A View From The Left -NEW WARS / OLD WARS – What Could Possibly Go Wrong

NEW WARS / OLD WARS – What Could Possibly Go Wrong

 

Respond to Saudi bombing of Yemeni children – PROTEST AT RAYTHEON IN CAMBRIDGE

Monday, August 20 @ 5:00 pm - 6:00 pm

Raytheon BBN Technologies building

Corner of Concord Ave and Moulton Street

(On the right as you head out Concord Ave. from the Fresh Pond Circle toward Belmont. Directly across from the entrance to the Neville Nursing Home. The address is 10 Moulton St. Parking is available a block down Moulton St. on the right.  There is a wide sidewalk where we can stand.)  Find out more »

 

Raytheon supplies the bombs and military equipment to both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Republics that makes such savage attacks possible and Raytheon has a special relationship to Saudi Arabia and its military.  Sponsored by The Raytheon Anti-war Campaign: Veterans for Peace/Smedley Butler Brigade; Cambridge Friends Meeting/Peace and Social Concerns; Mass. Peace Action and American Friends Service Committee

For information call 617-623-5288 or 617-354- 2169

 

Our country is a true enabler of this slaughter, because, without our actions, the slaughter would end. Congress must end U.S. support for this unauthorized war. Can you write your Senators and House member today? 

 

DONALD TRUMP, GUNRUNNER FOR HIRE

American weapons makers have dominated the global arms trade for decades. In any given year, they’ve accounted for somewhere between one-third and more than one-half the value of all international weapons sales. It’s hard to imagine things getting much worse -- or better, if you happen to be an arms trader -- but they could, and soon, if a new Trump rule on firearms exports goes through…  A recent presidential export policy directive, in fact, specifically instructs American diplomats to put special effort into promoting arms sales, effectively turning them into agents for the country’s largest weapons makers. As an analysis by the Security Assistance Monitor at the Center for International Policy has noted, human rights and even national security concerns have taken a back seat to creating domestic jobs via such arms sales. Evidence of this can be found in, for example, the ending of Obama administration arms sales suspensions to Nigeria, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia.   More

 

CONGRESS, WHITE HOUSE REACHING BREAKING POINT ON YEMEN?

On August 14, Warren published a letter to the general asking him to clarify the discrepancy between his sworn testimony and recent reporting…  Despite Secretary of Defense Mattis’s protestations, members of Congress are treating the United States as if it were a belligerent in Yemen. On the same day that Warren released her letter to Votel, a group of House democrats, including centrist leaders such as Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and Eliot Engel (D-NY), published a letter demanding that the Department of Defense conduct a briefing to satisfy their own unanswered questions. Before that, Bob Menendez (D-NJ), ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC) and no dove, announced that he was opposing any sale of precision-guided munitions to the coalition. And before that, a bipartisan collection of SFRC Senators, led by conservative chairman Bob Corker (R-TN) and including Todd Young (R-IN), Susan Collins (R-ME), and Jerry Moran (R-KS), publicly opposed U.S. support for the coalition’s planned offensive against the Yemeni port city of Hodeidah. These letters, combined with a series of tweets and statements condemning coalition international humanitarian law violations and threatening the introduction of new legislation to curtail U.S. support, make clear that U.S. engagement in Yemen has generated congressional ire like few of America’s shadow interventions over the last 17 years.   More

 

 

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WARS ABROAD, WARS AT HOME

 

2017 WAS A GREAT YEAR FOR CEOS. NOT SO MUCH FOR THE AVERAGE WORKER

Earnings for the top executives at America’s largest companies skyrocketed in 2017, while wages for the average worker hardly budged.

CEOs for the 350 largest US companies earned an average pay of $18.9 million in 2017, a sharp 17 percent increase from the previous year, according to a new study by the left leaning Economic Policy Institute. These estimates include salaries, bonuses, restricted stock grants, cashed-in company stock, and other forms of compensation for chief executives at those firms. Meanwhile, wages for the average US worker grew a paltry 0.2 percent during that time.  This means that the CEOs made about 312 times more money than the average worker last year — an even larger gap than in 2016, when they made 270 times more money, according to EPI. But even more shocking is how much the gap has widened in the past 50 years: In 1965, CEOs earned only 20 times more than the average worker.    More

 

Poll Shows Democratic Voters Like Socialism More Than Capitalism

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) may believe that the Democratic Party is "capitalist, and that's just the way it is," but a new Gallup poll out Monday shows that support for capitalism among Democratic voters has hit a record low while a steady majority of the Democratic base has a favorable view of socialism.  "For the first time in Gallup's measurement over the past decade, Democrats have a more positive image of socialism than they do of capitalism," Gallup noted in a summary of its findings, which come as socialist candidates continue to surpass expectations, garner widespread enthusiasm, and win elections across the nation…  Unsurprisingly, millennials—many of whom came of age in the midst of the worst financial meltdown since the Great Depression—have a particularly unfavorable view of capitalism, regardless of party affiliation.   More

