The United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) Demands "US
Hands off Ukraine and Venezuela"
The United States government is the main instigator of
the present crises in both countries.
The hypocrisy of
Secretary of State John Kerry’s statement on Face the Nation, “You just don't in
the 21st century behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on
completely trumped up pretext," is beyond belief. What about the US invasions
of Iraq and Afghanistan, or regime change in Libya, or the threats to bomb Syria
and attack Iran?
The US has waged a
massive propaganda campaign of misinformation, distortion, and outright lies and
the national media has taken the State Department’s “facts” and disseminated
them without question or challenge. News about the US/EU role in creating the
current crisis is buried.
The US is the only
country that has its troops throughout the world in over 120 countries. It
sends drones and special operations forces to kill anyone and anywhere it
chooses and uses its vast economic power to undercut any government that will
not submit to its policies. Although there is lip service to concerns about
democracy and sovereignty, the reality is that the US acts in the interests of
preserving its imperialist power and wealth.
Ukraine and Venezuela are not exceptions to this rule of
imperialist intervention. For 20 years, $5 billion was invested in Ukraine to
support the opposition and to create tens of thousands of non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) to move the country more towards the US and EU and their
policies. In an intercepted phone call between Assistant Secretary of State
Victoria Nuland and the US ambassador to Ukraine, she discusses who the US wants
to be the head of the new illigitimate government, and lo and behold, the US
pick, Arseniy Yatseniuk, is named as the interim Ukrainian leader. This is
clearly outside intervention in the affairs of a sovereign country that would
not be tolerated if directed at the US or its allies.
What are the real
objectives and why is Russia so alarmed? Could it be the US-NATO campaign to
militarily surround Russia and bring neighboring countries into the western
military and financial orbit? Might it be that the largest supply of natural
gas in the world is in Russia and the pipelines go through Ukraine, or that
global warming is opening the Arctic to oil drilling and Russia borders the
Arctic? It is clear that Russia will not passively sit by while the
Western-backed coup, led by violent fascist forces and local billionaires,
overthrows a democratically elected government and installs a puppet regime on
its border.
By treaty, Russia
can have 25,000 troops in Crimea. To protect its military base there and to
protect the people in the Eastern and Southern parts of the country, where the
coup is not supported, Russia has moved some troops to the Ukrainian border and
into the Crimean peninsula. Many in the east and south are fearful of the new
coup government and the neo-Nazi and nationalist forces that led the street
demonstrations.
The escalating
threats of military and economic aggression towards Russia should not be taken
lightly. Washington’s recklessness and disregard for humanity have resurrected
the worst vestiges of cold war politics. They have created a dangerous
situation that can generate a real war with an adversary with a powerful
military of its own.
The US is
similarly intervening in Venezuela. There, the US government wants a return to
policies which brought the benefits of that nation’s oil wealth to a privileged
few. The Bolivarian Revolution has been supported by a majority of Venezuelans
in election after election. Yet the United States persists in violating the
sovereignty and self-determination of the Venezuelan people. In 2002, the US
supported a coup against the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. During this
coup, Chavez was forced onto a US military plane to be taken out of the
country. The Venezuelan people and military were able to rescue Chavez and
defeat the coup. However, the US has continued to intervene in Venezuela
causing the government of Nicolas Maduro to expel three US officials for trying
to organize students for anti-government protests.
As long as the
United States is committed to aggression, the whole world is endangered, just as
Ukraine and Venezuela are. Libya fell, Syria is under attack, there is a “pivot
to Asia”, and Africom controls the military in almost every African nation. We
must demand that our government stop its policy of imperialist domination which
generates conflict throughout the world.
NO TO US WARS,
THREATS, ATTACKS, SANCTIONS, AND COVERT OPERATIONS IN UKRAINE, RUSSIA,
VENEZUELA, AND ALL OTHER SOVEREIGN COUNTRIES!
MONEY FOR JOBS,
EDUCATION, HEALTHCARE AND MEETING SOCIAL NEEDS, NOT WAR AND AGGRESSION TO
BENEFIT THE RICH!
