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Saturday, March 15, 2014
Solidarity
Statement from LGBTQ organizations
We
stand with Veterans for Peace
Boston,
MA – Saturday,
March 15th – We and our LGBTQ organizations and communities wish to
show solidarity with Veterans for Peace and all they have done to carry the
message of unity between our community and the Peace Movement in the Saint
Patrick’s Peace Parade. There are many LGBTQ veterans in Vets for Peace (locally
and nationwide) and their entire organization has shown great integrity and
support for the LGBTQ community. We speak with one voice regarding this issue
and urge the traditional St. Patrick’s Parade organizers to accept the Veterans
for Peace and all other honorable and peace-loving groups to be in the
traditional parade. It would not be enough for us, just to win the right for the
LGBTQ to march in the traditional parade. We will not leave our sisters and
brothers from Veterans for Peace behind.
“Our
Peace Parade is not going away until we have one welcoming inclusive parade for
all without censorship” Pat Scanlon, Smedley B. Butler Brigade, chapter 9,
Vets for Peace, Massachusetts
Signed:
Boston
Pride
Stonewall
Warriors
Tony
Fernandes, National Coordinator, Lavender Caucus, SEIU/AFL-CIO
Jennifer
Doe, Co-chair, GALLAN/Pride at Work Boston
NERP/POSE
2014 Regional Pride conference (Atlanta) - 6-9
March 2014
Boston Pride / Latin@ Pride / Black Pride
2014 - 6-16 June 2014
WorldPride 2014 Toronto - 20-29 June
2014
Coming Out Day 2014 -
October 2014InterPride 2014 Annual World
Conference (Pittsburgh) - 23-16 October 2014
InterPride 2015
Annual World Conference (Las Vegas) - Fall 2015
WorldPride 2017
Madrid - Summer
2017
***Out In The 1940s Film Noir Night- T For Trouble- T For Treasury Man-Anthony Mann’s T-Men- A Film Review
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
T-Men, starring Dennis O’Keefe, directed by Anthony Mann, Eagle Lion Productions, 1947
No question, at least in my mind, the police procedural noirs from the 1940s and 1950s are the weakest form of the genre. Especially when, like the film under review, Anthony Mann’s T-Men they are essentially a propaganda documentary for some governmental agency. Here the Treasury Department’s counterfeiting squad gets the shining glowing light treatment. The main problem with this sub-genre is that unlike a femme fatale-driven noir where we hope the femme does not rough up the guys too badly or a private detective entry where we wish the tough gumshoe success for his client we know from the beginning that the bad guys, here a nation-wide syndicate passing bad dough and bad liquor stamps, is doomed to fail.
A run through of the plot-line here tells the tale. Seems Uncle Sam (that’s us) is miffed that post-World War II bad guy gangs are passing bad paper and nicking the government (that’s you and me, okay) of its liquor revenues, nicking it big time. Naturally this thumb in the eye has all the top Washington Treasury bureaucrats (that’s not you and me but our public servants) screaming bloody murder. So naturally to figure out how the nation-wide operation was succeeding and putting a stop to it there had to be a sting operation. A sting operation which includes two T-men , two keen agents, including the key agent (played by Dennis O’Keefe) working their way into the operation to see who Mister Big is and to grab him and put him away for about 99 years, or life anyway.
So the two agents dot the i’s and cross the t’s by working their way up in the organization starting in poor benighted Detroit and crossing the country to sunnyland LA. Their work gets them so far but the organization did not get to the organization by being saps for undercover cops and they get a little hip to the fact that one of the agents does not seen to be on the square. And so they in time-honored tradition waste the agent which our boy Dennis O’Keefe watched in horror. But that is really the end of the drama because as every film noir aficionado knows, knows 101, once a cop, a good guy, get wasted by bad guys or femmes then the old adage about “crime does not pay” comes home with a vengeance. And that is about it, except that any Anthony Mann film is worth watching for the cinematography, the great black and white shadow photography, and the nice pacing.
*** As March 17th Approaches-Remembrances Of Saint Patrick’s Peace Parade 2012
From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin
“Hey, just follow the Veterans For Peace (VFP) white and black dove-emblazoned flags down to D Street and you’ll run right into the Saint Patricks’ Peace Parade staging area,” a grizzled veteran, looking like a man who had seen his share of battles in war and peace, bellowed to one and all as Frank Jackman and his veteran and peace activist companions exited the Broadway Redline MBTA station on that overheated March 17th 2012 Sunday late morning in order to form up in that parade the old vet had informed them about. Headed out into the South Boston (Southie) day.
