Monday, May 22, 2017

Veterans On the March • Memorial Day in D.C

Veterans On the March • Memorial Day in D.C.

Veterans On the March!
Stop Endless War • Build for Peace!
“War is a racket: A few profit, the many pay!”– Major General Smedley Butler, USMC
May 29 and 30, 2017  Washington DC
May 29, 2017:  Letters to the Vietnam Memorial Wall • Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial
May 30, 2017: Lincoln Memorial • White House
Hundreds of Veterans and allies gather at the White House December, 2010 to demand PeaceHundreds of Veterans and allies gather at the White House December, 2010 to demand Peace
In response to President Trump’s outrageous budget proposal, including a $54 billion increase for the Pentagon, VFP and other veterans groups will not be silent. Planning for this was started in response to VFP’s galvanizing statement about Trump’s Military Budget and our desire and responsibility as veterans, citizens and human beings to express our strong resistance to his policies and our commitment to find a better way to peace.
The Trump administration recently fired 59 Tomahawk missiles into Syria, in violation of international and U.S. law. After that, the largest non-nuclear bomb was dropped on Afghanistan, an impoverished country that has suffered enough already. Trump has been making threats towards North Korea that could initiate a nuclear war – WWIII. He says, he will not tell anyone ahead of time what he will do.
Donald Trump and his administration appear to be destroying this planet with utter disregard for our children and grandchildren.
Veterans cannot be silent. On May 29th and 30th Veterans For Peace and other veterans groups will be in Washington, DC, to make our collective veterans' voices heard loud and clear and we invite you to join us! 
On Memorial Day,  Veterans For Peace will gather for a solemn and respectful occasion to deliver letters at the Vietnam Memorial Wall and to remember all combatants and civilians who died in Vietnam and all wars. We will mourn the tragic and preventable loss of life calling for people to abolish war in the name of those who have died and for the sake of all those who live today.
On the 30th we will boldly and loudly demand an end to war, an end to the assault on our planet, an end to abuse and oppression of all people and to stand for peace and justice at home and abroad. 
Demands:
1. Dismantle the U.S. Empire at Home and Abroad!

2. Close all U.S. Bases on Foreign Soil – Bring the Troops Home!

3. Ban Nuclear Weapons! 

4. Decrease the Pentagon Budget – Money for Education, Infrastructure and Sustainable Green Energy

5. Dismantle Corporate Control of our Government 

6. Dismantle the School to Prison/Military Pipeline– Create Humane Methods of Rehabilitation
Schedule:
Monday, May 29: Meeting at 9 AM at the Bell Tower, adjacent to the Wall for a briefing by Doug Rawlings and an opportunity to read some of this year’s letters; 10:30 AM, we deliver letters to The Wall; from 11:30 to 12 we proceed ½ mile to MLK Memorial; at 12:30 we begin a public reading of MLK’s Riverside Church address, his Beyond Vietnam speech. After the MLK event we gather back at the Bell Tower to engage with the public. At 6:30 PM we meet for a social gathering at Busboys & Poets.
Tuesday: May 30: 11 AM rally at Lincoln Memorial w/hour of short, uplifting speeches, then after the rally VFP will be going to the White House fence to demand our meeting with the president. We will read the letter from VFP President Barry Ladendorf asking for a public meeting, which will have been sent previously to the White House. 
 We will have legal support and musical accompaniment.
To RSVP for the event, please fill out this form.
Share the Event on Facebook.
For more information contact Tarak Kauff, VFP National Board Member, takauff@gmail.com, 845 679-6189 or 845 706-0187
For more information on the Letters to the Wall project contact Doug Rawlings,  rawlings@maine.edu, 207 500-0193

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In Boston- Memorial Day Stand Out

VFP Smedley
To  smedleyvfp@googlegroups.com  
Just a reminder for those of you who are not going to Washington
next Monday, we are having another stand-out this, time at Park St.
between one and two.  We will have flags and flyers and hopefully
we will have the same positive response from passers by as at
Harvard Square.  
Stand Out - Park Street T Stop, Monday, May 29th
between one and two.
We had sixteen at Harvard Square.  Let's try to get more at Park St.!
Your executive committee
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In Boston-Memorial Day Stand Out

VFP Smedley
To  smedleyvfp@googlegroups.com  
Just a reminder for those of you who are not going to Washington
next Monday, we are having another stand-out this, time at Park St.
between one and two.  We will have flags and flyers and hopefully
we will have the same positive response from passers by as at
Harvard Square.  
Stand Out - Park Street T Stop, Monday, May 29th
between one and two.
We had sixteen at Harvard Square.  Let's try to get more at Park St.!
Your executive committee
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "SmedleyVFP" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to Smedleyvfp+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
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UFPJ Action Alert: Tell Congress - No Weapons Sales! Stop War Crimes in Yemen!

United for Justice with Peace
To  markin  
1 attachment

UFPJ Action Alert: Tell Congress - No Weapons Sales! Stop War Crimes in Yemen!