3/6/14
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Saturday, March 08, 2014
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***Sitting On The Rim Of The World- With The Son Of The Neon Wilderness Nelson Algren In Mind-Take Three
He wrote of small-voiced people, the desperately lonely, alienatedpeople who inhabit the Nighthawk Diner (artist Edward Hopper’s or Tom Waits’ take your pick), the restless, the sleepless, the shiftless, those who worked the late shift, those who drew the late shift of life, those who worked better under the cover of night in the dark alleyways and sullen doorways.
He wrote big time, big words, about the small-voiced people, big words for people who spoke in small words, spoke small words about small dreams, or no dreams, spoke only of the moment, the eternal moment. Waiting eternally waiting to get well, to get some kicks. Waiting for the fixer man, waiting for the fixer man to fix what ailed them. Not for him the small voice pleasant Midwestern farmers proving breadbaskets to the world, the prosperous small town drugstore owners, or of Miss Millie’s beauty salon (although one suspects that he could have) for in the pull and push of the writing profession they had (have) their muses. Nor was he inclined to push the air out of the small town banker seeking a bigger voice, the newspaper publisher seeking to control the voices or the alderman or his or her equivalent who had their own apparatuses for getting their small voices heard (although again one suspects he could have, if so inclined, shilled for that set). No, he, Nelson Algren, he, to give him a name took dead aim at the refuge of society, the lumpen as he put it in the title of one short story, those sitting on the rim of the world.
And he did good, did good by his art, did good by his honest snarly look at the underside of society, and, damn, by making us think about that quarter turn of fate that separated the prosperous farmer (assuming as we must that he, secretly, was not short-weighting the world), the drugstore owner (assuming as we must that he, secretly, was not dispensing his wares, his potent drugs, out the back door to a craving market) , Miss Millie (assuming as we must that she, secretly, was not running a call girl service on the side), the banker (assuming as we must that he, maybe secretly maybe not, was not gouging rack rents and usurious interest), the newspaper editor (assuming as we must that he, very publicly, in fact was printing all the news fit to print), and the politician (assuming as we must that he, secretly, was not bought and paid for by all of the above, or others) from the denizens of his mean streets. The mean city streets, mainly of Chicago, but that is just detail, just names of streets and sections of town to balance his work where his characters eked out an existence, well, anyway they could, some to turn up face down in some muddy ravine, under some railroad trestle, in some dime flop house, other to sort of amble along in the urban wilderness purgatory.
Brother Algren gave us characters to chew on, plenty of characters, mostly men, mostly desperate (in the very broadest sense of that word), mostly with some jones to work off, mostly with some fixer man in the background to wreak havoc too. He gave us two classics of the seamy side genre, one, the misbegotten Frankie Machine, the man with the golden arm, the man with the chip on his shoulder, the mid-century(20th century, okay) man ill at ease in his world, ill at ease with the world and looking, looking for some relief, some kicks in that mid-century parlance, and, two, that hungry boy, that denizen of the great white trash night, Dove Linkhorn, who, perhaps more than Frankie spoke to that mid-century angst, spoke to that world gone wrong, for those who had just come up, come up for some place where time stood still to gain succor in the urban swirl, to feast at the table,come up from the back forty lots, the prairie golden harvest wheat fields, the Ozarks, all swamps and ooze,mountain wind hills and hollows, the infested bayous and were ready to howl, howl at the moon to get attention.
I remember reading somewhere, and I have forgotten where now, that someone had noted that Nelson Algren’s writing on Dove Linkhorn roots was the most evocative piece on the meaning of the okie–arkie out migration segment of that mid-century America ever written, the tale of the wandering boys, the railroad riders, the jungle camp jumpers, the skid row derelicts. Hell, call it by its right name, the white trash, that lumpen mush. And he or she was right, of course, after I went back and re-read that first section of Walk On The Wild Side where the Linkhorn genealogy back unto the transport ships that brought the first crop of that ilk from thrown out Europe are explored. All the pig thieves, cattle-rustlers, poacher, highwaymen, the “what did some sociologist call them, oh yeah, “the master-less men, those who could not or would not be tamed by the on-rushing wheels of free-form capitalism picked up steam, the whole damn lot transported. And good riddance.
