***Poet’s Corner- Langston Hughes- Juke Box Love Song

***Poet’s Corner- Langston Hughes- Juke Box Love Song

 

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

 

February is Black History Month

 

Juke Box Love Song

 

I could take the Harlem night
and wrap around you,
Take the neon lights and make a crown,
Take the Lenox Avenue busses,
Taxis, subways,
And for your love song tone their rumble down.
Take Harlem's heartbeat,
Make a drumbeat,
Put it on a record, let it whirl,
And while we listen to it play,
Dance with you till day--
Dance with you, my sweet brown Harlem girl.

Langston Hughes

He, Jimmy Sands, new in town, new in New Jack City although, not new to city life having lived in Baltimore, Detroit, Chi Town, Frisco and Seattle along the way decided to hit the uptown hot spots one night. Not the “hot’ hot spots like the Kit Kat Club which was strictly for the Mayfair swells, or the Banjo Club, the same, but the lesser clubs, the what did he mock call them, yah, “the plebeian clubs,” which translated to him as the place where hot chicks, mostly white, Irish usually, from the old country, all red-headed, all slim and slinky, all, all, pray, pray, ready to give up that goddam novena book they carried around since birth, maybe before, and live, read give in to his siren song of love, and ditto some sassy light-skinned (high yella his father, his father who never got beyond Kentucky-born nigra to designate the black kindred, called them) black girls, steamy Latinas with those luscious lips and far-way brown eyes, and foxy (foxy if he could ever understand them, or rather their wants) Asian girls, a whole mix, a mix joined together by one thing, no, two things, one youth, young, young and hungry, young and ready, young and, well, you know, young and horny, and two, a love of dancing, rock and roll dancing (and in a pinch, maybe that last dance pinch, in order to seal the evening’s deal, a slow one but that story, that slow last dance chance has been written to death, written to death about guys, black and white guys in their respective neighborhoods, who not sure for some reason about the social graces would hug walls, gym walls usually until they got older, then dance hall walls eyeing, eyeing until their eyeballs got sore, some young thing and hoping against hope for that last dance. Like I say that story had been written unto the shades).

So one James Sands, taxi-driven, indicating that for once in his tender young life that he was flush with dough (having just done a seaman’s three month tour of every odd-ball oil tanker port of call in the eastern world it seemed, he was not sure that he would ever get that oil tank smell out of his nostrils, all he knew was that he would have to be shanghaied or something to get him back on one of those dirty buggers) and ready to spend it on high- shelf liquor (already having scored some precious high end jimson, you know, weed, reefer in case he got lucky), some multi-colored women (choices listed see above), and some music, alighted (nice) in front of Jim Sweeney’s Hi Hat Club up around 100^thStreet just around where things began to mix and match in the city. The only problem, when he inquired, inquired of that beautiful ganga connection, was that while Jim Sweeney’s had plenty of high- priced, high-shelf liquor and plenty of that mix and match bevy of women that the place had no live band for dancing just a jukebox. But a jukebox that had every kind of song, rock and blues song, you could ask for and the speakers were to die for. So here he was.

As Jimmy entered (nice, no cover) he remembered back to the days in the old neighborhood, the old high school after school scene, in dockside Baltimore, at Ginny’s Pizza Parlor where every cool guy and gal went to have their chilling out pizza and soda, maybe a couple of cigarettes, a habit he wished he could break even now, and to play about ten songs on Ginny’s jukebox. He remembered too that afternoon when Shana, long, tall, high yella (sorry but that was what such woman were called then, maybe now too) Shana, from the cheerleaders’ squad showed up there alone, and Shana, if you had seen her would under no circumstances ever need to be alone in any spot in this good green earth much less at Ginny’s.

Seems she and her boyfriend had had a falling out and she was on the prowl. Taking his chances Jimmy, old smooth Jimmy, asked her to dance when somebody put Chuck Berry’s Roll Over Beethoven on, and she said, yes, did you hear that, yes. And that dance got him a couple more, and then a couple more after that, until Shana said she had to leave to go home for some supper and then somebody put on Ballad of Easy Rider, a slow one by The Byrds, and that was their last chance dance. They saw each other a few times after that, had shared some stuff, but, hell, there was no way in that damn Baltimore city that a white-bread (term of art used in the neighborhoods so take no offense, none taken here) and a high yella (take offense, if you like) could breathe the air there together, although he was ready to jump the hoops to do the thing. Maybe tonight, maybe in the crazy mix and match night if he didn’t get distracted by some red-headed Irish girl ready to burn that damn novena book for some whiskey and smoke, he might find his Shana, make something of it, and make the East River smile.

