This space is dedicated to the proposition that we need to know the history of the struggles on the left and of earlier progressive movements here and world-wide. If we can learn from the mistakes made in the past (as well as what went right) we can move forward in the future to create a more just and equitable society. We will be reviewing books, CDs, and movies we believe everyone needs to read, hear and look at as well as making commentary from time to time. Greg Green, site manager
The Struggle Continues...Supporter The Military Resisters-Support G.I. Voice
By Frank Jackman
The late Peter Paul Markin had gotten “religion” on the questions of war and peace the hard way. Had before that baptism accepted half-knowingly (his term) against his better judgment induction into the Army when his “friends and neighbors” at his local draft board in North Adamsville called him up for military service back in hard-shell hell-hole Vietnam War days when the country was coming asunder, was bleeding from all pores around 1968. Markin had had some qualms about going into the service not only because the reasoning given by the government and its civilian hangers-on for the tremendous waste of human and material resources had long seemed preposterous but because he had an abstract idea that war was bad, bad for individuals, bad for countries, bad for civilization in the late 20th century. Was a half-assed pacifist if he had though deeply about the question, which he had not.
But everything in his blessed forsaken scatter-shot life pushed and pushed hard against his joining the ranks of the draft resisters at the Boston sanctuary for that cohort, the Arlington Street Church, whom he would hear about and see every day then as he passed on his truck route which allowed him to pay his way through college. Markin had assumed that since he was not a Quaker, Shaker, Mennonite, Brethren of the Common Life adherent but rather a bloody high-nosed Roman Catholic with their slimy “just war” theory that seemed to justify every American war courtesy of their leading American Cardinal, France Spellman, that he could not qualify for conscientious objector status on that basis. And at the time that he entered the Army that was probably true even if he had attempted to do so. Later, as happened with his friend, Jack Callahan, he could at least made the case based on the common Catholic upbringing. Right then though he was not a total objector to war but only of what he saw in front of him, the unjustness of the Vietnam War.
That was not the least of his situation though. That half-knowingly mentioned above had been overridden by his whole college Joe lifestyle where he was more interested in sex, drink, and rock and roll (the drugs would not come until later), more interested in bedding women than thinking through what he half-knew would be his fate once he graduated from college as the war slowly dragged on and his number was coming up. Moreover there was not one damn thing in his background that would have given pause about his future course. A son of the working-class, really even lower than that the working poor a notch below, there was nobody if he had bothered to seek some support for resistance who would have done so. Certainly not his quiet but proud ex-World War II Marine father, not his mother whose brother was a rising career Army senior NCO, not his older brothers who had signed up as a way to get out of hell-hole North Adamsville, and certainly not his friends from high school half of whom had enlisted and a couple from his street who had been killed in action over there. So no way was an Acre boy with the years of Acre mentality cast like iron in his head about servicing if called going to tip the cart that way toward straight out resistance.
Maybe he should have, at least according to guys he met in college like Brad Fox and Fritz Taylor, or guys who he met on the hitchhike road going west like Josh Breslin and Captain Crunch (his moniker not real name which Josh could not remember). The way they heard the story from Markin after he got out of the Army, after he had done his hell-hole thirteen months in Vietnam as an infantryman, twice wounded, and after he had come back to the “real” world was that on about the third day in basis training down in Fort Jackson in South Carolina he knew that he had made a mistake by accepting induction. But maybe there was some fate-driven reason, maybe as he received training as an infantryman and he and a group of other trainees talked about but did not refuse to take machine-gun training, maybe once he received orders for Vietnam and maybe once he got “in-country” he sensed that something had gone wrong in his short, sweet life but he never attempted to get any help, put in any applications, sought any relief from what was to finally crack him. That, despite tons of barracks anti-war blather on his part from Fort Jackson to Danang.
Here’s the reason though why the late Peter Paul Markin’s story accompanies this information about G.I. rights even for those who nowadays enter the military voluntarily, as voluntarily as any such decision can be without direct governmental coercion. Markin, and this part is from Josh Breslin the guy he was closest to toward the end, the guy who had last seen him in the States before that fateful trip to Mexico, to Sonora when it all fell apart one day, had a very difficult time coming back to what all the returnees called the “real” world after Vietnam service. Had drifted to drug, sex and rock and roll out on the West Coast where Josh had first met him in San Francisco until he tired of that, had started to have some bad nights.
Despite the bad nights though he did have a real talent for writing, for journalism. Got caught up in writing a series about what would be later called the “brothers under the bridge” about guys like him down in Southern California who could not adjust to the real world after ‘Nam and had tried to keep body and soul together by banding together in the arroyos, along the railroad tracks and under the bridges and creating what would today be called a “safe space.”
