AMERICAN LEFT HISTORY

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

Tuesday, November 27, 2018

Louvin Brothers - Every Time You Leave-When The King Of Rock And Roll Held Forth In The Acre Section Of North Adamsville -And Made It Stick-In Honor Of The Generation Of ’68-Or Those Who Graced Wild Child Part Of It

When The King Of Rock And Roll Held Forth In The Acre Section Of North Adamsville -And Made It Stick-In Honor Of The Generation Of ’68-Or Those Who Graced Wild Child Part Of It

By Zack James

[Zack James has been on an assignment covering the various 50^th anniversary commemorations of the year 1968 (and a few in 1967 and for the future 1969 which is to his mind something of a watershed year rather than his brother Alex and friends “generation of ‘68” designation they have wrapped themselves around) and therefore has not graced these pages for a while. Going through his paces on those assignments Zack realized that he was out of joint with his own generation, having been born in 1958 and therefore too young to have been present at the creation of what is now called, at least in the demographical-etched commercials, the classic age of rock and roll. Too young too for any sense of what a jailbreak that time was and a shortly later period which Seth Garth who was deep into the genre has called the ‘folk minute breeze” that ran rampart through the land say in the early 1960s. Too young as well to have been “washed clean,” not my term but Si Lannon’s since I am also too young to have been aware of the import by the second wave of rock, the acid rock period. Hell, this is enough of an introduction to re-introducing the legendary writer here. Lets’ leave it as Zack is back and let him go through his paces. Greg Green, site manager]

Alex James was the king of rock and roll. Of course he was not really the king, the king being Elvis and no last name needed at least for the bulk of those who will read what I call a “think piece,” a piece about what all the commemorations of events a million years ago, or it like a million years ago even mentioning 50 or 60 year anniversaries, mean. What Alex was though was the conduit for my own musical experiences which have left me as a stepchild to five important musical moments, the birth of rock and roll in the 1950s, the quick prairie fire called the “folk minute of the early 1960s and the resurgence with a vengeance of rock in the mid-1960s which for brevity’s sake call “acid” rock, along the way and intersecting that big three came a closeted “country outlaw moment” initiated by father time Hank Williams and carried through with vengeance by singers like Willie Nelson, Townes Van Zandt, and Waylon Jennings, and Muddy Waters and friends blues as the glue that bound what others who write here, Sam Lowell, in particular calls the Generation of ’68- a seminal year in many ways which I have been exploring for this and other publications. I am well placed to do since I was over a decade too young to have been washed over by the movements. But that step-child still sticks and one Alex James is the reason why.

This needs a short explanation. As should be apparent Alex James is my brother, my oldest brother, born in 1946 which means a lot in the chronology of what follows. My oldest brother as well in a family with seven children, five boys and two twin girls, me being the youngest of all born in 1958. As importantly this clan grew up in the dirt- poor working- class Acre, as in local lore Hell’s Acre, section of North Adamsville where my mother, under better circumstances, grew up and remained after marrying her World War II Marine my father from dirt poor Appalachia which will also become somewhat important later. To say we lacked for many of the things that others in that now seen “golden age” of American prosperity would be an understatement and forms the backdrop of how Alex kept himself somewhat sane with music although we didn’t even have a record player (the now ancient although retro revival way to hear music then) and he was forced when at home to “fight” for the family radio to get in touch with what was going on, what the late Pete Markin his best friend back then called “the great jailbreak.”

A little about Alex’s trajectory is important too. He was a charter member along with the late Markin, Si Lannon, Sam Lowell, Seth Garth and Allan Jackson, the later four connected with this publication in various ways since its hard copy start in the 1970s, of the Tonio Pizza Parlor corner boys. These guys, and maybe it reflected their time and milieu, hung out at Tonio’s for the simple reason they never had money, or not enough, and while they were not above various acts of larceny and burglary mostly they hung around there to listen to the music coming out of Tonio’s to die for jukebox. That jukebox came alive in maybe 1955, 1956 when they first heard Elvis (and maybe others as well but Alex always insisted that he was the first to “discover” Elvis in his crowd.) Quickly that formed the backdrop of what Alex listened to for a few years until the genre spent a few years sagging with vanilla songs and beats. That same Markin, who the guys here have written about and I won’t, was the guy who turned Alex on to folk music via his desperate trips to Harvard Square up in Cambridge when he needed to get out of the hellish family household he dwelled in. The third prong of the musical triad was also initiated by Markin who made what everybody claims was a fatal mistake dropping out of Boston University in his sophomore year in 1967 to follow his dream, to “find” himself, to go west to San Francisco for what would be called the Summer of Love where he learned about the emerging acid rock scene (drugs, sex and rock and roll being one mantra). He dragged everybody, including Alex if you can believe this since he would subsequently come back and go to law school and become the staid successful lawyer he is today, out there with him for varying periods of time. (The fateful mistake on the part of Markin stemming from him dropping out at the wrong time, the escalation of the war in Vietnam subjecting him later to the draft and hell-hole Vietnam service while more than the others unhinged him and his dream.) The blues part came as mentioned as a component of the folk minute, part of the new wave rock revival and on its own. The country outlaw connections bears separate mention these days.

