cross, Green-Rainbow Party, Chelsea Uniendose en Contra de la Guerra, Refuse Fascism, CPUSA - Boston, Workers World Party - Boston, Socialist Alternative - Boston, Boston Socialist Party, Boston City Councilor Tito Jackson, Party of Socialism & Liberation - Boston 

facebook.com/bostonmdc    bostonmayday.org

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From North Korea to Roxbury: Confronting War, Struggling for Peace and Justice

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From North Korea to Roxbury: Confronting War, Struggling for Peace and Justice

A Presentation by Ajamu Baraka
Wednesday, December 6, 2017, 6:00 pm
Egleston Branch Library, 2044 Columbus Ave., Roxbury, MA 02119
Judith Roderick, respondent

Dear Dan,

The Trump Administration is doubling down on war policies which have developed during the Bush and Obama administrations.  We now have international crises in Syria, Korea, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Niger, Palestine and more.  The military budget and nuclear weapons spending are increasing, as is US military intervention in Africa. Militarization of the police is affecting Black and other communities at home.  In this context, Ajamu Baraka will address the relationship of the Black liberation movement to the struggle for peace.  

Ajamu Baraka is the national organizer for the Black Alliance for Peace, which was launched on April 4th of this year, the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr's "Beyond Viet Nam" speech where he came out against the Viet Nam war. Baraka will talk with us about this work and about re-building the anti-war movement in the face of a government which is devoted to "full spectrum dominance". 

Baraka is an internationally recognized advocate for human rights with roots in the Black Liberation Movement and was the Green Party Vice Presidential candidate in 2016. He was the Executive Director of the US Human Rights Network from 2004 to 2011 and his political analysis has been covered by CNN, BBC, RT, Washington Post, and New York Times. He is a contributing columnist for Black Agenda Report and Counterpunch. Baraka is currently working with Code Pink, WILPF, World Beyond War, the United National Anti-war Coalition, and others to build the "Coalition Against US Foreign Military Bases". Baraka emphasizes that "placing people, planet, and peace before profit has to be not just a slogan but a political objective that is realized.

Snacks and informal discussion at 5:30; talk starts promptly at 6:00.  Library closes at 8:00 pm.  The Egleston branch is a 15 minute walk from Stony Brook, or take bus 22 or 44 from Jackson Square station. Street parking only.

Sponsored by Massachusetts Peace Action; Cosponsored by the Green-Rainbow Party of Massachusetts and Dorchester People for Peace

For Peace and Racial Justice,

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When your first name is "Democratic"

