As Obama, His House And Senate Allies, His “Coalition Of The Willing”    Ramp Up The War Drums-Again- Stop The Bombings-Stop The Incessant Escalations-- Immediate Withdrawal Of All U.S. Troops And Mercenaries From The Middle East! –Stop The U. S. Arms Shipments …

Frank Jackman comment:

Nobel “Peace” Prize Winner, U.S. President Barack Obama (and yes that word peace should be placed in quotation marks every time that award winning is referenced), abetted by the usual suspects in the House and Senate as well as internationally (Britain, France, the NATO guys, etc.),  has over the past several months ordered more air bombing strikes in the north of Iraq and in Syria, has sent more “advisers”, another fifteen hundred most recently, to “protect” American outposts in Iraq and buck up the feckless Iraqi Army, has sent seemingly limitless arms shipments to the Kurds now acting as on the ground agents of American imperialism whatever their otherwise supportable desires for a unified Kurdish state, and has authorized supplies of arms to the cutthroat and ghost-like moderate Syrian opposition if it can be found to give weapons to,  quite a lot of war-like actions for a “peace” guy (maybe those quotation mark should be used anytime anyone is talking about Obama). All these actions, and threatened future ones as well, have made guys who served in the American military during the Vietnam War and who, like me, belatedly, got “religion” on the war issue from the experience, have learned to think long and hard about the war drums rising as a kneejerk way to resolve the conflicts in this wicked old world have made us very skeptical. We might very well be excused for our failed suspension of disbelief when the White House keeps pounding out the propaganda that these actions are limited when all signs point to the slippery slope of escalation (and the most recent hike of fifteen hundred kind of puts paid to that thought).

And during all this deluge Obama and company saying with a straight face the familiar (Vietnam-era familiar updated for the present)-“we seek no wider war”-meaning no American combat troops. Well if you start bombing places back to the Stone Age, or trying to, if you cannot rely on the weak-kneed Iraqi troops who have already shown what they are made of and cannot rely on a now virtually non-existent “Syrian Free Army” which you are willing to give whatever they want and will still come up short what do you think the next step will be? Now not every event in history gets repeated exactly but given the recent United States Government’s history in Iraq those old time Vietnam vets who I like to hang around might be on to something. In any case dust off the old banners, placards, and buttons and get your voices in shape- just in case. No New War In Iraq!–Stop The Bombings !- Stop The Arms Shipments!-Vote Down The Syria-Iraq War Budget Appropriations!     

***

Here is something to think about picked up from a leaflet at a recent anti-war rally:  

Workers and the oppressed have no interest in a victory by one combatant or the other in the reactionary Sunni-Shi’ite civil war in Iraq or the victory of any side in Syria. However, the international working class definitely has a side in opposing imperialist intervention in Iraq and demanding the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops and mercenaries. It is U.S. imperialism that constitutes the greatest danger to the world’s working people and downtrodden.

[Whatever unknown sister or brother put that idea together sure has it right]  

 

As The 100th Anniversary Of The First Year Of World War I (Remember The War To End All Wars) Continues ... Some Remembrances-Poets’ Corner  
 