That’s Alex’s story-line. My intersection with Alex’s musical trip was that one day after he had come back from a hard night at law school (he lived at home, worked during the day at some law firm as some kind of lacky, and went to law school nights studying the rest of the time) he went to his room and began playing a whole bunch of music starting I think with Bill Haley and the Comet’s Rock Around The Clock and kept playing stuff for a long time. Loudly. Too loudly for me to get to sleep and I went and knocked on his door to get him quiet down. When he opened the door he had on his record player Jerry Lee Lewis’s High School Confidential. I flipped out. I know I must have heard Alex playing this stuff earlier, but it was kind of a blank before. Background music just like Mother’s listening to 1940s stuff on her precious ancient RCA radio in the kitchen. What happened then, what got me mesmerized as a twelve- year old was that this music “spoke” to me, spoke to my own unformed and unarticulated alienation. I had not been particularly interested in music, music mostly heard and sung in the obligatory junior high school music class, but this was different, this got my hormonal horrors in gear. I stayed in Alex’s room listening half the night as he told me above when he had first heard such and such a song.

Although the age gap between Alex and I was formidable, he was out the door originally even before I knew him since at that point we were the only two in the house all the others in college or on their own he became something of a mentor to me on the ins and out of rock and roll once I showed an interest. From that night on it was not just a question of say, why Jailhouse Rock should be in the big American Songbook but would tell me about who or what had influenced rock and roll. He was the first to tell me about what had happened in Memphis with a guy named Sam Phillips and his Sun Record label which minted an extraordinary number of hits by guys like Elvis, Warren Smith, Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee. When I became curious about how the sound got going, why my hands got clammy when I heard the music and I would start tapping my toes he went chapter and verse on me. Like some god-awful preacher quoting how Ike Turner, under a different name, may really have been the granddaddy of rock with his Rocket 88 and how obscure guys like Louis Jordan, Big Joe Turner and Willie Lomax and their big bop rhythm and blues was one key element. Another stuff from guys like Hack Devine, Warren Smith and Lenny Larson who took the country flavor and melted it down to its essence. Got rid of the shlock. Alex though did surprise me with the thing he thought got our toes tapping-these guys, Elvis, Chuck, Jerry Lee, Buddy Holly and a whole slew of what I would later call good old boys took their country roots not the Grand Ole Opry stuff but the stuff they played at the red barn dances down in the hills and hollows come Saturday night and mixed it with some good old fashion religion stuff learned through bare-foot Baptists or from the black churches and created their “jailbreak” music.

One night Alex startled me while we were listening to an old Louvain Brothers song, I forget which one, when he said “daddy’s music” meaning that our father who had come from down in deep down in the mud Appalachia had put the stuff in our genes. He didn’t call it DNA I don’t’ think he knew the term and I certainly didn’t but that was the idea. I resisted the idea then, and for a long time after but sisters and brothers look at the selections that accompany this so-called think piece the whole thing is clear now. I, we are our father’s sons after all. Alex knew that early on I only grabbed the idea lately-too late since our father he has been gone a long time now.

Alex had the advantage of being the oldest son of a man who also had grown up as the oldest son in his family brood of I think eleven. (Since I, we never met any of them when my father came North to stay for good after being discharged from the Marine as hard Pacific War military service, I can’t say much about that aspect of why my father doted on his oldest son.) That meant a lot, meant that Dad confided as much as a quiet, sullen hard-pressed man could or would confide in a youngster. All I know is that sitting down at the bottom of the food chain (I will laugh “clothes chain” too as the recipient of every older brother, sister too when I was too young to complain or comprehend set of ragamuffin clothing) he was so distant that we might well have been just passing strangers. Alex, for example, knew that Dad had been in a country music trio which worked the Ohio River circuit, that river dividing Ohio and Kentucky up north far from hometown Hazard, yes, that Hazard of legend and song whenever anybody speaks of the hardscrabble days of the coal mine civil wars that went on down there before the war, before World War II. I don’t know what instrument he played although I do know that he had a guitar tucked under his bed that he would play when he had a freaking minute in the days when he was able to get work.

