Saturday, August 30, 2014

Free Chelsea Manning Now!

 

Our new whistle and dogtags logo!

manning-logo-color500
August 28, 2014.
The Chelsea Manning Support Network is pleased to announce our new campaign logo. Supporters submitted over a dozen great designs, and we received great feedback via our Facebook page on the final designs.
Please feel free to download the PDF via our Graphic Resources page and use it to print your own banners, shirts, etc. You can also use the PDF to print one-of-a-kind items via on-demand online printers, such as CafePress and Zazzle (you have our permission).
We are also having union labor silk-screen quality USA-made, sweatshop-free, black shirts (basic and women’s styles) that are now available for pre-order. We have a few stickers in the works as well.
These small vector PDF files scale well from a small sticker up to billboard size!
A Voice From The Left-The Latest From The Steve Lendman Blog
(Welcome Back To This Blog After A Short Hiatus For Mr. Lendman To Take Care Of Medical Issues.)

 
A link below to link to the Steve Lendman Blog

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Over the years that I have been presenting political material in this space I have had occasion to re-post items from some sites which I find interesting, interesting for a host of political reasons, although I am not necessarily in agreement with what has been published. Two such sites have stood out, The Rag Blog, which I like to re-post items from because it has articles by many of my fellow Generation of ’68 residual radicals and ex-radicals who still care to put pen to paper and the blog cited here, the Steve Lendman Blog.  The reason for re-postings from this latter site is slightly different since the site represents a modern day left- liberal political slant. That is the element, the pool if you will, that we radicals have to draw from, have to move left, if we are to grow. So it is important to have the pulse of what issues motivate that milieu and I believe that this blog is a lightning rod for those political tendencies.  

A Jackman disclaimer:
I place some material in this space which may be of interest to the radical public that I do not necessarily agree with or support. Sometimes I will comment on my disagreements and sometimes I will just let the author/writer shoot him or herself in the foot without note. Off hand, as I have mentioned before in other contexts, I think it would be easier, infinitely easier, to fight for the socialist revolution straight up than some of the “remedies” provided by the commentators in the entries on this website. But part of that struggle for the socialist revolution is to sort out the “real” stuff from the fluff as we struggle for that more just world that animates our efforts. Read on.
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Friday, August 29, 2014


Gaza War Postmortems

Gaza War Postmortems

by Stephen Lendman

Israel's Operation Protective Edge (OPE) was well-planned premeditated aggression.

It had nothing to do with Hamas rockets. It wasn't about crushing Palestine's legitimate government.

Israel needs enemies. When none exist, they're invented. They're blamed for Israel's crimes.

OPE was about preventing Palestinian self-determination. It was to maintain occupation harshness. It was to keep stealing Palestinian land. 

It was to expand settlements exponentially. It was to control all valued parts of Judea and Samaria. 

It was to keep Palestinians confined on isolated bantustans on worthless scrubland. It was to steal their resources.

It was to assure diaspora Palestinians don't return. It was to maintain Gaza's blockade while pretending otherwise when hostilities ended.

It was to have Jerusalem as Israel's exclusive capital. It was to undermine Fatah/Hamas unity.

It was to give Israel sole prerogative to commit high crimes against peace with impunity. 

It was to show Palestinians they're defenseless against overpowering Israeli might.

It was to wage aggressive wars any time against invented enemies for whatever reasons Israel invents.

It was to enlist popular homeland support for what demands condemnation.

Each side claimed victory. Netanyahu said Hamas was "hit hard and got none of its demands." 

He threatened an even tougher response should there be so much as a "sprinkle" of rocket fire from Gaza.

A late August Shiluv Millward Brown poll on whether Israelis support him showed he plunged from a record 82% high in July to 38% now.

Yedioth Ahronot is Israel's largest circulation daily. According to columnist Alex Fishman:

"Both sides did not exactly want this campaign. Both sides made all possible errors dragging them into it, and both sides find themselves today returning to square one, where they were at the start of the warfare."

Hamas military wing spokesman Abu Obeida said:

"Gaza achieved victory because it has done what major armies failed to do. It forced the enemy to retreat." 

"We must know that no voice is louder than the voice of the resistance."