 

Warren Unveils Plan to Give Workers More Control Over Corporate Decisions

Taking aim at the heart of America's toxic economic status quo—which has over the past several decades produced soaring corporate profits and CEO pay while keeping workers' wages stagnant—Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) introduced legislation on Wednesday that would "give workers a stronger voice" in the decision-making of major businesses and put an end to corporations' single-minded commitment to maximizing shareholder value at the expense of employees. "There's a fundamental problem with our economy. For decades, American workers have helped create record corporate profits but have seen their wages hardly budge… "Because the wealthiest 10 percent of U.S. households own 84 percent of American-held shares, the obsession with maximizing shareholder returns effectively means America's biggest companies have dedicated themselves to making the rich even richer," Warren noted in a Wall Street Journal op-ed outlining her new measure. "For the past 30 years we have put the American stamp of approval on giant corporations, even as they have ignored the interests of all but a tiny slice of Americans. We should insist on a new deal."    More

 

MILITARIZING SPACE: STARSHIP TROOPERS, SAME AS IT EVER WAS

This week Vice President Pence announced that the Department of Defense is beginning a planning process to establish a sixth military branch, known as the Space Force.  Pence’s statement was a public reassurance that Trump’s sudden announcement of the Space Force was not just another of the president’s frequent sudden announcements that have no connection to reality.  Pence claimed that this new Space Force military division will be in place by 2020, and while many in the media are reacting as if the militarization of space were a sudden departure from American policy, as with much of the Trump presidency, this policy shift is only a minor, more grotesque version of what our government has long routinely undertaken…  In very concrete terms Trump’s step towards a Space Force simply connects the dots laid in place by the politer and more articulate administrations came before him as he moves us into a world where space more openly becomes a warfare platform.  But we should expect a culture so deeply embedded in a political economy of warfare and militarization to try and do no less than to extend its militarized vision beyond our atmosphere reaching to militarize the universe.    More

 

US Military Ordered to Host Massive Immigrant Concentration Camps

This isn’t the first time in US history that facilities are being constructed and used to imprison large numbers of a persecuted minority in a relatively small area with inadequate facilities (the definition of a concentration camp). Previous examples of this are now infamous, such as the so-called Japanese internment camps. We’re now on the brink of adding a new chapter to this dark history.  Military officials, in response to pressured deadlines from the White House, have stated that these camps can begin to be operational by mid-August. Estimates are that capacity for another 10,000 people can be added each month…  In addition to providing the land, military personnel will construct the camps while private agencies will manage the operations.   More

 

 

Military Parade Cancelled, How Does Peace Movement Build On This Victory?

Military Parade Cancelled, How Does Peace Movement Build On This Victory?

By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, Popular Resistance

August 19, 2018

| Featured Campaign, Newsletter

Military Parade Cancelled, How Does Peace Movement Build On This Victory?2018-08-192018-08-19https://popularresistance-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2017/12/popres-shorter.pngPopularResistance.Orghttps://popularresistance-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2018/08/people-protest-war-at-democratic-national-convention-2016.-by-brendan-smialowski-for-afp-getty-images.-e1534639633821.jpg200px200px

Above: People protest war at the Democratic National Convention 2016. By Brendan Smialowski for AFP-Getty Images.
This week, the Trump military parade, planned for November 10, was canceled for 2018. In February, a coalition of groups went public, announcing we would organize to stop the military parade and, if it went forward, to mobilize more people at the parade calling for peace and an end to war than supporting militarism. The coalition called for “ending the wars at home and abroad.”
The No Trump Military Parade coalition intended to show the world that the people of the United States do not support war. The coalition has been meeting regularly to build toward organized mass opposition to the proposed parade. People were working to make this protest a take-off for a renewed peace movement in a country exhausted by never-ending wars and massive military spending, but our first goal was to stop the parade from happening.

