Click on the headline to link to the Occupy Boston General Assembly Minutes website. Occupy Boston started at 6:00 PM, September 30, 2011.
Markin comment:
I will post any updates from that Occupy Boston site if there are any serious discussions of the way forward for the Occupy movement or, more importantly, any analysis of the now atrophied and dysfunctional General Assembly concept. In the meantime I will continue with the “Lessons From History ’’series started in the fall of 2011 with Karl Marx’s The Civil War In France-1871 (The defense of the Paris Commune). Right now this series is focused on the European socialist movement before the Revolutions of 1848.
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An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupy Movement And All Occupiers! Drop All Charges Against All Occupy Protesters Everywhere!
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Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
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A Five-Point Program As Talking Points
*Jobs For All Now!-“30 For 40”- A historic demand of the labor movement. Thirty hours work for forty hours pay to spread the available work around. Organize the unorganized- Organize the South- Organize Wal-Mart- Defend the right for public and private workers to unionize.
* Defend the working classes! No union dues for Democratic (or the stray Republican) candidates. Spent the dough instead on organizing the unorganized and on other labor-specific causes (good example, the November, 2011 anti-union recall referendum in Ohio, bad example the Wisconsin gubernatorial recall race in June 2012).
*End the endless wars!- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops (And Mercenaries) From Afghanistan! Hands Off Pakistan! Hands Off Iran! U.S. Hands Off The World!
*Fight for a social agenda for working people!. Quality Healthcare For All! Nationalize the colleges and universities under student-teacher-campus worker control! Forgive student debt! Stop housing foreclosures!
*We created the wealth, let’s take it back. Take the struggle for our daily bread off the historic agenda. Build a workers party that fights for a workers government to unite all the oppressed.
Emblazon on our red banner-Labor and the oppressed must rule!
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Marxism And The Jacobin Communist Tradition-Part Two -"Blanquism" ("Young Spartacus" March 1976)
EDITOR'S NOTE: With this series Young Spartacus makes available for our readers a contribution presented by Joseph Seymour, a Spartacist League Central Committee member, at the mid-January Spartacus Youth League West Coast educational conference held in Berkeley. "Marxism and the Jacobin Communist Tradition," reproduced from the verbal presentation with a minimum of editorial abridgement, seeks to debunk the academic/New Left view of Marxism as a self-contained derivation from Hegelian philosophy by reaffirming the shaping influence of the experiences, programs and world-views of two generations of revolutionary militants who sought to fuse the bourgeois-democratic revolution with an egalitarian collectivist social order. The first part, featured in our February issue, discussed the Great French Revolution and the legacy of its insurrectionary and most radical wing, upheld by the revolutionaries Babeuf and Buonarroti.
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The history of the French revolutionary movement after the overthrow of Napoleon Bonaparte is the history of the polarization of the left opposition to royal absolutism into its bourgeois conservative, revolutionary democratic and communist component of revolutionary democracy, which simultaneously was transformed through proletarianization.
The two key dividing lines were the successful revolution of 1830 and the Lyons silk weavers’ insurrection of 1834.
Now, at the beginning of this period, 1815, the left opposition to the Bourbon Restoration had three main tendencies. First, the liberal bourgeoisie, whose economic policy was laissez faire, whose power base was the very restricted parliament based on a limited franchise, whose political program advocated not democracy but rather an extended franchise and certain rights, and whose main leadership was the wealthy nobleman Lafayette.
Second, there were the Bonapartists, who were mainly centered in the army and whose program was roughly national populism. Until Bonaparte died in 1821, they stood for the restoration of Bonaparte: "Let's kick these foreigners and their lackeys out of France." Revolutionary nationalism. But they were not committed to economic laissez faire; they could make certain populist appeals to peasant economic protectionism, and in that sense were even demagogically to the left of the liberals.
Then there were the revolutionary democrats, who in this period (1815-1820) were almost exclusively limited to the student population of Paris. And the vanguard was a small group of revolutionary democrats who, being illegal, took over a masonic order and named it the Friends of Truth, whose leader was a rather reputable and important figure named Saint Amand Bazard.
These three forces united in their mass on two occasions: the Carbonari Conspiracy of 1821-23, where they were defeated, and the revolution of 1830, where they were in a military sense victorious. But that victory split those component parts asunder.
Carbonari Conspiracy
I will just say a few words about the Carbonari Conspiracy, which was important. First, it had a genuinely mass character, encompassing at its height probably 80,000 activists. In France every revolutionist who was mature, and even some who were not mature, was a member of the Carbonari. It provided the first revolutionary experience for that generation. The 17-year-old Louis Auguste Blanqui had his first revolutionary experience in the Carbonari and his later secret organizations were modeled on the Carbonari—only cells of three and only one person in the three knew anyone in the cell above, so one had a hierarchy which sealed off the leadership from the base.
In 1821, in response to the gains of the liberals in parliament, the Bourbons moved to the right and rewrote the parliamentary laws. The liberal bourgeois opposition in effect said, "Well, we have no choice but to engage in insurrection." They contacted the radical students and the disgruntled Bonapartists and even democrats in the army, organizing a conspiracy whose main strategy was the subversion of the army. The Carbonari Conspiracy, thus, was a democratic mutiny in the army, financed and organized by the liberal bourgeoisie, utilizing the student radicals, each seeking to manipulate and utilize the other.
But the army, in the absence of a general social crisis, was isolated and sufficiently loyal to the regime that the Conspiracy did not work. When someone would say, "Psst, you want to join?," he would get turned in and would be executed. So there was a whole series of executions and abortive mutinies.
The suppression of the Carbonari had a significant effect but, interestingly enough, the various forces involved maintained a kind of good will toward each other. They drifted apart. The liberal bourgeoisie went back to parliamentary game-playing. The student-based revolutionary democrats, however, did something interesting. They decided to do some fundamental rethinking of political doctrine, and they soon discovered an eccentric nobleman named Saint-Simon, who actually died about the time they began reading his works.
Discovery of Saint-Simon
Saint-Simon was not a socialist, he was not associated with the revolutionary movement, but rather he was a technocrat who believed in state economic planning. He inherited the Enlightenment tradition. He said, "Capitalism is obviously irrational, production is obviously ungoverned, and I can think of fourteen different ways to improve the economy, but there has to be some kind of centralization."
So Saint Amand Hazard and his circle for a couple of years read this material and came out as the first socialist organization with a revolutionary democratic tradition. They were not an odd sect; they actually had experience in revolutionary politics and a real sense for political power.
Saint-Simonism, therefore, was the first politically significant socialist tendency, although Owenism in Britain, by a very different process, was also achieving a semi-mass character. Saint-Simonism also spread through Germany—one of Marx's high-school teachers was a Saint-Simonian socialist—and was the first basic socialist doctrine to penetrate the continent.
While one tends to think of early socialist movements as being very primitive, in fact Saint-Simonism was the most technocratic of any socialist doctrine, not the most primitive. And it reflected the close organic ties between the radical democrats-cum-socialists and the liberal bourgeoisie, which at that time was very alienated from the state apparatus held by the Bourbons, who believed that they were living in the seventeenth century. So, certain elements of bourgeois technocratic socialism tended to penetrate these circles and became quite faddish. Only in a later period, with mass agitation, were the traditions of Jacobin communism rediscovered.
Revolution of 1830
Now, the next time the left opposition to the Bourbon regime unified for insurrectionary action they were successful ... much to their surprise. In the limited parliament, despite the various laws, the liberals were still gaining and finally won a majority. Then the king decided to pull a coup
d’état and declared, "We are dissolving parliament, and we are having total censorship of the press."
Some journalists, among them Louis Auguste Blanqui, although he was not a leader, said, "We refuse.' We protest.'" Some of them were arrested, and the cops knocked on the doors.
It was the spark that was needed to set off the Parisian masses. Among them were all these Bonapartist army officers, who were much better than the French army of the day, which had been purged to make it impossible for France to conquer the other countries anymore. After three days of street fighting, the French army was defeated, decisively driven out of Paris.
Now this should have been, as the radicals and the Saint-Simonians ex-pected the beginning of the second French Revolution. Hazard, the leader of the Saint-Simonians, went to his old friend Lafayette. As the historic leader of the liberal opposition Lafayette was now head of the de facto state power, the so-called National Guard, which was the military arm of the bourgeoisie in Paris. And he said, "Look Lafayette, this is my program, it's a communist program. You be a communist dictator, and we'll support you." And Lafayette stared at him.
Then the liberal pretender—the king's cousin—visited Lafayette along with a banker named Lafitte; Lafayette says, “I am a republican"; the liberal pretender exclaims, "So am I"; and the banker says, "Look, you don't want a lot of trouble." So Lafayette says, "Okay," and they went out—there's a famous kiss of reconciliation in front of the masses of -Paris. When the republicans cried "Betrayal!," they were beaten up and suppressed.
So the French Revolution simply led from an attempted absolutist monarchy to a somewhat more liberal one, although becoming increasingly repressive, in which the Parisian masses and particularly the left—the left wing of the left wing being Saint-Simonian socialists—rightly felt themselves betrayed. It took approximately five years for the new regime to consolidate itself, and the period between the revolution of 1830 and the great repression of 1835 was a continued series of attempts, some of them having a mass character, to carry the revolution of 1830 to a successful conclusion.
The first phase of the struggle, spearheaded by the organization called the Society of the Friends of the People, was simply leftist insurrections in Paris. They felt that the masses would never accept this king, and every couple of months they would rally the students, whatever artisans they could collect, and some disgruntled soldiers and simply attack the state. Blanqui was the vice president of the Society of the Friends of the People and was arrested for student agitation. This is for the SYL: in case anybody puts down agitating on campus, you can point to Blanqui, who never thought that agitating on campus was beneath his dignity.
Buonarroti and the Continuity of Revolutionary Jacobinism
Now, by 1832 the revolutionary democrats had gotten a little bloodied, and they formed another organization with a somewhat longer range and propagandistic purpose, called the Society of the Rights of Man. This was the first mass democratic organization in which revolutionary communists were a serious contender for factional power and the first revolutionary organization which intersected and in a certain sense led the mass organizations of the pre-industrial proletariat.
During 1832-34 in the Society of the Rights of Man there were two factions. The orthodox Jacobin faction republished Robespierre's writings, Robespierre's "Rights of Man," and could be called revolutionary bourgeois democrats anticipating social democracy. And the other faction, the outright Jacobin communist faction organized by Buonarroti, also claimed the same historic tradition. The 1833 program of the agents of Buonarroti within the Society of the Rights of Man declared:
"All property, movable or immovable, contained within the national territory, or anywhere possessed by its citizens, belongs to the people, who alone can regulate its distribution. Labor is a debt which every healthy citizen owes to society, idleness ought to be branded as a robbery and as a perpetual source of immorality."