The population of California after World War II was filled to the brim with such types, the feckless hot rod boys, boys mostly too young to have been though the bloodbaths of Europe and Asia building some powerful road machines out of baling wire and not much else, speeding up and down those ocean-flecked highways looking for the heart of Saturday night, looking for kicks just like those Chicago free-flow junkies, those twisted New Orleans whoremasters. Wandering hells angels riding two by two (four by four if they felt like it and who was to stop them) creating havoc for the good citizens of those small towns they descended on, descended on unannounced (and unwelcomed by those same good citizens). In and out of jail, Q, Folsom, not for stealing pigs now, but armed robberies or some egregious felony, but kindred to those lost boys kicked out of Europe long ago. Corner boys, tee-shirted, jacket against cold nights, hanging out with time on their hands and permanent smirks, permanent hurts, permanent hatreds, paid to that Algren observation. All the kindred of the cutthroat world, or better cut your throat world, that Dove drifted into was just a microcosm of that small-voiced world.
He spoke of cities, even when his characters came fresh off the farm, abandoned for the bright lights of the city and useless to that short-weighting farmer who now is a prosperous sort, making serious dough as the breadbasket to the world. They, the off-hand hot rod king, the easy hell rider, the shiftless corner boy, had no existence in small towns and hamlets for their vices, or their virtues, too small, too small for the kicks they were looking for. They needed the anonymous city rooming house, the cold-water flat, the skid- row flop house, the ten- cent beer hall, hell, the railroad jungle, any place where they could just let go with their addictions, their anxieties, and their hunger without having to explain, endlessly explain themselves, always, always a tough task for the small-voiced of this wicked old world. They identified with cities, with city 24/7/365 lights, with Algren’s blessed neon lights, city traffic (of all kinds), squalor, cops on the take, cops not on the take, plebeian entertainments, sweat, a little dried blood, marked veins, reefer madness, swilled drinks, white towers, all night diners (see it always comes back to that lonely, alienated Nighthawk Diner just ask Waits), the early editions (for race results, the number, who got dead that day, the stuff of that world), a true vision of Edward Hopper’s Nighthawk for a candid world.
He spoke of jazz and the blues, as if all the hell in this wicked old world could be held off for a minute while that sound sifted thought the night fog air reaching the rooming house, the flop, the ravine, the beer hall as it drifted out to the river and drowned. Music not upfront but as a backdrop to while the steamy summer nights away, and maybe winter too. Strangely, or maybe not so strangely, he spoke of a small-voiced white world, residents of white slums and pursuers of white- etched dreams and only stick character blacks but his beat, his writing rhythm made no sense without the heat of Trouble In Mind or that cool blast of Charlie Parker, Miles, Dizzie be-bopping, made absolutely no sense, and so it went.
He spoke of love too. Not big flamed love, big heroes taking big falls for some hopeless romance like in olden times but squeezed love, love squeezed out of a spoon, maybe, but love in all its raw places. A guy turning his woman into a whore to feed his endless habit love, and her into a junkie love. A woman taking her man through cold turkey love. A man letting his woman go love, ditto woman her man when the deal went wrong. When the next best thing came by. Not pretty love all wrapped in a bow, but love nevertheless. And sometimes in this perverse old world the love a man has for a woman when, failing cold turkey, he goes to get the fixer man and that fixer man get his woman well, almost saintly and sacramental. Brothers and sisters just read The Last Carousel if you want to know about love. Hard, hard love. Yah, Nelson Algren knew how to give voice, no holds barred, to the small-voiced people.
***Sitting On The Rim Of The World- With The Son Of The Neon Wilderness Nelson Algren In Mind-Take Three
He wrote of small-voiced people, the desperately lonely, alienatedpeople who inhabit the Nighthawk Diner (artist Edward Hopper’s or Tom Waits’ take your pick), the restless, the sleepless, the shiftless, those who worked the late shift, those who drew the late shift of life, those who worked better under the cover of night in the dark alleyways and sullen doorways.
