Out In The Film Noir Night - The Stuff Of Dreams, Part Two-Down Los Gatos Way   

 

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin

It didn’t start out that way, the stuff of dreams, the search for gold that is, but it sure finished up that way, finished up that way with guys lying face down in some broken unnamed desert arroyo, nobody to mourn them, or cover them over except those fierce desert winds that would make short work of the matter, if that counted. Yah, it didn’t start out that way with pipe dream guys just buying into another guy’s dreams, catching their own fire dreams to get out from under whatever it was they were trying to get out from under from. Trying to brush off the dust of their own small dreams, maybe just trying to get back to square one, gringo Norte Americano square one from whence they came, came south for some reason, or no reason, came south to sunny Mexico. Maybe took up the dream, another man’s dream to get back to some long lost Molly, all bright blue eyes and straw blonde, and a fresh start, and, damn, to get away from that stinking brown-eyed world, that brown dust from the brown roads, those brown-skinned, fierce- looking brown-eyed braceros, and those brown senoritas with their sparkling, dancing brown eyes and their karma sutra tricks (although none of them, the senoritas, would have known that term or the book they came from , just the arts from handed- down cantina mother to daughter practice ), whores, really, who spoiled a man, a gringo man, for blond-haired Mollies if you didn’t get away fast enough. Or maybe they came south for the senoritas , for the brown-eyed senoritas, for the cheap and easy brown-eyed senoritas with the sparking dancing eyes looking for sugar daddy gringos with fierce blues eyes and strange hungers, strange hung-up sex hungers, to get out from under the bracero life. So yah it didn’t start out that way, no way.          

Maybe I had better start at the beginning, or at the beginning where my just then road amigo Felipe, who saw the whole thing many years before and lived to tell about it, came into the story and told a bunch of us the story over a windy night camp fire in a jungle camp along the Southern Pacific Railroad just outside of Gallup, New Mexico one night, one 1973 night. Told us about how when he was young he had got caught up with a trio of guys, gringos of course, who were bitten by the stuff of dreams. 

It started down in Vera Cruz, like I said down in sunny Mexico, and it started with this gringo, Burl, bumming a cigarette off Felipe who was driving a cab at the time down at the docks where this Burl’s ship, some tramp freighter that had seen better days, the S.S. Corcoran, had just landed. This Burl, after Felipe gave him the cigarette (and a pack of matches to light it with too, damn Felipe should have cross the gee off right there), asked him about hotels, and, more importantly about cantinas and senoritas, stuff like that, just like a million guys have done who have been guy ship bound for too long months since they invented ships. It seemed, contrary to his appearance, four or five days growth on his face, in a time when clean-shaven was the rule, ruffed-up clothes, non-descript worn-out shoes, really sneakers, and smelling, well smelling like he could use a bath, or something, that this guy has some dough coming, coming as back pay off his tramp steamer journey as a ship’s mate. Felipe brightened to this news because now he turned on his tourista guide niceness full blast, offering the guy another cigarette (keep the matches, amigo) and his services as someone who could safely get Mister Burl through the maze of Vera Cruz night life in one piece. Burl agreed and the game was on.                     

Two weeks later after drinking up half the high-shelf scotch in town, keeping company with half the brown-eyed senoritas at the La Paz whorehouse (nicely named although more hell got raised there, more fortunes got lost, more teeth got knocked out that in the rather placid other precincts of the town) and setting his favorite from the La Paz , Maria (hell, they are all named Maria or Lupe something in cantina- ville), up in an adjoining hotel room for serious pleasure, and after smoking just one too many joints of that high-spirited marijuana grown in some wilds outside of town Burl, Burl Jackson, from Baltimore, U.S.A. was flat broke again, flat broke with no ship heading out since the Corcoran had left the week before without him (and good riddance he said of that old tub in an alcoholic haze one night when Felipe informed him of the ship’s departure), no prospects, no money for the room rent, and by now probably no Maria as well.

While Burl pondered his choices he asked Felipe for a cigarette, and a loan. No dice, Felipe wasn’t born yesterday and was keeping his easily earned dough and so he just pleaded that he had already spent his dough trying to feed his family, gracias though. So Burl  would have to bracero/gringo/downtrodden pan-handle the ricos Americanos for a while over at the Central Plaza where they hung out to get a stake up and find another ship if not in Vera Cruz then some other port.              

And that is where Burl Jackson met Tim Conway, Tim Conway of Laredo, Texas and also with no dough, no prospects and no place to stay just then but with big dreams, big dreams of  easy and cheap brown-eyed mex whorehouse girls, and plenty of them, who would take you around the world for a dollar and a little tip. Jesus, Burl said at this news. He wised the kid up about the cheap part, forget that once those laughing Spanish eyes got under your skin and you set up a one for your easy rider, easy rider woman like he had with Maria, although he left the easy part for the kid to figure for himself.  In fact Tim, after some conversation, had sized Burl up as a gringo rico and was ready to put the bite on him. Jesus, again. They talked for a while and kind of got along.

While they were standing on that good Mexican soil trying to figure out if two gringos were better than one this old geezer, this old ancient geezer with a beard like Jehovah, the stink of a guy who had been out in the desert or someplace without a bathtub, long straggly hair, and about six missing teeth drawing a couple of pack mules behind him came by and asked if they were American in some low-down English. “Of course they were Americans, jesus, what did he think they were some brown-eyed braceros,” Tim had wailed out. He then asked them if they were looking for work. “Of course they were looking for work, and what of it.” Burl had shouted out. The old geezer (real name Walter Simons but nobody ever called him anything but Old Geezer according to Felipe who had seen him off and on around town when he came in from the hills for the previous four or five years) had a proposition for the boys if they would trouble themselves to show their faces at the Imperial Hotel about six o’clock that evening after he had cleaned up and had supper. Burl looked at Tim and shrugged his shoulders in disbelieve at the Old Geezer’s address but were non-committal on the appointment.            

Needless to say they were, after a fruitless afternoon of not finding anything worthwhile, knocking on the door of Room 216 of the Imperial Hotel at six that evening. And here was the now regal Old Geezer’s proposition. He was an old time prospector (believable) and had hit some pay-dirt, some gold dust pay-dirt, out in the arroyos and foothills around Los Gatos about one hundred and fifty miles away from there toward the interior of sunny Mexico. He needed help to dig for and pan the stuff on an equal basis, each a third share. He didn’t trust the Mex, the dirty braceros that would cut his throat for a dollar and change if he turned his back on them but with gringos he could feel that at least they wouldn’t cut his throat and he had size dup Burl and Tim as okay, okay for what he was offering. No soap though, not that night and not for a few nights more until Burl and Tim were forced into some stinking bracero rooming house with about fifty stinking braceros in a space for twenty when a rain squall forced them indoors. Then they were back at Room 216, hats in hands.        

A couple of days later they took off, Tim, Burl, the Old Geezer, four pack mules loaded with supplies and tools for a couple of months work, and Felipe who Burl persuaded the Old Geezer to take along for wages to “keep house” for them. (They kept Felipe in the dark about what they were up to until they got close to Los Gatos but he had kind of figured it out when Tim and Burl kept talking about registering their claim in Tampico. He knew the area as well and the history of a million gringos going for the gold but he just let them play out their hand, like he always did with gringos, because they were kind of trigger-happy when it came right down to it.)  Needless to say a couple of gringos one more at home in the seas of the world, the seven seas, and whorehouses like Burl and a raw kid like Tim, who dreamed of whorehouses and keeping his hands lily-white in the bargain sweated, cursed, wanted to turn back about six times, got a little sunstroke, maybe a little desert- addled, maybe snake-bit and insect- bit and twelve other kind of bits for the seven days it took to get to Los Gatos after stumbling, tumbling, mumbling over some rocky arroyos, some saline desert and some  ragged foothills. But damn they made it, made camp and prepared for el dorado, yah, big time el dorado if the Old Geezer wasn’t cracked.               