[—Louis Blanc, History of Ten Years, 1830-1840}
And it was through the Society of the Rights of Man that Buonarroti in the last four or five years of his life was able to intersect a new revolutionary • generation and win them to the traditions of Jacobin communism.
Class Battles at Lyons
Now, after 1832, the scene of the major revolutionary battles in France shifts to the provincial industrial city of Lyons, which was the main concentration of the pre-industrial French working class concentrated in the silk industry, which was producing for the world market. In 1831, as a result of a wage struggle, they had a demonstration, the bourgeois National Guard attacked them, and they attacked back. The army vacillated, because after the revolution of 1830 the army was a little wary of going against the people—they had gone against it and lost. The weavers took over the city, but they had no ulterior political motives. They said, "Here, we don't want the city, you can have it back." So then, of course, the army came in and smashed them.
The silk weavers, however, were organized in a pre-industrial union known as the Mutualists. At the same time there were these burgeoning bourgeois-democratic-cum-communist propaganda groups in Lyons which sought to intersect the Mutualists. The leadership of the first unions were not socialists or revolutionary democrats but rather traditionalists heavily influenced by the clergy. It was only through a long period of struggle that the revolutionary democrats and the communists among them were able to penetrate the organizations of the pre-industrial working class and to win the masses.
The relationship between the Society of the Rights of Man and the silkweavers1 union has been described by Louis Blanc, the leading socialist historian writing in the 1840's in his History of Ten Years:
"We have said that a considerable number of Mutualists had entered the Society [the Society of the Rights of M an] but they had done so as individuals, for as the Mutualists societies considered collectively and in its tendency, it is certain that in the period in question, it was governed by a narrow corporate spirit. Above all, it was bent on preserving its industrial physiognomy, its originality, and all that constituted for it a situation apart amongst the working classes. No doubt, there were amongst it men exalted above their feelings. But these men did not constitute the majority, all whose interests might be summed up in increased wages for silk weavers. The influence of the clergy, moreover, over the class of silk weavers in Lyons has always been rather considerable. Now the following was the spirit in which was exercised this influence, of which women were the inconspicuous but efficient agents. The clergy, beholding in the manufacturers but liberals and skeptics, had felt no inclination to damp a disposition to revolt which animated the workmen against them. But at the same time it urged the latter to distrust the republican party but taking advantage of its sympathies. Now this was in fact precisely the conduct towards the Society by the leaders of Mutualism; for while they suffered themselves to be charged with republicanism, and availed themselves against the manufacturers in the popular diatribes of the Glaneusse [the republican press] they spared nothing to deaden the republican propaganda in the lodges."
Communist Ideology and Proletarian Struggles
The famous dictum of Lenin [in What Is To Be Done?] that socialist ideology must be brought to the proletariat from without is not a programmatic statement. It is not even a theoretical statement. It is an indisputable historical fact.
The communist movement has a prehistory, and the mass economic organizations of the proletariat have different prehistories. The communist movement arose out of the left wing of the bourgeois-democratic movement and, in its earliest phases, its mass base was essentially the young intellectuals concentrated among students. The mass economic organizations of the working class go back to the earliest mercantilist period, and their earliest natural leaders tended to be the clergy. The communist movement" arising out of the democratic movement and the trade unions emerging out of the artisan guilds intersect, and the workers movement is shaped by that intersection. But at every point there is a deep ideological struggle between the revolutionary democrats or socialists and the Catholic priests in France, or the Russian Orthodox priests in Russia, or the Methodists in England.
As a result of their experiences the leaders of the Mutualists, who were traditionalists and monarchists, appealed to the king and sought reforms, but at every point they were thwarted. Then in 1834 the Orleans monarchy attempted to totally suppress the left opposition, mainly the political opposition, with the so-called Law of Associations, which banned all associations. While these laws were mainly directed at political associations, they also affected the economic organizations of the workers.
So the Lyons silk weavers said, "You attempt to ban our organizations and we will fight." And they fought. There was a mass meeting, jointly called by the Society of the Rights of Man and the silk weavers' union and appealing to
other workers organizations in Lyons; they called a mass demonstration in April, 1834. When the army attempted to suppress the demonstration, the greatest revolutionary violence in France between the revolution of 1830 and those of 1848 occurred in Lyons-six days of fighting, in which hundreds, mainly silk weavers, were killed.
The leaders were repressed in a so-called "Monster Trial," in which both the political left opposition, including virtually all the leaders of the Society of the Rights of Man, and the leaders of the silk weavers were charged with conspiracy and insurrection and were imprisoned. After 1834 Lyons was a Red City for three decades; every communist tendency, Buonarroti, Blanqui, Cabet, had an organic base among the silk weavers in Lyons—until the industry essentially disintegrated in the 1860's. But it didn't begin that way.
Blanqui-Insurrectionary Communism
Blanquism as an identifiable doctrine is a product of the suppression of open insurrectionary activity culminating in the so-called "Monster Trial" of 1835. Blanqui had been a revolutionary activist since the age of 17. He had fought in all the street battles and had been decorated for his role in the revolution of 1830 by the new king. Until 1833-34, however, he was simply one of the boys, in no sense distinguishable, except by his personal courage, from three or four dozen other revolutionary democrats.
In prison between 1832 and 1834 he became a communist, but without particular doctrinal sophistication. He always pooh-poohed attempts to describe the nature of communist society. In prison he developed not the goal of communism, which as I said always had a very general characteristic, but strategic conceptions which were so radically different than those of his contemporaries that they constituted a new and distinct political tendency.
Blanqui asked himself two questions. First, why have all of the insurrections since 1830 failed? And second, why did the revolution of 1830, which succeeded in a military sense, also fail, bringing into power a regime which was at best only quantitatively less reactionary than the regime the masses had replaced?
Blanqui rejected the French revolutionary model which had inspired
Buonarroti: you begin with a bloc with the liberals or even the constitutional monarchists, and then you have the gradual radicalization of the revolution. Historical experience had proven impossible the replication of the experience of the French revolution, that is, the gradual radicalization beginning with a broad unity of all the opponents of the existing regime and then narrowing it down.
Instead, Blanqui insisted that communists must overthrow the government and directly rule. So he created what was in fact a secret army: the army was secret from the authorities, and the leadership of the army was secret from the ranks. He organized secret societies, such as the Society of Families and later, in the late 1830's, the Society of the Seasons.
In order to enter one of these societies, you were asked questions and you had to give the right answers, the revolutionary catechism. This is the catechism of the Society of the Families, 1836:
"What is the people? The people is the mass of citizens who work. What is the fate of the proletariat under the government of the rich? Its fate is the same as that of the serf and the Negro. It is clearly a long tale of hardship, fatigue and suffering. Must one make a political or social revolution? One must make a social revolution."
[—Samuel H. Bernstein, Blanqui and the Art of Insurrection]
You answer those three things correctly, and three years later you'll be fighting it out with the army in the streets of Paris.
The Society of the Seasons was not only a French organization; it had a German appendage, which for the history of Marxism is important. There was a large German population in Paris in the 1830's, heavily artisan. In Paris there was the so-called German Republican Party which contained all of the democrats. A man named Theodore Schuster, who by some curious coincidence was a friend of Buonarroti, formed a faction in the German Republican Party, split the party and from that split arose an organization called the League of the Just. When Buonarroti died in 1837, Blanqui inherited his constituency and formed a military bloc with the League of the Just, at that time a handful of communist intellectuals and a base of German artisans.
So, one nice spring day in 1839, a thousand Frenchmen and Germans, largely artisan, met for their routine military exercise in downtown Paris. But this time Blanqui and his lieutenant Barbes walked up and said, "Gentlemen, we are your leadership, and this is it!" They broke into a gunsmith shop, and for the next couple of days they were fighting a very surprised French army.
How did Blanqui recruit this relatively large number of people willing to just walk into the streets of Paris and start shooting? In a certain sense, he didn't. Blanqui rallied the militant wing of the broader revolutionary democratic opposition, which in general tended to be of the plebeian social background. At his trial Blanqui was the only one who was a bourgeois. Everyone else, there were 30 some odd, were all either artisans or shopkeepers. They had nothing to lose.
This indicates an essential aspect of Blanquism which in a certain sense is the key to this talk. Blanquism was the intersection of two currents. On one hand, Blanquism represented the extreme militarist wing of the bourgeois-democratic revolution whose tactics, concepts and whose method of recruitment were conditioned by the existence of a broader bourgeois-democratic movement. On the other hand it also represented the nascent collectivist instincts and impulse of the plebeian and particularly urban artisan masses. If one liquidates that dialectical tension, one cannot understand Blanquism. And if one fails to understand Blanquism, then one cannot comprehend this entire period.
To be sure, the Blanqui/Barbes uprising of 1839 was a pure putsch. But Blanqui remained tied to the bourgeois-democratic revolution; he proposed a revolutionary provisional government which contained himself and his lieutenants, but also one of the leading democratic oppositionists who knew nothing about the putsch. He said, "This is the government, we take power, you're the president." Blanqui assumed that if he overthrew the state, then the more cautious, conservative bourgeois democrats would go along with him, and, moreover, would also be easily won to communism.
In a certain sense Blanqui was right. The king really wanted to execute Barbes, the Blanquist leader who was captured first; it was only fear of a mass insurrection and mass violence if Barbes and Blanqui were executed that prevented it. So that even though this was a pure putsch, it was profoundly popular, and the execution of these two revolutionaries would have been not only in the mass unpopular but also not in the interest of the liberal bourgeoisie: the Blanquists had the protection of the bourgeois democrats on the grounds that the revolutionary communists can be used, as in 1830. One is not talking about the Weather-
men. - One is talking about an insurrectionary act under conditions of severe repression.
Blanqui spent the 1840's in jail. Blanquism as an organized phenomenon disappeared. If you knew the right Paris cafes in the 1840's, you could walk in and somebody would come up to you, start talking, ask for money to buy guns and say, "Well, do you want to come to a meeting?" Dispersed revolutionary activity.
Marx had great respect for Blanqui. He certainly is the only figure in the 19th century who stands comparable to Marx. He was, however, critical and in some ways contemptuous of Blanqui's conceptions of organization.
In the early 1850's Marx wrote a scathing attack on the typical Parisian revolutionary conspirator in the form of a book review ["Review of A. Chenu's 'Les Conspirateurs'," in Saul K. Pad-over, Marx on Revolution]. And Marx said, "Oh, you're a bunch of Bohemians, declassed intellectuals, declassed proletarians, easily penetrated by the cops, tending to lead a dissolute life-style." Marx was very prudish, a very straight guy.
