From #Un-Occupied Boston (#Un-Tomemonos Boston)-General Assembly-An Embryo Of An Alternate Government Gone Wrong-What Happens When We Do Not Learn The Lessons Of History- The Pre-1848 Socialist Movement-The works of Auguste Blanqui 1834-Who Makes the Soup Should Eat It

Click on the headline to link to the Occupy Boston General Assembly Minutes website. Occupy Boston started at 6:00 PM, September 30, 2011.

Markin comment:

I will post any updates from that site if there are any serious discussions of the way forward for the Occupy movement or, more importantly, any analysis of the now atrophied and dysfunctional General Assembly concept. In the meantime I will continue with the “Lessons From History “ series started in the Fall of 2011 with Karl Marx’s The Civil War In France-1871 (The defense of the Paris Commune). Right now this series is focused on the European socialist movement before the Revolutions of 1848.
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An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupy Movement And All Occupiers! Drop All Charges Against All Occupy Protesters Everywhere!

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Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
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A Five-Point Program As Talking Points

*Jobs For All Now!-“30 For 40”- A historic demand of the labor movement. Thirty hours work for forty hours pay to spread the available work around. Organize the unorganized- Organize the South- Organize Wal-Mart- Defend the right for public and private workers to unionize.

* Defend the working classes! No union dues for Democratic (or the stray Republican) candidates. Spent the dough instead on organizing the unorganized and on other labor-specific causes (good example, the November, 2011 anti-union recall referendum in Ohio, bad example the Wisconsin gubernatorial recall race in June 2012).

*End the endless wars!- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops (And Mercenaries) From Afghanistan! Hands Off Pakistan! Hands Off Iran! U.S. Hands Off The World!

*Fight for a social agenda for working people!. Quality Healthcare For All! Nationalize the colleges and universities under student-teacher-campus worker control! Forgive student debt! Stop housing foreclosures!

*We created the wealth, let’s take it back. Take the struggle for our daily bread off the historic agenda. Build a workers party that fights for a workers government to unite all the oppressed.

Emblazon on our red banner-Labor and the oppressed must rule!


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The works of Auguste Blanqui 1834-Who Makes the Soup Should Eat It

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Source: Auguste Blanqui, Textes Choisis, avec preface et notes par V.P. Volguine, Editions Sociales, Paris, 1971;
Translated: for marxists.org by Mitchell Abidor;
CopyLeft: Creative Commons (Attribute & ShareAlike) marxists.org 2004.


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Wealth is born of intelligence and labor. But these two forces can only act with the aid of a passive element – the land, which they put to work by their combined efforts. It thus seems that this indispensable instrument should belong to all men. Such is not the case.

Individuals have taken over common land by ruse or violence, declaring themselves its owners; they have established by law that it will always be theirs, and that the right to property will become the foundation of the social constitution; which is to say that it will come before and, if need be, absorb all human rights, even that to life, if it has the ill fortune to find itself in conflict with the privilege of a small number.

The right to property has extended itself by logical deduction from the land to other instruments: the accumulated products of labor, designated by the generic name of capital. Since capital, sterile in and of itself can only fructify through labor, and , on the other hand, since it is the primary matter worked on by social forces, the majority, excluded from its possession, finds itself condemned to forced labor, to the profit of the possessing minority. Neither the instruments nor the fruits of labor belong to the workers, but to the idlers. The gluttonous branches absorb the tree’s sap, to the detriment of the fertile boughs. The hornets devour the honey created by the bees.

Such is our social order, founded on conquest, which has divided populations into victors and vanquished. The logical consequence of such an organization is slavery. And we didn’t have to wait long for its arrival. In fact, with land acquiring value only from cultivation, the privileged have drawn the conclusion that, thanks to the right to own land, they also have that to own the human livestock that makes it fertile. In the first place they have considered it as a complement to their domain but, in the final analysis, they see it as personal property, independent of the land.

Nevertheless, the principle of equality, engraved in the depths of the heart, and which conspires, with the centuries, to destroy the exploitation of man by man in all its forms, delivered the first blow to the sacrilegious right to property by smashing slavery. Privilege was forced to reduce itself to the possession of men not as furniture, but as real estate auxiliary to, and inseparable from, real estate in the form of land.

In the 16th century a deadly rebirth of oppression brought about the enslavement of blacks; and even today the inhabitants of a land reputed to be French own men in the same way as clothing and horses. There is, in fact, less of a difference than meets the eye between our state and that of the colonies. After eighteen centuries of war between privilege and equality the homeland, theatre and principal champion of this struggle, could not put up with slavery in its naked brutality. But the fact exists in name, and the right to property, while more hypocritical in Paris than in Martinique, is neither less inflexible nor less oppressive.

In fact, servitude does not consist solely in being a man’s thing, or a lord’s serf. He is not free who, deprived of the instruments of labor, remains at the mercy of the privileged who are their owners. This is the state that feeds revolt. In order to exorcise this peril they try to reconcile Cain with Abel. From the necessity of capital as an instrument of labor they go on to conclude in the community of interests, and then to that of solidarity between the capitalist and the worker. How many artistically embroidered phrases there are on this canvas! The lamb is shorn for his own health. It owes thanks. Our Aesculapiuses know how to sugar-coat the pill.

There are still some who are fooled by these homilies, but they are few. Each day the light shines brighter on this so-called association of the parasite and its victim. But the facts are eloquent; they prove the duel, the duel to the death, between revenue and salary. It’s a question of justice and good sense. Let’s examine the situation.

There is no society without labor! What’s more, there exist no idlers who do not have need of workers. But what need do workers have of idlers? Is capital only productive in the workers’ hands on condition that it not belong to them? I imagine the proletariat, deserting en masse, taking its tools and its labor to some distant land. Would it by chance die due to the absence of its masters? Can the new society only come about by creating lords of the land and of capital, in handing over to a caste of idlers the ownership of all the instruments of labor? Is there no other social mechanism possible but this division of owners and the salaried?

On the other hand, how curious it would be to see the expression on the faces of our proud lords abandoned by their slaves. What would be done with their palaces, their workshops, their deserted fields? Would they die of hunger in the midst of their riches, or would they put on work clothes, take up the pick and, in their turn, humbly sweat on some plot of land? How much would all of them cultivate?

But a people of 32 million souls doesn’t retire to Mount Aventine. Let us then take the opposite and more realizable hypothesis. One fine day the idlers evacuate the soil of France, which remains in the workers’ hands. A day of happiness and triumph! What an immense relief for so many chests, relieved of the weight that crushes them! How freely this multitude breathes. Citizens – sing in chorus the song of deliverance!

Axiom: the nation is impoverished by the death of a worker. She is enriched by that of an idler. The death of a wealthy man is a benefit.

Yes! The right of property is in decline. Generous spirits prophesy and call for its fall. The Essenian principle of reality has slowly sapped it over the course of eighteen centuries through the successive abolition of the various servitudes which served as the basis for its power. It will disappear one day, along with the last privileges that serve as its refuge and nook. The past and the present guarantee us this resolution. For humanity is never stationary. It either advances or goes back. Its progressive march led it to equality. Its backward march climbs, by all of privilege’s steps, to personal slavery, the final word in the right of property. To be sure, before returning there, European civilization would have perished. But through what catastrophe? A Russian invasion? To the contrary, it is the north that will itself be invaded by the principle of equality that the French bring in the conquest of nations. The future is not in doubt.

Let us immediately say that equality doesn’t consist in the partitioning of land. The splitting up of land will really change nothing concerning the right of property. With wealth growing from the ownership of the instruments of labor, rather than through labor itself, the spirit of exploitation left standing would soon know, through the reconstruction of large fortunes, how to restore social inequality.

Association alone, in place of private property, will serve as the basis for the reign of justice through equality. This is the foundation of the growing ardor of men of the future to make clear and highlight the elements of association. We, too, will perhaps bring our contingent to the common task.

Labor's Untold Story- Bread And Roses- The Heroic Lawrence Textile Strike Of 1912.

Click on title to link to Lucy Parsons Project site for a pro-IWW analysis of the famous Lawrence (Massachusetts) textile strike of 1912. Where the expression "bread and roses" came from. There are other sources with different perspective on this strike so Google on.

Every Month Is Labor History Month

This Commentary is part of a series under the following general title: Labor’s Untold Story- Reclaiming Our Labor History In Order To Fight Another Day-And Win!

As a first run through, and in some cases until I can get enough other sources in order to make a decent presentation, I will start with short entries on each topic that I will eventually go into greater detail about. Or, better yet, take my suggested topic and run with it yourself.