Do you need to know the work, the twelve, fourteen, sixteen hours a day work these tres hombres went through for about a month before they even clawed, scratched, culled a small assay of gold for their troubles, work sleep, eat and not too much to preserve the supplies.  No, you can figure that part of the story out, and if you can’t Felipe said even he had helped out just to past the time. Finally that small assay traced down into a bigger lode, yah, they had hit pay dirt. Not big, according to the Old Geezer, who over midnight camp fires would tell them about how many times he had hit pay-dirt, jumped on easy street for a while, then busted out and hit the road again looking for that really big mother lode. This one, also according to his estimates, was not the mother lode but a month’s work would let them ride easy street for a while. Burl and Tim bought the ticket and took the ride, especially Tim, a smart young guy who figured that with his share he would just buy a whorehouse and then he would get his loving free. The Old Geezer laughed, hell, even Burl laughed at the kid’s moxie (and naiveté).        

So they worked, worked the lode, worked it good, and plied their takings together one for all, at least at the beginning. Burl, Felipe guessed was the first to get the fever, gold fever, checking each night for an hour, maybe more the weight, and calculating his share, and maybe more than his share after a while when Felipe noticed that fevered look he had seen before when a man had been out in the desert, had suffered privations, and ,hell,  hadn’t been around the gentle influence of a woman, even a brown-eyed Mex whore, for a while. The he started staying in his tent more, avoiding the nightly gabfest camp fire except to eat, eat quickly and return to his tent. Tim caught it too, caught it as bad, so most nights before they headed out back to Tampico and then Vera Cruz it was only the Old Geezer, sometimes muttering to himself like he had the fever too and Felipe although Felipe had caught a certain look from the geezer that made him realize the old man was playing with his younger companions. Not a good sign.      

After a couple of small incidents, nothing in the real world but magnified out in the  hills, the Old Geezer declared they had been out long enough and it would be best to go back to civilization, divvy up the profits and each head their separate ways. Strangely, or maybe not so strangely, Burl and Tim bucked the idea at first but the geezer mentioned stray banditos out in the hills who if they found out some gringos were afoot might come and do them all in. That got the boys’ attention and so they broke camp, heading back. A couple of days out they ran into a couple of stray banditos, fought them off, and began to hunker down on security. Three or four days later coming out of a narrow canyon they were confronted  by a bandito force of about twenty desperados, some with they look of career bandits about them, others who looked like the remnants of Pancho Villa’s various armies now free-lancing with whoever paid and fed them.

The leader, a serious guy named El Lobo, told the trio that he knew, knew so don’t lie, that they had gold and that he wanted half of it to let them go. The three parlayed. Tim and Burl, strung out on gold like a man on some unattainable woman, were for fighting, the old man wiser and ready to take half of something, gold something, rather than lead was ready for compromise. He finally talked them into it. He called over to El Lobo, rendered the collective decision, went to the pack mule saddle bags, got the goods, passed El Lobo his share, and joined up with Tim and Burl. Just then a fusillade of gun fire rang out from the bandito side. Tim fell first, then Burl, and finally the Old Geezer cursing El Lobo’s name.  As they took everything away, gold, mules, supplies, El Lobo shouted to Felipe, su companero, and asked if he wanted to join the gang. Felipe said no. To that El Lobo said-“Tell everyone you see what happened here today, and what will happen to them if they come looking for the oro in El Lobo’s backyard.” And he did.                             

Beat Poet’s Corner- Out in the American Wilderness-With Allen Ginsberg’s America In Mind 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

…he awoke to the sound of far-off steel being hammered and to the sight of mad monk welder’s sparks melting bolts and sprockets into the skin of some wayward ship, a tanker probably, across the channel. A year or so before those sights and sounds would have been creating troop transports for icy Atlantic voyages, voyages that he would dream of years later, and then years after that take when he needed to make serious jail-breaks from nine to five, from parent beehive, from the world he had not created and had no say in creating. Those sights and sounds by the way had disturbed his sleep dream, his childish sleep of big pacific ocean shores, surfer boys waving to waiting shoreline surfer girls stretched, bikini clad -stretched across some woodie sunning themselves waiting for their man to return from the sea and then drink them in after having spent eons waiting for the perfect wave. Of some young good-looking hobo, or just a guy on the loose, unsettled from the war and in no nine to five hurry left off in the middle of nowhere by a friendly farmer while travelling some coast highway, west coast of course,  stopping at some sea-side diner for a cup of joe and to buy a fresh deck of smokes, winding up behind the eight ball, way behind, when she came through the café door, came through and made his knees buckle, him a guy who had hopped the Pacific islands with the best of them in the big one, and led him down the garden path, down east of  Eden, down that final smile path just before they turned on the juice. Yes, then smiling some quizzical smile like he just found out what the world was all about. And of another guy, another good-looking guy, a guy built to take it, all bumps and bruises from taking a fall, and taking the fall, knees buckling too, over some dame, some dame in a come hither form- fitting red dress.  He though he detected that same quizzical smile on that guy's face too.

Welcome to the American wilderness, the America of steel and steel-hammering, of gypsy freighters carrying materials and men to far-flung places, and thoughts of pacific atolls, south sea islands, exotic ports of call. And of puzzling, puzzling over the meaning of that childish sleep dream, puzzling over that "where was he heading," where he was heading in this Masonite world that he had not been asked about had, and, frankly, had no say in. The sounds of hammering, yes, the sounds of hammering diminished in the cold war red scare night as craggy-faced workmen, too afraid, too kiddish scared  to speak above a  whisper for fear, with hungry mouths to feed would line up passively for the dole, line up for some godforsaken food charity or shoe charity or pants charity courtesy of some generous Catholic patron working his way up to heaven on the installment plan, seeking plenary indulgences or whatever they called them, and other hard-bitten men further down the food chain line up for bedding, lining up for soup, lining up for everything waiting their coffee spoon lives away. Good men but not smart men, not smart in the go-go American consumer night of the tail-finned car and the breezeway ranch-style house, when god, god do you hear, ordained that one must have this and that, changeable at the merest whim.

And so he, a son of soiled moloch, some flash dance singer, came of age, came of rugged cross age in that blood red night, in the night of whispers, the slender reed whispers against the stacked decks and learned to hate the sound of whispers and of  generous Catholic patrons working their strident road to heaven and so instead of dreaming of  smart things, although he fancied himself smart, was told so as well, all he dreamed of  was those burning torches, that far-off campfire, that hobo jungle that his grandfather told him about, fast against the Denver &Rio Grande, the Southern Pacific, the Union Pacific railroad sidings, and about no more line-ups, no more hand-outs and no more looking at the ground when Mister, Mister Big, decided he needed those damn indulgences. (In the end, strangely, he would come to curse those jungles not because they were land’s end, man’s end, the end of the line but because, all he heard there was of stacked decks, of blood red nights, and campfire strewn  whispers when the times called for rages, loud, loud rages).                 