What distinguished Marx was his insistence that the communists must be tied to the workers—not simply the exceptional workers who were prepared to become professional revolutionaries —the mass of the workers through their established organizations. So that's the negative aspect of Blanquism which quite early on Marx rejected. But in the only two revolutionary situations in which Marx was involved during his lifetime—the Revolution of 1848 and the Paris Commune—Marx and Blanqui were forced together, and Marx on both occasions had to break with right-wing allies.
So, whatever his failing Blanqui insisted, again and again, on certain fundamental truths: namely, that one cannot build communism simply through cooperative bootstrap operations, which were very popular in that period; that you cannot establish communism unless the communists wield state power; and that the bourgeoisie is not going to establish a stable parliamentary democracy in which the communists could establish their constituency and by that means take over the government.
Engels, in a much later critique of the Blanquists, observed that Blanqui was a man of the pre-1848 period. But in some ways he was also a man of the post-1914 period—Blanqui above all grasped the centrality of the revolutionary overthrow of the state.
Monday, November 12, 2012
Sunday, November 11, 2012
12 October 2012
| |
Free Bradley Manning!
U.S. Army private Bradley Manning, currently detained at Fort
Leavenworth, Kansas, awaits a February court martial on nearly two dozen charges
that include “aiding the enemy,” identified as Al Qaeda. The 24-year-old
Manning, who was stationed in Baghdad as an intelligence analyst in 2009-10, was
detained in May 2010 under allegations that he gave WikiLeaks the
much-publicized video of an Apache helicopter gunning down two Reuters
journalists and the Iraqis who tried to rescue them, with the pilots gloating
over the carnage. Manning is also accused of distributing more than 250,000
State Department cables as well as military reports detailing the torture of
Iraqis and documenting the killing of some 120,000 civilians in
imperialist-occupied Iraq and Afghanistan. He faces penalties of up to life in
military custody or even execution.
On July 27, Manning’s attorney David Coombs filed a motion to
dismiss all charges on the grounds of unlawful pretrial punishment. During his
prior nine-month detention at the Quantico Marine brig in Virginia, Manning was
placed in solitary confinement under “prevention of injury” (suicide watch)
status despite repeated protests by brig psychiatrists. He was forced to sleep
with a “tear-proof security blanket” that caused rashes and rug burns while not
protecting him from the cold. Forbidden from exercising in his cell, he was
granted only 20 minutes of sunshine daily, during which he was shackled.
When Manning pointed out the absurdity of the suicide watch
restrictions, he was vindictively forced to repeatedly stand naked at parade
rest in view of multiple guards and suffered other penalties. Finally, in April
2011, he was transferred to Fort Leavenworth, where he is allowed to socialize
with prisoners, walk around unshackled and keep personal and hygiene items in
his cell.
By the time Manning reaches his February trial, he will have spent
983 days in pretrial confinement, awaiting “his day” in a court that has
essentially declared him guilty while banning evidence that may prove his
innocence. In July, the court refused to admit government “damage assessment”
reports that would help him to refute the inflammatory charge that the WikiLeaks
postings aided Al Qaeda. At the same hearing, the court refused to admit United
Nations torture investigator Juan Méndez as a witness, the latest move by
Manning’s persecutors to cover up the fact that his confinement has amounted to
torture.
In a September 26 speech streamed into a UN panel discussion from
the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange described
Manning’s time in captivity, emphasizing that this is part of the U.S.
government’s attempt “to break him, to force him to testify against WikiLeaks
and me.” Assange denounced the White House for “trying to erect a national
regime of secrecy” by targeting whistle-blowers as well as the journalists to
whom they pass information.
Indeed, the Sydney Morning Herald (27 September) reported
that declassified U.S. Air Force documents confirm that the military has
designated Assange and WikiLeaks as “enemies” of the state—the same legal
category as Al Qaeda. The documents reveal that any military personnel who
contact WikiLeaks or its supporters may be charged with “communicating with the
enemy,” which carries a maximum penalty of death. Assange’s U.S. attorney,
Michael Ratner, stressed the danger his client faces: “An enemy is dealt with
under the laws of war, which could include killing, capturing, detaining without
trial, etc.” The Obama administration has brought criminal charges against six
government and military whistle-blowers, more than all the previous presidents
in U.S. history combined.
If Bradley Manning was indeed the source of the leaks, he performed
a valuable service to the working class and the oppressed worldwide by helping
lift the veil of secrecy and lies with which the capitalist rulers try to cover
their depredations. By persecuting Manning and WikiLeaks, the White House is
sending the message that any such exposure will bring the most severe
punishment. This only underscores that it is in the vital interests of the
working class, in the U.S. and internationally, to take up the fight for Bradley
Manning’s freedom.
Let’s Redouble Our Efforts To Free Private Bradley Manning-President Obama Pardon Bradley Manning -Make Every Town Square In America (And The World) A Bradley Manning Square From Boston To Berkeley to Berlin-Join Us In Davis Square, Somerville –The Stand-Out Is Every Wednesday From 4:00-5:00 PM
Click on the headline
to link to the "Private Bradley Manning Petition" website page.
Bradley Manning Support Network-http://www.bradleymanning.org/
Markin comment:
The Private Bradley Manning
case is headed toward a mid- winter trial now scheduled for February 2013. The
recent news on his case has centered on the many (since last April) pre-trial
motions hearings including defense motions to dismiss for lack of speedy trial
(Private Manning’s pre-trial confinement is now entering 900 plus days),
dismissal as a matter of freedom of speech and alleged national security issues
(issues for us to know what the hell the government is doing either in front of
us, or behind our backs) and dismissal based on serious allegations of
torturous behavior by the military authorities extending far up the chain of
command while Private Manning was detained at the Quantico Marine brig for
about a year ending in April 2011. The latest news from the November 2012
pre-trail sessions is the offer by the defense to plead guilty to lesser
charges (wrongful, unauthorized use of the Internet, etc.) in orderto clear the
deck and have the major (with a possibility of a life sentence) espionage
/aiding the enemy issue solely before the court-martial judge (a single military
judge, the one who has been hearing the pre-trial motions, not a lifer-stacked panel).
Those of us who support his
cause should thus redouble our efforts to secure Private Manning’s freedom. The
status of the legal case may change a little over the next period if some form
of negotiated plea on the lesser charges is worked out (although that is right
now only in the preliminary stages and is far from etched in stone and we
believe that he has committed no crime in need of punishment but rather has
done humankind a great service by his alleged actions) however donations to the
legal fund should still be sent and solicited. The petitioning to the Secretary
of the Army for Private Manning release (see link above) should still be
gathering signatures and the telephone/e-mail/letter campaign to the White
House urging recently re-elected President Obama, who has the constitutional
authority to do so, to pardon Private Manning now should continue.
Additionally, for the past
several months there has been a weekly stand-out in Greater Boston across from
the Davis Square Redline MBTA stop (renamed Bradley Manning Square for the
stand-out’s duration) in Somerville on Friday afternoons but we have since July
4, 2012 changed the time and day to 4:00-5:00 PM on Wednesdays. This stand-out
has, to say the least, been very sparsely attended. We need to build it up with
more supporters present. Please join us when you can. Or better yet if you
can’t join us start a Support Bradley Manning weekly stand-out in some location
in your town whether it is in the Boston area, Berkeley or Berlin. And please
sign the petition for his release either in person or through the "Bradley
Manning Support Network". We have placed links to the "Manning Network”
and "Pardon Private Manning Square" website below.
********Bradley Manning Support Network-http://www.bradleymanning.org/
Manning Square website-http://freemanz.com/2012/01/20/somerville_paper_photo-bradmanningsquare/bradleymanningsquare-2011_01_13/
Private Manning
Support Remarks Made By A Speaker At Smedley Butler Brigade Armistice Day
(Veterans Day) Observance In Boston –November 11, 2012
Welcome one and all and I am
glad you could be here for this important struggle. The Smedley Butler Brigade
of Veterans for Peace proudly stands in solidarity with, and defense of,
Private Bradley Manning and his fight for freedom from his jailers, the
American military.
Now usually when I get before
a mic or am on a march I am shouting to high heaven about some injustice.
Recently I was called strident by someone and when it comes to the struggle
against this country’s wars, the struggle for social and economic equality, and
for freedom for our political prisoners I am indeed strident. But I am looking
for something today something personally important to me, and so I will try to
lower my temperature a bit- I want, like you, for recently re-elected President
Obama to pardon Bradley Manning so I will be nice, or try to be.
Bradley Manning is in a sense
the poster person for all of us who have struggled against the wars of the last
decade. He stands charged with allegedly leaking information about American war
crimes and other matters of public concern to Wikileaks. We, and we are not alone on this, do not see
whistleblowing on such activities as a crime but as an elemental humanitarian
act and public service. Private Manning has paid the price for his alleged acts
with over 900 days of pre-trial confinement and is now facing life imprisonment
for simple acts of humanity. For letting the American people know what they
perhaps did not want to know but must know- when soldiers, American soldiers,
go to war some awful things can happen and do. He has also suffered torture at
the hands of the American government for his brave stand. We have become
somewhat inured to foreign national being tortured by the American government
at places like Guantanamo and other black hole locales. We have even become
somewhat inured to American citizens being tortured and killed by the American
government by drones and other methods. But we know, or should know, that when
the American government stands accused of torturing an American soldier for not
toeing the war line then we private citizens are in serious trouble.
Why does Private Manning need
a pardon? Did he give away the order of battle or the table of organization for
American military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan? No. Did he give away the
design for drones and such weapons? No. He allegedly simply blew the whistle on
something that is a hard fact of war- war crimes by American soldiers through
release of the Collateral Murder tape
and what have become known as the Iraq and Afghan War logs. This is what the
American government had tried with might and main to cover up. And what needed
to be exposed. All talk of bringing democracy, or nation- building, or having a
war to end all wars, and the million other lame excuses for war pale before the
hard fact that in the heat of war the real strategy is to kill and burn and let
god sort out the innocent from the guilty.
That is what Private Manning
exposed. I, and I am sure many other veterans from previous wars who saw or
knew of such things and did nothing about it, are glad that such things were
exposed. If for no other reason Private First Class Bradley Manning deserves
presidential pardon for his service. To insure that event we urge everybody to
ramp up their efforts in behalf of Bradley by signing here or online at the
Bradley Manning Support Network site the petition to the Secretary of the Army
for his release and to call/e-mail or write a letter to the White House and
demand that President Obama pardon Private Manning.
We have been holding weekly
stand-outs in Davis Square in Somerville outside the MBTA Red Line stop
Wednesdays from 4:00to 5:00 PM and urge you to join us. Or better yet start a
Free Bradley Manning stand-out in your own town square. Thank you.