We say No to War sign seen at a 2007 anti-war protest. (Photo by Thiago Santos on flickr)

Momentum Builds For Mass Opposition To Trump Military Parade, As Costs Mount
The protest turned into a weekend of activities linked with the October 21 Women’s March on the Pentagon. The Women’s March was planning to include a daily vigil at the Pentagon until the military parade protest weekend. The theme of the weekend was “Divest from War, Invest in Peace.” On Friday, November 9, we planned a nonviolent direct action training for those who could risk arrest to stop the parade. That evening, CODE PINK was organizing a peace concert, “Peace Rocks”, on the mall. And, throughout that weekend, we were going to participate in Catharsis on the Mall: A Vigil for Healing, where we were going to create art for this Burning Man-like event to demonstrate the transformation of ending war and creating a peace economy.
On November 10, the day of the military parade, the ANSWER Coalition, part of the No Trump Military Parade coalition, had permits for both possible parade routes where peace advocates would hold a concentrated presence and rally alongside the parade. A work group was planning nonviolent direct actions, called “Rain on Trump’s Parade,” to stop the parade. On Sunday, November 11, a group of veterans and military family members were planning to lead a silent march through the war memorials on the mall to reclaim Armistice Day on its 100th anniversary.
The No Trump Military Parade was building momentum. On Tuesday, we published a letter signed by 187 organizations that called for the parade to be stopped. It read, in part, “We urge you now to do all in your power to stop the military parade on November 10. The vast majority of people in the US and around the world crave peace. If the parade goes forward, we will mobilize thousands of people on that day to protest it.” We sent copies of the release to the corporate and independent media and made sure the National Park Service, DC City Council, and Pentagon were aware of our planning.
On Thursday, the Pentagon leaked a new $92 million cost for the parade, more than six times the original estimate.  The cost included $13.5 million for DC police for crowd control and security. This alone was more than the initial $12 million cost estimate for the total parade. DC officials noted the parade would “breed protests and counter-protests, adding to city officials’ logistical headaches.”  Kellyanne Conway also took jabs at protesters when she discussed the cancellation of the parade on FOX and Friends.
Coalition members were quickly alerted to the new cost estimate and people went on social media spreading the word, expressing outrage and sharing our sign-on letter. That afternoon, the coalition issued a statement on the cost and the momentum building to oppose the parade, as  by then, more than 200 organizations had signed on. That evening it was announced that the parade was postponed for 2018 and would be considered in 2019.
There was super-majority opposition to the military parade and it was becoming the national consensus of the country that there should not be a military parade. Army Times conducted a poll of its readers; 51,000 responded and 89 percent opposed the parade responding, “No, It’s a waste of money and troops are too busy.” A Quinnipiac University poll found 61 percent of voters disapprove of the military parade, while only 26 percent support the idea.
In addition to the financial cost, the Pentagon knew there was a political cost The cancellation is a victory for the No Trump Military Parade Coalition, but also a victory for the country – glorifying militarization was exactly the wrong direction for the country to be going.

Photo: Debra Sweet/flickr/cc

How Do We Build On This Success?
The question members of the coalition are asking themselves now is how to build on the success of stopping the Trump military parade. We started a new Popular Resistance Facebook Group where you can join a conversation about where we go from here. Coalition members are in ongoing dialogue about possible next steps. We share some of those ideas below and would appreciate hearing your views on them.  Some ideas:

1. Continue with the plans for the weekend. The Reclaim Armistice Day silent march will still be held. This is the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day, also known as Remembrance Day. It marks the end of World War One, which ended at 11 am on the 11th day of the 11th month, in 1918. A two-minute silence was held at 11 am to remember the people who died in wars and reflect on the horror of war and the need to work for peace. It was changed to Veterans Day in 1954. The Reclaim Armistice Day march will begin at 11 am at the Washington Monument.  
2. Help build the Women’s March on the Pentagon. The march was called for by Cindy Sheehan, whose son Casey died in the Iraq War, to put an antiwar agenda back on the table. The march is being held on the anniversary of the 1967 march on the Pentagon when 50,000 people marched in opposition to the Vietnam War.
3. Make war, militarism, and military spending an issue in the 2018 election campaigns. People can ask all candidates about the never-ending wars and the record spending on the military budget, now approximately 60 percent of federal discretionary spending.
4. Stop military escalation with Iran. This week Mike Pompeo announced the Iran Action Group, almost exactly on the anniversary of the CIA-led coup against Iran’s elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953. This is part of a broader escalation, eg. the CIA created an “Iran Mission Center” in January. The Trump administration has been working to destabilize Iran, scapegoating Iran and to “foment unrest in Iran.” John Bolton was promising regime change in Iran before he became National Security Adviser. Trump violated the nuclear weapons treaty by withdrawing for no cause. This new effort will intensify efforts to foment unrest in Iran, the peace movement should work for de-escalation and normalization of relations with Iran to prevent another war-quagmire.
5. End the longest war in US history, Afghanistan. The Trump administration has escalated US involvement in the war in Afghanistan. This 17-year war has been one of constant failure but now the US is losing badly to the Taliban which has taken over more than 50 percent of the country and can attack Afghan forces in the capital, Kabul. It’s time to bring the troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq.
6. Stop the US and Saudi Arabian slaughter and starvation of civilians in Yemen. The forced famine and cholera epidemic killed more than 50,000 children last year, a US-approved genocide. The silence in response to this unauthorized war needs to end. The recent bombing of a school bus of children with US weapons may help galvanize the public.
7. End escalation of nuclear weapons, extend the nuclear weapons treaty and work to rid the world of nuclear weapons. The US has embarked on a massive upgrade of nuclear weapons, begun under President Obama and extended by Trump. A year ago, the UN announced the beginning of a process to ban nuclear weapons. The Trump-Putin meetings should continue, despite the Russiagate allegations, and include ridding the world of nuclear weapons.

