Wednesday, November 28, 2012

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- The Blues Is…, Take One

The blues is, praise be… He had just barely gotten done with his work for the day, his sun up to sun down work helping Brother Barnes shoe the plow horses, a job he had held since his older brother, Ben, had gotten back from the war, the Great War, the war to end all wars, the war for so-called democracy, World War I, if anybody was asking and upon returning had decided to move on to Clarksville and later Memphis, on Mister’s cotton boll massive ten thousand acre delta plantation, than his father took him aside and asked him , really ordered, to wash up and get ready to go over to Lancer Lane. The words Lancer Lane made him jump for joy inside, for this night, this very Saturday night he would finally, finally, get to play his new guitar, well not really new for that instrument had been passed down to his father from who knows when, maybe back to pharaoh times when those old pyramid slaves needed something to take their minds off their back-breaking work on their relax minute, in front of a real crowd at the Lancer Lane juke joint and not just before his father, his siblings, and a few stray cats at Mister’s company store over in Lancersville.
No, he was stepping up in the world, the world that mattered, the world of those rough-hewed, hard drinking walking daddies (and their clinking dressed to the nines, dressed to the soft kitten pillow tumble nines, walked- around women, praise be) that populated the Lancer Lane juke joint on Saturday night (and paid penance, serious penance, at nearby Lancer Lane Lord’s Work Baptist on Sunday morning, many times sliding directly from one site to the other, smoothly if stinking a little of sweat, hard, hard Sonny Boy’s golden liquor, and mussed up pillow tumble sex ), who would decide whether he had the stuff his father thought he had. And decide it in the only way such things were decided, by throwing dollars, real dollars, at him if he was good and broken whisky bottles (or, if tight for dough, as was often the case with tough times as just then, and so bought their whisky by the jar, jars) if he panned. He had asked his father repeatedly since he had turned sixteen to let him accompany him on his journeys to Lancer Lane (the latter as performer and as a, ah, imbiber), but his father maybe knowing the wisdom of sheltering the boy from those whisky bottles and jars if things didn’t work out just like his father, bless him, before him had held off until he was sure, or fairly sure of the night’s outcome.
What sonny boy did not know was that father had relented as much because he was in need of an extra pair of hands in case Big Nig Fingers showed up that night as that he was ready to have dollars thrown at his son. The nature of the dispute between Big Nig Fingers and his father was simply enough explained, a woman, a dressed to the nines pillow tumble woman, Sonny Boy’s woman, Lucille, and her roving eyes, roving eyes that landed, allegedly landed, on his father. Alleged by Sonny Boy although denied, vehemently denied by his father, who had secretly a couple of years back had had an affair with Lucille when Big Nig was trying to take over, well take over something, booze, dope, women, numbers, something in Memphis. So yes, yes indeed, his small-framed father most assuredly and vehemently denied those roving eyes.
A couple of hours later, washed up, dressed up in a clean work shirt and pants he and his father having walked the two dusty miles from their Mister’s plantation-provide quarters, arrived at the juke house, really nothing but a cabin, a log cabin, belonging to Sonny Boy Jackson who used the place as a front for his golden liquor sales as well. (Yes, that Sonny Boy in the days before he went to Clarksville and began the road to some local fame as the best harmonica in 1920s delta Mississippi, even getting a record contract from Bee Records when he was “discovered” by one of the agents that they had sent out scouring the country for talent for their race record division after Mame Smith set the world, the black world and a few hip whites on recorded blues fire.) Now, like most cabins in those parts then, maybe now too, who knows, there was no electricity, hell, nobody practically except Mister (and the Captain, that deduction crazy Captain, docking everybody for his version of not a full bale, for sassing back, for breaking tools, hell, one time for some asthmatic picker just breathing ) had electricity, or a reason to use it just a few chairs, tables, a counter to belly up to for whiskey jar orders (bottles were sold out back away from prying eyes, moneyless prying eyes looking for some cadges swigs), and for the occasion Sonny Boy had a small stage jerry-rigged in the back so the entertainment would not get pushed around too much when things got rowdy, as they always did, later in the evening.
That night he had a surprise coming, or rather two. His father, taking no chances, had arranged to have a few members of the Andersonville Sheiks from up the road, who would later in the decade, some of them anyway, go on to form the Huntsville Sheiks and also get that coveted record contract from Bee Records when sheiks replaced harmonica players and barrelhouse mamas as blues fire among blacks and those few hip whites, to back his son up. So he was going to have a real ensemble, a jug player, a harp player (harmonica, okay) and a washboard man, his father to play banjo (if he was sober enough, and while that was in question most of the night he held up, held up well enough to slide over to Lord’s Work Baptist for the eight o’clock service even if stinking of sweat and liquor). Papa had done right by him, Big Nig Fingers and his Lucille (to his father’s dismay) had decided to take a night off so he would need no cut knife help, and he blasted the place with his strange riffs, riffs going back to some homeland Africa time. Proof: twenty- seven dollars as his share of the house. And no whisky bottles (or jars).
Oh, the second surprise. Miss Lucy, Miss Lucy Barnes, Miss Lucy Barnes, a sweet sixteen going on thirty, and no one needed to explain what that meant when a girl, hell, woman had her wanting habits on, a dark- skinned beauty, all cuddles and curves, the daughter of his” boss,” the plantation blacksmith, had taken notice of him and kept sending small jars of Sonny Boy’s golden liquor his way which just made him play more madly, hell, let’s call it by its right name, he played the devil’s music like he was the devil himself. By the end of the night she was sitting, table sitting, just in front of him, waiting for that last encore. Suddenly she jumped up and started to dance, dance to his encore riff blasted version of Mean, Mistreatin’ Mama shaking her head back and forth furiously indicating that one Miss Lucy Barnes’ was not in that category, at least for that night. They too were seen sneaking into that eight o’clock service at Lord’s Work’s Baptist a little sweaty and stinking of liquor, having spent the previous few hours in the back room of Sonny’s joint, just in case you wanted to know.
***************
The blues ain’t nothing, nothing at all but a good woman on your mind, all curves and cuddles, all be my daddy, daddy, be my walking daddy, build for comfort not for speed just like your daddy, your real daddy, not your long gone daddy (met as you came up river from Lancersville via Memphis and he, he returned from another war to end all wars, this time World War II) just now serving a stretch, a nickel’s worth for armed robbery up in Joliet for some Southside (Southside Chicago, natch)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.
Hence, stay away from big women, big-legged, big bosomed, big- lusted, hell, just big everything, like the song, the blue blue blue song says, don’t forget, they will wear you out, wear you out for other women, ditto, long thin gals, hungry girls who have learned man trap tricks in lieu of big appetites , 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 carrying 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, a low love 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 get his own wanting habits on, so far away, so far from uptown downtown Chi town, far down in sweaty delta Mississippi, maybe still in Clarksville like he left her that night, that moonless 1942 night, when he 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 those damn deductions 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. A quick stop at Memphis to see if any of the guys, B.B. (no, not the one you are thinking of), Harmonica 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.) needed a guitar max daddy player.
Then 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 noise , 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 Lancersville no shoe night to make daddy, real daddy cry, and mama too), topped by a feathered 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 made 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 who took all the air 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 the waitress who played the messenger, then another, ditto on The Sky Is Crying and a Millie watch out remark. 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 was still finishing up another nickel at Joliet. She made her way to the stage as the first set ended. Pleasant, hell they are all pleasant, in that 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, and she pointed at her car, a late model, and they were off. They didn’t surface again for a week.
**************
The blues ain’t nothing but…He, Daddy Fingers (strictly a stage front name, with a no will power Clarence Mark Smith real name needing, desperately needing, cover just like a million other guys trying to reach for the big lights, trying to reach heyday early 1950s Maxwell Street, hell, maybe trying get a record contract, a valued Chess contract, and that first sweet easy credit, no down payment, low monthly payments Cadillac, pink or yellow, with all the trimming and some sweet mama sitting high tit proud in front), had to laugh, laugh out loud sometimes when these white hipsters asked him what the blues were.
He, well behind the white bread fad times, having spent the last twenty years mostly hidden down South, the chittlin’ circuit down South, from Biloxi to Beaumont, working bowling alleys, barbecue joints (the best places where even if the money was short you had your ribs and beer, a few whisky shots maybe, some young brown skin with lonely eyes woman lookin’ for a high-flying brown skin man in need of a woman’s cooking , or at least a friendly bed for a few nights), an odd juke house now electrified, some back road road-side diner converted for an evening into a house of entertainment, hell even a church basement when the good lord wasn’t looking or was out on an off Saturday night had not noticed that these kids asking that august question were not his old Chi town, New Jack City, ‘Frisco Bay hipsters but mostly fresh-faced kids in guy plaid short shirts and chinos and girl cashmere sweaters and floppy skirts were not hip, not black-hearted, black dressed devil’s music hip. For one thing no hipster, and hell certainly no wanna-be hipster, would even pose the question but just dig on the beat, dig on the phantom guitar work as he worked the fret board raw, dig on being one with the note progression. Being, well, beat.).
Plaid and cashmere sweater crowding around some makeshift juke stage, some old corner barroom flop spot or like tonight here on this elegant stage with all the glitter lights at Smokin’ Joe’s Place, Cambridge’s now the home of the blues, the 1970s reincarnation of homeland Africa, sweated pharaoh slave plantations, Mister and Captain’s jim crow plantations, juke joints, sweet home Chicago, for all who were interested in the genealogy of such things came around looking, searching for some explanation like it was some lost code recently discovered like that Rosetta Stone they found a while back to figure out what old pharaoh and his kind said (hell, he could have deciphered that easy enough for those interested- work the black bastards to death and if they slack up, whip them, whip them bad, whip them white, and ain’t it always been so).
So he told them, plaid guy and cashmere bump sweater girl, told them straight lie, or straight amusing thing, that like his daddy, his real daddy who had passed down the blues to him, and who got it from his daddy, and so on back, hell, maybe back to pharaoh times when those slave needed something to keep them working at a steady death-defying pace, that the blues wasn’t nothing but a good woman on your mind. And if some un-cool, or maybe dope addled wanna-be Chi town hipster, or some white bread all glimmering girl from Forest Hills out for negro kicks, had been naïve enough to ask the question that would have been enough but plaid and cashmere wanted more.
Wanted to know why the three chord progression thing was done this way instead of that, or whether the whole blues thing came from the Georgia Sea Islands (by way of ancient homeland Africa) like they had never heard of Mister’s Mississippi cotton boll plantation, Captain’s lashes, broiling suns, their great grandfathers marching through broken down Vicksburg, about Brother Jim Crow, or about trying to scratch two dollars out of one dollar land. Wanted to know if in Daddy Finger’s exalted opinion Mister Charley Patton was the sweet daddy daddy of the blues, wanted to know if Mister Robert Johnson did in fact sell his soul to the devil out on Highway 61, 51, 49 take a number that 1930 take a number night, wanted to know if Mister Mississippi John Hurt was a sweet daddy of an old man (also“discovered” of late) like he seemed to be down in Newport, wanted to know if black-hearted Mister Muddy really was a man-child with man-child young girl appetites, wanted to know if Mister Howlin’ Wolf ever swallowed that harmonica when he did that heated version they had heard about of How Many More Years (not knowing that Wolf was drunk as a skunk, high- shelf whisky not some Sonny Boy’s home brew, when he did that one or that, he Daddy Fingers, had backed Wolf up many a night when Mister Hubert Sumlin was in his cups or was on the outs with the big man). Wanted to know, laugh, if Mister Woody Guthrie spoke a better talking blues that Mister Lead Belly, or Mister Pete Seeger was truer to the blues tradition that Mister Bob Dylan (like he, Daddy Fingers, spent his time thinking about such things rather than trying to keep body and soul together from one back of the bus Mister James Crow bus station to the next in order to get to some godforsaken hidden juke joint to make a couple of bucks, have some of Sonny Boy’s son’s golden liquor, and maybe catch a stray lonesome Saturday woman without a man, or if with a man, a man without the look of a guy who settled his disputes, his woman disputes, at the sharp end of a knife, wanted to know, wanted to know, wanted to know more than the cold hard fact that, truth or lie, the blues wasn’t nothing but a good girl on your mind. Nothing but having your wanting habits on. But that never was good enough for them, and thus the fool questions. And always, tonight included, the fool Hey Daddy Fingers what are the blues. Okay, baby boy, baby girl, the blues is …

