***In Honor Of Our Class-War Prisoners- Free All The Class-War Prisoners!- Free The Ohio 7's Jaan Laaman!

Make June Class-War Prisoners Freedom Month

Markin comment

In “surfing” the “National Jericho Movement” Website recently in order to find out more, if possible, about class- war prisoner and 1960s radical, Marilyn Buck, whom I had read about in a “The Rag Blog” post I linked to the Jericho list of class war prisoners. I found Marilyn Buck listed there but also others, some of whose cases, like that of the “voice of the voiceless” Pennsylvania death row prisoner, Mumia Abu-Jamal, are well-known and others who seemingly have languished in obscurity. All of the cases, at least from the information that I could glean from the site, seemed compelling. And all seemed worthy of far more publicity and of a more public fight for their freedom.

That last notion set me to the task at hand. Readers of this space know that I am a long time supporter of the Partisan Defense Committee, a class struggle, non-sectarian legal and social defense organization which supports class war prisoners as part of the process of advancing the international working class’ struggle for socialism. In that spirit I am honoring the class war prisoners on the National Jericho Movement list this June as the start of what I hope will be an on-going attempt by all serious leftist militants to do their duty- fighting for freedom for these brothers and sisters. We will fight out our political differences and disagreements as a separate matter. What matter here and now is the old Wobblie (IWW) slogan - An injury to one is an injury to all.

Note: This list, right now, is composed of class war prisoners held in American detention. If others are likewise incarcerated that are not listed here feel free to leave information on their cases in the comment section. Likewise any cases, internationally, that come to your attention. I am sure there are many, many such cases out there. Make this June, and every June, a Class-War Prisoners Freedom Month- Free All Class-War Prisoners Now!

************

Thursday, January 31, 2008
*Free The Last of the Ohio Seven-They Must Not Die In Jail

Click on title to link to the Partisan Defense Committee (an organization whose goals I support) to learn more about the Manning and Laaman cases(and other political prisoners supported by the organization)

COMMENTARY

ONE OF THE OHIO SEVEN -RICHARD WILLIAMS- RECENTLY DIED IN PRISON (2006). THAT LEAVES JAAN LAAMAN AND TOM MANNING STILL IN PRISON. IT IS AN URGENT DUTY FOR THE INTERNATIONAL LABOR MOVEMENT AND OTHERS TO RAISE THE CALL FOR THEIR FREEDOM. FREE ALL CLASS WAR PRISONERS.

I have added a link to Tom Manning's site that can provide a link to Jaan Laaman's site. For convenience I have labelled this link the Ohio Seven Defense Committee site. Free the last of the Seven. Below is a commentary written in 2006 arguing for their freedom.

Below is a repost of a commentary I made in 2007 to support of freedom for the last of the Ohio Seven

The Ohio Seven, like many other subjective revolutionaries, coming out of the turbulent anti-Vietnam War and anti-imperialist movements, were committed to social change. The different is that this organization included mainly working class militants, some of whose political consciousness was formed by participation as soldiers in the Vietnam War itself. Various members were convicted for carrying out robberies, apparently to raise money for their struggles, and bombings of imperialist targets. Without going into their particular personal and political biographies I note that these were the kind of subjective revolutionaries that must be recruited to a working class vanguard party if there ever is to be a chance of bringing off a socialist revolution. In the absence of a viable revolutionary labor party in the 1970’s and 1980’s the politics of the Ohio Seven, like the Black Panthers and the Weathermen, were borne of despair at the immensity of the task and also by desperation to do something concrete in aid of the Vietnamese Revolution and other Third World struggles . Their actions in trying to open up a second front militarily in the United States in aid of Third World struggles without a mass base proved to be mistaken but, as the Partisan Defense Committee which I support has noted, their actions were no crime in the eyes of the international working class.

The lack of a revolutionary vanguard to attract such working class elements away from adventurism is rendered even more tragic in the case of the Ohio Seven. Leon Trotsky, a leader with Lenin of the Russian Revolution of 1917, noted in a political obituary for his fallen comrade and fellow Left Oppositionist Kote Tsintadze that the West has not produced such fighters as Kote. Kote, who went through all the phases of struggle for the Russian Revolution, including imprisonment and exile under both the Czar and Stalin benefited from solidarity in a mass revolutionary vanguard party to sustain him through the hard times. What a revolutionary party could have done with the evident capacity and continuing commitment of subjective revolutionaries like the Ohio Seven poses that question point blank. This is the central problem and task of cadre development in the West in resolving the crisis of revolutionary leadership.

Finally, I would like to note that except for the Partisan Defense Committee and their own defense organizations – the Ohio 7 Defense Committee and the Jaan Laaman Defense Fund- the Ohio Seven have long ago been abandoned by those New Left elements and others, who as noted, at one time had very similar politics. At least part of this can be attributed to the rightward drift to liberal pacifist politics by many of them, but some must be attributed to class. Although the Ohio Seven were not our people- they are our people. All honor to them. As James P Cannon, a founding leader of the International Labor Defense, forerunner of the Partisan Defense Committee, pointed out long ago –Solidarity with class war prisoners is not charity- it is a duty. Their fight is our fight! LET US DO OUR DUTY HERE. RAISE THE CALL FOR THE FREEDOM OF LAAMAN AND MANNING. MAKE MOTIONS OF SOLIDARITY IN YOUR POLITICAL ORGANIZATION, SCHOOL OR UNION.

YOU CAN GOOGLE THE ORGANIZATIONS MENTIONED ABOVE- THE PARTISAN DEFENSE COMMITTEE- THE OHIO 7 DEFENSE COMMITTEE- THE JAAN LAAMAN DEFENSE FUND.

THE OHIO SEVEN'S JAAN LAAMAN AND TOM MANNING STILL IN PRISON.  IT IS AN URGENT DUTY FOR THE INTERNATIONAL LABOR MOVEMENT AND OTHERS TO RAISE THE CALL FOR THEIR FREEDOM- FREE ALL CLASS WAR PRISONERS.

Click below to link to the Partisan Defense Committee website.
http://www.partisandefense.org/

Markin comment:

The Ohio Seven, like many other subjective revolutionaries, coming out of the turbulent anti-Vietnam War and anti-imperialist movements, were committed to social change. The different is that this organization included mainly working class militants some of whose political consciousness was formed by participation as soldiers in the Vietnam War itself. Various members were convicted for carrying out robberies, apparently to raise money for their struggles, and bombings of imperialist targets. Without going into their particular personal and political biographies I note that these were the kind of subjective revolutionaries that must be recruited to a working class vanguard party if there ever is to be a chance of bringing off a socialist revolution. In the absence of a viable revolutionary labor party in the 1970’s and 1980’s the politics of the Ohio Seven, like the Black Panthers and the Weathermen, were borne of despair at the immensity of the task and but also desperation to do something concrete in aid of the Vietnamese Revolution and other Third World struggles . Their actions in trying to open up a second front militarily in the United States in aid of Third World struggles without a mass base proved to be mistaken but, as the Partisan Defense Committee which I support has noted, their actions were no crime in the eyes of the international working class.