Poem and Song lyrics-"Bread and Roses"

Poem

As we come marching, marching in the beauty of the day,
A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray,
Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses,
For the people hear us singing: "Bread and roses! Bread and roses!"
As we come marching, marching, we battle too for men,
For they are women's children, and we mother them again.
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses!
As we come marching, marching, unnumbered women dead
Go crying through our singing their ancient cry for bread.
Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew.
Yes, it is bread we fight for -- but we fight for roses, too!
As we come marching, marching, we bring the greater days.
The rising of the women means the rising of the race.
No more the drudge and idler -- ten that toil where one reposes,
But a sharing of life's glories: Bread and roses! Bread and roses! Song Lyrics


Song

As we go marching, marching, in the beauty of the day,
A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray,
Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses,
For the people hear us singing: Bread and Roses! Bread and Roses!
As we go marching, marching, we battle too for men,
For they are women's children, and we mother them again.
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses.
As we go marching, marching, unnumbered women dead
Go crying through our singing their ancient call for bread.
Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew.
Yes, it is bread we fight for, but we fight for roses too.
As we go marching, marching, we bring the greater days,
The rising of the women means the rising of the race.
No more the drudge and idler, ten that toil where one reposes,
But a sharing of life's glories: Bread and roses, bread and roses.
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
Hearts starve as well as bodies; bread and roses, bread and roses

From The "Bread And Roses" Centennial Website- A Brief History Of The Great Lawrence (Ma) Textile Strike Of 1912

Click on the headline to link to the "Bread And Roses" Centennial Website- A Brief History Of The Great Lawrence (Ma) Textile Strike Of 1912

Bread & Roses Labor Day Festival 2012

The Bread & Roses Heritage Committee has been putting on a labor day festival for 26 years located on the Campagnone Common in Lawrence. The labor day festival has become a highly anticipated annual event in the city of Lawrence where members of the community join together to celebrate the true reason for the holiday. Every year the Bread & Roses Heritage Committee assembles a diverse and impressive list of performers, vendors, speakers, and organizations. In 2012, for the centennial of the Bread & Roses Strike, the annual labor day festival will be unlike any other heretofore hosted. With plans still in the works, the Bread & Roses Heritage Committee is committed to making the 2012 festival its biggest yet with world-renowned performers and guests.
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From The "Bread And Roses" Centennial Website-"Short Pay! All Out!: The Great Lawrence Strike of 1912"-An Exhibit

Click on the headline to link to the "Bread And Roses" Centennial Website

"Short Pay! All Out!: The Great Lawrence Strike of 1912"

The Lawrence History Center will be opening an exhibit and cultural space on January 12, 2012. The bilingual exhibit showcases the events of the strike in an intuitive, thought-provoking and conversation-starting way. This will allow the natural use of the exhibit's cultural space for lectures, meetings, performances, and community gatherings relevant to the themes of the strike of 1912.

The exhibit is housed on the sixth floor of the Everett Mill building (15 Union St., Lawrence, MA), the very place where the strike began.

Make a plan to come to Lawrence and visit. Hours are Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays 11am-3pm or by appointment with the Lawrence History Center(978-686-9230).

Can't make it to Lawrence? Visit the online exhibit by clicking here

The Lawrence History center received two generous grants of $10,000 from Mass Humanities that were used in the planning of the exhibit.

From The Great Lawrence 1912 "Bread And Roses" Centennial Website- Upcoming Events

Click on the headline to link to the Bread and Roses Centennial website.

BREAD AND ROSES

(Lyrics: James Oppenheim; Music: Martha Coleman or Caroline Kohlsaat) (1910s)

Textile workers, Lowell, MA

Any copyrighted material on these pages is used in "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s).


New Year's Day, 1912, ushered in one of the most historic struggles in the history of the American working-class. On that cold January 1st, the textile workers of Lawrence, Massachusetts, began a nine-week strike which shook the very foundation of the Bay State and had national repercussions.
In its last session, the Massachusetts State Legislature, after tremendous pressure from the workers, had finally passed a law limiting the working hours of children under the age of 18 to 54 hours a week. Needless to say, the huge textile corporations had viciously opposed the law.

As an act of retaliation, the employers cut the working hours of all employees to 54 hours, with a commensurate cut in wages, of course. The workers in the Lawrence factories, some 35,000 of them, answered this with a complete walk-out.

The strike itself was unique on many counts, but principally because the workers realized that they had to ignore the existing craft-union set-up. The craft unions were composed only of skilled, English-speaking workers, which excluded most of the workers. Instead, under the leadership of the International [sic] Workers of the World (IWW), a blow was struck on behalf of industrial unionism with the uniting of all textile workers in the strike.

In the course of the strike, the workers presented the bosses with the following demands:

A 15 per cent wage increase;
Abolition of the "premium system* (a version of present-day "incentive plans");
Double pay for overtime;
No discrimination against strikers;
An end to speed-up;
An end to discrimination against foreign-born workers.
The song... was inspired by one of the demonstrations which took place during the course of the strike. During a parade through Lawrence, a group of women workers carried banners proclaiming "Bread and Roses". This poetic presentation of the demands of women workers for equal pay for equal work together with special consideration as women echoed throughout the country.

James Oppenheim, many of whose poems reflect a working-class content and sympathy, picked up the phrase and made it into a poem. Martha Coleman set the poem to music, and the song has become a part of the singing tradition of the American working-class.

The song is more than an interesting piece of historic literature and is presented here... as a song for today, for the complete emancipation of women, who still demand "Give Us Bread -- And Give Us Roses!"

Sing Out!, Vol. 25, 1/1976, p. 8.


"The women worked in the mills for lower pay and In addition had all the housework and care of the children. The old world attitude of men as 'the lord and master' was strong at the end of the day's work . . . or now of strike duty . . . the man went home and sat at ease while his wife did all the work, preparing the meal, cleaning the house, etc. There was considerable male opposition to women going to meetings and marching on the picket line. We resolutely set out to combat these notions. The women wanted to picket!"
— IWW organizer Elizabeth Guriey Flynn, "The Rebel Girl", commenting on the Lawrence strike, reprinted ibid.


MORE BACKGROUND ON THE LAWRENCE STRIKE


In 1912, in the great woolen center of Lawrence, Massachusetts, 20,000 workers walked out of the mills in spontaneous protest against a cut in their weekly pay. Workers had been averaging $8.76 for a 56-hour work week when a state law made 54 hours the maximum for women and for minors under 18. The companies reduced all hours to 54 but refused to raise wage rates to make up for the average loss of 31 cents per week suffered by each worker because of the reduction in hours.
This caused the walkout which rocked the great New England textile industry. Under the aggressive leadership of the Industrial Workers of the World the strike became front-page news throughout the country. This is how IWW leader Bill Haywood described the Lawrence strike in his autobiography, Bill Haywood's Book:

"It was a wonderful strike, the most significant strike, the greatest strike that has ever been carried on in this country or any other country. And the most significant part of that strike was that it was a democracy. The strikers had a committee of 56, representing 27 different languages. The boss would have to see all the committee to do any business with them. And immediately behind that committee was a substitute committee of another 56 prepared in the event of the original committee's being arrested. Every official in touch with affairs at Lawrence had a substitute selected to take his place in the event of being thrown in jail."
After ten weeks the strikers won important concessions from the woolen companies, not only for themselves but also for 250,000 textile workers throughout New England.
During one of the many parades conducted by the strikers some young girls carried a banner with the slogan: "We want bread and roses too." This inspired James Oppenheim to write his poem, "Bread and Roses," which was set to music by Caroline Kohlsaat,

There is also an Italian song with the same title, "Pan e Rose," written by the Italian-American poet Arturo Giovannitti which is used by the Italian Dressmakers' Local 89 of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union.

Edith Fowke & Joe Glazer (eds.), Songs of Work and Protest, New York, NY, 1973, p. 71



Lyrics as reprinted ibid.


As we come marching, marching in the beauty of the day,
A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray,
Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses,
For the people hear us singing: "Bread and roses! Bread and roses!"
As we come marching, marching, we battle too for men,
For they are women's children, and we mother them again.
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses!

As we come marching, marching, unnumbered women dead
Go crying through our singing their ancient cry for bread.
Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew.
Yes, it is bread we fight for -- but we fight for roses, too!

As we come marching, marching, we bring the greater days.
The rising of the women means the rising of the race.
No more the drudge and idler -- ten that toil where one reposes,
But a sharing of life's glories: Bread and roses! Bread and roses!

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- Jane Greer Move Over-Lizabeth Scott’s “Too Late For Tears”

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the film noir Too Late For Tears.

DVD Review

Too Late For Tears, starring Lizabeth Scott, Dan Duryea, United Artists, 1949

Too late for tears is right, probably too late at about age six for our shoot-‘em-up femme fatale Jane (played her is demonic fashion by usually demure, if always husky-voiced, Lizabeth Scott). They, those tears, got all dried up and shriveled as she furtively pushed her way forward in this wicked old world. And every man in sight had better watch out, and not turn his back. Jane Greer from Out Of The Past had better move over because there is a new sheriff (actually anti-sheriff) who is not to afraid put a slug, or six, in a guy who will not do her bidding, or even think about not doing it. There are two kinds of femme fatales in this wicked old world, those with hearts of gold and those with no hearts. Dear Jan e fits the later in surprising interesting B crime noir under review, Too Late For Tears

Yes, some of the dialogue is a little stiff and the copy I reviewed had some technical glitches in it but this one nevertheless held my attention. Partially because cinematically anyway it is easy to “fall” for a heartless femme, especially when she gets those wheels in her head turning madly for whatever is it is she is after (and gets those guns blaring too). Partially as well because the theme of the film, although greed as a driving force in human history has been done unto death, crime doesn’t pay gets a little different workout here as the plot develops and is resolved.

Divorcee Jane (prior husband committed suicide, prompted or not, by his business failures and therefore no dough status made him bum of the month is dear Jane’s eyes) is married to a regular middle class guy, Alan, (with nice digs in Hollywood, 1940s Hollywood) who she had latched onto to make her fame and fortune (mainly the latter). While convertible cruising the Hollywood hills a passing car dumps a parcel in the backseat (good aim) of their car. Turned out there was some serious dough (serious 1940s dough now strictly coffee and cakes money) stashed there as part of a blackmail payoff. Naturally the money hunger wheels start working in Jane’s head (although not in Alan’s for which he would pay dearly, very dearly). She taunts Alan into keeping it at the bus station for a while, although against his better judgment.