Hamas political head Khaled Meshal said his organization has many rockets left. Tunnels remain.

"If necessary, if the negotiations fail, we will return to resistance until our goals are achieved," he said.

Asked how he could claim victory after accepting the same Egyptian-brokered terms he rejected weeks earlier, he said:

"Our demands were just, but in the end we had the Palestinian demands on the one hand and the pain of Gaza's civilian population on the other." 

"So we agreed to the cease-fire in the knowledge that the siege will be lifted, that the other issues like the seaport and airport will be on the negotiating table in another month, and that the weapon in the hands of the resistance are the guarantees that its goals, above all the building of an airport and seaport, along with the release of the prisoners, will be achieved."

"This military campaign revived resistance as a realistic possibility for the Palestinian people."

"This is not the end of the battle to liberate the land. We presented the Palestinian national issue and the siege of Gaza before the international community."

"The (earlier) peace talks improved Israel's image in the world, but now the resistance has exposed (its) true face." 

"Israel can no longer present itself as the victim. It has become a burden on the world."

Meshal praised Palestinian "resistance forces," saying:

"We shattered the idea of the (Israeli) army that never surrenders. That's already happened before, but this time it happened to an unprecedented degree." 

"We succeeded in creating mutual, equal deterrence on the basis of pain vs. pain."

As for disarming, he added:

"No power on earth can disarm the resistance. Israel is not interested in international decisions because Netanyahu is not interested in a political solution."

Addressing the Israeli public, he said:

"Your leadership lies to you, and acts in the name of its self-interest to survive politically." 

"You need to understand that there is no security as long as the occupation goes on." 

"We are not enemies on account of religion. We respect every religion. Our enemy is the occupation."

Days before the ceasefire, longtime Israeli collaborator Mahmoud Abbas met secretly with Netanyahu in Amman, Jordan.

It was their first face-to-face meeting since September 2010. No confirmation from either side followed. Netanyahu's office declined to comment.

Senior PA official Nabil Shaath said Washington pressured Israel into halting hostilities even though terms announced omitted demanding Hamas disarm.

Days earlier, Netanyahu said Israel was pursuing a new diplomatic "horizon." He declined to elaborate.

Last Sunday, Abbas said he would reveal a "surprise" diplomatic initiative Washington wouldn't like. It won't matter.

According to Shaath, the PA wants a Security Council resolution ending Israel's occupation. It wants a timetable to accomplish it.

Given a certain US veto if this type resolution is presented, Palestinian officials will petition the International Criminal Court (ICC) to prosecute Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon for war crimes.

The ICC is a longtime Western imperial tool. It targets victims. Perpetrators like America and Israel operate freely. 

They do so with impunity. Don't expect this time to be different.

Throughout over seven weeks of conflict, Washington supported Israel's killing machine.

Its posture belied its rhetorical highminded concern for human rights, democratic values and rule of law principles.

It showed Israel can commit high crimes against peace with impunity. Thousands of mostly civilian Palestinian casualties didn't matter. 

They attest to Israel's barbarity. They're considered legitimate targets. International law affirms otherwise.

Large parts of Gaza lie in ruins. Billions of reconstruction dollars are  needed. Where will funding come from? 

How many years are required to complete an overwhelming job? How will affected Gazans cope in the meantime?

Will concern for them fade when headlines disappear? Will reconstruction matter after virtually certain future Israel aggression destroys what's rebuilt?

Without unconditionally lifting Gaza's siege, ending occupation, assuring Palestinian self-determination within June 1967 borders, and holding Israel fully accountable for genocidal mass murder and destruction, will anything else really matter?

After long denied justice, Palestinians remain isolated on their own. Western leaders able to help do nothing.

They support Israeli genocide. Palestinian suffering doesn't matter. Premeditated Israeli aggression is considered self-defense.

Big Lies substitute for hard truths. Fundamental rights aren't important. Wars are glorified in the name of peace.

Israel gets away with genocidal crimes of war and against humanity because nations able to act do nothing.

Expect nothing different this time. Business as usual continues. 

Expect long denied Palestinian injustice to persist. Expect future Israeli aggression. Expect Palestinians blamed for its crimes.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. 

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. 