Out In The Be-Bop 1950s Night- When Beat Was Neat-A Film Clip From The B-Film Classic “High School Confidential” -TakeTwo

I ain’t saying that this low budget be-bop B-film’s (although with a solid A on the rock and roll intro with Jerry Lee Lewis sitting at the piano in back of a flat-bed truck flailing, yes, flailing away on his classic rock and roll song, teen angst-busting , teen alienation-busting song, High School Confidential, heralding the hint, just the hint, of a possibility that we of the generation of ’68 might be getting ready for that big jail break we were sitting under some atomic bomb air raid school desk looking for a sign of) “beat” poetess will make you throw away your personally autographed first edition City Lights copy of mad monk om om man Allen Ginsberg’s Howl or even some torn-up paperback copy of Jeanbon (Jack) Kerouac’s Mexico City Blues or even some shotgun version of street gunsel mad poet Gregory Corso’s machine gun sonnets but she was a sister, a sister in the struggle to break out of squaresville, to break out of the void, to break from nine to five, to break from soda fountain giggle girl dreams, to break from seventy-six, count ‘em, forms of teen angst and sixty-six, count ‘em again, forms of teen alienation, to break from same old, same old, to, ah hell, just to break as portrayed by know nothing Hollywood with its angst-less dreams and its alienation-less non-sorrows. So be-bop, be-bop sister, be-bop.