That night Alex also mentioned something that hit home once he mentioned it. He said that Dad who tinkered a little fixing radios, a skill learned from who knows where although apparently his skill level was not enough to get him a job in that industry, figured out a way to get WAXE out of I think Wheeling, West Virginia which would play old country stuff 24/7 and that he would always have that station on in the background when he was doing something. Had stopped doing that at some point before I recognized the country-etched sound but Alex said he was spoon-fed on some of the stuff, citing Warren Smith and Smiley Jamison particularly, as his personal entre into the country roots of one aspect of the rock and roll craze. Said further that he was not all that shocked when say Elvis’s It’s All Right Mama went off the charts since he could sense that country beat up-tempo a little from what Smith had been fooling around with, Carl Perkins too he said. They were what he called “good old boys” who were happy as hell that they had enough musical skills at the right time so they didn’t have to stick around the farm or work in some hardware store in some small town down South.

Here is the real shocker, well maybe not shocker, but the thing that made Alex’s initial so-called DNA thought make sense. When Alex was maybe six or seven Dad would be playing something on the guitar, just fooling around when he started playing Hank Williams’ mournful lost love Cold, Cold Heart. Alex couldn’t believe his ears and asked Dad to play it again. He would for years after all the way to high school when Dad had the guitar out and he was around request that Dad play that tune. I probably heard the song too. So, yeah, maybe that DNA business is not so far off. And maybe, just maybe, over fifty years later we are still our father’s sons. Thanks, Dad.

The selection posted here culled from the merciful YouTube network thus represents one of the key pieces of music that drove the denizens of the Generation of ’68 and their stepchildren. And maybe now their grandchildren.

[Alex and I had our ups and downs over the years and as befits a lawyer and journalist our paths seldom passed except for occasional political things where we were on the same wavelength like with the defense of Army whistle-blower Chelsea Manning (formerly Bradley). Indicative though of our closeness despite distance in 2017 when Alex had a full head of steam up about putting together a collective corner boy memoir in honor of the late Markin after a business trip to San Francisco where he went to a museum exhibition featuring the seminal Summer of Love, 1967 he contacted me for the writing, editing and making sure of the production values.]

Armies Of The Night, Oops, Armies Of The Day- The October 21, 2018 Women’s March On The Pentagon-Another Sam Eaton And Ralph Morris Story From The Archives

By Frank Jackman

Ralph Morris and Sam Eaton have never been skimpy about doing things for the cause, the cause for them some peace in this wicked old world, some end to the endless wars their county, their America is embroiled in, leading to wicked out of whack U.S. military budgets that are wasteful and wanton. It was not always like that for this pair-they were as patriotic as any other 1960s citizen having in Ralph’s case served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam during the hellish times in 1967 and 1968. Sam Eaton not thinking much about the war since he had a serious childhood leg deformation and therefore was militarily unfit had his sad epiphany when his best friend Jeff Mullins had sent him a letter begging him that if anything happened to him in Vietnam to tell everybody who would listen to oppose the damn war against peasants who were fighting for their land and independence and we had no rationale quarrel with them.

Ralph had come back from Vietnam without any illusions about what he had done, what he had watched others do to people he had no quarrel with and Jeff Mullins had not returned from the war. This unlikely pairing despite both being from serious working-class backgrounds and hence tight in some matters met in the field of fire down in Washington, D.C. on May 1971 where they “met” in Robert Kennedy Stadium not for a professional game but having been rounded up in a police sweep on the streets when they were among thousands who had decided to up the ante and try to shut down the government if it would not shut down the war. Those were desperate times for anti-war advocates, Ralph ha gone down there with a contingent from Vietnam Veterans Against The War (VVAW) from the Albany area. The area where he grew up and Sam had come down with a cohort of radicals from Cambridge near where he grew up in Carver (at one time the cranberry bog capital of the world he would tell everybody who would listen.