These are just some of the conflicts deserving attention. There are of course, more, e.g.cut the outrageous military budget, stop the militarization of space, end the war in Syria, remove troops and bases from Africa, negotiate peace with North Korea, create a detente with Russia, end support for Israeli apartheid, stop the economic wars and threats of militarism against Venezuela and Nicaragua, and deescalate-don’t arm Ukraine. While many groups have their own focus, what can a coalition campaign work together on?

New York City from SpringAction2018.org

Antiwar Autumn Continues
We have been calling this fall the Antiwar Autumn because there is so much going on. Even with the cancellation of the military parade, it is going to be a busy fall.
Some of the major activities that are already scheduled include:
The Veterans for Peace annual conference in Minnesota, August 22-26.
On August 25, the Chicago Committee Against War and Racism is holding a protest against war and police violence on the anniversary of the 1968 protest at the Democratic National Convention against the Vietnam War.
The World Beyond War #NoWar2018 conference in Toronto, Canada on September 21-22 on how to re-design systems to abolish the institution of war.
The October 21 Women’s March on the Pentagon.
The effort to reclaim Armistice Day march on November 11.
The Coalition Against US Foreign Military Bases’ first international conference in Dublin, Ireland on November 16-18, 2018.
Beyond these activities, what can we do to build on the successful organizing around stopping the Trump military parade? We need to celebrate this victory and build on it.

We also want to highlight Class 7 of the Popular Resistance School on How Social Transformation Occurs, which focuses on the infiltration of political movements by the government, big business interests, and other opposition groups. We have written in the past about infiltration, i.e., Infiltration to Disrupt, Divide and Mis-Direct Are Widespread in Occupy and Infiltration of Political Movements is the Norm, Not the Exception in the United States. In this class, we broaden those discussions but also examine how to deal with infiltrators and informants.

Free The Class-War Prisoners-Support Those Inside From Those On The Outside-Join The Committee For International Labor Defense (CILD)

Free The Class-War Prisoners-Support Those Inside From Those On The Outside-Join The Committee For International Labor Defense (CILD)

Comment by Lance Lawrence

A number of people in the Greater Boston area, many having worked on political prisoner campaigns from freeing Black Panthers in the old days (and a few who still inside the walls all these years later putting emphasis on the FBI vendetta against that organization and other militant black organizations as well) to more recently Mumia, Leonard Peltier, Chelsea Manning and Reality Leigh Winner have over the past couple of years decided to form a Committee for International Labor Defense. If those last three words ring a bell it is because this group consciously is trying to model itself after the organization started many years ago back in the 1920s initiated by the American Communist Party and led at first by founder James P. Cannon and others like Big Bill Haywood and his fellow anarchists who saw the need for the labor movement to defend its own and others who were being persecuted by the capitalist state. In all an honorable tradition including stalwart defenses of the martyred immigrant anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti and the Alabama Scottsboro Boys cases.

In practice what the original ILD (and now the CILD) attempted to do was make sure that those class-war prisoner not all of them necessarily in political agreement with the Communist Party or any party were not forgotten. That those inside were treated with the same dignity as those outside the wall (outside for the present anyway given the ups and downs of capital existence that can be a very close thing). For those who have spent time behind bars knowing that there are others outside looking after your interests has been a tremendous morale booster. That along with taking care of families, providing stipend to prisoners to purchase items inside, providing legal defense funds and personnel, writing letter to those inside are just some of the things that the ILD (and now the CILD) was committed to seeing done. Not as charity or social work as Cannon made very clear but as acts of hard solidarity with those inside. Read the statement, check out the website listed, and if possible support with anything from writing letters to donating legal fund in order to get our class-war prisoners freed as quickly as possible. Thank you   

From The Massachusetts Citizens Against The Death Penalty Website-Never Forget The Sacco and Vanzetti and Troy Davis Cases

From The Massachusetts Citizens Against The Death Penalty Website-Never Forget The Sacco and Vanzetti and Troy Davis Cases

Click below to link to the Massachusetts Citizens Against The Death Penalty website.