From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin-Getting The Bad Guys 1950s Noir Style- Cornel Wilde’s “The Big Combo”
DVD Review
The Big Combo, starring Cornel Wilde, Richard Conte, Jean Wallace, Allied Artists, 1955
Let’s say a clean cut, some would say righteous, detective (played by Cornel Wilde), a public employee detective working for cheap dough but with some kind of white knight thing about honest work, honest cop work, and getting rid of crumb bum criminals fouling up the city streets, not the usual private dick tilting at windmills for cheap dough and maybe a roll with some femme like Phillip Marlowe, who is not subject the vagaries of fearing for his pension or loss of revenue from his cut of the kickbacks that people most film noirs takes on the big city, hell maybe the Naked City, bad guys, the connected guys, the big combo guys, and gets much grief for his efforts. Let’s say the bad guys, the big city bad guys are now led by a guy name Brown (played by Richard Conte), although everybody knows, everybody who counts knows, that the bad guys, the street bad guys are not some waspy sounding named guys, but ethnic types, Kellys, Ricos, Slezaks, and the like, cheap street growing up types who, well, who scratched and clawed their ways to the top, who have certain habits, certain, well, unfriendly habits like torture, intimidations, and occasional murder in their resumes to keep the cops, the other low life, and the average citizen tied- up tied up bad. Let’s say that good cop and that bad guy wind up in a life and death struggle to see who, or what, is going to control the Naked City. Let’s say that a beautiful blonde (played by Jean Wallace), an upscale blonde, tired of well-mannered, predictable Mayfair swell guys, looked for some unnamed thrills, some bad guy kicks, although it is not always blondes looking for such thrills before returning to marry that next door neighbor stockbroker, entered into the picture and that the cop and the bad guy are both staking claims to this beauty. Let’s say that this bad guy is really bad, ready to move might and main to keep his place at the top of the heap, and not afraid to waste half the known world to keep his little secrets, including those previously mentioned little tricks that he has perfected. Let’s suppose that that ethereal blonde got fed-up with bad guys, with guys who aren’t afraid to slap her around a little just to keep her in line, and cried copper, or wanted to. Let’s suppose that the source of the bad guy’s secret turned up after some smooth good cop detective work. And let’s suppose the bad guy’s world kept getting smaller and smaller, small enough for even him to holler uncle. Then you would have a classic 1950s film noir like The Big Combo complete with suitable noir music, suitable gritty feel, and superb black and white still shots to remember this one. And that blonde, a blonde to disturb your dreams, walking back to Main Street, not alone.
Poet's Corner- On Armistice Day Weekend- From World War I- Wilfred Owen's Dulce Est Decorum Est
Poet's Corner- On Armistice Day Weekend- From World War I- Wilfred Owen's Dulce Est Decorum Est
WILFRED OWEN
Dulce et Decorum Est
best known poem of the First World War
(with notes)
DULCE ET DECORUM EST(1)
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares(2) we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest(3) began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots(4)
Of tired, outstripped(5) Five-Nines(6) that dropped behind.
Gas!(7) Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets(8) just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime(9) . . .
Dim, through the misty panes(10) and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering,(11) choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud(12)
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest(13)
To children ardent(14) for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.(15)
Wilfred Owen
8 October 1917 - March, 1918
Notes on Dulce et Decorum Est
1. DULCE ET DECORUM EST - the first words of a Latin saying (taken from an ode by Horace). The words were widely understood and often quoted at the start of the First World War. They mean "It is sweet and right." The full saying ends the poem: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori - it is sweet and right to die for your country. In other words, it is a wonderful and great honour to fight and die for your country.
2. Flares - rockets which were sent up to burn with a brilliant glare to light up men and other targets in the area between the front lines (See illustration, page 118 of Out in the Dark.)
3. Distant rest - a camp away from the front line where exhausted soldiers might rest for a few days, or longer
4. Hoots - the noise made by the shells rushing through the air
5. Outstripped - outpaced, the soldiers have struggled beyond the reach of these shells which are now falling behind them as they struggle away from the scene of battle
6. Five-Nines - 5.9 calibre explosive shells
7. Gas! - poison gas. From the symptoms it would appear to be chlorine or phosgene gas. The filling of the lungs with fluid had the same effects as when a person drowned
8. Helmets - the early name for gas masks
9. Lime - a white chalky substance which can burn live tissue
10. Panes - the glass in the eyepieces of the gas masks
11. Guttering - Owen probably meant flickering out like a candle or gurgling like water draining down a gutter, referring to the sounds in the throat of the choking man, or it might be a sound partly like stuttering and partly like gurgling
12. Cud - normally the regurgitated grass that cows chew usually green and bubbling. Here a similar looking material was issuing from the soldier's mouth
13. High zest - idealistic enthusiasm, keenly believing in the rightness of the idea
14. ardent - keen
15. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori - see note 1 above.
To see the source of Wilfred Owen's ideas about muddy conditions see his letter in Wilfred Owen's First Encounter with the Reality of War.
WILFRED OWEN
Dulce et Decorum Est
best known poem of the First World War
(with notes)
DULCE ET DECORUM EST(1)
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares(2) we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest(3) began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots(4)
Of tired, outstripped(5) Five-Nines(6) that dropped behind.
Gas!(7) Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets(8) just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime(9) . . .
Dim, through the misty panes(10) and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering,(11) choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud(12)
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest(13)
To children ardent(14) for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.(15)
Wilfred Owen
8 October 1917 - March, 1918
Notes on Dulce et Decorum Est
1. DULCE ET DECORUM EST - the first words of a Latin saying (taken from an ode by Horace). The words were widely understood and often quoted at the start of the First World War. They mean "It is sweet and right." The full saying ends the poem: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori - it is sweet and right to die for your country. In other words, it is a wonderful and great honour to fight and die for your country.
2. Flares - rockets which were sent up to burn with a brilliant glare to light up men and other targets in the area between the front lines (See illustration, page 118 of Out in the Dark.)
3. Distant rest - a camp away from the front line where exhausted soldiers might rest for a few days, or longer
4. Hoots - the noise made by the shells rushing through the air
5. Outstripped - outpaced, the soldiers have struggled beyond the reach of these shells which are now falling behind them as they struggle away from the scene of battle
6. Five-Nines - 5.9 calibre explosive shells
7. Gas! - poison gas. From the symptoms it would appear to be chlorine or phosgene gas. The filling of the lungs with fluid had the same effects as when a person drowned
8. Helmets - the early name for gas masks
9. Lime - a white chalky substance which can burn live tissue
10. Panes - the glass in the eyepieces of the gas masks
11. Guttering - Owen probably meant flickering out like a candle or gurgling like water draining down a gutter, referring to the sounds in the throat of the choking man, or it might be a sound partly like stuttering and partly like gurgling
12. Cud - normally the regurgitated grass that cows chew usually green and bubbling. Here a similar looking material was issuing from the soldier's mouth
13. High zest - idealistic enthusiasm, keenly believing in the rightness of the idea
14. ardent - keen
15. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori - see note 1 above.
To see the source of Wilfred Owen's ideas about muddy conditions see his letter in Wilfred Owen's First Encounter with the Reality of War.
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Private Manning Support Remarks Made By A Speaker At Smedley Butler Brigade Armistice Day (Veterans Day) Observance In Boston –November 11, 2012
Welcome one and all and I am
glad you could be here for this important struggle. The Smedley Butler Brigade
of Veterans for Peace proudly stands in solidarity with, and defense of,
Private Bradley Manning and his fight for freedom from his jailers, the
American military.
Now usually when I get before
a mic or am on a march I am shouting to high heaven about some injustice.
Recently I was called strident by someone and when it comes to the struggle
against this country’s wars, the struggle for social and economic equality, and
for freedom for our political prisoners I am indeed strident. But I am looking
for something today something personally important to me, and so I will try to
lower my temperature a bit- I want, like you, for recently re-elected President
Obama to pardon Bradley Manning so I will be nice, or try to be.
Bradley Manning is in a sense
the poster person for all of us who have struggled against the wars of the last
decade. He stands charged with allegedly leaking information about American war
crimes and other matters of public concern to Wikileaks. We, and we are not alone on this, do not see whistleblowing
on such activities as a crime but as an elemental humanitarian act and public
service. Private Manning has paid the price for his alleged acts with over 900
days of pre-trial confinement and is now facing life imprisonment for simple
acts of humanity. For letting the American people know what they perhaps did
not want to know but must know- when soldiers, American soldiers, go to war
some awful things can happen and do. He has also suffered torture at the hands
of the American government for his brave stand. We have become somewhat inured
to foreign national being tortured by the American government at places like
Guantanamo and other black hole locales. We have even become somewhat inured to
American citizens being tortured and killed by the American government by
drones and other methods. But we know, or should know, that when the American
government stands accused of torturing an American soldier for not toeing the
war line then we private citizens are in serious trouble.
Why does Private Manning need
a pardon? Did he give away the order of battle or the table of organization for
American military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan? No. Did he give away the
design for drones and such weapons? No. He allegedly simply blew the whistle on
something that is a hard fact of war- war crimes by American soldiers through
release of the Collateral Murder tape
and what have become known as the Iraq and Afghan War logs. This is what the
American government had tried with might and main to cover up. And what needed
to be exposed. All talk of bringing democracy, or nation- building, or having a
war to end all wars, and the million other lame excuses for war pale before the
hard fact that in the heat of war the real strategy is to kill and burn and let
god sort out the innocent from the guilty.
That is what Private Manning
exposed. I, and I am sure many other veterans from previous wars who saw or
knew of such things and did nothing about it, are glad that such things were
exposed. If for no other reason Private First Class Bradley Manning deserves
presidential pardon for his service. To insure that event we urge everybody to
ramp up their efforts in behalf of Bradley by signing here or online at the
Bradley Manning Support Network site the petition to the Secretary of the Army
for his release and to call/e-mail or write a letter to the White House and
demand that President Obama pardon Private Manning.
We have been holding weekly
stand-outs in Davis Square in Somerville outside the MBTA Red Line stop
Wednesdays from 4:00to 5:00 PM and urge you to join us. Or better yet start a
Free Bradley Manning stand-out in your own town square. Thank you.
Flyer For The Smedley Butler Brigade- Veterans For Peace 2012 Veterans Day/Armistice Day Commemoration –Sunday November 12 in Boston At Noon
President Obama Pardon Private Bradley Manning Now!
Free The Alleged Wikileak Whistleblower Now!
Bradley Manning in his own
words:
"God knows what happens
now. Hopefully worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms...
I want people to see the
truth... because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a
public."
*************
The Smedley Butler Brigade of
Veterans for Peace proudly stands in solidarity with, and defense of, Private
Bradley Manning and his fight for freedom from his jailers, the American
military.
Private Manning is facing a
February 2013 court-martial for allegedly simply blowing the whistle on
something that is a hard fact of war- war crimes by American soldiers through
release of the “Collateral Murder” tape and what have become known as the Iraq
and Afghan War logs.