That meeting, better meeting of the minds would last until this day through thick and thin. Both men had raised families and that had curtailed their activities somewhat over the years. They would not meet sometimes for extended periods of time but they always felt a bond that time and distance would not, could not break. Ralph had joined Veterans for Peace in the early part of the 21^st century and Sam had joined as an associate so a lot of the events they went to were under the black and white dove-etched flags of that organization. As they had come of retirement age, Ralph turning over the high end electronics business his father had started to his youngest son and Sam’s his printing business over to a trusted employee they had become if anything more active as the times demanded their efforts what with endless wars, bloated military budgets and cuts in necessary social programs rocking the country well beyond even the most egregious acts of the Vietnam War governments. Ralph would make Sam laugh when he suggested that they buy a condo in Washington they were down there so much lately back in June around the Poor Peoples Campaign.

That endless war, endless increase in the military budgets and the endless cuts in social programs (and add in general boorishness of the governments of late) made them prime subjects for any event that would highlight those issues. During the summer of 2018 they had seen during one march or other an advertisement calling for a women’s march on the Pentagon in October. Actually the exact days of the 1967 actions, October 20^th and 21^st. The call issued by antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan. The combination of the name Cindy Sheehan and March of the Pentagon sent flashes through their minds. Cindy Sheehan whatever her subsequent trajectory, not all for the better, earned a lot of “street cred,” an important characteristic to them when she almost single-handedly revived the peace movement, the anti-Iraq opposition when that war turned into another long-term American military quagmire when she “camped out” down at George W. Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas back in 2005-2006 looking for answers to one question-why was her son killed in Iraq when there was no rational reason to have gone into that benighted country in the first place since there were no weapons of mass destruction on the premises. That got a lot of peace activists, including Ralph and Sam, back on track after a period of quiescence after the invasion was started despite mass opposition. No, forget “back on track” shamed them back onto the streets. Her name alone was enough for them to make plans.

Sam, the reader and writer of the pair, although Ralph had plenty of ideas in his own right and on those occasions would do himself proud with whatever “think piece” he would put together, had been indifferent to the anti-war movement as mentioned before in 1967 and of course Ralph had been in Vietnam then so neither for their respective reasons had been involved in the original march on the Pentagon that year. Sam had actually later read Norman Mailer’s account of his part the action, his self-serving part in the award-winning Armies of the Night and despite some of Mailer’s over the top language in explaining the course of events had at that point wished he had been part of the action which included many acts of civil disobedience when got those, including Mailer himself, a taste of federal or local justice. (This “later” after Sam had, and Ralph too their own fair share of arrest for acts of non-violent civil disobedience.)

When the pair discussed the up-coming action they knew, given the marginal condition of the active anti-war/peace movement that there would be no literati like Mailer, Dwight MacDonald from Partisan Review and a fistful of other writerly types. No glitterati like William Sloane Coffin and Doc Spock, they of draft resistance fame for which they would stand trial. And no known heavy politicos like Allan Ginsberg OMing the building to the mist of mind, Abbie Hoffman “levitating” the place or even left-liberal types and if things of late ran true to form despite a deluge of press releases no mainstream press (although they knew from Boston/Albany/New York City/ Washington D.C. experience there would be plenty of student journalists sent by their professors to hone their skills on the cheap to people talking to like Ralph and Sam who had learned that talking “to the kids” would hone their own interviewing skills at least giving some pithy line worthy of the mainstream press-if they had bothered to show up. The long and short of it was that this pair were pumped to go do battle against Moloch on its terms and see what came of it.

Only to be for one of the few times in their long and sometimes lonely anti-war careers disappointed or rather perplexed at what had been so promising but which was by any standard a bust. There would be no blame placed, although some scuttlebutt placed blame on the lack of organization, lack of a united front with other peace and social action groups beyond Ms. Sheehan’s name, lack of proper publicity and lack of dramatic effect. Both men had come down by plane from Boston, gone were the days when they would think nothing of the ten hour drive from either Albany or Boston, think nothing of having to go through or around bitch New York City traffic, think nothing of sleeping on church floors sleeping bag in hand, think nothing of the gruel provided for food, thinking nothing of no sleep for three days running of necessary. But poor bladders, poor eyesight, poor energy levels and a little sense that bourgeois flight was not so bad for the soul after all that had made that previous mode of travel outmoded. Even the million bus rides were out for those same reasons.