Enter the “owner” of the dough Danny (played by Dan Duryea) who wants it back (naturally). The rest of the plot centers on Jane playing off every man who gets in her way, starting with kindred spirit Danny, as she tries to “con” a con. Hubby Alan is the first by a few off-hand point blank shots from his own gun when he decides to turn the dough in. Later, after hubby’s demise, when Danny now knee –deep as an accomplice to Jane’s madness gets cold feet at murder (murder of a woman in this case, Alan’s sister, who is getting suspicious about missing Alan’s whereabouts) he takes the fall, this time with some untimely poison administered by guess who. And eventually trouper that she is, Jan is getting ready to plug a guy who turned out to be her ex-husband’s brother who is seeking revenge (possibly) for his brother’s death before her own untimely death. Whoa! So guys if some husky-voiced dame, a blonde probably, wants to keep some off-hand dough, let her keep it, and for god’s sake don’t turn your back.

From "OCCUPY HOMES MASSACHUSETTS"- No Homeowner Need Stand Alone!-Organize Now!

From "OCCUPY HOMES MASSACHUSETTS"- No Homeowner Need Stand Alone!-Organize Now!

Stand Together-Occupy Homes Ma-Stop 'the banksters' Foreclosures and Evictions

www.OccupyQuincy.org

OCCUPY HOMES MASSACHUSETTS

Next Meeting Scheduled For Tufts Library, Broad Street, Weymouth, August 14, 2012-6:00 PM- Check out directions and details onFacebook-Occupy Homes MA.

WANT ASSISTANCE OR MORE INFORMATION?

OccupyHomesMA@gmail.com

617-249-4359

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Are you facing FORECLOSURE?- YOU ARE NOT ALONE!

Stand up with other homeowners who are fighting with us.

Want more information?

Contact us by email at OccupyHomesMA@gmail.com

or call us at 617-249-4359

The homeowner's meeting is intended to be a support group
specifically for those in the foreclosure process.

ATTEND A HOMEOWNERS MEETING TO

Develop Solidarity and Support:

We urge people to leave their shame at the door. We work to end the stigma and isolation of individual foreclosure and eviction cases by uniting homeowners.

Learn Your Rights:

You don't have to move just because the bank says so. We empower people to know their rights and advocate for themselves.

Organize with Occupy Homes MA:

Community members and activists are ready to stand with you. Let’s build mass resistance to defend your home and break the stranglehold the big banks have on our neighborhoods.
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Want to get involved?

Participate!

Fight back! A movement working for the 99% must be shaped and formed by all those who participate. All decisions on the direction and scope of the struggle are democratic.

Organize!

Build powerful communities! Identify issues affecting our neighborhoods, and work together on solutions.

Mobilize!

The best tool of the 99% is our numbers, and our ability to work together. Plan public actions, protests, and home defense.

Educate!

Become educated and teach others about the nature of the foreclosure crisis, and ways empowered communities can begin to solve it.
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Excerpt from...

Keeping House: Local Organizations Collaborate to Help Boston Residents Stay in Their Home Post-Foreclosure

Noelle Swan Spare Change News

When Jeril Richardson checked out of the hospital after he was hit by a car in 2009, he returned home to find that his landlord had not been keeping up with mortgage payments and the bank was foreclosing on his Hyde Park home.

Canvassers knocking on his door told him about City Life Vida Urbana, a community organization that would help him to fight to stay in his home. Nearly three years later, Richardson still lives in the house, pays rent to the bank, and is saving to purchase the property.

Every weekend, students and community volunteers from Project No One Leaves hit the streets in an effort to reach tenants and homeowners facing foreclosure to inform them of their rights during and after the foreclosure.

"We try to get there before eviction agents come knocking and telling them to leave immediately," said Chris Larson, senior at Tufts University who helped to coordinate a chapter of No One Leaves at Tufts.

In recent years, keeping up with new foreclosures has become a daunting task, said Chas Hamilton, a third-year law student and current president of the board for Project No One Leaves at Harvard Law School. "In a given week, there might be 30 new foreclosures listed in Boston proper."

"Then there are properties that they did not get to in weeks past because canvassers ran out of time, people weren't home, or their just weren't enough cars to get to all of the neighborhoods." Volunteers for No One Leaves chart foreclosure postings listed in local newspapers and real estate publications.

Listings are grouped into geographic zones of the city and mapped out. Each week, a dozen or so volunteers gather at the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau in Cambridge, split up into groups of two to five depending on the number of cars available, and try to get out to as many properties as they can in three hours.

"The real message that we try to deliver is that foreclosure is not the end. It's the beginning of this very long battle," Larson said.

http://sparechangenews.net/news/keeping-house-
local-organizations-collaborate-help-boston-residents-
stay-their-home-post-forecl
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WHY Occupy Homes MA?

OCCUPY OUR HOMES

Far too many homeowners are facing foreclosure. The need is greater than the capacity to help. City Life along with a team from Harvard Law is mentoring Occupy Homes MA as we create this new chapter to help homeowners on the South Shore. We are here to:

STOP FORECLOSURES

This is a people's movement that is building across Massachusetts. Homeowners did not create the crisis we are in, and homeowners are no longer going to face the shame of foreclosure and eviction alone. We are here to:

STOP EVICTIONS

The police should serve and protect the 99%, not assist the big banks with eviction. We will organize the community and resist eviction. Knowledge is power; they cannot easily put you out on the street - we want to help you, we won't let them!

HOUSING IS A HUMAN

There are 18 million empty homes in the U.S.

Help us, to help you by saying: "NOT MY HOME!"

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- Tales From The 'Hood-Time Is Not On Our Side

Joshua Lawrence Breslin comment:

He, Peter Paul Markin to give him a name although many of the generation of ‘68 had been on the same quest, for a whole number of reasons both personal and political, had been on the trail of his roots, including trips to the old working class neighborhoods where he came of political age. Through various methods, including extensive use of the glorious Internet, he was able to track down a couple of guys from the old neighborhood whose family story had gripped him in olden times.

As an unintended result of that research he have also come in contact with some helpful old high school classmates, North Adamsville High School (that’s in Massachusetts) Class of 1964 . One such helpful person, a class officer back in the day, had asked him to answer some questions that her committee was putting together for his high school class with an eye to the upcoming 50th anniversary reunion. You know the “what the hell have you done with your ill-begotten life for the past half century,” how many kids, grandkids, egad, great-grandkids do you have; don’t lie about anything in any answer because we have ways of finding out the truth of your silly life. How do you think we find you after all these years anyway? (Although, as simple matter, a glance a local telephone book would have provided the answer.)

Got it. Peter Paul got it alright. He had answered some of the more pertinent questions, the dream questions, like how did things actually work out as against one’s totally inflated and obscenely optimistic teenage dream goals, as truthfully as possible, or as any of the old gang needed to know and gave forth with the expected fair percentage of lies, half-lies, and bizarre falsehoods that they should have expected for him, despite the fore-warnings. And they, in turn provided their inflated estimates. No foul, no harm. He dutifully posted those on the class website, although not without noting that this “memoir” excursion was getting to be a seemingly endless task as the more questions he answered the more they (really she, she unnamed she, just in case legal action becomes necessary) kept sending him. Such is life. But, through some of the interchange correspondence he uncovered more information about his roots coming from an earlier period, the dark “projects” coming of age period. Such is life, indeed.

He told me, one melancholy barroom veranda afternoon, some of the details of his “discovery.” How his family had started life in a housing project in Adamsville with all that implied, then and now. By the beauties of the Internet social networking he have come in contact with someone who remembered him (or rather his brother, his older brother, Prescott- she was sweet on him in elementary school), a woman named Sherry. She had lived in that housing project during his family’s stay there and for many, many year after his family had left (to move to the other side of town in a broken down single, well, shack was the only work he could think of to describe it) , and saw its transformation from a temporary way station for returning World War II veterans as had been its original intention to a classic drug-strewn crime-ridden ‘den of iniquity’ as portrayed in subsequent media accounts, She agreed to be his ‘hood historian. Moreover she had brothers, sisters, children and grandchildren who had memories from that place and she agreed to pump them for their remembrances.

And that is where I came in. Peter Paul, my old yellow brick road magical mystery tour brother from the 1960s summer of love (summers of love?) generational break-out since we met on the West Coast one sunny year called on me to work out some of the kinks in the stories, something he felt was too close to believe that he could do them some small measure of justice. He presented the concept as something that could very well be a slice of life series on the trials and tribulations of members of the marginally working poor, a section of the working class with which I am also very familiar coming from old time mill town Olde Saco up in Maine. See too from my vantage point the thing could have produced a study, with all its inherent limitations, of the decline and disintegration of working class political consciousness in America since World War II. I had (have) written other stories from the Olde Saco days that played out one way with a section of the working class that was slightly above the one that Peter Paul came from, but just above, the steadily employed working people who dotted the coastal Maine landscape back then. That saga did not paint a pretty political picture. Nor would this one, I feared. But, damn, we both agreed, why shouldn’t these people have their stories told, warts and all.

Again, like that Olde Saco series (with a ponderous series title of History and Consciousness, H&C, I have gotten better with my titles since then, thank you), this series would really narrate a very prosaic working class set of stories. I planned, however, to organize these stories differently because now I know what I am looking for and each story will be able to stand on its own. In H&C the stories as they unfolded piecemeal, frankly, got out of control and I do not believe that when I put all the parts together at the end that it had the power that I wanted it to have, and that it did have for me as they unfolded.

That said, if this time last year somebody asked me, including Peter Paul, if I would be doing another series like H&C I would have said they were crazy. I then wanted to discuss the finer theoretical points of organizing for the American withdrawal from Afghanistan Iraq or building a workers’ party in this country. But this series seemed like finding the philosopher’s stone. This was the “real deal” down at the base of society; from a time when with a little tweaking things could have gone in another direction.