Donate To Veterans For Peace For The Love Of Peace On Valentine's Day

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In Boston February 27th -From Veterans For Peace- Stand With Our Muslim Friends

In Boston February 27th -From Veterans For Peace- Stand With Our Muslim Friends 

 

CALLING ALL VETERANS 

STAND WITH OUR MUSLIM FRIENDS

 

SAVE THE DATE: SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 27

TIME: 11:00 AM – 1:00 PM

WHERE: Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center,

(Largest Mosque in New England).

ADDRESS: 100 Malcolm X Blvd. Roxbury, MA

 

We are planning a gathering / program / rally at the Islamic Society of Boston on Saturday, February 27. This is the largest Mosque in New England, located in Roxbury, MA. We have been working with members of the Mosque to put together a program showing our support, as veterans, for our Muslim friends, neighbors and co-workers.

 

PLEASE REACH OUT TO FELLOW VETERANS AND ASK THEM TO JOIN US. WE ARE INVITING OTHER VETERANS TO JOIN US FOR THIS VERY IMPORTANT GATHERING TO MAKE IT CLEAR VETERANS STAND AGAINST THIS HATRED, BIGOTRY AND ISLAMOPHOBIA DIRECTED TOWARDS OUR MUSLIM FRIENDS, NEIGHBORS AND COWORKERS.

 

We anticipate the speaking part of the program to last about an hour then we will move inside to share conversation and snacks. The speakers will consist of veterans, Muslim members of the Mosque and invited guests.

 

We have all seen and heard the hateful xenophobia / Islamophobia language directed towards Muslims. These hateful attacks towards American Muslims continue to fester and in some cases have resulted in violence towards innocent Muslims here in the U.S. Local Muslims have told us of them being harassed on the street. If a Muslim woman is wearing a head scarf it makes her an easy target. Pat Scanlon, chair of our committee, says "I am friends with a Muslim family whose twelve-year-old daughter told me that she was harassed in the schoolyard by a boy in her class who was calling her a terrorist. This young girl is an Iraqi refugee, straight A student, popular and is the ultimate young American girl and proudly just became an American citizen. She does not wear a head scarf yet was targeted in the schoolyard by another student."

 

We as veterans intend to gather at the Mosque to show our support and solidarity with the Muslim community and to demand an immediate stop to this targeting of the religion of Islam and our Muslims friends with hateful rhetoric and actions. We want to make it clear that "Muslims are Not Our Enemy".

 

Please see our message below and please ask fellow veterans to join us to stand against this hatred, bigotry and Islamophobia.

Smedley Muslim Friendship Committee

 

MUSLIMS ARE

NOT OUR ENEMY

 

Muslims are:

Friends, Neighbors,

Co-workers, Business Owners

Educators, Doctors, Nurses, Athletes, Police, Fire, Scientists,

Mail Carriers, Engineers, Politicians, Carpenters, Bakers and Candle-Stick Makers etc.

 

Muslims serve in the:

Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, National Guard

 

STOP THE BIGOTRY   

   

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In Boston February 27th- Stand With Veterans Standing With Our Moslem Friends

In Boston February 27th- Stand With Veterans Standing With Our Moslem Friends 

 

In Boston February 27th- Stand With Veterans Standing With Our Moslem Friends

In Boston February 27th- Stand With Veterans Standing With Our Moslem Friends 

A View From The Left-WARS ABROAD, WARS AT HOME

WARS ABROAD, WARS AT HOME

 

The U.S. Military Suffers from “Affluenza”

The word “affluenza” is much in vogue. Lately, it’s been linked to a Texas teenager, Ethan Couch, who in 2013 killed four people in a car accident while driving drunk… Is there one that suffers from the institutional version of affluenza (however fuzzy or imprecise that word may be) so much that it has had immense difficulty shouldering the blame for its failures and wrongdoing?  The answer is hidden in plain sight: the U.S. military. Unlike Couch, however, that military has never faced trial or probation; it hasn’t felt the need to abscond to Mexico or been forcibly returned to the homeland to face the music… To cite a point of comparison, in 2015, federal funding for the departments of education, interior, and transportation maxed out at $95 billion -- combined! Not only is the military our favored son by a country mile: it’s our Prodigal Son, and nothing satisfies “him.” He’s still asking for more (and his Republican uncles are clearly ready to turn over to him whatever’s left of the family savings, lock, stock, and barrel)… An institutional report card with so many deficits and failures, a record of deportment that has led to death and mayhem, should not be ignored. The military must be called to account.  How? By cutting its allowance.   More