http://www.mcadp.org/

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Frank Jackman comment:

I have been an opponent of the death penalty for as long as I have been a political person, a long time. While I do not generally agree with the thrust of the Massachusetts Citizens Against The Death Penalty Committee’s strategy for eliminating the death penalty nation-wide almost solely through legislative and judicial means (think about the 2011 Troy Davis case down in Georgia for a practical example of the limits of that strategy when last minute stay and appeal to the United States Supreme Court went for naught) I am always willing to work with them when specific situations come up. In any case they have a long pedigree extending, one way or the other, back to Sacco and Vanzetti and that is always important to remember whatever our political differences.
Here is another way to deal with both the question of the death penalty and of political prisoners from an old time socialist perspective taken from a book review of James P. Cannon's Notebooks Of An Agitator:

I note here that among socialists, particularly the non-Stalinist socialists of those days, there was controversy on what to do and, more importantly, what forces socialists should support. If you want to find a more profound response initiated by revolutionary socialists to the social and labor problems of those days than is evident in today’s leftist responses to such issues Cannon’s writings here will assist you. I draw your attention to the early part of the book when Cannon led the Communist-initiated International Labor Defense (ILD), most famously around the fight to save the anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti here in Massachusetts. That campaign put the Communist Party on the map for many workers and others unfamiliar with the party’s work. For my perspective the early class-war prisoner defense work was exemplary.

The issue of class-war prisoners is one that is close to my heart. I support the work of the Partisan Defense Committee, Box 99 Canal Street Station, New York, N.Y 10013, an organization which traces its roots and policy to Cannon’s ILD. That policy is based on an old labor slogan- ‘An injury to one is an injury to all’ therefore I would like to write a few words here on Cannon’s conception of the nature of the work. As noted above, Cannon (along with Max Shachtman and Martin Abern and Cannon’s long time companion Rose Karsner who would later be expelled from American Communist Party for Trotskyism with him and who helped him form what would eventually become the Socialist Workers Party) was assigned by the party in 1925 to set up the American section of the International Red Aid known here as the International Labor Defense.

It is important to note here that Cannon’s selection as leader of the ILD was insisted on by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) because of his pre-war association with that organization and with the prodding of “Big Bill’ Haywood, the famous labor organizer exiled in Moscow. Since many of the militants still languishing in prison were anarchists or syndicalists the selection of Cannon was important. The ILD’s most famous early case was that of the heroic anarchist workers, Sacco and Vanzetti. The lessons learned in that campaign show the way forward in class-war prisoner defense.

I believe that it was Trotsky who noted that, except in the immediate pre-revolutionary and revolutionary periods, the tasks of militants revolve around the struggle to win democratic and other partial demands. The case of class-war legal defense falls in that category with the added impetus of getting the prisoners back into the class struggle as quickly as possible. The task then is to get them out of prison by mass action for their release. Without going into the details of the Sacco and Vanzetti case the two workers had been awaiting execution for a number of years and had been languishing in jail. As is the nature of death penalty cases various appeals on various grounds were tried and failed and they were then in imminent danger of execution.

Other forces outside the labor movement were also interested in the Sacco and Vanzetti case based on obtaining clemency, reduction of their sentences to life imprisonment or a new trial. The ILD’s position was to try to win their release by mass action- demonstrations, strikes and other forms of mass mobilization. This strategy obviously also included, in a subordinate position, any legal strategies that might be helpful to win their freedom. In this effort the stated goal of the organization was to organize non-sectarian class defense but also not to rely on the legal system alone portraying it as a simple miscarriage of justice. The organization publicized the case worldwide, held conferences, demonstrations and strikes on behalf of Sacco and Vanzetti. Although the campaign was not successful and the pair were executed in 1927 it stands as a model for class war prisoner defense. Needless to say, the names Sacco and Vanzetti continue to be honored to this day wherever militants fight against this system.

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Oh, but you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears
Bury the rag deep in your face
For now's the time for your tears."

last lines from The Lonseome Death Of Hattie Carroll, another case of an injustice against black people. - Bob Dylan
, 1963

Frank Jackman comment immediately after the execution of Troy Davis (posted September 22, 2011):

Look, after almost half a century of fighting every kind of progressive political struggle I have no Pollyanna-ish notion that in our fight for a “newer world” most of the time we are “tilting at windmills.” Even a cursory look at the history of our struggles brings that hard fact home. However some defeats in the class struggle, particularly the struggle to abolish the barbaric, racist death penalty in the United States, hit home harder than others. For some time now the fight to stop the execution of Troy Davis has galvanized this abolition movement into action. His callous execution by the State of Georgia, despite an international mobilization to stop the execution and grant him freedom, is such a defeat.