I prepared the first story (since published) that dealt with how this poor woman Sherry, Peter’s ‘hood historian, was humiliated by other students (girls mainly) at his elementary school for the mere fact of being from “the projects.” This writer was painfully aware of that type of humiliation as he faced the same thing up in Olde Saco. H expected to use that introductory story to draw some political conclusions, if possible. Again, as I had in H&C, I asked the question- will there be political lessons to be learned? I did not believe so, directly. However, real stories about the fate of the working class down at the base can help explain the very real retardants to working class political consciousness that we face as we try to organize here in America to take back the republic. I have spent a lifetime quoting radical socialist principles, chapter and verse, elsewhere. These stories desperately need to be told. Sadly, after that first story though Sherry passed away and we, Peter Paul and I, have been left a little rudderless. Time is not always on our side. Sherry from the ‘hood, RIP.

From “COURAGE TO RESIST”- A Note From Private Bradley Manning’s Civilian Attorney David E Coombs -Free Bradley Manning! Free All The Military Resisters!

From “COURAGE TO RESIST”- A Note From Private Bradley Manning’s Civilian Attorney David E Coombs -Free Bradley Manning! Free All The Military Resisters!

Click on the headline to link to the Courage To Resist website.


Courage To Resist

Supporting the troops who refuse to fight

484 Lake Park Ave #41, Oakland CA 94610

www.couragetoresist.org

510-488-3559

"Brad also asked me to specifically thank on his behalf the unflinching support of
Courage To Resist”

From David Coombs Civilian defense counsel for US Army PFC Bradley Manning
July 14, 2012

Over the past two years, thousands of individuals have either donated to thedefense fund or given freely of their time to support PFC Bradley Manning. The support provided has come in many forms:

Signing petitions (standwithbrad.org);

Standing up to say "I am Bradley Manning"
(iam.bradleymanning.org);

Writing to military/government authorities;

Writing letters to the editors of local and national newspapers;

Attending marches, rallies, and other public events to raise awareness about Bradley Manning;

Using social media to write about the case and the events of every hearing;

Contacting government representatives;
Sending messages of support to my law office;

Donating to the legal defense fund;

Or Volunteering with the Bradley Manning Support Networkand Courage to Resist.

At every court hearing, I am given the opportunity to witness this support first hand. The attendance by supporters during these hearings has been nothing short of inspiring. Although my client is not permitted to engage those in attendance, he is aware of your presence and support.

During our latest hearing on 6-8 June, I was particularly struck by the warmth of support by those in attendance. At one point during a break, I had causally mentioned that it was my anniversary.

Apparently a supporter had overheard this statement, and took up a collection to give flowers, a balloon, and a thoughtful card to me and my wife. This kind gesture is emblematic of the type of people who are supporting Brad.

I would like to publicly thank all those who have supported my client over the past two years. I also want to pass on the following message from Brad: "I am very grateful for your support and humbled by your ongoing efforts." Brad also asked me to specifically thank on his behalf the unflinching support of Courage to Resist and the Bradley Manning Support Network.

What happens in this court-martial is of vital importance to all of us. With your continued support, we will ensure that justice is achieved for Brad.

David E, Coombs-Civilian defense counsel for US Army PFC Bradley Manning
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Courage to Resist hosts the Bradley Manning Defense Fund in collaboration with the Bradley Manning Support Network. The Defense Fund has been, and continues to be, responsible for 100% of Bradley's legal expenses. That's amounted to $200,000 thus far, with at least another $50,000 needed through trial.

If you'd like your tax-deductible donation today to go towards Bradley's defense only (including legal and public education efforts), just note that on your reply and/or write "Bradley Manning" on your check's memo line. Otherwise, we'll use your contribution to support Bradley along with other military GI resisters.

On The Anniversary Of The July 26th Movement-Defend The Cuban Revolution!! -Defend The Cuban Five -End The Blockade Ahora!

DEFEND THE CUBAN REVOLUTION!!!

COMMENTARY

END THE U.S. BLOCKADE!-U.S. OUT OF GUANTANAMO!

This year marks the 59th anniversary of the Cuban July 26th movement, the 53rd anniversary of the victory of the Cuban Revolution and the 45th anniversary of the execution of Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara by the Bolivian Army after the defeat of his guerrilla forces and his capture in godforsaken rural Bolivia. I have reviewed the life of Che elsewhere in this space (see blog, dated July 5, 2006). Thus, it is fitting to remember an event of which he was a central actor. Additionally, the Cuban Revolution stood for my generation, the Generation of '68, and, hopefully, will for later generations as a symbol of revolutionary intransigence against United States imperialism.

Let us be clear about two things. First, this writer has defended the Cuban revolution since its inception; initially under a liberal- democratic premise of the right of nations, especially applicable to small nations pressed up against military forces of the imperialist powers, to self-determination; later under the above-mentioned premise and also that it should be defended on socialist grounds, not my idea of socialism- the Bolshevik, 1917 kind- but as an anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist revolution nevertheless. That prospective continues to be this writer’s position today. Secondly, my conception of revolutionary strategy and thus of world politics has for a long time been far removed from Fidel Castro’s (and Che’s) strategy, which emphasized military victory by guerrilla forces in the countryside, rather than my position of mass action by the urban proletariat leading the rural masses. That said, despite those strategic political differences this militant can honor the Cuban revolution as a symbol of a fight that all anti-imperialist militants should defend.

Let me expand on these points, the first point by way of reminiscences. I am old enough to have actually seen Castro’s Rebel Army on television as it triumphantly entered Havana in 1959. Although I was only a teenager at the time and hardly politically sophisticated I, like others of my generation, saw in that ragtag, scruffy group the stuff of romantic revolutionary dreams. I was glad Batista had to flee and that ‘the people’ would rule in Cuba.

Later, in 1960 as the nationalizations occurred in response to American imperialist pressure, I defended them. In fact, as a general proposition I was, hazily and without any particular thought, in favor of nationalizations everywhere. In 1961, despite my then deeply felt affinity for the Kennedys, I was pleased that the counterrevolutionaries were routed at the Bag of Pigs. Increased Soviet aid and involvement in the economic and political infrastructure of beleaguered Cuba? No problem. The Cuban Missile Crisis, however, left me and virtually everyone in the world, shaking in our boots. Frankly, I saw this crisis (after the fact) as a typical for the time Cold War confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union with Cuba as the playground. Not as some independent Cuban ploy. In short, my experiences at that time can be summed up by the slogan- Fair Play for Cuba. So far, a conclusion that a good liberal could espouse as a manifestation of a nation’s, particularly a small nation’s, right to self-determination. It is only later, during the radicalization of the Vietnam War period that I moved beyond that position.

Now to the second point and the hard politics. If any revolution is defined by one person the Cuban revolution can stand as that example. From its inception it was Fidel’s show, for better or worse. The military command, the strategy, the political programs, and the various national and international alliances all filtered through him. On reflection, that points out the basis problem and my major difference with the Fidelistas. And it starts with question of revolutionary strategy. Taking power based on a strategy of guerrilla warfare is fundamentally difference from an urban insurrection led by a workers party (or parties) allied with, as in Cuba, landless peasants and agricultural workers responsible to workers and X (fill in the blank for whatever allies apply in the local situation) councils. And it showed those distortions then and continues to show them as the basis for decision making –top down. It is necessary to move on from there.

Believe me, this writer as well as countless others, all went through our phase of enthusing over the guerrilla road to socialism. But, as the fate of Che and others makes clear, the Cuban victory was the result of exceptional circumstances. Many revolutionaries stumbled over that hard fact and the best, including Che, paid for it with imprisonment or their lives. In short, the Bolshevik, 1917 model still stands up as a damn good model for the way to take power and to try to move on to the road to socialism. Still, although I have made plenty of political mistakes in my life I have never regretted my defense of the Cuban Revolution. And neither should militants today. As Che said- the duty of every revolutionary is to make the revolution- and to defend them too. Enough said. U.S. HANDS OFF CUBA! END THE BLOCKADE! U.S. OUT OF GUANTANAMO!

On The Anniversary Of The July 26th Movement-The Latest From "The National Committee to Free the Cuban Five" Website -Free The Five Ahora! -The Defense Of The Cuban Revolution Begins With The Defense Of The Cuban Five

Click on the title to link to the website mentioned in the headline for the latest news and opinion from that site.

Markin comment (re-post from July 26, 2011):

On a day, July 26th, important in the history of the Cuban revolutionary movement it is also important, as always, to remember that the defense of the Cuban revolution here in the United States, the "heart of the beast", starts with the defense of the Cuban Five.

Markin comment (reposted from 2010)

In “surfing” the National Jericho Movement Website recently in order to find out more, if possible, about class- war prisoner and 1960s radical, Marilyn Buck, whom I had read about in a The Rag Blog post I linked to the Jericho list of class war prisoners. I found Marilyn Buck listed there but also others, some of whose cases, like that of the “voice of the voiceless” Pennsylvania death row prisoner, Mumia Abu-Jamal, are well-known and others who seemingly have languished in obscurity. All of the cases, at least from the information that I could glean from the site, seemed compelling. And all seemed worthy of far more publicity and of a more public fight for their freedom.

That last notion set me to the task at hand. Readers of this space know that I am a long- time supporter of class-war prisoners as part of the process of advancing the international working class’ struggle for socialism. In that spirit I am honoring the class war prisoners on the National Jericho Movement list this June as the start of what I hope will be an on-going attempt by all serious leftist militants to do their duty- fighting for freedom for these brothers and sisters. We will fight out our political differences and disagreements as a separate matter. What matters here and now is the old Wobblie (IWW) slogan - An injury to one is an injury to all.