The lack of a revolutionary vanguard to attract such working class elements away from adventurism is rendered even more tragic in the case of the Ohio Seven. Leon Trotsky, a leader with Lenin of the Russian Revolution of 1917, noted in a political obituary for his fallen comrade and fellow Left Oppositionists Kote Tsintadze that the West has not produced such fighters as Kote. Kote, who went through all the phases of struggle for the Russian Revolution, including imprisonment and exile under both the Czar and Stalin benefited from solidarity in a mass revolutionary vanguard party to sustain him through the hard times. What a revolutionary party could have done with the evident capacity and continuing commitment of subjective revolutionaries like the Ohio Seven poses that question point blank. This is the central problem and task of cadre development in the West in resolving the crisis of revolutionary leadership.

Finally, I would like to note that except for the Partisan Defense Committee and their own defense organizations – the Ohio 7 Defense Committee and the Jaan Laaman Defense Fund- Ohio Seven have long ago been abandoned by those New Left elements and others, who as noted, at one time had very similar politics. At least part of this can be attributed to the rightward drift to liberal pacifist politics by many of them, but some must be attributed to class. Although the Ohio Seven were not our people- they are our people. All honor to them. As James P Cannon, a founding leader of the International Labor Defense, forerunner of the Partisan Defense Committee, pointed out long ago –Solidarity with class war prisoners is not charity- it is a duty. Their fight is our fight! LET US DO OUR DUTY HERE. RAISE THE CALL FOR THE FREEDOM OF LAAMAN AND MANNING. MAKE MOTIONS OF SOLIDARITY IN YOUR POLITICAL ORGANIZATION, SCHOOL OR UNION.

***Man’s Fate-Redux-What Frank Jackman Learned About The World-Kind Of   

The song playing as the story begins ....

From The Pen Of Peter Paul Markin


He, Frank Jackman, didn’t know exactly how he was talked into attending his fourth, or was it fifth, anti-war conference in the space of three weeks. “Jesus,” Frank said to himself, “I just got out of the stockade a few weeks ago and I have been going non-stop ever since.” The details of that Army stockade time need not detain us here, except to say, as Frank said to anybody who asked, that he did what he had to do to stop that “goddam war in Vietnam (exact quote),” he would do it again, and the clincher that closed the conversational point, “next”. And if that was all Frank needed to say about the subject then that was all that needed to be said, next.

That next though was the “come on” that brought Frank up to the foothills of the White Mountains of New Hampshire for that conference that snowy February weekend of 1971. Unlike most “movement” events, unlike the previous four (five?) conferences that he had attended (and maybe from time immemorial), he was going to be given a stipend, small but actual dough, for his work, a bed, an actual bed and not some hard-pressed upon sympathizer’s vacant floor, and said bed would be in his own single room. Beyond that he heard that there would be some interesting people coming, and before you get your notebook out to write down the movement worthies that were coming, Frank’s hearing centered on the hard fact that some interesting women were coming. After all Frank had been in the stockade, and after all in 1971 we were only on the cusp of the women’s liberation movement at a time before such thoughts, at least in public, or in the public prints, became very dicey, very dicey indeed.

And so Frank began hitch-hiking that snow-covered February day U.S. 93 to save some dough, although as part of that “come on” he actually had been given money for a bus ticket as well. But he wanted to get a “feel” for the country and who and what was out there, especially the plethora of yellow brick road school buses and VW’s converted into love mobiles that he had heard about while inside. After a couple of interesting rides and one, well, scary one he arrived at his destination.

As he approached the entrance to the main building, the conference center itself, he could hear inside Elizabeth Cotten’ s Freight Train, in an upbeat Peter, Paul and Mary-style version complete with Bleecker Street reference, being covered just then near the well firewood- stocked, well-stoked fireplace of the great room of this old time religious order assembly hall by some upstart urban folkie a long way from his home and a long way from that 1960s folk revival minute that Frank remembered. Yes, this was the right place, the right place indeed.

Meanwhile, in the front hall entrance that he was then approaching adjacent to that great room where that old-time folkie and his old-time tune were being heard by a small early-bird arrival gathering crowd who never tired of the song, and who this night certainly did not tire of being close by the huge well stocked, well-stoked fireplace where the old brother, hell, let’s give him a name, Eric, Eric from Vermont, okay, was holding forth was starting to fill with more arrivals to be checked in and button-holed. The place, for the curious: the Shaker Farms Peace Pavilion (formerly just plain vanilla Shaker Farms Assembly Hall but the “trust fund babies” who bought and donated the site, and paid for Frank’s stipend, ah, insisted in their, of course, anonymous way on the added signature) the scene of umpteen peace conferences, anti-war parlays, alternative world vision seminars, non-violent role-playing skits, and personal witness actions worked out. A handy hospice for worn-out ideas, ditto frustrations, and an off-hand small victory or two.

And Frank, fresh from the stockade or not, was starting to be a picture of his tribal brothers seen at this gathering of the faithful and determined. A young ruddy-complexioned man, twenty-something, brown hair starting to fill out on the sides and down the back, a brown beard starting to go beyond wisp, sporting slightly scuffed high-top black boots, hell army boots, denim bell-bottomed trousers, army-jacket one size too large, always one size too large, stared across the great hall. The garment “style” just described obviously reflecting a recent discharge from some army, some shooting army, that aimed to join another less rigid army, if less rigid are the right words for the explosion among the young of his generation, the generation of ’68.

But all that was so much off-hand description, so much political foreplay. Frank was watching, watching carefully for those interesting women “promised” during the “come on” pitch that brought him to these damn snowy outback hills. He, no question, a city boy was unconformable being more than five feet away from city lights, asphalt city streets (the snowy road up to the farm entrance was rutted, dirt rutted), and a bookstore. As he panned the conference room that he just entered Frank eyed, fierce piercing blue-eyes that spoke of ancient sadnesses and a little treachery eyed, a young woman on the other side of the room. A dark-haired, pert, petite young woman, who was also present at that same umpteenth helter-skelter workshop in order to save this or that part of this wicked old world. And she eyed him right back. They both would laugh later and call it kid hide-and-seek eying. But that was later.

Just then though they kept up their “war” of peek and half- peek (and half whimsical smiles thrown in) until Frank was called up by Stanley Bloom, yes, that Stanley, well-known for his organizing exploits the year before when he almost single-handedly organized the student strikes after Kent State. After firing up the crowd with the need to think “outside the box,” up the ante and finish the job of ending the damn war (exact quote) Frank moved to the side to talk to Marge Goodwin, the organizer of this confab. In between the political back and forth he inquired about that dark-haired young woman. Marge replied, “Oh, Joyell Davin, she is from the Peace Action committee, they spear-headed the rallies out in front of Fort Shaw last year trying to get you out of the stockade.” Bingo.