Dear UJP Activist, Donald Trump has just left Saudi Arabia. Stand with us to end US support for the Saudi war in Yemen! The Trump administration has approved the resumption of sales of precision-guided munitions to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in a heartless reversal of the previous administration’s …
Upcoming Events: 
Boston Voices for Trade JusticeWednesday, May 24, 2017 - 7:00pmSt. Mary's Episcopal ChurchDorchester
Standout at Harvard Graduation for Justice for PalestiniansThursday, May 25, 2017 - 3:30pmHolyoke Construction site, Harvard SquareCambridge
March to Stop President Trump's death budgetWednesday, May 31, 2017 - 11:30amTip O'Neil Federal BuildingBoston
Stolen Generations: Rally and March Against Israeli OccupationMonday, June 5, 2017 - 5:00pmCambridge City HallCambridge
Forum on the Right to Boycott and Support Palestinian RightsSaturday, June 10, 2017 - 10:30amCentral Square LibraryCambridge
UNAC 2017 national conference (United National Antiwar Coalition)Friday, June 16, 2017 - 4:00pmGreater Richmond Convention CenterRichmond
Women's March to Ban the Bomb -- New York CitySaturday, June 17, 2017 - 12:30pmOutside Bryant ParkNew York City
Watertown Citizens for Peace annual meeting and potluckSunday, June 18, 2017 - 5:30pmAuditorium at the apartments at Coolidge SchoolWatertown
Newsletter: 
UJP Activist
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On The Occasion Of The Centennial Of John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s Birthday-Frank Jackman’s Journey

On The Occasion Of The Centennial Of John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s Birthday-Frank Jackman’s Journey



By Political Commentator Frank Jackman

Sure now, as anybody who is familiar with the American Left History on-line site and The Progressive Journal print site that I write for these days knows, or should be expected to know, I along with many of my political kindred have long raked many of the policies and projects that John Fitzgerald Kennedy, President of the United States 1961-1963, initiated over the coals. Most notable for those of us who were inspired, maybe inflamed by the exploits of the revolutionaries (without being revolutionaries ourselves but proper liberals and social democrats) in Cuba who overthrew the Batista regime was the fumbled Bay of Pigs invasion in the spring of 1961 which was our first point of serious differences with a generally positive attitude toward Camelot and the deep state escalation of American involvement in Vietnam which led to the slippery slope that tore this society asunder as we can as near to a cold civil war as we had in this country until very recently. There were other generic differences that came to the fore later when we were seeking, desperately seeking, for what brother Robert Kennedy called, “stealing” a page from Alfred Lord Tennyson, “ a newer world.” Looking for more socialist-oriented solutions to what ailed society.        

All that however was later. Today I want to speak of the promise that the election of JFK meant to a bunch of Irish Catholic corner boys from the poverty-stricken Acre section of North Adamsville back in the fall of 1960 when we felt that first fresh breeze coming over the land from the icy depths of the red scare Cold War night that we had come of political age in. That “fresh breeze,” as I have noted many, many times elsewhere an expression that fellow corner boy the late Peter Paul Markin (the actual Markin, not the moderator of the ALH blog site who uses that moniker in honor of our fallen brother long departed) would endlessly bore us with in those days when all we gave a rat’s ass (also an expression I have used many, many times concerning our reaction to Markin’s “fresh breeze” statement) was girls, getting dough to deal with girls and cars, “boss” cars not necessarily in that order. (To be fair to Markin he was the king hell king of the midnight creep when we needed dough at the times when his seamier side got ahead of the “better angel of his nature”). 

While none of us, me, Jack Callahan, Frankie Riley, Phil Larkin, Jimmy Murphy, Ralph Kiley, Ricky Russo, Allan Stein, the corner boys although the latter two were not full Irish, but only half Irish got as carried away with Markin’s fresh breeze coming that he continued to spout forth for another half decade before it did come in the form of the many threads that led up to the Summer of Love, San Francisco, 1967 which Alex James and others have written about in this the 50th anniversary year of that “youth nation” explosion we were thrilled beyond words to be able to say “one of own,” an Irish Catholic had done what Al Smith could not do a few decades before and get elected president in a low-slung Protestant-controlled country. (My grandfather never got over the dirty campaign waged by the “refined” WASPs, the Brahmins, you know the people with the three-name monikers like Wesley Stuart Gardner, names like that.) It did not matter that JFK was the scion of “chandelier” Irish unlike our own “shanty” Irish digs. He was ours in all its glory.            

Markin, like in many other such endeavors was the bell-weather for our take on JFK. For getting enthusiastic about the guy, about getting out the vote in our town for our man. But that election of 1960 was also a prime example of the contradictions that would a little over decade later do Markin in and which for many of the rest of us was a close thing between freedom and a dark dungeon. See Markin was all hopped up about getting rid of nuclear weapons, was all hopped up for the United States to get rid of them unilaterally if necessary. The rest of us, especially Frankie Riley, our undisputed and acknowledged leader, thought he was crazy, crazy with the Russian armed to the teeth with similar such weapons as we were still seriously hung up on the Cold War stuff we read about and were taught was the real deal in school.