Markin’s demons though were never far from the surface. Got worse when he sensed that the great wash that had come over the land during the counter-cultural 1960s that he had just caught the tail-end had run its course, had hit ebb tide. Then in the mid-1970s to relieve whatever inner pains were disturbing him he immersed himself in the cocaine culture that was just rearing its head in the States. That addiction would lead him into the drug trade, would eventually lead him as if by the fateful numbers to sunny Mexico, to lovely Sonora way where he met his end. Josh never found out all the details about Markin’s end although a few friends had raised money to send a detective down to investigate. Apparently Markin got mixed up with some local bad boys in the drug trade. Tried to cut corners, or cut into their market. One day he was found in a dusty back street with two slugs in his head. He lies down there in some unknown potter’s field mourned, moaned and missed until this very day.
Oh what might have been if he had sought out help in attempting to work out the better angels of his nature before all hell broke loose around his too futile head.
Free All The Political Prisoners-From Those Outside The Walls To Those Inside-Its The Same Struggle-Build The Resistance This holiday time of year (and Political Prisoner Month each June as well) is when by traditions of solidarity and comradeship those of us who today stand outside the prison walls sent our best wishes from freedom to our class-war sisters and brothers inside the walls and redouble our efforts in that task. Don't forget Mumia, Leonard Peltier, Reality Leigh Winner, The Ohio 7's Tom Manning and Jaan Laaman and all those Black Panther and other black militants still be held in this country's prisons for risking their necks for a better world for their people, for all people.
Where Have The Girls Gone- When Young
Women’s Voices Ruled the Airwaves Before The British Rock Invasion, Circa 1964- With Ruby And The Romantics Our Day Will Come In
Mind
A YouTube film clip of Ruby
& The Romantics performing the classic, Our Day Will Come.
Our
day will come
And we'll have everything.
We'll share the joy
Falling in love can bring.
No
one can tell me
That I'm too young to know (young to know)
I love you so (love you so)
And you love me.
Our
day will come
If we just wait a while.
No tears for us -
Think love and wear a smile.
Our
dreams have magic
Because we'll always stay
In love this way
Our day will come.
(Our day will come; our day will come.)
[Break]
Our
dreams have magic
Because we'll always stay
In love this way.
Our day will come.
Our day will come.
[Several years ago under the old regime
headed by the now mercifully departed Allan Jackson, known here under his
moniker Peter Paul Markin, there was an atmosphere of a privileged there is no
other way to put the matter “good old boys club” that pervaded this space.
Almost consciously I believe on Allan’s part in looking over the archives from
the past several years to see what happened and to see if there was anything
salvageable from those times. My proof-almost every writer was some old time
friend of Allan’s or of Allan’s friends. All had come of age during the raucous
1960s and their work hinged, for better or worse, on a working nostalgia for
those times. The clincher-these by-line writers were without exception men. The
few women writers were stringers, free-lancers who wrote, and wrote many times
well certainly better than some of the good old boys especially as the guys hit
sixty.
The series that Josh Breslin, from Olde
Saco, Maine but a good old boy nevertheless since he had met the real Peter
Paul Markin out in California in the Summer of Love, 1967 and thereafter met
Allan and the others, did on “girl groups” on be-bop doo-wop girl groups when
doo-wop swept through the teenage scene in the late 1950s is a case in point. Josh
apparently did about ten pieces, all pretty well done. But that rather begs the
question. In reading those reviews where is the female voice heard by any of the female artists who struggled to
make beautiful music for the young or by women writers from the time who could
give their perhaps very different take on what doo-wop meant and how young women
reacted to this craze.
To make a small historical amends I
have asked a stringer from that time, Leslie Dumont, who now has a by-line here
to give her take on Josh’s series. She is qualified to do this in two ways.
First she in her youth lived for this music and secondly at the time the series
was written she was Josh Breslin’s companion. Which makes it even more obvious
about the good old boy network since it is apparent that he didn’t even ask her
opinion about the music. Ask to give a few experiences like he readily asked
his good old boys. Or, and one would hope this were the case, Allan Jackson cut
out any such references on the red pencil editing for his own reasons, mostly
flimsy. I want to think the latter. Josh, who still works here, can come
forward with an explanation if he dares. Greg Green]
By
Leslie Dumont
When Greg Green handed me this great assignment since I hadn’t listen to most
of this music to be reviewed for a while, probably since Josh Breslin who was
then my companion did the original series , I searched around the dwindling
number of North Beach record stores but couldn’t find the expanded series he
worked through. What I did find and have previously done a short piece on was a
two volume set found at Diamond Jack’s Record Shop in San Mateo which had some
of the classic girl doo-wop on it. Subsequently I went on Amazon and was able
to grab the whole six volume set. (Greg remind me to give you the bill for that
purchase.)
