From The Partisan Defense Committee-31st Holiday Appeal-December 2-New York City
Saturday, November 26, 2016
*****President Obama Pardon Chelsea Manning Now!-The Struggle Continues ….We Will Not Leave Our Sister Behind
*****President Obama Pardon Chelsea Manning Now!-The Struggle Continues ….We Will Not Leave Our Sister Behind
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
Updated-September 2015
A while back, maybe a year or so ago, I was asked by a fellow member of Veterans For Peace at a monthly meeting in Cambridge about the status of the case of Chelsea Manning since he knew that I had been seriously involved with publicizing her case and he had not heard much about the case since she had been convicted in August 2013 (on some twenty counts including several Espionage Act counts, the Act itself, as it relates to Chelsea and its constitutionality will be the basis for one of her issues on appeal) and sentenced by Judge Lind to thirty-five years imprisonment to be served at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. (She had already been held for three years before trial, the subject of another appeals issue and as of May 2015 had served five years altogether thus far and will be formally eligible for parole in the not too distant future although usually the first parole decision is negative).
That had also been the time immediately after the sentencing when Private Manning announced to the world her sexual identity and turned from Bradley to Chelsea. The question of her sexual identity was a situation than some of us already had known about while respecting Private Manning’s, Chelsea’s, and those of her ardent supporters at Courage to Resist and elsewhere the subject of her sexual identity was kept in the background so the reasons she was being tried would not be muddled and for which she was savagely fighting in her defense would not be warped by the mainstream media into some kind of identity politics circus.
I had responded to my fellow member that, as usual in such super-charged cases involving political prisoners, and there is no question that Private Manning is one despite the fact that every United States Attorney-General including the one in charge during her trial claims that there are no such prisoners in American jails only law-breakers, once the media glare of the trial and sentencing is over the case usually falls by the wayside into the media vacuum while the appellate process proceed on over the next several years.
At that point I informed him of the details that I did know. Chelsea immediately after sentencing had been put in the normal isolation before being put in with the general population at Fort Leavenworth. She seemed to be adjusting according to her trial defense lawyer to the pall of prison life as best she could. Later she had gone to a Kansas civil court to have her name changed from Bradley to Chelsea Elizabeth which the judge granted although the Army for a period insisted that mail be sent to her under her former male Bradley name. Her request for hormone therapies to help reflect her sexual identity had either been denied or the process stonewalled despite the Army’s own medical and psychiatric personnel stating in court that she was entitled to such measures.
At the beginning of 2014 the Commanding General of the Military District of Washington, General Buchanan, who had the authority to grant clemency on the sentence part of the case, despite the unusual severity of the sentence, had denied Chelsea any relief from the onerous sentence imposed by Judge Lind.
Locally on Veterans Day 2013, the first such event after her sentencing we had honored Chelsea at the annual VFP Armistice Day program and in December 2013 held a stand-out celebrating Chelsea’s birthday (as we did in December 2014 and will do again this December of 2015). Most important of the information I gave my fellow VFPer was that Chelsea’s case going forward to the Army appellate process was being handled by nationally renowned lawyer Nancy Hollander and her associate Vincent Ward. Thus the case was in the long drawn out legal phase that does not generally get much coverage except by those interested in the case like well-known Vietnam era Pentagon Papers whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg, various progressive groups which either nominated or rewarded her with their prizes, and the organization that has steadfastly continued to handle her case’s publicity and raising financial aid for her appeal, Courage to Resist (an organization dedicated to publicizing the cases of other military resisters as well).
At our February 2015 monthly meeting that same VFPer asked me if it was true that as he had heard the Army, or the Department of Defense, had ordered Chelsea’s hormone therapy treatments to begin. I informed him after a long battle, including an ACLU suit ordering such relief, that information was true and she had started her treatments a month previously. I also informed him that the Army had thus far refused her request to have an appropriate length woman’s hair-do. On the legal front the case was still being reviewed for issues to be presented which could overturn the lower court decision in the Army Court Of Criminal Appeals by the lawyers and the actual writing of the appeal was upcoming (expected in the Winter, 2016) . A seemingly small but very important victory on that front was that after the seemingly inevitable stonewalling on every issue the Army had agreed to use feminine or neutral pronoun in any documentation concerning Private Manning’s case. The lawyers had in June 2014 also been successful in avoiding the attempt by the Department of Defense to place Chelsea in a civil facility as they tried to foist their “problem” elsewhere.
On the political front Chelsea continued to receive awards, and after a fierce battle in 2013 was finally in 2014 made an honorary grand marshal of the very important GLBTQ Pride Parade in San Francisco (and had a contingent supporting her freedom again in the 2015 parade). Recently she has been given status as a contributor to the Guardian newspaper, a newspaper that was central to the fight by fellow whistle-blower Edward Snowden, where her first contribution was a very appropriate piece on what the fate of the notorious CIA torturers should be, having herself faced such torture down in Quantico adding to the poignancy of that suggestion. More recently she has written articles about the dire situation in the Middle East and the American government’s inability to learn any lessons from history and a call on the military to stop the practice of denying transgender people the right to serve. (Not everybody agrees with her positon in the transgender community or the VFP but she is out there in front with it.)
