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
Two years ago they said Medicare for All would be impossible, but thanks to you, Rep. Pramila Jayapal just introduced the Medicare for All Act of 2019 with more than 100 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives!
Our Revolution members and supporters and allies have hosted hundreds of Medicare for All barnstorms around the country, volunteers have have sent hundreds of thousands of text messages, and knocked on hundreds of doors.
Medicare for All will guarantee access to health care with comprehensive benefits, without premiums, co-pays or deductibles. It will improve Medicare for older adults and people with disabilities, and include dental, vision, prescription drugs, and long-term care. This legislation will reduce health care spending and the cost of prescription drugs.
71 million people in America are uninsured or underinsured. GoFundMe pages are full of stories of families literally begging to be able to receive life-saving care. It doesn’t have to be this way.
This was the limit. That exact thought and no other crossed Louise Crawford’s mind as she fumed, fumed for the third time that week waiting, waiting for his lordship, his budding poet lordship, to show up sometime in the next decade so that he could take her to the Red Hat where the Earl and the boys were playing some heavy noted jazz that week. No, no Crawford (yes that Crawford of the Wall Street financiers Crawford she, Louise the youngest daughter, twenty-two, if anybody was asking) was ever on this great earth to be kept waiting, for anything under any circumstances, and she would make that abundantly clear to him when he arrived, if he did arrive. (Of course, she recognized the double-standard, although only recognized it and would not be enslaved to it any more than any other twenty-two year old woman would be, that she was more than willing to play her own fashionably late card when it suited her, especially among her old boarding school friends who made something of a science of the custom.)
She, moreover, did not care, did not care one whit, that he, Jesse to give him a name, was somebody’s protégé , some friend of Mabel Dodge’s granddaughter or something like that, and the greatest poet, the greatest black poet since, what was his name, oh yes, Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance back in the Jazz Age or something (not real jazz, not from what she had heard on old records but more stuff to please the booze-swilling patrons, not like today with Earl, and walking daddies like Earl, and their cool, ultra-cool be-bop, be-bop sound). She had had her full string of Greenwich Village hipsters, or want-to-be- hipsters,of every variety and she had had a veritable United Nations of lovers from the time she had turned eighteen and learned the karma sutra arts (and liked them) from poet prince Jesse back to Bob, the Jewish folksinger, and before him, Jim the jug band guy, and let’s see, Julio the painter, Michelangelo the sculptor (no, not that old time one), Betty, the writer (just a crush and trying something new when some guy, a trumpet player so it figured, introduced her to sister and to some low-life sex stuff), Lothario the high-wire artist and juggler, and, well you know, a lot of very interesting people.
Of course Jesse was her first negro, oops, black lover. (She remembered one night when she called him that, negro, “the greatest Negro poet since Langston Hughes,” when she introduced him to friends at a party and later he yelled holy hell at her saying that he was a black man, a black son of Mother Africa and that his people were creating stuff, human progress stuff, when her people were figuring out how to use a spoon, and trying to figure out why anyone would use such a thing if they could figure it out. He said if he was in Mexico or Spain and was called that it would be okay, okay maybe, but in America he was black, a sable warrior, black. And had been black since Pharaoh times. Later that night he wrote his well-received In Pharaoh Times to blow of the madness steam he still felt toward her). And being her first black lover she gave him some room knowing that he was an artist, and he really was good in bed but this standing up thing was just not done, not done to a Crawford and so she determined that she would give him his walking papers.
Just then she remembered, remembered the last time, that second time he, Jesse, had kept her waiting and the next day, as an act of contrition, he had written his lovely poem Louise Love In Quiet Timefor her that some Village poetry journal was all aflutter to publish (and that she had re-read constantly). So maybe tonight she would not give him his walking papers…
Jazzonia
Oh, silver tree! Oh, shining rivers of the soul!
In a Harlem cabaret Six long-headed jazzers play. A dancing girl whose eyes are bold Lifts high a dress of silken gold.
Oh, singing tree! Oh, shining rivers of the soul!
Were Eve's eyes In the first garden Just a bit too bold? Was Cleopatra gorgeous In a gown of gold?
Oh, shining tree! Oh, silver rivers of the soul!
In a whirling cabaret Six long-headed jazzers play.
When President Trump's former lawyer and convicted felon Michael Cohen testified before Congress on Wednesday, he provided evidence for charges that we at RootsAction have been making as part of our impeachment campaign for a very long time.