In say 1912 in the time of the supposedly big deal Basle Socialist Conference which got reflected in more circles than just workingmen, small shopkeepers and small farmers, or 1913 for that matter when the big deal European powers were waging "proxy" war, making ominous moves, but most importantly working three shifts in the munitions plants, oh hell, even in the beginning of 1914 before the war clouds got a full head of steam that summer they all profusely professed their undying devotion to peace, to wage no war for any reason. Reasons: artists who saw the disjointedness of modern industrial society, freaked out at what humankind had produced, was producing to place everybody in an inescapable box and hence their cubic fascinations from which to run, put the pieces to paint; sculptors who put twisted pieces of scrape metal juxtaposed to each other  to get that same effect, an effect which would be replicated on all those foreboding trenched fronts; writers, not all of them socialists either, some were conservatives that saw empire, their particular empire, in grave danger once the blood started flowing  who saw the v   of serious history books proving that, according to their Whiggish theory of progress,  humankind had moved beyond war as an instrument of policy; writers of not so serious novels drenched in platitudes and hidden gabezo love affairs put paid to that notion in their sweet nothing words that man and woman had too much to do to denigrate themselves by crying the warrior’s cry and for the sweet nothing maidens to spent their waking hours strewing flowers on the bloodlust streets; musicians whose muse spoke of delicate tempos and sweet muted violin concertos; and poets, ah, those constricted poets who bleed the moon of its amber swearing, swearing on a stack of seven sealed bibles, that they with all their creative brethren would go to the hells, literary Dante's rings, before touching the hair of another human, that come the war drums they all would resist the siren call, would stick to their Whiggish, Futurist, Constructionist, Cubist, world and blast the war-makers to hell in quotes, words, chords, clanged metal, and pretty pastels.

And then the war drums intensified and they, they made of ordinary human clay as it turned out, they who could not resist the call, could not resist those maidens now busy all day strewing flowers on the bloodlust streets for their soldier boys, those poets, artists, sculptors, writers, serious and not, musicians went sheepishly to the trenches with the rest of the flower of European youth to die deathless deaths in their thousands for, well, for ….   

THE BEACH ROAD BY THE WOOD

I know a beach road, A road where I would go, It runs up northward From Cooden Bay to Hoe; And there, in the High Woods, Daffodils grow. And whoever walks along there Stops short and sees, By the moist tree-roots In a clearing of the trees, Yellow great battalions of them, Blowing in the breeze. While the spring sun brightens, And the dull sky clears, They blow their golden trumpets, Those golden trumpeteers! They blow their golden trumpets And they shake their glancing spears. And all the rocking beech-trees Are bright with buds again, And the green and open spaces Are greener after rain, And far to southward one can hear The sullen, moaning rain. Once before I die I will leave the town behind, The loud town, the dark town That cramps and chills the mind, And I'll stand again bareheaded there In the sunlight and the wind. Yes, I shall stand Where as a boy I stood Above the dykes and levels In the beach road by the wood, And I'll smell again the sea breeze, Salt and harsh and good. And there shall rise to me From that consecrated ground The old dreams, the lost dreams That years and cares have drowned; Welling up within me And above me and around The song that I could never sing And the face I never found. _Geoffrey Howard_

GERMAN PRISONERS When first I saw you in the curious street Like some platoon of soldier ghosts in grey, My mad impulse was all to smite and slay, To spit upon you--tread you 'neath my feet. But when I saw how each sad soul did greet My gaze with no sign of defiant frown, How from tired eyes looked spirits broken down, How each face showed the pale flag of defeat, And doubt, despair, and disillusionment, And how were grievous wounds on many a head. And on your garb red-faced was other red; And how you stooped as men whose strength was spent, I knew that we had suffered each as other, And could have grasped your hand and cried, "My brother!" _Joseph Lee_          

 

REFUSING TO KILL CAMPAIGNING WITH MILITARY REFUSERS, WHISTLEBLOWERS & PRISONERS   Nov/Dec 2014
Follow the links and visit our website refusingtokill.net for more information. Do write to refusers, whistleblowers and prisoners - your letters will keep them going!  Send us your news and circulate this newsletter to help build a stronger international network of refusal.
UPCOMING EVENTS
	LONDON THUR 27 November - film showing of “The Whistleblower”, organized by The Whistler at 6pm that day. Based on the true story of Kathry Bolkovac (pictured), a peacekeeper in post-war Bosnia who unveils corruption and cover-up amidst a world of UN contingents, private contractors, and diplomatic doubletalk.
	INTERNATIONAL WED 17 December -  celebrate Chelsea Manning's birthday! So far, events planned in Berlin, Boston, Istanbul, London, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Venice. Over 50 musicians, actors & Nobel laureates signed a statement supporting whistleblowers. Sign & circulate the Amnesty International petition demanding Chelsea's pardon.
	Don’t miss the film "Kill the Messenger”, the story of Gary Webb who, in 1996, a reporter on a small newspaper who blew the whistle on a CIA drug operation in South Central Los Angeles aimed at undermining the Black movement and funding murder and destabilization in Nicaragua through arming the Contras.
	LONDON ongoing -  Support Julian Assange, the Wikileaks founder. Join the vigil at the Ecuadorian embassy in London: Tue, Wed, Thu 4 -6pm and Sat 5.30 – 6.30pm                             CAMPAIGNING NEWS