[Maybe most important of all in this social networking, social media, texting world of the young (mostly) Chelsea has a twitter account- @xychelsea
Locally over the past two year we have marched for Chelsea in the Boston Pride Parade, commemorated her fourth year in prison last May [2014] and the fifth this year with a vigil, honored her again on Armistice Day 2014, celebrated her 27th birthday in December with a rally (as we did this past December for her 28th birthday).
More recently big campaigns by Courage To Resist and the Press Freedom Foundation have almost raised the $200, 000 needed (maybe more by now) to give her legal team adequate resources during her appeals process (first step, after looking over the one hundred plus volumes of her pre-trial and trial hearings, the Army Court Of Criminal Appeal)
Recently although in this case more ominously and more threateningly Chelsea has been charged and convicted of several prison infractions (among them having a copy of the now famous Vanity Fair with Caitlyn, formerly Bruce, Jenner’s photograph on the cover) which could affect her parole status and other considerations going forward.
We have continued to urge one and all to sign the on-line Amnesty International petition asking President Obama to grant an immediate pardon as well as asking that those with the means sent financial contributions to Courage To Resist to help with her legal expenses.
After I got home that night of the meeting I began thinking that a lot has happened over the past couple of years in the Chelsea Manning case and that I should made what I know more generally available to more than my local VFPers. I do so here, and gladly. Just one more example of our fervent belief that as we have said all along in Veterans for Peace and elsewhere- we will not leave our sister behind… More later.
31st Annual PDC Holiday Appeal-Free the Class-War Prisoners!
31st Annual PDC Holiday Appeal-Free the Class-War Prisoners!
 Workers Vanguard No. 1080 | 11 December 2015 |
30th Annual PDC Holiday Appeal-Free the Class-War Prisoners!
****The Latest From The Partisan Defense Committee-The Cause That Passes Through The Prison Walls-With The Old International Labor Defense in Mind
****The Latest From The Partisan Defense Committee-The Cause That Passes Through The Prison Walls-With The Old International Labor Defense in Mind
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
Sam Eaton had to laugh when he heard the news, the news live and in person on cable news by the current Attorney-General of the United States (no names needed since this is the position of every one of those guys, and now gals when primed by curious reporters who if they have done their homework already know the answer) that there are “no political prisoners in the United States prison systems, certainly not the federal systems and as far as is known not in the states either.” And on some level, not on the level of candid truth but some level lower than that, the A-G in question (and all previous A-Gs) is right since every prisoner, every political prisoner is behind bars for some “crime” against society’s norms. Take the case of Chelsea Manning (known until her thirty-five year sentencing to Fort Leavenworth in Kansas for multiple conviction against military and federal law as Bradley Manning thereafter as Chelsea in case there is any confusion about who we are talking about) which was the case the A-G in question was referring to in that newspeak commentary. Private Manning, is the heroic Army soldier who blew the whistle to Wiki-leaks on the atrocities committed by the American military in Iraq and Afghanistan and the duplicity of the Hillary Clinton-run State Department even before Benghazi. The charges against Chelsea were “crimes,” you know “stealing” government files and “committing” acts of espionage but her motivation had nothing to do with crime, at least crimes that working people and leftists need worry about. Her leaks were a breath of fresh air in counter-point to the “slam-dunk’ mentality that has pervaded both the Bush II and Obama administrations. But Chelsea is nevertheless a political prisoner with a capital “P.”
Sam had to laugh again about the nefarious and spurious doing of the American justice machine (thoughts on that “machine” bringing to Sam’s mind the words of sardonic comic Lenny Bruce, a man not unfamiliar with that system and in his own way a political prisoner as well about how “in the hall of justice the only justice is in the halls-nicely said, Brother, nicely said) when a few nights after this newscast he was sitting in Jack’s, the long-time radical hang-out bar in Harvard Square which he frequented, talking to Ralph Morris who had come to town on one of his periodic visits from his home in Troy, New York about what he had heard that other night. And this was not mere idle talk between that pair because the whole Easton-Morris friendship had its start when they were political prisoners of a sort back on May Day 1971 when they had met on the floor of RFK Stadium in Washington for the “crime” of disorderly conduct and creating a public nuisance when they and thousands of others tried to shut down the American government if it did not shut down the Vietnam War which they were desperately for their own reasons trying to stop. So, yes, they were “criminals,” maybe just petty criminals by the standards of the charges but no way in hell had they hitchhiked from Cambridge and Albany, New York respectively (and wherever else those thousands came from and how they got there) to “walk in the streets” of D.C. for the hell of it, to litter the boulevards with leaflets let, to thumb their noses at the government, or the like. Sam and Ralph that day had been political prisoners with a small “P” nevertheless. (They would later do some actions in solidarity with the Black Panthers, with the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, and with the African National Congress in South Africa which would “win” them their capital “Ps.”)