As I mentioned in that review of the two-volume set of, for lack of a better
term, girl doo wop some of the songs which overlapped in the recently purchased
six volume series, I have, of late, been running back over some rock material
that formed my coming of age listening music (on that ubiquitous, and very
personal, iPod, oops, battery-driven transistor radio that kept those snooping
parents out in the dark, clueless, and that was just fine, agreed), and that of
my generation, the generation of ’68, a term the departed manager of this site
Allan Jackson insisted everybody use when referring to the denizens of the
1960s. Naturally, and here I agree with the sentiments expressed by Josh at the
time, one had to pay homage to the blues influences from the likes of Muddy
Waters, Big Mama Thornton whose original version of Hound Dog put Elvis in the shade no matter that she never made much
dough on her work, and Big Joe Turner whose Shake,
Rattle and Roll, puts all the white boy versions from the likes of Bill
Haley, Elvis and Jerry Lee to shame. And,
of course, given the performers their just due the rockabilly influences from
Elvis think Good Rockin’ Tonight,
Carl Perkins think Blue Suede Shoes
although Elvis made the money, Wanda Jackson think Let’s Have A Party, and Jerry Lee Lewis think High School Confidential which still gets my hormones jumping.
Josh had noted in his series that
one of the reasons that he was doing it was a kind of evening up of the balance
of what had turned him on as a kid. He said that he had spent some time on the
male side of the doo wop be-bop Saturday night led by Frankie Lymon and the
Teenagers on Why Do Fools Fall In Love? (good question, right) but that
he had not done much with the female side
of the doo wop night, the great ‘girl’ groups that had their heyday in the late
1950s and early 1960s before the British invasion, among other things, changed
our tastes in popular music. I will not, don’t need to, expand on his male doo
wop efforts but
I would expand his observation here to
include girls’ voices generally. I make some amends for his omission here. Or
really to give the female slant on female singers.
[Although as I said I will not dwell on
the male doo wop stuff the mention of Frankie Lyman first seen on ancient now
gone Dick Clark’s American Bandstand
a Monday to Friday run home from school afternoon fixture. That was where you
not only saw what group’s Mr. Clark thought were hot but to see what the latest
dances moves were “in” so you could try them out with your girlfriends to avoid
being embarrassed, embarrass yourself, on the dance floor when some dreamy guy
came by and picked you out of the crowd (or more than one happily any guy just
to avoid that deadly “wallflower” tag that boys and girls alike were furiously
trying to avoid). And of course to see
what was the latest in teenage girl fashion to lure the boys in at the times
when you had begun to see the male sex as not quite as nasty as a couple of
years before and that maybe they had something interesting to say if you could
corral them for a few minutes.
Why
Do Fools Fall In Love had special meaning
as well since that was the first time I either kissed a boy or a boy kissed me
I kind of forget which way it was. I had been invited to Kay Kelly’s twelfth
birthday party which was held in her family’s family room in the basement of
their house on Ridge Avenue in Cambridge, Massachusetts across the street from
where I grew up. This family room basement business was all the rage with kids
having parties then because usually the space was darker and being downstairs
it was away from snooping parent eyes. Perfect.
Kay had invited a bunch of boys which
made me, her, all our girlfriends nervous although not nervous enough not to
invite them. When the big day came, big evening if I recall, although early
like maybe six or since no tweens in those days would be partying later than
say nine except for the over-chaperoned weekly Saint Peter’s dances when
parents would pick up their charges at eleven. But like I said that dance was
chaperoned so really didn’t count against the exotic basement fling. As usual
the boy (and did the girls when invited to a boy’s party) arrived en masse
including Kevin Murphy who I talked to in class (and daydreamed about at other
times). The boys hugged one couch area, the girls around Kay’s father’s
build-in bar where the refreshments including Kay’s mother-made birthday cake
sat on the counter (no liquor, no way, present although we could have all
probably used a drink to shake the nervousness even at twelve)
Then Kay put on a 45 on her record player, Elvis’ Jailhouse Rock and as usual a bunch of girls although not I started
dancing in pairs together. Nobody solo danced in those days for fear of looking
uncool and maybe mentally unstable certainly no guys paired up, not in our
crowd, just like nobody went to the senior prom as a single which nowadays is
no big deal according to what my granddaughters tell me. Then dreamy Kevin
Murphy broke into the crowd of girls and started to dance with Lucy Lavin. Lucy
Lavin nothing but a plain jane at best who was also recognized as the smartest
girl, maybe smartest person but don’t quote me on that in the whole sixth grade
class. I was crushed, crushed enough since if Kevin was dancing with a plain
jane like Lucy Lavin then maybe he wasn’t so dreamy after all and so had better
begin looking elsewhere. (Dreamy or not later during the 1960s Kevin would be
the first young man from our neighborhood to be killed in Vietnam and his name
is etched on a memorial stone in front of City Hall with the too many others
who laid down their beautiful young heads in that godforsaken war. Probably etched down in Washington black
granite too but I have never been brave enough to go near that memorial as many
times as I have in that city since high school.)