I ain’t, furthermore, saying that everything the sultry sister (1950s sultry don’t touch me just listen tea-head, but what were we to know of that kind of sultry out in Podunk teen land, cashmere sweater, black skirt, maybe devil black stockings not shown, teen boy dreams sultry whatever her message, or even no message but bop) had to say had its head on straight. Or that if we, we meaning those fledgling angst-filled, alienation sorrowed ‘68ers mentioned above, had heard her in some forbidden teenage night club (no liquor allowed, no petting allowed, no, no allowed enforced by burly guys with direct access to parents/priests/teachers/cops/authorities and hence to some mischievous god), a club filled with smoke, cigarette smoke and djinn smoke and weed smoke and maybe hash pipe smoke too although that might have been for more private moments, and maybe too train smoke and dreams, road dreams to see mystic vistas, sitting with some cashmere sweater frill, not quite old enough to do the apparel justice, blonde maybe, red-headed for sure, in ancient landlocked celtic strongholds where some fierce blue-eyed boys stood waiting, holding forth against the squares, against the cubes, against the pentagonals, against the angry young men, against the not angry young men, and ditto women, against the death-dealing old men, against the country club uncertain certainties, against that cold war hot war red scare night, against the break-out blockers as fierce as any New York Giants monster linebacker, that we would have understood half, hell, a quarter of what she said but like some mad dash shaman, oops, shaman-ess, it would have stuck, stuck to be mulled over, stuck for later times and so…be-bop, be-bop sister, be-bop.

And I definitely ain’t saying that even if all she said did have its head on straight that we, we meaning those fledgling ‘68ers mentioned above, had heard her in some forbidden teenage night club, a club filled with smoke, cigarette smoke and djinn smoke and weed smoke and maybe hash pipe smoke too although that might have been for more private moments, and maybe too train smoke and dreams, road dreams to see mystic vistas, sitting with some cashmere sweater frill, not quite old enough to do the apparel justice, blonde maybe, red-headed for sure, in ancient landlocked celtic strongholds where some fierce blue-eyed boys stood waiting, holding forth against the squares, against the cubes, against the pentagonals, against the angry young men, against the not angry young men, and ditto women, against the death-dealing old men, against the country club uncertain certainties, against that cold war hot war red scare night, against the break-out blockers as fierce as any New York Giants monster linebacker, would have dug, yes, dug, in dig beat language dug, exactly what she had to say any more than when our time did come (when we shed teen know nothing-ness, Hollywood know nothing-ness, parent know nothing-ness, cop know nothing-ness, priest know nothing-ness, authorities know nothing-ness), the time when we got our bloody jail break time signal, that we more than echo- listened to om om-antic New Jersey mad monk Allen Ginsberg (tea head, acid head, Buddha head) howl against that evil night, or to Jeanbon (Jack) Kerouac, sweet Lowell mill boy gone sour, sitting in some hell-hole mere florida trailer park (or bungalow, maybe) sweating whiskey and hubris against his children, or to New Jack City Gregory Corso playing the lone ranger against the death night, but it would have stuck, stuck to be mulled over, stuck for later times and so…be-bop, be-bop sister, be-bop.




Workers Vanguard No. 1012
9 November 2012

Free the Class-War Prisoners!

27th Annual PDC Holiday Appeal

(Class-Struggle Defense Notes)

This year marks the 27th Holiday Appeal for class-war prisoners, those thrown behind bars for their opposition to racist capitalist oppression. The Partisan Defense Committee provides monthly stipends to 16 of these prisoners as well as holiday gifts for them and their families. This is a revival of the tradition of the early International Labor Defense (ILD) under its secretary and founder James P. Cannon. The stipends are a necessary expression of solidarity with the prisoners—a message that they are not forgotten.

Launching the ILD’s appeal for the prisoners, Cannon wrote, “The men in prison are still part of the living class movement” (“A Christmas Fund of our Own,” Daily Worker, 17 October 1927). Cannon noted that the stipends program “is a means of informing them that the workers of America have not forgotten their duty toward the men to whom we are all linked by bonds of solidarity.” This motivation inspires our program today. The PDC also continues to publicize the causes of the prisoners in the pages of Workers Vanguard, the PDC newsletter, Class-Struggle Defense Notes, and our Web site partisandefense.org. We provide subscriptions to WV and accompany the stipends with reports on the PDC’s work. In a recent letter, MOVE prisoner Eddie Africa wrote, “I received the letters and the money, thank you for both, it’s a good feeling to have friends remembering you with affection!”

The Holiday Appeal raises the funds for this vital program. The PDC provides $25 per month to the prisoners, and extra for their birthdays and during the holiday season. We would like to provide more. The prisoners generally use the funds for basic necessities: supplementing the inadequate prison diet, purchasing stamps and writing materials needed to maintain contact with family and comrades, and pursuing literary, artistic, musical and other pursuits to mollify a bit the living hell of prison. The costs of these have obviously grown, including the exponential growth in prison phone charges.

The capitalist rulers have made clear their continuing determination to slam the prison doors on those who stand in the way of brutal exploitation, imperialist depredations and racist oppression. We encourage WV readers, trade-union activists and fighters against racist oppression to dig deep for the class-war prisoners. The 16 class-war prisoners receiving stipends from the PDC are listed below:

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Mumia Abu-Jamal is a former Black Panther Party spokesman, a well-known supporter of the MOVE organization and an award-winning journalist known as “the voice of the voiceless.” Last December the Philadelphia district attorney’s office announced it was dropping its longstanding efforts to execute America’s foremost class-war prisoner. While this brings to an end the legal lynching campaign, Mumia remains condemned to spend the rest of his life in prison with no chance of parole, despite overwhelming evidence of his innocence.

Mumia was framed up for the 1981 killing of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner and was initially sentenced to death explicitly for his political views. Mountains of documentation proving his innocence, including the sworn confession of Arnold Beverly that he, not Mumia, shot and killed Faulkner, have been submitted to the courts. But from top to bottom, the courts have repeatedly refused to hear the exculpatory evidence.

The state authorities hope that with the transfer of Mumia from death row his cause will be forgotten and that he will rot in prison until he dies. This must not be Mumia’s fate. Fighters for Mumia’s freedom must link his cause to the class struggles of the multiracial proletariat. Trade unionists, opponents of the racist death penalty and fighters for black rights must continue the fight to free Mumia from “slow death” row in the racist dungeons of Pennsylvania.