All of this old-timey bar talk had a purpose though (they by the way were no strangers to strong drink as part of their political camaraderie from early on in their working-class lives but now they drank high-shelf stuff delivered by Jimmy the bartender rather than that rotgut low-shelf, no-shelf Thunderbird wine and Southern Comfort which got them through their no dough youths). Or rather two purposes. First, Ralph had come to town to join Sam in the annual Sacco and Vanzetti commemoration in honor of the two anarchist political prisoners who had been railroaded by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to their executions on August 23, 1927. Troy and most other places in the nation and the world paid have paid no particular attention to such events but in Boston the scene of the crimes against the two immigrant anarchists there had been a generally on-going commemoration since the 1920s, although not always on in the streets like the past several years. Over their long and hard fought battles around prisoners’ rights which formed a majority of the work they had done over the years, in good times and bad, Sam and Ralph made sure that they attended this commemoration.
The second event that brought Ralph to town was a conference to be held in Boston to see about reviving the old International Labor Defense (ILD), the 1920s Communist International (CI)-initiated political prisoner defense organization which coincidentally had cut its teeth when founded in 1925 on the Sacco and Vanzetti case. Under the circumstances over the past quarter of a century plus for the international working class not so much reviving it exactly as in the old days since the organization had gone out of business in 1946 a few years after Joe Stalin over in Russia had liquidated the Communist International as part of some Soviet foreign policy sop to his allies in World War II (the CI had pretty much gone out of the business of directing international revolution well before than anyway) but reviving the spirit that drove it in its best days around the Sacco and Vanzetti case, the Angelo Herndon case, a bunch of other lesser well known labor cases like that of Tom Mooney and assorted IWWers (Industrial Workers of the World, Wobblies) and most famously the Scottsboro Boys case in the 1930s.
In those days as Sam had mentioned while talking to Ralph at Jack’s since he had been looking up information about the old ILD, what it did and how it was organized (and how much the old American Communist Party/CI controlled the operation in its sunnier days) the ILD had had no problem living up to the idea of a non-sectarian labor defense organization that took on the tough cases, the political cases and tried to garner union and progressive support in America and internationally through the CI to free the class-war prisoners behind the walls. Sam and Ralph had been involved in many cases of political prisoners on the seemingly endlessly dwindling left, especially black liberation fighters and labor organizers but those operations usually concerned a specific political prisoner (like the Manning case) or were run as campaigns by particular organizations which tended to “protect” their turf, protect their unique relationship with their poster child political prisoner.
While both Sam and Ralph had been snake-bitten a few times when somebody called a conference only to find out that the operation was being built to “protect turf” or using the campaign as an organizational recruiting tool (Sam mentioned that someone should tell such organizations and individuals with ideas like that to give pause since the recruitment rate, or better the retention rate of such projects after a while is abysmal) they liked the call for this one which included a bunch of small leftist organizations and some independent labor organizers and unions. Whether absent an international organization with the resources of the old CI a new ILD could catch fire is problematic. There in any case with the downward pressure of social flare-ups likely in the near future certainly is a need for such an organization. Ralph made Sam laugh as they finished their last high-shelf whisky that night by saying –“Hell there aren’t any political prisoners, I have it on the authority of the U.S. A-G.” But just in case those A-Gs were being less than candid they agreed that they would show up bright and early for the meeting the next morning.
Fidel Castro Dies At 90-The Struggle Continues!
Link to NYT
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/26/world/americas/fidel-castro-dies.html?_r=0
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/26/world/americas/fidel-castro-dies.html?_r=0
Blue Suede Shoes- Carl Perkins
Commentary
How About Them Blue Suede Shoes
Carl Perkins- King of Rockabilly and Friends, Carl Perkins, 1985
Everyone who cares now knows that the roots of rock and rock came from a few sources, country blues, city blues, and rhythm and blues of the Big Joe Turner sort and from the white South rockabilly from the likes of Jerry Lee Lewis and the artist reviewed here- Carl Perkins. Over the long haul I believe that the key is that Turner rhythm and blues on Shake, Rattle and Roll that defines the roots of rock and roll but that is just for argument’s sake. Carl Perkins can lay claim to a piece of that magic with Blue Suede Shoes (latter covered by Elvis, adding a great deal to his career, of course).