The plan of action was for the “masses” to meet at Pentagon City Metro stop which Sam knew from previous trips down was the perfect place to meet to head to the Pentagon a mile or two away. But that meeting spot should have also rung bells in their ears because no way would the place take a mass march. And it didn’t since perhaps three or four hundred, at the outside five, people showed up before the noon starting time (which for one of the few times in anti-war march history actually did go off around that time-both men thinking that fact amazing). (By Sam’s count there between police and military far more of them than demonstrators which is a sad commentary on the state of the peace movement as refracted trough this event. The march route was fairly short by Washington march standards but the route, the Sunday-driven route, meant that there would be nothing but empty parking lots that ring the building to greet the crowd. In the event the march ended at the North Parking lot and the dwindling crowd ( a “choir” crowd so once the march was completed there was drift since the line-up of speakers and performers in the vast empty parking lot, mercifully though with a sizable number of port-a- johns for the AARP-worthy crowd was not enough to hold those who had heard it all before) heard what they expected to hear from anti-warrior veterans and performers.

If this was to be the jump-off to a new revived anti-war movement like the 1967 Pentagon march had been this did not go down well with two long-time activists. If this was that start-please have mercy. They left the place late that afternoon scratching their heads searching for answers-no doubt about that hard fact

Presidio 27 "Mutiny" 50 years later Podcast with Keith Mather

Courage to Resist<refuse@couragetoresist.org>

9/2/2018 4:54 PM

Presidio 27 "Mutiny" 50 years later
Podcast with Keith Mather

During the Vietnam War era, the Presidio Stockade was a military prison notorious for its poor conditions and overcrowding with many troops imprisoned for refusing to fight in the Vietnam War. When Richard Bunch, a mentally disturbed prisoner, was shot and killed on October 11th, 1968, Presidio inmates began organizing. Three days later, 27 Stockade prisoners broke formation and walked over to a corner of the lawn, where they read a list of grievances about their prison conditions and the larger war effort and sang “We Shall Overcome.” The prisoners were charged and tried for “mutiny,” and several got 14 to 16 years of confinement. Meanwhile, disillusionment about the Vietnam War continued to grow inside and outside of the military.

“This was for real. We laid it down, and the response by the commanding general changed our lives,” recalls Keith Mather, Presidio “mutineer” who escaped to Canada before his trial came up and lived there for 11 years, only to be arrested upon his return to the United States. Mather is currently a member of the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of Veterans for Peace. Listen to the Courage to Resist podcast with Keith.

D O N A T E
towards a world without war

50th anniversary events at the former Presidio Army Base
October 13th & 14th, 2018

PANEL DISCUSSION
Saturday, October 13, 7 to 9 pm
Presidio Officers’ Club
50 Moraga Ave, San Francisco

Featuring panelists: David Cortright (peace scholar), Brendan Sullivan (attorney for mutineers), Randy Rowland (mutiny participant), Keith Mather (mutiny participant), and Jeff Paterson (Courage to Resist).

ON SITE COMMEMORATION
Sunday, October 14, 1 to 3 pm
Fort Scott Stockade
1213 Ralston (near Storey), San Francisco

The events are sponsored by the Presidio Land Trust in collaboration with Veterans For Peace Chapter 69-San Francisco with support from Courage to Resist.

More information

D O N A T E
to support resistance

COURAGE TO RESIST ~ SUPPORT THE TROOPS WHO REFUSE TO FIGHT!
484 Lake Park Ave #41, Oakland, California 94610 ~ 510-488-3559
www.couragetoresist.org ~ facebook.com/couragetoresist

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- When Woody Allen Ruled The Social Satire (And Adult Angst) Night

Short Film Clips

From an American Left History blog review of Woody Allen’s Annie Hall-

… Hey, haven’t I already reviewed this movie. No, sorry that was Manhattan another in the line of very witty Woody Allen movies. But the point is this it is the same subject that Woody addressed there even though chronologically Annie Hall came first by a couple of years and received the lion’s share of kudos and awards. As virtually always Allen is intent upon commenting on New York life and its intellectual trends and the ups and downs of relationships, mainly with women. Here he adds a flourish by contrasting old New York (in the 1970’s) to up and coming California as the cultural mecca of the American empire. And, as should be the case, New York wins.

Add to that the perennial issue of Woody’s struggle with ‘interpersonal’ relationships and his angst-driven desire to understand the modern world and you have a very fine social commentary of the times. Needless to say Woody’s love interest Annie Hall (as played by his then paramour Diane Keaton) keeps him hopping. As does an ensemble cast that works well together as foils for his ironic and savage humor. The only surprise in revisiting this film recently is how well Keaton plays her role as an up and coming torch singer. Of course, I have always been a sucker for torch singers but that is another matter. Some of the humor may seem dated and very 1970’s New Yorkish. Some of Woody’s mannerism and use of sight gags may seem like old news. But this is a film to watch or re-watch if you have seen it before.