Kevin, embers forgotten in a flash as
befits the young and movable, I got up and danced with Brenda Sullivan the next
dance which I thing was Bill Haley’s Rock
Around The Clock when Larry Kiley cut in and started to dance with me.
Goof, holy goof I would have called him later after reading Kerouac like we all
did when we were getting antsy in the 1960s, Larry who I could barely stand and
who was always saying something silly or pornographic around girls in class or
in the lunchroom danced very well. Knew the stroll, the fug, stuff like that.
So I let him talk to me for a while in between dances. Still a goof mostly but
also mentioned how pretty I looked as against the other “homely” girls hanging
out in that basement so maybe he wasn’t as bad as everybody thought.
Then it came slow dance time, time to
put on Ruby and the Romantics doing Our
Day Will Come. Most of the guys were too bashful to ask a girl to slow
dance (as opposed to fast dance where you didn’t have to hold hands and could
fake stuff as long as you moved fast enough) so things started slowly with the
exception of Larry who asked me to dance right away and while I hesitated he
had said I was pretty so that was something in his favor. On these slow dance
things, at least in our neighborhood, that would be a very good time to put out
the light, and see if anybody wanted to kiss anybody. As it turned out Larry
did, or tried to. I was so excited about the prospect of being kissed, kissed
even by a goof like Larry since I could chalk it up to experience, that when he
tighten his grip around my waist and moved his head forward I moved my face quickly
as well and I too this day don’t know if I kissed him first or he kissed me.
All I know is that I liked it, liked Larry’s kiss, like it enough that we went
“steady” the rest of the school year when we moved to the other side of town.
And get this about not succumbing to teen bean peer pressure all my girlfriends
still thought he was a goof, and not a holy one either. ]
Josh noted in his series and something
I spoke to in that earlier review but bears repeating here one problem with the
girl groups, and with these broader generic girl vocals for a guy like him, a
serious rock guy like him was that the lyrics for many of the girl group songs
did not as he said “speak to me.” He explained after all how much empathy could
a young ragamuffin of boy brought up on the wrong side of the tracks like him have
for a girl who breaks a guy’s heart after leading him on just because her big
bruiser of a boyfriend is coming back and she needs some excuse to brush the
heartbroken guy off in the Angels' My Boyfriend’s Back. Or, he
continued, some lucky guy, some lucky Sunday guy, maybe, who breathlessly
catches the eye of the singer in the Shirelles' I Met Him On Sunday from
a guy who, dateless Saturday night, was hunched over some misbegotten book, some
study book, on Sunday feeling all dejected. And finished up his examples asking
about some two, or maybe, three-timing gal who berated her ever-loving
boyfriend because she needs a good talking to, or worst, a now socially
incorrect, very incorrect and rightly so, "beating" in Joanie
Sommers’ Johnny Get Angry.
But see for girls, girls in my
rat-pack, girls who endlessly called each other on the phone talking about all
manner of things, who endlessly spent lunch time as well and obviously in the
girl’s lavatory talking, talk mostly about boys and what to do about them-or
not do about them these songs were coded messages of how to deal with guys from
girls who we thought had been around, who knew stuff about guys that we were
clueless about. So yes we would change boyfriends like changing socks (and made
sure nobody in the group latched on to those “damaged” goods after we were done
with them). Would meet a guy Monday and throw him over Tuesday for some met
Tuesday guy. Would go head over heels for a guy for a while and then sent him
packing if he made us wait by the midnight telephone and he didn’t call. Would
have temper tantrum by the minute if a guy looked even skyward at another girl.
All of this and more we “learned” from the girls whose lyrics told us we were
not alone in the turbulent teenage hormonal night.
After reviewing the material in these volumes I got the same flash-back feeling
I felt listening to the girl doo wop sounds. I won’t even go into such novelty
silly songs as the title self-explanatory My Boy Lollipop by Barbie
Gaye; the teen angst hidden behind the lyrics to Bobby's Girl by Marcie
Blane; or, the dreamy, wistful blandness of AThousand Stars by
Kathy Young & The Innocents that would have set any self-respecting boy’s,
or girl’s, teeth on edge. And prayed, prayed out loud and to heaven that the
batteries in that transcendent transistor would burn to hell before having to
continue sustained listening to such, well, such… and I will leave it at that.
I will rather concentrate on serious stuff like the admittedly great harmonics
on OurDay Will Come by Ruby & The Romantics that I actually,
secretly, liked but I had no one to relate it to, no our to worry about that
day, or any day until Larry came into my screen the night of Kay Kelly’s
birthday party or Tonight You Belong
To Me by Patience & Prudence that I didn’t like secretly or openly but
gave me that same teen angst feeling of having no one, no boy one, belonging
to, me.
