LET EVERY DAY BE MAY DAY!-A STATEMENT BY THE UNITED NATIONAL ANTIWAR COMMITTEE

Click on the headline to link to the United National Antiwar Committee homepage.

LET EVERY DAY BE MAY DAY!-A STATEMENT BY THE UNITED NATIONAL ANTIWAR COMMITTEE

On May Day, we celebrate the struggles of the international working class - and the oppressed and exploited everywhere - for peace and justice.
LET EVERY DAY BE MAY DAY!

On May Day, we pledge to renew our commitment to end all wars of plunder and conquest abroad and all the wars against working people at home. Bring all the war dollars, war contractors, mercenaries and troops home now!
LET EVERY DAY BE MAY DAY!

On May Day, we fight for a world without walls and borders, a world where every human being is welcome - where our sisters and brothers of every nationality, race and creed join to win humanity's dream for freedom and equality. Full legalization now! End all deportations now!
LET EVERY DAY BE MAY DAY!

On May Day, we rededicate ourselves to working class solidarity' against the boss class offensive - to strengthening and expanding our unions - to accepting nothing less than quality Single Payer health care for all, guaranteed pensions, a ban on foreclosures, a sustainable environment and jobs for all at top union wages.
LET EVERY DAY BE MAY DAY!

On May Day, we stand together against all attacks on civil liberties and democratic rights. We say "No to the attacks on Muslim communities! No to FBI subpoenas and witchhunts! No to racist attacks on our Black and Brown brothers and sisters! Free Bradley Manning/Hero not criminal! End all attacks on WikiLeaks! No to renditions and torture!"
LET EVERY DAY BE MAY DAY!

And on May Day, we stand in solidarity with the people's struggles against tyrants, dictators and bosses here and everywhere. No to U.S. intervention! The masses will liberate themselves! No to U.S.-imposed "regime change!" No to U.S. Aid to Israel! Self-determination for all oppressed people everywhere! U.S. out of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Libya now!
LET THIS DAY AND EVERY DAY BE MAY DAY!

Issued by UNAC, May 1, 2011
www. U NACpeace.org

From The Archives But It Reads Like Today-Targeting Professor Terri Ginsberg's Academic and Speech Freedoms - by Stephen Lendman-Reinstate Professor Ginsberg!

Saturday, July 02, 2011

Targeting Professor Terri Ginsberg's Academic and Speech Freedoms

Targeting Professor Terri Ginsberg's Academic and Speech Freedoms - by Stephen Lendman

Post-9/11, anyone challenging America's war on terrorism faces possible recrimination, especially vulnerable Muslims, targeted for political advantage to incite fear to justify war.

Moreover, anyone critical of Israel leaves them vulnerable to vilification, intimidation and persecution. Even university professors are targeted, including distinguished tenured ones - censured, suspended and/or fired unjustly.

Yet America's First Amendment states:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Of all Bill of Rights freedoms, this one's most important because without it all others are at risk.

Some would also argue that academic freedom derives from First Amendment rights, including US Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas (1939 - 1975). In 1952, he cited it in an Adler v. Board of Education opinion, calling its denial a violation of speech freedom.

He also believed that doing so is "the most dangerous of all subversions....There must be no limit on the range of temperate discussion, no limits on thought. No subject must be taboo. No censor must preside at our assemblies."

In Wieman v. Updegraff (1952), Justice Felix Frankfurter (1939 - 1962) concurred, saying:

"To regard teachers - in our educational system, from the primary grades to the university - as the priests of our democracy is therefore not to indulge in hyperbole. It is the special task of teachers to foster those habits of open-mindedness and critical inquiry which alone make for responsible citizens, who, in turn, make possible an enlightened and effective public opinion."

"They cannot carry out their noble task if the conditions for the practice of a responsible and critical mind are denied to them. They must have the freedom of responsible inquiry, by thought and action...."

In Sweezy v. New Hampshire, Justice Earl Warren (1953 - 1969) concurred with a High Court majority, saying:

"We believe that there unquestionably was an invasion of petitioner's liberties in the areas of academic freedom and political expression - areas in which government should be extremely reticent to tread. The essentiality of freedom in the community of American universities is almost self-evident....To impose any strait jacket upon the intellectual leaders in our colleges and universities would imperil the future of our Nation....Teachers and students must always remain free to inquire, to study and to evaluate, to gain new maturity and understanding; otherwise our civilization will stagnate and die."

In Keyishian v. Board of Regents (1967), Justice William Brennan (1956 - 1990) notably said:

"Our Nation is deeply committed to safeguarding academic freedom, which is of transcendent value to all of us and not merely to the teachers concerned. That freedom is therefore a special concern of the First Amendment, which does not tolerate laws that cast a pall of orthodoxy over the classroom."

American jurisprudence today is much more hardline than earlier because two-thirds or more of all federal judges are from, affiliated with, or sympathetic to the extremist Federalist Society. It advocates rolling back civil liberties; ending New Deal social policies; opposing reproductive choice, government regulations, labor rights and environmental protections; as well as subverting justice (including speech and academic freedom) in defense of privilege.

As a result, academia is easily threatened, especially when challenging mainstream dogma, notably through honest discourse about Israeli/Palestinians relations.

North Carolina State University (NCSU) Professor Terri Ginsberg is one of many victims. She was denied tenure-track positioning, then fired as a visiting professor, "pertaining to (her) scholarship and teaching on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict."

Ginsberg's Distinguished Credentials

After receiving her doctorate in Cinema Studies at New York University (NYU), she taught film, media, and literary studies at Rutgers University, NYU, Dartmouth, Ithaca College, SUNY-Purchase College, and Brooklyn College-CUNY.

Her expertise includes:

-- Palestinian/Israeli cinema;

-- German cinema;

-- Holocaust films;

-- Critical theory; and

-- Gender and sexuality studies.

Her authored, co-authored, and edited books include:

-- "Historical Dictionary of Middle Eastern Cinema;"

-- "Holocaust Film: The Political Aesthetics of Ideology;" and

-- "Perspectives on German Cinema."

She's also written articles for the Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication, Spectator, Situations, Arab Studies Quarterly, and other publications, including on Palestinian/Israeli conflict issues.

From 2006 - 2008, she co-chaired the Society for Cinema and Media Studies Middle Eastern Caucus. In New York, as part of Jews against Israel's Occupation and International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, she's also been a community organizer. In addition, she's an International Council for Middle East Studies (ICMES) Programming Committee member.

Ginsburg's Case

In December 2009, she sued NCSU. At an October 25, 2010 Summary Judgment hearing, Judge Shannon Joseph summarily dismissed it without reason. At issue was either not understanding or being dismissive of First Amendment rights. "(S)he was apparently only looking for direct evidence of discrimination and speech suppression," or bent the law to support power and privilege over justice.

Despite "mountain(s) of circumstantial evidence," she dismissed it out of hand. In April 2011, Ginsberg's Record of Appeal was filed, then "an Appellate Brief with the North Carolina Court of Appeals" on June 24. A late summer or early fall hearing should follow.

Litigation Background

Ginsberg sued in December 2009. A State of North Carolina mandated mediation hearing followed in May 2010. No settlement was reached. During a week of subsequent depositions, NCSU "admitted that it suppressed (her) speech critical of Zionism and supportive of the Palestine liberation struggle" while employed as a visiting professor.

As a result, "it chose not to interview or hire (her) for a tenure-track position because" her scholarship focused honestly on Israel/Palestine, the Middle East, "Jewish" and related issues. "Amazingly, (NCSU) claims that it has the right to suppress, refuse and reject on the basis of these considerations." As a result, Ginsberg filed a Record of Appeal and Appellate Brief for redress.

In September 2010, when discovery ended, "NCSU filed a Motion for Summary Judgment, held on October 25 as explained above. "By dismissing the case, Judge Joseph essentially decided that" the North Carolina Constitution's Article I, section 14 free speech provision excludes anti-Zionist criticism and views supporting Palestinian, Arab and Muslim rights.

As a non-tenure-track faculty member at the time, Ginsberg was fired as a visiting professor and denied a campus grievance hearing - one a tenure-track/tenured faculty member likely would have gotten. "(T)he judge's decision also impacts the labor rights of contingent academic workers" nationally because they comprise 70% of faculty members today.

Ginsberg strongly believes her Summary Judgment dismissal was improper. As a result, she was denied a jury trial on grounds that no speech violations occurred. In fact, Judge Joseph's ruling ignored evidence that "NCSU faculty exhibited symptoms of discomfort with (her) political views and public statements."

For example, NCSU witnesses, including its Film Studies Program director, admitted they reacted negatively to views she expressed at a Palestinian film screening, during which she thanked audience members "for supporting the expression of a Palestinian liberation perspective in an alternative film screening."

As a result, NCSU witnesses said they believed they would thus "perceive the Film Studies and Middle East Studies programs as biased. Shortly thereafter, (she) went from being the favored candidate for a tenure-track position to be denied an interview."