Derrick Stanley & others of the Dallas 6

US 10 November - Dallas 6, US prisoners who blew the whistle on torture inside, won a "continuance" giving them time to prepare their defense. New trial date 17 Feb 2015.  Shandre Delaney, mother of Carrington Keys of the Dallas 6 and coordinator of the campaign, attended court with two dozen supporters.

Shandre Delaney

	US, Benton Harbor 3 November - Grassroots leader Reverend Edward Pinkney was convicted of five felony counts of election law violation by an all-white jury even though there was no supporting evidence. Benton Harbor is 96% Black. Sentencing will be on 15 Dec.
	TURKEY 5 November - Ali Fikri Işık, 56, a conscientious objector who has refused to serve in the Turkish army for over 30 years, was sentenced to 25 months in prison or a £4,000 fine. He is appealing the sentence.
	TACOMA, USA – Migrants staged a third hunger strike in the North West Detention Centre to denounce expensive/unhealthy food and exploitation (working for $1/day).  They have also joined the movement to press President Obama to stop deportation.
	GERMANY 11 November – The European Court of Justice (ECJ) Advocate General gave a favourable opinion on the case of Andre Shepherd, a US soldier who left his unit in 2008 during leave in Germany where he requested asylum. If the ECJ gives him the right to asylum, it will set an important precedent.  Ruling expected early 2015.
	UK 9 November - Veterans for Peace UK and their supporters commemorated Remembrance Sunday at the Cenotaph, demanding “justice for all those affected by war”.  They wore a quote on their jumpers from WW1 vet Harry Patch “War is organised murder, and nothing else".
	ISRAEL - Conscientious objector Omar Sa’ad, 18, Druze citizen of Israel and musician, was jailed 6 times.  He was released from military service in June following an international campaign. He has just finished touring the UK with his string quartet. Druze refusal has been growing steadily.
Uriel Ferera	Uriel Ferera, 19, from an Orthodox Jewish family has, so far, been imprisoned nine times for advocating peace.  He was abused for refusing to wear military uniform in prison. Udi Segal, 19, was imprisoned for the fifth time on 30 Oct. for his refusal to enlist, and for part of that time was on hunger strike.	Udi Segal
Payday men's network payday@paydaynet.org   www.refusingtokill.net

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The Truth-teller-Malcolm X on Racist America

 

 

Malcolm X on Racist America

The text of this telegram to Rockwell, head of the American Nazi Party, was read aloud by Malcolm X at a public rally of the Organization of Afro-American Unitv in Harlem on January 24. 1965.

Public Notice to George Lincoln Rockwell

"This is to warn you that I am no longer held in check from fighting white supremacists by Elijah Muhammad's separatist Black Muslim movement, and that if your present racist agitation against our people there in Alabama causes physical harm to Reverend King or any other black Americans who are only attempting to enjoy their rights as free human beings, that you and your Ku Klux Klan friends will be met with maximum physical retaliation from those of us who are not hand-cuffed by the disarming philosophy of nonviolence, and who believe in asserting our right of self-defense—by any means necessary."
 

No Justice, No Peace- The Case Of New York’s Eric Garner - Stop The Police Killings Of Black And Brown People-Malcolm X Where Are You Now When You Are Needed

 

 

Frank Jackman comment: 

The comment below was used just last week around the Ferguson, Missouri case of Michael Brown. The situation in New York yesterday is so raw that I am using that basic statement again.