[As it turned out, by the way, when Frank “interviewed” him later while they were waiting in that flag-festooned staging area, the grizzled veteran, Bob Ballad, had indeed seen his share of battles, having done two tours in ‘Nam, two tours as a “grunt,” an infantry man, “cannon fodder,” during hell time, 1966-68, and also of peace time battles against drugs and liquor, a couple of bouts of homelessness, a couple of divorces, and a few other of the now well-knownpathologies ofthose who had had trouble coming back to the “real world “ after Vietnam that Frank had witnessed in his own family, in his own old time Hullsville neighborhood,and among his fellow VFPers. Moreover , unlike Frank, who was also a Vietnam veteran and hadturned anti-war while in the military, that grizzled vet had not turned against war, the rumors of war, and all that war entails until his own son started clamoring for permission to go in the service when Iraq exploded in 1991. That is when he put his foot down, kept his son out, and had been a stalwart anti-warrior ever since. Talk about a guy with street “cred” on war issue. Welcome aboard, brother, welcome aboard]
Frank had to chuckle to himself a little as he and his companions headed up Broadway among the throngs who were forming up for the official parade that although he had grown up in the Irishtown section of Hullsville (you could hardly walk down a street of that town at this time of year and not be confronted with more green than you would ever see short ofmaybe Dublin , and that was true even these days when the town itself, reflecting a couple of generations more moving south out ofBoston had lost it dominate Irish feel) and had lived in Boston on and off for most of his adult life he had never gone to the official parade. Well except that one time in high school junior year when he and “flame” Kathy Flanagan (she of the long wild red hair, light freckled face and green eyes, and thin athletic body who disturbed his sleep more than one night in those days) had “skipped” school (unlike in Boston which was in a different county from Hullsville they did not have the day off from school in the days when the holiday was celebrated on the actual day not only on Sunday) and headed via the long haul Eastern Mass bus armed with a pint ofSouthern Comfort, the drink of choice and cheap, over to the parade. They never got there, to the parade anyway. They had stopped off at Carson Beach and started drinking that ambrosia and well, one thing led to another andwho gave a damn about some silly shamrock drunken parade anyway when a guy had a wild, green-eyed, red-headed girl next to him on the seawall. So, although he had many close connections with old “Southie,” the first stop for many of the famine-borne (famine of one kind or another, not just the food kind although that was writ large on that benighted country’s history) Irish, including his family, this was to be the first time that he showed up in Southie for a parade on Saint Patty’s Day. And of course while he might be on those same hallowed official parade streets his purpose that day was to march with the VFP contingent in their alternative peace parade.
Frank was not sure of all the details then about why there was a need for a separate parade, although later after the event he dug out some of the details from some guys who were closely involved in organizing the alternative event, but the gist of it centered on exclusion. Everybody in town, everybody who cared anyway, knew that back in the 1990s the official parade organizers had gone to court, hell, had gone all the way to the Supremes, over excluding gays and lesbians (even Irish gays and lesbians like somehow such human categories could not exist in Catholic-heavy Irishtown and was a dastardly thing, a mortal sin maybe, so if there were then they did want any part of it publicly). And won, won the right to exclude whomever they wanted from their “private” parade, as the Supremes in one of their more arcane legal decisions that made no sense when he read it backed them up.
See though, when you have a “right” to exclude that can take you into some strange places so when the VFP decided they wanted march in the official parade to protest various war actions of the American government, or just to send out a peace message to a large crowd they too were excluded by the official parade organizers. The “reason”-short and simple reason, they, the officials, didn’t want the words “veterans” and “peace” put together in their parade.Hence the march of the excluded that VFP had first organized the previous year. And hence too Frank Jackman had that year responded to their call and was approaching the staging area with that sense of solidarity in mind.