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs. 


http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour

 



TONIGHT IN NYC! Meet Eddie Conway, recently released political prisoner

August 15th, 2014
Don’t miss this opportunity to meet Marshall “Eddie” Conway, Black Panther political prisoner released in March after 44 years in prison:

FRIDAY, AUGUST 15, 6:00 to 10:00 pm
Martin Luther King, Jr., Labor Center of 1199 SEIU
310 West 43rd Street (between 8th and 9th Ave.)
Free admission

Abiodun of the Last Poets,
Spoken Word Poet Earl of Bet’s Deff Poetry,
Maroon Society and The Drum Circle featuring Joyce Jones
Lawrence Hayes former Political Prisoner,Cisco Torres of the San Francisco 8
Charles Barron
Charles “Cappy” Pinderhughes, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Essex College
Lumumba Bandele
The Malcolm X Grassroots MovementLaura Whitehorn former Political Prisoner
Dequi Kioni-Sadiki The Malcolm X Commemoration Committee
Attorney Bob Boyle


Support Tom Manning’s New Book of Art!

August 15th, 2014
Lynne reads the new book of art from political prisoner Tom Manning, “For Love and Liberty.” She urges everyone to pick up a copy today and support Tom!
Click this link to order your copy today: http://www.freedomarchives.org/Tom%20Manning.html

Update on Jamil Al Amin

July 17th, 2014 Lynne wants everyone to know that Jamil is now at Butner Medical Center (federal prison facility) and we all must continue to pay close attention to his situation and make sure he gets good treatment while there.
The will be an update TONIGHT (7/17) at 8pm Eastern on the WBAI program Where We Live. Click here to go to the WBAI website and stream live tonight.

Emergency Meeting for Jamil Al Amin!

July 15th, 2014
"America, Where Are You Now...."- Stepphenwolf's The Monster-Take Two



A YouTube Film Clip Of Stepphenwolf Performing Monster. Ah, Those Were The Days
Commentary/CD REVIEW

Steppenwolf: 16 Greatest Hits, Steppenwolf, Digital Sound, 1990

America where are you now?
Don't you care about your sons and daughters?
Don't you know we need you now
We can't fight alone against the monster

The heavy rock band Steppenwolf, one of many that was thrown up by the musical counter-culture of the mid to late 1960's was a cut above and apart from some of the others due to their scorching lyrics provided mainly, but not solely, by gravelly-voiced lead singer John Kay. Some bands played, consciously played, to the “drop out” notion of times, drop out of rat-race bourgeois society and it money imperative, its white picket fence with little e white house visions (from when many of the young, the post-World War II baby-boomer young, now sadly older), drop out and create a niche somewhere, some physical somewhere perhaps but certainly some other mental somewhere and the music reflected that disenchantment, Much of which was ephemeral, merely background music, and has not survived (except in lonely YouTube cyberspace). Others, flash pan “music is the revolution,” period exclamation point, end of conversation bands assumed a few pithy lyrics would carry the day and dirty old bourgeois society would run and hide in horror leaving the field open, open for, uh, us. That music too, except for gens like The Ballad Of Easy Rider, is safely ensconced in vast cyberspace.


Steppenwolf was different. Not all the lyrics worked, then or now. Not all the words are now some forty plus years later memorable. After all every song is written with current audience in mind, and notions of immortality for most songs are displaced. Certainly some of the less political lyrics seem entirely forgettable. As does some of the heavy decibel rock sound that seems to wander at times like, as was the case more often than not, and more often that we, deep in some a then hermetic drug thrall, would have acknowledged, or worried about. But know this- when you think today about trying to escape from the rat race of daily living then you have an enduring anthem Born To Be Wildthat still stirs the young (and not so young). If Bob Dylan's Like A Rolling Stone was one musical pillar of the youth revolt of the 1960's then Born To Be Wild was the other.


And if you needed (or need) a quick history lesson about the nature of American society in the 1960's, what it was doing to its young, where it had been and where it was heading (and seemingly still is as we finish up the Afghan wars and the war signals for intervention into Syria and Iran, or both are beating the war drums fiercely) then the trilogy under the title "The Monster" (the chorus which I have posted above and lyrics below) said it all.