Needless to say that at intermission Frank drew a bee-line for Joyell. As he approached her he simply shook her hand gently and said in a half-whisper (a half whisper that they would remember later, although they did not laugh at that one), “Thanks, for your work last year at Fort Shaw on my behalf, I appreciated it and it helped me get through the time.” And that was that. Joyell blushed profusely but something in that simple introduction started an avalanche of conversation about this and that. Who remembers except that it was incessant as if to stop would start the impending world madness outside of that little space between them. What did stop it was the call back to the second session. But before they parted Frank, half-sheepishly, a little kid-like said, “Maybe we can talk later, after the session is over.” And Joyell, usually no shy violet, although a little intimidated by Frank’s “movement” heavy-footstep heroics, blurted out instantly, “We’d better.” Frank shot back just as quickly, “Well I guess that is an order, right?” They laughed, laughed an adventures ahead laugh.

And, of course, they did meet later. Later came, came, evening session complete, as they were sitting across from each other in the great room, the great fireplace room where Eric was going through his second rendition of Freight Train to get the room revved up for his big stuff. Frank came over and asked, back to whisper again asked, if Joyell would like to go outside for a breath of fresh winter air. Or maybe somewhere else, another room inside, if she didn’t like the cold or snow. No second request was necessary, and no coyness on her part, as she quickly went to the coat rack and put on her coat, scarf, and boots. .

They talked, or rather she talked a blue streak, a soft-spoken blue streak like Frank’s manner was contagious and maybe it was, and then he would ask a question, and ask it in such a way that he really wanted to know, know her for her answer and not just to ask, polite ask. As they walked, and walked, and as the snow got deeper she kind of fell, kind of helpless on purpose fell. On purpose fell expecting that he might kiss her. But all he did was pick her up, firmly, held her in his arms just a fraction of a second, but a fraction of a second enough to let her know, and let her feel, that they had not seen the last of each other. And just for that cold, snow-driven February night, as war raged on in some distance land, and as she gathered in her tangled emotions after many romantic stumbles and man disappointments, that thought was enough.

And they kept eying each other through immediate snows, immediate back to the city safe-haven snows, gentle first kisses and downy beds, leafy spring bike rides on suburban trails (safe asphalt trails), be-bop dead of night drug hazes (better left unrecorded just in case the statute of limitations has not run out), east coast hitch-hike trips to some forlorn demo for this or that cause in a world increasingly full of hurts and oppressions in need of mending and someone to do something about them, massive explorations of the blue-pink great American West night in army-like pup tent and surplus sleeping bags, some misunderstandings, some serious misunderstandings, some rages against the night, some double rages against the day and night, some fitful irresolute break-ups, some infidelities (agreed to, or not), some two-roads-taken, and then, strictly reflecting that young man’s, Frank’s, broken-down sense of the world, silence, no more words spoken, in anger or otherwise.

Except later, much later, some cosmic message spoken by him speaking of that helter-skelter meeting, the snowy night, the walk, and the “moment” when he first held her firmly, to keep her from falling, without a kiss, but with an understanding that their stars had crossed, and he, they, knew some high adventure was ahead. The unadorned cosmic message was all that was left. Why hadn’t he had the sense to have a sense of her needs and kiss her right there in those immediate falling snows?

 

***What Joyell Found Out About Herself-Redux-Elizabeth Cotten Is In The House

A YouTube film clip of Elizabeth Cotten performing her famous road song blues, Freight Train.

Freight train, freight train going so fast,
Freight train, freight train going so fast,
Please don’t say what train I’m on,
So they won’t know where I’ve gone.

-Chorus from ancient folk blues artist Elizabeth Cotten’s Freight Train.

As this story unfolds, Elizabeth Cotten’ s Freight Train, in an upbeat Peter, Paul and Mary-style version complete with Bleecker Street reference, is being covered just then near the well firewood- stocked, well-stoked fireplace of the great room in a hard winter, February version, snow-covered rural New Hampshire old time religious order assembly hall by some upstart urban folkie a long way from his home and a long way from that 1960s folk revival minute that then had had even jaded aficionados from the generation of ’68 clamoring for more.

Meanwhile, the front hall entrance adjacent to that great room where that old-time folkie and his old-time tune are being heard by a small early-bird arrival gathering crowd who never tire of the song, and who this night certainly do not tire of being close by the huge well stocked, well-stoked fireplace where the old brother, hell, let’s give him a name, Eric, Eric from Vermont, okay, is holding forth is starting to fill with more arrivals to be checked in and button-holed. The place, for the curious: the Shaker Farms Peace Pavilion (formerly just plain vanilla Shaker Farms Assembly Hall but the “trust fund babies” who bought and donated the site, ah, insisted in their, of course, anonymous way on the added signature) the scene of umpteen peace conferences, anti-war parlays, alternative world vision seminars, non-violent role-playing skits, and personal witness actions worked out. A handy hospice for worn-out ideas, ditto frustrations, and an off-hand small victory or two.

That very last part, that desperate victory last part, is what keeps the place afloat, afloat in this oddball of a hellish anti-war year 1971 when even hardened and steeled old-time peace activists against the Vietnam War are starting to believe they will be entitled to Social Security for their efforts before this bloody war is over. Hence the urgency behind this particular great room fireplace warm, complete with booked-in urban folkie singer, umpteenth anti-war conference. But onward brothers and sisters and let us listen in to the following conversation overheard in that now crowded front hall:

“Hi, Joyell, glad you could make it to the conference. Are you by yourself or did you bring Steve with you?” asked Jim Sweeney, one of the big honchos, one of the big organizational honchos and that is what matters these dog days when all hope appears to have been abandoned, these now fading days of the antiwar movement trying yet again to conference jump start the opposition to Nixon’s bloody escalations and stealthy tricky maneuvers.

“Good to see you too, Jim,” answered Joyell, who said it in such a singsong way that she and Jim Sweeney, obviously, had been in some mystic time, maybe some summer of love time before everything and everybody needed twelve coats of armor, emotional armor, just to move from point A to point B, more than fellows at one of those umpteen peace things. Joyell knew, knew from some serious reflection last summer, that she had put on a few more armor coats herself and, hell, she was just a self-confessed rank and filer. Their “thing” had just faded though for lack of energy, lack of high “ism” politics on Joyell’s part unlike frenetic Jim, and for the cold, hard fact that Jim at the time wanted to devote himself totally to the “movement” and could not “commit” to a personal relationship.

“Jesus, can’t any guy commit to anything for more than ten minutes,” Joyell thought to herself. From the weathered look on his face Jim was still in high thrall to “saving the earth” although rumor had it that Marge Goodwin, ya, that Marge Goodwin, the “mother” of organizers every since she almost single-handedly called out the national student strike in 1970, almost had her hooks into him, into him bad from all reports.

“No, Steve and I are not together anymore since he split to “find himself” on some freight train heading west, heading west fast away from me, I think. But you don’t want to hear that story, and besides we have to push on against this damn war, Steve or no Steve and his goddamn freight smoke-trailing dreams.” What Joyell didn’t say was that she was half-glad, no quarter-glad, Steve had split since the last couple of months had been hell. A fight a day it seemed, two a day at the end.