Later, NCSU claimed she was denied for being "overqualified," and because her scholarship "shift(ed) to Middle Eastern interests," making her inappropriate for a European film position despite her "voluminous publication record" and European film work, "far exceed(ing) the prevailing candidate."

Based on bogus reasoning, however, she was also denied a jury trial, a decision Ginsberg hopes will be reversed on appeal.

Terri Ginsberg v. Board of Governors of the University of North Carolina

Its Statement on the Grounds for Appellate Review says:

"Judge Joseph's order, which entered judgment as a matter of law in favor of the defendant on all of the plaintiff's claims, is a final judgment and appeal is therefore proper pursuant to NC Gen. Stat. 7A-27(b)."

In October 2007, Ginsberg applied for a Film Studies tenure-track position. It requires candidates with "a primary concentration in at least one area of European Cinema, although additional areas of expertise are welcome (other national cinemas, digital media, theory, etc.)," as well as "an excellent research and teaching record in the area advertised."

The search committee initially listed her most qualified among "First Tier Candidates" until "suddenly" she "fell out of favor (and) was not listed in either the first or the second tier, but moved to the bottom of the 'reject' tier, and was not even granted an interview for the position."

The reason given was that she was "now working with Palestinian/Israeli, rank issue(s)...." Moreover, it called her "experience and the quantity of her publications exceed(ing) that which normally would be expected of a beginning assistant professor in our department."

"Included in the tier above her were candidates who did not even appear to be in the field of Film Studies, including (one) about whom the notes said, 'is he really film studies?' "

Despite being the most qualified candidate, another one was chosen "whose publication and teaching records were not nearly as strong as Ginsberg's...."

Moreover, although the applicant wrote about Holocaust film, she didn't challenge Zionism, include alternative Jewish perspectives, or publish books. In addition, Ginsberg's contract wasn't renewed despite her cinema expertise and distinguished scholarship.

Clearly, her activist views about Israel/Palestine, Zionism, and America's one-sided Middle East policy got her punished. As a result, her academic and speech rights were violated, subjecting her to Inquisition justice.

A Final Comment

University of Chicago Professor Peter N. Kirstein, a noted academic freedom supporter, said Ginsberg was fired:

"for daring to cross the ideological line into artistic and pedagogical assessment of the Palestine Question. (She's) just one of many academics who support human rights and the decolonization of Palestine whose academic freedom has been denied. Many have either been silenced, fired, denied tenure, or non-renewed throughout academia" for daring to defend right over wrong - especially when challenging Israel, Zionism, or America's one-sided support for both.

As a result, each censor victory "is a defeat of free speech and the right to conscience that this nation and the academy cynically trumpet," while waring lawlessly against democratic values, including truth, justice, rule of law standards, human rights, civil liberties, and courageous activists who champion them.

Among others well known to this writer, Ginsberg notably qualifies honorably.

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

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

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

posted by Steve Lendman @ 7:51 AM

Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By-Buffy-Sainte Marie’s “Universal Soldier”

Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By-Buffy-Sainte Marie’s “Universal Soldier”

In this series, presented under the headline “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here.
********
Markin comment on the lyric here:

While I have always considered this a very good anti-war song the tone of the lyrics leave me a little off-put these days. There are, in this wicked old world, some just wars, the Northern side in the American Civil War, The American side in the struggle for independence, The Irish side in the struggle against the British on Easter, 1916 and so on. Thus, until we take the guns away from those cruel oppressors of the mass of humanity we had best keep our own guns at the ready-and our class struggle soldiers prepared. Then someday this song will be an interesting relic for archeologists to uncover and laugh about the follies of primitive humankind.


Universal Soldier-Buffy Sainte-Marie

He's five feet two and he's six feet four
He fights with missiles and with spears
He's all of 31 and he's only 17
He's been a soldier for a thousand years

He's a Catholic, a Hindu, an atheist, a Jain,
a Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew
and he knows he shouldn't kill
and he knows he always will
kill you for me my friend and me for you

And he's fighting for Canada,
he's fighting for France,
he's fighting for the USA,
and he's fighting for the Russians
and he's fighting for Japan,
and he thinks we'll put an end to war this way

And he's fighting for Democracy
and fighting for the Reds
He says it's for the peace of all
He's the one who must decide
who's to live and who's to die
and he never sees the writing on the walls

But without him how would Hitler have
condemned him at Dachau
Without him Caesar would have stood alone
He's the one who gives his body
as a weapon to a war
and without him all this killing can't go on

He's the universal soldier and he
really is to blame
His orders come from far away no more
They come from him, and you, and me
and brothers can't you see
this is not the way we put an end to war.

From The Archives- 2012 November Vigil: Close the SOA/WHINSEC-Close The School Of The Americas

16 Aug 2012

520 Years of Oppression... 520 Years of Resistance!

Join the SOA Watch movement at the gates of Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia, this November 16-18, as we continue to speak truth to power and demand a real change in US foreign policy!

520 años de opresión... ¡520 años de resistencia!

¡Únase al movimiento SOA Watch a las puertas de Fort Benning en Columbus, Georgia durante los días 16 a 18 de noviembre próximos para continuar cantándole la verdad al poder y exigiéndole un cambio real en la política exterior de Estados Unidos!

As we converge each year at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia, we are creating a strong community and a powerful force that will close the SOA, end U.S. militarization in the Americas and dismantle the broader system of oppression of which the SOA is a part. Our movement unites vast sectors of society, including union workers, immigrants, people of faith, anarchists, pacifists, students, torture survivors, and many others. We recognize the existence of the School of the Americas as an example of the pervasive culture of militarization. We stand together with many justice movements in our joint struggle for social change.

A través de nuestra continua movilización cada año frente los portones del Fuerte Benning, Georgia, estamos creando una comunidad fuerte y una fuerza poderosa que cerrará la Escuela de las Américas, le pondrá fin a la militarización estadounidense en las Américas y romperá el sistema más grande de opresión del cual la SOA es una parte. Nuestro movimiento une a sectores amplios de la sociedad, incluyendo sindicalistas, inmigrantes, personas de fe, anarchistas, pacifistas, estudiantes, sobrevivientes de tortura y muchos más. Reconocemos la existencia de la Escuela de las Américas como un ejemplo de la cultura dominante de militarización. Nos levantamos juntos con muchos movimientos por la justicia en una lucha unida por el cambio social.

We stand with the prison abolitionists, as so many of our own prisoners of conscience have come to understand the criminal injustice system through harsh prison sentences. We stand with immigrants fighting deportation, many of whom have fled the repression in their own countries. For 520 years, the indigenous peoples of the Americas have resisted the many manifestations of economic and military violence perpetrated against their communities.

Estamos con los abolicionistas de cárceles, porque tantos de nuestros propios presos de conciencia han llegado a comprender el sistema penal injusto a través de duras sentencias de prisión. Estamos con inmigrantes que luchan contra la deportación, muchos de los cuales han dejado atrás la represión en sus propios países. Por 520 años, los pueblos indígenas de las Américas han resistido las muchas manifestaciones de violencia económica y militar perpetradas contra sus comunidades.

The SOA, repressive police forces, coups and economic slavery are the continuations of those policies – in Latin America and right here at home. This year, as we demand money for human needs and not for military repression, we converge at Fort Benning in the largest demonstration following the November elections. We know that not politicians but only continuous and consistent grassroots organizing will bring about the change we need in the world.

La SOA, fuerzas policiales represivas, golpes de estado y esclavitud económica son las continuaciones de estas políticas – en América Latina y aquí en nuestras comunidades. Este año, mientras exigimos dinero para necesidades humanas y no para la represión militar, nos congregamos en el Fuerte Benning en la manifestación más grande tras las elecciones en noviembre. Sabemos que no los políticos sino continuo y consistente organización de base efectuará en cambio que necesitamos en el mundo.

Poster by Katherine Leonetti

See also:
http://www.soaw.org
http://www.facebook.com

***The Road Less Traveled- With A Tip Of The Hat To Poet Robert Frost

***The Road Less Traveled- With A Tip Of The Hat To Poet Robert Frost

Markin comment:

I am not a big fan of Robert Frost's poetry (although his public readings were very interesting) but this one every once in a while "speaks" to me when there are two (or more) choices to make in life.

Robert Frost (1874–1963). Mountain Interval. 1920.

1. The Road Not Taken

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth; 5

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same, 10

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back. 15

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 20
*********
Sergeant John Prescott, “Johnny P.” to his pals gathered around a small table, drinking sodas and coffee, in the next room was a quiet, unassuming guy, a guy with just that barebones patriotism that animated many working class kids to “do their duty” and join up when America was in danger, no questions asked. Not quite “my country, right or wrong” but pretty close when all was said and done. And as the early 1960s, the time of high school fun and frolic and for ace football star Johnny P, fun and frolic with one fetching Chrissie O’Shea and their flaming romance that was the talk of the Class of 1964 at old North Adamsville High, turned to mid-1960s and clarion calls that the country was in danger in some place called red-infested Vietnam Johnny, and not just Johnny, answered the call. And here, gathered around a small table, in early May 1968 his old corner boys from in front of Salducci’s Pizza Parlor “up the downs” were chatting away like mad.