Whether Perkins is a key figure is the history of rock and roll beyond that initial contribution is also an open question. However, no one can question that here in a 30th Anniversary show in London to an audience that was perhaps more appreciative than a home-grown one at that time no one can doubt that he rocks the rockabilly with the best of them. As usual with this format we have the guests- and quite good ones in the likes of Roseanne Cash, Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton and George Harrison as well as a nice traveling band. Additionally there were some serious dancers, dressed in appropriate 50's style, in the audience kicking up a storm. The hit here is, without a doubt, the finale with a collective all out rendition of Blue Suede Shoes.
How About Them Blue Suede Shoes
Carl Perkins- King of Rockabilly and Friends, Carl Perkins, 1985
Everyone who cares now knows that the roots of rock and rock came from a few sources, country blues, city blues, and rhythm and blues of the Big Joe Turner sort and from the white South rockabilly from the likes of Jerry Lee Lewis and the artist reviewed here- Carl Perkins. Over the long haul I believe that the key is that Turner rhythm and blues on Shake, Rattle and Roll that defines the roots of rock and roll but that is just for argument’s sake. Carl Perkins can lay claim to a piece of that magic with Blue Suede Shoes (latter covered by Elvis, adding a great deal to his career, of course).
Whether Perkins is a key figure is the history of rock and roll beyond that initial contribution is also an open question. However, no one can question that here in a 30th Anniversary show in London to an audience that was perhaps more appreciative than a home-grown one at that time no one can doubt that he rocks the rockabilly with the best of them. As usual with this format we have the guests- and quite good ones in the likes of Roseanne Cash, Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton and George Harrison as well as a nice traveling band. Additionally there were some serious dancers, dressed in appropriate 50's style, in the audience kicking up a storm. The hit here is, without a doubt, the finale with a collective all out rendition of Blue Suede Shoes.
Veterans Plan ‘Deployment’ to Join Battle Against Dakota Access Pipeline
Veterans Plan ‘Deployment’ to Join Battle Against Dakota Access Pipeline
Posted on Nov 24, 2016 http://www.truthdig.com/ report/item/veterans_plan_ deployment_to_join_battle_ against_dakota_access_20161124
More than 1,000 U.S. military veterans are planning to “deploy” to join the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and peacefully support the water protectors’ fight against the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline near Cannon Ball, North Dakota.
“We are calling for our fellow veterans to assemble as a peaceful, unarmed militia at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation on Dec 4-7 and defend the water protectors from assault and intimidation at the hands of the militarized police force and DAPL security,” the organizers wrote on the group’s GoFundMe page.
“Come to Standing Rock Indian Reservation and hold the line with Wes Clark Jr., Michael Wood Jr., [Hawaii Democratic Rep.] Tulsi Gabbard, and hundreds of other veterans in support of the Sioux nation against the DAPL pipeline,” reads the description of the action on Facebook.
The event, Veterans Stand for Standing Rock, was put together by “veterans of the United States Armed Forces, including the U.S. Army, United States Marine Corps, U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force, and U.S. Coast Guard,” according to the group’s fundraiser.
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The call to action has already garnered nearly $200,000 in donations, which will to go toward funding veterans’ travel to North Dakota and legal fees they are likely to incur.
Clark Jr. and Wood Jr., the two primary organizers of the campaign, spoke to their passion for the water protectors’ cause and their commitment to nonviolence when they were profiled earlier this week in the veterans’ publication Task & Purpose:
“This country is repressing our people,” Wood Jr. says. “If we’re going to be heroes, if we’re really going to be those veterans that this country praises, well, then we need to do the things that we actually said we’re going to do when we took the oath to defend the Constitution from enemies foreign and domestic.”
[...] “We’re not going out there to get in a fight with anyone,” Clark Jr. says. “They can feel free to beat us up, but we’re 100% nonviolence.”
“According to an ‘operations order’ for the planned engagement, posted to social media in mid-November, ‘First Americans have served in the United States Military, defending the soil of our homelands, at a greater percentage than any other group of Americans. There is no other people more deserving of veteran support,’” Task & Purpose writes.
Indeed, Wood Jr. posted full the operations order on Twitter:
Updated Operations Order #VeteranStandingRock #NoDAPL https://t.co/mBb6qg0g6Vpic.twitter.com/laxs0AISoQ
— Michael A. Wood Jr. (@MichaelAWoodJr) November 13, 2016
The veterans are prepared for the police violence that they may encounter: “Bring body armor, gas masks, earplugs, AND shooting mufflers (we may be facing a sound cannon) but no drugs, alcohol, or weapons,” the organizers told the volunteers.