Reason: Steve too was not ready to “commit” to a personal relationship what with the whole world going to hell in hand-basket (his expression). Besides they all had plenty of time, a life-time to get “serious” and, forbidden words, “settle down.” Here is where the quarter-glad part comes in. Steve was getting in kind of heavy with some Weathermen-types and while that did not cause an argument a day between them it didn’t help. Joyell half expected to hear that Steve, Steve the meek pacifist, a freaking meek Catholic Worker guy just a couple years before, blew up something, or got blown up. Jesus, she thought, was I that hard to take, hard to get along with.

“I’m sorry to hear that Joyell. Maybe when we get a break later we can talk.” Of course, and maybe for the same Steve smoke-trailing-freight-dream-escape-seeking-the-great-American be-bop night reason, or maybe a heroic end traced out since boyhood redemptions reason, Jim and Joyell never would meet later, as Jim would be tied up, well, tied up in whatever organizational thing he was honcho of these days. Their time too had irrevocably passed. And now, and from here on in, this is Joyell’s time, her story, her voice as she enters the spacious but cold, distant from the well-stoked fireplace cold, conference room to the left of the great room with its rickety elongated table weighted down with timeless banging against ten thousand flickered night dreams, scarecrow chairs that caused more than one modern arched-back to falter helplessly, and unhealthy air, air make rank from too many spent speeches, and spent dreams.
*******
“Who is that guy over in the corner, that green corner coach, the guy with the kind of wispy just starting to fill out brown beard, and those fierce piercing goy blue eyes, that I just passed? I’ve not seen him around before,” Joyell asked herself and then Marge Goodwin, expecting Marge the crackerjack organizer of everything from antiwar marches to save the, and you can fill in the blank, to know all the players. Moreover Marge and Joyell got along well enough for Joyell to ask such a question, “girl talk,” they called it between themselves although to the “men” this was a book sealed with seven seals since the “correct” thing was to put such girlish things back in prehistoric times, four or five years ago okay. Joyell also sensed that since Marge’s “thing” with Jim hadn’t worked out they had something in common, although nothing was ever said. Nor would it be.

“Oh, that’s Frank Jackman, the anti-war GI who just got out of the stockade over at Fort Shaw last week and he is ready to do some work with us,” volunteered Marge. Later that evening Joyell would hear from a reliable source that Marge had gotten, or had tried to get, very familiar with the ex-army soldier resister. Marge had a thing for “heroic” guys. Heroic guys being guys like Jim, Joan Baez’s hubby, David Harris, who had refused draft induction, the Berrigan Brothers who were getting ready to do time for draft board record destruction (although she, Marge, couldn’t get that damn Catholic trick part that drove their actions) and now this Frank Jackman who had done a year, a tough soldier non-soldier year, some of it in solidarity, in the stockade for refusing go to Vietnam (and refusing to wear the military uniform at one point). Joyell also heard from another source that evening that it was no dice between Marge and Frank. This source thought it was that Marge, always getting what Marge wanted when it came to “movement men,” figured this guy would just cave in and take the ride. Not this guy, no way, not after taking on the “big boys” over at Fort Shaw. No dice, huh. That’s a point in his favor. But that was later fuel.

“Oh, that’s why his beard is so wispy and he is wearing those silly high top polished black boots and that size too big Army jacket with those bell-bottomed jeans. He certainly has the idea of what it takes to fit in here,” Joyell figured out, figured out loud. Marge just nodded, nodded kind of dismissively that she was right. And then left to do some organization business setting up the evening’s work.

And then suddenly, she, Joyell Davin (suitably Americanized, naturally, a couple of generations back), freshly-damaged in love’s unequal battles but apparently not ready to throw in the towel, got very quiet, very quiet like she always did when some guy caught her eye, well, more than her eye tonight, now that Steve was so much train smoke out in the cornfields somewhere. Maybe it was the New York City armor-coated brashness, hell Manhattan grow-up hard and necessary brashness required in a too many people universe, and learned from her very opinionated father, that her quietness tried to rein in at times like this so guys, guys like this Frank, wouldn’t be thrown off. But whatever it was that drove her quietness she was taking her peeks, her quiet half- peeks really, at this guy. With Steve, and a few other guys, it was mostly full steam ahead and let the devil take the hinter- post. This time her clock said take it easy, jesus, take it easy.

And as she found herself catching herself taking more and more of those telltale peeks she noticed, noticed almost by instinct, almost by some mystical sense that he was “checking” her out, although their dueling eyes had not met. Then, after Jim had finished giving the opening address about what the conferees were trying to do, this Frank Jackman stood up quickly without introduction and started talking, in a firm voice, about the need to up the ante, to create havoc in the streets, and in the army camps. And do it now, and with some sense of urgency. But he said it all in such way that everybody in the room, all forty or fifty of them, knew, or should have known, that this was not some ragtag wispy–bearded fly-by-night “days of rage” kid spirit, freshly bell-bottom pants minted, but some kind of revolutionary, some kind of radical anyway, who had thought about things a lot and wasn’t just a flame-thrower like she had seen too many of lately, including Steve, before he went to find himself.

When Frank was done he looked, half-looked really, quickly in her direction like he was seeking her, and just her, approval. And like he needed to know and know right this minute that she approved. She blushed, and hoped it did not show. And hoped that she had read his look in her direction correctly. But before that blush could subside she blushed again when out of nowhere this Frank gave her a another look, a serious checking out look if she knew her “movement” men, not a leer like some drunken barroom guy, or “come on, honey,” like a schoolboy but a let’s talk high “ism” talk later, and see what happens later, later. Maybe this umpteenth conference would work out after all.

So our Joyell was not surprised, not surprised at all, when during the break, the blessed break after two non-stop hours of waiting, Francis Alexander Jackman (that’s what he was called from when he was a kid and it kind of stuck but he preferred simply Frank) came up behind, tapped her gently on the shoulder to get her attention, introduced himself without fanfare or with any heroic poses, and thanked her for her work on his behalf.

“What do you mean, Frank?” she asked, bewildered by the question. “Oh, when your Peace Action committee came up to Fort Shaw and demonstrated for my freedom,” he replied in kind of a whisper voice, very different from his public voice, a voice that had known some tough times recently and maybe long ago too, but that soft whisper was what she needed, needed to hear from a righteous man, just now. The shrill of Steve’s voice, and a couple of others in her string of forgotten luck, still echoed in her brain.

“That was you? I didn’t make the connection. I didn’t know that was you, sorry, that was about a year ago and I have been going non-stop with this antiwar march and that women’s lib things. Were you in the stockade all that time?” she continued.

“Ya,” just a ya, not forlorn or anything like that but just a simple statement of fact, of the fact that he had needed to do what he did and that was that, next question, came that soft reply like this Frank and she were on some same wave-length. She was confused, confused more than a little that he had that strong effect on her after about five minutes of just general conversation.