 

Welcome to the United States of Flint

“I know if I was a parent up there, I would be beside myself if my kids’ health could be at risk,” said President Obama on a recent trip to Michigan.  “Up there” was Flint, a rusting industrial city in the grip of a “water crisis” brought on by a government austerity scheme…  President Obama would have good reason to worry if his kids lived in Flint.  But the city’s children are hardly the only ones threatened by this public health crisis.  There’s a lead crisis for children in Baltimore, Maryland, Herculaneum, Missouri, Sebring, Ohio, and even the nation’s capital, Washington, D.C., and that’s just to begin a list.  State reports suggest, for instance, that "18 cities in Pennsylvania and 11 in New Jersey may have an even higher share of children with dangerously elevated levels of lead than does Flint." Today, scientists agree that there is no safe level of lead for children and at least half of American children have some of this neurotoxin in their blood.  The CDC is especially concerned about the more than 500,000 American children who have substantial amounts of lead in their bodies. Over the past century, an untold number have had their IQs reduced, their school performances limited, their behaviors altered, and their neurological development undermined.     More

 

GOP Candidates Compete Over Who Will Commit Most War Crimes Once Elected

At a rally in New Hampshire on Monday night, Donald Trump was criticizing Ted Cruz for having insufficiently endorsed torture – Cruz had said two nights earlier that he would bring back waterboarding, but not “in any sort of widespread use” – when someone in the audience yelled out that Cruz was a “pussy”. Trump, in faux outrage, reprimanded the supporter, repeating the allegation for the assembled crowd: “She said he’s a pussy. That’s terrible. Terrible.”    The spectacle of one Republican presidential candidate being identified by another as a “pussy” for failing to sufficiently endorse an archetypal form of torture exemplifies the moral state of the current race for the GOP nomination.   More

 

*   *   *   *

NEW WARS / OLD WARS – What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

 

U.S. and Russia Announce Plan for Humanitarian Aid and a Cease-Fire in Syria

Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Sergey V. Lavrov, announced that they had agreed on the delivery over the next few days of desperately needed aid to besieged Syrian cities, to be followed by a “cessation of hostilities” within a week on the way to a more formal cease-fire. “We have agreed to implement a nationwide cessation of hostilities in one week’s time,” Mr. Kerry said early Friday morning, after all-day meetings. “That is ambitious.” … If executed, the agreement, forged by the International Syria Support Group, would mark the first sustained and formally declared halt to fighting in Syria since the civil war began in 2011, early in the Arab uprisings. But even a formal cease-fire would be partial — it excludes the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, and the Nusra Front, both designated as terrorist organizations by the United Nations — and highly fragile.   More

 

Will US, Russia be able to turn 'words on paper' into action in Syria?

With attention in Munich focused on rapidly producing concrete humanitarian deliverables and a reduction in violence in Syria, ambitions receded for a near-term resumption of the intra-Syrian political talks in Geneva . For now, that might suit both the Syrian opposition, currently pushed back on its heels, and the Damascus government, emboldened by its recent military gains, backed by Russian airstrikes. A permanent end to hostilities, however, would not come without an eventual political resolution, Kerry asserted… The next days will be a “good testing time,” de Mistura said. “Are the Syrian people going to see these outcomes? Then they will believe in future conferences, and they believe in their own future. And the ISSG has shown that they are ready to commit themselves.” There were signs, however, that the Syrian opposition, as well as some of its regional backers, were prepared to improve its position should the attempt at a truce break down, an event that is not difficult to imagine.   More

 

In snub to Turkey, US says Syria’s PYD is not a terror group

"We do not recognize the [Democratic Union Party] PYD as a terrorist organization. We recognize Turks do," US State Department spokesman John Kirby told a daily press briefing this week. The remarks are expected to come as a surprise to Ankara, who asked Washington to choose sides: either Turkey or the PYD.  The PYD is the Syrian offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). US officials say its armed wing, the People's Protection Units (YPG), is the most effective partner on the ground in the fight against ISIL in northern Syria. The PKK is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US and the European Union.  Kirby said Turkey's concerns over the Syrian Kurdish militants are not new and that both allies continue to hold consultations on the matter. The public split between Washington and Ankara on the status of the PYD was so serious that Kirby went to great lengths to reiterate that Turkey and the US are good friends.   More

 