Leonard Peltier is an internationally renowned class-war prisoner. Peltier’s incarceration for his activism in the American Indian Movement has come to symbolize this country’s racist repression of its native peoples, the survivors of centuries of genocidal oppression. Peltier’s frame-up for the 1975 deaths of two marauding FBI agents in what had become a war zone on the South Dakota Pine Ridge Reservation, shows what capitalist “justice” is all about. Although the lead government attorney has admitted, “We can’t prove who shot those agents,” and the courts have acknowledged blatant prosecutorial misconduct, the 68-year-old Peltier is still locked away. Peltier suffers from multiple serious medical conditions and is incarcerated far from his people and family. He is not scheduled to be reconsidered for parole for another 12 years!

Eight MOVE members—Chuck Africa, Michael Africa, Debbie Africa, Janet Africa, Janine Africa, Delbert Africa, Eddie Africa and Phil Africa—are in their 35th year of prison. They were sentenced to 30-100 years after the 8 August 1978 siege of their Philadelphia home by over 600 heavily armed cops, having been falsely convicted of killing a police officer who died in the cops’ own cross fire. In 1985, eleven of their MOVE family members, including five children, were massacred by Philly cops when a bomb was dropped on their living quarters. After more than three decades of unjust incarceration, these innocent prisoners are routinely turned down at parole hearings. None have been released.

Lynne Stewart is a radical lawyer sentenced to ten years for defending her client, a blind Egyptian cleric imprisoned for an alleged plot to blow up New York City landmarks in the early 1990s. For this advocate known for defense of Black Panthers, radical leftists and others reviled by the capitalist state, her sentence may well amount to a death sentence as she is 73 years old and suffers from breast cancer. Originally sentenced to 28 months, her resentencing more than quadrupled her prison time in a loud affirmation by the Obama administration that there will be no letup in the massive attack on democratic rights under the “war on terror.” This year her appeal of the onerous sentence was turned down.

Jaan Laaman and Thomas Manning are the two remaining anti-imperialist activists known as the Ohio 7 still in prison, convicted for their roles in a radical group that took credit for bank “expropriations” and bombings of symbols of U.S. imperialism, such as military and corporate offices, in the late 1970s and ’80s. Before their arrests in 1984 and 1985, the Ohio 7 were targets of massive manhunts. Their children were kidnapped at gunpoint by the Feds.

The Ohio 7’s politics were once shared by thousands of radicals during the Vietnam antiwar movement and by New Leftists who wrote off the possibility of winning the working class to a revolutionary program and saw themselves as an auxiliary of Third World liberation movements. But, like the Weathermen before them, the Ohio 7 were spurned by the “respectable” left. From a proletarian standpoint, the actions of these leftist activists against imperialism and racist injustice are not a crime. They should not have served a day in prison.

Ed Poindexter and Wopashitwe Mondo Eyen we Langa are former Black Panther supporters and leaders of the Omaha, Nebraska, National Committee to Combat Fascism. They were victims of the FBI’s deadly COINTELPRO operation under which 38 Black Panther Party members were killed and hundreds more imprisoned on frame-up charges. Poindexter and Mondo were railroaded to prison and sentenced to life for a 1970 explosion that killed a cop, and they have now spent more than 40 years behind bars. Nebraska courts have repeatedly denied Poindexter and Mondo new trials despite the fact that a crucial piece of evidence excluded from the original trial, a 911 audio tape long-suppressed by the FBI, proved that testimony of the state’s key witness was perjured.

Hugo Pinell, the last of the San Quentin 6 still in prison, has been in solitary isolation for more than four decades. He was a militant anti-racist leader of prison rights organizing along with George Jackson, his comrade and mentor, who was gunned down by prison guards in 1971. Despite numerous letters of support and no disciplinary write-ups for over 28 years, Pinell was again denied parole in 2009. Now in his 60s, Pinell continues to serve a life sentence at the notorious torture chamber, Pelican Bay Security Housing Unit in California, a focal point for hunger strikes against grotesquely inhuman conditions.

Send your contributions to: PDC, P.O. Box 99, Canal Street Station, New York, NY 10013; (212) 406-4252.

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

The Demise Of The Occupy General Assembly Idea- What Happens When We Do Not Learn The Lessons Of History- The Pre-1848 Socialist Movement-The Chartist Movement In Great Britain

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.
****
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 Free 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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Chartism or The Chartist Movement
The "People's Charter," drafted in 1838 by William Lovett, was at the heart of a radical campaign for parliamentary reform of the inequities remaining after the Reform Act of 1832. The Chartists' six main demands were:
  1. votes for all men;
  2. equal electoral districts;
  3. abolition of the requirement that Members of Parliament be property owners;
  4. payment for M.P.s;
  5. annual general elections; and
  6. the secret ballot.
The Chartists obtained one and a quarter million signatures and presented the Charter to the House of Commons in 1839, where it was rejected by a vote of 235 to 46. Many of the leaders of the movement, having threatened to call a general strike, were arrested. When demonstrators marched on the prison at Newport, Monmouthshire, demanding the release of their leaders, troops opened fire, killing 24 and wounding 40 more. A second petition with 3 million signatures was rejected in 1842; the rejection of the third petition in 1848 brought an end to the movement.
More important than the movement itself was the unrest it symbolized. The Chartists' demands, at the time, seemed radical; those outside the movement saw the unrest and thought of the French Revolution and The Reign of Terror. Thomas Carlyle's pamphlet Chartism (1839), argued the need for reform by fanning these fears, though he later became increasingly hostile to democratic ideas in works like "Hudson's Statue" Historians theorize broadly about why this revolutionary movement died out just as the revolutions of 1848 were breaking out all over Europe, but from this distance we can only suppose that the English had a confidence in their government and a sense of optimism about their future possibilities which suggested to them that patience was better than violence; and in fact most of their demands were eventually met — specifically in the Reform Acts of 1867 and 1884. The threat of unrest surely influenced such otherwise unrelated reforms as the Factory act and the repeal of the Corn Laws. The radicalism that surfaced in the agitation for the Charter and a desire for a working-class voice in foreign affairs eventually channeled itself into related areas like the Socialist movement.