As Frank waited, seemingly endlessly waited for the peace parade to step off(the officials had, as part of their victory, been able to legally keep any other formations at least one mile behind their procession) he began to think of the many connections he had with this old section of town, this section that he had heard had changed demographically and in other ways as the Irish moved south and the younger more diverse set moved in and rehabilitated the old cold- water triple-deckers that lined all the lettered and numbered streets of the section (at least showing some sense of order since the real of the town was identified by a miasma of odd-ball combinations). He remembered ancient first murky visits to those old cold- water flats where some great aunts and their huge broods lived in splendid squalor and of cheap ribbon candy offered at Christmas time and not much else. Or funny things like the few times that he had been “privileged” to drive his material grandmother Riley(nee O’Brian) over to Southie so that the sisters (some of those grand-aunts) could go to one of the “ladies invited” taverns and get drunk since Grandpa Riley refused, absolutely refused, to have liquor in the house (or cigarettes either). He wished he could remember the exact gin mill but he couldn’t except that it was near the Starlight Ballroom.
Or when he was older and his uncle on his mother’s side had taken him to Jim and Joe’s farther up Broadway, up toward M Street, and “baptized” him with his first drink of whiskey straight up (no beer chasers then, that would could later). Or later still when he became something of a regular at Jim and Joe’s while he was working his way through college servicing vending machines for York Vending just around the corner from the D Street staging area and the guys, the mainly Southie guys that he worked with, “forced” him to drink with them after work, drink straight shot whiskey (and hence the genesis of beer chasers). Beyond those episodes though, except an occasion walk on Carson Beach (with and without female companionship) he had not been around Southie much since then.
After a while, a long hot while, since the weather was unseasonably warm for March in Boston, the peace parade stepped off, stepped off with VFP black and white dove-emblazoned flags flying in the lead paced by several cars for those really old (so he thought) World War IIveterans, veterans from Frank’s late father’s time sitting on board. As he looked back he noticed a huge banner calling for No War On Iran and another calling for Freedom For Private Bradley Manning, another worthy cause, and behind that contingents of LGBT in various combinations, and behind them broken up at intervals by marching bands other progressive and social groups wishing to express solidarity with the excluded here, and throughout the world. Frank felt good, felt he had made the right decision to come this day despite some medical problems recently.
As the parade turned onto Broadway, old Broadway, of a thousand drinks and other assorted goings on, he again thought about the old days as he passed various landmarks, or the spots where the landmarks had been once. Artie’s where his first serious serious “flame” Sheila Shea had left him, left him for good, Jim and Joe’s now called the Green Tavern, where he had had more cheap whiskeys than he cared to recall, a couple of places farther up where ladies were invited back then (quaint notion, right),and he had been invited by a couple of ladies and then up where anothersmall “flame” Minnie Kiley had lived, then up and over to cavernous East Broadway where the triple-deckers of his early youth still stood thick as thieves.
Then he started to notice that those self-same triple- deckers had been upgraded and that those who stood on the sidewalks clapping as the parade went by were not the “from hunger” Irish second and third cousins of his youth but looked, well, wed-fed and well-cared for. And as they marched toward the end of the parade route at Andrew Square he also noticed, very distinctly noticed, a small section of streets where gay men were standing with a sign and cheering. Frank then flashed back to an earlier time when the deep dark secret in Aunt Bernice’s brood, the one from K Street, was that one of the boys, Harry, was “different” and had been banished from the house. Yes, things had certainly changed but he wished that those idiots who were so keen on exclusion had moved away from those whiskey and beer chaser bar stools and come into the sunlight…
Heroic Wikileaks Whistleblower Private Chelsea Manning ‘s Fight For Freedom Will Again Be Remembered At The Fourth Annual Veterans For Peace-Led Saint Patrick’s Peace Parade in South Boston On March 16, 2014
We will be forming up at the corner of D Street and West Fourth in South Boston (take Redline MBTA to Broadway Station-walk up four blocks and then left) at 1 PM for a 2 PM step-off (note time change). Supporters of Chelsea Manning will be out in force distributing informational leaflets and stickers as well as encouraging participants to sign the Amnesty International and Private Manning Support Network petitions calling on President Barack Obama to pardon her. We will not leave our sister behind ******** President Obama, Pardon Pvt. Manning
Because the public deserves the truth and whistle-blowers deserve protection.
We are military veterans, journalists, educators, homemakers, lawyers, students, and citizens.
We ask you to consider the facts and free US Army Pvt. Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning.
As an Intelligence Analyst stationed in Iraq, Pvt. Manning had access to some of America’s dirtiest secrets—crimes such as torture, illegal surveillance, and corruption—often committed in our name.
Manning acted on conscience alone, with selfless courage and conviction, and gave these secrets to us, the public.