Suddenly, Frank Riley, fabled Frankie, the king of the be-bop Salducci’s night in those fresher days, yelled to no one in particular but they all knew what he meant, “Remember that night after graduation when Tonio threw us that party at the pizza parlor.” And all the other five gathered at the table became silence with their own memories of that night. See, Tonio was the king hell owner and zen master pizza maker at Salducci’s and a guy who treated Frankie (and therefore most of Frankie’s friends) like a son. So Tonio put out a big deal party right on the premises, closed to all but Frankie, his friends and hangers-on (and girls of course). Tonio, at least this is what he said at the time, appreciated that Frankie brought so much business his way what with his corner boys, their corner boys, and the, ah, girls that gathered round them and who endlessly fed the juke box that he had to show his appreciation in such a way. And everybody had a great time that night, with the closed door wine, Tonio-provided wine, flowing like crazy and nobody, no authorities or parents the wiser for it.

Part of that great time, the part the guys around the 1968 table were remembering just then, the part of that great gun-ho 1964 time occurred late that night when, plenty of wine under their belts, Frankie and the corner boys, talked “heroic” talk. Talked about their military service obligations that was coming up right on them. And this was no abstract talk, no this night, for not only was this a party put on by Tonio to show his gratitude but a kind of going away party for ace football player and part-time corner boy (the other part, the more and more part, with one fetching Chrissie O’Shea), Johnny Prescott, who signed up right after graduation and was getting ready to leave for “boot camp” at Fort Dix, New Jersey in a few days. So everybody was piling on the bravery talk to Johnny about “killing commies” somewhere, maybe Vietnam, maybe Germany, hell, maybe Russia or China. And Johnny, not any rum-brave kind Johnny, not any blah blah-ing about bravery, football or war, Johnny just kind of sat there and let the noise go by him. His thoughts then were of Chrissie and doing everything he could to get back to her in one piece.

Of course heaping up pile after pile on the bravery formula was one Frankie Riley, ever the politician and well as keenly acknowledgement corner boy king, who had so just happened to have landed, through a very curious connection with the Kennedy clan, a coveted slot in a National Guard unit. So, Frankie, ever Frankie, could be formally brave that night in the knowledge that he would be far away from any real fighting. His rejoinder was that his unit “might” be called up. The others kidded him about it, about his “week-end warrior status, but just a little because after all he would be serving one way or another. Also kind of silent that night was Fritz Taylor just then ready to “do his duty” after having had a heavy-duty fight with his mother about his future, or lack of a future, and her “hadn’t he better go in the service and learn a trade” talk.

Most vociferous that night was Timmy Kiley. Yes, Timmy, the younger brother of the legendary North Adamsville and later State U. football player “Thunder Tommy” Kiley. He was ready to catch every red under every bed and do what, when and where to any he caught. Timmy later joined the Navy to “see the world” and saw much of some dreary scow in some dry-dock down in Charleston, South Carolina. Even Peter Paul Markin, Frankie’s right-hand man, self-described scribe, and publicly kind of the pacifist of the group, who usually got mercilessly “fag”-baited for his pale peace comments was up in arms about the need to keep the “free world” free. But that was just the way he talked, kind of a studied hysterical two-thousand facts diatribe. Markin, student deferred, at that 1968 table had just gotten notice from his friendly neighbors at the North Adamsville Draft Board that upon graduation he was to be drafted. And he was ready, kicking and screaming about some graduate school project that the world really needed to know about, to go. That was the way it was in the neighborhood. Go or be out. Frank Ricco, the so-called token Eye-talian, of the Irish-laden Salducci’s corner boy night (and a kid that Tonio actually hated, some kind of Mafioso, omerta thing with his father) also displayed super-human brave talk that night but he was credited , not so many months later of not only going in the Marines but of seeing some heavy-duty action in jungle-infested Kontum, and some other exotic and mainly unpronounceable place farther south in the water-logged rice paddles of the Mekong Delta of Vietnam.

Quiet, quieter than Johnny Prescott thinking of Chrissie, or Fritz, sullenly furious at his mother or at his hard-scrabble fate, or both, was Johnny Callahan. Johnny no stranger to corner boy controversy, no stranger to patriotic sentiments, at least publicly to keep in step with his boys, secretly hated war, the idea of this war coming up and was seriously hung up on the Catholic “just war” theory that had been around since at least Saint Augustine, maybe earlier. See Johnny had a grandmother (and also a mother, but less so) who was an ardent Catholic Worker reader and adherent to their social philosophy. You know, Dorothy Day and that crowd of rebel Catholics wanting to go back to the old, old days, the Roman persecution days, of the social gospel and the like. And grandmother had the “just war” theory down pat. She was the greatest knitter of socks for “the boys” during World War II that the world may have ever known. But on Vietnam she was strictly “no-go, no-go, no way” and she was drilling that in Johnny’s head every chance she got (which was a lot since Johnny, having, well let’s call it “friction” with his mother sought refuge over at grandma’s). Now grandma was pressing Johnny to apply for conscientious objector status (CO) but Johnny knew that as a Catholic, a lapsing Catholic but still a Catholic, the formal “just war” theory of that church would not qualify him for CO status. He wanted to, expected to, just refuse induction. So that rounded out that party that night. Hell, maybe in retrospect it wasn’t such a great party, although blame the times not Tonio for that.

Just then, as each member at the table, thought his thoughts started by Frankie’s remembrance someone from the other room called out, “pall-bearers, get ready.”

Postscript: Sergeant, E-5, John Phillip Prescott made the national news that 1968 year, that 1968 year of Tet, made the Life magazine photo montage of those killed in service in Vietnam on any given week. Johnny P.’s week was heavy with casualties so there were many photos, many looks of mainly working class enlisted youth that kind of blurred together despite the efforts to recognize each individually. And, of course, Johnny P.’s name is etched in black marble down in Washington, D.C. John Patrick Callahan served his two year “tour of duty” as federal prisoner 122204, at the Federal Correctional Institution, Allentown, Pennsylvania. The road less traveled, indeed.

***Speaking truth to power-The 1962 Port Huron Statement describes the goals, values, and strategies of Students for a Democratic Society -- and continues to inform and inspire. By Ken Handel / The Rag Blog / July 19, 2011

Markin comment:


Well, "spoke" half truth to power anyway. And in the end not enough, not nearly enough to the American imperial "beast." But enough of nostagia. Kick up some dust time is running out

Speaking truth to power-The 1962 Port Huron Statement describes the goals, values, and strategies of Students for a Democratic Society -- and continues to inform and inspire. By Ken Handel / The Rag Blog / July 19, 2011

“My Generation,” released by The Who in 1965, is one of that group’s most popular songs -- and a rallying cry for disaffected youth. Three years earlier, in 1962, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) created “An agenda for a generation,” an action plan for young people seeking broad societal change.

(SDS was the leading organization of the Sixties New Left. At its peak it had more than 100,000 members in 400 chapters around the country.)

The 59 SDS members who assembled in the small Michigan town of Port Huron in June 1962 could not accept a status quo that tolerated the possibility of nuclear annihilation, state-sanctioned racism, and a nation suffering from extensive poverty amidst affluence. Scholar James Miller, in Democracy Is in the Streets, described the Port Huron Statement (PHS) as being “one of the pivotal documents in post-war American history.”


In their own words

In Rebels With A Cause, a film on SDS created in 2000 by Helen Garvy, Port Huron participants reflected upon their experiences. Tom Hayden, the document’s primary author, described “sitting around in small groups talking about your values and how they applied to politics and to economics.” He also spoke of the American tradition of “decentralized democracy, or direct democracy, or town-meeting democracy.”

Sharon Jeffrey identified two key themes the document addressed: “…participatory democracy: this was something that somehow it had a resonance to it… This was really significant because it touched very deeply… sort of like the soul of who we were”; and the importance of values.

On this point, Steve Max commented, “The idea that you make your own values as a group was a new thing. That values weren’t just inherited and weren’t just transmitted from the older generation but that people could actually sit down and work out an ethical framework, as an organization…”


Political and cultural influences

In the first paragraph of the Port Huron Statement, SDS members acknowledged their privileged status: they were “bred in at least modest comfort, housed now in universities…” But in what Hayden has termed “a manifesto of hope,” the 41-page document envisioned an end to racism, a transformation of democracy, a reconception of the economy, and a conclusion to the cold war.

In his book, The Long Sixties: From 1960 to Barack Obama, Hayden noted the influences that contributed to the document’s explicit idealism.