And while today it might be regarded as something of a pre-feminist feminist
anthem for younger women, You Don't Own Me by Lesley Gore, was meaningful
to me when a lot of time in high school I didn’t have a boy to own, or not own,
to fret over his independent streak, or not. Moreover, since I was never, at
least I never heard otherwise, that I was some damsel in distress’ pining away for
the boy next store The Boy Next Door by The Secrets was wrapped with
seven seals. And while I had many a silent, lonely, midnight waiting by the
phone night when Cry Baby by The Bonnie Sisters, Lonely Blue Nights
by Rosie & The Originals, and Lonely Nights by The Hearts gave me
comfort when Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry hard-rockin’ the night away could
not console me, and take away that blue heart I carried like a badge, a badge
of almost monastic honor. Almost.
So you get the idea, this stuff did “speak to me.” Now you understand, right? Except,
surprise, surprise foolish, behind the eight- ball, know-nothing youthful girl had
it right but should have been listening, and listening like crazy, to these
lyrics because, brothers and sisters, they held the key to what was what about
what was on girls minds back in the day, and maybe now a little too, and if I
could have decoded better this I would have had, well, the beginning of
knowledge, girl knowledge. Damn. This, fellow baby-boomers, was our teen angst,
teen alienation, teen love youth and now you know this stuff still sounds
great.
On International Women’s Day in Petrograd in March 1917, a mass outpouring of working women sparked the revolutionary upheaval that culminated in the Russian October Revolution. The smashing of capitalist class rule brought unheard-of gains for women in all areas of public and private life. Despite economic backwardness and poverty, the young Soviet workers government sought to undermine the material foundations of women’s oppression, which is rooted in the institution of the family. The Bolsheviks understood that complete social equality could only be attained with the abolition of classes in a world socialist society. In a 1920 commemoration of International Working Women’s Day, Bolshevik leader V.I. Lenin underscored the fact that the fight for women’s liberation is inseparable from the fight for international socialist revolution.
Capitalism combines formal equality with economic and, consequently, social inequality. That is one of the principal features of capitalism, one that is deliberately obscured by the supporters of the bourgeoisie, the liberals, and is not understood by petty-bourgeois democrats. This feature of capitalism, incidentally, renders it necessary for us in our resolute fight for economic equality openly to admit capitalist inequality, and even, under certain conditions, to make this open admission of inequality the basis of the proletarian statehood (the Soviet Constitution).
But even in the matter of formal equality (equality before the law, the “equality” of the well-fed and the hungry, of the man of property and the propertyless), capitalism cannot be consistent. And one of the most glaring manifestations of this inconsistency is the inequality of women. Complete equality has not been granted even by the most progressive republican, and democratic bourgeois states.
The Soviet Republic of Russia, on the other hand, at once swept away all legislative traces of the inequality of women without exception, and immediately ensured their complete equality before the law.
It is said that the best criterion of the cultural level is the legal status of women. This aphorism contains a grain of profound truth. From this standpoint only the dictatorship of the proletariat, only the socialist state could attain, as it has attained, the highest cultural level. The new, mighty and unparalleled stimulus given to the working women’s movement is therefore inevitably associated with the foundation (and consolidation) of the first Soviet Republic—and, in addition to and in connection with this, with the Communist International.
Since mention has been made of those who were oppressed by capitalism, directly or indirectly, in whole or in part, it must be said that the Soviet system, and only the Soviet system, guarantees democracy. This is clearly shown by the position of the working class and the poor peasants. It is clearly shown by the position of women.
But the Soviet system is the last decisive struggle for the abolition of classes, for economic and social equality. Democracy, even democracy for those who were oppressed by capitalism, including the oppressed sex, is not enough for us.
It is the chief task of the working women’s movement to fight for economic and social equality, and not only formal equality, for women. The chief thing is to get women to take part in socially productive labour, to liberate them from “domestic slavery,” to free them from their stupefying and humiliating subjugation to the eternal drudgery of the kitchen and the nursery.
This struggle will be a long one, and it demands a radical reconstruction both of social technique and of morals. But it will end in the complete triumph of communism.
—V.I. Lenin, “International Working Women’s Day” (4 March 1920)
Free Leonard Peltier Stand-Out As Part Of First Night Against The Wars- December 31st -2-3PM-Boston Public Library Steps Across From Copley Square Plaza
********
We demand freedom for Leonard Peltier!
He must not die in prison! Free all political prisoners!
Native American activist Leonard Peltier has spent over 40 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. He was one of the people convicted of killing 2 FBI agents in a shoot-out on the Pine Ridge Reservation on June 26, 1975. The others who were convicted with him have long since been released. Prosecutors and federal agents manufactured evidence against him (including the so-called “murder weapon”); hid proof of his innocence; presented false testimony obtained through torturous interrogation techniques; ignored court orders; and lied to the jury.