On the question of the death penalty, moreover, we do not grant the state the right to judicially murder the innocent or the guilty. But clearly Brother Davis was innocent. We will also not forget that hard fact. And we will not forget Brother Davis’ dignity and demeanor as he faced what he knew was a deck stacked against him. And, most importantly, we will not forgot to honor Brother Davis the best way we can by redoubling our efforts to abolition the racist, barbaric death penalty everywhere, for all time. Forward.

Additional Jackman comment posted September 23, 2011:

No question the execution on September 21, 2011 by the State of Georgia of Troy Anthony Davis hit me, and not me alone, hard. For just a brief moment that night, when he was granted a temporary stay pending a last minute appeal before the United States Supreme Court just minutes before his 7:00PM execution, I thought that we might have achieved a thimbleful of justice in this wicked old world. But it was not to be and so we battle on. Troy Davis shall now be honored in our pantheon along with the Haymarket Martyrs, Sacco and Vanzetti, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and others. While Brother Davis may have not been a hard politico like the others just mentioned his fight to abolish the death penalty for himself and for future Troys places him in that company. Honor Troy Davis- Fight To The Finish Against The Barbaric Racist Death Penalty!

Songs To While The Time By- The Roots Is The Toots-A Not Beatles "Anna"

Songs To While The Time By- The Roots Is The Toots-A Not Beatles  "Anna" 

A YouTube clip to give some flavor to this subject from the original recorder Arthur Alexander which is where the Beatles heard it first.
Over the past several years I have been running an occasional series in this space of songs, mainly political protest songs, you know The Internationale, Union Maid, Which Side Are You On, Viva La Quince Brigada, Universal Soldier, and such entitled Songs To While The Class Struggle By. And those songs provide our movement with that combination entertainment/political message that is an art form that we use to draw the interested around us. Even though today those interested may be counted rather than countless and the class struggle to be whiled away is rather one-sidedly going against us at present. The bosses are using every means from firing to targeting union organizing to their paid propagandists complaining that the masses are not happy with having their plight groveled in their faces like they should be while the rich, well, while away in luxury and comfort.  

But not all life is political, or rather not all music lends itself to some kind of explicit political meaning yet speaks to, let’s say, the poor sharecropper at the juke joint on Saturday listening to the country blues, unplugged, kids at the jukebox listening to high be-bop swing, other kids listening, maybe at that same jukebox now worn with play and coins listening to some guys from some Memphis record company rocking and rolling, or adults spending some dough to hear the latest from Tin Pan Alley or the Broadway musical. And so they too while away to the various aspects of the American songbook and that rich tradition is which in honored here.   

This series which could include some protest songs as well is centered on roots music as it has come down the ages and formed the core of the American songbook. You will find the odd, the eccentric, the forebears of later musical trends, and the just plain amusing here. Listen up. 

As We Pass The 1st Anniversary Of The “Cold” Civil War In America-A Tale Of Two Boston Resistance Events –Join The Resistance Now!

As We Pass The 1^st Anniversary Of The “Cold” Civil War In America-A Tale Of Two Boston Resistance Events –Join The Resistance Now!

By Si Lannon

The headline to this piece is something of a misnomer as the “cold” civil war in America as I have been calling the great expanding divide between left and right, the oppressed and the oppressor (and its hangers-on including, unfortunately, a not insignificant segment of the oppressed), the haves and have nots and any other way to express the vast gulf, getting wider, between those siding with white rich man’s power and the rest of us, since this cold civil war has been building for a couple of decades at least. The Age of Trump which started officially one year ago though is a pretty good milestone to measure both how far we of the left, of the oppressed, have come and to measure the responses by the oppressed (the ones not hanging on to the white rich men) a year out in Year I of the Age of Trump Resistance.

Two local signposts, let me call them, stick out this weekend of January 20^th. One, the Women’s Rally on Cambridge Common on the 20^th organized to commemorate the anniversary of the historic Women’s mega-rally and march in Washington and it’s gigantic satellite event on Boston Common, The other a cultural/political event organized by Black Lives Matter and its allies held in the historic Arlington Street Universalist-Unitarian Church in Boston on the 21^st.

Those two events which I attended in person in my capacity as a member Veterans Peace Action (VPA, an organization which my old friend Sam Lowell who will take the spotlight below got me involved in as fellow Vietnam War veterans) while they share some obvious over-lapping political perspectives to my mind represented two distinct poles of the resistance as it has evolved over the past several years.