Task & Purpose delved into all the details of the veterans’ plan, which is intended both to bolster the peaceful water protectors’ fight as well as to draw media attention to the ongoing protest:
On Dec. 4, Clark Jr. and Wood Jr., along with a group of veterans and other folks in the “bravery business,” as Wood Jr. puts it [...] will muster at Standing Rock. The following morning they will join members of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, including Young, for a traditional healing ceremony. With an eye toward the media, old military uniforms will be donned so that if the veterans are brutalized by the police, they are brutalized not as ordinary citizens, but as people who once served the government they are protesting against. Then body armor, ear plugs, and gas masks will be issued to those who didn’t bring their own. Bagpipes will play, and traditional Sioux war songs will be sung. The music will continue as everyone marches together to the banks of the Missouri, on the other side of which a line of guards in riot gear will be standing ready with rifles, mace, batons, and dogs. Then, the veterans and their allies—or at least the ones who are brave enough—will lock arms and cross the river in a “massive line” for their “first encounter” with the “opposing forces.” The goal is to make it to the drilling pad and surround it, arm in arm. That will require making it through the line of guards, who have repelled other such attempts with a level of physical force Sioux tribal members and protesters have described as “excessive”—claims that recently prompted a United Nations investigation. Of course, that’s what the body armor and gas masks are for.
“We’ll have those people who will recognize that they’re not willing to take a bullet, and those who recognize that they are,” Wood Jr. told Task & Purpose. “It’s okay if some of them step back, but Wes and I have no intention of doing so
A View From The Left- NEW WARS / OLD WARS – What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
NEW WARS / OLD WARS – What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
STEPHEN WALT: Could There Be a Peace of Trumphalia?
Is there a foreign-policy formula that is consistent with Trumpism yet not wholly destructive of the current international order?
I think there is. It’s an old idea and one that is not especially fashionable in academia, the think tank world, or the current foreign-policy
establishment. But it is a venerable idea and one wholly in sync with the message Trump has been preaching ever since he announced his candidacy. That old idea is “Westphalian sovereignty.” If Trump is looking for a unifying concept for his approach to foreign policy, it is the idea that states are responsible for their own territory and citizens and that other states shouldn’t interfere with either. This notion is consistent with Trump’s own “America First” mentality, and it resonates with the sentiment of populist nationalism that has driven everything from the Brexit vote to the assorted European xenophobes who are so jazzed by Trump’s success… Under this mantle, the United States would get out of the business of trying to spread democracy (whether by force or through less coercive means) and would instead adopt a “live and let live” approach toward governments that are different from its own. More
establishment. But it is a venerable idea and one wholly in sync with the message Trump has been preaching ever since he announced his candidacy. That old idea is “Westphalian sovereignty.” If Trump is looking for a unifying concept for his approach to foreign policy, it is the idea that states are responsible for their own territory and citizens and that other states shouldn’t interfere with either. This notion is consistent with Trump’s own “America First” mentality, and it resonates with the sentiment of populist nationalism that has driven everything from the Brexit vote to the assorted European xenophobes who are so jazzed by Trump’s success… Under this mantle, the United States would get out of the business of trying to spread democracy (whether by force or through less coercive means) and would instead adopt a “live and let live” approach toward governments that are different from its own. More
* * * *
ISRAEL, PALESTINE . . . and the U.S.
ISRAEL PREPARES FOR THE AGE OF TRUMP
Israel’s political scene reacted with surprising enthusiasm to Donald Trump’s shocking election last week. While the celebration from the Israeli right wing was to be expected, even figures on the center left have praised the president-elect… The most interesting of these, perhaps, was Education Minister Naftali Bennett, leader of the right-wing Jewish Home Party, who called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to take advantage of the rare opportunity to immediately declare that Israel is stepping back from its support of the two-state solution. “This is the president-elect’s vision, as it was declared during the campaign,” said Bennett, whose party represents the settlers’ interests in both the government and the Knesset. “This should be our policy — simple, direct, and clear. The era of the Palestinian state is over.’ Other right-wing politicians were in a state of near-ecstasy over Trump’s promise to finally move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a commitment made but never acted upon by many of his Republican predecessors. More
Trump adviser: He doesn’t see settlements as peace obstacle
President-elect Donald Trump’s top adviser on Israel said Thursday that the incoming US leader doesn’t see Jewish settlements in the West Bank as obstacle to peace with the Palestinians, and predicted Trump would keep his campaign promise to move the US embassy to
Jerusalem — essentially recognizing the holy city as Israel’s capital. Successive US administrations have maintained that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal and their presence and continued expansion are major stumbling blocks in the path to reaching a peace agreement… Many right-wing Israeli politicians have hailed Trump’s ascension as an opportunity to expand settlement construction, and Education Minister Naftali Bennett even said his election meant Israel could officially drop its commitment to the two-state solution. “Trump’s victory is an opportunity for Israel to immediately retract the notion of a Palestinian state in the center of the country, which would hurt our security and just cause,” Bennett said Tuesday. “This is the position of the president-elect … The era of a Palestinian state is over.” More
Jerusalem — essentially recognizing the holy city as Israel’s capital. Successive US administrations have maintained that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal and their presence and continued expansion are major stumbling blocks in the path to reaching a peace agreement… Many right-wing Israeli politicians have hailed Trump’s ascension as an opportunity to expand settlement construction, and Education Minister Naftali Bennett even said his election meant Israel could officially drop its commitment to the two-state solution. “Trump’s victory is an opportunity for Israel to immediately retract the notion of a Palestinian state in the center of the country, which would hurt our security and just cause,” Bennett said Tuesday. “This is the position of the president-elect … The era of a Palestinian state is over.” MorePOST-ELECTION HANGOVER (continued)
* * * *
POST-ELECTION HANGOVER (continued)
Much of the discussion following the Electoral College victory of Donald Trump centers around differences over whether his victory was primarily a reflection of the overt racism of his campaign or the disaffection of a relatively small but decisive section of the white working class and rural voters in some Mid-Western swing states. It is hard to disentangle, since in the US class is often experienced through a powerful lens of race and culture – including traditional “masculine” culture -- not just economics.