In spite of his unjust imprisonment and terrible personal situation, being old and sick and likely to die in jail, he writes every year to the participants at the National Day of Mourning, which is held by Natives in Plymouth, MA in place of Thanksgiving, offering wishes for the earth and all those present and gratitude for the support he receives. To read some of his statements, go to UAINE.org (United American Indians of New England). That is also a good site for info about the National Day of Mourning and the campaign against Columbus Day and in favor of Indigenous Peoples Day.
Often people claim that the US does not have political prisoners, but Leonard Peltier has been in prison for a very long time and even the FBI admits that they do not know who killed those FBI agents. If Leonard Peltier dies in prison, it will be one of the worst miscarriages of justice in this country’s long history of injustice.
For more info and to sign a petition demanding hearings on the Pine Ridge “Reign of Terror” and COINTELPRO, a counter-intelligence program conducted against activists including Native groups, go to WhoIsLeonardPeltier.info.
Write to Leonard Peltier at Leonard Peltier, #89637-132, USP Coleman 1, P O Box 1033, Coleman, FL 33521. Prisoners really appreciate mail, even from people they don’t know. Cards and letters are always welcome.
This rally is organized by the Committee for International Labor Defense, CForILD@gmail.com, InternationalLaborDefense.org. (labor donated)
Free Native American leader Leonard Peltier, Free Russian interference whistle-blower Reality Leigh Winner, Free “The Voice of the Voiceless” Mumia Abu Jamal, Hands off whistle-blower Edward Snowden and All our political prisoners from the anti-fascist struggles.
Holidays are tough times for political prisoners. Join us to show your support from outside the wall for those inside the walls, so that they know they do not stand alone.
********
Today the Committee for International Labor Defense (CILD) follows in the tradition of the International Labor Defense, established by the early Communist Party to mobilize labor and progressive-centered protest to free leftist political prisoners, an especially important tradition during the holiday season for those inside the prisons and their families.
Every political prisoner we honor today had the instinct and inner strength to rebel against the injustices which were there for all to see. They knew that, if they fought those injustices in the face of governmental repression, the prisons were part of the price they might have to pay for standing up for what they believed in.
The political prisoners of today, just as those in previous periods of history, are representatives of the most courageous and advanced section of the oppressed. They are individuals of particular audacity and ability who have stood out conspicuously as leaders and militants, and have thereby incurred the hatred of the oppressors.
As James Cannon, one of the founders of the ILD, said in The Cause That Passes Through a Prison “The class-war prisoners are stronger than all the jails and jailers and judges. They rise triumphant over all their enemies and oppressors. Confined in prison, covered with ignominy, branded as criminals, they are not defeated. They are destined to triumph...”
This stand-out is organized by the Committee for International Labor Defense, CForILD@gmail.com, InternationalLaborDefense.org.
We are mobilizing like never before and have been using our unique voice as veterans to push back against hate and help build a world dedicated to peace. This past year we have spoken out against Islamophobia and white supremacy and used this unique political moment to garner support for a ban on nuclear weapons, expose the full story about the war on Viet Nam, develop a People’s Peace Treaty with Korea and continue to push to stop the deportation of veterans. I have been in the streets with you and followed your efforts and I am proud to be part of such a vital organization. This next year, Veterans For Peace is embarking on, what may seem, our most ambitious year in our history. And your support is vital. Can we count on you to join us by supporting our work with a donation?
In 2018, we will mobilize veterans from around the world to participate in an International Veterans Peace Conference that will be held in part at the United Nations. I have had the pleasure of being on delegations with Veterans For Peace and in my travels, I can tell you that this conference has the chance to build deep and lasting relationships among veterans from a wide variety of countries, laying the groundwork for peace. Second, Veterans For Peace is proud to have joined the Poor People’s Campaign. Dr. King's memory has been largely sanitized in popular U.S. culture. Rarely do we hear of his anti-war stance, his work to end poverty or his full vision of racial justice. We must believe peace is possible both at home and abroad and we must strategize, resist and build together. The Poor People’s Campaign is a good place to begin to uncover those connections and take the message of unity, peace and justice with us as we march.
Finally, next year marks the 100th Anniversary of Armistice Day. The centennial anniversary is an opportunity for us as veterans to go bigger and bolder than ever before and to call on the U.S. public to say no to more war and to demand justice and peace, at home and abroad.
We cannot do this alone and your support is critical, not only in organizing and mobilizing but with your financial support. Will you join us by donating today? Your contribution of $75, $100, $200, or $500 allows us to continue our efforts in this pivotal moment. I am so grateful to have met and worked with many of you over the years and Veterans For Peace has been an amazing home. I am honored and humbled that you all have embraced me among your ranks. I am continuously inspired by all of you and I am so excited to keep pushing and building resistance with you. I can’t wait to see you in the streets!