Senator Wonders How Much Longer U.S. Will Blindly Support Saudi Arabia

On Capitol Hill, where a majority of lawmakers voted to scupper the deal, there is a push to reassert the U.S.’s unwavering commitment to Saudi security -- even in instances where it isn’t necessarily in the best interests of the U.S.  "In the wake of the Iran nuclear agreement, there are many in Congress who would have the United States double down in our support for the Saudi side of this fight in places like Yemen and Syria, simply because Saudi Arabia is our named friend, and Iran is our named enemy,” Murphy said Friday.   The view Murphy described has a host of supporters in Washington, from scholars at Saudi-funded research institutions like the Arab Gulf States Institute to some of Obama's top aides and Murphy's colleagues.  Obama's State Department has approved billions in various military sales to Saudi Arabia since the Iran deal wrapped up, including $11 billion in warships and over $1 billion in new bombs. Though it is not explicitly stated, observers see the Obama administration’s efforts to shore up the Saudi military and continued support for the disastrous war in Yemen as a tacit trade-off for the kingdom's accepting the nuclear deal.   More

 

*   *   *   *

There is so much propagandistic coverage of Syria that it is hard for even well-meaning peace activists to sort things out.  Here are two articles from a point of view rarely encountered in the mainstream press.  The first is from a British correspondent – with impeccable mainstream credentials –reporting from Aleppo. 

 

A Syrian acquaintance from Aleppo, now living in Boston,  wrote: “If you want to know what is really happening in Aleppo and was barely reported on any media, I would say please take the time & read this long yet important article. This is the story I know & I keep telling everyone. The two men whose names were mentioned  in the article are people I know & I can say they are telling the truth (though they have different political views, but the reality is something they can disagree on).

 

“Same stories I keep hearing from all my friends & family back in Aleppo. Even from those people who fled the Rebel-held areas as they refused to join them. They are now staying in Government areas... not only because they support the government (they might not but of course they also don't support those other people who they can't tell from where they came & what they want), but because these are the areas where they can live a "normal life" without being forced to carry a weapon against the other side.  I just wanted to confirm that what I & everyone else read in this article is true. As I have experienced it before I came here, & my family has & still experiencing it everyday for the last almost four years.”

 

The second article is from a Syrian government (i.e. Assad regime) spokeswoman.  One should treat it with caution, obviously. But why are Syrian “rebels” quoted endlessly in the MSM news but we are never invited to hear what the Syrian government has to say?

 

JOURNEY TO ALEPPO: How the war ripped Syria's biggest city apart

At the start of 2012, by which time much of Damascus was at war, the Aleppan business community says it was targeted in a series of assassinations and killings. Political and religious leaders say they were threatened with death or torture unless they went across to the rebels.  “We knew we were being targeted,” says Fares Shehabi, head of Aleppo’s chamber of industry. “We knew what was coming. We sent a message for the army to be sent to Aleppo.” The request was ignored.  On 5 July of that year an armed convoy - the Brigade of Tawheed, an Islamist group that has previously praised Nusra - rolled into ancient Aleppo. It dispersed, burnt down police stations, set up road blocks.  Within a few weeks, the rebel brigades had taken over most of the city. “At first we thought they were Syrians,” said Shehabi. “But after a few weeks we got reports about foreigners. Fighters from Chechnya, Uzbekistan, Jordan, Saudi, Iraq, Eqypt.”  “This was not regime change, it was invasion. And why was it taking a religious theme? Why does it have a beard? We are not ready to replace a secular society with a religious one.”    More

 

The Rise of ISIS and Other Extremist Groups: the role of the West and Regional Powers

The Syrian government’s immediate response to the protests, despite the violent incidents at the very onset of events, was reconciliatory, as some of the demonstrators had genuine demands. On 24 March 2011, the Syrian leadership convened a long and important meeting in an effort to contain what seemed to be a looming crisis. I was asked to hold a press conference in order to acknowledge, in the name of the leadership, the people’s legitimate demands and to announce decisions and measures that addressed most of these demands.  On that day, I announced to the Syrian people the lifting of emergency laws, in place since 1963, and a comprehensive reform package that would lead to further political freedoms, a multi-party law, and the drafting of a new constitution for Syria. Next day, people told me that they out to have dinner celebrating Syria averting a looming crisis. A feeling of relief prevailed all over the country due to the leadership’s quick response to the demands… This conciliatory approach, however, was met with much worse intransigence by those who claimed to represent the Syrian people and was by then occupying much of the airtime on Al-Jazeera and al-Arabyia. These two channels played an inciting role, encouraging people to protest and rebel against the Syrian government, and they constituted the primary source for news about Syria to all Western media outlets.   More