He thought too of not fitting in, of not having a niche, shoe-less or almost, in glamour craving times, of having no cache, no place, and being scorned in that upward spiraling night, the night of the golden dream just beyond his Robert Browning poem grasp. Turning inward, turning kind of twisted against some rock- filled shores, shells all this way and that, sand taking a lashing from storm cloud waves, all silvery green-blue flecked with white capped swells, and against some prairie-dreaded vengeance.  Making due, sneak-thief making due with mother pocketbook snatches, petty larceny “clips” of some woe begotten senorita dream factory like some trinket, some bauble, would do the trick, would take away the aloneness, and of outrageous expectations always just beyond that aloneness. So alone, alone like some school boy long distance runner mating with swerving cars and irate pedestrians trying to work his vengeance out, trying to keep his own ill-advised counsel , trying to keep private dreams, hurts and wistful vengeances and sweaty palms too don’t forget that crammed in his head he came of age.   

Came of ages, hunger ages, ages of learning, ages of “clip: memories, ages of “they got theirs and I want mine” mixed in with grandiose plans for that newer world a-borning that was just around the corner. They, he, had almost make it, except for some very consequential stray bullets and the hungry in the end getting tired, tired from the hunger and from having to concede the point in this wicked old world, and from not walking off with some beauty queen, some little rock and roller, some little short-skirted drive-in queen who had seen to it that his knees buckled, he who had mock island hopped with the best of them in the big one, and that white picket fence dream.

Not for him though, him of the next highest mountain, and after that higher still,   and of some himalayas of the mind mixed in with drunken sots (too many sots to identify, categorize, analyze,  metaphorize [sic]), and later opium dreams (in Saigon brothels and Hawaii way stations), no, better, peyote, message glances against stone-flickered Southwest canyon walls multi-colored and sandwiched in layers down in some high desert night retreat replicating earlier sojourns by forbear  mystic-misfits and knowing just then what those ancients on this continent dreamed of , warrior avenged dreamed of, dreamed of when the deal went down when the white blood was up, up like in that red scare night, the night of the sheltered whispers. But all of that was later, later dream-addled, dream crashed later. First he had to get through Jack fresh air dreams, and hubris, and night sweats about girls, about life, about death, and about the next dollar and the dollar after that. And that fit in thing, that thing that had to be gotten through.          

That fit in thing, tramping midnight streets, streets unnamed, named streets, Adams Street, Massachusetts Avenue, Tremont Street, Commonwealth Avenue, big streets, long streets with long thoughts, gathering up the energy to run across town to catch late night train rides, rides to hobo coffee shops, hobo shops filled with the night’s human refuse and human desire, hobo shops squeezed in by vagrant wandering poets, minstrels and wantons, in order to whistle in the dark against the moloch night, against the consumer this and consumer that cache, to howl perhaps, although that clarion call was used up, had been used up a few years before and so coffee cup and fugitive glances had to do, and that steamy bread, always steamy. Later, years later, those fugitive nights, those “be there when the tide turns,” turns to our time turns, he would dream walk into some misnamed coffeehouse and go mano y mano with some sweet senoritas too, then lassitude set in, laziness really when some greek goddess (of the mind, in reality just another waif child searching for the road out of perdition) flamed his wanton besotted heart.

Then an interlude, a forced retreat before going forward again, against the world he had not created, and had no say in creating. So he sought that higher mountain for a while, not pure, not pure white, not pure white like most mountains are not pure white upon closer inspection,  not pure white by any means since he had that childhood hunger that would not stop, that would not let him be. He did good though, did good in that solidarity night, and took his fifteen minutes of fame, and dwelled on that for some future time. And he survived the interlude, survived it just fine.

But the times too changed and those mystic canyon arroyo sweet dreams dissipated into the western night, and the search, the search, the clanging, hammering search,  had to begin again, damn, damn it, the new ocean search, those phantom echoes of those craggy-faced shipbuilders began to haunt his brain, began to impair his judgment about what was right and what was wrong and in the end he could not rise, rise, I say, I tell you even to the minimum human substrate, the minimum sense of human solidarity and so he had to roll the rock up the hill Prometheus- style, and keeping on rolling that rock. Ah.   

In Honor Of The 142^ndAnniversary Of The Paris Commune-From The American Left History Blog Archives(2007)- On American Political Discourse

Markin comment:

In the period 2006-2008 I, in vain, attempted to put some energy into analyzing the blossoming American presidential campaign since it was to be, as advertised at least, a watershed election, for women, blacks, old white anglos, latinos, youth, etc. In the event I had to abandon the efforts in about May of 2008 when it became obvious, in my face obvious, that the election would be a watershed only for those who really believed that it would be a watershed election. The four years of the Obama presidency, the 2012 American presidential election campaign, and world politics have only confirmed in my eyes that that abandonment was essentially the right decision at the right time. In short, let the well- paid bourgeois commentators go on and on with their twitter. I, we, had (have) better things to do like fighting against the permanent wars, the permanent war economies, the struggle for more and better jobs, and for a workers party that fights for a workers government . More than enough to do, right? Still a look back at some of the stuff I wrote then does not a bad feel to it. Read on.

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NO TO RELIGIOUS TESTS FOR OFFICE - FOR SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE

Every once in a while left wing propagandists, like this writer, are forced to comment on odd ball political or social questions that are not directly related to the fight for socialism. Nevertheless such questions must be addressed to in the interest of preserving democratic rights, such as they are. I have often argued that socialists are, or should be, the best defenders of democratic rights, hanging in there long after many bourgeois democrats have thrown in the towel especially on constitutional questions like abortion and searches and seizures.

A good example from the not too distant past, which I am fond of citing because it seems so counter intuitive, was opposition to the impeachment of one William Jefferson Clinton, at one time President of the United States and now potentially the first First Ladies’ man. How, one might ask could professed socialists defend the rights of the Number One Imperialist –in-Chief. Simple, Clinton was not being tried for any real crimes against working people but found himself framed by the right wing cabal for his personal sexual preferences and habits. That he was not very artful in defense of himself is beside the point. We say government out off the bedrooms (or wherever) whether White House or hovel. We do no favor political witch hunts of the highborn or the low. Interestingly, no one at the time proposed that he be tried as a war criminal for his very real crimes in trying to bomb Serbia, under the guidance of one Wesley Clark, back to the Stone Age (and nearly succeeding). Enough said.

Now we are confronted with another strange situation in the case of one ex-Governor of Massachusetts and current Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney on the question of his Mormon religious affiliation and his capacity to be president of a secular state. Romney, on Thursday December 6, 2007 fled down to Houston, apparently forced by his vanishing prospects in Iowa, and made a speech about his Mormon faith, or at least his fitness for office. This speech evoked in some quarters, at least formally, Jack Kennedy’s use in the 1960 presidential campaign of the same tool concerning his Roman Catholicism as a way to cut across anti-Catholic bigotry in a mainly Protestant country and to affirm his commitment to a democratic secular state. I pulled up that speech off the Internet and although Kennedy clearly evoked his religious affiliation many times in that speech he left it at that, a personal choice. He did not go on and on about his friendship with Jesus or enumerate the virtues of an increased role for religion in political life.

From The American Left History Blog Archives(2007) - On American Political Discourse-  YOU DON’T NEED SEYMOUR HERSH TO KNOW WHICH WAY THE WIND BLOWS.