Col. Ann Wright
Col. Ann Wright is a Lifetime Member of Veterans For Peace. Ann is former U.S. Army colonel and a former U.S. State Department official, who resigned her position over protest of the Iraq War.
Veterans For Peace apologizes if your donation and our email crossed paths.
Jerusalem: UN resolution rejects Trump's declaration
The UN General Assembly has decisively backed a resolution effectively calling on the US to withdraw its recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The text says that any decisions regarding the status of the city are "null and void" and must be cancelled. The non-binding resolution was approved by 128 states, with 35 abstaining and nine others voting against. It came after US President Donald Trump threatened to cut financial aid to those who backed the resolution. More
The vote by population was even more overwhelming if we look at the countries which voted with the US:
·The nine who voted against the resolution were the US, Israel, Guatemala, Honduras, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and Togo
Abstainers were either white settler colonies or small countries dependent on the US and/or looking for Israeli support in Washington.
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Bethlehem: Living Between Tear Gas and Christmas Ornaments (from last year)
Bethlehem is a besieged city surrounded by a 26-foot-high wall erected on much of its perimeter. This imposing edifice prevents many farmers from getting to their land and restricts residents from performing everyday actions, like going to school or work. By the time it is completed, 56 kilometers of this barrier—which many call the apartheid wall—will leave 12 communities physically separated from the rest of Bethlehem. Fully 85 percent of the Governorate of Bethlehem is classified as part of Area C—under complete Israeli control in all security and civil matters. In addition, there are 19 settlements—illegal according to international law and officially opposed by the U.S. government—surrounding the governorate which house over 100,000 Israeli settlers… This Christmas season, as Christians the world over sing of Baby Jesus’s little town of Bethlehem, they must also remember that this city remains under a crippling Israeli occupation. There will be no meaningful peace in Bethlehem as long as the Palestinians there have to live with the wall, settlements, and an unrelenting military chokehold. More
In Honor Of The Late Black
Liberation Fighter The Omaha Three’s Wopashitwe Mondo Eyen we Langa -Support
And Donate To The Partisan Defense Committee’s Holiday Appeal For Our Political
Activists Inside The Prison Walls
By Frank Jackman
I know, as I have
recounted elsewhere about my personal situation during my military service,
so-called, my military resister time, during the Vietnam War, that the holidays
are tough times for our political prisoners, hell all prisoners, but today we
write on behalf of our fellow activists behind the walls. A place where we
outside the walls may find ourselves under the regime of whatever party in
power. (After all Lynne Stewart and Chelsea Manning among others, for example,
were in jail in Obama time.) And nobody on the outside working for social
change is exempt as the case of the late black liberation fighter Wopashitwe
Mondo Eyen we Langa, outlined below, will demonstrate. So be very generous this
year in aid of those on the inside who will garner strength knowing that those
outside the walls today are standing in solidarity. I know in my time I did
from such support in my time.
*********
Workers Vanguard No. 1124
15 December 2017
The following article appeared under the Partisan Defense Committee's Class-Struggle Defense Notes masthead in the print version of this issue of Workers Vanguard. The PDC is a class-struggle, non-sectarian legal and social defense organization which champions cases and causes in the interest of the whole of the working people. This purpose is in accordance with the political views of the Spartacist League.
32nd Annual Holiday Appeal
Free the Class-War Prisoners!
(Class-Struggle Defense Notes)
This year’s Holiday Appeal marks the 32nd year of the Partisan Defense Committee’s program of sending monthly stipends as an expression of solidarity to those imprisoned for standing up to racist capitalist repression and imperialist depredation. This program revived a tradition initiated by the International Labor Defense under James P. Cannon, its founder and first secretary (1925-28). This year’s events will pay tribute to a former stipend recipient, Lynne Stewart, who succumbed to the effects of metastasized breast cancer last March. A courageous radical lawyer who defended numerous poor people and fighters for the oppressed, including the Ohio 7, Stewart had been incarcerated for her vigorous defense of a fundamentalist sheik who was convicted in an alleged plot to blow up New York City landmarks. We honor her by keeping up the fight for the freedom of all class-war prisoners. The PDC currently sends stipends to 12 class-war prisoners.
* * *
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, condemning him to life in prison with no chance of parole. Last year attorneys for Mumia filed a petition under Pennsylvania’s Post Conviction Relief Act (PCRA) seeking 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. On September 7, Judge Leon Tucker ordered a private review of the complete file of the prosecution by the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office of Mumia’s case, looking for evidence of the personal involvement of then D.A. Ronald Castille, whose refusal as a judge to recuse himself during Mumia’s PA Supreme Court appeal is the basis for this PCRA. After a two-year battle, Mumia was finally able to begin lifesaving treatment for hepatitis C. In May, lab tests showed that he was free of this life-threatening illness. But the drawn-out period during which he was refused treatment left him with an increased risk of liver cancer.