 

The U.S. Military Bombs in the Twenty-First Century

It’s probably accurate to say that in the course of one disappointment or disaster after another from Afghanistan to Libya, Somalia to Iraq, Yemen to Pakistan, the U.S. military never actually lost an encounter on the battlefield.  But nowhere was it truly triumphant on the battlefield either, not in a way that turned out to mean anything.  Nowhere, in fact, did a military move of any sort truly pay off in the long run… what politician in present-day Washington would have the nerve to suggest the obvious?  Isn’t it finally time to pull the U.S. military back from the Greater Middle East and put an end to our disastrous temptation to intervene ever more destructively in ever more repetitious ways in that region?  That would, of course, mean, among other things, dismantling the vast structure of military bases Washington has built up across the Persian Gulf and the rest of the Greater Middle East.  Maybe it’s time to adopt some version of Senator Aiken’s mythical strategy. Maybe Washington should bluntly declare not victory, but defeat, and bring the U.S. military home.    More

 

 

A Cautionary Tale In The Age Of Bernie Sanders -ELECTIONS AND LESSER EVILS

ELECTIONS AND LESSER EVILS

 

Elizabeth Warren: Hillary Clinton Sold Out To Wall Street

Warren said she… explained how the proposed bankruptcy bill (eventually called The Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2000) would hurt poor people, particularly poor women raising a family who were attempting to get child support and alimony from their ex-husbands: those women would have to compete with Wall Street banks that were trying to keep their ex-husbands out of the bankruptcy process so they could force him to pay credit card debts.  According to Warren, Clinton completely understood the argument Warren made and agreed the bill had to be stopped. Upon returning to Washington, Clinton reportedly worked behind the scenes to defeat the bankruptcy bill, which was pocket vetoed by President Bill Clinton in December of 2000.  But then, as Warren noted, Clinton was elected to Congress for New York in 2000 and, in one of her first acts in office, voted for the very same bankruptcy bill she had once opposed and her husband vetoed.

When asked by Bill Moyers for an explanation for the complete reversal, Warren suggested that then-Senator Clinton had succumbed to pressure from Wall Street as both her constituents and largest campaign donors.    More

 

Top Hillary Clinton Advisers and Fundraisers Lobbied Against Obamacare

Hillary Clinton is campaigning as a guardian of President Barack Obama’s progressive policy accomplishments. In recent weeks, she has called the Affordable Care Act “one of the greatest accomplishments of President Obama, of the Democratic Party, and of our country,” and promised that she is “going to defend Dodd-Frank” and “defend President Obama for taking on Wall Street.”  Meanwhile, however, Clinton’s campaign has been relying on a team of strategists and fundraisers, many of whom spent much of the last seven years as consultants or lobbyists for business interests working to obstruct Obama’s agenda in those two areas.    More

 

FDR in 1936:

 

Wall Street and the Bankers “are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.”

 

BERNIE in 2016:

 

Me too!

 

CLINTON in 2016:

 

They are unanimous in their hate for me--- and I welcome their campaign contributions. . .

 

 

Hear FDR for Yourself

We have highlighted before Franklin Roosevelt’s stirring 1936 Madison Square Garden speech, which you can read in full here.  A live recording is also available via a link at the same site or here. Bernie Sanders shares much of FDR’s politics, but unfortunately not always his great rhetorical skills.

 

When FDR pronounced the famous lines

 

We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. . .

“Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.”

 

(You can hear the crowd cheering wildly at these words.)

 

 

A few years ago, I wrote this article for the Dorchester Reporter

We need to confront ‘malefactors of great wealth’!

So why can’t a Democratic president talk about the “Malefactors of Great Wealth” who are responsible for the economic disasters we face today? Could it have something to do with the fact that wealthy individuals and corporations fund the expensive electoral campaigns of both political parties, and so ensure that the solutions supported by the majority of people – raising taxes on the wealthy and the corporations, putting people to work, ending the wars, protecting Social Security and Medicare – are practically off the “mainstream” agenda?   Fake Republican populism (the “Tea Party,” [or Donald Trump]) is allowed in our system since it is easily deflected (by racism, among other means) away from the real perpetrators. Democratic populism is unacceptable because it might be taken seriously.