Markin comment:

In the period 2006-2008 I, in vain, attempted to put some energy into analyzing the blossoming American presidential campaign since it was to be, as advertised at least, a watershed election, for women, blacks, old white anglos, latinos, youth, etc. In the event I had to abandon the efforts in about May of 2008 when it became obvious, in my face obvious, that the election would be a watershed only for those who really believed that it would be a watershed election. The four years of the Obama presidency, the 2012 American presidential election campaign, and world politics have only confirmed in my eyes that that abandonment was essentially the right decision at the right time. In short, let the well- paid bourgeois commentators go on and on with their twitter. I, we, had (have) better things to do like fighting against the permanent wars, the permanent war economies, the struggle for more and better jobs, and for a workers party that fights for a workers government . More than enough to do, right? Still a look back at some of the stuff I wrote then does not a bad feel to it. Read on.

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YOU DON’T NEED SEYMOUR HERSH TO KNOW WHICH WAY THE WIND BLOWS.

In the wake of Seymour Hersh’s revelations in the New Yorker concerning the Bush administration’s potential military plans, including a possible nuclear option, toward Iran there has been a hue and cry in political circles against some of the rasher aspects of such action. From the traditional opponents of such an action plan -the Left? No! From liberal politicians? No! If anything those types have been more belligerent and to the right on the issue of Iran than the Bush administration. The cry has come from conservative think tank magazines and hawkish political commentators like New York Times writer Thomas Friedman. After the disastrous consequences of their support for the adventure in Iraq as least a few of the more rational conservatives have learned something. Whether they continue to hold out once the onslaught of patriotism and so-called national interest comes into play remains to be seen. However, their self-made dilemma is not what interests me.

As I write these lines the paint has not even dried on my poster in opposition to the continuing Iraq occupation for an anti-war rally. Now that the newest plans of the Wild Boys in the basements of the White House, Pentagon and State Department have been “leaked” I have to add another slogan to that banner- Hands Off Iran! Overreacting one might say. No!! If we have learned anything in the last few years from the Bush Administration it is that the distance from “war games” and “zero sum game theory” to front page newspaper and television screen casualty counts is a very, very short elevator ride away.

That, however, begs the question of whether the current Islamic leadership in Iran is a threat. Damn right it is a threat. This writer opposed the Shah of Iran when he was an agent of American imperialist interests in the Persian Gulf. This writer also opposed the rise and takeover by the Islamic fundamentalists in 1979 when many Western leftists were, overtly or covertly, supporting these elements as ‘anti-imperialist’ agents of change. Unfortunately, many Iranian militants also supported these same fundamentalists. That did not stop the mullahs from rounding up and executing or imprisoning every leftist or militant worker they could get their hands on. The fate of the Western leftist supporters of the ‘anti-imperialist’ mullahs was almost as tragic. They, at great personal sacrifice, mainly went on to careers in the academy, media or parliament.

So let us have no illusions about the women- hating, anti-Enlightenment, anti- post 8th century hating regime in Teheran  (Except apparently, nuclear technology. Did anyone else find it surreal when a recent photograph showed several thousand heavily- veiled Iranian women demonstrating in defense of a nuclear facility?). However, do we really want to outsource “regime change” there to the Bush Administration (or any administration in Washington)? No!!! Just as working people cannot outsource “regime change” in Washington to the liberals here this job of ousting the mullahs belongs to the Iranian workers, students, poor slum dwellers and peasants.

Let’s be clear here though. If the United States, or an agent of the United States, moves militarily against Iran all militants, here and worldwide, are duty bound to defend Iran against such imperialist aggression. Even with the current mullah leadership? Yes. We will hold our noses and do our duty. Their ouster is a separate political battle. We will settle accounts with them in due course.

The anarchists and others have it all wrong when they confine their slogan to Class Against Class in a conflict between capitalist states. Yes, in the final analysis it will come down to that. The problem is today we are dealing with the most powerful military power, relatively and absolutely, the world has ever known against a smaller, almost militarily defenseless country. A victory for American imperialism is not in the interest of the international working class and its allies. Thus, we have a side under those circumstances. And we certainly do not take some ‘third camp’ pacifist position of a plague on both your houses. IMMEDIATE UNCONDITIONAL WITHDRAWAL FROM IRAQ!  U.S.HANDS OFF IRAN!! BETTER YET- HANDS OFF THE WORLD!!!

From The American Left History Blog Archives(2007) - On American Political Discourse-On The Kurds 

Markin comment:

In the period 2006-2008 I, in vain, attempted to put some energy into analyzing the blossoming American presidential campaign since it was to be, as advertised at least, a watershed election, for women, blacks, old white anglos, latinos, youth, etc. In the event I had to abandon the efforts in about May of 2008 when it became obvious, in my face obvious, that the election would be a watershed only for those who really believed that it would be a watershed election. The four years of the Obama presidency, the 2012 American presidential election campaign, and world politics have only confirmed in my eyes that that abandonment was essentially the right decision at the right time. In short, let the well- paid bourgeois commentators go on and on with their twitter. I, we, had (have) better things to do like fighting against the permanent wars, the permanent war economies, the struggle for more and better jobs, and for a workers party that fights for a workers government . More than enough to do, right? Still a look back at some of the stuff I wrote then does not a bad feel to it. Read on.

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Defend the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK)

Commentary

Defend the right to national self-determination for the Turkish Kurds.

The minute one enters into the murky waters of Middle East politics one is immediately confronted with words like, insolvable, daunting, and hopeless. If there is one area of the world that cries out for a multi-nationally derived socialist solution it is this benighted area of the world. Practically speaking, however, that prospect is music for the future. Nevertheless some programmatic points can be put forth today that will cut across the racial, ethnic and religious divides that lead one to use the above-mentioned words of despair. One such point is not even a socialist point per se- the question of a nation’s right to self determination. Yes, that question is off the table for those nations that have already established their right to it by force of arms, or otherwise. However, in the case of the interpenetrated peoples of the Middle East some real nations have been left on the sidelines. In no case is this clearer than with the Kurds, the largest coherent population without a state of their own.

Recent headlines have highlighted this question point blank as Turkey, one of the four nations along with Syria, Iraq and Iran in the region that has significant Kurdish populations, has attempted to solve its Kurdish ‘problem’, as in the past, by militarily annihilating various guerilla operations wherever they crop up- here across the border in neighboring Iraq. I make no pretense to solve all the questions of this area in regard to the Kurdish situation, for example, militants do not today raise the right of national self-determination for Iraqi Kurds who have consciously subordinated themselves to American imperialism but the beginning of wisdom to defend those guerilla forces, mainly the Kurdish Workers Party, in their fight against their national oppressor-Turkey. More, much more on this situation as it unfolds but for now the prospective slogan is –For the right to national self-determination for the Turkish Kurds. For the future- A United Kurdistan.       

 

In Honor Of The 142^ndAnniversary Of The Paris Commune-From The American Left History Blog Archives(2007)- On American Political Discourse

Markin comment:

In the period 2006-2008 I, in vain, attempted to put some energy into analyzing the blossoming American presidential campaign since it was to be, as advertised at least, a watershed election, for women, blacks, old white anglos, latinos, youth, etc. In the event I had to abandon the efforts in about May of 2008 when it became obvious, in my face obvious, that the election would be a watershed only for those who really believed that it would be a watershed election. The four years of the Obama presidency, the 2012 American presidential election campaign, and world politics have only confirmed in my eyes that that abandonment was essentially the right decision at the right time. In short, let the well- paid bourgeois commentators go on and on with their twitter. I, we, had (have) better things to do like fighting against the permanent wars, the permanent war economies, the struggle for more and better jobs, and for a workers party that fights for a workers government . More than enough to do, right? Still a look back at some of the stuff I wrote then does not a bad feel to it. Read on.