Monday, November 26, 2012

James P. Cannon

Daily Strike Bulletin

Minneapolis—July 16, 1934

Strike Call of Local 574


Thanks to the historians at the Minnesota Historical Society for help in locating the The Daily Strike Bulletins of General Drivers Local 574 and other documents from the 1934 Teamster Strikes

[Below is an article written by SWP leader James P. Cannon for the daily strike bulletin of Minneapolis Teamster Local 574 during its historic 1934 strike.—Editor]
(Unanimously adopted at General Membership Meeting, Wednesday, July 11.)
SINCE the settlement of the strike on May 25, Local 574, through its duly authorized representatives, has been attempting to negotiate wage scales with the employers in accordance with the agreement which brought about the ending of the strike. We have attempted to settle with the employers all other matters left for negotiation. All these attempts to settle the dispute by negotiation, conducted with the greatest patience and persistence, have met with failure. The employers, egged on by the union-hating Citizens’ Alliance, behind which stand the banks and the sinister financial interests of Wall Street, have violated the agreement. They have set out to break our union and rob us of the fruits of our victory.
All the efforts of our union, over a period of six weeks since the ending of the strike, to establish living wages and hours have been frustrated by the arrogant attitude of the employers. The Regional Labor Board by its action, or rather by its failure to act, has aided in every case in upholding the hands of these employers. Every attempt of the union to negotiate and secure satisfaction for the just demands of its members has been met with evasions, tricks and subterfuges. Every approach for practical discussions of our grievances has been answered by columns of paid newspaper advertisements filled with misrepresentations, lies and slanders against the union and its leadership.
The vital questions of wages and hours, which are of life-and-death concern to our members and their families, have been callously ignored. The right of the union to represent all its members, which was explicitly agreed to in the strike settlement, has been denied. Seniority rules, provided for in the agreement, have been violated by a majority of the firms.
In this unscrupulous course, the Citizens’ Alliance and the employers are seeking to shift the issue. They cloak their campaign to wreck the trade-union movement and deprive the workers of decent human lives behind personal attacks on the leaders of the union. The bosses want to dictate to the union what leaders it should have. We reject this dictation. We have the right to be represented by leaders of our own choosing and we intend to assert this right. We reject the insolent demand of the Citizens’ Alliance and the bosses to choose our leaders for us. Local 574 is a democratic trade-union organization. Its membership is fully capable of deciding this question for itself without any advice from the exploiters of labor.
The general membership meeting declares that the leaders of our union have faithfully served the interests of the membership. They have conducted themselves as responsible trade-union officials and have not imposed on the union any issues, political or otherwise, contrary to the interests of the union and its members. They have shown their efficiency as organizers in the building of our union. They have demonstrated their loyalty and courage under fire.
The “red scare” of the Citizens’ Alliance is nothing but a fraudulent maneuver to distract our attention from the struggle for decent living conditions and demoralize our ranks. They will not succeed. The conditions of our lives are too bitter. Nobody can divert us from the fight to better them.
We note with the greatest indignation that D. J. Tobin, president of our international organization, has associated himself with this diabolical game of the bosses by publishing a slanderous attack on our leadership in the official magazine. The fact that this attack has become part of the “ammunition” of the bosses in their campaign to wreck our union, is enough for any intelligent worker to estimate it for what it really is. We say plainly to D. J. Tobin: “If you can’t act like a union man and help us, instead of helping the bosses, then at least have the decency to stand aside and let us fight our battle alone. We did it in the organization campaign and in the previous strike, and we can do it again. We received absolutely no help of any kind from you. Our leadership and guidance has come from our own local leaders, and them alone. We put our confidence in them and will not support any attack on them under any circumstances. ”
We are fighting for more wages, for better hours and working conditions, and for the right of union organization. The conditions under which we work are intolerable for men who want to live as human beings and who aspire to provide a decent existence and a future for their families in this, the richest country in the world. That is our right. We have worked for it, and we intend to fight for it to the bitter end.
In doing so we feel deeply convinced that we are fighters for the preservation of the trade-union movement and for the rights and interests of all workers. Our strength and confidence is multiplied by the conviction that our fellow workers and brother unionists in other trades, who helped us so nobly before, will rally to our aid again. We rely on the sympathy and solidarity of the other unions and workers’ organizations, who endorsed our demands by their presence in the great labor demonstration Friday, July 6. We appeal for the support also of the organizations of farmers and gardeners, of the unemployed workers, of the rank and file of small business and professional people of all who are cheated and oppressed by the financial tyrants who have turned our great, rich country into a land of privation and misery for the masses.
We are confident that our appeal will not be in vain. Therefore, convinced of the justice of our cause, relying on our own strength and the sympathetic aid of the great majority of the population. the general membership meeting solemnly declares:
l. All members of Local No. 574 will go on strike for the enforcement of the union demands on Monday, July 16, at 12 o’clock midnight.
2. We call upon our sister Local No. 120 in St. Paul to take similar action at its general membership meeting Thursday night, and we pledge to Local 120 our solidarity and cooperation in a joint struggle to a successful conclusion.
3. We call upon all other trade unions in the Twin Cities to rally to our support with moral and financial aid, and to hold themselves in readiness to take sympathetic strike action if such becomes necessary to secure our victory and smash the union-wrecking campaign of the Citizens’ Alliance.

UNAC

Report on the CodePink delegation to Pakistan

by Joe Lombardo, UNAC co-coordinator

I arrived in Islamabad at 2:30 am on October 3 with about 7 other members of our delegation after a grueling flight from New York. We were part of the Code Pink anti-drone delegation to Pakistan. On arrival in Islamabad, we were amazed to see a large group of people welcoming us from the Aafia Siddiqui movement. This is a movement in support of Aafia Siddiqui who is in solitary confinement in a Texas prison serving an 86 year sentence. Aafia, like other Muslims in prison in the U.S. as part of the phony “War on Terror,” is guilty of nothing. I will explain more about her case later in this report.



After arriving at our guest house where the entire delegation was staying, I had about 1/2 hours sleep before meeting the rest of the delegation at our orientation. Others on the delegation include Col. Ann Wright, who quit the military and her diplomatic post over the invasion of Iraq, Medea Benjamin, the dynamic leader of Code Pink, Leah Bolger, president of Veterans for Peace and UNAC administrative committee member, Judy Bello of the Upstate NY Coalition to Ground the Drones and End the Wars and UNAC administrative committee member and a host of other wonderful activists and individuals, including 3 other members of the Upstate New York Coalition. We were 31 people in all.



On our first day in Pakistan, we met with the acting U.S. ambassador, Richard E. Hoagland, who made the fantastic statement that no civilians have been killed by the drones since 2008 (the year Obama became president). At another time he said the civilian casualties were in the 2 figures (< 100).

We also held a meeting with a leading human rights fighter and with Fowzia Siddiqui, Aafia Siddiqui’s sister.


Aafia Siddiqui is a young Pakistani woman who was educated in the U.S. She did undergraduate work at MIT and got doctorate from Brandeis. She eventually returned to Karachi, Pakistan where her family lives. She had 3 children, 2 born in the U.S., making them U.S. citizens. In 2003, Aafia took her 3 children, ages 6 months to 6 years, on a trip to Islamabad and disappeared. The U.S. and Pakistani government both denied having her in custody. Five years passed and her family feared she and her children were dead when they got word from a reporter that she was alive and at Bagram Air base in Afghanistan. NBC news also confirmed this and the U.S. government finally admitted they had her in custody. She was taken to the U.S. and tried for assaulting a U.S. soldier in Ghazni, Afghanistan while she was in custody waiting to be interrogated. During this alleged incident, 4'11" Aafia was shoot twice. She was convicted and is now serving 86 year in solitary confinement at the notorious Carswell prison in Texas. Her family has had almost no contact with her and have been denied the right to visit. Her son Ahmed, a U.S. citizen, was found in 2008 in Ghazni, Afghjanistan. He was then reunited with Aafia’s sister, who heads her defense campaign in Pakistan. Aafia’s daughter, Maryum, also a U.S. citizen, was mysteriously dropped off in April 2010 near her aunt’s house in Karachi after being missing for 7 years. When dropped off, the only language she knew was English, which she spoke with a perfect American accent. Aafia’s youngest child, a boy, remains missing and is feared dead.