Private Manning has paid the
price for his alleged acts with almost 900 days of pre-trial confinement,
including allegations of torture during this period, and is now facing life
imprisonment for simple acts of humanity. For letting the American people know
what they perhaps did not want to know but must know- when soldiers, American
soldiers, go to war some awful things can and do happen.
For more information about
the Private Manning case and what you can do to help or to sign the online
petition to the Secretary of the Army for his release contact:
Bradley Manning Support
Network: http://www.bradleymanning.org/ or the Courage To Resist Website:http://www.couragetoresist.org/
Smedley Butler Brigade-
Veterans for Peace Website: http://smedleyvfp.org/ - on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/smedleyvfp -on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/SmedleyVFP#
Let’s Redouble Our Efforts To Free Private Bradley Manning-President Obama Pardon Bradley Manning -Make Every Town Square In America (And The World) A Bradley Manning Square From Boston To Berkeley to Berlin-Join Us In Davis Square, Somerville –The Stand-Out Is Every Wednesday From 4:00-5:00 PM
Markin comment:
The Private Bradley Manning
case is headed toward a mid- winter trial now scheduled for February 2013. The
recent news on his case has centered on the now many (since last April)
pre-trial motions hearings including defense motions to dismiss for lack of
speedy trial (Private Manning’s pre-trial confinement is now entering 900 plus
days), dismissal as a matter of freedom of speech and alleged national security
issues (issues for us to know what the hell the government is doing either in
front of us, or behind our backs) and dismissal based on serious allegations of
torturous behavior by the military authorities extending far up the chain of
command while Private Manning was detained at the Quantico Marine brig for
about a year ending in April 2011. The latest news from the November 2012
pre-trail sessions is the offer by the defense to plead guilty to lesser
charges (wrongful use of Internet, etc.) and have the major (with a possibility
of a life sentence) espionage /aiding the enemy charge dropped.
Those of us who support his
cause should thus redouble our efforts to secure Private Manning’s freedom. The
status of the legal case may change a little over the next period if some form
of negotiated plea is worked out (although that is right now only in the preliminary
stages and is far from etched in stone and we believe that he has committed no
crime in need of punishment but rather has done humankind a great service by
his alleged actions) however donations to the legal fund should still be sent
and solicited. The petitioning to the Secretary of the Army for Private Manning
release (see link above) should still be gathering signatures and the
telephone/e-mail/letter campaign to the White House urging recently re-elected
President Obama, who has the constitutional authority to do so, to pardon Private
Manning now should continue.
Additionally, for the past
several months there has been a weekly stand-out in Greater Boston across from
the Davis Square Redline MBTA stop (renamed Bradley Manning Square for the
stand-out’s duration) in Somerville on Friday afternoons but we have since July
4, 2012 changed the time and day to 4:00-5:00 PM on Wednesdays. This stand-out
has, to say the least, been very sparsely attended. We need to build it up with
more supporters present. Please join us when you can. Or better yet if you
can’t join us start a Support Bradley Manning weekly stand-out in some location
in your town whether it is in the Boston area, Berkeley or Berlin. And please
sign the petition for his release either in person or through the "Bradley
Manning Support Network". We have placed links to the "Manning Network”
and "Pardon Private Manning Square" website below.
********Bradley Manning Support Network-http://www.bradleymanning.org/
Manning Square website-http://freemanz.com/2012/01/20/somerville_paper_photo-bradmanningsquare/bradleymanningsquare-2011_01_13/
Private Manning
Support Remarks Made By A Speaker At Smedley Butler Brigade Armistice Day
(Veterans Day) Observance In Boston –November 11, 2012
Welcome one and all and I am
glad you could be here for this important struggle. The Smedley Butler Brigade
of Veterans for Peace proudly stands in solidarity with, and defense of,
Private Bradley Manning and his fight for freedom from his jailers, the
American military.
Now usually when I get before
a mic or am on a march I am shouting to high heaven about some injustice.
Recently I was called strident by someone and when it comes to the struggle
against this country’s wars, the struggle for social and economic equality, and
for freedom for our political prisoners I am indeed strident. But I am looking
for something today something personally important to me, and so I will try to
lower my temperature a bit- I want, like you, for recently re-elected President
Obama to pardon Bradley Manning so I will be nice, or try to be.
Bradley Manning is in a sense
the poster person for all of us who have struggled against the wars of the last
decade. He stands charged with allegedly leaking information about American war
crimes and other matters of public concern to Wikileaks. We, and we are not alone on this, do not see whistleblowing
on such activities as a crime but as an elemental humanitarian act and public
service. Private Manning has paid the price for his alleged acts with over 900
days of pre-trial confinement and is now facing life imprisonment for simple
acts of humanity. For letting the American people know what they perhaps did
not want to know but must know- when soldiers, American soldiers, go to war
some awful things can happen and do. He has also suffered torture at the hands
of the American government for his brave stand. We have become somewhat inured
to foreign national being tortured by the American government at places like
Guantanamo and other black hole locales. We have even become somewhat inured to
American citizens being tortured and killed by the American government by
drones and other methods. But we know, or should know, that when the American
government stands accused of torturing an American soldier for not toeing the
war line then we private citizens are in serious trouble.
Why does Private Manning need
a pardon? Did he give away the order of battle or the table of organization for
American military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan? No. Did he give away the
design for drones and such weapons? No. He allegedly simply blew the whistle on
something that is a hard fact of war- war crimes by American soldiers through
release of the Collateral Murder tape
and what have become known as the Iraq and Afghan War logs. This is what the
American government had tried with might and main to cover up. And what needed
to be exposed. All talk of bringing democracy, or nation- building, or having a
war to end all wars, and the million other lame excuses for war pale before the
hard fact that in the heat of war the real strategy is to kill and burn and let
god sort out the innocent from the guilty.
That is what Private Manning
exposed. I, and I am sure many other veterans from previous wars who saw or
knew of such things and did nothing about it, are glad that such things were
exposed. If for no other reason Private First Class Bradley Manning deserves
presidential pardon for his service. To insure that event we urge everybody to
ramp up their efforts in behalf of Bradley by signing here or online at the
Bradley Manning Support Network site the petition to the Secretary of the Army
for his release and to call/e-mail or write a letter to the White House and
demand that President Obama pardon Private Manning.
We have been holding weekly
stand-outs in Davis Square in Somerville outside the MBTA Red Line stop
Wednesdays from 4:00to 5:00 PM and urge you to join us. Or better yet start a
Free Bradley Manning stand-out in your own town square. Thank you.
From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- The Blues Is…, Part II
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGIE28q3fEA
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Howlin’ Wolf performing Killing Floor.
CD Review
Chess Blues Guitar: The Chess 50th Anniversary Edition: Two Decades Of Killer Fretwork, 1949-1969, various artists, 2 CD set, Chess Records, 1998
The blues ain’t nothing, nothing at all but a good woman on your mind, all curves and cuddles, all be my daddy, daddy, build for comfort not for speed just like your daddy, your real daddy, not your long gone daddy just now serving a stretch, a nickel’s worth for armed robbery up in Joliet for some Southside heist that went sour, hell, you told long gone daddy that guns didn’t make the play any better but long gone was just a little too long gone on that twinkle dust and so when Danville Slim called the shots, long gone was long gone, told you about when you were knee high and needing instruction about who, and who not, to mess with when you got your wanting habits on. (Stay away from big women, like the song, the blue blue blue song says, don’t forget, they will wear you out, ditto, long thin gals with wanderlust eyes, and twinkle dust noses, itching, checking out every daddy, every daddy that came by her eyes, flashing five dollars bills and another twinkle line, ditto, god’s girls, Sunday morning moaners, smelling of gin, washtub gin, and juke joint slashes, some mean mama cut her up when she wrong- eyed mean mama’s daddy, now Sunday looking for, can you believe it, forgiveness, and trick, getting it, stick with curves and cuddles, an easy rider, she’ll treat you right and no heavy overhead, and no damn where have you been daddy questions.
She, Miss Lucy she, all cuddles and curves she, an easy rider, yah, a sweet and low easy rider, to make a man, well, to make a man, so far away, so far from uptown downtown Chi town, far down in sweaty delta Mississippi, maybe still in Clarksville like you left her that night, that moonless 1942 night, when you had to break-out from delta sweats, from working sunup to blasted sundown for no pay, for chits, Christ what are you supposed to do with company chits when you had your Miss Lucy wanting habits on, needed, no craved, some of Sonny Boy’s honey liquor, from the Mister on his ten thousand acre cotton boll plantation (selling every last boll too, good or bad, to the U.S. Army, for, for what else, uniforms), and strips from the Captain, for, for sassing, and grab that bus, that underground bus, out on Highway 61, and head, yah, head north following the north star, following the migrant trail up-river. Maybe a quick stop at Memphis to see if any of the guys, B.B. (no, not the one you are thinking of), the Slim, Delta Dark, Bobby Be-Bop, Big Joe, Muddy (yes, that Muddy slumming down river and on the low from some Chi town wench whose man was looking, knife looking for the guy who messed with his baby and left her blue, real blue. True Muddy story.) and if not straight to Chi town and work, work in the hog butcher to the world, work in the Casey steel driving hammering foundry to the world , work in the grain elevator to the world, work in the farm machinery equipment factory to the world , good, steady, sweaty work, five day work and done, five day work, maybe overtime, glad-handed overtime on Saturday, and done, no Captain’s strips, except maybe some rough Irish cop night stick but, mainly, just hell work, and then off to bumbling squalid three decker hovel, overcrowded, over-priced, under heated, damn, nothing but a cold water flat with about six different nationalities chattering on the fetid Maxwell connected streets.
Home, home long enough to turn overalls, sweated blue overalls, into Saturday be-bop blues master, all silk shirt, about five colors, blue blue, green green sun yellow, deep magenta, some violent purple, all fancy dance pants, all slick city boy now shoes (against that po’ boy Clarksville no shoe night to make daddy, real daddy cry, and mama too), topped by a soft felt hat, de riguer for Saturday prances. For a while singing and playing, he, mainly playing that on fire(electric) guitar first learned from daddy, real daddy, down the delta when he was from hunger and he and daddy Saturday juked for whiskey drinks (for daddy) and sodas and ribs for him, for nickels and dimes with his long gone daddy (gone daddy previously mentioned tired of nickels and thus plugging an ironic nickel’s worth) out behind Maxwell Street(only the prime guys, the guys Chess, or Ace, Or Decca, or, some race label were interested in, for a while, got to play the big street, the big attention, the big sweep, everybody else behind for nickels and maybe an off-hand stray piece, a joy girl they called them, hell he called them when he had his wanting habits on, not all black or mixed either, a few white joys looking for negro kicks, looking for kicks before Forest Lawn stockbrokers, or futures traders make their claims, looking over the new boys in order to say that they had that, had that before they headed out to Maxwell Street glare or sweet home, yah, sweet home Joliet. And Miss Lucy waited, waited down in some lonesome Clarksville crossroad, dust rolling in, sun beginning to rest, watching the daily underground bus heading north, north to her Johnny Blaze, Johnny quick on that amped-up guitar and the stuff of dreams.