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A Small Victory

One of the best pieces of political wisdom I have ever received, and that from an old communist, is that a left political militant must make sure to protect the gains of the past political fights after going on to fight new battles. The nature of capitalist politics is such that no hard-fought political gain comes with an automatic guarantee that it is not reversible. Additionally, I was told that if the political tide is running against you and you cannot hold on to those hard fought gains then you must keep up the propaganda fight and not give into the reactionary flow. Enduring a seemingly never-ending stream of political and social reversals in the‘culture wars’ over the last few decades that advice has kept my head above water.

In my ‘flaming’ at first liberal, then radical youth three issues formed the core of my political beliefs: the fight for black civil right in the South (and later in the North); the fight for nuclear disarmament; and, the fight against the barbaric death penalty. A look at the current political landscape confirms that those struggles are still in dire need of completion. One need only look at the current fight for freedom for the Jena Six down in Louisiana, the overflowing American nuclear arsenal and the fact that 37 states and the federal government still have the death penalty on their books. This last fact is what I am interested in commenting on today.

On Thursday December 14, 2007 the New Jersey Assembly voted, apparently mainly along party lines, to abolish the death penalty in that state. As a result it only awaits the governor’s signature to become law and thus become the first state in forty years to take such action. The governor has indicated that he will sign the legislation. What is more, other states are in various stages of taking the same action. And, of course, there is an unofficial moratorium in place while the United States Supreme Court decides whether lethal injection in the administration of the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment. So the worm turns, perhaps.

During the past decade there has been more than enough evidence from such sources as DNA testing to the results of the various Innocent Projects to convince any rationale person that the administration of the death penalty and even the idea of that ultimate act as a penalty is ‘arbitrary and capricious’, as the language of the legal decisions would have it. In the New Jersey debate one Democratic Assemblyman Wilfredo Caraballo was quoted by Tom Hester, Jr. of the Associated Press as saying “It’s time New Jersey got out of the execution business. Capital punishment is costly, discriminatory, immoral, and barbaric. We’re a better state that one that puts people to death.” Well put. I would only add that from my leftist perspective we do not want to concede to this government the power over life and death for the guilty or the innocent. Put concretely in today’s political terms we do not want the George W. Bushes of the world to have that power.

Coming from Massachusetts, the state that sent the framed-up and martyred Sacco and Vanzetti to their executions, in my youth I was strongly aware of the injustice of the death penalty. One of my early political acts in high school was to attend the annual memorial meeting here in their honor. Moreover, in my household at least, there were always whispers about the injustice done to Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Not out of any political sympathy but from the traditional Catholic antipathy to the death penalty. Those were the days when we had the death penalty advocates somewhat on the run but the spirit of the Sixties barely outlasted the decade as the yahoos went on a rampart for reintroduction. Pardon me then if I see just a little glimmer of light that we may have turned the corner on this issue again. But, as noted above, we better keep fighting like hell just the same.

In Honor Of The 142^nd Anniversary Of The Paris Commune-On The Barricades- The Last Days-Long Live The Memory Of The Communards

Henri Longuet, Jacques Monet, and Louis Dubois, three young proletariat stalwarts who were apprentices at Jean-Paul Balin’s saddle shop (and hence of stocky muscular builds to tackle the work and mild-mannered dispositions as befits future saddlers dealing with picky owners and recalcitrant horses) sworn an oath, a blood brotherhood oath (a workers’brotherhood oath not uncommonly clinched in blood then) that they would be the last defenders, if possible, on the barricade Rue Marat (re-named from Rue Louis with the establishment of the Commune to honor a fallen hero of ’89) which they had helped build back in those heady March days. March days when after Theirs and his bloody troops had fled to Versailles all things seemed possible and they had constructed the barricade seemingly with their bare hands, grit and determinations to defend their project. Had taken a runty make-shift jumble of logs, wire, paving stones, bricks, old furniture and anything else they could scrabble for and turned it into a secure, covered and homey little guardhouse. Guarding as always in the first days against the perfidious Prussians who encircled the city and those damn savage Theirs mercenaries still on the loose.

But that was past and now in mid-May the three lads, lads who thought they would grow old in the splendor of their collective efforts and the efforts of others among the revolutionary working classes of Paris, were faced with the daunting and seemingly utopian task of fending off the counter-revolution brought forth by those same Theirs troops under the blood-thirsty General Gallifit. Still they had made their oath and the grimly determined look on their faces as they mounted the newly constructed parapet to take their turns at guard duty, arms in hand, to face the ever approaching boom of cannon and sound of rifle fire spoke of young men who were at peace with themselves.

The reports from the Central Committee of the National Guard and the Hotel de Ville were not good. The Prussians, in effect, had taken Thiers side (although the details of that collusion would not become known, known to them, anyway) and were letting his troops into the city through their lines. Most of the northern and eastern barricades had been smashed with heavy loss of life and serious recriminations. Summary executions and mass graves were already being reported throughout those sections of the city. Other acts of barbarity and atrocious behavior by Thiers mercenaries had also had aneffect on morale and there had been some desertions and fleeing. Worse, ammunition and food supplies, always a problem from day one, were dwindling with no hope of replacements. Moreover there were signs that some leaders in military headquarters and some among the political leaders were panicking. Those reports, some true, some false, some just the normal fog of war had had small effect on the Rue Marat defenders, including our three stalwarts, since this section was the heart of the working- class where the heroic if tragic traditions of ’89 and ’48 were living memories, especially the latter and so there would be few defections, and less grumbling, grumbling about their fates here.

A couple of days after the solemn blood oath had been taken by the lads the roar of the cannons sent a shell with fifty meters of the barricade. Jean, on guard duty at the time, had seen the shell land and seen its effect blasting a huge hole in the lower floors of an apartment building nearby. That close cannon blast followed by the distant but audible tramp of marching feet meant only one thing, the defense at Rue Moulin had been breached and Theirs troops were headed to Rue Marat. They probably would be in front of the barricade, barring any guerilla skirmishes to hold them up, within an hour or two. The three young men and the approximately fifty other defenders, including some women, were all ordered to the barricade by Comrade Leclerc. Leclerc, who had shown himself to be recklessly brave in the past, in this case steadied his troops to the hopeless task in front of them. The tramping feet came closer.

In the event, true to their traditions of ’89 and’48, the defenders of Rue Marat fought savagely to defend each inch of their precious barricade. We know now to no avail, we know maybe without even having to read about it, since we know how very few defenses by the oppressed of the world since Pharaoh’s times, maybe before, have been victorious. We know too that our three valiants fought savagely too, fought to the last paving stone. To no avail. The three, Jean grievously wounded, were captured by Thiers thugs, and marched about fifty paces from their beloved “home” and summarily executed. But note this-the three, knowing their fates were already sealed, defiantly shouted out Long Live The Paris Commune before the shots rang out. Yes, with the memory echo of such stout defenders in mind-Long Live The Paris Commune.