He wrote big time, big words, about the small-voiced people, big words for people who spoke in small words, spoke small words about small dreams, or no dreams, spoke only of the moment, the eternal moment. Waiting eternally waiting to get well, to get some kicks. Waiting for the fixer man, waiting for the fixer man to fix what ailed them. Not for him the small voice pleasant Midwestern farmers proving breadbaskets to the world, the prosperous small town drugstore owners, or of Miss Millie’s beauty salon (although one suspects that he could have) for in the pull and push of the writing profession they had (have) their muses. Nor was he inclined to push the air out of the small town banker seeking a bigger voice, the newspaper publisher seeking to control the voices or the alderman or his or her equivalent who had their own apparatuses for getting their small voices heard (although again one suspects he could have, if so inclined, shilled for that set). No, he, Nelson Algren, he, to give him a name took dead aim at the refuge of society, the lumpen as he put it in the title of one short story, those sitting on the rim of the world.
And he did good, did good by his art, did good by his honest snarly look at the underside of society, and, damn, by making us think about that quarter turn of fate that separated the prosperous farmer (assuming as we must that he, secretly, was not short-weighting the world), the drugstore owner (assuming as we must that he, secretly, was not dispensing his wares, his potent drugs, out the back door to a craving market) , Miss Millie (assuming as we must that she, secretly, was not running a call girl service on the side), the banker (assuming as we must that he, maybe secretly maybe not, was not gouging rack rents and usurious interest), the newspaper editor (assuming as we must that he, very publicly, in fact was printing all the news fit to print), and the politician (assuming as we must that he, secretly, was not bought and paid for by all of the above, or others) from the denizens of his mean streets. The mean city streets, mainly of Chicago, but that is just detail, just names of streets and sections of town to balance his work where his characters eked out an existence, well, anyway they could, some to turn up face down in some muddy ravine, under some railroad trestle, in some dime flop house, other to sort of amble along in the urban wilderness purgatory.
Brother Algren gave us characters to chew on, plenty of characters, mostly men, mostly desperate (in the very broadest sense of that word), mostly with some jones to work off, mostly with some fixer man in the background to wreak havoc too. He gave us two classics of the seamy side genre, one, the misbegotten Frankie Machine, the man with the golden arm, the man with the chip on his shoulder, the mid-century(20th century, okay) man ill at ease in his world, ill at ease with the world and looking, looking for some relief, some kicks in that mid-century parlance, and, two, that hungry boy, that denizen of the great white trash night, Dove Linkhorn, who, perhaps more than Frankie spoke to that mid-century angst, spoke to that world gone wrong, for those who had just come up, come up for some place where time stood still to gain succor in the urban swirl, to feast at the table,come up from the back forty lots, the prairie golden harvest wheat fields, the Ozarks, all swamps and ooze,mountain wind hills and hollows, the infested bayous and were ready to howl, howl at the moon to get attention.
I remember reading somewhere, and I have forgotten where now, that someone had noted that Nelson Algren’s writing on Dove Linkhorn roots was the most evocative piece on the meaning of the okie–arkie out migration segment of that mid-century America ever written, the tale of the wandering boys, the railroad riders, the jungle camp jumpers, the skid row derelicts. Hell, call it by its right name, the white trash, that lumpen mush. And he or she was right, of course, after I went back and re-read that first section of Walk On The Wild Side where the Linkhorn genealogy back unto the transport ships that brought the first crop of that ilk from thrown out Europe are explored. All the pig thieves, cattle-rustlers, poacher, highwaymen, the “what did some sociologist call them, oh yeah, “the master-less men, those who could not or would not be tamed by the on-rushing wheels of free-form capitalism picked up steam, the whole damn lot transported. And good riddance.