At night, some of us met with members of the newly formed Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) chapter of Pakistan. We had a good discussion. One of the themes that came out and that I have heard from others progressive people in Pakistan was that maybe the drones are not that bad. They only hit the "militants" who are violent themselves, and if they were not used, the Pakistani military would have to attack the "militants" and many more would be killed. We explained our view that the so called "militants" were there because of the war in Afghanistan. If you want to end the "militant" actions, you need to stop the war. This theme of the drones not being so bad is one that we heard a number of times in Pakistan from the secular progressive movement who is against the U.S. wars. People we met from the left, such as the Labour Party of Pakistan (LPP), were clear that they were totally against the drones and the wars but they also held a position against the “militants.” I had long discussions with them on this. The secular left and the conservative Islamic movement, while agreeing on the need to fight U.S. imperialism, have been mortal enemies and, at times, have physically battled each other. Our delegation got a hint of this at a meeting that the LPP set up for our delegation with the Bar Association of Islamabad, which I will report on later in this article. The people from the LPP whom I spoke with understood why, in the U.S., our focus is totally on U.S. imperialism.



On our second day in Pakistan, I spent a lot of time apart from our delegation. In the morning, Judy Bello and I spoke at a press conference with Fowzia Siddiqui and people from the Committee of the Disappeared. As in Latin American under various dictatorships, people in Pakistan were disappeared as happened to Aafia Saddiqui. Judy and I spoke at the press conference along with Aafia’s sister, the woman who heads the Committee of the Disappeared and a couple of other people. There were a lot of media, and they asked a lot of good questions. Outside the press conference, about 100 people, mostly women and children who are family members of the disappeared were waiting for us. We met with them. They wanted to be with us, many were crying. They carried pictures of their loved ones in the hope that it would help them find them. It was one of those situations where you just feel helpless, and there is nothing that you can say.

After the press conference and our meeting with the disappeared, we met up with the rest of our group and attended a press conference with Imran Khan. The press conference was huge and had media from all across Pakistan, from the U.S. and around the world. Medea spoke for our group. It was clear to me at this press conference how important our tour to Pakistan was and how glad I was that






Code Pink had the ability and political clarity to organize it. Our tour raised the profile of the drone issue in Pakistan, the U.S. and other places. It was a big blow to U.S. war policy and put the U.S. on the defensive on this issue. It happened at the very time that a study from Stanford and NYU and another study from Columbia on the use of drone warfare came out condemning drone warfare and explaining the affects on the civilian population. Since then, there have been a number of articles in the corporate media questioning the use of drones.

That night I went to the home of one of the people from the Labour Party of Pakistan (LPP) and met with about 10 people. We had a long informal exchange of ideas. They wanted to know everything about the antiwar movement and the left in the U.S. They told me about their merger plans with two other secular left parties in Pakistan, the Workers Party and the People’s Party. This merger is big news in progressive circles in Pakistan, and we heard about it in several places.

On April 9, 2011, when UNAC held demonstrations against the wars in New York and San Francisco, the Labour Party of Pakistan organized solidarity actions in several cities in Pakistan

After our discussion, I was taken to the office of the Tribune newspaper, where I met the staff and editors and had a long interview.


On our third day in Pakistan, we met with a number of men who had had family members killed in drone attacks. They all were from North Waziristan. Before they came, our hosts told us that they may be uncomfortable in a room with both men and women and may not make eye contact with the women out of respect. Most of the talking was done by one man who lost his son and a brother in a drone attack. He was a Malik, a tribal leader. (On the way back from Waziristan I was able to spend over an hour talking to this man one-on-one.)

According to the introduction to the Federal Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA) given by our hosts, these are areas that are part of Pakistan but are autonomous. They have their own governing bodies. The highest governing entity is the jirga, which is a meeting of tribal officials. The main language in Pakistan is Urdu, but in this area the main language is Pashto. The FATA areas of North and South Waziristan are where the drone strikes have taken place, two-thirds of them in North Waziristan.

We learned that drones fly overhead 24 hours a day. People are afraid to congregate, fearing they we be seen as a gathering of “militants” and will be attacked. Children no longer go to school because of fear that they will be attacked. This has caused a lot of psychological disorders in this area, and for the first time in their communities they are seeing instances of suicide. At one point, the regional jirga was targeted and 54 people were killed. Typically, the U.S. and Pakistan don’t give compensation when someone is killed by the drones, but in this case they offered $6,000 for each family. This is a lot of money for these people, but it was refused by everyone. They said they want justice, not money.

Also at the meeting was a journalist from North Waziristan who has been documenting the drone strikes. When there is a strike, he gets notified and goes to the site and records who is killed and takes pictures. Some of these pictures were blown up and put on our busses as we rode towards Waziristan the following day. Because of their customs, he is unable to take pictures of women or even record their names, but he has recorded the time and place where 670 women have been killed by the drones. This is far different than what we heard from the ambassador. I tend to believe the journalist from North Waziristan rather than our government who lied to us about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.


After this meeting, we went with these men from North Waziristan to a rally against drones organized at a close-by shopping area by the youth group of Imran Khan’s Justice Party.

We then went back to our hotel to get ready for our journey north to Waziristan the following morning. Before leaving for Waziristan, the U.S. government made one last attempt to stop us. The ambassador called and told us that they had received “creditable reports” that if we were to go to Waziristan, we would be attacked. To me, this indicated the power of our march to Waziristan. All three tribal leaders in South Waziristan wanted us to come. They said we were their guests and would be protected. This march included Americans and Pakistanis and was supported by those in the tribal areas. It indicated that we all want peace, so it raised the question, why do we have war?






On Saturday morning we boarded our busses to meet up with Imran Khan’s convoy to head to South Waziristan. Almost immediately, everything fell apart. We were supposed to by right behind Imran Khan, but never quite got into that position. At times on the way north, we seemed to lose the caravan and then would meet up with it again later. The caravan went through poorer rural areas and beautiful landscapes. At times when we were separated, our hosts got concerned and asked us to close the curtains on the busses and make sure that the women had their heads covered.