The blues ain’t nothing, nothing at all but a bad woman on your mind, a woman walking in your place of work, your stage, your Carousel Club, you just trying to get that damn guitar weapon, baby, mama, sugar, main squeeze, in tune, the one just off of Maxwell Street, mecca, with her walking daddy, eyeing you that first minute, big blond blue eyes, and even walking daddy can feel the heat coming off her, animal heat mixed up with some Fifth Avenue perfume bought by the ounce , feel that he was going to spend the night on a knife’s edge. The Carousel Club got a mix, got a mix on Friday nights when the be-bop crazy white girls, not all big blond blue eyes but also mixed, decided that be-bop jazz, their natural stomping grounds, over at places like the Kit Kat Club was just too tame for their flaming 1950s appetites and so they went slumming, slumming with a walking daddy, a black as night walking daddy, make no mistake in tow just in case, in case knives came into play.
She had her fix on him, her and that damn perfume that he could smell across the room, that and that animal thing that some woman have, have too damn much of like his daddy, his real daddy, told him to watch out for back when he was knee-high and working the jukes for cakes and candies (and daddy for Sonny Boy’s honey liquor). Just what he needed, needed now that he had worked his way up from cheap street playing for nickels and dimes (and, okay, an off-hand piece once the joy girls, some of them white like this girl, looking for negro kicks, badass negro kicks and then back to wherever white town, heard him roar up to heaven on that fret board) to backing up Big Slim, yah, that Big Slim who just signed with Chess and was getting ready to bring the blues back to its proper place now that it looked like that damn rock and roll, that damn Elvis took all the out of any other kind of music had run its course.
Then it started, she sent a drink his way, a compliment to his superb playing on Look Yonder Wall according to Millie th e waitress, then another, ditto on The Sky Is Crying, walking daddy was not pleased and she looked like she was getting just drunk enough to make her move (hell, he had seen that enough, and not just with these easy white girls). No sale tonight girlie that bad ass negro really does look bad ass, bad ass like long gone daddy whom he started on these mean streets with and still finishing up his nickel at Joliet. She makes her way to the stage as the first set ends. Pleasant, hell they are all pleasant, in htta polite way they have been brought up in for about four or five generations, but still with that come hither perfume and that damn hungry look. No sale, no sale girlie, not with bad ass looking daggers in his eyes. And that night there wasn’t. Next Friday night she came in alone, came in and sat right in front of him. Didn’t say a word at intermission, just sent over a drink for a superb rendition of Mean Mistreatin’Mama , and left it at that.
She had her fix on him, her and that damn perfume that he could smell across the room, that and that animal thing that some woman have, have too damn much of like his daddy, his real daddy, told him to watch out for back when he was knee-high and working the jukes for cakes and candies (and daddy for Sonny Boy’s honey liquor). Just what he needed, needed now that he had worked his way up from cheap street playing for nickels and dimes (and, okay, an off-hand piece once the joy girls, some of them white like this girl, looking for negro kicks, badass negro kicks and then back to wherever white town, heard him roar up to heaven on that fret board) to backing up Big Slim, yah, that Big Slim who just signed with Chess and was getting ready to bring the blues back to its proper place now that it looked like that damn rock and roll, that damn Elvis took all the out of any other kind of music had run its course.
Then it started, she sent a drink his way, a compliment to his superb playing on Look Yonder Wall according to Millie th e waitress, then another, ditto on The Sky Is Crying, walking daddy was not pleased and she looked like she was getting just drunk enough to make her move (hell, he had seen that enough, and not just with these easy white girls). No sale tonight girlie that bad ass negro really does look bad ass, bad ass like long gone daddy whom he started on these mean streets with and still finishing up his nickel at Joliet. She makes her way to the stage as the first set ends. Pleasant, hell they are all pleasant, in htta polite way they have been brought up in for about four or five generations, but still with that come hither perfume and that damn hungry look. No sale, no sale girlie, not with bad ass looking daggers in his eyes. And that night there wasn’t. Next Friday night she came in alone, came in and sat right in front of him. Didn’t say a word at intermission, just sent over a drink for a superb rendition of Mean Mistreatin’Mama , and left it at that.
After work she was waiting for him out in back, he nodded at her, she pointed at her car, a late model, and they were off. They didn’t surface again for a week. The blues is…
Friday, November 09, 2012
.........................
Text version of
invitation:
HUCTW staff members are
essential contributors to Harvard’s greatness. We deserve a contract that allows
us to stay ahead of inflation, make progress in our lives, and sustain Harvard’s
middle class.
On Thursday, November 15th,
STAND UP with co-workers and supporters for a fair union contract. Ideas, music,
and solidarity in the Yard -- all Harvard friends and supporters are
welcome!
Please take the time to be
there on this critically important day.
EVENT DETAILS:
Date: Thursday, November 15, 2012
Time: 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Place: Harvard Yard (in Cambridge)
Homemade posters
are encouraged! Or print out one from our website:
Thank you,
HUCTW
............................
Friends,
The CSA Union confederation (which represents more than 50 million workers through 53 federations in 23 countries in Latin America) will organize solidarity actions, rallies and events across the continent on November 14th in solidarity with the general strikes in Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy (half day) on the same day. Confederación Sindical de Trabajadores y Trabajadoras de las Américas (CSA) will organize the protests in solidarity with the European workers against austerity and anti-worker measures.
In New York, as we continue the relief
efforts for our brothers and sisters in the areas worst-hit by hurricane
Sandy, (its solidarity-not charity!) we have to raise our voices about
the continuing plunder of our city by Wall Street and its politicians who care
nothing about workers and the poor. We all continue to face the hurricane of
capitalism's austerity with massive cuts in spending for healthcare, jobs and
education planned by Obama and Congress in the near future, as we are asked to
pay the cost of Wall Street's bailout. Where are the billions to help us? Wall
Street and big business received trillions of aid when they
collapsed?
We should join our voices in protest
against austerity and budget cuts, against racism and fascism and to demand
immediate action for those suffering from the storm and its aftermath. We need
to demand immediate federal relief, taxes on the rich, worker's rights to join a
union, a living minimum wage, an end to the attacks on public education, massive
public investment in green technology and the city's crumbling infrastructure!
This goes hand in hand with the
international solidarity with the workers and people of Greece and Europe, and
across who are also fighting back. This shows the importance of organizing for
our event on Nov 14 and bringing together all those who are fighting against the
corporate dictatorship of Wall Street and to organize further
actions.
Please take a moment to call your
friends and post widely the information that we have on our Facebook
page:
Join us on Nov. 14th, starting at 2PM
with press conference, picketing and speakout betwen 3 and 4PM and a rally at
5PM at Dug Hammarskjold Plaza at the United
Nations!
Alan Akrivos
Aristeri Kinisi NY (Greek American
Left Movement)
Notes from the courtroom: Bradley Manning’s motions hearing at Ft. Meade, 11/8/12
Col. Carl Coffman, former Special Court Martial Convening Authority in Bradley’s trial, answered questions from the defense and prosecution about his role in delaying Bradley Manning’s pretrial confinement, which has exceeded 900 days. (Read notes from Day 1 here.)
By Nathan Fuller, Bradley Manning Support Network. November 8, 2012.
Col. Carl Coffman had a lot of explaining to do today – about 6 hours worth. That’s how long the former Special Court Martial Convening Authority answered questions on the stand, in the second and final day of this week’s motions hearing for PFC Bradley Manning at Ft. Meade, MD.
Both the government and defense called Coffman to testify for the defense’s motion to dismiss for lack of a speedy trial, because Coffman signed off to approve all but one of the government’s requests to delay Bradley’s pretrial proceedings (according to the defense, paralegal Monica Carlile signed one of the delays). The defense accuses the prosecution of requesting delays that could have been avoided, it accuses various government agencies (Original Classification Authorities, or OCAs) who took months to complete classification reviews, and it accuses Coffman of both granting needless delays and unjustifiably excluding them from the speedy trial clock.
The prosecution’s Captain White questioned Coffman first for several hours, reviewing each of the government’s eight delay requests spanning August 2010, when Coffman joined the case, and December 2011, when Bradley’s pretrial proceedings finally began.
The prosecution and Coffman worked together so frequently during 2011 that Coffman referred to “my trial counsel” and to Capt. Ashden Fein by his first name during his testimony. In its questioning, the government had Coffman go through each delay request process to try to stress to the court that it frequently updated Coffman on the OCAs’ progress, it couldn’t have done anything to expedite the OCAs’ extremely long review process, and the classification reviews were necessary to conduct Bradley’s Article 32 pretrial hearing.
The defense has long objected to each of these contentions, and elicited testimony from Coffman revealing that the former Convening Authority actually knew very little about the classification review progress, instead “trusting,” in his words, that “trial counsel and the OCAs were doing their jobs.”
The government’s questioning of Coffman was very methodical, and rather long and dry. Eight times before Manning’s first court session, the prosecution requested a delay, citing the OCAs’ still-unfinished classification reviews. The defense objected to each request, arguing that Bradley’s speedy trial rights were being violated, and that the parties could proceed without waiting for the classification reviews. Coffman testified that he took the defense’s objections into consideration, but he didn’t deny a single government request for delay.
But defense questioning revealed even more about the process: we learned that the prosecution wrote all of its own delay approval memos, on which Coffman simply signed his name, after only 10-15 minutes of discussion with the government.
The problem seems to boil down to this: Coffman “trusted” the OCAs to complete their classification reviews expediently, and he “trusted” the prosecution to provide accurate updates about the reviews that in his mind necessitated delays. But the prosecution didn’t give specific progress updates – for example, that half of the documents were completed, or that they needed a certain number of days to finish – instead, the lawyers would merely tell Coffman that the OCAs were continuing to work and needed more time. (Coffman revealed that despite providing him with verbal or informal updates about the classification process, the prosecution missed its deadline to update him in writing on multiple occasions.) Coffman testified that he made no effort to contact or hurry the OCAs himself, saying that because OCAs are “senior officials,” he expected them to do their jobs without needing to be reminded to quicken their work. He couldn’t explain further why he never inquired about how many OCAs there were, how many documents they needed to review, or how much more time they needed.
How long could this have gone on? If the OCAs were still completing those reviews today, would Bradley still be awaiting arraignment? Coffman said he had no deadline in mind: the only time frame he considered problematic was the potential event that the pre-arraignment period continued until the summer of 2012, when Coffman was expecting to change positions, and didn’t know how to proceed in that event.