Port Huron participants had witnessed the independence of many African nations, and Cuba’s successful revolution. They abhorred South Africa’s policy of apartheid and its violent repression of the African National Congress. They allied themselves with other students fighting racism in the U.S. -- and in particular, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). They had read inspiring books, seen influential films, and rocked around the clock. Port Huron, Hayden says, “was a spontaneous beginning, but one informed by legacy.”


Does Port Huron still resonate?

June 2012 represents the Port Huron Statement’s golden anniversary. And the alienation and apathy SDS sought to counter nearly 50 years ago is even more prevalent today: only six percent of a Harris Poll expressed confidence in Congress. In the 2010 mid-term election, 59.1 percent of registered voters chose to withhold their ballots.

To counteract hopelessness, the document offered a new definition of individual rights and of the role a person plays in the political system:

Participatory Democracy: “…we seek the establishment of a democracy of individual participation, governed by two central aims: that the individual share in those social decisions determining the quality and direction of his life; that society be organized to encourage independence in men and provide the media for their common participation.”

Values: “Men have unrealized potential for self-cultivation, self-direction, self-understanding, and creativity. It is this potential that we regard as crucial and to which we appeal, not to the human potentiality for violence, unreason, and submission to authority. The goal of man and society should be human independence: a concern not with image of popularity but with finding a meaning in life that is personally authentic...”

SDS succumbed to factionalism and dissolved in 1969. But the Port Huron Statement is the group’s living legacy. Just as “My Generation” continues to win new fans, so too can the Port Huron Statement assist today’s citizens in fulfilling their aspirations and in making government more responsive.

Monte Wasch offers a unique perspective on the PHS. As a 20 year-old City College student he attended the Port Huron gathering. When he returned to New York, Tom and Casey Hayden temporarily moved into his apartment. There, Hayden worked on final PHS edits, which Wasch typed up.

“I remember,” he comments, “a summer of optimism and challenge. Optimism because we all felt we were on the cusp of something exceptional and unique in the history of American progressivism. The challenge was -- as a new generation with a progressive, reform set of values -- to leave behind the narrow sectarian battles that had long characterized the Left. The PHS prescribed a new model for social change and non-sectarian progressive action by developing a new model for social change: participatory democracy.

[Ken Handel is a freelance writer and editor. This article was also posted to Suite101.]

Sources

Students for a Democratic Society
Port Huron Statement, SDS Documents
Democracy Is In the Streets: From Port Huron to the Siege of Chicago by James Miller (Simon and Schuster, 1987.) “Pivotal Document”: Page 13; “manifesto of hope”: Page 77
Rebels With A Cause, a documentary film written, produced, and directed by Helen Garvy, 2000.
The Long Sixties: From 1960 to Barack Obama by Tom Hayden. (Paradigm Publishers. 2009). SDS influences: Page 21-23

Poll Citations:
Confidence in Congress -- The Harris Poll. "Confidence in Congress and Supreme Court Drops to Lowest Level in Many Years,” May 18, 2011.
Election Data––United States Election Project. 2010 General Election Turnout Rates

The Rag Blog

***From The Archives Of The “Revolutionary History” Journal-Against the Stream - A History of the Trotskyist Movement in Britain, 1924-1938-A Book Review

Click on the headline to link to the Revolutionary History Journal index.

Markin comment:

This is an excellent documentary source for today’s militants to “discovery” the work of our forebears, whether we agree with their programs or not. Mainly not, but that does not negate the value of such work done under the pressure of revolutionary times. Hopefully we will do better when our time comes.

Markin comment:

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. Off hand, as I have mentioned before, 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 these entries. 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.
***********
Reviews

Sam Bornstein and Al Richardson, Against the Stream - A History of the Trotskyist Movement in Britain, 1924-1938, Socialist Platform, London, 1986, pp302, £5.95.

This review appeared in the Winter 1986-87 edition of the Bulletin of Marxist Studies.

A number of books have appeared which purport to present a history of Trotskyism in Britain, before, during and immediately after the Second World War. All, however, fall well short of achieving this task. Riddled with errors, misunderstandings and even falsehoods, which would take a book to correct, fundamentally none of these ‘histories’ approach the question with a Marxist method. Rather than analyse the complex social processes which were unfolding in society at the time, and with the enormous advantage of subsequent experience appraise, documents in hand, the efforts of various trends to grapple with the problems raised, instead, under the guise of ‘balance’, personal reminiscences forty years after the events are elevated to the same level as the major programatic statements of the time and a mass of secondary details obscure the fundamental lines of thought. The result is a lightweight digest of dates arid personalities, a superficial sketch of events … but not a history of British Marxism …

There are a myriad sects that presently infest the fringes of the labour movement which occasionally Marxism has to combat politically in order to clarify the issues before the working class. The pioneers of British Trotskyism had also to deal with the distortions and corruption of the Marxist method perpetrated by the precursors of these sects.

One of the major debates immediately after the Second World War was: would there be any possibility of a boom and revival of capitalism? The forerunners of today’s sects, Cannon, Mandel, Pablo, Healy and Co, based themselves then on a dogmatic and robotic regurgitation of Trotsky’s words outlined in the 1930s that capitalism was in its ‘death agony’ and the coming war, predicted correctly by Trotsky, would provoke revolution arid economic crisis. And they categorically stated, even as late as 1947, that capitalism could not reach the level of production attained pre-war and that the world economy would remain in ‘stagnation and slump’.

The British Marxists, drawing on the method of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky rather than on unthinking recitation of old quotations from the Marxist masters, disputed this ‘analysis’ and were the first to predict that world capitalism was entering a period of ‘revival and boom’ after 1945. Reality had to kick the precursors of today’s sects in the face before they recognised this new period.

They then swung round 180 degrees and argued that capitalism could permanently solve its contradictions, at least in the advanced industrial world, through Keynesian state spending, permanent arms expenditure or exploitation of the colonial world.

The Friends of George Edwards

Our columns are open to these comrades if they should care to substantiate their allegations of the “errors, misunderstandings and even falsehoods, with which these books are apparently riddled”.

From The Lenin Internet Archives- Lenin And The Fight Against Imperialist War (1914-1917)-Principles Involved in the War Issue (1916)

From The Lenin Internet Archives- Lenin And The Fight Against Imperialist War (1914-1917)-Principles Involved in the War Issue (1916)

Markin comment:


It would seem almost unnecessary to comment on Lenin’s Bolshevik positions on imperialist war, as exemplified by his analysis of the war that he actually had to fight against, World War I. Those positions reflected his understanding that with that war the nature of capitalism had changed, definitively, from a progressive step for humankind to just a squalid, never-ending struggle among “thieves” for control of the world’s resources. It would have seemed almost unnecessary to mention this, that is, for earlier leftist generations who were familiar with his various slogans centrally-“the main enemy is at home” (adapted from German revolutionary Karl Liebknecht-“not one penny, not one man for the imperialist war”- “turn the guns the other way” (toward your own rulers)-and, specific to Bolsheviks- “fight for a new workers international, the Third International” (to replace bankrupt Second International).

Now, especially after the past several anti-war rallies that I have attended, I am not sure who among the attendees is familiar with his work. With all the pacifist, stop war in general, peace now, let all men and women be brothers and sisters rhetoric ringing in my ears I have to assume not. More importantly, I do not see such slogans (or anything close to them) emblazoned on any banners lately. Thus, in a month when we of the international communist movement honor Lenin anyway (along with the aforementioned Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, the Rose of the revolution) this series will try to familiarize those who seek a better struggle against imperialist war than is being presented now with “red” anti-war positions.
*******
V. I. Lenin


Principles Involved in the War Issue


Published: First published in 1931 in Lenin Miscellany XVII. Written in German in December 1916. Translated from the German. Published according to the manuscript.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1964, Moscow, Volume 23, pages 152-160.
Translated: M. S. Levin, The Late Joe Fineberg and and Others
Transcription\Markup: R. Cymbala
Public Domain: Lenin Internet Archive 2002 (2005). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.
Other Formats: Text • README


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Swiss Left Social-Democrats are unanimous in rejecting the defence of the fatherland principle in the present war. The proletariat, at any rate its best elements, is likewise opposed to defence of the fatherland.

Hence, on this most burning issue confronting contemporary socialism in general and the Swiss Socialist Party in particular, it would appear that necessary unity has been achieved. Closer examination, however, is bound to lead us to the conclusion that it is only seeming unity.

For there is absolutely no clarity, let alone unanimity, that a declaration against defence of the fatherland places exceptionally high demands on the revolutionary consciousness and revolutionary viability of the party that makes such a declaration, providing, of course, that it is not reduced to a hollow phrase. And such a declaration does become a hollow phrase if we merely reject defence of the fatherland without being fully aware of, i.e., without appreciating, the demands implied, without realising that all propaganda, agitation, organisation, in short, the sum total of party activity must be radically changed, “regenerated” (to use Karl Liebknecht’s expression) and adapted to the supreme revolutionary tasks.

Let us carefully consider what rejection of fatherland defence implies, if we approach it as a serious political slogan that must really be carried out.