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. The lead government attorney has admitted, “We can’t prove who shot those agents,” and the courts have repeatedly denied Peltier’s appeals while acknowledging blatant prosecutorial misconduct. Before leaving office, Barack Obama rejected Peltier’s request for clemency. The 73-year-old Peltier is not scheduled for another parole hearing for another seven years. Peltier suffers from multiple serious medical conditions including a heart condition for which he had to undergo triple bypass surgery. He is incarcerated far from his people and family.
Seven MOVE members—Chuck Africa, Michael Africa, Debbie Africa, Janet Africa, Janine Africa, Delbert Africa and Eddie Africa—are in their 40th year of prison. 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. Collectively known as the MOVE 9, two of their number, Merle Africa and Phil Africa, died in prison under suspicious circumstances. After nearly four decades of unjust incarceration, these innocent prisoners are routinely turned down at parole hearings.
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. Now Laaman and Manning face prison torture where they are isolated in solitary confinement for extended periods. Manning has been deprived of necessary medical attention. 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, who died in prison last year, 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. They were railroaded to prison and sentenced to life for a 1970 explosion that killed a cop, and Poindexter has now spent more than 45 years behind bars. Nebraska courts have repeatedly denied Poindexter a new trial despite the fact that crucial evidence, long suppressed by the FBI, proved that testimony of the state’s key witness was perjured.
Contribute now! 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.
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Workers Vanguard No. 1086
25 March 2016
Wopashitwe Mondo Eyen we Langa
1947—2016
Wopashitwe Mondo Eyen we Langa, born David Rice, died on March 11 in the maximum-security Nebraska State Penitentiary of respiratory failure. A courageous class-war prisoner who was imprisoned for life for a crime he did not commit, Mondo suffered his last days ill with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, still fighting for his freedom. He spent almost 46 years in prison and remained a political fighter against racial oppression until the end.
Mondo had been an activist since his youth, radicalized by the mass social struggles that swept the country in the 1960s. Mondo became a supporter of the Black Panther Party in response to racist police brutality, in particular the killing of black 14-year-old Vivian Strong, who was shot in the back of the head by a cop in Omaha, Nebraska, in the summer of 1969. He went on to be a leader of the Omaha National Committee to Combat Fascism with his comrade Ed Poindexter. As Mumia Abu-Jamal put it in a March 15 audio tribute, by becoming a Panther, Mondo “walked into the crosshairs of the state.” He became one of the many victims of the FBI’s deadly COINTELPRO operation under which 38 Black Panthers were killed and hundreds more framed up and imprisoned.
Mondo and Poindexter, who became known as the Omaha Two, were falsely convicted of the 1970 killing of a cop in a bomb explosion on the perjured testimony of teenager Duane Peak, who first confessed to acting alone in placing the bomb. Peak was threatened with getting the electric chair and was offered a deal to be sentenced as a juvenile if he helped frame Mondo and Poindexter. Peak’s clearly coerced testimony was shown to be completely bogus. A recording of a 911 call that proved Peak’s testimony was perjured was excluded from evidence in the trial and was long suppressed by the FBI. The political motivation for the frame-up was made clear two decades later by Jack Swanson, an Omaha police detective and key figure in the prosecution. In a 1990 BBC documentary, Swanson boasted: “We feel we got the two main players in Mondo and Poindexter, and I think we did the right thing at the time, because the Black Panther Party...completely disappeared from the city of Omaha...and it’s...been the end of that sort of thing in the city.”
Federal appeals courts ruled that Mondo should be released or retried, but that ruling was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976, which ordered the case returned to the Nebraska state courts. The Nebraska Supreme Court then ruled that his appeal time had lapsed! In 1993, the Nebraska parole board recommended that the Board of Pardons commute Mondo’s life sentence to a term of a set number of years, which would have made him eligible for parole. But the Board of Pardons denied Mondo a hearing.
Mondo was one of the class-war prisoners who receive monthly stipends from the Partisan Defense Committee. The PDC is a class-struggle, non-sectarian legal and social defense organization which champions cases and causes in the interest of the whole of the working people. This purpose is in accordance with the political views of the Spartacist League. The class-war prisoner stipend program is not an act of charity but the duty of those on the outside toward those inside prison walls, irrespective of their particular views or affiliation. Ed Poindexter, who remains imprisoned, is also a PDC stipend recipient.
We remember Mondo—writer, artist and unbroken fighter—who was consigned to America’s prison hell for his opposition to racial oppression. We print below a poem he composed in June 2015 titled When It Gets to This Point.