Just then Marge, super-organizer but, as Joyell had already gathered intelligence on by then, not above having the last say in her little romances with the newest heroes of the movement, or trying to, called to Frank that Stanley Bloom, the big national anti-war organizer, wanted his input into something. But before he left soft -whispering still, calm still, unlike when he talked, talked peace action talk, he mentioned kind of kid-like, bashful kid-like, maybe they could meet later. Joyell could barely contain herself, and although she usually acted bashfully at these times, kind of a studied bashfulness starting out, even with Steve and some of the movement guys, she just blurted out, “We’d better.” He replied, a little stronger of voice than that previous whisper, “I guess that is a command, right?” And they both laughed, laughed an adventure ahead laugh.

Later came, evening session complete, as they were sitting across from each other in the great room, the great fireplace room where Eric was going through his second rendition of Freight Train to get the room revved up for his big stuff. Frank came over and asked, back to whisper asked, if Joyell would like to go outside for a breath of fresh winter air. Or maybe somewhere else, another room inside perhaps if she didn’t like the cold or snow. No second request was necessary, and no coyness on her part either with this guy, as she quickly went to the coat rack and put on her coat, scarf, and boots. And so it went.

They talked, or rather she talked a blue streak, a soft-spoken blue streak like Frank’s manner was contagious, and maybe it was. Then he would ask a question, and ask it in such a way that he really wanted to know, know her for her answer and not just to ask, polite ask. As they walked, and walked, and as the snow got deeper as they moved away from the pavilion she kind of fell, kind of helpless on purpose fell. On purpose fell expecting that he might kiss her. But all he did was pick her up, gently but firmly, held her in his arms just a fraction of a second, but a fraction of a second enough to let her know, and let her feel, that they had not seen the last of each other. And just for that cold, snow-driven February night, as war raged on in some distance land, and as she gathered in her tangled emotions after many romantic stumbles and man disappointments, that thought was enough.

When Two Worlds Collide- Once – A Film Review

 

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Once, starring Glen Hansard, Marketa Irglova, 2007   

Everybody, everybody who lives in cities, or who takes public transportation to the city has seen some straggly, snarling, struggling guy playing guitar, playing it well or poorly but playing it to rise above the din of city noises, and singing. Singing covers of some popular tunes, some tunes which will get we damn busy heads down travelers already late for something to listen up for a minute. Singing and strumming, well or poorly, but always with an open guitar case for the “thank you kindly” donation that allows him to survive, to breathe, to write his lonely ballads, and to keep the wolves (read: landlord and other bill collectors) from his door. What you probably didn’t know, unless of course you are among the seven people in the world who still listens to and supports folk music, roots music, street music or whatever you want to call it,  that those nameless guys (and gals) have stories to tell. Have the usual array of problems and dreams like the rest of us.

Problems like love, marriage, kids, lost ones, and dreams of making it off the streets and into the music studios and then… That back story, both the problems and the dream parts, are what drives this film under review, Once, about the connection, for a moment in time as it turned out, between a guy street musician in Dublin (that's in Ireland for the heathens) and an immigrant girl wannabe musician (immigrant in the days when, for a minute, Ireland stopped being a place to get bloody well out of going across the sea to Liverpool or across the pond to Amerikee and was a place to go to dream).          

Under normal circumstance such a boy meets girl saga, would seemingly pose no problems for them getting together. There would almost have to be (and was) a natural attraction. But that is where the back story gets complicated, complicated just like for the rest of us. First off the guy was still pining away for his muse-girlfriend (Irish) who betrayed him with another lover and who was off in London. Secondly the girl, a Czech national, was married, married with a child, a little girl, (and with a mother in tow) whose estranged husband was back in the Czech Republic. What draws these street urchins together is the love of music. His rough-hewn plainsongs of sorrow and lost and her more delicate wistful attempts to make sense of a world through song (and piano) that is kind of passing her by.

But to the music, the all- consuming music that is really the star of this film. A great deal of its time is spent with the pair alternately flirting and creating something like a demo CD to shop around in order to get their big break, the one that will right their lives. That music, which by the way was written and sung by the actors who played the boy and girl (Glen Hansard and  Marketa Irglova), got a work-out here as he or she would burst into song at command. But in the end the two worlds, the world of the muse-driven (and career-driven as well) Irishman and a young immigrant woman looking for a father for her daughter as well as the music just couldn’t mix, couldn’t stand the huge effort to put those two worlds together. Couldn’t stand the collision. As so they went their separate ways.  How is that for a back story of that straggly, snarling, struggling guy you see at that subway stop every workday morning.   

In Honor Of The 64th Anniversary Year Of The Chinese Revolution of 1949- From The Pen Of Leon Trotsky-Problems Of The Chinese Revolution (1927) –The Speech of Comrade Chen Duxiu on the Tasks of the Chinese Communist Party-Epilogue May 17, 1927

Click on link below to read on-line all of Leon Trotsky's book, Problems Of The Chinesee Revolution

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1932/pcr/index.htm

Markin comment (repost from 2012):

On a day when we are honoring the 63rd anniversary of the Chinese revolution of 1949 the article posted in this entry and the comment below take on added meaning. In the old days, in the days when I had broken from many of my previously held left social-democratic political views and had begun to embrace Marxism with a distinct tilt toward Trotskyism, I ran into an old revolutionary in Boston who had been deeply involved (although I did not learn the extend of that involvement until later) in the pre-World War II socialist struggles in Eastern Europe. The details of that involvement will not detain us here now but the import of what he had to impart to me about the defense of revolutionary gains has stuck with me until this day. And, moreover, is germane to the subject of this article from the pen of Leon Trotsky -the defense of the Chinese revolution and the later gains of that third revolution (1949) however currently attenuated.

This old comrade, by the circumstances of his life, had escaped that pre-war scene in fascist-wracked Europe and found himself toward the end of the 1930s in New York working with the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party in the period when that organization was going through intense turmoil over the question of defense of the Soviet Union. In the history of American (and international) Trotskyism this is the famous Max Shachtman-James Burnham led opposition that declared, under one theory or another, that the previously defendable Soviet Union had changed dramatically enough in the course of a few months to be no longer worth defending by revolutionaries.

What struck him from the start about this dispute was the cavalier attitude of the anti-Soviet opposition, especially among the wet-behind-the-ears youth, on the question of that defense and consequently about the role that workers states, healthy, deformed or degenerated, as we use the terms of art in our movement, as part of the greater revolutionary strategy. Needless to say most of those who abandoned defense of the Soviet Union when there was even a smidgeon of a reason to defend it left politics and peddled their wares in academia or business. Or if they remained in politics lovingly embraced the virtues of world imperialism.

That said, the current question of defense of the Chinese Revolution hinges on those same premises that animated that old Socialist Workers Party dispute. And strangely enough (or maybe not so strangely) on the question of whether China is now irrevocably on the capitalist road, or is capitalist already (despite some very un-capitalistic economic developments over the past few years), I find that many of those who oppose that position have that same cavalier attitude the old comrade warned me against back when I was first starting out. There may come a time when we, as we had to with the Soviet Union and other workers states, say that China is no longer a workers state. But today is not that day. In the meantime study the issue, read the posted article, and more importantly, defend the gains of the Chinese Revolution.