 

Sanders should challenge the foreign policy status quo

Democrats have a genuine opportunity to offer a sorely needed new, real security agenda. Yet we’ve seen little evidence of it. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has made a stirring argument about our rigged economy and our corrupted politics, electrifying young voters and unsettling the party establishment’s favorite, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton. But Sanders has said little about foreign policy, apparently viewing it as a distraction from his core economic message…  Driving a new debate in foreign policy isn’t easy. But this country desperately needs a challenge to the mainstream thinking that has given us a foreign policy that grows ever more divorced from the interests and security concerns of the vast majority of Americans. Sanders has challenged our rigged economy and corrupted politics. Now it is time for him to challenge the limits of our cribbed foreign policy debate.    More

 

A Real ‘Political Revolution’ to End the Wars

But the fact is, the lives of millions of people in the Middle East ride on this election just as much as ours do — and perhaps more immediately. If there’s anything left of the Sanders who voted against this war in 2002 — and who preaches against perpetual war now — he’ll recognize that their fate is tied up inextricably with our own.  “As a caring nation,” Sanders said back then, “we should do everything we can to prevent the horrible suffering that a war will cause.” And here let’s add a recent statement by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who just announced plans to end Canada’s involvement in the ISIS air war: “The people terrorized by ISIS every day don’t need our vengeance. They need our help.”  It would be nice to hear some similar words from Sanders today — followed by a real plan to end the war he so presciently opposed. Because a real political revolution doesn’t just mean taking our economic policy back from the billionaires. It means taking our foreign policy back from the carpet bombers.   http://fpif.org/real-political-revolution-end-war-iraq/More

 

BERNIE: “I am proud to say that Henry Kissinger is not my friend.”

Who would have thought this would be one of the great moments from last night’s debate?  If you missed it – or if you want to relive the moment, you can watch the exchange here

 

HENRY KISSINGER, HILLARY CLINTON’S TUTOR

Let’s consider some of Kissinger’s achievements during his tenure as Richard Nixon’s top foreign policy–maker. He (1) prolonged the Vietnam War for five pointless years; (2) illegally bombed Cambodia and Laos; (3) goaded Nixon to wiretap staffers and journalists; (4) bore responsibility for three genocides in Cambodia, East Timor, and Bangladesh; (5) urged Nixon to go after Daniel Ellsberg for having released the Pentagon Papers, which set off a chain of events that brought down the Nixon White House; (6) pumped up Pakistan’s ISI, and encouraged it to use political Islam to destabilize Afghanistan; (7) began the US’s arms-for-petrodollars dependency with Saudi Arabia and pre-revolutionary Iran; (8) accelerated needless civil wars in southern Africa that, in the name of supporting white supremacy, left millions dead; (9) supported coups and death squads throughout Latin America; and (10) ingratiated himself with the first-generation neocons, such as Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz, who would take American militarism to its next calamitous level… A full tally hasn’t been done, but a back-of-the-envelope count would attribute 3, maybe 4 million deaths to Kissinger’s actions, but that number probably undercounts his victims in southern Africa.   More

 

From a website generally supportive of Clinton:

Bernie Sanders is right: Hillary Clinton praising Henry Kissinger is outrageous

Clinton's decision to embrace Kissinger, like her highly paid speeches to Goldman Sachs, make her look like someone who's too ensconced in the American elite to be truly committed to progressive values. It's everything that many progressives dislike about her. Which is why it's such a successful line of attack for Sanders. He, unlike Clinton, isn't really part of polite Washington society. His career in Congress hasn't really required him to buddy up with people like Kissinger. He can give voice to progressive concerns about Kissinger and thus about the establishment.  More

 

The Clintons’ War on Drugs: When Black Lives Didn’t Matter

A true paradox lies at the heart of the Clinton legacy. Both Hillary and Bill continue to enjoy enormous popularity among African Americans despite the devastating legacy of a presidency that resulted in the impoverishment and incarceration of hundreds of thousands of poor and working-class black people. Most shockingly, the total numbers of state and federal inmates grew more rapidly under Bill Clinton than under any other president, including the notorious Republican drug warriors Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush… Although they are rarely mentioned in the same breath, the escalation of America’s drug war in the 1990s and the rise of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) and its benighted son Bill Clinton are all intimately linked. Understanding why tough on crime policies and welfare reform became so foundational to the vision of the New Democrats requires a look at the sensibilities that undergirded their strategy for regaining the White House and national power.   More

 