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A party named “Democratic” should be.  Share Autopsy on Facebook  Share Autopsy on Twitter A party named “Democratic” should be. But the Democratic Party has continued its undemocratic system of elite unelected superdelegates. More than 700 of them -- 15 percent of the total -- voted on the presidential nominee at the latest national convention. Dozens of the superdelegates were corporate lobbyists. “I have long believed there should be no superdelegates,” Senator Tim Kaine, a former chair of the Democratic National Committee, recently wrote to current DNC chairman Tom Perez. “These positions are given undue influence in the popular nominating contest and make the process less democratic.” The mid-November letter from Senator Kaine, who was Hillary Clinton’s running mate last year, came two weeks after the release of “AUTOPSY: The Democratic Party in Crisis.” In a section written by civil rights attorney Pia Gallegos, that report declared: “The superdelegate system, by its very nature, undermines the vital precept of one person, one vote. The voting power of all superdelegates must end." The final meeting of the DNC’s “Unity Reform Commission” will vote on the superdelegate issue. When the gavel falls to begin that crucial session on Dec. 8, co-authors of the Autopsy will be there. To help them fight the good fight, please: *  Click here to go to the section of the Autopsy titled “Democracy and the Party” -- and use the icons on that webpage to share it far and wide via social media as well as via email. *  Help co-authors of the Autopsy travel across the country and speak out in Washington, where the final Unity Reform Commission meeting will take place. Support this vital effort by clicking here. If any money is left over after covering travel and media-outreach expenses, RootsAction will pour it into our ongoing nationwide campaign to insist that the Democratic Party live up to its first name. We can do this! Thank you -- The RootsAction.org Team Background: >>  AUTOPSY: The Democratic Party in Crisis >>  Politico: “Kaine Calls for Eliminating Superdelegates” >>  Sunlight Foundation: “At the DNC, More Than 60 Superdelegates Are Registered Lobbyists” >>  Jake Johnson, Common Dreams: “To Address Historic Failures, Autopsy Urges ‘Progressive Reboot’ for Democrats” >>  Katrina vanden Heuvel, The Washington Post: “Have Democrats Learned their Lesson? There’s Reason for Hope.” >>  William Greider, The Nation: “What Killed the Democratic Party?” >>  Paul Rosenberg, Salon: “Rebuilding a broken party: Where do Democrats go beyond Bernie vs. Hillary?” >>  Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet: "Criticizing the Democratic National Committee for Failing to Learn Lessons from 2016" >>  Christopher Cook, The Progressive: “Can the Democrats Save Themselves?” Interviews about the Autopsy: >>  Pia Gallegos on “Between The Lines” >>  Norman Solomon on C-SPAN “Washington Journal” >>  Karen Bernal on The Real News >>  Norman Solomon on “Democracy Now” >>  Jeff Cohen on The Real News   www.RootsAction.org Unsubscribe

A View From The Left-Ruling-Class Vendetta Against Chelsea Manning Continues

Workers Vanguard No. 1122	17 November 2017

From Back In The Day But Still Valid 

Ruling-Class Vendetta Against Chelsea Manning Continues

In May, the courageous truth-teller Chelsea Manning was released from prison after being tortured by the Obama regime for seven years for exposing U.S. imperialist war crimes. We have defended Manning since the start of her ordeal and welcomed her release. For Obama, commuting her sentence in the dying days of his presidency was a cheap and cynical move to burnish his “legacy.” Half a year later, the vindictive American ruling class has made clear that it’s not done with her yet.

In September, Harvard University invited Manning to be a visiting fellow at its Kennedy School of Government and then rescinded the invitation the very next day. Manning was disinvited after CIA director Mike Pompeo, calling her an “American traitor,” cancelled an appearance on campus and former deputy CIA director Michael Morrell resigned his own fellowship in protest. Manning responded on Twitter: “This is what a military/police/intel state looks like the @cia determines what is and is not taught at Harvard.”

Indeed, the CIA, NSA, FBI and military are deeply intertwined with Harvard, the most prestigious think tank for U.S. imperialism and training ground for the children and trusted agents of the bourgeoisie. Harvard, like most of the country’s top universities, has a long history of educating, hiring and honoring Washington’s torturers and war criminals. When Harvard’s Institute of Politics at the Kennedy School opened its doors in 1966, its first honorary associate was Robert McNamara, secretary of defense under presidents Kennedy and Johnson. Other Harvard luminaries include Professor Louis Fieser (the inventor of napalm), Henry Kissinger (like McNamara, an architect of mass murder in Vietnam) and Professor Richard Hernnstein (co-author with Charles Murray of the racist tract The Bell Curve). The surprise about Manning’s brief fellowship was not that it was cancelled but that it was offered in the first place! CIA, military off campus!

Manning’s crime in the eyes of the capitalist rulers? In 2010, she leaked files that cast a spotlight on the war crimes of U.S. imperialism in Iraq and Afghanistan. The most well known of these is the graphic aerial video, dubbed “Collateral Murder,” that shows a U.S. Apache helicopter gunship massacring at least twelve civilians in Baghdad in 2007, including two Reuters staffers, while the pilots gloated over the carnage.