As we passed through towns on the way north, we were met by crowds of members of Imran Khans party. The convoy stopped at several of these towns and held anti-drone rallies. Because we were not up front near Imran Khan in the convoy, we did not hear or participate in these rallies, but the crowds remained, knowing that our busses would pass by them. When we did pass them, they cheered and flashed peace signs.






We reached our destination for the night very late, around midnight. We stayed in the compound of a big farm about 10 km (around 6 miles) from the border with Waziristan. Outside and inside the compound were crowds of people spending the night, getting ready for the trip across the border. As we walked from our busses into the compound, we were treated like heroes. People shouted welcome and peace. Everyone wanted to take a picture with us. We were fed a meal at midnight and held a meeting. Some were concerned that the security that we were supposed to have on our ride to the border never materialized and wanted to make sure that it was rectified in the morning.



That night we learned that the military had blocked the roads into Waziristan with big storage containers and would not let us cross the border. They said that this was for our own safety. Imran Khan was determined to make an effort to cross the border despite the containers. In the morning he met with our group and leaders of his party, and our hosts encouraged us not to go with him the extra 6 miles to the border. If we were stopped by the containers, they understood that it would be difficult to turn all the cars in the large caravan around, and there would be a massive traffic jam.


In this situation our safety might be of concern. Instead, before leaving they organized a big rally at the compound where Imran and Medea spoke to cheering crowds shouting “Welcome,” “Peace,” and “Stop, stop, stop drones attacks.” This rally was held on October 7, the 11th anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan as demonstrations were taking place in the U. S. and other parts of the world.






It was understood that the political power of this trip with our delegation had already been achieved, and therefore, the risk was not worth it at this point. So after the caravan cleared out of the compound heading north, we left and headed south accompanied by a police escort all the way back to Islamabad.




On the way back to Islamabad, we stopped at a rural college that was built by Imran Khan. This was a college of engineering and computer science he established primarily for those who might otherwise not have access to higher education. Ninety percent of those attending are there on scholarship. It was meant to be the first of many schools accessible to everyone within a “city of knowledge” envisioned by Imran Khan. We also were told about a cancer hospital he’d built at which anyone could obtain treatment, whether they could afford it or not.

After returning to Islamabad, we rested. The next day, Monday, was a slow one. We did have a follow-up meeting with the Ambassador. Only six of us, including me, attended this meeting. We asked him to hear the evidence we had of Pakistani civilian deaths from U.S. drone attacks. He said he would. Some people in our group felt the Ambassador opened up to us more on this occasion than is usual. At times, he asked us to turn off the recording devices so he could say something off the record. However, he stuck to the line that there were almost no civilian deaths and that if there were, they were anomalies. I did not have much hope that our talk with the Ambassador would advance our cause at all.


On Tuesday and Wednesday, Judy Bello and I separated from the group to spend a day in Karachi with the Aafia folks and another in Lahore with the LPP folks. When we got off of the plane in Karachi, we were met by a group of people holding a big banner stating, “Welcome to our honored guests, Joe Lombardo and Judy Bello.” We were taken by car to Aafia’s home to meet her mother and children. All along the road, we saw banners and wall writing in honor of Aafia Siddiqui. My favorite sign said, “86 years to Aafia – bullshit.” At one point, there was a truck in the middle of the road surrounded by people and cars. The truck had speakers on it that were playing a song sung in Urdu. It was a popular folk song written about Aafia. Our car fell in behind the sound truck and started a caravan to Aafia’s house. As we got closer, the road became packed with people welcoming us, waving, chanting, giving peace signs, and throwing flowers. The major road we were on was taken over by this crowd, and our car went along with them at a slow pace. At one point I got out and walked with the crowd. The police escorted us and smiled and waved at us. As we got closer to Aafia’s home, we saw that her entire street had been plastered with huge pictures of demonstrations held across Pakistan and in other countries demanding her release. There was one picture of a demonstration in Pakistan that we were told was attended by over a million people.




We held a well-attended press conference at Aafia’s house and met her mother and her son and daughter. As always, they fed us till we could not look at food anymore.
After meeting the family, we were taken to the University of Karachi, where Judy and I spoke to a lecture hall full of students and answered questions. It was a very good exchange, and they were friendly and happy to see us, but the questions brought home once again how much people hate the U.S. government and don’t understand why it does such terrible things.



After the University meeting, we were taken to meet the Pakistani 1%. We were brought to an exclusive club on the ocean and sat at a table with the big owners of the textile mills and other industries in the industrial city of Karachi. Aafia’s sister, Fowzia, explained that they hoped to get money from these people for their campaign. These people knew about our delegation and the trip to Waziristan with Imran Khan. They were very interested in what we had to say, and they too expressed confusion and anger towards the policies of the U.S. government.


On the way back from this meeting, we were taken to a commercial area near the docks. There we found the sound truck again playing Aafia’s song and a crowd of young men demonstrating for her freedom. Once again, we were greeted like heroes. We all got out of the car and marched with the protesters. We carried lit torches through the streets.

On the last day of our trip, October 10th, we flew to the city of Lahore, near the border with India. Members of the LPP met us and took us to a hotel, where we rested for a few minutes before we were picked up by Farooq Tariq, one of the LPP leaders.




We were taken to the Lahore headquarters of the LPP, where we had an informal discussion with a group of members, and then went to a meeting with the Punjab Union of Journalists. We were also interviewed by some journalists from U.S. media. But the meeting had to be cut short because, as the world knows, on this last day of our trip, which had gotten daily headlines in the Pakistani media, a 14 year old girl, Malala Yousufzai, was shot by the Taliban. Demonstrations against the shooting were quickly organized. Judy and I attended two of them organized by the LPP and other groups in Lahore. At the same time, the rest of our group attended a similar demonstration back in Islamabad.




One other incident occurred with our group back in Islamabad while Judy and I were in Lahore. Lawyers who are members of the LPP organized a meeting for the group at the Bar Association in Islamabad. There had been some tension among members of the Bar Association, some of it centered around a case that some of the lawyers were defending. A while ago, the governor of Punjab province came out publically for getting rid of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws. After this, he was shot and killed by a police officer. The police officer was caught and is now on trial. Some of the conservative lawyers supported the action of the police officer and are defending him. These lawyers decided that Americans should not come to the Bar Association and tried to block the group. There was a verbal confrontation but they backed down and the meeting went on over their objection.

While we were on our way to Waziristan on October 6th and 7the, there was a meeting held in Lahore with 100 representatives of progressive secular groups from Pakistan and Afghanistan. There were around 80 people from Pakistan and 20 from Afghanistan at this meeting. The people from the LPP saw this as a very important meeting, as did I. They told me that they want to work closely with the U.S. antiwar movement.