First. We call on the proletarians and the exploited of all the belligerent countries, and of all countries faced with the danger of war, to reject defence of the fatherland. We definitely know now, from the experience of several of the warring countries, what this actually implies in the present war. It implies rejection of all the foundations of modern bourgeois society, the undermining of the very roots of the modern social system, and not only in theory, not only “in general”, but in practice, directly and immediately. Is it not clear that this can be accomplished only if we go beyond the firm theoretical conviction that capitalism has fully matured for its transformation into socialism and accept the practical, direct and immediate carrying out of such transformation, i.e., the socialist revolution?

Yet that is nearly always lost sight of in discussing refusal to defend the fatherland. At best there is “theoretical” acceptance of the fact that capitalism is ripe for transformation into socialism. But immediate, radical change of all aspects of party activity in the spirit of the directly imminent socialist revolution—that is shunned!

The people, it is alleged, are not prepared for that!

But that is ridiculously inconsistent. Either, or. Either we do not proclaim immediate rejection of defence of the fatherland—or we immediately develop, or begin to develop, systematic propaganda for immediate socialist revolution. In a certain sense the “people”, of course, are “not prepared” either to reject fatherland defence or accept socialist revolution. But that does not justify two years—two years!—of procrastination and delay in starting to systematically prepare them!

Second. What is being opposed to the policy of defence of the fatherland and civil peace? Revolutionary struggle against the war, “revolutionary mass actions”, as recognised by the 1915 Aarau Party Congress resolution. No doubt a very good decision, but ... but the party’s record since that congress, the party’s actual policy, show that it has remained a paper decision.

What is the aim of revolutionary mass struggle? The party has made no official statement, nor is the question being discussed in general. It is either taken for granted, or frankly admitted, that the aim is “socialism”. Socialism is being opposed to capitalism (or imperialism).

That, however, is absolutely illogical (theoretically) and void of all practical meaning. Illogical because it is too general, too nebulous. “Socialism” in general, as an aim, as the opposite of capitalism (or imperialism), is accepted now not only by the Kautsky crowd and social—chauvinists, but by many bourgeois social politicians. However, it is no longer a matter of contrasting two social systems, but of formulating the concrete aim of the concrete “revolutionary mass struggle” against a concrete evil, namely, the present high cost of living, the present war danger or the present war.

The whole Second International of 1889–1914 opposed socialism to capitalism in general, and it was precisely this too general “generalisation” that brought on its bankruptcy. It ignored the specific evil of its age, which Frederick Engels nearly thirty years ago, on January 10, 1887, characterised in the following words:

“...a certain petty-bourgeois socialism finds representation in the Social-Democratic Party itself, and even in the ranks of the Reichstag group. This is done in the following way: while the fundamental views of modern socialism and the demand for the transformation of all the means of production into social property are recognised as justified, the realisation of this is declared possible only in the distant future, a future which for all practical purposes is quite out of sight. Thus, for the present one has to have recourse to mere social patchwork...” (The Housing Question, Preface).[1]

The concrete aim of “revolutionary mass struggle” can only be concrete measures of socialist revolution, and not “socialism” in general. The Dutch comrades have given a precise definition of these concrete measures in their programme (published in the Bulletin of the International Socialist Committee No. 3, Berne, February 29, 1916): annulment of the national debt, expropriation of the banks and big industry. When we suggest that these absolutely concrete measures be included in an official party resolution, and be systematically explained in the most popular form, in day-to-day party propaganda at public meetings, in parliamentary speeches, in legislative proposals—we get the same procrastinating, evasive and thoroughly sophistical reply that the people are not yet prepared for this, and so on and so forth!

The point is, however, that we should begin preparing them right now, and firmly stick to this work!

Third, the party has “accepted” revolutionary mass struggle. Very well. But is the party capable of waging it? Is it preparing for it? Is it studying these problems, gathering together the necessary material, setting up the proper bodies and organisations? Is it discussing the issues among the people and with the people?

Nothing of the kind! The party clings to its old line—a thoroughly parliamentarian, thoroughly trade union, thoroughly reformist and thoroughly legalistic line. The party remains manifestly incapable of facilitating the revolutionary mass struggle and leading it. It is obviously making no preparations whatever for this. The old routine rules supreme and the “new” words (rejection of fatherland defence, revolutionary mass struggle) remain mere words! And the Lefts, failing to realise this, are not mustering their forces, systematically, perseveringly and in all fields of party activity, to combat the evil.

One can only shrug one’s shoulders on reading, for in stance, the following phrase (the last) in Grimm’s theses on the war issue:

“In conjunction with trade union organisations, party bodies must in this event [i.e., the calling of a mass railway strike if there is a danger of war, etc.] take all the necessary measures.”

The theses were published in the summer, and on September 16, the Schweizerische Metallarbeiter-Zeitung,[2] issued over the names of its editors, 0. Schneeberger and K. Dürr, contained the following phrase (I was on the verge of saying, the following official reply to Grimm’s theses or pious wishes):

“...The phrase ‘the worker has no fatherland’ is in very poor taste at a time when the workers of all Europe, in their overwhelming majority, have for two years been standing shoulder to shoulder with the bourgeoisie on the battlefields against the ‘enemies’ of their fatherland, while those who remain at home want to ‘live through it’ despite all the poverty and hardship. Should we be attacked by a foreign power we shall doubtlessly see the same picture in Switzerland too!!!”

What is this if not “Kautsky” policy, the policy of the impotent phrase, Left declaration and opportunist practice, when, on the one hand, resolutions are proposed urging the party, “in conjunction with trade union organisations”, to call for revolutionary mass strikes, and, on the other, no struggle is waged against the Grütli, i.e., social-patriot, reformist and thoroughly legalistic, trend and its supporters within the party and the trade unions?

Are we “educating” the masses or corrupting and demoralising them if we fail daily to say and prove that “leading” comrades like 0. Schneeberger, K. Dürr, P. Pflüger, H. Greulich, Huber and many others hold exactly the same social-patriot views and pursue exactly the same social-patriot policy as the one Grimm so “courageously” exposes and castigates... when it concerns the Germans (in Germany) and not the Swiss? Rail against the foreigners, but protect one’s “own” “fellow-citizens”.... Is that “internationalist”? Is that “democratic”?

This is how Hermann Greulich describes the position of the Swiss workers, the crisis of Swiss socialism and also the substance of Grütli policy within the Socialist Party:

“...The standard of living has risen insignificantly and only for the top strata [hear! hear!] of the proletariat. The mass of workers continue to live in poverty, beset by worry and hardship. That is why, from time, to time, doubts arise as to the correctness of the path we have been following. The critics are looking for new paths and place special hope on more resolute action. Efforts are being made in that direction, but as a rule [?] they fail [??] and this increases the urge to revert to the old tactics [a case of the wish being father to the thought?].... And now the world war ... drastic decline in the standard of living, amounting to outright poverty for those sections which in the past still enjoyed tolerable conditions. Revolutionary sentiments are spreading. [Hear! hear!] In truth, the party leadership has not been equal to the tasks confronting it and all too often succumbs [??] to the influence of hot heads [??].... The Grütli-Verein Central Committee is committed to a ‘practical national policy’ which it wants to operate outside the party... Why has it not pursued it within the party? [Hear! hear!] Why has it nearly always left it to me to fight the ultra-radicals?” (Open Letter to the Hottingen Grütli-Verein, September 26, 1916.)

So speaks Greulich. It is not at all, therefore, a matter (as the Grütlians in the party think, and hint in the press, while the Grütlians outside the party say so openly) of a few “evil-minded foreigners” wanting, in a fit of personal impatience, to inject a revolutionary spirit into the labour movement, which they regard through “foreign spectacles”. No, it is none other than Hermann Greulich—whose political role is tantamount to that of a bourgeois Labour Minister in a small democratic republic—who tells us that only the upper strata of the workers are somewhat better off now, while the mass is steeped in poverty, and that “revolutionary sentiments are spreading” not because of the accursed foreign “instigators”, but because of “the drastic decline in the standard of living”.

And so?

And so, we shall be absolutely right if we say:

[[DOUBLE-LEFT-BOX-ENDS:
Either the Swiss people will suffer hardships that will increase with every passing week and they will be faced daily with the threat of involvement in the imperialist war, i.e., of being killed in the capitalists’ interests, or they will follow the advice of the finest part of their proletariat, muster all their forces and carry out a socialist revolution. ]]

Socialist revolution? Utopia! “A remote and practically indefinable” possibility!...

It is no more a utopia than rejection of fatherland defence in the present war or revolutionary mass struggle against it. One should not be deafened by one’s own words or frightened by the words of others. Nearly everyone is prepared to accept revolutionary struggle against the war. But one must visualise the magnitude of the task of ending the war by revolution! No, it is not a utopia. The revolution is maturing in all countries and the question now is not whether to continue to live in tranquillity and tolerable conditions, or plunge into some reckless adventure. On the contrary, the question is whether to continue to suffer hardship and be thrown into the holocaust to fight for alien interests, or to make great sacrifices for socialism, for the interests of nine-tenths of mankind.