MICHELLE ALEXANDER: Why Hillary Clinton Doesn't Deserve the Black Vote

Black voters have been remarkably loyal to the Clintons for more than 25 years. It’s true that we eventually lined up behind Barack Obama in 2008, but it’s a measure of the Clinton allure that Hillary led Obama among black voters until he started winning caucuses and primaries… What have the Clintons done to earn such devotion? Did they take extreme political risks to defend the rights of African Americans? Did they courageously stand up to right-wing demagoguery about black communities? Did they help usher in a new era of hope and prosperity for neighborhoods devastated by deindustrialization, globalization, and the disappearance of work?  No. Quite the opposite… On the campaign trail, Bill Clinton made the economy his top priority and argued persuasively that conservatives were using race to divide the nation and divert attention from the failed economy. In practice, however, he capitulated entirely to the right-wing backlash against the civil-rights movement and embraced former president Ronald Reagan’s agenda on race, crime, welfare, and taxes—ultimately doing more harm to black communities than Reagan ever did.   More

 

Who Endorsed Hillary Clinton? The Congr. Black Caucus or Its PAC Filled with Lobbyists?

http://www.democracynow.org/2016/2/12/who_endorsed_hillary_clinton_the_congressional

This week’s endorsement of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for president by the Congressional Black Caucus political action committee prompted some confusion due to a lack of familiarity with the PAC… “They’ve said that the CBC, the Congressional Black Caucus, endorsed, but it is the Congressional Black Caucus’s PAC. And one of the members of the Congressional Black Caucus, Congressmember Keith Ellison, said— tweeted the "Cong’l Black Caucus (CBC) has NOT endorsed in presidential. Separate CBCPAC endorsed withOUT input from CBC membership, including me." And then he had a follow-up tweet saying, "The point [is] that endorsements should be the product of a fair open process. Didn’t happen,"    More

 

Black Caucus PAC Endorsement Approved by Board Awash in Lobbyists

Members of the CBC PAC board include Daron Watts, a lobbyist for Purdue Pharma, the maker of the highly addictive opioid OxyContin; Mike Mckay and Chaka Burgess, both lobbyists for Navient, the student loan giant that was spun off of Sallie Mae; former Rep. Albert Wynn, D-Md., a lobbyist who represents a range of clients, including work last year on behalf of Lorillard Tobacco, the maker of Newport cigarettes; and William A. Kirk, who lobbies for a cigar industry trade group on a range of tobacco regulations. And a significant percentage of the $7,000 raised this cycle by the CBC PAC from individuals was donated by white lobbyists, including Vic Fazio, who represents Philip Morris and served for years as a lobbyist to Corrections Corporation of America, and David Adams, a former Clinton aide who now lobbies for Wal-Mart, the largest gun distributor in America… Not all CBC members have embraced the Clinton endorsement. Speaking this morning on Democracy Now, Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., a CBC member, said she has not endorsed either candidate in the Democratic primary, and reminded viewers that the CBC “has nothing to do with the” CBC PAC, which is a legally distinct entity. NBC Capitol Hill producer Frank Thorp tweeted that Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., was one of two abstentions on the CBC PAC board.  More

 

Islamophobia and the Election: It’s not just Trump

While the media focuses on the demagoguery of Donald Trump, the war-mongering of Ted Cruz and the sheer-unhinged nature of Ben Carson – the reality is that even “moderate” candidates, such as Marco Rubio are riding a wave of anti-Muslim sentiment, in order to seem tough on national security.  Global Islamophobia continues to reach its crescendo, with anti-refugee and thereby anti-Muslim sentiment spreading like wildfire across Europe.  This rhetoric has also continued to grow in the U.S. – with record numbers of Islamophobic incidents reported in 2015 against mosques.  For American Muslims, it is now almost 15 years post-9/11 – yet the question remains on whether the continual scapegoating and marginalization of this community within the political sphere will ever end.   More

 

Freedom For A Class-War Prisoner-After 20 Years-Lori Berenson Finally Home

Workers Vanguard No. 1082	29 January 2016

After 20 Years-Lori Berenson Finally Home

 

On December 3, 46-year-old Lori Berenson landed at Kennedy International Airport, having served a 20-year sentence in Peru (the last five years on parole). She was one of the thousands of victims of state terror carried out by paramilitary bands, cops and the military under President Alberto Fujimori in the 1990s. She arrived back in the U.S. with her six-year-old son, Salvador, who was born in prison. The Partisan Defense Committee and the Spartacist League, with which it is affiliated, congratulate Berenson on her release.