The population of California after World War II was filled to the brim with such types, the feckless hot rod boys, boys mostly too young to have been though the bloodbaths of Europe and Asia building some powerful road machines out of baling wire and not much else, speeding up and down those ocean-flecked highways looking for the heart of Saturday night, looking for kicks just like those Chicago free-flow junkies, those twisted New Orleans whoremasters. Wandering hells angels riding two by two (four by four if they felt like it and who was to stop them) creating havoc for the good citizens of those small towns they descended on, descended on unannounced (and unwelcomed by those same good citizens). In and out of jail, Q, Folsom, not for stealing pigs now, but armed robberies or some egregious felony, but kindred to those lost boys kicked out of Europe long ago. Corner boys, tee-shirted, jacket against cold nights, hanging out with time on their hands and permanent smirks, permanent hurts, permanent hatreds, paid to that Algren observation. All the kindred of the cutthroat world, or better cut your throat world, that Dove drifted into was just a microcosm of that small-voiced world.
He spoke of cities, even when his characters came fresh off the farm, abandoned for the bright lights of the city and useless to that short-weighting farmer who now is a prosperous sort, making serious dough as the breadbasket to the world. They, the off-hand hot rod king, the easy hell rider, the shiftless corner boy, had no existence in small towns and hamlets for their vices, or their virtues, too small, too small for the kicks they were looking for. They needed the anonymous city rooming house, the cold-water flat, the skid- row flop house, the ten- cent beer hall, hell, the railroad jungle, any place where they could just let go with their addictions, their anxieties, and their hunger without having to explain, endlessly explain themselves, always, always a tough task for the small-voiced of this wicked old world. They identified with cities, with city 24/7/365 lights, with Algren’s blessed neon lights, city traffic (of all kinds), squalor, cops on the take, cops not on the take, plebeian entertainments, sweat, a little dried blood, marked veins, reefer madness, swilled drinks, white towers, all night diners (see it always comes back to that lonely, alienated Nighthawk Diner just ask Waits), the early editions (for race results, the number, who got dead that day, the stuff of that world), a true vision of Edward Hopper’s Nighthawk for a candid world.
He spoke of jazz and the blues, as if all the hell in this wicked old world could be held off for a minute while that sound sifted thought the night fog air reaching the rooming house, the flop, the ravine, the beer hall as it drifted out to the river and drowned. Music not upfront but as a backdrop to while the steamy summer nights away, and maybe winter too. Strangely, or maybe not so strangely, he spoke of a small-voiced white world, residents of white slums and pursuers of white- etched dreams and only stick character blacks but his beat, his writing rhythm made no sense without the heat of Trouble In Mind or that cool blast of Charlie Parker, Miles, Dizzie be-bopping, made absolutely no sense, and so it went.
He spoke of love too. Not big flamed love, big heroes taking big falls for some hopeless romance like in olden times but squeezed love, love squeezed out of a spoon, maybe, but love in all its raw places. A guy turning his woman into a whore to feed his endless habit love, and her into a junkie love. A woman taking her man through cold turkey love. A man letting his woman go love, ditto woman her man when the deal went wrong. When the next best thing came by. Not pretty love all wrapped in a bow, but love nevertheless. And sometimes in this perverse old world the love a man has for a woman when, failing cold turkey, he goes to get the fixer man and that fixer man get his woman well, almost saintly and sacramental. Brothers and sisters just read The Last Carousel if you want to know about love. Hard, hard love. Yah, Nelson Algren knew how to give voice, no holds barred, to the small-voiced people.
RainbowTimes
the best Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Newspaper in New England
Boston St. Patrick’s Peace Parade participants lining up before parade.
Photo: TRT Archives
By: Chuck Colbert*/ TRT Reporter—
BOSTON, Mass.—When Irish eyes are smiling, the world is bright and gay, or so go lyrics of the popular song. Except, historically, on St. Patrick’s Day in South Boston, where openly gay groups are still not permitted to participate.
For several years, the parade organizers—Allied War Veterans Council—emboldened by a 1995 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, have denied marching permission for LGBT and peace veterans groups as a matter of First Amendment, free-speech rights. However, serious efforts are underway to change that.