It's not Cohen calling Trump a racist, a con man, and a cheat that matters here. It's not Trump having had mistresses. It's Trump having illegally sought to influence an electionby buying people's silence. And so much more.
We now want to redouble our efforts to compel Congress to act, but that will require paying our bills. To do that, we still need $7,000 by March 1.
There is an opening now to push Congress forwardon many of the 18 articles of impeachment we have drafted and spent the last two years educating people about. These include the following offenses:
Interference with voting rights
Discrimination based on religion
Failure to prepare for and reasonably respond to Hurricanes Harvey and Maria
Separating children and infants from their parents
Inciting racist violence
Congressman Elijah Cummings stressed to Cohen on Wednesday that Congress would not tolerate lying. Cohen is headed to prison for having previously lied to Congress. But Cohen had lied to Congress to cover up impeachable offenses by Trump. The offenses, and the lies, have been exposed. Yet Trump has not been impeached — and he behaves as though he believes he has been granted immunity.
RootsAction.org is committed to moving Congress to act. We've built up an enormous team of online activists, educators, and agitators for justice.
But we cannot keep going, much less growing, without your help. Please contribute what you can — and we'll make the best use possible of the month ahead to put the power of impeachment back into the U.S. Constitution, from which many seem to believe it has been removed.
P.S. RootsAction is an independent online force endorsed by Jim Hightower, Barbara Ehrenreich, Cornel West, Daniel Ellsberg, Glenn Greenwald, Naomi Klein, Bill Fletcher Jr., Laura Flanders, former U.S. Senator James Abourezk, Frances Fox Piven, Lila Garrett, Phil Donahue, Sonali Kolhatkar, and many others.
The American people deserve a president who doesn’t go around the country begging millionaires and billionaires for campaign donations.
Because as reckless as some of these Wall Street, pharmaceutical, and fossil fuel executives are, they are not stupid. They know what they are doing. And the untold amounts of money they will put into this election are a down payment to protect their profits and their immoral, corrupt business practices.
You may have already seen stories about super PACs gearing up, pharma executives hosting fundraisers, and megadonors picking their preferred candidates.
That’s not us. It will never be us. That is not how this campaign is going to be funded.
There is only one way we are going to fund this campaign — and that is with the help of people like you. That’s it. Mostly from emails like this. That’s how we will raise the money it will take to win. But it also means from time to time we have to ask. And today is one of those days.
We are aiming to receive more than 400,000 individual donations before the end of this month. It’ll be tough, but meeting tough challenges and goals is what the spirit of this campaign is all about.
As you go, we go, Alfred. So thank you for chipping in.
President Trump Pardon Imprisoned
Whistle-Blower Reality Leigh Winner Stand- Out (And Pardon AIM Leader Leonard
Peltier Too) Part Street Station Redline MBTA Stop-12-1 PM Saturday March 2,
2019
We Will Not Leave Reality Leigh
Winner Behind - Join the call of Stand with Reality, Veterans for Peace,
Courage to Resist, Code Pink, About Face, Roots Action, Freedom of the Press
Foundation and many other organizations for a pardon by President Trump. Leonard Peltier who is very sick has
been in prison for over forty years charged with murder even the prosecutors
are not sure who committed it when the Feds stormed Pine Ridge Reservation in
the 1970s. A previous pardon appeal to President Obama before he left office in
2017 failed but we must continue to pursue this course of action. Go to Leonard
Peltier. Org for details on this case.
***** Ms. Winner had been charged under the
Espionage Act, a 100-year-old statute originally designed for spies and
saboteurs aiding foreign governments in time of war to The Intercept, an on-line news organization. On June 26, 2018 Ms. Winner
entered a guilty plea to the espionage charge in the Federal District Court of
Georgia in Augusta and on August 23, 2018 she was sentenced to sixty-three
months in jail and three years of supervised probation thereafter. That leaves
a presidential pardon or commutation of sentence as the only serious remedies
left. This is the stiffest sentence ever
given to a civilian whistle-blower. We believe the sentence against Ms.
Winner is grossly disproportionate to her offense and is designed to create a
chilling effect on investigative journalism by dissuading sources from sharing
information that is critical to the public interest. For more information about
the Winner case go to StandWithReality.org.