Berenson was grabbed off a Lima bus in November 1995, arrested along with more than 20 others in raids by the feared “anti-terrorist” police (Dincote). Only six weeks later, she was convicted by a frame-up military tribunal of treason and of being a leader of the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA), a Cuban-influenced guerrilla group formed in the early ’80s. Its name derived from a leader of an indigenous rebellion against Spanish colonial rule in the late 1700s. The MRTA mainly targeted military installations and foreign-owned businesses, in contrast to the Maoist Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) movement, which often launched murderous attacks on workers and peasants unions as well as armed clashes with the MRTA.

Sentenced to life, Berenson was locked up in the notorious Yanamayo prison located in the Andes at over 12,000 feet, her tiny unheated cell open to the elements. The isolation and unbearable conditions drove some of the political prisoners there to attempt suicide. After three years and suffering from illnesses brought on by the relentless cold and the poor food, Berenson was transferred to Socabaya prison near Arequipa a day before her case was to be brought before the Washington-based Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. After an international outcry over her treatment, Peruvian officials in 2000 admitted Berenson was not an MRTA leader and ordered her retried before a special civilian court for those accused of terrorism. A three-judge panel convicted her in 2001 of “collaborating with terrorism” and sentenced her to 20 years.

Berenson had arrived in Peru in 1994 after working in Central America and seeing firsthand the endemic poverty, inequality and injustice. “I realized,” she said in a 2011 interview, “that behind suffering was politics.... There are interests behind that—political, economic—in having a social class be relegated to dying in misery, and being exploited, and being harmed, and suffering repression” (New York Times Magazine, 6 March 2011).

In the 1990s, Peru was in the grips of a brutal “anti-terrorism” campaign waged by President Fujimori. He is now disgraced, and has been imprisoned since 2007 for among other things, corruption, kidnapping and murder—but not, of course, for his myriad crimes against the urban and rural masses of Peru. Throughout the decade of his presidency, Fujimori was backed by both the Bush I and Clinton administrations. Peru received millions in U.S. military aid for the “war on drugs,” which the army and police prosecuted viciously in remote areas known to be guerrilla strongholds. Fujimori set up death squads that massacred indigenous peasants and disappeared leftists. At the behest of the IMF, he imposed austerity and privatized previously nationalized industries, which deepened the already desperate poverty in the cities and countryside. There were forced sterilization campaigns, which largely targeted the indigenous population. Any opposition to the regime was equated with terrorism; in an 18-month period alone, over 500,000 people had been detained.

The SL and PDC defended Berenson and all victims of this onslaught of right-wing repression. In December 1996, the MRTA spectacularly seized the Japanese ambassador’s residence in Lima, demanding freedom for 450 of their comrades (including Berenson) in exchange for the 72 high-ranking government officials, military officers and businessmen they held hostage. The siege lasted 126 days and ended in a bloodbath: government commandos stormed the villa and executed all 14 guerrillas. Understanding that this massacre would strengthen the hand of repressive regimes throughout the hemisphere, the SL and other sections of the International Communist League initiated or joined protests in major U.S. and Canadian cities as well as Mexico City, Tokyo and Berlin.

For her part, Berenson acquitted herself with honor under harsh and dangerous conditions. In 1996, with her conviction by hooded judges a foregone conclusion, she declared to the press: “In the MRTA there are no criminal terrorists. It is a revolutionary movement.” She used the publicity she received as an American to speak for the wounded and tortured prisoners who would never be heard. Over the years, Berenson continued to speak out on behalf of her fellow political prisoners and to denounce the horrific conditions under which they were held. She did not renounce her political views or the MRTA, even during her civil trial when hopes for her release were raised, despite widespread vilification of her in the Peruvian and American press.

The insufferable conditions that moved people like Lori Berenson to action still exist throughout South and Central America and indeed throughout the world. While Marxists understand the attraction of petty-bourgeois guerrillaism to radicalized students and intellectuals, we recognize that only the social power of the proletariat can root out the source of this social misery, the capitalist-imperialist system itself. While the peasantry is an amorphous class ranging from landless day laborers to well-to-do farmers who exploit the labor of others, the working class is concentrated and organized. It powers the capitalist engine and can lead all the oppressed—poor peasants, indigenous peoples, women—to achieve national liberation, agrarian revolution and modernization in countries plundered by imperialism.

Such historic gains can only be achieved through the conquest of power by the proletariat, that is, through socialist revolution—the expropriation of capitalist property and establishment of a planned collectivized economy. Ultimate victory for the toiling masses of Latin America requires international extension of the revolution to the bastion of U.S. imperialism and to other industrialized economies. This task requires a disciplined international organization of revolutionary working-class parties—a reforged Fourth International—that can link the struggles of the workers of the semicolonies to those in the imperialist centers.