Socialist revolution, we are told, is a utopia! The Swiss people, thank God, have no “separate” or “independent” language, but speak the three world languages of the neighbouring warring countries. It is not surprising, therefore, that they are in such close touch with developments in these countries. In Germany, things have reached a point where the economic life of 66 million people is directed from one centre. The national economy of a country of 66 million is run from this one centre. Tremendous sacrifices are imposed on the vast majority of the people in order that the “upper 30,000” can pocket thousands of millions in war profits, and that millions die in the shambles for the enrichment of these “finest and noblest” representatives of the nation. And in the fase of these facts, of this experience, is it “utopian” to believe that a small nation, with no monarchy or Junkers, with a very high level of capitalism and perhaps better organised in various unions than in any other capitalist country, will try to save itself from hunger and the danger of war by doing the very same thing that has already been practically tested in Germany? With the difference, of course, that in Germany millions are being killed and maimed to enrich a few, open the road to Baghdad, conquer the Balkans, whereas in Switzerland it is merely a matter of expropriating a maximum of 30,000 bourgeois, i.e., not condemning them to perish, but to the “horrible fate” of receiving “only” 6,000–10,000 francs income and giving the rest to the socialist workers’ government in order to ward off hunger and the war danger.

The Great Powers, however, will never tolerate a socialist Switzerland and will use their immensely superior strength to crush the socialist revolution at the very beginning!

That, undoubtedly, would be so if, first, the beginnings of a revolution in Switzerland did not generate a class movement of solidarity in neighbouring countries, and, second, if these Great Powers were not tied up in a “war of attrition” which has practically exhausted the patience of the most patient peoples. Military intervention by the mutually hostile Great Powers would, in present circumstances, only be the prelude to revolution flaring up throughout the whole of Europe.

Perhaps you think I am so naïve as to believe that such issues as socialist revolution can be resolved by “persuasion”?

No. I only wish to illustrate, and, what is more, merely one partial issue, the change that must take place in all party propaganda if we want to approach the question of rejection of fatherland defence with all the seriousness it deserves. That is only an illustration, and it concerns only one partial issue. I lay claim to no more.

It would be absolutely wrong to believe that immediate struggle for socialist revolution implies that we can, or should, abandon the fight for reforms. Not at all. We cannot know beforehand how soon we shall achieve success, how soon the objective conditions will make the rise of this revolution possible. We should support every improvement, every real economic and political improvement in the position of the masses. The difference between us and the reformists (i.e., the Grütlians in Switzerland) is not that we oppose reforms while they favour them. Nothing of the kind. They confine themselves to reforms and as a result stoop—in the apt expression of one (rare!) revolutionary writer in the Schweizerische Metallarbeiter-Zeitung (No. 40)—to the role of “hospital orderly for capitalism”. We tell the workers: vote for proportional representation, etc., but don’t stop at that. Make it your prime duty systematically to spread the idea of immediate socialist revolution, prepare for this revolution and radically reconstruct every aspect of party activity. The conditions of bourgeois democracy very often compel us to take a certain stand on a multitude of small and petty reforms, but we must be able, or learn, to take such a position on these reforms (in such a manner) that—to oversimplify the matter for the sake of clarity—five minutes of every half-hour speech are devoted to reforms and twenty-five minutes to the coming revolution.

Socialist revolution is impossible without a hard revolutionary mass struggle in which many sacrifices have to be made. But we would be inconsistent if we accepted the revolutionary mass struggle and the desire for an immediate end to the war while, at the same time, rejecting immediate socialist revolution! The former without the latter is nil, a hollow sound.

Nor can we avoid hard struggle within the party. It would be sheer make-believe, hypocrisy, philistine “head-in-the sand” policy to imagine that “internal peace” can rule within the Swiss Social-Democratic Party. The choice is not between “internal peace” and “inner-party struggle”. Suffice it to read Hermann Greulich’s letter mentioned above and examine developments in the party over the past several years to appreciate the utter fallacy of any such supposition.

The real choice is this: either the present concealed forms of inner-party struggle, with their demoralising effect on the masses, or open principled struggle between the internationalist revolutionary trend and the Grütli trend inside and outside the party.

An “inner struggle” in which Hermann Greulich attacks the “ultra-radicals” or the “hotheads”, without naming these monsters and without precisely defining their policy, and Grimm publishes articles in the Berner Tagwacht larded with hints and only comprehensible to one out of a hundred readers, articles in which he castigates those who see things through “foreign spectacles”, or those “actually responsible” for the draft resolutions he finds so annoying—that kind of inner struggle demoralises the masses, who see, or guess, that it is a “quarrel among leaders” and do not understand what it is really all about.

But a struggle in which the Grütli trend within the party—and it is much more important and dangerous than outside the party—will be forced openly to combat the Left, while both trends will everywhere come out with their own independent views and policies, will fight each other on matters of principle, allowing the mass of party comrades, and not merely the “leaders”, to settle fundamental issues—such a struggle is both necessary and useful, for it trains in the masses independence and ability to carry out their epoch-making revolutionary mission.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Notes
[1] See Marx and Engels, Selected Works, Vol. I, Moscow, 1962, pp. 549–50.

[2] Schweizerische Metallarbeiter-Zeitung (Swiss Metalworkers’ Gazette)—a weekly paper founded in Berne in 1902; adopted a social-chauvinist position during the First World War.

From The Anti-NATO Battleground In Chicago On May 20th-The Vets Throw Their Medals Away-A Transcript-"Honor the Dead, Heal the Wounded, Stop the Wars."