Note: This list, right now, is composed of class-war prisoners held in American detention. If others are likewise incarcerated that are not listed here feel free to leave information on their cases in the comment section. Likewise any cases, internationally, that come to your attention. I am sure there are many, many such cases out there. Make this June, and every June, a Class-War Prisoners Freedom Month- Free All Class-War Prisoners Now!

A Non-Communist View Of The Formation Of The American Communsit Party- Thedore Draper's "The Roots Of American Communism- A Book Review

Click on the headline to link to the James P.Cannon Internet Archives segment, Notes To An Historian, as a welcome supplement to Theodore Draper's important work.

BOOK REVIEW

THE ROOTS OF AMERICAN COMMUNISM, THEODORE DRAPER, The Viking Press, New York, 1957

As an addition to the historical record of the period from the Russian Revolution of 1917 to the formation and consolidation of the legal, open party in 1923 The Roots of American Communism and its companion volume detailing the period from 1923 to 1929-Soviet Russia and American Communism (which will be reviewed separately) – is the definitive scholarly study on the early history of the American Communist Party. The author, an ex-communist but at the time of writing an anti-communist, unlike other former communists nevertheless does a thorough job or presenting the personalities and issues in a reasonably straightforward manner. Given that these volumes were researched and published during the heart of the Cold War hysteria against the Soviet Union in the 1950’s this is not faint praise.

Also useful for this period in conjunction with these two volumes and to round them out, from the pro-Communist partisan perspective of one of the main leaders, is James P. Cannon’s The First Ten Years of American Communism and the Prometheus Research Library’s James P. Cannon and the Early Communist Movement. Absent from Mr. Draper’s analysis is any real feel for why the early leaders and rank and file of the party put themselves on the line, faced harassment, imprisonment or worst to create an American Bolshevik party. While there is no dearth of memoirs of other participants in the early movement, Cannon’s analysis most honestly fills that gap.

That said, why must militants read these works today? After the demise of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe anything positively related to Communist studies has been deeply discounted in the academy and in bourgeois politics. Nevertheless, for better or worse, the American Communist Party (and its offshoots) needs to be studied as an ultimately flawed example of a party that failed in its mission to create a radical version of society in America when it became merely a tool of Soviet diplomacy in the late 1920s. Now is the time for militants to study the mistakes and draw the lessons of that history.

For those not familiar with this period a few helpful introductory chapters by Mr. Draper give an analysis of the forces that made up the radical scene prior to World War I. Those forces included the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), independent syndicalists influenced by the French movement and the anti-war left-wing of the Socialist party, including various foreign language federations. Thus, in its formative period the American party (or parties, to be more correct) gathered all those fresh elements which responded to the Bolshevik victory in Russia in 1917, saw it as the wave of the future and wanted to establish that kind of socialism here. As this reviewer has noted elsewhere, while those diffuse forces proved to be difficult to organize, this mix provided for a better internal party life than, say, in England where the Celtic and anarcho-syndicalist elements were not recruited resulting in a ‘stillborn’ party.

Mr. Draper also addresses the various important faction fights which occurred inside the party. To make sense of this is sometimes no simple task. That overview also highlights some of the now more obscure personalities, where they stood on the issues and insights into the significance of the crucial early fights in the party. These include questions which are still relevant today; a legal vs. an underground party; the proper attitude toward parliamentary politics; support to third party bourgeois candidates; trade union policy; class war defense as well as how to rein in the intense internal struggle of the various factions for organizational control of the party.

This presentation makes it somewhat easier for those not well-versed in the intricacies of the political disputes which wracked the early American party to understand how these questions tended to pull the party in on itself. In many ways, given the undisputed rise of American imperialism in the immediate aftermath of World War I, this is a story of the ‘dog days’ of the party. Unfortunately, that American rise combined with the international ramifications of the internal disputes in the Russian Communist Party and in the Communist International shipwrecked the party as a revolutionary party toward the end of this period. That subject is more fully addressed in the second volume. Read this book.

From The Pen Of American Communist Leader James P. Cannon- The Cause That Passes Through The Prisons- A Book Review

Click on the headline to link to the James P. Cannon Internet Archives.

Book Review

LETTERS FROM PRISON, JAMES P. CANNON, Pathfinder Press, New York, 1973

If you are interested in the history of the American Left or are a militant trying to understand some of the past lessons of our history concerning the communist response to various social and labor questions this book is for you. This book is part of a continuing series of volumes of the writings of James P. Cannon that were published by the organization he founded in the 1930s, the Socialist Workers Party, in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Cannon died in 1974. Look in this space for other related reviews of this series of documents on and by an important American Communist.

In their introduction the editors motivate the purpose for the publication of the book by stating the Cannon was the finest Communist leader that America had ever produced. This an intriguing question. The editors trace their political lineage back to Cannon’s leadership of the early Communist Party and later after his expulsion to the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party so their perspective is obvious. What does the documentation provided here show? This certainly is the period of Cannon’s political maturation after a long and fruitful political collaboration working with LeonTrotsky, the exiled Russian revolutionary.

The period under discussion in his letters to his long time companion Rose Krasner- the years of World War II after Cannon and 17 other leaders of the Socialist Workers Party had been indicted, convicted and refused appeal by the United States Supreme Court under the then new Smith Act provisions and finally were imprisoned- demonstrate a continued commitment to the goals of revolutionary socialism and a desire to fight for those goals. One thing is sure- in his prime, which includes this period- Cannon had the instincts to want to lead a revolution and had the evident capacity to do so. That he never had an opportunity to lead a revolution is his personal tragedy and ours as well.
When the American Government under Franklin D. Roosevelt goaded on by one of his favorite abject ‘labor lieutenants of capitalism’ , Daniel Tobin President of the International Teamsters Union, went after the real opponents of the second imperialist war known as World war II, the Socialist Workers Party and the Teamsters local in Minneapolis, they went to the right address. Unfortunately, unlike in World War I, those organizations were politically virtually the only ones in opposition to th egoverment from the left. The American Socialist Party and the American Communist Party- the latter after a short opposition during the infamous Hitler-Stalin Pact- had both made their peace with imperialism. If anything those organizations were the chief labor cheerleaders of the prosecutions. As an aside, but indicative of the nature of that organization, the Workers Party led by Max Shachtman, which had split from the SWP in 1940 over the question of defense of the Soviet Union, did not face government prosecution.
This volume of letters from prison by James P. Cannon, leader of the Socialist Workers Party are testimony to what happens to revolutionaries when they fundamentally oppose a bourgeois government on its most cherished right, the right to make war-they go to jail. Kicking and screaming, yes, and using every avenue to avoid that situation but when the time comes that is what they do. In no case do they flinch from the consequences of the necessary action to oppose war. This comes with the territory of being a revolutionary. While few today remember such boldness, militants in the face of opposition to the current Iraq War would do well to honor that commitment by the Minneapolis 18.
As his letters indicate, political people do not roll over when in prison but within the limited circumstances they find themselves in act as political people and carry on as best they can –whether it is Czarist, fascist, Stalinist or bourgeois prisons. In the present case it was an advantage that many of the party leaders were with Cannon and could essentially form a leadership in exile to supplement the official leadership left behind on the outside. Of course all things being equal prison definitely cuts into the effectiveness of a revolutionary but the enforced idleness from the outside struggle is a time to study and reflection, which Cannon did, very ambitiously and systematically. Through his companion Rose Karsner and other sources Cannon kept up with internal party affairs and made plans for the future of the party.
Finally, it is rather ironic that Cannon, who was the guiding force in the American Communist Party’s class struggle defense organization-the International Labor Defense- in the mid-1920’s should need the services of the Socialist Workers Party’s class struggle defense organization -the Non-Partisan Labor Defense. What Cannon said in the 1920’s applied to his own case. The struggle of the class-war prisoners- the cause that passes through the prisons- is the concern of the whole working class. An injury to one is an injury to all. That slogan is still valid for today’s militants to organize around.

From #Un-Occupied Boston (#Un-Tomemonos Boston)-General Assembly-An Embryo Of An Alternate Government Gone Wrong-What Happens When We Do Not Learn The Lessons Of History- The Pre-1848 Socialist Movement-Auguste Blanqui 1834-First issue of “Le Libérateur”

Click on the headline to link to the Occupy Boston General Assembly Minutes website. Occupy Boston started at 6:00 PM, September 30, 2011.

Markin comment:

I will post any updates from that site if there are any serious discussions of the way forward for the Occupy movement or, more importantly, any analysis of the now atrophied and dysfunctional General Assembly concept. In the meantime I will continue with the “Lessons From History “ series started in the Fall of 2011 with Karl Marx’s The Civil War In France-1871 (The defense of the Paris Commune). Right now this series is focused on the European socialist movement before the Revolutions of 1848.
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An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupy Movement And All Occupiers! Drop All Charges Against All Occupy Protesters Everywhere!

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Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
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A Five-Point Program As Talking Points

*Jobs For All Now!-“30 For 40”- A historic demand of the labor movement. Thirty hours work for forty hours pay to spread the available work around. Organize the unorganized- Organize the South- Organize Wal-Mart- Defend the right for public and private workers to unionize.

* Defend the working classes! No union dues for Democratic (or the stray Republican) candidates. Spent the dough instead on organizing the unorganized and on other labor-specific causes (good example, the November, 2011 anti-union recall referendum in Ohio, bad example the Wisconsin gubernatorial recall race in June 2012).