But even further questioning challenged the idea that Coffman had to wait for the classification reviews at all. In each objection, the defense proffered that instead of waiting on OCAs to complete reviews, the prosecution could have provided summaries or substitutes of the classified material. Coffman rejected this idea repeatedly, saying he needed the reviews to proceed, despite the defense’s multiple demands for a speedy trial.
Coffman also talked about Op Plan Bravo, the plan to prepare Ft. Meade’s logistics and security for PFC Manning’s trial, given the expected media attention and classification information to be discussed. The plan took 30 days, but Coffman didn’t order it until November 16, 2011, so Ft. Meade was ready by the December 16 hearing. But this plan didn’t depend on any classification reviews, and Coffman acknowledged it could have been executed months or a year prior. This is important because the defense requested the Article 32 hearing start on December 12, and Coffman rejected that date because Op Plan Bravo was still in effect. That’s four more days of senseless delays, four more days of Bradley’s already grueling pretrial confinement, and four more days that should count against the government on the speedy trial clock.
When asked flat out by the defense whether he ever considered denying the prosecution’s delay request, Coffman said no. When asked if he ever considered granting the delays but not excluding them from the speedy trial clock, Coffman said no. Despite his stated concern for Bradley Manning’s constitutional right to a speedy trial, Coffman decided that trusting government officials to act expediently was sufficient due diligence on his part.
Judge Lind asked Coffman, who joined the case August 3, 2010, between the first set of charges against Manning on July 5, 2010, and the second set on March 1, 2011, if the newly discovered information and charges played any part in the delay. Coffman seemed to know nothing about how that new information was discovered and how it led to new charges. He said he only conferred with the prosecution for status updates.
She also asked when Army CID completed its investigation, because the CID’s completion of a review was another, though comparatively minor, basis for delay. Coffman answered that he wasn’t sure exactly, but that he could provide a date. This ruffled the prosecution’s feathers. Government lawyer Ashden Fein got up quickly to re-direct questioning to Coffman. He asked if Coffman was aware that Army CID was “still investigating this crime,” and Coffman said, “No.” Fein asked if Coffman was aware that WikiLeaks was “still releasing classified information,” and Coffman wasn’t sure. (A federal judge also said this week that the investigation is still ongoing.)
Perhaps because this was a speedy trial hearing, this session was the first in recent months that didn’t delay the court calendar to come: all dates currently scheduled remain intact, so we’ll return for the Article 13 litigation and continuation of this motion at Ft. Meade November 27 through December 2.
By Nathan Fuller, Bradley Manning Support Network. November 8, 2012.
Col. Carl Coffman, former Special Court Martial Convening Authority.
Both the government and defense called Coffman to testify for the defense’s motion to dismiss for lack of a speedy trial, because Coffman signed off to approve all but one of the government’s requests to delay Bradley’s pretrial proceedings (according to the defense, paralegal Monica Carlile signed one of the delays). The defense accuses the prosecution of requesting delays that could have been avoided, it accuses various government agencies (Original Classification Authorities, or OCAs) who took months to complete classification reviews, and it accuses Coffman of both granting needless delays and unjustifiably excluding them from the speedy trial clock.
The prosecution’s Captain White questioned Coffman first for several hours, reviewing each of the government’s eight delay requests spanning August 2010, when Coffman joined the case, and December 2011, when Bradley’s pretrial proceedings finally began.
The prosecution and Coffman worked together so frequently during 2011 that Coffman referred to “my trial counsel” and to Capt. Ashden Fein by his first name during his testimony. In its questioning, the government had Coffman go through each delay request process to try to stress to the court that it frequently updated Coffman on the OCAs’ progress, it couldn’t have done anything to expedite the OCAs’ extremely long review process, and the classification reviews were necessary to conduct Bradley’s Article 32 pretrial hearing.
The defense has long objected to each of these contentions, and elicited testimony from Coffman revealing that the former Convening Authority actually knew very little about the classification review progress, instead “trusting,” in his words, that “trial counsel and the OCAs were doing their jobs.”
The government’s questioning of Coffman was very methodical, and rather long and dry. Eight times before Manning’s first court session, the prosecution requested a delay, citing the OCAs’ still-unfinished classification reviews. The defense objected to each request, arguing that Bradley’s speedy trial rights were being violated, and that the parties could proceed without waiting for the classification reviews. Coffman testified that he took the defense’s objections into consideration, but he didn’t deny a single government request for delay.
But defense questioning revealed even more about the process: we learned that the prosecution wrote all of its own delay approval memos, on which Coffman simply signed his name, after only 10-15 minutes of discussion with the government.
The problem seems to boil down to this: Coffman “trusted” the OCAs to complete their classification reviews expediently, and he “trusted” the prosecution to provide accurate updates about the reviews that in his mind necessitated delays. But the prosecution didn’t give specific progress updates – for example, that half of the documents were completed, or that they needed a certain number of days to finish – instead, the lawyers would merely tell Coffman that the OCAs were continuing to work and needed more time. (Coffman revealed that despite providing him with verbal or informal updates about the classification process, the prosecution missed its deadline to update him in writing on multiple occasions.) Coffman testified that he made no effort to contact or hurry the OCAs himself, saying that because OCAs are “senior officials,” he expected them to do their jobs without needing to be reminded to quicken their work. He couldn’t explain further why he never inquired about how many OCAs there were, how many documents they needed to review, or how much more time they needed.
How long could this have gone on? If the OCAs were still completing those reviews today, would Bradley still be awaiting arraignment? Coffman said he had no deadline in mind: the only time frame he considered problematic was the potential event that the pre-arraignment period continued until the summer of 2012, when Coffman was expecting to change positions, and didn’t know how to proceed in that event.
But even further questioning challenged the idea that Coffman had to wait for the classification reviews at all. In each objection, the defense proffered that instead of waiting on OCAs to complete reviews, the prosecution could have provided summaries or substitutes of the classified material. Coffman rejected this idea repeatedly, saying he needed the reviews to proceed, despite the defense’s multiple demands for a speedy trial.
Coffman also talked about Op Plan Bravo, the plan to prepare Ft. Meade’s logistics and security for PFC Manning’s trial, given the expected media attention and classification information to be discussed. The plan took 30 days, but Coffman didn’t order it until November 16, 2011, so Ft. Meade was ready by the December 16 hearing. But this plan didn’t depend on any classification reviews, and Coffman acknowledged it could have been executed months or a year prior. This is important because the defense requested the Article 32 hearing start on December 12, and Coffman rejected that date because Op Plan Bravo was still in effect. That’s four more days of senseless delays, four more days of Bradley’s already grueling pretrial confinement, and four more days that should count against the government on the speedy trial clock.
When asked flat out by the defense whether he ever considered denying the prosecution’s delay request, Coffman said no. When asked if he ever considered granting the delays but not excluding them from the speedy trial clock, Coffman said no. Despite his stated concern for Bradley Manning’s constitutional right to a speedy trial, Coffman decided that trusting government officials to act expediently was sufficient due diligence on his part.
Judge Lind asked Coffman, who joined the case August 3, 2010, between the first set of charges against Manning on July 5, 2010, and the second set on March 1, 2011, if the newly discovered information and charges played any part in the delay. Coffman seemed to know nothing about how that new information was discovered and how it led to new charges. He said he only conferred with the prosecution for status updates.
She also asked when Army CID completed its investigation, because the CID’s completion of a review was another, though comparatively minor, basis for delay. Coffman answered that he wasn’t sure exactly, but that he could provide a date. This ruffled the prosecution’s feathers. Government lawyer Ashden Fein got up quickly to re-direct questioning to Coffman. He asked if Coffman was aware that Army CID was “still investigating this crime,” and Coffman said, “No.” Fein asked if Coffman was aware that WikiLeaks was “still releasing classified information,” and Coffman wasn’t sure. (A federal judge also said this week that the investigation is still ongoing.)
Perhaps because this was a speedy trial hearing, this session was the first in recent months that didn’t delay the court calendar to come: all dates currently scheduled remain intact, so we’ll return for the Article 13 litigation and continuation of this motion at Ft. Meade November 27 through December 2.
Notes from the courtroom: Bradley Manning’s motions hearing at Ft. Meade, 11/7/12
The government deposed two witnesses today to try to explain why it delayed Bradley Manning’s trial beyond what the military law allows. Bradley entered a plea offering that deals with lesser-included offenses, and chooses to be tried before a military judge alone. This means there will not be a jury (of military officers and high ranking NCO’s).
By Nathan Fuller, Bradley Manning Support Network. November 7, 2012.
Hurricane Sandy delivered the first delay in Bradley Manning’s two-and-a-half-year trial that didn’t come at the unconstitutional whim of the United States government. The storm left the Ft. Meade military base largely unscathed, and Bradley’s trial proceeded today.
The defense has moved to dismiss with prejudice the 22 charges against the accused WikiLeaks whistle-blower for lack of a speedy trial, and today the prosecution deposed two witnesses to attempt to justify keeping the young Army private in pretrial confinement for 900 days without bringing him to trial.
Witness 1: Lt. Col. Paul Almanza
First the government called Lt. Col. Paul Almanza to the stand telephonically. Almanza was the Investigating Officer at Bradley’s initial Article 32 pretrial hearing in December 2011. Almanza excluded the government’s delays last December and in January of this year from the speedy trial clock, and today he was asked to explain why.
Last year, the government emailed Almanza, requesting that he authorize a trial delay from December 22, 2011, to January 3, 2012, and that he exclude that delay from the trial clock. Almanza granted that request and excluded it without asking for the defense’s position on the matter.
Almanza said he excluded three days (December 24-26) for Christmas, a federal holiday, two days for New Years Day, also a federal holiday, and four days in between, though he did review evidence on a Secret-clearance laptop at the Military District of Washington on December 23. He excluded the weekend of January 7 and 8, saying he took his son to a swim meet in Pennsylvania.
Almanza sent out memos on January 4 and 11 regarding delays, but in neither did he mention that he had concurrent civilian work with the Department of Justice. Asked why he didn’t mention it, Almanza said that he should have, that omitting it was an oversight. He also said he could’ve requested leave from his civilian work, but neglected to do so. Almanza testified that had he not allowed these delays, he could’ve completed the work that he submitted on January 11 by December 29.
He also said that at last December’s hearing, he would’ve accepted witness testimony regarding the classification of documents if substituted for classification reviews. This method would have obviated the long wait for Original Classification Authorities to submit their reviews.
Witness 2: Bert Haggett
After lunch, the government called Bert Haggett to testify. Haggett promulgates information security policy throughout the Army, and has reviewed documents in Bradley’s case to determine to whom they should be referred for a classification review. Unfortunately, most of Haggett’s responses to many of the defense’s initial questions were, “I don’t recall.” That was the answer he gave to, “When were you first contacted?”, “Did you sign a referral?”, “Did the referral include a deadline?” and “How long did the Original Classification Authority take?”