Republicans have been the party of white resentment for decades, and there is no evidence that racism brought out a bigger vote than in previous elections. Open racists and fascists like the KKK and the neo-Nazis have long seen the Republicans as their major political party of choice. Whatever one concludes about the result, there is no question that Trump’s rhetoric and political associations have empowered a new level of white nationalist extremism in the public sphere.
The article by Mike Davis, linked just below, has what I thought was the best political analysis of the electoral numbers and a hopeful view of the way forward.
There is lots of room for improvement where we live, but there is something definitely to be proud of in our city and its values, as illustrated by the response of the Mayor to the Trump election:
MARTY WALSH: Where do we go from here?
Trump said things in his campaign that alienated and even threatened people I care about, including women, immigrants, gay, lesbian, and trans people, people of color, people with disabilities and Muslims. Those words angered me during the campaign, and they concern me greatly now that he has won… But we will not compromise our values as a city. That’s our sacred duty. We will defend our friends, neighbors, and family members from any and all efforts to exclude them, harm them, or strip them of their rights. Boston is a city of inclusion, a city of compassion, a welcoming, diverse, global city. We’ll stay that way… We will not stop being a city that values and respects immigrants, both documented and undocumented. Our Office for Immigrant Advancement will continue to nurture and support the foreign-born in Boston, with everything from citizenship classes to cultural celebrations to free legal advice. Boston was here for my parents when they came here. We will always be a city that welcomes newcomers… We will double-down on our belief in gender equality, and we will not let up in the quest for pay equity led by our Office of Women’s Advancement. More
MIKE DAVIS: Not a Revolution – Yet
But whatever the hypothesis, it must take account of the real revolution in American politics, the Sanders campaign. The downward or blocked mobility of graduates, especially from working-class and immigrant backgrounds, is the major emergent social reality, not the long agony of the Rustbelt. I say this while recognizing the momentum given to economic nationalism by the loss of five million industrial jobs over the last decade, more than half of them in the South. But Trumpism, however it evolves, cannot unify millennial economic distress with that of older white workers, while Sanders showed that heartland discontent can be brought under the umbrella of a “democratic socialism” that reignites New Deal hopes for a Economic Bill of Rights. With the Democratic establishment in temporary disarray, the real opportunity for transformational political change (“critical realignment” in a now-archaic vocabulary) belongs to Sanders and Warren. We must hurry. More
Why Do White Working-Class People Vote Against Their Interests? They Don’t.
Corporate Democrats have never advanced their interests—and at least Republicans offer a basic, if misleading, story about why they are getting screwed… The first step was the collapse of the industrial heartland. This hit white working-class people incredibly hard—and it remains a phenomenon that is not understood on the East and West Coasts. It is painted as a natural evolution of our economy and as if the onus is on people to adapt to it. This fails to capture how many families and communities were dependent on the industrial economy. Many Ohioans are now staring at a future where they themselves and their kids have less opportunity than their parents… The collapse of the industrial heartland resulted from a choice about whether we would reshape our economic models to serve workers and communities over profits—or continue to serve corporate interests that painted the global movement of capital as inevitable… De-industrialization was a traumatic experience for white working class people. Yet we’re surprised when this constituency exhibits PTSD. More
VIDEO INTERVIEW (click on the image to watch)
Bernie Sanders Is ‘Deeply Humiliated’ that Democrats Can’t Appeal to the White Working Class
BLACK LIVES MATTER Issues Official Statement on Donald Trump's Election
Here’s what we know: Civic engagement is one way to engage democracy, and our lives don’t revolve around election cycles. We are obliged to earn the trust of future generations—to defend economic, social and political power for all people. We are confident that we have the commitment, the people power and the vision to organize our country into a safe place for black people—one that leads with inclusivity and a commitment to justice, not intimidation and fear… We fight for our collective liberation because we are clear that until black people are free, no one is free. We are committed to practicing empathy for one another in this struggle—but we do not and will not negotiate with racists, fascists or anyone who demands we compromise our existence… Because it is our duty to win, we will continue to fight. And today, like every day before it, we demand reparations, economic justice, a commitment to black futures and an end to the war on black people, in the United States and around the world.