*End the endless wars!- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops (And Mercenaries) From Afghanistan! Hands Off Pakistan! Hands Off Iran! U.S. Hands Off The World!

*Fight for a social agenda for working people!. Quality Healthcare For All! Nationalize the colleges and universities under student-teacher-campus worker control! Forgive student debt! Stop housing foreclosures!

*We created the wealth, let’s take it back. Take the struggle for our daily bread off the historic agenda. Build a workers party that fights for a workers government to unite all the oppressed.

Emblazon on our red banner-Labor and the oppressed must rule!


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Auguste Blanqui 1834-First issue of “Le Libérateur”

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Source: Oeuvres, texts rassemblés et presentés par Dominique de Luz. Nancy, Presses Universitaires de Nancy, 1993;
Translated: for marxists.org by Mitchell Abidor


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Goal of the newspaper
Of all the exclusions that weigh on the citizen without a fortune, the most painful and the one most bitterly felt is that which prohibits him from publishing his thoughts. One can be consoled for not participating in the election of a deputy or a municipal functionary. But we are profoundly wounded by the evil designs of a legislation that restricts thought when that thought doesn’t have the insolent pass handed out by wealth. Those men devoted to defending the principle of equality will never forgive the ministers whose popular names served as a cloak for that law of security deposits and franking that makes the press a slave to the opulent classes, for it is they who bear the responsibility for that irreparable fault. And when, carried away by the boiling up of indignation against triumphant iniquity they raise their voices, an iron glove smashes the words on their lips. They are forbidden to take in hand the interests of the oppressed: they don’t have the right to that. It’s a right that only belongs to the rich; one must be rich in order to better identify with the poor, and riches alone gives the guts to feel and express their sufferings.

This newspaper is a protest against force’s insulting derision. A lone citizen, without money, without a sou put away, undertakes to brave the prohibition imposed by the aristocracy of the ecu against the poor man who dares to think. With his health destroyed, barely out of the prison where a verdict had him expiate the cries he raised up in favor of exploited workers, his hands still marked by the imprint of handcuffs, he today again takes up arms. And he will write, having ceaselessly before his eyes the unfortunate brothers that he left behind in those sad tombs. He is not one of those men who, in the midst of a society torn apart by passions, claims to feel no passion; who in order not to displease selfish dominators protects himself against all convictions as if they were evil things, and affects to maintain a cowardly impartiality between those who suffer and those who cause suffering. The only role appropriate for an honest man is that of loudly avowing his affections and his hatreds. One should feel sorry for those who boast of the fact that they neither love nor hate anyone, for if they are telling the truth they have nothing in their breasts. And if they lie, what authority remains to their words?

Those of Le Liberateur will be frank, with neither reticence nor hesitations. On one hand it will make an effort to expose in simple, clear, and precise terms why the people are unhappy and how they can cease to be so. It will explain the nature of the relationships that exist today between the master and the worker, the social question that virtually on its own constitutes all of political economy, and about which professors say barely a word. And at the same time, addressing itself to men whose profound meditations turn them from the hustle and bustle of the moment in order to embrace from on high all of humanity in its past and its future, it will submit to them its critical views on the current organization, or rather, disorganization, as well as ideas on the principles that should preside over the re-composition of the social order.

From the Pen Of Peter Paul Markin- From the “Out In The Be-Bop 1960s Night” Series - Scenes From The Search For The Blue-Pink Great American West Night- Westward Ho!

Scene Six: Westward Ho! In The Search For The Blue-Pink Great American West Night


As I stepped down onto the yellow-sunned, farm-fresh soil from the farm-fresh cab of the farm-fresh truck that had deposited Angelica and me out into the waving-fielded, farm-fresh Neola, Iowa September day I quickly flashed back to stepping down from Colonel Eddie’s truck cab in Winchester, Kentucky that had started this whole segment of the trip westward. Christ that seemed like an eternity ago although it had been only a few summer heated, summer sweat-soaked heated weeks. Life on the road had its own tempos but this one, for reasons that I will discuss later, had run out of tempo and we were living on pure fumes just then.

While I am thinking about Winchester, Kentucky I might as well tell you what had happened since then to get us here to yellowed-sunned, waving-field, farm-fresh country and that will go a long way to explaining our need, our desperate need, for a jump start. Needless to say we had kicked the dust of Prestonburg, Kentucky over in the eastern part of the state where fair Angelica, my travelling companion, and me had been kicking our heels up at a barn dance (and kicking those same heels after the dance under the sheets as well at her cousin’s house where we stayed during the visit). Right then me, I swear, about four sheets to the wind, no five or six sheets to the wind from the local, well-aged (about six minutes) “white lightning” but somehow during the dance we, thanks to Angelica, got promised a ride from Prestonsburg to Winchester which is just outside of Lexington, Kentucky.

Our chauffer, our Angelica-smitten chauffer, for the occasion turned out to be one ancient hard-driving (as we quickly found out), hard-drinking (as I knew from his condition as we met up with him), ghost of a truck-driving Colonel Eddie. (The colonel part is made-up, made up by him, all these Kentucky guys from the lowliest pig farmer on up call themselves that, or did back then. I think for about two bucks you could get yourself an “official” certificate designating you as such. If old Eddie had been a “real” colonel then that would go a long way to explaining the South’s righteous and well-deserved lost back in Civil War days). And despite this awful build-up of the guy, and a little off-hand character assassination above, he actually got us there, to Winchester that is, in one piece. Colonel Eddie was one the last of the good old boys, for sure.

What that one piece, by the way, looked like after traveling more back roads in the Commonwealth of Kentucky than seemed humanly possible in order to us get there is another story. See that is where the “white lighting” (rotgut, according to a somewhat miffed Angelica) had something like seven lives. Every time I thought I was feeling better, just a tiny it better like maybe I would actually survive the day, we would hit a double-reverse triple somersault hairpin turn followed by a triple-reverse double somersault hairpin turn that made me wish that, if there was any mercy in this flea-bitten old world, we would just go over the top down into some heavenly embankment and be done with it. But, as I said, we got there, and although we were pinching pennies a little, my condition was terminal and we needed, as a matter of simple primitive medical wisdom, to stay at one of those cheapjack motels that dot the back roads of this world to rest up for future battles, for future tilts at the westward windmills.

No, I am not going to descript this cheapjack motel, this back road, and what did or did not happen there, for the simple reason that I don’t really remember much about what it looked like it, or what happened there. Except this, this is etched in my brain and I can feel the cool- handed, cool-toweled sensation even as I am writing. Angelica, miffed or not, had taken a towel, wrapped some ice from the ubiquitous, usually whiskey fixings-friendly motel ice machine in it, and placed it on my forehead and held her hand on the compress for a while until I fell asleep. Of such kindnesses long-lasting civilizations should be created.

But enough of medical reports and folk wisdom medicines, sweet- gestured or not. We were on the road west now, the blue-pink road west and for the first time since Angelica and I had met really on our own. Winchester, Kentucky heading on to Lexington on our way west. Next morning, next already hot, steamy, sulky July Monday morning, having had a decent night’s recovery, and a thimbleful of food in my stomach to be on the safe side, we were off. Tonight we will sleep in no “bourgeois” roadside motel, ice cubes included free of charge or not, but out in the great outdoors, out in the promised great American night, and save our dwindling cash for stormier times. Thumb out, Angelica thumb out here, and we are indeed off. A half hour later after being picked up by a wayward sedan, driven by a nondescript but kindly driver, we are on the road to Lexington. And arrive we do without fanfare, or flourish.

This is really what is important about Lexington though. See, like I told you and I know I told Angelica before, that suitcase that she had packed up for getting her to Steubenville in her Muncie break-out days was fine to live out of for Steubenville motel cabin existences but no good on the hitchhike road, of whatever color. I didn’t tell you this before because Angelica had been such a trouper, especially with that ice-encrusted towel, but she had complained like hell about the damn dangling suitcase every time we had to push on in a hurry. Truth be told I had carried the thing more than she had, invalided as I was. So when we hit Lexington we hit the first Army-Navy store we could find to get her one of those fungible mountaineer backpacks.

Army-Navy store? Yah, Army-Navy store. Don’t snicker about something so, well, about something so yesterday, okay. Out on the hitchhike road you needed sturdy stuff, whatever it was you needed, because stuff got pretty banged around and your “faux” hitchhike road designer goods would last about seven miles (or about as long as the owner of such goods would be on the road before hailing a cab to the nearest airport). And as much as we hated the notion of deadly military weapons and anything military in those days we, we of youth nation, were strangely drawn to that fashion look, and the indestructible nature of their “camping” equipment. Besides the stuff was cheap, remember it was bought as World War II surplus mainly, hell, maybe World War I, but cheap.

Naturally, as events kept unfolding Angelica was showing more and more her origins as a Midwestern flower, and although a total stranger to such a place was thrilled (and mystified) by this place, including the odd , musty smell that goes with such stores. I will quote her, “Wow, does all this stuff really work?” So you can see by that simple statement that, every once in a while, she will throw out her Indiana naïve to confuse me. In any case, soon enough she will know whether it works or not. Of course she took forever to decide on which of two types of olive green backpacks “fit” her. Christ, women (oops, sorry). After that we made other purchases in order to set up “housekeeping”. Like. Well, like a small very portable army pup tent, complete with staves, to shelter us from storms and summer bugs. And a couple of canteens, small useful three-prong knives, a shovel, and mess kits.