Haggett suggested that it was possible, or not necessarily unreasonable, for a complex classification review process to take more than a full year. However, he said it only took him 4 days to examine 900 documents and determine to which ‘equity holder’ within the government to send them.
Upon cross-examination and Judge Lind’s questioning, and after the prosecution handed him court documents recounting past proceedings, Haggett began to reveal more about his role, the government’s inexpedience, and the review process. Though he couldn’t remember the date exactly, he agreed that it was likely he was first contacted in April 2011 – more than nine months after Bradley’s arrest. Haggett couldn’t explain why it took the government so long to contact him, but he said that during 2010, “When the WikiLeaks issue occurred, I lived and breathed it.”
Haggett didn’t know too much about the status of documents relating to Bradley Manning’s case after he recommended they be sent to various OCAs, but he spoke more generally about the classification and review process in his experience. He said it was rare that he would review information and decide to declassify it. He also said that he didn’t know if trial counsel (the prosecution) had included deadlines in their requests for classification review.
Bradley’s plea offering
The other main issue of the day was Bradley’s potential plea offering. As lawyer David Coombs has posted to his blog,
David Coombs also explained today that, “PFC Manning has also provided notice of his forum selection. He has elected to be tried by Military Judge alone.” This means that Judge Lind alone will decide both guilt and possible punishment at court martial. There will not be a military jury, comprised of officers and senior NCO’s, involved.
Starting at 8:00 AM ET tomorrow, the government will depose Col. Carl Coffman, who will finally be forced to explain why he signed off on enough government delays to push Bradley’s arraignment back 635 days.
By Nathan Fuller, Bradley Manning Support Network. November 7, 2012.
Hurricane Sandy delivered the first delay in Bradley Manning’s two-and-a-half-year trial that didn’t come at the unconstitutional whim of the United States government. The storm left the Ft. Meade military base largely unscathed, and Bradley’s trial proceeded today.
The defense has moved to dismiss with prejudice the 22 charges against the accused WikiLeaks whistle-blower for lack of a speedy trial, and today the prosecution deposed two witnesses to attempt to justify keeping the young Army private in pretrial confinement for 900 days without bringing him to trial.
Lt. Col. Paul Almanza, at right, as I.O. of Bradley’s pretrial hearing in December 2011. (Sketch by William J. Hennessy Jr.)
First the government called Lt. Col. Paul Almanza to the stand telephonically. Almanza was the Investigating Officer at Bradley’s initial Article 32 pretrial hearing in December 2011. Almanza excluded the government’s delays last December and in January of this year from the speedy trial clock, and today he was asked to explain why.
Last year, the government emailed Almanza, requesting that he authorize a trial delay from December 22, 2011, to January 3, 2012, and that he exclude that delay from the trial clock. Almanza granted that request and excluded it without asking for the defense’s position on the matter.
Almanza said he excluded three days (December 24-26) for Christmas, a federal holiday, two days for New Years Day, also a federal holiday, and four days in between, though he did review evidence on a Secret-clearance laptop at the Military District of Washington on December 23. He excluded the weekend of January 7 and 8, saying he took his son to a swim meet in Pennsylvania.
Almanza sent out memos on January 4 and 11 regarding delays, but in neither did he mention that he had concurrent civilian work with the Department of Justice. Asked why he didn’t mention it, Almanza said that he should have, that omitting it was an oversight. He also said he could’ve requested leave from his civilian work, but neglected to do so. Almanza testified that had he not allowed these delays, he could’ve completed the work that he submitted on January 11 by December 29.
He also said that at last December’s hearing, he would’ve accepted witness testimony regarding the classification of documents if substituted for classification reviews. This method would have obviated the long wait for Original Classification Authorities to submit their reviews.
Witness 2: Bert Haggett
After lunch, the government called Bert Haggett to testify. Haggett promulgates information security policy throughout the Army, and has reviewed documents in Bradley’s case to determine to whom they should be referred for a classification review. Unfortunately, most of Haggett’s responses to many of the defense’s initial questions were, “I don’t recall.” That was the answer he gave to, “When were you first contacted?”, “Did you sign a referral?”, “Did the referral include a deadline?” and “How long did the Original Classification Authority take?”
Haggett suggested that it was possible, or not necessarily unreasonable, for a complex classification review process to take more than a full year. However, he said it only took him 4 days to examine 900 documents and determine to which ‘equity holder’ within the government to send them.
Upon cross-examination and Judge Lind’s questioning, and after the prosecution handed him court documents recounting past proceedings, Haggett began to reveal more about his role, the government’s inexpedience, and the review process. Though he couldn’t remember the date exactly, he agreed that it was likely he was first contacted in April 2011 – more than nine months after Bradley’s arrest. Haggett couldn’t explain why it took the government so long to contact him, but he said that during 2010, “When the WikiLeaks issue occurred, I lived and breathed it.”
Haggett didn’t know too much about the status of documents relating to Bradley Manning’s case after he recommended they be sent to various OCAs, but he spoke more generally about the classification and review process in his experience. He said it was rare that he would review information and decide to declassify it. He also said that he didn’t know if trial counsel (the prosecution) had included deadlines in their requests for classification review.
Bradley’s plea offering
The other main issue of the day was Bradley’s potential plea offering. As lawyer David Coombs has posted to his blog,
“PFC Manning has offered to plead guilty to various offenses through a process known as “pleading by exceptions and substitutions.” To clarify, PFC Manning is not pleading guilty to the specifications as charged by the Government. Rather, PFC Manning is attempting to accept responsibility for offenses that are encapsulated within, or are a subset of, the charged offenses. The Court will consider whether this is a permissible plea.Judge Lind said that Manning’s plea offering deals with Specification 1 of Charge 2 (an 18 US 793(e) offense), and to Clauses 1 and 2 of the Article 134 offense. (Read Manning’s charge sheet here.)
PFC Manning is not submitting a plea as part of an agreement or deal with the Government. Further, the Government does not need to agree to PFC Manning’s plea; the Court simply has to determine that the plea is legally permissible. If the Court allows PFC Manning to plead guilty by exceptions and substitutions, the Government may still elect to prove up the charged offenses. Pleading by exceptions and substitutions, in other words, does not change the offenses with which PFC Manning has been charged and for which he is scheduled to stand trial.”
David Coombs also explained today that, “PFC Manning has also provided notice of his forum selection. He has elected to be tried by Military Judge alone.” This means that Judge Lind alone will decide both guilt and possible punishment at court martial. There will not be a military jury, comprised of officers and senior NCO’s, involved.
Starting at 8:00 AM ET tomorrow, the government will depose Col. Carl Coffman, who will finally be forced to explain why he signed off on enough government delays to push Bradley’s arraignment back 635 days.
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Bienvenidos todos y cada uno y estoy contento de poder estar aquí para esta importante lucha. La
Ahora por lo general cuando llegue ante un micrófono o estoy en una marcha que estoy gritando al cielo sobre alguna injusticia. Recientemente fui llamado estridente por alguien y cuando se trata de la lucha contra las guerras de este país, la lucha por la igualdad social y económica, y por la libertad de nuestros presos políticos de hecho estoy estridente. Pero estoy buscando algo hoy algo importante para mí personalmente, por lo que voy a tratar de bajar la temperatura un poco-lo que quiero, como tú, para recién reelegido presidente Obama a perdonar a Bradley Manning, así que será bueno, o tratar ser.
Bradley Manning es en cierto sentido la persona del cartel para todos los que han luchado en contra de las guerras de la última década. Él está acusado de presuntamente haber filtrado información sobre los crímenes de guerra estadounidenses y otros asuntos de interés público a Wikileaks. Nosotros, y no estamos solos en esto, no veo la denuncia de irregularidades en actividades tales como un delito, sino como un acto humanitario elemental y servicio público. Soldado Manning ha pagado el precio por sus presuntos actos con más de 900 días de prisión preventiva y se enfrenta ahora a cadena perpetua por simples actos de la humanidad. Para permitir que el pueblo estadounidense sabe lo que tal vez no quería saber, pero debe saber que los soldados, los soldados estadounidenses, ir a la guerra algunas cosas terribles pueden suceder y hacer. Él también ha sufrido tortura a manos del gobierno estadounidense por su posición valiente. Nos hemos vuelto un poco habituado a los extranjeros ser torturado por el gobierno estadounidense en lugares como Guantánamo y otros lugares de agujeros negros. Incluso hemos llegado a ser algo habituado a los ciudadanos estadounidenses torturados y asesinados por el gobierno de Estados Unidos por aviones no tripulados y otros métodos. Pero sabemos, o deberíamos saber, que cuando el gobierno estadounidense es acusado de torturar a un soldado estadounidense por no sigue la línea de guerra luego nosotros, los ciudadanos privados están en serios problemas.
¿Por qué el soldado Manning necesita un indulto? ¿Se regala el orden de batalla o en la tabla de organización de las operaciones militares estadounidenses en Irak y Afganistán? No. ¿Le regalan el diseño de aviones y armas de este tipo? No. Al parecer simplemente sopló el silbato en algo que es un hecho difícil de crímenes de guerra por la guerra por parte de soldados estadounidenses a través de la liberación de la cinta Asesinato colateral y lo que se conoce como el Iraq y los registros de la guerra afgana. Esto es lo que el gobierno estadounidense había intentado con todas sus fuerzas para cubrir. Y lo que tenía que haber estado expuestos. Todos hablan de llevar la democracia, o construcción de la nación, o que tengan una guerra para acabar con todas las guerras, y el millón de excusas poco convincentes para la guerra palidecen ante la dura realidad de que en el fragor de la guerra la verdadera estrategia es matar y quemar y dejar que Dios clasificar a los inocentes de los culpables.
Eso es lo que soldado Manning expuesto. I, y estoy seguro de que muchos veteranos de otras guerras anteriores que veían o sabían de estas cosas y no hicieron nada al respecto, se alegra de que estas cosas estaban expuestos. Si no por otra razón soldado de primera clase Bradley Manning merece perdón presidencial por su servicio. Para asegurar que el evento instamos a todos a la rampa encima de sus esfuerzos en favor de Bradley firmando aquí o en línea en el sitio de la Red de Apoyo a Bradley Manning la petición al Secretario del Ejército para su puesta en libertad y llamar a / e-mail o escribir una carta a la Casa Blanca y la demanda de que el presidente Obama Manning perdón Privado.
Hemos estado llevando a cabo semanalmente stand-outs en Davis Square en Somerville fuera de los miércoles MBTA rojo de parada de la línea 4:00-17:00 y les insto a unirse a nosotros. O mejor aún iniciar Gratis Bradley Manning stand-out en su propio plaza de la ciudad. Gracias.