It has always been easy for the American imperialist capitalist government and their police to treat black youth, especially black males and increasing Latinos like they have treated the peoples of Southeast Asia in the past, and in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan more recently as so much collateral damage when they pulled the hammer down. Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, and a myriad of others shot down over the years by the police and/or vigilantes cry out for justice in New York City this day and will not accept another whitewash.  If only we had another Malcolm X around to properly channel this rage and really do something about the situation.  

Malcolm X on Racist America

The text of this telegram to Rockwell, head of the American Nazi Party, was read aloud by Malcolm X at a public rally of the Organization of Afro-American Unitv in Harlem on January 24. 1965.

Public Notice to George Lincoln Rockwell

"This is to warn you that I am no longer held in check from fighting white supremacists by Elijah Muhammad's separatist Black Muslim movement, and that if your present racist agitation against our people there in Alabama causes physical harm to Reverend King or any other black Americans who are only attempting to enjoy their rights as free human beings, that you and your Ku Klux Klan friends will be met with maximum physical retaliation from those of us who are not hand-cuffed by the disarming philosophy of nonviolence, and who believe in asserting our right of self-defense—by any means necessary."

"America, Where Are You Now...."- Stepphenwolf's The Monster-Take Two

A YouTube Film Clip Of Stepphenwolf Performing Monster. Ah, Those Were The Days

Commentary/CD REVIEW

Steppenwolf: 16 Greatest Hits, Steppenwolf, Digital Sound, 1990

America where are you now?

Don't you care about your sons and daughters?

Don't you know we need you now

We can't fight alone against the monster

The heavy rock band Steppenwolf, one of many that was thrown up by the musical counter-culture of the mid to late 1960's was a cut above and apart from some of the others due to their scorching lyrics provided mainly, but not solely, by gravelly-voiced lead singer John Kay. Some bands played, consciously played, to the “drop out” notion of times, drop out of rat-race bourgeois society and it money imperative, its white picket fence with little e white house visions (from when many of the young, the post-World War II baby-boomer young, now sadly older), drop out and create a niche somewhere, some physical somewhere perhaps but certainly some other mental somewhere and the music reflected that disenchantment, Much of which was ephemeral, merely background music, and has not survived (except in lonely YouTube cyberspace). Others, flash pan “music is the revolution,” period exclamation point, end of conversation bands assumed a few pithy lyrics would carry the day and dirty old bourgeois society would run and hide in horror leaving the field open, open for, uh, us. That music too, except for gens like The Ballad Of Easy Rider, is safely ensconced in vast cyberspace.

Steppenwolf was different. Not all the lyrics worked, then or now. Not all the words are now some forty plus years later memorable. After all every song is written with current audience in mind, and notions of immortality for most songs are displaced. Certainly some of the less political lyrics seem entirely forgettable. As does some of the heavy decibel rock sound that seems to wander at times like, as was the case more often than not, and more often that we, deep in some a then hermetic drug thrall, would have acknowledged, or worried about. But know this- when you think today about trying to escape from the rat race of daily living then you have an enduring anthem Born To Be Wildthat still stirs the young (and not so young). If Bob Dylan's Like A Rolling Stone was one musical pillar of the youth revolt of the 1960's then Born To Be Wild was the other.

And if you needed (or need) a quick history lesson about the nature of American society in the 1960's, what it was doing to its young, where it had been and where it was heading (and seemingly still is as we finish up the Afghan wars and the war signals for intervention into Syria and Iran, or both are beating the war drums fiercely) then the trilogy under the title "The Monster" (the chorus which I have posted above and lyrics below) said it all.

Then there were songs like The Pusher Man a song that could be usefully used as an argument in favor of decriminalization of drugs today and get our people the hell out of jail and moving on with their lives and other then more topical songs like Draft Resister to fill out the album. The group did not have the staying power of others like The Rolling Stones but if you want to know, approximately, what it was like for rock groups to seriously put rock and roll and a hard political edge together give a listen.