No one, including I assume the organizers of the Women’s Rally, expected anything like the turnout for the 2017 Inaugural weekend event on the Boston Common or else they would have had the event on the Common so I did not expect a tremendous turnout. That event could not be duplicated and moreover over the year some of the anger over the Trump victory, etc. and maybe just plain horror and discouragement would have sapped some energies. However the several thousand who showed up represented a good turnout to my mind.

What I didn’t expect was the rather celebratory feeling that I got from the crowds as the poured into Cambridge Common from the nearby Harvard MBTA subway stop. I was positioned along with a number of my fellow VPAers as volunteers to insure the safety of the crowds and any threaten action by the Alt-Right who were said to be “organizing” a counter-rally at the Common as well. (In the event that small clot of people were isolated and protected by the Cambridge police without incident. We kept our side cool as well.)

That celebratory spirit, rather unwarranted given the defeats on our side over the previous year from Supreme Court justice to DACA to TPS to a million other injustices, flowed into the main thrust of the rally. Get Democrats, get women Democrats, elected to public office and “scare” the bejesus out of Donald J. Trump and his hangers-on. In other words the same old, same old strategy that the oppressed have been beaten down by for eons. Like things were dramatically better for those down at the base of society, down where everybody is “from hunger” with Democrats. Worse though than that pitch for the same old, same old was as the younger radicals say “who was not in the room, who had not been invited.” Who didn’t show up for the “lovefest” if it came to that. The representation on the speaker platform, always a key indicator of whose agenda and whose buttons are being pushed, looked like the old-time white middle-class feminist      cabal that has been herding these women-oriented political events for years to the exclusion on the many shades (and outlooks) of people of color. Not a good sign, not a good sign at all a year out when we are asking people in earnest to put their heads on the line for some serious social change.

Fast forward to the very next day at Arlington Street U-U Church in Boston where a Black Lives Matter event, co-sponsored by Veterans Peace Action, was held to a infinitely smaller crowd around black cultural expression and serious political perspectives. The cultural events were very fine, rap, music, poetry slam put on by skilled artists in those milieus. Interspersed in between those performances was very serious talk, egged on by the moderator, about future political perspectives, about the revolution, however anybody wanted to define that term, In short a far cry from what was being presented and “force-fed” in Cambridge the previous day.             

Now it has been a very long time since, except in closed circle socialist groups, that I have heard about the necessity of revolution (again whatever that might mean to the speaker), so it was like a breath of fresh air to hear such talk in Arlington Street Church, a place where legendary revolutionary abolitionist John Brown spoke, to drum up support for his Kansas expeditions and the later Harpers Ferry fights against slavery. Listening to the responses, as Sam Lowell who attended with me noted later, the missing links to the 1960s generation, to our generation, the last time a lot of people seriously used the word revolution, have left the younger activists in various states of confusion. That will be worked out in the struggle as long as people keep the perspective in mind. What bothered Sam, and me as well although I could not articulate it like him, were two points that seemed to have been given short shrift by the various talkers.

I was going to enumerate them but why don’t I let my recollection of what Sam said (edited by him before posting so very close to what he actually meant) to the gathering after listening to some things that as Fritz Taylor from the South, another VPAer and Vietnam vet used to say- “got stuck in his craw.” Sam had not intended to speak since he, we, thought the event was to be totally a cultural one so he kept it short but also to the point, to our collective agreement point:

“Hi, I am Sam Lowell for Veterans Peace Action (VPA), a co-sponsor of this great event. I didn’t expect to speak since I thought this would be solely a cultural event. But some comments here have got me thinking. First a quick bio point or two-like one of the sisters who performed I grew up in “the projects,” a totally white one, although still “the projects” with all the pathologies that entails and I have remained very close to those roots my whole life whatever successes I have had in breaking out of those beginnings. Early on, don’t ask me how or why, I came to admire John Brown, the white righteous avenging angel revolutionary abolitionist who fought slavery tooth and nail out in Kansas and later, more famously, at Harpers Ferry slave insurrection. He was, is, my hero, my muse if you can use such a term for avenging angels.      

A couple of points. One speaker mentioned a litany of oppressions which had to be eliminated by us, by society, by us as the most conscious of things like patriarchy, racism, classism, gender-sexual preference phobia for lack of a better term, a term that I could use anyway, capitalism and so on. What I have noticed though as people here have tried to struggle with all of that and come up with some kind of strategy is what Lenin, and others, have called imperialism, our American imperialism, which means against all the oppressed of the world we are “privileged” Americans privileged no matter what oppressions we face in this society.   

On this point I will bring back from the dead two important quotes from the legendary revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara-“it is the duty of revolutionaries to make the revolution.” We cannot spent our precious lives “purifying” ourselves of all the oppressions and all the ways we, in turn act as oppressors, so we are “worthy” of the revolution while the world outside this room suffers from our wrong-headed sense of liberation struggle. Second “we who are in the heart of the beast,” who are in America have a special obligation to bring the monster down. To fight the fight now and to be there when the masses rise up in righteous indignation.    