***When The Blues Is Dues- When A Girl Has Got To Have It- Bessie Smith’s Put A Little Sugar In My Bowl-The X-Rated Version (Well PG Anyway)

… she admitted it, had admitted to herself earlier that evening, she needed, no, she wanted a man, a good man, hell, an average man, that night. She was tired of turning herself on her stomach in bed, her lonesome bed, and manipulating her tongue- wetted fingers deep down between her thighs rapidly for some thrills (rapidly, unlike some women, according to her girl talk friends, was the best way that she could get her thrills, slow just got her frustrated and a vibrator seemed silly the one time she had used it). That afternoon she had done the finger routine, had rolled on her stomach one more time but found that it did not satisfy her, did not satisfy her need for a man inside her, for that friction, for that flood wetness that a man gave her, for his jimson all sticky and wet that got her going again sometimes.

After a streak of bad breaks , bad karma, and bad, almost evil men she had, what did Bessie Smith call it in that gin house, barrelhouse song, oh yah, she had her wanting habits on. No question. She, before she got her current job working as a pool secretary, had been a waitress, a cocktail waitress, in a joint where every guy, married, single, a fag or two even, thought he could hit on her, and the management had expected her to take the cue, which she did for a while until she felt that she was nothing but low-priced whore and left. She had gone out with a few guys, a few big tippers, that management had said would help her out of her financial woes but she felt strange asking for money, although they gave it, gave it out of hand. And funny, she felt worse, when they did not offer her money, or she had to ask twice. Maybe there was a little whore in her, a little in every woman maybe every woman without a man, a steady man. Hell one guy did call her a whore, called her a whore one night when she was having her “friend” and just wanted to give him some skull. Apparently his wife didn’t like to give him head and so he thought every woman who did was a whore. Jesus. That guy though she made him pay, pay plenty for that remark. And he didn’t say a peep when he passed her the dough. Guys.

So fortified with a few shots of home scotch, high shelf-stuff some long ago guy, some guy with dough and maybe his own wanting habits on had brought along to seal the deal when she was on an earlier prowl, she went out, hailed the nearest cab, and went up to the Kit Kat Club all by her lonesome. If the sight of a good-looking dame with alabaster white skin, blue eyes, blond, real blonde, well, blonde with brownish highlights as she told the girls at the water cooler at work when they noticed, as they would, her new “color,” long legs and bedroom-begging hips ready to play house didn’t wake up some good, hell again, average guy, she swore she would go into a nunnery, well, maybe not a nunnery but do something like that to cure her itch and get back at those bastards, those evil guys, who took her for a ride and then left her flat.

The point was to be a little subtle when she got there, since a single woman looking like she looked, all long legs slinky dress, and looking like she was on the prowl, at that club meant only one thing and she would not have to draw the right guy a diagram to know what that thing was, if he was a right guy. She got out of the cab, paid off the cab driver and added a good tip for good luck and entered the club. No stranger she to the wilds of the Kit Kat Club, but previously she had been somebody’s“exclusive” (that “exclusive” was a story unto itself and the last damn time she would be somebody’s hands-off mistress while he was sitting at home most nights with wifey and she with just her wetted fingers for comfort), and so was a little hesitant as she headed to the bar, sat down at a corner stool, opened up her purse and pulled out a cigarette just like in the movies. No bites. No guy coming up out of nowhere to light the damn thing and make some small talk. She stood up for a moment to arrange her drink to give the boys a good look. Still no bite. A guy, a good-looking guy, looked in her direction, looked like a taker but then along came his honey from the Ladies’ Room and that dream flickered out.

Then from behind her came a soft male voice, not feminine, but soft, like the guy was a little unsure of himself. She turned in his direction and saw a fairly good-looking guy, maybe a professor over at Columbia or something like that from his airy look. He had asked if he could buy her a drink, she automatically said no, her womanly first response no, and then on some kind of cosmic whim, said hell, this guy is maybe it tonight. As she said, “yes scotch and water please” she thought how it was funny that guys always thought it was only them that were sex hunger and wouldn’t this professor be surprised at that if he knew his chances of getting laid tonight were looking better than when he, single man, came into the notorious Kit Kat Club.

As it turned out this guy wasn’t a professor but another one of those dime- a- dozen writers from down in the Village who are always trying to find themselves, and glad to tell you about the voyage. Although this guy turned out to have a big knowledge of blues stuff, stuff that she was interested in, stuff that if things worked out she might be able to get out from under that steno pool she was now imprisoned in and get a job in some club, maybe not the Kit Kat Club, but a club, as a torch singer. So they spent a lot of the talking about blues and jazz stuff, having some more loose scotches, and having a dance or two if the song was right. She noticed that when she danced with him he held her firmly but not tightly, the right way, and she also noticed that when they danced she was getting a little steamy, a little steamy in that old love puddle way. About two o’clock she asked him if he wanted to go home with her and before he said yes, she fairly drunk at that point, but also filled with hopeful desire that this guy would be alright, she asked him point blank as they entered a waiting cab if he “would put a little sugar in her bowl.” And knowing the exact meaning of that reference when they hit her place he did…

In Honor Of The 142^nd Anniversary Of The Paris Commune-On The Barricades- The Dwindling Days

Henri Broue was beside himself when he heard the alarm bell, the bell that was used to warn of impending danger in front of the barricades coming now from two sources, the dreaded Prussians who had the outpost fortresses of the city under their control and now the dreaded revamped Theirs governmental forces who were charging throughout the at various point. He thought back to late March, late March when the now fallen Jean-Paul Dubois had urged the section committee to pursue the Thiers troops and disband them before they had a chance to regroup in Versailles. But that fervent brave voice was not listened to was not heeded as the spirit of the time was not following a military bend but a good riddance to bad company feeling after Theirs and company had fled to Versailles. Now with the ringing of the alarm (three long gongs, repeated) they were back, back seeking revenge, seeking blood, seeking death.

Henri had been nothing but a young man the first time, his first time, on the barricades back in those bloody June Days of ’48 when all hell broke loose as the as the old forces tried to drown the new republic in blood, and did so. And hell that was only a republic, not even a workers republic like he and his comrades on barricade Marat (French Revolution, circa 1789, figured murdered by Corday) were trying to establish, establish through the German defeat, the starvation blockade, the perfidy of the Theirs government, their flight and now their vengeful return. The Commune had made some headway, had stabilized things for a while but they forgot a few things too, forgot they were not an isolated island in France but part of all France and should have fought, fought like hell to link up with the other communes in some kind of defensive league. Now they were being destroyed section by section without any outside help, without, as well, any forces to hold the Prussians at bay.

Henri Broue did not consider, despite his revolutionary past, himself a brave man, or a great military fighter although he accounted himself well back in the days. This he knew though, this he knew well, brave or a coward, he was going to be on barricade Marat just as long as he held breathe…

Pardon Private Bradley Manning Stand-Out-Central Square, Cambridge, Wednesdays, 5:00 PM -Update –March 26, 2013