“This is the year we all should put pressure on politicians,” said Pat Scanlon, Vietnam veteran and coordinator of Veterans for Peace, Chapter 9, Smedley D. Butler Brigade, an organization banned from marching in the South Boston parade for several years.
Scanlon pointed to changing demographics of South Boston and a new mayor as hopeful signs the peace veterans contingent will be able to march, along with openly LGBT groups. Back in September 2013, Veterans for Peace applied to Allied War Veterans, but by December 9, 2013, when the peace-vet organization had not received a reply, Scanlon sent a follow up letter.
“When Massachusetts is, in so many ways, a beacon of inclusion for the LGBTQ community, it is disappointing to see parade organizers continue to cultivate a climate of rejection and exclusion.” —Kara Coredini, MassEquality Director.
“The exclusion of Veterans for Peace, the LGBT community, and other peace organizations, from participating [in the parade] should come to an end,” Scanlon wrote. “It is time that there be one parade that is open, inclusive and welcoming to any group wishing to celebrate this very special day. It is Saint Patrick’s Day, a celebration of the patron saint of Ireland and Saint Patrick was a man of peace.”
Scanlon’s letter pointed not only to changing attitudes toward LGBT people in society at large, but also to cultural and social changes within South Boston.
“Many members of the LGBT community currently live, work and worship” in the neighborhood, he wrote.
In fact, two parades have trekked through the streets of South Boston since 2010 when the peace veterans first applied but were rejected. Scanlon said parade organizers used not wanting the word “peace” connected to the word “veteran” as reason enough to ban the group from marching. Last year, when the Veterans for Peace organized the second march, which took place one hour after the main event and was separated by Boston city street sweepers, the parade had more than 2,000 participants. Those who marched with the St. Patrick’s Peace Parade included six bands, trolleys, duck boats, floats, and the like—all organized into eight separate divisions under the categories of veterans, peace, LGBT, religious, environmental, labor, political, social, and economic justice.
Born on St. Patrick’s Day, Scanlon, 66, a straight Irish American who grew up Catholic in Philadelphia and attended parochial schools for 19 years, explained his motivation.
“This is an injustice,” Scanlon said. “An injustice against one is an injustice against all, and in one of the most progressive cities in the country, if not the world, to have this injustice taking place should not be tolerable.”
The father of a gay son, Scanlon does not mince words in calling out the ban on LGBT groups.
“It’s homophobic,” he said, referring to the attitude of parade organizers. “It’s exclusion. It’s hatred. That’s what all this is about.”
In addition to applying to the Allied War Veterans Council, Scanlon said his parade group has also asked the City of Boston for its own parade permit with a 12 p.m. kick-off time, one hour before Allied War Veterans’ start time.
Michael Dowling, 59, a gay resident of South Boston for 35 years and president of the South Boston Association of Non-Profits, is taking another approach. He said the community-based non-profit association has applied to the Allied War Veterans, proposing “an inclusive unit called ‘We are South Boston.’” The application, he explained, contains “really strong, inclusive language, including LGBT language with signs that would identify participants in the parade.”
Dowling said he takes issue with Scanlon’s outsider approach.
“The efforts of Pat Scanlon have helped perpetuate the hardships of the neighborhood and how it is portrayed,” Dowling said.
He went on to explain why.
“Because when [Scanlon] calls the neighborhood bigoted and homophobic, he riles up those hatreds that are still there, and makes it more difficult for people to be out, and makes it more difficult for people to work here,” said Dowling. “So it sets us back.”
But Scanlon takes issue with Dowling’s suggestion of such name calling. The South Boston neighborhood is not the problem, said Scanlon, explaining, “The attitudes of the residents of South Boston have changed dramatically in the last 20 years.” It’s the Allied War Veterans who hold bigoted and homophobic attitudes, he said.
At the same time, both Scanlon and Dowling said they believe South Boston has indeed changed significantly in the last two decades.