And hence…

LA –NYC Culture Wars, Part II

Hollywood Ending, Woody Allen

As I noted in a review last year of Woody Allen’s classic Annie Hall, that is among other things a defense of New York City as the cultural epicenter American culture such as it is, this is matter that has preoccupied him from early in his career as a director/ writer/actor/comic. Allen is the quintessential New Yorker so one knows where his sledge hammer will fall. In the current movie under review Hollywood Ending that same premise underlies his story line as he, once again, portrays on screen the trials and tribulations of trying to maintain some kind of artistic integrity in the world of Hollywood commercial filmmaking.

The plot here centers on Allen’s character Val Waxman, an aging has-been director given another chance by, of all people, his ex-wife getting paralyzed by the prospects of failure, hubris etc. to such an extent that he has become temporarily blind. Nevertheless in the interest of comedy and his career (and their careers, as well) Val and his friends con their way through the filming of the remake of a 1940’s film about New York City that is to be the key to his comeback. Along the way Allen gets to get his licks in on Hollywood culture, commercial filmmaking and the funny premise that commercial films are so dumb, for the most part, that a blind man is entirely capable of making a bad film, just like most other directors. Interesting film and, as always, full of autobiographical references, Allen’s trademark cerebral humor and his extensive use of sight gags. Well worth a look see.

Monday, November 26, 2018

The Next Voice You Hear - Hank Snow

When The King Of Rock And Roll Held Forth In The Acre Section Of North Adamsville -And Made It Stick-In Honor Of The Generation Of ’68-Or Those Who Graced Wild Child Part Of It -On That Old Hill-Billy Father Moment

By Zack James

Tommy Collins I Guess I'm Crazy-When The King Of Rock And Roll Held Forth In The Acre Section Of North Adamsville -And Made It Stick-In Honor Of The Generation Of ’68-Or Those Who Graced Wild Child Part Of It -On That Old Hill-Billy Father Moment

Kitty Wells - How Far Is HeavenWhen The King Of Rock And Roll Held Forth In The Acre Section Of North Adamsville -And Made It Stick-In Honor Of The Generation Of ’68-Or Those Who Graced Wild Child Part Of It -On That Old Hill-Billy Father Moment

When You're A Jet You're A Jet All The Way-The Centennial Of Conductor-Composer Leonard Bernstein's Birthday

By Seth Garth-I don't know much about Leonard Bernstein but I do know West Side Story and can relate from my old corner boy days when we defended our turf just as fervently as any New York City kid.

Honor Native American Heritage Month In Real Way- Damn It- President Trump Pardon Native American Leader Leonard Peltier Now-He Must Not Die In Prison!

Honor Native American Heritage Month In Real Way- Damn It- President Trump Pardon Native American Leader Leonard Peltier Now-He Must Not Die In Prison!

Statement by the Committee For International Labor Defense

Now that the bid by Amnesty International and others nationally and internationally seeking to get former President Barack Obama to pardon Leonard Peltier have gone for nought we supporters are between a rockand a hard place. The denial notice was for very flimsy reasons despite the fact that even the prosecutor does not know who killed those two FBI agents in a firefight at Pine Ridge. Hell it could have been friendly forces who knows sometimes in a war zone, and that was exactly what that situation was, who knows. (For a current example of another war zone on Native lands check the story on what the various local,state, federal and mercenary forces brought in by the pipe line company at Standing Rock. One false move, provoked or not, would have ended in a bloodbath according to a well-respected Vietnam veteran who along with a few thousand other vets showed up to defend the lands and water and thought he was in the Central Highlands again.)

All we know is that Brother Peltier has spent forty some years behind bars and has a slew of medical problems which would have let Obama pardon just on compassionate grounds. He didn't. Don't expect, we almost have to laugh even saying such a thing, one Donald J.Trump, POTUS, and maybe off to jail himself to pardon Leonard Peltier before his term of office is up.

Still Leonard Peltier along with Mumia Abu-Jamal and now Reality Leigh Winner are America's best known political prisoners and need to be supported and freed. To that end we in Boston have committed ourselves to as best we are able to continue ot keep the Peltier case in the public eye by holding periodic vigils calling for his pardon and freedom. We call on all Leonard Peltier supporters to keep his name before the public. Free Leonard Peltier-He Must Not Die In Prison
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Latest Leaflet

We demand freedom for Leonard Peltier!

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.