Under Article II, Section 2 The
President… shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses
against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment. We urge you to
come stand with us at Park Street Station on March 2nd at 12 noon
for an hour prior to the weekly peace vigil held there If you can’t please add
your signature to the pardon campaign -timing is important: Pardon Reality Winner bit.ly/pardonreality
SACRIFICIO-WHO BETRAYED CHE GUEVARA, A DOCUMENTARY, 2001
This year marks the 54th anniversary of the Cuban July 26th movement, the 48th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution and the 40th anniversary of the execution of Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara by the Bolivian Army after the defeat of his guerilla forces and his capture in godforsaken rural Bolivia. Thus, it would seem fitting to review a documentary concerning the life of a man who stood for my generation, the Generation of 68, and for later generations as an icon of revolutionary intransigence.
That is what I would like to do but this hour long documentary left me with more questions than it answered. Mainly I asked myself why, at this far remove from the events, it is necessary to find scapegoats or heroes around Che’s capture. Sure, we always search for historical accuracy where we can. And we know that history can be a terrible taskmaster. However, I am not convinced that the supposed victim here Ciro Busto, one of Che’s subordinates, who has been named in some historical accounts as the man who tipped the Bolivian authorities to Che’s presence in Bolivia, has made his case. Nor, for that matter, has the other subject of this research Regis Debray, although he seems to have won the historical argument. Moreover, it is entirely possible that others could have betrayed Che's presence, including local peasants, or that rather than betrayal it was a question or erroneous judgments. That is my position. In any case, both Busto and Debray were tried and received 30 year sentences and after an international campaign served three years. Furthermore, all I know is that with the death of Che a real revolutionary fighter went down. The only winner here was the American government and its various agents.
A word on a couple of the people interviewed here. One Felix Rodriquez of Bay of Pigs and Iran Contra infamy, a notorious soldier of fortune gets to put his two cents worth in since he was in on the capture of Che. Mark this- this is the rank and file face of the enemy of the peoples of the world and believe what he has to say at your peril. The second is Debray himself. Whatever his mistakes that led to Che’s capture may have been and I believe that they were, if anything, errors of judgment in Bolivia he is now a case study in the demise of revolutionary integrity that swamped the Generation of ’68 once the revolutionary wave ebbed. Debray was no mere maverick leftist journalist but essentially Fidel’s man in Europe in the 1960's. For those with short memories, or who were not alive then, Debray authored a book called Revolution Within the Revolution, a book that debunked the traditional Marxist notions of the centrality of the urban working class as the focal point of revolution and touted the ‘purity’ of the guerilla strategy as the way forward toward socialism. Of course this petty bourgeois professorial ‘philosopher’ now has political amnesia on that subject. Unfortunately, many a Latin American youth wound up dead or in prison trying to fight for that perspective. Honor their sacrifice. No honor to Debray from these quarters.
We are disappointed but not disheartened by the failure of the summit between President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong-un to reach an agreement. Early indications are that the U.S. moved the goal posts at the insistence of National Security Advisor John Bolton.
Even without an agreement at the summit, diplomacy has already done far more to advance the security of the U.S. and the Koreas than economic coercion and threats of military force ever have. It is now more essential than ever for diplomacy to intensify and for working meetings to develop a roadmap of reciprocal steps which would result in a peace treaty to end the Korean war, elimination of sanctions on North Korea, intensified family reunifications, civil society and economic contacts, and denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. It is critical that the Administration not return to the threats and "fire and fury" pronouncements of 2017.
The Korean War was never officially ended through a peace agreement. Direct conflict ended with the signing of an Armistice Agreement in 1953, but North Korea, South Korea, and the U.S. have still officially been at war since 1950, and heavily armed forces confront each other across the DMZ, threatening the lives of 80 million Koreans and those in neighboring counties.
This critical new resolution, H.Res.152, calls for the conclusion of a binding peace agreement constituting a formal end to the state of war between our nations, and calls for urgent diplomatic engagement toward this effort.
Massachusetts Peace Action has joined with Korean-Americans and other peace advocates in Massachusetts to form the Massachusetts Korea Peace Campaign. The MAKPC delivered letters with over 200 signatures to Massachusetts members of Congress last week, advocating a permanent peace treaty and other measures to relax tensions. Read the letter and sign it if you haven’t already.
We are disappointed but not disheartened by the failure of the summit between President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong-un to reach an agreement. Early indications are that the U.S. moved the goal posts at the insistence of National Security Advisor John Bolton. 