*******

Leon Trotsky

Problems of the Chinese Revolution

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The Chinese Revolution and
the Theses of Comrade Stalin

The Speech of Comrade Chen Duxiu on the Tasks of the Chinese Communist Party-Epilogue May 17, 1927

52) What purpose does Marxism serve in politics? To understand that which is and to foresee that which will be. Foresight must be the foundation of action. We already know what has happened to the predictions of comrade Stalin: one week before the coup d’état of Chiang Kai-shek, he defended him and blew the trumpet for him by calling for the utilization of the right wing, its experiences, its connections (speech to the Moscow functionaries on April 5). In the theses analysed by us, Stalin gives another example of foresight which has also been tested by life. The central question of our criticism of Stalin’s theses was formulated by us above as follows: “Does there already exist a new centre of the revolution or must one first be created?” Stalin contended that after the coup d’état of Chiang Kai-shek there were “two governments, two armies, two centres: the revolutionary centre in Wuhan and the counter-revolutionary centre in Nanking”. Stalin contended that no soviets can be built because that would signify an uprising against the Wuhan centre, against the “only government” in Southern China. We called this characterization of the situation “false, superficial, vulgar”. We called this so-called Wuhan government the “leaders of Wuhan” and showed that in Southern China, after the abrupt veering of the civil war to another class line, there is no government as yet, that one must be first created.

In Pravda of May 15 the speech of comrade Chen Duxiu at the convention of the Chinese Communist Party (April 29) is reprinted.
Neither Stalin nor we had this speech when Stalin wrote his theses and we wrote a criticism of them. Chen Duxiu characterizes the situation not on the basis of a general analysis of the circumstances but on the basis of his direct observations. Now, what does Chen Duxiu say of the new revolutionary movement? He declares plainly that “it would be a mistake” to consider the Wuhan government an organ of the revolutionary democratic dictatorship: “It is not yet a government of the worker and peasant masses but solely a bloc of leaders”. But is this not word for word what we said against Stalin?
Stalin wrote: “There is now no other governmental power than the government of the revolutionary Guomindang.” We answered him on that: “These words fairly reek with the apparatus-like and bureaucratic conception of revolutionary authority. the classes come and go but the continuity of the Guomindang government goes on forever [allegedly]. But it is not enough to call Wuhan the centre of the revolution for it really to be that” (cf. above). Instead of making it clear to the Chinese revolutionists, to the Communists primarily, that the Wuhan government will break its head against a wall if it imagines that it is itself already the only government in China; instead of turning relentlessly against the decorative hypocrisy of the petty-bourgeois revolutionists who have already destroyed so many revolutions; instead of shouting right into the ear of the uncertain, faltering, vacillating centre of Wuhan: “Do not be misled by outward appearances, do not be dazzled by the glitter of our own titles and manifestos, begin to perform the hard daily work, set masses in motion, build up workers’, soldiers’ and peasants’ soviets, build up a revolutionary governmental power” – instead of all this, Stalin hurls himself against the slogan of the soviets and supports the worst, the most provincial and bureaucratic prejudices and superstitious views of those ill-fated revolutionists who fear people’s soviets, and instead have faith in the sacred ink-blots on the notepaper of the Guomindang.

53) Comrade Chen Duxiu characterizes the situation on the basis of his own observations with exactly the same words with which we characterized the situation on the basis of theoretical consideration. No revolutionary government but only a bloc of leaders. But this does not at all mean that comrade Chen Duxiu himself draws correct conclusions from the circumstances correctly characterized by him. Since he is bound hand and foot by false directives, Chen Duxiu draws conclusions which radically contradict his own analysis. He says: “We have before us the task of beginning to build up a genuinely revolutionary and democratic government as soon as the situation in the sphere of the national government has changed and the threat of foreign intervention and the offensive of the militarists have disappeared.”

Here we must say directly and openly: put the question this way and you adopt the surest and shortest road to ruin. The creation of a genuinely revolutionary government basing itself on the popular masses is relegated to the moment when the dangers have disappeared. But the central danger consists precisely of the fact that instead of a revolutionary government in Southern China, there is for the time being only a bloc of leaders. Through this principal evil, all the other dangers are increased tenfold, including also the military danger. If we are to be guarded to the highest possible degree against the foreign and our “own” militarist bands, we must become strong, consolidate ourselves, organize, and arm ourselves. There are no other roads. We should not stick our heads in the sand. No artifice will help us here. The enthusiasm of the masses must be aroused, their readiness to fight and to die for their own cause. But for this the masses must be gripped as deeply as possible, politically and organizationally. Without losing even an hour, they must be given a revolutionary program of action and the organizational form of the soviets. There are no other roads. Postpone the creation of a revolutionary government until somebody has eliminated the danger of war in some way or other, and you take the surest and shortest road to ruin.
54) With regard to the agrarian movement, comrade Chen Duxiu admits honestly that the agrarian program of the Party (reduction of rent payments) is completely insufficient. The peasant movement, he says, “is being transformed into the struggle for land. The peasantry arises spontaneously and wants to settle the land question itself.” Further on, comrade Chen Duxiu declares openly: “We followed a too pacific policy. Now it is necessary to confiscate the large estates” If the content of these words is developed in a Marxian manner, it constitutes the harshest condemnation of the whole past line of the Communist Party of China, and the Comintern as well, in the agrarian question of the Chinese revolution. Instead of anticipating the course of the agrarian movement, of establishing the slogans in time and throwing them among the peasant masses through the workers, the revolutionary soldiers and the advanced peasants, the Chinese Communist Party remained a vast distance behind the spontaneous agrarian movement. Can there be a more monstrous form of chvostism? “We followed a too pacific policy.” But what does a pacific policy of a revolutionary party mean in the period of a spontaneous agrarian revolution? It signifies the most grievous historical mistake that a party of the proletariat can possibly commit. A pacific policy (the reduction of rent payments), while the peasant is already fighting spontaneously for land, is not a policy of Menshevik compromise but of liberal compromise. Only a philistine corrupted by alleged statecraft can fail to understand this, but never a revolutionist.

55) But from his correct, and therefore deadly, characterization of the relations of the party to the agrarian movement, comrade Chen Duxiu draws not only false, but positively disastrous conclusions. “It is now necessary,” he says, “to confiscate the large estates, but at the same time to make concessions to the small landowners who must be reckoned with.” In principle, such a way of posing the question cannot be assailed. It must be clearly determined who and in what part of China is to be considered a small landowner, how and to what limits he must be reckoned with. But Chen Duxiu says further:

“Nevertheless, it is necessary to await the further development of the military actions even for the confiscation of the large estates. The only correct decision at the present moment is the principle of deepening the revolution only after its extension.”