Soon after Harvard disinvited Manning, the government of Canada, Washington’s junior imperialist partner to the north, barred her from entering that country, stating, “If committed in Canada, [Manning’s] offence would equate to…Treason.” On October 8, the liberal New Yorker magazine joined the post-prison vendetta against Manning during its annual festival in New York City. Manning’s fight for transgender people’s rights has earned her a huge following. She featured prominently in the festival program and the venue was filled with admirers.

New Yorker staff writer Larissa MacFarquhar, who conducted an interview with Manning, was tolerant of her as a transgender activist, but sought to reduce her exposures of U.S. imperialist barbarity to a question of “transparency in government.” The gloves really came off when MacFarquhar began channeling the military prosecutors at Manning’s kangaroo court. She badgered Manning with implications that she had supposedly endangered lives by leaking a trove of war logs and diplomatic cables to Julian Assange.

Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, is still trapped in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, where he sought asylum in 2012 after Swedish prosecutors demanded his extradition on bogus accusations of “rape”—in fact allegations of unprotected sex in what were by all accounts consensual relations. Despite the Swedish authorities dropping the case in May, London police have said they will arrest Assange for violating his bail if he leaves the embassy. The risk is high that Britain would extradite him to the U.S.

Liberals like MacFarquhar have long considered Assange dangerous because, unlike “legitimate” bourgeois mouthpieces like the New York Times, he refuses to redact the material WikiLeaks publishes. Democrats have come to despise Assange even more after WikiLeaks released a trove of emails last year—hacked by “the Russians,” so the story goes—from the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, which supposedly helped Trump win the presidency.

Manning batted back the verbal barrage from MacFarquhar and gave as good as she got. When the journalist accused the former military intelligence analyst of releasing government files without knowing what was in them, Manning angrily objected: “I did know what was in them. I worked with this information every day.” Her interrogator persisted: “But the 250,000 documents, did you not fear that it might hurt someone?” Manning shot back: “Absolutely not.” Signaling to the audience that MacFarquhar was retailing the government frame-up against her, Manning retorted that the leaked files show “people dying and people getting killed and people suffering, and on a massive, incredible scale.”

Manning’s path to her courageous act of self-sacrifice was a long and winding one. Before joining the Army, Manning explained, she struggled with being transgender and even thought that joining the military might make her “not Trans.” Seeing the violence in Iraq on television, she decided to join up, hoping to “make a difference.” It was wishful thinking, she said, but she was only 18. Manning was trained to do statistical data analysis, but the data became real people when she deployed to Iraq. She graphically described the horror, and the normality, of it all: “It was like drinking from a firehose,” a firehose of “death and destruction and mayhem just every single day.”

Elements of Manning’s personal history parallel those of former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, who is in exile in Russia. Inspired by Manning, in 2013 Snowden released documents exposing the sweep and scope of the global electronic spying activities of the U.S. and its allies. Both Manning and Snowden started out as my-country-right-or-wrong patriots. Over time, each was compelled by conscience to risk everything by taking a stand to expose crimes routinely committed by the U.S. government. By unmasking the bourgeoisie’s everyday lies, intrigues and wanton slaughter, brave individuals like Manning, Snowden and Assange, while far from being revolutionaries, have done a great service to workers and the oppressed throughout the world. Hands off Assange! Drop all charges against Snowden!

Manning has a keen appreciation of the stark social inequalities in the U.S. As MacFarquhar warmed her up with softballs before pressing her to admit to treason, Manning revealed that she is not enamored of the fact that nowadays there is so much focus on marriage equality. She asked rhetorically: how is marriage equality going to help homeless gay and transgender people? How was it supposed to help Manning herself when she was homeless on the streets of Chicago? A puzzled MacFarquhar asked: “What would have helped you in that situation?” Manning shot back: “Housing!”

Chelsea Manning is a fighter and a hero. Working people and the oppressed internationally are in her debt for revealing details of imperialist machinations. But, despite the revelations by Manning, Assange and Snowden, U.S. imperialism by its nature will continue to commit atrocities on a daily basis. The whole system of capitalist exploitation and war must be swept away through workers socialist revolution.