The work will be harder, but the work is the same. More
Jeff Sessions, Trump’s Pick for Attorney General, Is a Fierce Opponent of Civil Rights
Donald Trump has chosen a white nationalist as his chief strategist and a white nationalist sympathizer as his pick for Attorney General. Like the Confederate general he is named after, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III has long been a leading voice for the Old South and the conservative white backlash vote Trump courted throughout his campaign. Sessions, as a US senator from Alabama, has been the fiercest opponent in the Senate of immigration reform, a centerpiece of Trump’s agenda, and has a long history of opposition to civil rights, dating back to his days as a US Attorney in Alabama in the 1980s. The Senate rejected Sessions for a federal judgeship during the Reagan administration because of racist statements he made and for falsely prosecuting black political activists in Alabama. He opposed the Voting Rights Act, the country’s most important civil rights law. More
Slavery, Democracy, and the Racialized Roots of the Electoral College
Though Hillary Clinton defeated Donald Trump in the national popular vote, Mr. Trump is now President-elect based on the indirect representational nature of the Electoral College. There is nothing particularly novel about this latest (un)democratic
contradiction—it happened in 1876, 1888, and 2000—except that it opens up a critical space for examining the racialized genesis of the Electoral College itself… In 1787, white men of status met in Philadelphia to draft the Constitution. Questions of elections, taxation, and governance, among others, were debated vigorously. One of the most contentious themes considered over the course of the four-month convention was by what process to elect a president… In a direct election system, the North would have outnumbered the South (which had a large population but far fewer eligible voters), whose roughly 550,000 enslaved black people were disenfranchised. Delegates from the South generally supported Madison’s idea of the Electoral College over a direct election system because it was based solely on population volume, not citizenship status or enfranchisement. In conjunction, and at Madison’s urging, the convention agreed to count each enslaved black person as three-fifths of a citizen for the purpose of calculating each state’s representation in the Electoral College and in the allotment of congressional seats. More
contradiction—it happened in 1876, 1888, and 2000—except that it opens up a critical space for examining the racialized genesis of the Electoral College itself… In 1787, white men of status met in Philadelphia to draft the Constitution. Questions of elections, taxation, and governance, among others, were debated vigorously. One of the most contentious themes considered over the course of the four-month convention was by what process to elect a president… In a direct election system, the North would have outnumbered the South (which had a large population but far fewer eligible voters), whose roughly 550,000 enslaved black people were disenfranchised. Delegates from the South generally supported Madison’s idea of the Electoral College over a direct election system because it was based solely on population volume, not citizenship status or enfranchisement. In conjunction, and at Madison’s urging, the convention agreed to count each enslaved black person as three-fifths of a citizen for the purpose of calculating each state’s representation in the Electoral College and in the allotment of congressional seats. More
THOMAS PIKETTY: We must rethink globalization, or Trumpism will prevail
Let it be said at once: Trump’s victory is primarily due to the explosion in economic and geographic inequality in the United States over several decades and the inability of successive governments to deal with this. Both the Clinton and the Obama administrations frequently went along with the market liberalization launched under Reagan and both Bush presidencies. At times they even outdid them: the financial and commercial deregulation carried out under Clinton is an example. What sealed the deal, though, was the suspicion that the Democrats were too close to Wall Street – and the inability of the Democratic media elite to learn the lessons from the Sanders vote… The tragedy is that Trump’s program will only strengthen the trend towards inequality. He intends to abolish the health insurance laboriously granted to low-paid workers under Obama and to set the country on a headlong course into fiscal dumping, with a reduction from 35% to 15% in the rate of federal tax on corporation profits, whereas to date the United States had resisted this trend, already witnessed in Europe. More
PAUL KRUGMAN: Trump's Medicare Killers
During the campaign, Donald Trump often promised to be a different kind of Republican, one who would represent the interests of working-class voters who depend on major government programs. “I’m not going to cut Social Security like every other Republican and I’m not going to cut Medicare or Medicaid,” he declared, under the headline “Why Donald Trump Won’t Touch Your Entitlements.”
It was, of course, a lie. The transition team’s point man on Social Security is a longtime advocate of privatization, and all indications are that the incoming administration is getting ready to kill Medicare, replacing it with vouchers that can be applied to the purchase of private insurance. Oh, and it’s also likely to raise the age of Medicare eligibility. More
Donald Trump is ready to bring Islamophobia into the White House
President-elect Donald Trump’s choice of Steve Bannon as “chief strategist” has sparked a backlash, with critics accusing Trump of elevating an anti-Semite into the halls of power. What’s received less attention is that Bannon, as executive chairman of Breitbart News, has also broadcast the views of some of America’s leading Islamophobes, including Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer and Frank Gaffney.
Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia–alongside a healthy dose of right-wing Zionism–go hand in hand among adherents of the Internet-savvy white nationalist movement that has supported Trump’s rise to power. The choice to bring Bannon into the Oval Office, potentially alongside other anti-Muslim ideologues that have clustered around Trump, portends a dark future for the Muslim American community. More
Trump Camp’s Talk of Registry and Japanese Internment Raises Muslims’ Fears
A prominent supporter of Donald J. Trump drew concern and condemnation from advocates for Muslims’ rights on Wednesday after he cited World War II-era Japanese-American internment camps as a “precedent” for an immigrant registry suggested by a member of the president-elect’s transition team… Representative Mark Takano, a Japanese-American and Democrat from California whose parents and grandparents were imprisoned during World War II, said in a statement on Thursday that the comments reflected “an alarming resurgence of racism and xenophobia in our political discourse.” He called on Mr. Trump to denounce them. Robert S. McCaw, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights group, called the reference to internment camps as a precedent “absolutely deplorable” and said that it would “return America to one of the darkest chapters of its history.” More
No Fly, Safe and Humanitarian Zones
– in the United States, not Syria
The slaughter in Syria, with its terrible consequences in that country, the region and worldwide, demands urgent action to end the horrific human suffering. Unfortunately, some well-intentioned, concerned people advocate ratcheting up U.S. military engagement, which could lead to more death, destruction and suffering, not less. There are several reasoned refutations of supposed humanitarian intervention proposals such as a no-fly zone (promoted by some during the presidential election campaign) safe zones and humanitarian zones. In the wake of the election and President-elect Donald Trump’s appeals to xenophobia, racism, misogyny and fear, no-fly, safe and humanitarian zones do have applicability, but in the United States, not Syria… Trump’s racist, anti-immigrant, anti-woman and Islamophobic rhetoric and policies demand the creation of safe zones and spaces for targeted populations. More
TRUMP WORLD
Trump doesn’t really represent a challenge to the American system. He isn’t a billionaire version of Eugene Debs. But his campaign took us into the logic of fascism, and it’s no accident that there are strong echoes of the 1930s now: economic crisis; a social class that, having lost its status and privileges, is keen to find scapegoats; violence, both physical and verbal, directed against movements of the left led by people of colour; a systematic ambiguity regarding his intentions, for example when he said that he would leave us ‘in suspense’ as to whether he would accept the election result if Clinton won. Trump’s acceptance speech was typically banal and superficial, but touched on the central themes of the nostalgic fascist imagination: praise for the family and for strength; promises of reconquering the global economy and restoring at last a lost hegemony… Although class resentment is one of the ties that bind the inhabitants of Trump world, the greatest injustice for Trump’s followers isn’t that society is deeply divided along class lines (a fact hidden by the dominant but increasingly fragile ideology of the ‘middle class’) but that power is sliding out of their hands, a weakness evidenced by their demographic decline. What they want from their strong man isn’t to transform society, but to recover their position of natural dominance in the order of things, not only economically but also politically (the White House had not only been confiscated by a black family, the ultimate disgrace, but was being contested by a woman) and symbolically (restoring a white, monocultural image after the multicultural break of the Obama years). More
Mike Pence Will Be the Most Powerful Christian Supremacist in U.S. History
Pence’s ascent to the second most powerful position in the U.S. government is a tremendous coup for the radical religious right. Pence — and his fellow Christian supremacist militants — would not have been able to win the White House on their own. For them, Donald Trump was a godsend. “This may not be our preferred candidate, but that doesn’t mean it may not be God’s candidate to do something that we don’t see,” said David Barton, a prominent Christian right activist and president of Wall Builders, an organization dedicated to making the U.S. government enforce “biblical values.” … Trump is a Trojan horse for a cabal of vicious zealots who have long craved an extremist Christian theocracy, and Pence is one of its most prized warriors. With Republican control of the House and Senate and the prospect of dramatically and decisively tilting the balance of the Supreme Court to the far right, the incoming administration will have a real shot at bringing the fire and brimstone of the second coming to Washington. More
In Trump, extremism found its champion – and maybe its demise
Through his connections to these digital demagogues, Trump has empowered narratives that would otherwise have no place in electoral politics. But by bringing unprecedented attention to extremist views in 2016, Trump also forced America to see these threats in the light of day. That could be their undoing. Exposed, these guises of bigotry have been recognized, decoded and even classified – as the “alt-right” – by the press and public… In Trump’s journey to abolish political correctness, he has led his supporters to an awkward impasse. No doubt, his backers continue to admire in Trump someone who has the courage to “tell it like it is.” But now they often find themselves saying, “He doesn’t really mean that.” These two sentiments cannot logically coexist. More
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