Then there were songs like The Pusher Man a song that could be usefully used as an argument in favor of decriminalization of drugs today and get our people the hell out of jail and moving on with their lives and other then more topical songs like Draft Resister to fill out the album. The group did not have the staying power of others like The Rolling Stones but if you want to know, approximately, what it was like for rock groups to seriously put rock and roll and a hard political edge together give a listen.
Words and music by John Kay, Jerry Edmonton, Nick St. Nicholas and Larry Byrom

(Monster)

Once the religious, the hunted and weary
Chasing the promise of freedom and hope
Came to this country to build a new vision
Far from the reaches of kingdom and pope
Like good Christians, some would burn the witches
Later some got slaves to gather riches
But still from near and far to seek America
They came by thousands to court the wild
And she just patiently smiled and bore a child
To be their spirit and guiding light
And once the ties with the crown had been broken
Westward in saddle and wagon it went
And 'til the railroad linked ocean to ocean
Many the lives which had come to an end
While we bullied, stole and bought our a homeland
We began the slaughter of the red man
But still from near and far to seek America
They came by thousands to court the wild
And she just patiently smiled and bore a child
To be their spirit and guiding light
The blue and grey they stomped it
They kicked it just like a dog
And when the war over
They stuffed it just like a hog
And though the past has it's share of injustice
Kind was the spirit in many a way
But it's protectors and friends have been sleeping
Now it's a monster and will not obey


(Suicide)
The spirit was freedom and justice
And it's keepers seem generous and kind
It's leaders were supposed to serve the country
But now they won't pay it no mind
'Cause the people grew fat and got lazy
And now their vote is a meaningless joke
They babble about law and order
But it's all just an echo of what they've been told
Yeah, there's a monster on the loose
It's got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there watchin'
Our cities have turned into jungles
And corruption is stranglin' the land
The police force is watching the people
And the people just can't understand
We don't know how to mind our own business
'Cause the whole worlds got to be just like us
Now we are fighting a war over there
No matter who's the winner
We can't pay the cost
'Cause there's a monster on the loose
It's got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there watching

(America)
America where are you now?
Don't you care about your sons and daughters?
Don't you know we need you now
We can't fight alone against the monster


© Copyright MCA Music (BMI)
All rights for the USA controlled and administered by
MCA Corporation of America, INC

--Used with permission--
Born To Be Wild

Words and music by Mars Bonfire
Get your motor runnin'
Head out on the highway
Lookin' for adventure
And whatever comes our way
Yeah Darlin' go make it happen
Take the world in a love embrace
Fire all of your guns at once
And explode into space
I like smoke and lightning
Heavy metal thunder
Racin' with the wind
And the feelin' that I'm under
Yeah Darlin' go make it happen
Take the world in a love embrace
Fire all of your guns at once
And explode into space
Like a true nature's child
We were born, born to be wild
We can climb so high
I never wanna die
Born to be wild
Born to be wild
© MCA Music (BMI)
All rights for the USA controlled and administered by
MCA Corporation of America, INC

--Used with permission--
THE PUSHER
From the 1968 release "Steppenwolf"
Words and music by Hoyt Axton

You know I've smoked a lot of grass
O' Lord, I've popped a lot of pills
But I never touched nothin'
That my spirit could kill
You know, I've seen a lot of people walkin' 'round
With tombstones in their eyes
But the pusher don't care
Ah, if you live or if you die
God damn, The Pusher
God damn, I say The Pusher
I said God damn, God damn The Pusher man
You know the dealer, the dealer is a man
With the love grass in his hand
Oh but the pusher is a monster
Good God, he's not a natural man
The dealer for a nickel
Lord, will sell you lots of sweet dreams
Ah, but the pusher ruin your body
Lord, he'll leave your, he'll leave your mind to scream
God damn, The Pusher
God damn, God damn the Pusher
I said God damn, God, God damn The Pusher man
Well, now if I were the president of this land
You know, I'd declare total war on The Pusher man
I'd cut him if he stands, and I'd shoot him if he'd run
Yes I'd kill him with my Bible and my razor and my gun
God damn The Pusher
Gad damn The Pusher
I said God damn, God damn The Pusher man\
© Irving Music Inc. (BMI)
--Used with permission--

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