Words and music by John Kay, Jerry Edmonton, Nick St. Nicholas and Larry Byrom

(Monster)

Once the religious, the hunted and weary

Chasing the promise of freedom and hope

Came to this country to build a new vision

Far from the reaches of kingdom and pope

Like good Christians, some would burn the witches

Later some got slaves to gather riches

But still from near and far to seek America

They came by thousands to court the wild

And she just patiently smiled and bore a child

To be their spirit and guiding light

And once the ties with the crown had been broken

Westward in saddle and wagon it went
And 'til the railroad linked ocean to ocean

Many the lives which had come to an end

While we bullied, stole and bought our a homeland

We began the slaughter of the red man

But still from near and far to seek America

They came by thousands to court the wild

And she just patiently smiled and bore a child

To be their spirit and guiding light

The blue and grey they stomped it

They kicked it just like a dog

And when the war over

They stuffed it just like a hog

And though the past has it's share of injustice

Kind was the spirit in many a way

But it's protectors and friends have been sleeping

Now it's a monster and will not obey

(Suicide)

The spirit was freedom and justice

And it's keepers seem generous and kind

It's leaders were supposed to serve the country

But now they won't pay it no mind

'Cause the people grew fat and got lazy

And now their vote is a meaningless joke

They babble about law and order

But it's all just an echo of what they've been told

Yeah, there's a monster on the loose

It's got our heads into a noose

And it just sits there watchin'

Our cities have turned into jungles

And corruption is stranglin' the land

The police force is watching the people

And the people just can't understand

We don't know how to mind our own business

'Cause the whole worlds got to be just like us

Now we are fighting a war over there

No matter who's the winner

We can't pay the cost

'Cause there's a monster on the loose

It's got our heads into a noose

And it just sits there watching

(America)

America where are you now?

Don't you care about your sons and daughters?

Don't you know we need you now

We can't fight alone against the monster

© Copyright MCA Music (BMI)
All rights for the USA controlled and administered by
MCA Corporation of America, INC

--Used with permission--

Born To Be Wild

Words and music by Mars Bonfire

Get your motor runnin'

Head out on the highway

Lookin' for adventure

And whatever comes our way

Yeah Darlin' go make it happen

Take the world in a love embrace

Fire all of your guns at once

And explode into space

I like smoke and lightning

Heavy metal thunder

Racin' with the wind

And the feelin' that I'm under

Yeah Darlin' go make it happen

Take the world in a love embrace

Fire all of your guns at once

And explode into space

Like a true nature's child

We were born, born to be wild

We can climb so high

I never wanna die

Born to be wild
Born to be wild

© MCA Music (BMI)
All rights for the USA controlled and administered by
MCA Corporation of America, INC

--Used with permission--

THE PUSHER

From the 1968 release "Steppenwolf"

Words and music by Hoyt Axton

You know I've smoked a lot of grass

O' Lord, I've popped a lot of pills

But I never touched nothin'

That my spirit could kill

You know, I've seen a lot of people walkin' 'round

With tombstones in their eyes

But the pusher don't care

Ah, if you live or if you die

God damn, The Pusher

God damn, I say The Pusher

I said God damn, God damn The Pusher man

You know the dealer, the dealer is a man

With the love grass in his hand

Oh but the pusher is a monster

Good God, he's not a natural man

The dealer for a nickel

Lord, will sell you lots of sweet dreams

Ah, but the pusher ruin your body

Lord, he'll leave your, he'll leave your mind to scream

God damn, The Pusher

God damn, God damn the Pusher

I said God damn, God, God damn The Pusher man

Well, now if I were the president of this land

You know, I'd declare total war on The Pusher man

I'd cut him if he stands, and I'd shoot him if he'd run

Yes I'd kill him with my Bible and my razor and my gun

God damn The Pusher

Gad damn The Pusher

I said God damn, God damn The Pusher man\

© Irving Music Inc. (BMI)

--Used with permission--