Second and last point. One speaker a few minutes ago mentioned that it seemed impossible that we could win against, 

I assume she meant the American ruling class, through the route of violent revolution so she projected by non-violent alternative which seemed to my ears rather utopian. She mentioned that the other side, the ruling class, had the heavy military advantage and so that route was precluded. That statement showed a lack of “imagination” which is the theme of this event. No question right now an armed uprising would be ruthlessly crushed. But when the masses rise and are determined a funny thing happens at least if you read history. The military splits along officer and soldier lines, the fighters of the war, the grunts, either go over to the people or go home. The cops go into hiding. 

 I would use the example of the Vietnam War which a lot of Veterans Peace Action members are very familiar with. At some point around 1968, 1969 the troops, the grunts on the ground in Vietnam, hell, here at home too began to essentially “mutiny” against the war in fairly big numbers. That army became unreliable, was in many ways broken both by the futility of fighting a determined enemy and vocal opposition at home. And that was not even close to a revolutionary situation but will give you an idea what that situation would look like as the masses rise. If it ever happened where will you be? Thank you.        

The Continuing Saga Of Who Is The Real Bond, James Bond- A Ringer’s Story-Roger Moore’s “For Your Eyes Only” (1981)-A Film Review

The Continuing Saga Of Who Is The Real Bond, James Bond- A Ringer’s Story-Roger Moore’s “For Your Eyes Only” (1981)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Seth Garth

For Your Eyes Only, starring Roger Moore, 1981

Apparently the story within the story of who the real Bond, James Bond is will go on as least as long as the freaking producers are willing to put up cold hard cash to see who still gives a damn about the question. I thought I had been done, had finished with this question once Will Bradley conceded that Sean Connery was head and shoulders the best of the lot (conceded by silence, by giving up the ghost of trying to keep going with his ill-conceived premise, an almost laughable one that one pretty boy Pierce Brosnan was the One). Nobody else was even considered worthy enough to have a champion and make the argument multi-faceted. (By the way that Connery-Brosnan controversy, what my old friend Sam Lowell, the legendary film critic who still wanders the cinematic world with a large shadow behind him, has called on more than one occasion a tempest in teapot had no serious other contenders at the time-now either) Two events though have cast a long shadow over the question. The news of recent origin that one Idris Elba British to the core but as black as night was being considered for the role of Bond in some future episode which will put a whole new spin of the question and a possible recasting of the standings of the “others” who fill out the ranks of who have played Bond when I did an off-hand review of  George Lazenby’s solo 1969 performance in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service which put him at the bottom of the list. That got me, if not battered and bruised Will Bradley, rethinking the placement order which meant having to watch, re-watch a Roger Moore Bond film, For Your Eyes Only, among others to see who would take the coveted third spot now that George Lazenby is comfortably seated in last place. This is necessarily provincial since if the Elba rumor turns out to be true we could have the whole apple cart upset.

Since I have no competition as of yet over who will fill out the “third through” ranks I will argue that Roger Moore, a little woodenly, a little less spritely than either Connery or Brosnan, and a little less technologically competent that Brosnan and less suave and off-handed than Connery nevertheless should fill the third slot. Not because the story line is qualitatively better than any of the others-they divide simply between the more interesting since more realistic Cold War Soviet as main enemy films as here and the post-Soviet demise amorphous international criminal cartels films and not much more since all are threats to Her Majesty’s reign and governments and so much fodder for ace Empire hitman Bond the only person standing between the continued regime and chaos.   

This film follows the tried and true Soviets as villain formula. Somebody, some third party, has blown away an important spy ship containing an important defense gizmo which will save the Empire and all civilization as we know it will be sunk if the damn Soviet’s get their greedy hands on the item. Problem: said system is located somewhere in the briny deep and everybody is scrambling to get to the locale first and win the prize. Enter Roger Moore as James Bond who of course has to go through hoops before getting to the locale. Along the way there are the standard ruses and deceptions, a few moves under the silky sheets and some hand to hand battles with whatever passes for the latest technology-planes, submarines, skis, yes skis as old James skis like he was an Olympian among his many other manly skills. As a sign of the times, 1981, Bond rather than get the system back to MI6, cornered and backed into a corner with the system by Russian agents throws it off a cliff so nobody gets it-détente at work. All very civilized at the end and Roger Moore seems to me to epitomize that calm, determined Bond needed by the times when the Soviet Union was in trouble and who knows what would happen. More later when we get a chance to view more Moore footage but for now he is king of the number three spot.