“I believed that if the general public had access to the information contained within the[Iraq and Afghan War Logs] this could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy,”
Manning explained to the military court. “I wanted the American public to know that not everyone in Iraq and Afghanistan were targets that needed to be neutralized, but rather people who were struggling to live in the pressure cooker environment of what we call asymmetric warfare.”
Journalists used these documents to uncover many startling truths. We learned:
• Donald Rumsfeld and General Petraeus helped support torture in Iraq.
• Deliberate civilian killings by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan went unpunished.
• Thousands of civilian casualties were never acknowledged publicly.
• Most Guantanamo detainees were innocent.
For service on behalf of an informed democracy, Manning was sentenced by military judge Colonel Denise Lind to a devastating 35 years in prison.
Government secrecy has grown exponentially during the past decade, but more secrecy does not make us safer when it fosters unaccountability.
Pvt. Manning was convicted of Espionage Act charges for providing WikiLeaks with this information, butthe prosecutors noted that they would have done the same had the information been given to The New York Times. Prosecutors did not show that enemies used this information against the US, or that the releases resulted in any casualties.
Pvt. Manning has already been punished, even in violation of military law.
She has been:
• Held in confinement since May 29, 2010.
• Subjected to illegal punishment amounting to torture for nearly nine months at Quantico Marine Base, Virginia, in violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), Article 13—facts confirmed by both the United Nation’s lead investigator on torture and military judge Col. Lind.
• Denied a speedy trial in violation of UCMJ, Article 10, having been imprisoned for over three years before trial.
• Denied anything resembling a fair trial when prosecutors were allowed to change the charge sheet to match evidence presented, and enter new evidence, after closing arguments.
Pvt. Manning believed you, Mr. President, when you came into office promising the most transparent administration in history, and that you would protect whistle-blowers. We urge you to start upholding those promises, beginning with this American prisoner of conscience.
We urge you to grant Pvt. Manning’s petition for a Presidential Pardon.
FIRST& LAST NAME _____________________________________________________________
STREET ADDRESS _____________________________________________________________
CITY, STATE & ZIP _____________________________________________________________
Attached: Press Release, Parade Flyer, Open Letter to Residents of Boston
Mayor Walsh and Representative Steven Lynch
Officially Invited to Walk in the
Saint Patrick’s Peace Parade
Boston, Mass. – March 12, 2014 – Organizers of the Saint Patrick’s Peace Parade announced today that Mayor Marty Walsh and Representative Steven Lynch have been cordially invited to walk in the only parade on the streets of Boston on March 16 that is open, welcoming and inclusive of all groups whether they are veterans or non-veterans, gay or straight, black or white.
Mayor Walsh attempted to negotiate a suitable agreement with the Allied War Veterans Council to allow MassEquality to openly walk in the traditional parade. As has been widely reported those negotiations have fallen apart because of the intransience and continued exclusionary and discriminatory practices of the organizers of the traditional parade. The Mayor has publically stated that he will not walk in the first parade if MassEquality does not walk. MassEquality is not walking.
“Ones sexual orientation simply does not matter” stated Pat Scanlon, Coordinator of Veterans For Peace and the lead organizer for the second parade. “Our parade has eight divisions. One is the LGBT Division”. The other divisions are: Veterans For Peace, Peace, Religious, Environmental Stewardship, Political, Labor, Social and Economic Justice. “We welcome diversity”, stated Scanlon, “and invite all members of the LGBT community to come and join the second parade.Both Mayor Walsh and Representative Lynch are welcome to join that division and truly show support for the LGBT community. It would be a significant statement for both of these politicians to walk under the rainbow flag”.
Since the breakdown of negotiations it appears as if both politicians are attempting to solicit one or more gay veterans to walk with them, crashing the party so to speak. “This appears to be more a desire to be in the first parade rather than actually supporting the LGBT community,” stated Reverend Lara Hoke, a Navy veteran, a lesbian and member of Veterans For Peace. “We understand the desire of both Mayor Walsh and Representative Lynch, who have walked in this parade for many years, to want to walk in the first parade” said Rev. Hoke.. “If MassEquality is not walking in that first parade openly with banners, signs, posters, songs and or clothing proclaiming who they are while celebrating Saint Patrick then Mayor should not walk either. The Mayor instead should join the inclusive and welcoming second parade, the Saint Patrick’s Peace Parade”. If Mayor de Blasio can walk in the alternative parade in New York City, Mayor Walsh can do the same in Boston”.