This road is the surest, the most positive, the shortest road to ruin. The peasant has already risen to seize the property of the large landowners. Our party, in monstrous contradiction to its program, to its name, pursues a pacific-liberal agrarian policy. Chen Duxiu himself declares that it is “now [?] necessary to confiscate the large estates”, but he immediately recalls that we “must not fall into left extremism” (Chen Duxiu’s own words) and he adds that we must “await the further development of the military actions” for the confiscation of the property of the large landowners, that the revolution must first be extended and only later deepened.

But this is simply a blind repetition of the old, well-known and outworn formula of national-liberal deception of the masses: First the victory, then the reform. First we will “extend” the country – for whom: for the large landowner? – and then, after the victory, we will concern ourselves very tranquilly with the “deepening”. To this, every intelligent and half-way sensible peasant will answer comrade Chen Duxiu: “If the Wuhan government today, when it finds itself encircled by foes and needs our peasant support for life and death – if this government does not dare now to give us the land of the large landowners or does not want to do it, then after it has extricated itself from its encirclement, after it has vanquished the enemy with our help, it will give us just as much land as Chiang Kai-shek gave the workers of Shanghai.” It must be said quite clearly: The agrarian formula of comrade Chen Duxiu, who is bound hand and foot by the false leadership of the representatives of the Comintern, is objectively nothing else than the formula of the severance of the Chinese Communist Party from the real agrarian movement which is now proceeding in China and which is producing a new wave of the Chinese revolution.
To strengthen this wave and to deepen it we need peasants’ soviets with the unfurled banner of the agrarian revolution, not after the victory but immediately, in order to guarantee the victory.
If we do not want to permit the peasant wave to come to nought and be splattered into froth, the peasants’ soviets must be united through workers’ soviets in the cities and the industrial centres, and to the workers’ soviets must be added the soviets of the poor population from the urban trade and handwork districts.
If we do not want to permit the bourgeoisie to drive a wedge between the revolutionary masses and the army, then soldiers’ soviets must be fitted into the revolutionary chain.
As quickly as possible, as boldly as possible, as energetically as possible, the revolution must be deepened, not after the victory but immediately, or else there will be no victory.
The deepening of the agrarian revolution, the immediate seizure of the land by the peasants, will weaken Chiang Kai-shek on the spot, bring confusion into the ranks of his soldiers, and set the peasant hinterland in motion. There is no other road to victory and there can be none.
Have we really carried through three revolutions within two decades only to forget the ABC of the first of them? Whoever carries on a pacific policy during the agrarian revolution, is lost. Whoever postpones matters, vacillates, temporizes, loses time, is lost. The formula of Chen Duxiu is the surest road to the destruction of the revolution.
Slanderers will be found who will say that our words are dictated by a hatred of the Chinese Communist Party and its leaders. Was it not once said that our position on the Anglo-Russian Committee signified a hostile attitude towards the British Communist Party? The events confirmed the fact that it was we who acted as loyal revolutionists towards the British Communists, and not as bureaucratic sycophants. Events will confirm the fact – they confirm it every day – that our criticism of the Chinese Communists was dictated by a more serious, more Marxist, revolutionary attitude towards the Chinese revolution than was the attitude of the bureaucratic sycophants who approve of everything after the fact, provided that they do not have to foresee for the future.
The fact that the speech of comrade Chen Duxiu is reprinted in Pravda without a single word of commentary, that no article revealing the ruinous course of this speech is devoted to it – this fact by itself must fill every revolutionist with the greatest misgivings, for it is the central organ of Lenin’s party that is involved!
Let not the pacifiers and flatterers tell us about “the unavoidable mistakes of a young Communist Party”. It is not a question of isolated mistakes. It is a question of the false basic line, the consummate expression of which is the theses of comrade Stalin.

The Necessary Final Accord

In the May 9 number of Sotsialisticheski Vestnik, it says in the article devoted to the theses of comrade Stalin:

“If we strip the envelope of words that is obligatory for the theses of a Communist leader, then very little can be said against the essence of the ‘line’ traced there. As much as possible to remain in the Guomindang, and to cling to its left wing and to the Wuhan government to the last possible moment: ‘to avoid a decisive struggle under unfavourable conditions’; not to issue the slogan ‘all power to the soviets’ so as not ‘to give new weapons into the hands of the enemies of the Chinese people for the struggle against the revolution, for creating new legends that it is not a national revolution that is taking place in China, but an artificial transplanting of Moscow sovietization’ – what can actually be more sensible for the Bolsheviks now, after the ‘united front’ has obviously been irremediably destroyed, and so much porcelain has been smashed under the ‘most unfavourable conditions’?” [8]

Thus, after Sotsialisticheski Vestnik, in its April 23rd number, acknowledged that Martynov analysed the tasks of the Chinese revolution in Pravda “very impressively” and “entirely in the Menshevik manner”, the leading article in the central organ of the Mensheviks declares in its latest number that “very little can be said against the essence of the ‘line’ traced” in the theses of comrade Stalin. This harmony of political lines hardly requires special elucidation.
But still more: The same article in Sotsialisticheski Vestnik speaks further on in a mocking tone – we quote literally! – of “the line of Radek which, covered with extreme ‘left’ slogans, (withdrawal from Guomindang, ‘propaganda of the soviet system’ etc.), simply desires in reality to give up the game and to step aside”. [9] The line of Radek is characterized here with the words of the leading articles and the feuilletons of Pravda. After all, it cannot be otherwise: Radek cannot say anything openly in the press about his line, for otherwise the Party would learn that Radek’s line is being confirmed by the whole course of events. The editors of Sotsialisticheski Vestnik not only describe “the line of Radek” with the words of Pravda but also evaluate them in full accord with the articles of Pravda: The line of the Opposition, according to Dan, gives the possibility, “covered with extreme ‘left’ slogans”, in reality “to give up the game and to step aside”. We have already read in the articles of Pravda that “a mass for the dead must be read” for the Chinese revolution, that the Chinese Communists must “retire within themselves”, that they must renounce “great deeds and great plans”, and that all this is the “sermon of the liquidation of the Chinese revolution“ – if the line of the Opposition is adopted. This was said literally, for example, in the leading article in Pravda of May 16, 1927. As we see, it is word for word the same thing that Dan says, or more correctly, Dan says of the Opposition word for word what Pravda has said in a series of its articles. Dan approves the theses of Stalin and derides the “liquidator” Radek, who covers his liquidation with extremely left phrases. Everything is clear now: The liquidationism of Radek is the same liquidationism which is evaluated as such by the renowned revolutionist Dan. That is the lesson that the leading articles in Sotsialisticheski Vestnik presents to those who are still capable of learning anything.
It is surely portentous that the quoted number of Sotsialisticheski Vestnik should arrive in Moscow on the eve of the opening of the session of the Executive Committee of the Communist International, which must consider the problem of the Chinese revolution in its full scope.