I, as I write this, still smile over the fact that Angelica talked for days about how whoever invented such a useful thing as a mess kit was a genius, a pure genius. So you see again what I meant about that Muncie thing. Best of all to her sheer unmitigated delight we purchased a warm, cozy, snuggly army surplus sleeping bag (hey, the best kind okay, you can’t have soldiers freezing their buns off in Alaska, Korea, Northern China or wherever). And also delighted, blushingly delighted, when I, off-handedly, whispered in her ear about how many people could fit inside the thing, in a pinch. And, finally, a green (naturally) army blanket, for emergencies, real emergencies, not those “in a pinch” kind.

After completing those purchases we stepped just outside the store door to a nearby bench, placed there probably for just such purposes, and ceremoniously transferred her stuff from the suitcase to the backpack. Here is the kicker though, which may tell something about human nature or maybe not. I just kind of threw everything into my knapsack and hoped for the best. Hope, for example, that a pair of socks, matched, showed up when needed. Angelica, as I noticed back in the Steubenville pack-up, neat of suitcase also took pains (and would do so throughout the trip) to keep her stuff organized just like in the suitcase. I wonder if we had decided that plastic bags were absolutely the best for travel gear whether she would have done the same. Probably so.

In any case, Angelica’s yesterday Angelica miffs had turned around and she was beaming, at me, at her new existence, at the whole wide world for all I know. I liked it, I told her so, and we were off to a campground just outside of town that the Army-Navy store owner told me about to “camp out” in the great dark American night. Hell, even I was excited. Still I noticed, just a glimmer of a notice, that she turned back wistfully for just a second to take one last look at the suitcase that we left on that bench for someone else in need.
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Every once in a while, just as things are going right and this old world seems full of bright-eyed possibilities, things get twisted around. Let me tell you about it and see what you think. As we were walking, Angelica proudly practically hip-hop walking with her new backpack bouncing up and down with each step, decided she needed to discuss something, one of our little “adjustments” talks. Apparently the miffed Angelica of yesterday was not so much miffed at my condition as that when we went to sign in at that cheapjack motel I wrote down my real name and her real name indicating that we weren’t married, or at least not related. Some primordial sense of modesty, no, I know, just Muncie conventionality, made her feel ashamed.

Christ Angelica, there was not one cheapjack (or five star, for that matter) motel, hotel, inn, Youth hostel, ashram, whatever in the whole world that in the year 1969 cared who you sign in as. I could have put down Queen Elizabeth and Richard Nixon (although that combination might have raised my eyebrow) and they would have been nonplussed, as long as the coin of the realm, cash, was in hand. I didn’t put quotation marks around the above sentences but I think I could have because that, in my mind’s eye, is probably exactly what I said to her. Her plea, and here I will quote, “I feel ashamed and like a tramp (exact word) and couldn’t we just say we were married when we signed into places?” Apparently the time I was going to spend with this woman was going to be filled with throwing in towels because that is just what I did, I agree to this proposition. Why? Well, in those days I, frankly, didn’t have an opinion, at least a strong opinion, about married or not married and to keep peace I conceded the point. Now would be a different story. But, hell, let’s get to the camp and the great American night.

There are camp sites and there are camp sites. Today you can belly up to some sites with your seven ton, overloaded monster “trailer” home and put in a plug or two and act just like you never left Cicero, Albany, or whatever your port of origin. Or you can go back up into the hills, some forlorn shaggy hills, mainly some Western hills these days, carrying in with you whatever you are going to bring on your back, and be not that far removed from those old pioneers who feared every dangerous animal, dangerous man, dangerous natural condition step of the western way, and carried on nevertheless. The real westward ho crowd.

That day though Angelica and I found ourselves at a plain old-timey campsite which we could see from the road in was dotted with various tents, some small trailers sitting in the beds of pick-up trucks, some free-form trailers pulled by trucks and a couple of psychedelically multi-colored converted school buses. The last had been popping up on the road ever since people started hearing about Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters and their mad eastward escapades a few years earlier. Not a monster trailer in the house, a good sign. I can see a little river as well. Best of all there a small supermarket right across the street. Yes, this portends to be a great American night, and maybe nights.

After I passed the test at the camp office we went to our site, a cozy little site for a tent not too far from the river. What test? Come on now, pay attention, you know the test. Did I or did I not sign us in as Mr. and Mrs. (no Ms. then)? Well, I am still sitting here writing this thing so of course I did. Angelica was beaming, beaming like an old married lady (at nineteen, jesus) but, maybe, just maybe because her “hubby” played it straight with her. (I never did get all the details, and she never put them all out there for me, but back in staid old homey Muncie some guys definitely did her wrong, tramp-treating wrong). Of course unlike the “bourgeois” upper class dwellers here in their little campers we were primitives (a word I have actually seen used to designate some campsites) and had to set up camp from scratch. Hell, we had more fun trying to set that damn Army-Navy tent and setting up for dinner on our little fireplace. There are not many times in life when just a couple of goofy, simple things provided so much entertainment. We napped then feasted.

As it got dark though I heard some music, the Stones, I think coming from one of the multi-colored painted, converted buses down the dirt lane. Nothing loud, but also something that said “youth nation” among the families of three and four that seemed to dominate the camp. We moseyed (like it?) on down and as we got closer I knew we had found kindred spirits, at least I thought we had. Angelica said, “What’s that strange smell?” Of course it was nothing but grass (marijuana, herb, ganja, whatever your term), and from the smell high-grade stuff. I thereafter proceeded to tell Angelica the “skinny”. She seemed a little non-plussed by the news but, however, confessed that she had never smoked or done any other drugs. And from the tone of that response seemingly did not want to.

Those were good and simple days to be young, especially on a road situation like this. Perfect strangers, unknown to one another, except by a telltale beard, or long hair, or long dresses or some slightly off-key sign, immediately embraced and as a welcome “gift” passed you a joint (or whatever drug of choice was available that day) and you passed whatever you had. We had some store-bought wine. I knew, knew from hard Arizona and Connecticut experiences, as well as the lore of the road, that carrying drugs was not “cool.” Many a road comrade spent many a night in some godforsaken cooler for making that mistake when the grim-reaper, usually small town, cops needed to boost their arrest records.

Thus, for me it was nice to have a chance to get “high.” (inhaling even) although Angelica passed and was happy getting a little silly on the wine. We spent a nice night hanging out, listening to the Stones and the Doors, and a couple of other things that I don’t remember. I do remember, as we went back to our own site to turn in, that Angelica said she finally “got” what her parents, her neighbors, her minister, her schoolteachers, and some of her former boyfriends were afraid of. They feared great boxed-in break-out. She started to go on about it, but I gave her a knowing “preaching to the choir” smile and she stopped.

We wound up staying for few days, got to know most of the twelve or fifteen people connected with the buses (two at two adjoining sites, actually) and found out that they were on “vacation” from a little farm house that they all lived in communally, including some primitive farming and weaving to keep body and soul together, just outside of Springfield, Illinois. They were leaving Saturday morning and we were welcome to join them and stay at the farm for a while. We talked it over and it seemed right, especially for Angelica, as we could by-pass sweet home Indiana that she wanted avoid at all costs, so we left with them. That Saturday morning Angelica with great tenderness, and by herself, struck our camp (“our home” she called it by the end) as we prepared for the next leg of our journey. Ah, pioneer woman.
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You know some towns you can say that you have been in but that is misleading. You might have passed through them, you might have been caught having to sleep on some forsaken bench in some lonely bus stop there, or stretched a watery cup of joe in some lonelier diner against some cold , rainy night wait, or, in flusher times, just hopped on a plane out of the place. So, yes you can tick that town off on your map as you move along in the world but you don’t know the town, no way. That is my recollection of Springfield. Oh sure I knew it was Lincoln’s home area, I knew it was the capital of the state of Illinois, I knew that people in that area were not Mayor Daly’s (the first one) people and that there was plenty of farmland there. But Springfield on this trip (or ever) was just that dot on the map because once we passed through it and we got to the farm a few days and joints after leaving Lexington that was it. We spent some quiet, well maybe no so quiet when the music went decibel high, but youth quiet time on the farm, did a little work for our keep, Angelica got a little more sun that she thought was good for her, and we relaxed before pushing on. Westward ho, ever westward ho in the blue-pink great American West night.

***From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- From The "Ancient Dreams, Dreamed" Sketches- "Hard Times In Babylon-Growing Up Poor In The 1950s"

Introduction

The following sketches, and that is all they pretend to be, flash-colored sketches, are based, mainly, on stories told to me by my old friend Peter Paul Markin, although I have taken the usual liberties with the truth to “jazz” some of the stories up. I might add that these sketches are more or less in chronological order (although exact dates or time periods may be off slightly, like all misty remembrances), although he told them to me in helter-skelter order time over many years, some under, well, let’s just call them trying circumstances and be done with it.

Markin and I first met long ago in the searching for the great American West 1960s good night the details of which are supplied in a few of the sketches from that period. This however, is not a “memoir” of that period, although we are both certified members in good standing of the generation of ’68 who at one time promised to fight for a “newer world.” The literary universe is thick with, and frankly I am sick unto death of, memoirs from that period, great or small.

What these things pretend to be in earnest, using Markin as a lightning rod, are looks at the extreme variety of human experiences that our wicked old world has spewed forth. Given the very long arduous human struggle to meet our immediate daily needs, they also underline the narrowness of human expression in facing the great tasks that confront us in living on this wicked old earth. Josh Breslin-2012
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One night, one early 2007 night, Peter Paul was in a pensive mood. He had just written, half-tear written for lost youth and fallen youth comrade a personal commentary about a childhood friend, Kenny Callahan, from back in the old neighborhood in North Adamsville where he grew up in the 1950s and who had passed away some time before. He had also at that time been re-reading the then recently deceased investigative journalist David Halberstam’s book, The Fifties, that covered that same basic period of his teary remembrance. Strangely Halberstam’s take on the trends of the period, in contrast to the reality of his own childhood experiences as a child of the working poor that missed most of the benefits of that ‘golden age,’ rekindled some memories, a few painful.