The trip to Pakistan was very important, in my opinion, in building the U.S. and Pakistani movement against the drones and the wars. It showed people in Pakistan that not all Americans are bad. We got tremendous publicity throughout Pakistan and were even able to break into the U.S. corporate media as well as media around the world. Drones are now on people’s radar (no pun intended) as never before inside the U.S. and Pakistan. Our 31 activists can now bring this message of peace and no-drones back to our communities and build a stronger movement. Code Pink is to be applauded for organizing this trip, and we all need to read Madea Benjamin’s book, Drone Warfare, Killing by Remote Control, to further arm ourselves for the struggle ahead.




PHOTOS

The 2012 Sacco and Vanzetti Commemoration March and Rally



This year marked the seventh annual Sacco and Vanzetti Commemoration March and Rally on the streets of Boston. Our march was lively and noisy, with puppets supplied by Bread & Puppets, but we had to march this year without a marching band because of an unforeseen schedule confict. We also learned at the last minute that the band Vanzetti would not be able to perform. However, we made up for this with the addition of an excellent musical performance of radical songs by Jake and the Infernal Machine and heartfelt labor songs by Bill Bumpus accompanied by his concertina.

The Boston City Council passed its annual resolution declaring March 26th Sacco and Vanzetti Commemoration Day. The resolution was introduced before the Council by Councilor Charles Yancey. This year’s event was co-sponsored by the Society and, for the first time, the IWW, and was formally endorsed by the Lantern Collective, the Bread and Roses Heritage Committee, Common Struggle, and the Socialist Workers Party. The event was dedicated to all political prisoners and victims of state repression under the slogan "Justice Crucified No More!"

Speakers made frequent references to the political prisoners held at this moment by the United States including Tarek Mehanna, Chuck Turner, Bradley Manning, Mumia Abu Jamal, Leonard Peltier, the Puerto Rican political prisoners and, in particular, Oscar Lopez Rivera, the Guantanamo war prisoners, and many others who have been the target of state repression. Among those who spoke were historian Bob D'Attilio, representing the Sacco and Vanzetti Commemoration Society, and Sergio Reyes, who read a short message sent by Chuck Turner from prison and who made reference to the City Council Resolution. From the IWW we heard Geoff Carens and SteveKellerman, from the Bread and Roses Heritage Committee, Linda Siegenthaler, Al Johnson from the Bradley Manning Defense Committee, and Sarah Ullman, U.S. Senate candidate from the Socialist Workers Party.


Ted Grippo at the Boston Public Library

As part of this year’s commemoration of Sacco and Vanzetti, the Society also organized two presentations by Theodore Grippo, author of the book "With Malice Aforethought, the Execution of Sacco and Vanzetti." A well attended lecture at the Boston Public Library followed by another informal talk at the Dante Alighieri Italian Cultural Center focused on new information regarding the miscarriage of justice carried out by both the judge and prosecution.

For a photo album click here.

Veterans and Allies Arrested in New York as Afghanistan War Enters Year 12

Twenty-fine people, most of them U.S. military veterans, were arrested while laying flowers at a war memorial in New York City Oct. 7. They were engaged in a peaceful vigil to honor those killed and wounded in war and to oppose the U.S. war in Afghanistan as it entered its 12th year.
The vigil was held at Vietnam Veterans Memorial Plaza in lower Manhattan and began with a program of music and speakers including Vietnam veteran Bishop George Packard, Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent Chris Hedges, and Iraq combat veteran Jenny Pacanowski. At 8:30, the protesters began reading the names of the New York soldiers killed in Vietnam who are commemorated at the plaza and the military dead in Afghanistan and Iraq.
VFP board member Tarak Kauff reads names of soldiers killed in Vietnam Oct. 7. To his left is Jay Wenk, ringing a gong as flowers are laid at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Minutes later, both had been arrested. Photo by ELLEN DAVIDSON
At 10:15 pm, the police informed the group that the park was officially closed and that if they remained they would be arrested. Many chose to continue reading names and laying flowers until they were handcuffed and taken away. One of the arrestees was Word War II Army combat veteran, Jay Wenk, 85, from Woodstock, NY.
The veterans had four aims:
  • Demand an end to the 11-year war in Afghanistan
  • Demand an end to all U.S. wars of aggression
  • Remember all those killed and wounded by war
  • Stand up for our right, and duty, to assemble and organize
Vietnam veteran Mike Hastie is arrested Oct. 7. Photo by ELLEN DAVIDSON
Photojournalist, poet and Vietnam veteran Mike Hastie was the first arrested, after appealing to police not to force the veterans out of the war memorial: “This is a sad day. I was a medic in Vietnam. I watched soldiers commit suicide. I had soldiers’ brains all over my lap. How can you do this? How can you arrest me for being at a war memorial?”
Former VFP President Mike Ferner said, “I bet a lot of the arresting officers tonight were also military veterans; a number of them didn’t look too happy with the job they were told to do.”
“War is a public health problem, not only because of those killed directly, but also for the lingering trauma it causes,” said leading health care activist Dr. Margaret Flowers. “Ending war would be a good preventive health care measure.”
Poet Jenny Pacanowski read part of her poem “Parade,” which began “The funeral procession from Syracuse airport to Ithaca NY was over 50 miles long./Dragging his dead body through town after town of people, families and children waving flags./The fallen HERO had finally come home./I wonder how many children who saw this, will someday want to be dead HEROS too./I did not wave a flag that day or any day since my return.” She went on, “I live in a dream called my life. Where the good things don’t seem real or sustainable./I live in the nightmares of the past called Iraq and PTSD that never run out of fuel./Is it better to be dead hero?/Or a living fucked up, addicted, crazy veteran?”
“As long as we keep exposing the truth about these wars, then these people will not have died in vain,” said VFP board member Tarak Kauff.
Video by Will Holloway
Video by Fred Nagel
Link to more photos by Ellen Davidson
Articles about October 7
Kevin Zeese
Margaret Flowers
Micah Turner
Jefferson Siegel
Link to poem read by Mike Hastie
Link to poem read by Jenny Pacanowski
Link to Nate Goldshlag’s video of reading of names
Link to Nate Goldshlag’s video of Mike Hastie getting arrested
Link to Crystal Zevon’s video of Iraq vet Javier Ocasio
Link to Crystal Zevon’s video of Kevin Zeese
Link to Crystal Zevon’s video of Watermelon Slim
Link to Crystal Zevon’s video of Jenny Pacanowski
Link to Crystal Zevon’s video of Doo-Occupy “Oh Holy Planet”
Link to Crystal Zevon’s video of David Rovics
Link to Crystal Zevon’s video of Mike Hastie
Link to Crystal Zevon’s video of Doo-Occupy “The Pretty Ugly”
Link to Sandi Bachom’s video of Chris Hedges
Link to Sandi Bachom’s video of GI resister Sgt. Micah Turner
Link to Crystal Zevon’s video of Tarak Kauff
Link to Crystal Zevon’s video of Paul Appell
Text of Chris Hedges’ remarks

Radio interview with Tarak Kauff, Mike Hastie, and Ellen Davidson