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Notes

8. Sotsialisticheski Vestnik, no.9 [151] p.1.

9. Sotsialisticheski Vestnik, no.9, [151] p.2.

Problems of the Chinese Revolution Index

Update 10/11/13: Edward Snowden receives the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence Award (SAAII)

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MOSCOW, RUSSIA – OCTOBER 09: Edward Snowden (3rd R) receives the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence Award (SAAII) alongside UK WikiLeaks journalist Sarah Harrison (2nd R) who took Snowden from Hong Kong to Moscow and obtained his asylum and the United States government whistleblowers who presented the award (L-R) Coleen Rowley (FBI), Thomas Drake (NSA), Jesselyn Raddack (DoJ) and Ray McGovern (CIA) on October 9, 2013 in Moscow, Russia. (Photo by Sunshinepress/Getty Images).
In the words of our longtime supporter Gerry Condon “‘Too bad Chelsea Manning could not be in this picture.”

Update 10/7/13: Project Censored says Pvt. Manning’s case was the top underreported story of 2012-13.

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Project Censored, which aims to “promote independent investigative journalism, media literacy, and critical thinking,” writes about why Private Manning’s case merited so much attention:

According to Manning’s testimony in February 2013, he tried to release the Afghanistan and Iraq War Logs through conventional sources. In winter 2010, he contacted the Washington Post, the New York Times, and Politico in hopes that they would publish the materials. Only after being rebuffed by these three outlets did Manning begin uploading documents to WikiLeaks. Al Jazeera reported that Manning’s testimony “raises the question of whether the mainstream press was prepared to host the debate on US interventions and foreign policy that Manning had in mind.”

And on what mainstream reporters focused on instead:

US corporate media have largely shunned Manning’s case, not to mention the importance of the information he released. When corporate media have focused on Manning, this coverage has often emphasized his sexual orientation and past life, rather than his First Amendment rights or the abusive nature of his imprisonment, which includes almost three years without trial and nearly one year in “administrative segregation,” the military equivalent of solitary.

Read the rest of that story here.
See the full list of underreported stories here.

Update 10/10/13: War on whistleblowers has chilling effect on gov’t accountability

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Pardon Chelsea Manning! Sign the petition!

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) released a report today raising serious issues with Obama’s attempts to silence whistleblowers and journalists. They state that the Obama administration’s aggressive prosecutions, and newly transformed relationship with the media, has had a chilling effect on the ability of the press to hold the government to account. Disturbing, given Obama’s promise of accountability and transparency. “U.S. President Barack Obama came into office pledging open government, but he has fallen short of his promise”, they write.
Government employees witnessing corruption and wrongdoing do not have the proper outlets to expose wrongdoing, and are intimidated against doing so:

“Those suspected of discussing with reporters anything that the government has classified as secret are subject to investigation, including lie-detector tests and scrutiny of their telephone and e-mail records. An ‘Insider Threat Program’ being implemented in every government department requires all federal employees to help prevent unauthorized disclosures of information by monitoring the behavior of their colleagues.”

The crackdown on transparency and on exposing wrongdoing in the government has also depended on the prosecution of journalist sources under the “Espionage Act”, which the report states is the Obama administrations most successful tool for silencing whistleblowers. And the prosecution of Chelsea Manning “was a turning point” in the Obama administration’s war on whistleblowers.
The Guardian covers the report in its article “Obama’s efforts to control leaks ‘most aggressive since Nixon”:

Under Obama, the Espionage Act has been used to mount felony prosecutions against six government employees and two contractors accused of leaking classified information to the press, including Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning and Edward Snowden. In all previous administrations, there had been just three such prosecutions.

Stand up for transparency. Stand up for whistleblowers. Stand up for Chelsea Manning!

Pardon Pvt. Chelsea Manning!

Our support for transparency advocate Chelsea Manning

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By the Private Manning Support Network. October 11, 2013.

The fight to free army whistle-blower Chelsea Manning continues, and we at the Private Manning Support Network remain committed to respecting Chelsea as a real, human being as we enter the post-trial effort to celebrate her moral actions and win her early release.
Now that Manning has begun her 35-year sentence in earnest and chosen to share more of herself publicly with supporters, it may be a good time to reflect on how we, as supporters, should continue to orient our efforts.
The Private Manning Support Network (formerly the Bradley Manning Support Network) has always made every effort to work directly with Chelsea, those family members closest with her, and her lawyer, David Coombs. We look forward to having even greater input from her in structuring our campaign going forward.
At times, some have found our messaging too conservative in our commitment to respect Manning’s individuality. Given her limited access to supporters over the past three years, it’s been important to us never to misrepresent Chelsea as something she is not, or to put words in her mouth. Only Chelsea herself, of course, knows in full the thought process and the hopes behind her decision to release information.
To us–and to hundreds of thousands of supporters–it has always been obvious that her actions in 2010 intersect crucially not only with issues of information transparency but also with a critical discussion about U.S. wars and foreign policy. Since 2010, we have never regretted that decision, and Chelsea’s statements to date continue to vindicate our leap of faith:

• “I initially agreed with these methods and chose to volunteer to help defend my country. It was not until I was in Iraq and reading secret military reports on a daily basis that I started to question the morality of what we were doing. It was at this time I realized in our efforts to meet this risk posed to us by the enemy, we have forgotten our humanity. We consciously elected to devalue human life both in Iraq and Afghanistan.” (letter for presidential pardon)

• “I believed … this could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general.” (Iraq & Afghan War Logs)

• “I also believed the detailed analysis of the data … might cause society to reevaluate the need or even the desire to even to engage in counter-terrorism and counterinsurgency operations that ignore the complex dynamics of the people living in the affected environment everyday.” (Iraq & Afghan War Logs)

Time and again, Pvt Chelsea Manning has demonstrated that she is a thoughtful, complex individual who defies blunt labels. And as her recent statements to The Guardian newspaper convey, attempts to define her simply as a “pacifist”–or any other sort of -ist, for that matter–will likely fall short. Chelsea has reiterated she is an advocate for more transparency in government, and above all she wishes that the public has more information with which to make their own informed decisions
We continue to fight to bring Chelsea home sooner rather than later, in appreciation of her moral actions valuing human life, transparency, information access, and an informed citizenry. We agree emphatically with Chelsea that public information and critical discussion is a top-order goal necessary for democracy, and that’s why we’ve supported her all along.
Manning’s disclosures have forwarded the debates around government secrecy, militarism and wars that continue to prove so costly in so many ways. For this selfless public service, we continue our efforts and echo Chelsea’s own words of gratitude for all of her supporters:
“I want to thank everybody who has supported me over the last three years. Throughout this long ordeal, your letters of support and encouragement have helped keep me strong. I am forever indebted to those who wrote to me, made a donation to my defense fund, or came to watch a portion of the trial. I would especially like to thank Courage to Resist and the [Private] Manning Support Network for their tireless efforts in raising awareness for my case and providing for my legal representation.”

This was drafted partly as a indirect response to Pvt. Chelsea Manning’s letter published in the UK Guardian recently, to which her attorney David Coombs has also publicly responded to.