AMY GOODMAN: Today we bring you a Memorial Day special, "Honor the Dead, Heal the Wounded, Stop the Wars." That was the demand of veterans who gathered in Chicago May 20th at the site of the largest NATO summit in the organization’s six-decade history. The veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars as well as women from Afghans for Peace led a peace march of thousands of people to the summit gates. Iraq Veterans Against the War held a ceremony where more than 40 veterans hurled their war medals toward the gates of the NATO summit.
ASH WOOLSON: No NATO, no war!
VETERANS: No NATO, no war!
ASH WOOLSON: We don’t work for you no more!
VETERANS: We don’t work for you no more!
ASH WOOLSON: N-A-T-O!
VETERANS: N-A-T-O!
ASH WOOLSON: We don’t kill for you no more!
VETERANS: We don’t kill for you no more!
ALEJANDRO VILLATORO: At this time, one by one, veterans of the wars of NATO will walk up on stage. They will tell us why they chose to return their medals to NATO. I urge you to honor them by listening to their stories. Nowhere else will you hear from so many who fought these wars about their journey from fighting a war to demanding peace. Some of us killed innocents. Some of us helped in continuing these wars from home. Some of us watched our friends die. Some of us are not here, because we took our own lives. We did not get the care promised to us by our government. All of us watched failed policies turn into bloodshed. Listen to us, hear us, and think: was any of this worth it?
CROWD: No!
ALEJANDRO VILLATORO: Do these medals thank us for a job well done?
CROWD: No!
ALEJANDRO VILLATORO: Do they mask lies, corruption, and abuse of young men and women who swore to defend their country?
CROWD: Yes!
ALEJANDRO VILLATORO: We tear off this mask. Hear us.
IRIS FELICIANO: My name is Iris Feliciano. I served in the Marine Corps. And in January of 2002, I deployed in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. And I want to tell the folks behind us, in these enclosed walls, where they build more policies based on lies and fear, that we no longer stand for them. We no longer stand for their lies, their failed policies and these unjust wars. Bring our troops home and end the war now. They can have these back.
PETE SULLIVAN: My name is Pete Sullivan. I served in the Army National Guard for 12 years. And all I have to say is that this is not something that I’m proud of.
ERICA SLONE: My name is Erica Slone. I’m from Ohio. I served in the Air Force from 2002 to 2008. I’m an Iraq veteran. In the military is where I learned what integrity meant, and I believe I served with integrity. And at this point in my life, if I want to continue to live with integrity, I must get rid of these.
GREG MILLER: My name is Greg Miller. I’m a veteran of the United States Army infantry with service in Iraq 2009. The military hands out cheap tokens like this to soldiers, servicemembers, in an attempt to fill the void where their conscience used to be once they indoctrinate it out of you. But that didn’t work on me, so I’m here to return my Global War on Terrorism Medal and my National Defense Medal, because they’re both lies.
JERRY: My name is Jerry. I’m from New York City. I served in the Army from 2005 to 2009. I fought in Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. I, today, am giving back my Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, because I realized that after a while that it was just nothing but an idea made by a bunch of politicians, money-hungry politicians in Washington who will do nothing and have a complete disregard for human life and will do anything in their power to just make more money in the end. Now, if it’s just an idea, then therefore it was just an idea that sparked two wars that I had to fight in. And I don’t want any part of it anymore. And I choose human life over war, militarism and imperialism.
SCOTT KIMBALL: My name is Scott Kimball. I’m an Iraq war vet. And I’m turning in these medals today for the people of Pakistan, Iraq, Palestine, and all victims of occupation across the world. And also, for all the servicemembers and veterans who are against these wars, you are not alone!
CHRISTOPHER MAY: My name is Christopher May. I left the Army as a conscientious objector. We were told that these medals represented, you know, democracy and justice and hope and change for the world. These medals represent a failure on behalf of the leaders of NATO to accurately represent the will of their own people. It represents a failure on the leaders of NATO to do what’s right by the disenfranchised people of this world. Instead of helping them, they take advantage of them, and they’re making things worse. I will not be a part of that anymore. These medals don’t mean anything to me, and they can have them back.
TY: Hello. My name is Ty, and thank you all for coming out. I’m letting go and releasing this medal because love is the most powerful force that we can employ as human beings on this planet, and we cannot love holding weapons.
ASH WOOLSON: My name is Ash Woolson. I was a sergeant. I was in Iraq in '03, and what I saw there crushed me. I don't want us to suffer this again, and I don’t want our children to suffer this again, and so I’m giving these back!
MAGGIE MARTIN: My name is Maggie Martin. I was a sergeant in the Army. I did two tours in Iraq. No amount of medals, ribbons or flags can cover the amount of human suffering caused by these wars. We don’t want this garbage. We want our human rights. We want our right to heal.
JAYSON MISSOULA: My name is Jayson Missoula. I graduated high school in 2002. And thinking that we had to protect our borders, I wound up first enlisting in the Coast Guard. I spent four years on active duty. And in my time, I started to feel guilty, because my friends were going on multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan in other branches, and I was doing things as an 18-year-old, being led by men 10 years older than me, that the Secret Service recently got in trouble for. So then I get out, I go to college for a semester, and feeling guilty for spending time partying in the Caribbean and having to see humans—Haitians, Dominicans—floating in the water and wondering why they’re there, why are they leaving, and starting to ask these questions. All right, so then I go into the National Guard, sign up for a one-year contract, which they allowed me. They sent me to New Mexico to the desert for one month and then Vermont for two weeks. And after that, I was an infantryman, and then I was sent over to Iraq, and I spent just under six months driving a truck, playing god, after two weeks of infantry training. And we fortunately were redeployed home early. And since then, I’ve used my GI Bill to study political science and American studies, and it’s helped me humanize people all around the world, because one of the first friends I made is Palestinian, and I spent the summer in West Bank. For the first time, I learned a little bit what it feels like to be on the receiving end, when I was tear-gassed in a little village just south of Ramallah, Bil’in, I believe. But so, I apologize. One of my favorite new poets says, "Affirm life. Affirm life. Affirm life." That’s absolutely what we have to do. And the only medal I’m going to keep is the Humanitarian Service one I got for being in New Orleans, because that’s the only thing that we should be doing as humans.
DAVID VAN DAM: I’m David Van Dam. I was in the U.S. Navy. I’m a GI resister. I got a other-than-honorable discharge. And I want to say that their policies are other than honorable. And I’m honorable, and all the GI resisters that refuse to fight in unjust wars are honorable. This is in solidarity for all GI resisters of unjust wars!
MARK STRUDAS: My name is Mark Strudas. I’m from Chesterton, Indiana. I just want to say thank you for being understanding, inviting and wonderful—even these guys in black and blue. This is a Good Conduct Medal. Ha!
JACOB CRAWFORD: I’m Jacob Crawford. I went to Iraq and Afghanistan. And when they gave me these medals, I knew they were meaningless. I only regret not starting to speak up about how silly the war is sooner. I’m giving these back. Free Bradley Manning!
JASON HURD: My name is Jason Hurd. I spent 10 years in the United States Army as a combat medic. I deployed to Baghdad in 2004. I’m here to return my Global War on Terrorism Service Medal in solidarity with the people of Iraq and the people of Afghanistan. I am deeply sorry for the destruction that we have caused in those countries and around the globe. I am proud to stand on this stage with my fellow veterans and my Afghan sisters. These were lies. I’m giving them back.
CHRIS MOBERG: My name is Chris Moberg. I was part of the invasion of Iraq in 2003. And out of love and respect, out of the Iraqi people and the people of Afghanistan, I’m going to return these representations of hate and destruction back where they came from.
JACOB FLOM: My name is Jacob Flom. I was in the Air Force from '03 to ’07. And it's—I joined the military so I could pay to go to college, because the working class fights the ruling class’s wars. But I’m not fighting for imperialism anymore. I’m fighting against imperialism. And this is dedicated—this is dedicated to all the courageous people who are under attack by the FBI, Carlos Montes and the Anti-War 23.
RAYMOND KNAEBLE: My name’s Raymond Knaeble, and I’m here to return my medals. NATO, the U.S.A. government and Israel need to be held accountable for the war crimes, genocide, torture and drone attacks. I’m returning my medals! They can have them!
STEVEN LUNN: My name is Steven Lunn [phon.]. I’m a two-time Iraq combat veteran. This medal
I’m dedicating to the children of Iraq that no longer have fathers and mothers.
SHAWNA FOSTER: My name is Shawna, and I was a nuclear biological chemical specialist for a war that didn’t have any weapons of mass destruction. So I deserted. I’m one of 40,000 people that left the United States Armed Forces because this is a lie!
STEVE ACHESON: My name is Steve Acheson. I’m from Campbellsport, Wisconsin. I was a forward observer in the United States Army for just under five years. I deployed to Sadr City, Iraq, in 2005. And I’m giving back my medals for the children of Iraq and Afghanistan. May they be able to forgive us for what we’ve done to them. May we begin to heal, and may we live in peace from here until eternity.
PHIL: My name’s Phil. I’m from Atlanta. And the reason why I’m throwing my medal back is because we are the global 99 percent, and we refuse to be silent, from Egypt back here to Chicago!
MICHAEL THURMAN: Hello. My name is Michael Thurman. I was a conscientious objector from the United States Air Force. I’m returning my Global War on Terrorism Medal and my military coins on behalf of Private First Class Bradley Manning, who sacrificed everything to show us the truth about these wars.
GREG BROSEUS: My name is Greg Broseus. I’m from Columbus, Ohio. I now reside in the beautiful city of Chicago, Illinois, that today is not quite as beautiful, because NATO is here. And I’m here to return my medals, because I cannot stand in solidarity and peace with my brothers and sisters in Iraq and Afghanistan as long as I wear them.
SABRINA WALLER: My name is Sabrina Waller. I’m a United States Navy veteran. I deployed under NATO orders to Kosovo in '99. I'm also a mother of an 11-year-old. For over 10 years of his life, we’ve been waging war. And the only fight that I want to participate in is the fight to ensure that my son and his generation never have to fight another war.
MATT: My name is Matt [inaudible]. I served in the U.S. Army in 2004 in Iraq. I’m returning my medals today because, under the guise of freedom and democracy, I stole the humanity of the Iraqi people and lost mine. We are on the right side of history!
MATT HOWARD: My name is Matt Howard. I served in the United States Marine Corps from 2001 to 2006 and in Iraq twice. I’m turning in my campaign service—Iraq Campaign Service Medal and Global War on Terror Service and Expeditionary Medals for all my brothers and sisters affected with traumatic brain injury, military sexual trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder.
BRYAN REINHOLDT: My name is Bryan Reinholdt. I’m from Kentucky. I’m a former sergeant of the U.S. Army. Former sergeant of the U.S. Army, proud member of Iraq Veterans Against the War. And I’m taking these things off—all of them—encourage you to refuse to.
MARK: I’m Mark. I haven’t been too convinced of anything the last seven years, except for the fact that I’ve been hurting. And I have three daughters: Anell, Leah and Nora. And I’m convinced, looking out across this, this crowd of peace-loving people, that my daughters are going to have peace.
ZACH LAPORTE: Hi. My name is Zach LaPorte, and I’m an Iraq war veteran from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Thank you. I’m giving back my medals today because I feel like I was duped into an illegal war that was sold to me on the guise that I was going to be liberating the Iraqi people, when instead of liberating the people, I was liberating their oil fields.
RACHEL McNEILL: My name’s Rachel McNeill. I served in the military for almost eight years as a sergeant. And i’m returning this medal today because it’s time to restore America’s honor and renounce this war on terror.
JACOB GEORGE: My name is Jacob George. I’m from the Ouachita Mountains in Arkansas. I’m a three-tour veteran of the Afghan war, paratrooper and sergeant. And I have one word for this Global War on Terrorism decoration, and that is "shame."
SCOTT OLSEN: My name is Scott Olsen. I have with me today—today I have with me my Global War on Terror Medal, Operation Iraqi Freedom Medal, National Defense Medal and Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal. These medals, once upon a time, made me feel good about what I was doing. They made me feel like I was doing the right thing. And I came back to reality, and I don’t want these anymore.
JOSHUA: I’m Joshua. I’m a member of IVAW, and I’m from Chicago. And honestly, friends, I’m here to tell you that I blame myself first. I should have done my homework, should have realized the lies before I participated in them. So this symbolic act, this throwing of the medal, is for all those people out there who are wondering why we’re doing it. Do your homework.
RICHARD STRODER: My name is Richard Stroder [phon.], and I’m from Auburn, Alabama. And I’m here to say that war is a racket!
TODD DENNIS: My name is Todd Dennis. I served in the United States Navy. I have PTSD. I’m returning my Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal because it was given to me, according to my letter, because of hard work and dedication and setting the example. I was a hard worker because I buried my PTSD and overworked myself in the military. And I’m throwing this back and invoking my right to heal.
MICHAEL APPLEGATE: My name is Michael Applegate. I was in the United States Navy from 1998 to 2006. And I’m returning my medal today because I want to live by my conscience rather than being a prisoner of it.
NATE: My name’s Nate. I served in the U.S. Navy from ’99 to 2003 and participated in the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. I was wrong to sign myself up for that. I apologize to the Iraqi and Afghani people for destroying your countries.
JOSHUA SHEPHERD: My name is Joshua Shepherd. I spent six years in the United States Navy. These are not mine. They never were. They’re instruments of control from this government. I will not continue to trade my humanity for false heroism.
BROCK McINTOSH: My name is Brock McIntosh. I was in the Army National Guard and served in Afghanistan from November '08 to August ’09. Two months ago, I visited the monument at Ground Zero for my first time with two Afghans. A tragic monument. I'm going to toss this medal today for the 33,000 civilians who have died in Afghanistan that won’t have a monument built for them. And this is for the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers.
JOHN ANDERSON: My name is John Anderson. I did two deployments to Iraq. And all of this destruction was not necessary. And now, we will bring it to an end, because another world is possible. We are unstoppable!
CROWD: Another world is possible!
JOHN ANDERSON: We are unstoppable!
CROWD: Another world is possible!
GRAHAM CLUMPNER: I’m Graham Clumpner. I’m an Army veteran. I spent a good amount of time in Afghanistan. And I just want everybody to look around, take a second and look around, look next to you right now. I’m talking to the police officers. I’m talking about everybody out here. There are thousands of people out here for something important. We’re hearing. We’re having a conversation for the first time in a long time—for many of us, for the first time. And I want to say that all of us, in some way or another, are trying to serve this great land that we live in, but it’s only great because of what we do with it. And sometimes we make mistakes. And the way we change that is we admit our mistakes and we take responsibility for our mistakes, and we change and we become better, and we do it together. So I’m returning my Global War on Terrorism Medal, because I don’t fight wars on adjectives.
VINCE EMANUELE: My name is Vince Emanuele, and I served with the United States Marine Corps. First and foremost, this is for the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. Second of all, this is for our real forefathers. I’m talking about the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. I’m talking about the Black Panthers. I’m talking about the civil rights movement. I’m talking about unions. I’m talking about our socialist brothers and sisters, our communist brothers and sisters, our anarchist brothers and sisters, and our ecology brothers and sisters. That’s who our real forefathers are. And lastly—and lastly and most importantly, our enemies are not 7,000 miles from home. They sit in boardrooms. They are CEOs. They are bankers. They are hedge fund managers. They do not live 7,000 miles from home. Our enemies are right here, and we look at them every day. They are not the men and women who are standing on this police line. They are the millionaires and billionaires who control this planet, and we’ve had enough of it. So they can take their medals back.
CHUCK WINANT: My name is Chuck Winant. I’m here on behalf of six good Americans who really wanted to be here but they couldn’t be. They couldn’t be, because when they came to the U.S. border, they’d be immediately arrested. And the crime they’d be arrested for was refusing to continue to participate in the crimes against the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. And these good Americans, who are exiled now from this country, who deserve amnesty, are Private Christian Kjar of the U.S. Marine Corps; Private Kim Rivera, Army, Combat Action Badge, refused redeployment to Iraq; Corporal Jeremy Brockway, U.S. Marine Corps, Combat Action Badge, refused redeployment to Iraq; Specialist Jules Tindungan, Combat Infantry Badge, paratrooper, refused redeployment to Afghanistan; Sergeant Corey Glass, Army, refused redeployment to Iraq; and Sergeant Chris Vassey, paratrooper, CIB, refused redeployment to Afghanistan. I have their awards in my pocket, and I’m throwing them back, mad as hell!
AARON HUGHES: My name is Aaron Hughes. I served in the Illinois Army National Guard from 2000 and 2006. This medal right here is for Anthony Wagner. He died last year. This medal right here is for the one-third of the women in the military that are sexually assaulted by their peers. We talk about standing up for our sisters—we talk about standing up for our sisters in Afghanistan, and we can’t even take care of our sisters here. And this medal right here is because I’m sorry. I’m sorry to all of you. I’m sorry.
ALEJANDRO VILLATORO: My name is Alejandro Villatoro, sergeant. I went to—took part of the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and Afghanistan 2011. Believe me, I was a soldier. I was a squared-away soldier, and I really believed in this mission. And I learned the Army values: loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity and personal courage. But after my experience, I realized that there is no integrity. Integrity: do what’s legally and morally right. And we failed. So there is no honor in these wars. There’s just shame.
AMY GOODMAN: Veterans of the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam, hurling their war medals towards the gates of the NATO summit in Chicago. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report, as we bring you this Memorial Day special, "Honor the Dead, Heal the Wounded, Stop the Wars." Back in a minute.
Mother of Iraq Veteran Who Committed Suicide: "Honor the Dead, Heal the Wounded, Stop the Wars"
download: Video Audio Get CD/DVD More Formats
Share