Sometimes 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 Int’l Labor Defense, CForILD@gmail.com, InternationalLaborDefense.org.

In Harvard Square Cambridge, Ma Tuesday December 19^th5 PM to 6 PM The Committee For International Labor Defense (labor donated)

Free Native American Leader Leonard Peltier-Free “The Voice Of the Voiceless” Mumia Abu Jamal-Free Russian Interference Whistle-Blower Reality Leigh Winner-Hands Off Whistle-Blower Edward Snowden and all our political prisoners from this year’s 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.

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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 Int’l Labor Defense, CForILD@gmail.com, InternationalLaborDefense.org.

“Put Out The Fire In Your Head”- With Patti Griffin’s Not Alone In Mind

“Put Out The Fire In Your Head”- With Patti Griffin’s Not Alone In Mind

By Bradley Fox, Junior

[Sometimes this generational divide between parent and child that occurs naturally once the younger generation comes of age and begins to make its own way, make its own mistakes, and have its own problems grappling with day to day life in a hectic, dangerous world can only be deciphered by someone from that generation. That is the case here with the story of Sam Lowell’s youngest son, Justin. Sam told me his side of the story, really his take on Justin’s story since Sam had had little directly to do with what got Justin into his difficulties. I tried to write it up as a cautionary tale of sorts to help inform Sam’s, my generation, the generation that the late Peter Paul Markin, forever known as the Scribe as our mutual friend who passed on under mysterious circumstances down in Mexico after the 1960s had ebbed and we had lost the cultural battles, called the Generation of ’68 about what was troubling our children. I failed in that effort.

I told my son, Bradley, Junior (with Sam’s permission), who knew Justin when they were younger, the details to see if he could write something that would make sense to Sam and me about what makes their generation tick. As for the grandkids, forget it between the Internet and its subset social media and the trials and tribulations they confront in an extremely dangerous world going forward it would take, as young Bradley told me, the minds of Freud, Einstein, and Rapper Rocco combined to even know what subliminal language they were speaking. Here’s my Bradley’s take on the whole mess [BF, Senior]:

**********

Justin Lowell had been a late love child of Sam and his third wife since divorced, Rebecca, and as such, with eight years between him and the next youngest child, Brenda, and hence eight years of being the only child at home after she left for college, was pampered by Rebecca her, cocooned Sam said. And frankly had been by Sam as well although the number one thing all of his children from his three failed marriages said of him was that he was a good and generous father but he that was a distant figure always off doing some lawyerly business and not around enough to get rid of that foggy picture of him. But enough of Sam Lowell’s failings since this is about how Justin navigated the world not Sam.

Of course Justin had all the advantages that accrued to a financially successful small town lawyer’s son from living in a nice large house with his own room (and later own rooms since he took over Brenda’s as well), a good if not great college education (good since Justin was not a particularly studious type like myself and was unlike sister Brenda who gained entrance to Harvard with no problem), and all the diversions that leafy suburban life in Riverdale could bring. All through high school at Riverdale High we were very close buddies so I knew a lot about his make-up, knew too that he resented his mother’s overweening attentions (and as already mentioned Sam’ distance which Justin called indifference unlike my father who went out of his way to be attentive and was a reason why we would spent much more time at my house than his). Many nights out with hot dates we would go wherever we went together, tried out and failed to make the championship Riverdale High School football team, things like that. Mostly though we talked serious stuff about dreams and what we would do when we flew the coop, when we had what Sam and my father always called when they got together and regaled us with their stories the “great jail-break.”

Naturally after high school, members in good standing of the Riverdale High Class of 1992, when Justin went to State U and I went to NYU since I was desperate to live in New York City and breath the air there as part of my becoming a commercial artist we drew apart. Maybe we would call, see each other at Vinny’s Pizza in town and cut up old touches. That was mainly freshman year when everything was new and we were “free.” Then Justin kind of fell off my map as I got involved in some school projects and Justin from what he told me one time at Vinny’s got involved in the furious social life that dominates lots of school out in the boondocks and where kids are away from home for the first time. That was when Justin, who had hated even the idea of liquor when we were in high school and wouldn’t speak me for a while after l got Kathy Callahan drunk (and horny you can figure the rest out yourselves) on a double date, started doing drugs.

Started first I had heard on easy stuff marijuana to be sociable (Justin, me too, as much as we got along with girls were both kind of shy and inward at times which is probably why we gravitated toward each other beyond our fathers knowing each other since their youth) and bennies to stay up and study for those finals at the last moment. Later senior year I heard from Jack Jamison who had gone to high school with us and was also at State U Justin had graduated to cocaine, serious cocaine, serious enough to have to begin to do some small time dealing to keep up. He did graduate but it was a close thing, very close.