It was no exaggeration to say that those were hard times in Babylon. Not so much for individual lacks like a steady (and reliable) family car in order to break out of the cramped quarters, house on house, where he lived once in a while. Or the inevitable hand-me-down clothes (all the way through high school, almost), or worst the Bargain Center bargains that were no bargains (the local “Wal-Mart” of the day to give you an idea of what he meant). Or even the always house coldness in winter (in order to save on precious fuel even in those cheap-priced heating oil times) and hotness in summer (ditto, to save on electricity so no A/C, or fans).

Those, and other such lacks, he noted, all had their place in the poor man’s pantheon, no question. That was not the worst of it though, not by a long shot when he thought back on those red scare cold war times (but what knew he then of such connections). No, what, in the end, make things turn out badly for him and his kind, was the sense of defeat that hung, hung heavily and almost daily over the household, the street, the neighborhood at a time when others, visibly and not so far away, were getting ahead.

Some sociologist, some academic sociologist, for, sure, would call such a phenomenon the death of “rising expectations.” And for once they would be right, or at least on the right track. Thinking back on those times had also made him reflect on how the hard anti-communist politics of the period, the “red scare” had left people like his parents high and dry, although they were as prone to support those repressive governmental policies, as reflex action if nothing else, as any American Legion denizen. Moreover the defeat and destruction of the left-wing movement then, principally the pro-communist organizations of that period, has continued to leave a mark, and a gaping vacuum, on today’s political landscape, and on him.

There are many myths about the 1950’s to be sure, some media-drive, some simply misty time-driven. However, one cannot deny that the key public myth was that those who had fought World War II and were afterwards enlisted in the anti-Soviet Cold War fight against communism were entitled to some breaks. The overwhelming desire for personal security and comfort on the part of those who had survived the Great Depression and fought the war (World War II just so there is no question about which in the long line of wars we are talking about) was not therefore totally irrational. That it came at the expense of other things like a more just and equitable society is a separate matter. Moreover, despite the public myth not everyone benefited from the ‘rising tide.' The experience of his parents is proof of that. Thus this commentary is really about what happened to those, like his parents, who did not make it and were left to their personal fates without a rudder to get them through the rough spots. Yes, his parents (and mine) were of the now much ballyhooed and misnamed ‘greatest generation’ but they were not in it.

He did not want to go through all the details of his parents’ childhoods, courtship and marriage for such biographic details of the Depression and World War II were (and are) plentiful and theirs fits the pattern. (Moreover, he was uneasily aware that he did not know, know for sure, many of the specific details like where they first met and stuff like that.) One detail is, however, important and that is that his father grew up in the hills of eastern Kentucky, Hazard, near Harlan County to be exact, coal mining country made famous in song and story and by Michael Harrington in his 1960s book The Other America.. This was, and is, hardscrabble country by any definition. Among whites these “hillbillies” were the poorest of the poor. There can be little wonder, he emphasized (and made a little joke about it too, about his father telling him between the Pacific bloodbath and the mines he took his chances with the former) that when World War II began his father left the mines to join the Marines, did his fair share of fighting in the Pacific, settled in the Boston area and never looked back.

By all rights Peter Paul’s father should have been able to take advantage of the G.I. Bill and have enjoyed home and hearth like the denizens of Levittown (New York and elsewhere) described in Halberstam’s book and shown on such classic 1950s television shows as Ozzie and Harriet and Leave It To Beaver. But life did not go that way, not at all.

Why? He had virtually no formal education. Furthermore he had no marketable skills usable in the Boston labor market. There was (and is) no call for coal-miners here. And moreover he had three young sons born close together in the immediate post-war period. Peter related that his father was a good man. He was a hard-working man; when he was able find work. He was an upright man. But he never drew a break. Unskilled labor, to which he was reduced, is notoriously unstable, and so his work life was one of barely making ends meet. Thus, well before the age when the two-parent working family became the necessary standard to get ahead, his mother had gone to work to supplement the family income. She too was an unskilled laborer. Thus, even with two people working they were always “dirt poor.” I have already run through enough of the litany of lacks to give an idea of what dirt poor meant in those hard times so we need not retrace those steps as they apply to the Markin family...

That little family started life in the Adamsville housing projects, at that time not the notorious hell-holes of crime and deprivation that they later became but still a mark of being low, very low, on the social ladder at a time when others were heading to the Valhalla of the newly emerging suburbs. By clawing and scratching his parents had eventually saved enough money to buy an extremely modest single-family house. Hell, Peter shouted to me while relating this part, why pussyfoot about it, a shack. The house, moreover, was in a neighborhood that was, and is, one of those old working class neighborhoods where the houses are small, cramped, and seedy, the leavings of those who have moved on to bigger and better things. The neighborhood nevertheless reflected the desire of the working poor in the 1950’s, his parents and others, to own their own homes and not be shunted off into decrepit apartments or dilapidated housing projects, the fate of those just below them on the social ladder.

But suddenly Peter Paul said enough of all that. Where in this story though is there a place for militant left-wing political class-consciousness to break the trap? Not the sense of social inferiority of the poor before the rich (or the merely middle class). Damn, there was plenty of that kind of consciousness in his house (and painfully mine as well). A phrase from the time, and maybe today although I don’t hear it much, said it all “keeping up with the Jones.’” Or else. But where was there an avenue in the 1950’s, when it could have made a difference, for a man like Peter’s father to have his hurts explained and have something done about them?

Nowhere, nada nunca nada. So instead it went internally into the life of the family and it never got resolved. One of his sons, Peter Paul, has had luxury of being able to fight essentially exemplary propaganda battles in small left-wing socialist circles and felt he has done good work in his life. His father’s hurts needed much more. The "red scare" aimed mainly against the American Communist Party but affecting wider layers of society decimated any possibility that he could get the kind of redress he needed. That dear reader, in a nutshell, is why Peter Paul made a point, made a big point, as we ended our talk of saying that he proudly bore the name communist today. And the task for him today? To insure that future young workers, unlike his parents in the 1950’s, will have their day of justice. Good luck, Peter Paul.

Let’s Redouble Our Efforts To Save Private Bradley Manning-Make Every Town Square In America (And The World) A Bradley Manning Square From Boston To Berkeley to Berlin-Join Us In Davis Square, Somerville –The Stand-Out Is Every Wednesday From 4:00-5:00 PM

Click on the headline to link to a the Private Bradley Manning Petition website page.

Markin comment:

The Private Bradley Manning case is headed toward a late fall/early winter trial. Those of us who support his cause should redouble our efforts to secure his freedom. For the past several months there has been a weekly stand-out in Greater Boston across from the Davis Square Redline MBTA stop (renamed Bradley Manning Square for the vigil’s duration) in Somerville on Friday afternoons but we have since July 4th changed the time and day to 4:00-5:00 PM on Wednesdays. This stand-out has, to say the least, been very sparsely attended. We need to build it up with more supporters present. Please join us when you can. Or better yet if you can’t join us start a Support Bradley Manning weekly vigil in some location in your town whether it is in the Boston area, Berkeley or Berlin. And please sign the petition for his release. I have placed links to the Manning Network and Manning Square website below.
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News has reached us that some of the folks at the Dorchester People for Peace (DPP) have started a stand-out for Private Manning to be held weekly beginning on Tuesday July 24, 2012 at 4:00 PM at the corner of Dorchester Avenue and Adams Street (the Veterans Triangle) in Fields Corner (a multi-cultural working class neighborhood of Boston ). Fields Corner is an easily reachable stop via the MBTA Redline.Please join them.
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Bradley Manning Support Network

http://www.bradleymanning.org/

Manning Square website

http://freemanz.com/2012/01/20/somerville_paper_photo-bradmanningsquare/bradleymanningsquare-2011_01_13/

The following are remarks that I have been focusing on of late to build support for Private Manning’s cause.

Veterans for Peace proudly stands in solidarity with, and defense of, Private Bradley Manning.

We of the anti-war movement were not able to do much to affect the Bush- Obama Iraq War timetable but we can save the one hero of that war, Bradley Manning.

I stand in solidarity with the alleged actions of Private Bradley Manning in bringing to light, just a little light, some of the nefarious war-related doings of this government, under Bush and Obama. If he did such acts they are no crime. No crime at all in my eyes or in the eyes of the vast majority of people who know of the case and of its importance as an individual act of resistance to the unjust and barbaric American-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I sleep just a shade bit easier these days knowing that Private Manning may have exposed what we all knew, or should have known- the Iraq war and the Afghan war justifications rested on a house of cards. American imperialism’s gun-toting house of cards, but cards nevertheless.

I am standing in solidarity with Private Bradley Manning because I am outraged by the treatment meted out to Private Manning, presumably an innocent man, by a government who alleges itself to be some “beacon” of the civilized world. Bradley Manning had been held in solidarity at Quantico and other locales for over two years, and has been held without trial for longer, as the government and its military try to glue a case together. The military, and its henchmen in the Justice Department, have gotten more devious although not smarter since I was a soldier in their crosshairs over forty years ago.

These are more than sufficient reasons to stand in solidarity with Private Manning and will be until the day this brave soldier is freed by his jailers. And I will continue to stand in proud solidarity with Private Manning until that great day.

Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal of All U.S./Allied Troops And Mercenaries From Afghanistan! Hands Off Iran! Free Private Manning Now!