Let’s Redouble Our Efforts To Free Private Bradley Manning-President Obama Pardon Bradley Manning -Make Every Town Square In America (And The World) A Bradley Manning Square From Boston To Berkeley to Berlin-Join Us In Central Square, Cambridge, Ma. For A Stand-Out For Bradley- Wednesdays From 5:00-6:00 PM
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Beginning in September 2011, in order to publicize Private Manning’s case locally, there have been weekly stand-outs (as well as other more ad hoc and sporadic events) in various locations in the Greater Boston area starting in Somerville across from the Davis Square Redline MBTA stop on Friday afternoons and later on Wednesdays. Lately this stand-out has been held each week on Wednesdays from 5:00 to 6:00 PM at Central Square, Cambridge, Ma. (small park at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Prospect Street just outside the Redline MBTA stop, renamed Manning Square for the duration of the stand-out) in order to continue to broaden our outreach. Join us there in calling for Private Manning’s freedom. President Obama Pardon Private Manning Now!
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Those who have followed the heroic Wikileaks whistle-blower Private Bradley Manning’s case over the past year or so, since about April 2012 when the pre-trial hearings began in earnest, know that last November the defendant offered to plead guilty to a few lesser included charges in his indictment, basically taking legal and political responsibility for the leaks to WikiLeaks that had been the subject of some of the government’s allegations against him. Without getting into the arcane legal maneuvering on this issue the idea was to cut across the government’s pretty solid case against him being the leaker of information and to have the now scheduled for June trial be focused on the substantial question of whether his actions constituted “material aid to terrorism” which could subject Private Manning to life in prison. We noted then that we needed to stay with Bradley on this and make sure people know that what he admitted to was that he disclosed information about American military atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan and other diplomatic high crime and misdemeanors and only that. We also noted that he was, and is, frankly, in trouble, big trouble, and needs our support more than ever. Especially in light of the following:

After enduring nearly three years of detention, at times under torturous conditions, on February 28, 2013 Bradley Manning confessed that he had provided WikiLeaksa trove of military and diplomatic documents that exposed U.S. imperialist schemes and wartime atrocities. Private Manning’s guilty plea on ten of 22 counts against him could land him in prison for 20 years. A day after Bradley confessed, military prosecutors announced plans to try him on the remaining counts, including “aiding the enemy” and violating the Espionage Act. Trial is expected to begin in early June. If convicted on these charges, Bradley Manning faces life in prison.

In lifting a bit of the veil of secrecy and lies with which the government cover their depredations, Bradley Manning performed a great service to workers and oppressed around the world. All who oppose the imperialist barbarity and machinations revealed in the material he provided must join in demanding his immediate freedom. Also crucially important is the defense of Julian Assange against the vendetta by the U.S., Britain and their cohorts, who are attempting to railroad him to prison by one means or another for his role in running WikiLeaks.

In a 35-page statement he read to the military court after entering his plea (written summary available at the Bradley Manning Support Network and an audio transcript as well), Manning told of his journey from nearly being rejected in basic training to becoming an army intelligence analyst. In that capacity he came across mountains of evidence of U.S. duplicity and war crimes. The materials he provided to WikiLeaks included military logs documenting 120,000 civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan and a formal military policy of covering up torture, rape and murder. A quarter-million diplomatic cables address all manner of lethal operations within U.S. client states, from the “drug war” in Mexico to drone strikes in Yemen. He also released files containing assessments of detainees held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. These documents show that the government continued to hold many who, Manning stated, were believed or known to be innocent, as well as “low level foot soldiers that did not have useful intelligence.”

The Pentagon and the Obama Administration declared war against WikiLeaksfollowing the release of a video, now entitled Collateral Murder and widely available, conveyed by Manning, of a 2007 U.S. Apache helicopter airstrike in Iraq that killed at least 12 people, including two Reuters journalists. American forces are then shown firing on a van that pulled up to help the victims. Manning said he was most alarmed by the“bloodlust they appeared to have.” He described how instead of calling for medical attention for a seriously wounded individual trying to crawl to safety, an aerial crew team member “asks for the wounded person to pick up a weapon so that he can have a reason to engage.”

By January 2010, Manning said, he“began to become depressed with the situation that we found ourselves increasingly mired in year after year” and decided to make public many of the documents he had backed up as part of his work as an analyst. Manning first offered the materials to the Washington Post and the New York Times. Not getting anywhere with these pillars of the bourgeois press establishment, in February 2010 he made his first submission to WikiLeaks. He attached a note advising that “this is possibly one of the more significant documents of our time removing the fog of war and revealing the true nature of twenty-first century asymmetric warfare. Have a good day.”

The charge of “aiding the enemy”—i.e., Al Qaeda—is especially ominous. This used to mean things like military sabotage and handing over information on troop movements to a battlefield enemy. In Manning’s case, the prosecution claims that the very act of publicizing U.S. military and diplomatic activities, some of which took place years before, amounted to “indirect” communication with Al Qaeda. Manning told the court that he believed that public access to the information “could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general.” He hoped that this “might cause society to reevaluate the need or even the desire to engage in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations that ignore the complex dynamics of the people living in the affected environment everyday.” But by the lights of the imperialists’ war on terror, any exposure of their depredations can be construed as support to the“terrorist” enemy, whoever that might be.

The Pentagon intends to call no fewer than 141 witnesses in its show trial, including four people to testify anonymously. One of them, designated as “John Doe,” is believed to be a Navy SEAL who participated in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. “Doe” is alleged to have grabbed three disks from bin Laden’s Abbottabad, Pakistan, compound on which was stored four files’ worth of the WikiLeaksmaterial provided by Manning.

Nor do charges under the Espionage Act have to have anything to do with actual spying. The law was one of an array of measures adopted to criminalize antiwar activity after U.S. imperialism’s entry into the First World War. It mandated imprisonment for any act deemed to interfere with the recruitment of troops. Among its first and most prominent victims was Socialist Party spokesman Eugene V. Debs, who was jailed for a June 1918 speech at a workers’ rally in Canton, Ohio, where he denounced the war as capitalist slaughter and paid tribute to the leaders of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. Dozens of Industrial Workers of the World organizers were also thrown into prison.

In the early 1970s, the Nixon government tried, unsuccessfully, to use this law to go after Daniel Ellsberg, whose release of the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times shed light on the history of U.S. imperialism’s losing war against the Vietnamese workers and peasants. Obama has happily picked up Nixon’s mantle. Manning’s prosecution will be the sixth time the Obama administration has used the Espionage Act against the source of an unauthorized leak of classified information—more than the combined total under all prior administrations since the law’s enactment in 1917.
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The Private Bradley Manning case is headed toward an early summer trial now scheduled for June 2013. The news on his case over the past several months has centered on the many pre-trial motion hearings including recent defense motions to dismiss for lack of speedy trial. Private Manning’s pre-trial confinement is now at over 1000 days and will be over well over 1000 days by the time of trial. That dismissal motion has now been ruled on by Military Judge Lind. On February 26, 2013 she denied the defense’s motion for dismissal, the last serious chance for Bradley Manning to go free before the scheduled June trial. She ruled furthermore that the various delays by the government were inherent in the nature of this case and that the military authorities, except in one short instance, had been diligent in their efforts to move the proceedings along. For those of us with military experience this is a classic, if perverse, case of that old army slogan-“Hurry up, and wait.” This is definitely tough news for Private Manning although perhaps a good appeal point in some future civilian court review.

The defense had contended that the charges should be dismissed because the military by its own statutes (to speak nothing of that funny old constitutional right to a speedy trial guarantee that our plebeian forbears fought tooth and nail for against the bloody British and later made damn sure was included in the Amendments when the founding fathers“forgot” to include it in the main document) should have arraigned Private Manning within 120 days after his arrest. They hemmed and hawed for almost 600 days before deciding on the charges and a court martial. Nobody in the convening authority, as required by those same statutes, pushed the prosecution forward in a timely manner. In fact the court-martial convening authority, in the person of one Colonel Coffman, seemed to have seen his role as mere “yes man” to each of the government’s eight requests for delays without explanation (and without informing the defense in order to take their objection). Apparently the Colonel saw his role as a mere clearing agent for whatever excuse the government gave, mainly endless addition time for clearing various classified documents a process that need not have held up the proceedings. The defense made timely objection to each governmental request to no avail.