After college Justin moved to Boston to take a job in a bank, work his way up in the banking industry to make lots of money. In any case in Boston is where he met Melissa, Melissa I won’t give her last name because now she is a big deal in the college administration of an Ivy League college. He met Melissa at the Wild Rose nightclub, the one just outside of Kenmore Square. Met her and quickly came under her spell (a lot of guys had, did, would do that before she was through). Melissa, not a beauty but fetching was one of those women who loved kicks, loved the attention her desire for kicks brought. Her kick at that time was heroin which some previous lover had turned her on to. She, something of a manic-depressive as it turned out, said grass, coke, pills didn’t do it for her, didn’t put out the fire in her head, the feeling that she could never get close to anybody. (Later it also turned out that she had been sexually abused by her drunken father and had had plenty of reason to want to put the fire out in her head.) She turned a very willing Justin to smack (it goes by several names, H, snow, the lid, sweet baby, and the like we will just call it smack). See he had been having trouble adjusting to having to actually work his ass off to get ahead in the banking industry and he too needed something to put out the fire in his head.

Melissa, as far as anybody ever knew, never got seriously addicted to the smack, maybe cut it enough to keep from going to junkie heaven. Justin of course got himself a jones, a big sleep on his shoulders. He before too long got fired from his job, went on the bum, started muling down to sunny Mexico for the hard boys to maintain his habit, went back on the bum and finally got picked up by the cops on Commonwealth Avenue trying to break and enter some Mayfair swell condo. All he would tell them beside his name was that he “had to put the fire out in his head,” needed to get well or he was going to jump into the Charles River. At that point, Sam, who was clueless about his son’s drug problems as most parents are until some tripwire turns the lights on had to come into the action, had to defend his youngest son on a damn B&E charge. Got him into a “detox” program too. Did what he could without recrimination, or just a little other than bewilderment that his son would succumb to drugs.

Well I wish that I could say that Justin turned it around after that first “detox,” effort but that was not the case. He went through programs for five years before he sobered up for good, or what Sam and Rebecca thought was for good. One night I was home to see my father and to attend our twentieth anniversary class reunion when I ran into Justin on the street who said he would rather not go to the reunion since he would have to explain too many things about his life. He suggested we go into Vinny’s a few blocks up the street and have a couple of slices of pizza and a soda for old times’ sake. We did so and while we were munching away Justin explained as best he could what had happened to him. He reminded me of that night senior year when we were sitting down by the river and he had told me how much he hated his father, hated Sam, since he was such a pious bastard, was almost non-existent in his life, yet tried to be cool about his own bogus jailbreak youth like they had changed the world, like his youthful coolness made everything alright. I had forgotten about that night, had had my own small (compared to him) troubles adjusting to my own father’s whims. Then Justin said he had spent all that time since that night trying to put out the fire in his head.

Here comes the sad part, about a year later Justin met a woman, Selina, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire where he went to live to get a fresh start. They fell in love, planned to be married, and had made all the arrangements, the church, reception and all. The night before the wedding when he was out with some guys celebrating he went off the bus. Somehow he had made a connection, and before the night was over he was sitting in Prescott Park by himself as the cops came by responding to a neighbor’s disturbance call yelling “I‘ve got to put the fire in my head out, I’ve got to put the fire in my head out.”

*Honor Native American Heritage Month- Those Who Fight For Native American Leader Leonard Peltier's Freedom Are Kindred Spirits- From The Pen Of Peter Matheissen

Click on title to link to a "The New York Review Of Books" article by writer Peter Matheisssen, "The Tragedy Of Leonard Peltier vs. The United States", detailing his long personal struggle to gain freedom for Native American leader Leonard Peltier. Hats off. Leonard Peltier Must Not Die In Prison!

Honor Native American History Month- Bob Feldman 68: 'Free Leonard Peltier!'-A Guest Commentary- He Must Not Die In Jail

Click on the title to link to the "Bob Feldman 68" blog for a commentary on Leonard Peltier.

Markin comment:

This space had as one of its original intents,and continues to do so today, of propagandizing the plight of class war prisoners. Native American leader Leonard Peltier's story, without question, is a prime example of vagaries of the American 'justice' system. Those, like Bob Feldman, who publicize his case are kindred spirits. Again, Leonard Peltier must not die in jail!