One thing about Markin was he put his money where his mouth was most of the time. He had heard about a rally, stand-out, vigil or something in Boston, at the Boston Common near the Park Street subway station against nuclear weapons in October of 1960 a few weeks before the election sponsored by a group called SANE, Doctor Spock’s group, some Quakers and other odd-balls. He was determined to go although he expressed some fears that he might be harmed by pro-nuclear weapons people and he did so saying later to us that he had found some kindred spirits who were not afraid unlike a fourteen year old boy and that got him through. (This is not the place to digress too much about side stuff but Markin’s fear was the subject of a bet between him and Frankie Riley that he would not go. Markin was very proud of winning that bet and would bring it up periodically long after we could have given a rat’s ass about the wager since we were always betting on almost any propositions that struck our fancies.)


Here’s where the Markin contradiction came in, maybe the human condition contradiction when all is said and done after my own fifty plus years of having gone through my own sets of contradictions. During the television debates between JFK and his Republican opponent, then Vice President Nixon who was later a president in his own right and a common criminal as well Kennedy made a great deal out of some supposed “missile gap” between the United States and Russia that had developed under the Eisenhower-Nixon regime. To our disadvantage. That “gap” was among others things in the number and effectiveness of the American nuclear arsenal. Kennedy’s solution: build more and better such weapons. Nevertheless the very next weekend after that Boston anti-nuclear weapons rally Markin rounded us up to go up to the North Adamsville Kennedy for President headquarters located in a small shed-like building on the property of the Knights of Columbus and grab a bunch of leaflets to go door to door putting them in mail slots. Such were the ups and downs of having “one of our own” getting elected to the White House in sunnier days.               
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*'In Honor Of The Late Rocker Chuck Berry Who Helped Make It All Possible-ast Man Standing', Indeed- Jerry Lee Lewis

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Jerry Lee Lewis Doing "Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On". Wow.

In Honor Of The Late Rocker Chuck Berry Who Helped Make It All Possible-ast Man Standing', Indeed- Jerry Lee Lewis

 DVD REVIEW

Jerry Lee or Elvis? What is your choice? Here is mine.

Last Man Standing, Jerry Lee Lewis in Concert, New York, 2006

Elvis, Chuck Berry, Carl Perkins, Bo Diddley. Yes those are the men who created Rock ‘n’ Roll, as we know it. However in that list do not forget one Jerry Lee Lewis. Fate dealt him an uneven hand due to the foibles of his personal life (the subject of a movie, “Great Balls of Fire”, with Dennis Quaid) but his form of rockabilly/boogie woogie piano-driven music and madman presentation must be placed in the mix of influences that drove the best of early rock.

 If for no other reason that that he is one of the few ‘still standing' from that generation it was nice to see what “The Killer” could do in his 71st year in concert in New York City in 2006 with a host of guests some old, some young. Clearly off these performances he has lost a couple of steps. Hell the kind of energy that Jerry Lee produced in the 1950's definitely had a short shelf life. There are some nice clips from that period interspersed with the concert, by the way. Think about that opening scene in the movie “High School Confidential” of 1958 where he is playing like a madman on the back of a flatbed truck as he heads toward the local high school. Whoa.

 Despite the lost of energy Jerry Lee can still give out on some tunes like in the old days. Take his duo with R&B master Solomon Burke on “Who Will the Next Fool Be”. How about Tom Jones on “Green, Green Grass of Home”. Or Norah Jones on Hank Williams’ “Your Cheating Heart”. Or Jerry on Chuck Berry's "Roll Over, Beethoven”. Or his classic “ Crazy Arms”. And on and on. In fact the covers of his old material and some Hank Williams material highlight this concert. If you have a couple of hours better take advantage of it. Then you will know what it was like when men (and women) played rock 'n' roll for keeps.
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Veterans For Peace In D.C To Struggle Against The War Machine -Can You Help Us Get the Word Out?

Veterans For Peace
To  


Can you help us get the word out? 
We have a TV advertisement, which we will run in the Washington, DC area on MSNBC.   Can you help us let as many people know as possible that veterans are gathering against war, against militarism and against the system that is destroying our society, our future and our planet?
Click On Image To See Video
Click On Image to See Video
"If you can give $5, $20 or more we can let millions of people know we will be there, in DC, the heart of the Empire, so they can join us and so they, thousands of them, may join us outside the Lincoln Memorial, march to the White House and fight for Peace and against war; for Life and against death; for Love and against hate; for those things we need and we cherish in our society; and against the greed and the destruction that we have too much already in our society." -Matt Hoh, Veteran, Member of Veterans For Peace
You contribution no matter how small or large will help us make a difference.
As veterans who took an oath to defend the Constitution “against all enemies foreign and domestic” We cannot stand by and let this happen.
More Information on VFP's Memorial Day Action "Stop Endless War! Build For Peace!"

Veterans For Peace is a 501c3 nonprofit veterans organization. Your donation well help us make this a significant stand for Peace. Please give what you can and share this with your family and friends.
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