Testimony from military authorities at pre-trial hearings in November 2012 about the reasons for the lack of action ranged from the lame to the absurd (mainly negative responses to knowledge about why some additional delays were necessary. One “reason” sticks out as a reason for excusable delay -some officer needed to get his son to a swimming meet and was thus “unavailable” for a couple of days. I didn’t make this up. I don’t have that sense of the absurd. Jesus, a man was rotting in Obama’s jails and they let him rot because of some damn swim meet). The prosecution, obviously, argued that the government has moved might and main to move the case along and had merely waited until all leaked materials had been determined before proceeding. The judge saw it the government’s way and ruled according as noted above.
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The defense has also recently pursued a motion for a dismissal of the major charges (espionage/ indirect material aid to terrorists) on the basis of the minimal effect of any leaks on national security issues as against Private Manning’s claim that such knowledge was important to the public square (freedom of information issues important for us as well in order to know about what the hell the government is doing either in front of us, or behind our backs). Last summer witnesses from an alphabet soup list of government agencies (CIA, FBI, NSA, Military Intelligence, etc., etc.) testified that while the information leaked shouldn’t have been leaked that the effect on national security was de minimus. The Secretary of Defense at the time, Leon Panetta, also made a public statement to that effect. The prosecution argued, successfully at the time, that the mere fact of the leak of classified information caused irreparable harm to national security issues and Private Manning’s intent, even if noble, was not at issue.

The recent thrust of the motion to dismiss has centered on the defense’s contention that Private Manning consciously and carefully screened any material in his possession to avoid any conflict with national security and that most of the released material had been over-classified (received higher security level than necessary). Much of the materials leaked, as per those parts published widely in the aftermath of the disclosures by the New York Times and other major outlets, concerned reports of atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan and diplomatic interchanges that reflected poorly on that profession. The Obama government has argued again that the mere fact of leaking was all that mattered. That motion has also not been fully ruled on and is now the subject of prosecution counter- motions and has been a cause for further trial delay.
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A defense motion for dismissal based on serious allegations of torturous behavior by the military authorities extending far up the chain of command (a three-star Army general, not the normal concern of someone so far up the chain in the matter of discipline for enlisted personal) while Private Manning was first detained in Kuwait and later at the Quantico Marine brig for about a year ending in April 2011 has now been ruled on. In late November and early December Private Manning himself, as well as others including senior military mental health workers, took the stand to detail those abuses over several days. Most important to the defense was the testimony by qualified military mental health professionals citing the constant willful failure of those who held Private Manning in close confinement to listen to, or act, on their recommendations during those periods

Judge Lind, the military judge who has heard all the pre-trial arguments in the case thus far, has essentially ruled unfavorably on that motion to dismiss given the potential life sentence Private Manning faces. As she announced at an early January pre-trial hearing the military acted illegally in some of its actions. While every Bradley Manning supporter should be heartened by the fact that the military judge ruled that he was subject to illegal behavior by the military during his pre-trial confinement her remedy, a 112 days reduction in any future sentence, is a mere slap on the wrist to the military authorities. No dismissal or, alternatively, no appropriate reduction (the asked for ten to one ratio for all his first year or so of illegal close confinement which would take years off any potential sentence) given the seriousness of the illegal behavior as the defense tirelessly argued for. And the result is a heavy-handed deterrent to any future military whistleblowers, who already are under enormous pressures to remain silent as a matter of course while in uniform, and others who seek to put the hard facts of future American military atrocities before the public.
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There has been increased media attention by mainstream outlets around the case (including the previously knowingly oblivious New York Times), as well as an important statement in November 2012 by three Nobel Peace Laureates (including Bishop Tutu from South Africa) calling on their fellow laureate, United States President Barack Obama, to free Private Manning from his jails. (Available on the Support Bradley Manning Network website.)
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On February 23, 2013, the 1000th day of Private Bradley Manning’s pre-trial confinement, an international day of solidarity was observed with over seventy stand-outs and other demonstration held in America and internationally. Bradley Manning and his courageous stand have not been forgotten. Go to the Bradley Manning Support Network for more details about the events of that day. Another international day of solidarity is scheduled for June 1, 2013 at Fort Meade, Maryland and elsewhere just before the scheduled start of his trial on June 3rd. Check the support network for updates on that event as well.
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Plan to come to Fort Meade outside of Washington, D.C. on June 1^st for an international day of solidarity with Bradley before his scheduled June 3^rd trial. If you can’t make it to Fort Meade plan a solidarity event locally in support of this brave whistle-blower.
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5 Ways To Support Heroic Wikileaks Whistle-blower Private Bradley Manning

*Urgent: The government has announced, in the wake of Bradley Manning’s admission of his part in the Wikileaks expose in open court on February 28th, its intention to continue to prosecute him for the major charges of “aiding the enemy” (Espionage Act) and “material aid to terrorism.” Everyone should contact the presiding officer of the court –martial process, General Linnington, at 1-202-685-2807 and tell him to drop those charges. Once Maj. Gen. Linnington’s voicemail box is full – you can also leave a message at the DOD: (703) 571-3343 – press “5″ to leave a comment.*If this mailbox is also full, leave the Department of Defense a written message. Do it today.

*Come to our stand-out in support of Private Bradley Manning in Central Square, Cambridge, Ma (corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Prospect Street near MBTA Redline station) every Wednesday between 5-6 PM. For other locations in Greater Boston, nationally, and internationally check the Bradley Manning Support Network -http://www.bradleymanning.org/ and for details of the current status of the case and future event updates as well. Also plan to come to Fort Meade outside of Washington, D.C. on June 1^st for an international day of solidarity with Bradley before his scheduled June 3^rd trial. If you can’t make it to Fort Meade plan a solidarity event locally in support of this brave whistle-blower.

*Contribute to the Bradley Manning Defense Fund- as the trial date approaches funds are urgently needed! The government has unlimited financial and personnel resources to prosecute Bradley. And the Obama government is fully using them. We have a fine defense civilian lawyer, David Coombs, many supporters throughout America and the world working hard for Bradley’s freedom, and the truth on our side. Still the hard reality of the American legal system, civilian or military, is that an adequate defense cost serious money. So help out with whatever you can spare. For link go to http://www.bradleymanning.org/

*Sign the online petition at the Bradley Manning Support Network (for link go to http://www.bradleymanning.org/ )to the Secretary of the Army to free Bradley Manning-1000 plus days is enough! The Secretary of the Army stands in the direct chain of command up to the President and can release Private Manning from pre-trial confinement and drop the charges against him at his discretion. For basically any reason that he wishes to-let us say 1000 plus days is enough. Join the over 25,000 supporters in the United States and throughout the world clamoring for Bradley’s well-deserved freedom.

*Call (Comments”202-456-1111), write The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20500, e-mail-(http://www.whitehouse.gov’contact/submitquestions-and comments) the White House to demand President Obama pardon Bradley Manning- The presidential power to pardon is granted under Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution:

“The President…shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in case of impeachment.”

In federal cases, and military cases are federal cases, the President of the United States can, under authority granted by the U.S. Constitution as stated above, pardon the guilty and the innocent, the convicted and those awaiting trial- former President Nixon and former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, for example among others, received such pardons for their heinous crimes- Now that Bradley Manning has pleaded guilty to some lesser charges and is subject to further prison time (up to 20 years) this pardon campaign is more necessary than ever. Free Bradley Manning! Free the whistleblower!