Participants in the Saint Patrick’s Peace Parade will assemble at 2:00 pm on West Broadway and D streets in South Boston on Sunday, March 16.
The 4th Annual Saint Patrick’s Peace Parade, the alternative people’s parade for Peace, Equality, Environmental Stewardship, Jobs, Social and Economic Justice is just around the corner. In a few days we will gather once again in South Boston for the only “Peace Parade” in the country. Our parade has been growing every year. We have wonderful bands, floats, vehicles, drummers and a couple thousand participants.
We do not charge anyone to be in our parade
We do not have big corporate sponsors giving us money for our parade
We don’t sell advertisements
We don’t have rich benefactors or underwriters
We do not have a trust fund supporting our parade
One thing we do have is YOU.
We also have a lot of expenses and would like to ask our friends to help us with a small donation. Our parade is not a high budget item but it still costs us several thousands of dollars.
We would like to ask our friends to help support us with parade expenses.
If you are able to contribute, please take a moment and consider writing us a check, to help defray some of our expenses.
Checks can be made out to: Veterans For Peace
Mail you check to:
Veterans For Peace
P.O. Box 1604
Andover, MA 01810
On behalf of the Saint Patrick’s Peace Parade Organizing Committee,
THANK YOU
Erin Go Bragh
Pat Scanlon (VN 69’)
Coordinator, Veterans For Peace, Smedley D. Butler Brigade
Note change: Form Up At 1:00 PM For A 2:00 PM Step-Off
Cause
No to Bigotry in South Boston!
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Massachusetts Peace Action is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization working to develop the sustained political power to foster a more just and peaceful U.S. foreign policy.
Through grassroots organizing, policy advocacy and community education, we promote human rights and global cooperation, seek an end to war and the spread of nuclear weapons, and support budget priorities that re-direct excessive military spending to meeting human and environmental needs in our communities.
For the past four years Veterans For Peace have been denied to walk in the historic Saint Patrick’s Parade in South Boston. This is the largest parade of its kind in the country with over 700,000 people viewing the parade. The parade has a dual purpose; the celebration of Saint Patrick and the Irish traditions and heritage and a celebration of Evacuation Day, the day the British were run out of Boston. Both days fall on March 16th, so the City of Boston thought it a good idea to have the Allied War Veterans Council (AWVC) organize the parade. The problem is that one side of the equation, St. Patrick, a man of peace, is second fiddle to a military parade. AWVC has the exclusive say in who gets to walk in this historical parade. The City of Boston, South Boston Community Groups, the Boston Police have absolutely no say in who walks the streets of South Boston in the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade.
In 2011 Veterans For Peace’s application was denied, when asked why and were told, “They did not want to have the word Peace associated with the word Veteran”. Well they did not know the Smedleys very well. We pulled our own permit and with only three weeks to go before the parade pulled together 500 people and the Saint Patrick’s Peace Parade, the Alternative People’s Parade for Peace, Equality, Jobs, Environmental Stewardship, Economic and Social Justice was born.
Twenty years ago the LGBT community wanted to walk in the parade and were denied which resulted in a lawsuit that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court resulting in the Hurley Decision. The Smedleys immediately reached out to the LGBT community, inviting them to “walk in our parade”
In 2013 we had close to 2,000 people, seven divisions (Veterans, Peace, LGBT, Labor, Political, Religious, Occupy Everywhere) two bands, bag pipers, drummers, a Duck Boat, two trollies etc. It was a grand success. We have an Environmental Stewardship Division this year. Our goal is to end this last vestige of institutionalized exclusion, prejudice, bigotry, and homophobia and make this parade inclusive and welcoming to all and bring the message of peace to South Boston on Saint Patrick’s Day.
Please join us in South Boston on March 16. Be sure to bring your Chapter’s or Organization’s banners, signs and costumes and join us in our fabulous Fourth Annual Saint Patrick’s Peace Parade. On behalf of the Saint Patrick’s Peace Parade Organizing Committee.
Thank you,
Pat Scanlon (VN '69)
Coordinator, VFP Chapter 9, Smedley Butler Brigade Vets4PeaceChapter9@gmail.com Phone: 978-475-1776
On behalf of the Saint Patrick’s Peace Parade Organizing Committee.