“Everything in South Boston has changed,” said Scanlon. “The neighborhood has changed, the politics have changed, the culture has changed, and [Catholic] churches have closed. The only thing that has not changed is the attitude of the six guys who run the parade. That too will change.”
Dowling agreed with the changing demographics and attitudes, citing local civic groups that are inclusive of LGBT people, namely One Southie and The New Southie, both of which have Facebook pages, and the West Broadway Citizens group, which Dowling said consists predominantly of gay men who live on that thoroughfare. Dowling said South Boston Association of Non Profits is working with the neighborhood-based civic and social groups, among others, to gain permission to march.
Like Scanlon, Dowling is also seeking to gain support for their respective approaches from elected officials, including state Senator Linda Dorcena of the First Suffolk District and state Representative Nick Collins of the Fourth Suffolk District, both Democrats. South Boston falls within their respective legislative districts. Both Scanlon and Dowling have also contacted Boston’s new mayor, Martin J. Walsh, and District Two City Councilor Bill Linehan, a lifelong South Boston resident, in hopes that they can broker a deal or solution to the standoff. Linehan was also elected president of city council in early January. Scanlon has also written to the Boston Police Department and penned an open letter to residents of the city.
Dowling said he is hopeful that the neighborhood insider’s approach is the way out of the gay-ban situation, a way for the Allied War Veterans and everybody to move forward. Back in the early 90s when an openly gay group—The Irish American Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Group of Boston (GLIB)—marched in the parade, Dowling paid a steep price for supporting the gay group. Along the parade route, he handed out pink roses to gay, lesbian, and bisexual marchers.
“Every window in my house was broken,” Dowling said.He added, consequently, that he had every good reason “to beat up on the neighborhood.”“But I have chosen to replace hatred of our community with service to that community,” Dowling explained.
A painter and noted artist, Dowling founded Medicine Wheels Production as a South Boston-based nonprofit organization in 2000. Its mission is “to transform communities from the inside out” through “the healing and transcendent power of public art.” Medicine Wheel’s signature event is on World AIDS Day. Another focus addresses youth drug abuse and teen suicide.
Neither Veterans for Peace nor South Boston Association of Non Profits have heard back yet from parade organizers. Both Dowling and Scanlon said they are preparing strategies if their applications are rejected. Undoubtedly, the issue will find its way to the office of Mayor Walsh, who told a reporter during the mayoral election last fall, “What needs to happen,” is a private “conversation” away from the media’s glare, with “organizers of the parade.”
“As mayor, I will sit down with them and work out a compromise so that people can feel like they can march in the parade,” Walsh explained. “This parade should be inclusive, and that goes for every other parade marching on public streets.”
Meanwhile, MassEquality, the statewide grassroots organization, has also applied to march.
“We will continue to apply every year until MassEquality is permitted to march,” said Kara S. Coredini, executive director.
Like the other two groups, MassEquality has not yet heard back from parade organizers on the status of its application. However, the parade is not among MassEquality’s highest priorities.
Neither Veterans for Peace nor South Boston Association of Non Profits have heard back yet from parade organizers.
“The LGBTQ community in Massachusetts faces many issues more urgent than the ability to participate in a parade—youth homelessness, bullying, anti-transgender discrimination, HIV/AIDS, elder abuse, and more,” Coredini explained. “But public rejection by an established cultural institution like the St. Patrick’s Day Parade is significant in that it’s emblematic of the more life-altering rejection our community members face every day. When Massachusetts is, in so many ways, a beacon of inclusion for the LGBTQ community, it is disappointing to see parade organizers continue to cultivate a climate of rejection and exclusion. At the heart of MassEquality’s work electing pro-LGBTQ champions and advancing pro-LGBTQ legislation is changing attitudes, and each day because of that work we come closer to the day when this parade will be opened to all.”
This year’s St. Patrick Day Parade is scheduled for Sunday, March 16._______
*Chuck Colbert marched in the 1992 and 1993 South Boston St. Patrick’s Day Parade as one of 25 participants in the Irish American Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Group of Boston.
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