Printer-friendly
Transcript |

On a makeshift stage outside the NATO summit in Chicago, antiwar veterans fold an American flag that flew over NATO operations from Bosnia to Libya and which represents the flag that is “draped over the coffins of thousands of Americans killed in combat and thousands more who have committed suicide after they returned from service." They present the flag to Mary Kirkland, mother of Derrick Kirkland, who joined the military in 2007 and committed suicide in March 2010 after his second tour of duty in Iraq. “I am not ashamed that I have to tell people that my son committed suicide. I am ashamed of the military for failing to give him proper mental health treatment,” Kirkland says. The military originally reported that her son was killed in action. Click here to see the other parts of our 2012 Memorial Day Special: 1, 3, 4, 5. [includes rush transcript]
Filed under NATO, PTSD, Iraq, Afghanistan, Veterans, Healthcare
Guest:
Mary Kirkland, her son, Derrick, committed suicide but the military reported him as killed in action.
Related
• Scott Olsen, U.S. Vet Who Nearly Lost Life at Occupy Protest, Brings Antiwar Message to NATO Summit May 28, 2012 | Story
• Memorial Day Special: U.S. Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan Return War Medals at NATO Summit May 28, 2012 | Story
• "Mind Zone": New Film Tracks Therapists Guiding Soldiers Through Traumas of Afghan War Mar 16, 2012 | Story
• Army Ranger Widow Confronts Rumsfeld over His Lies that Convinced Her Husband to Join the Military Aug 30, 2011 | Story
• U.S. Army Vets Join with Afghans for Peace to Lead Antiwar March at Chicago NATO Summit May 28, 2012 | Story
Links
• Iraq Veterans Against the War
• NATO Protest Website
Rush Transcript
This transcript is available free of charge. However, donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution.Donate >
Transcript
AMY GOODMAN: "World Wide Rebel Songs" by Tom Morello, singing at a concert in Chicago celebrating Woody Guthrie’s upcoming 100th birthday. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, as we return to the makeshift stage outside the NATO summit in Chicago, where scores of veterans gathered to protest NATO’s wars.
ALEJANDRO VILLATORO: We’re going to begin our ceremony with a folding of the flag. This American flag flew over NATO military operations in Bosnia, Kosovo, Serbia, Afghanistan and Libya. This flag represents 60 percent of NATO’s funding and is responsible for immense militarization and intimidation, beginning with escalation of the Cold War. This flag represents the untold suffering and pain caused by NATO wars and occupations carried out by U.S. and NATO forces against the oppressed people of the world. This flag flew over Afghanistan, standing as a constant reminder to the Afghan people that they were being occupied by foreign imperial powers. This flag flew over Libya, and it came by the way of drones, bombs, bullets and grenades.
This flag is draped over the coffins of thousands of Americans killed in combat and thousands more who have committed suicide after they returned from service. Currently, 18 veterans commit suicide each day. We retire this flag and give it to those who often suffer silently in war, at home and abroad. Military families and Mary, who lost her military son to suicide, represents those who lose something that can never be given back. Mary mourns the loss of her son and to thousands of parents in this country.
AMY GOODMAN: After the ceremony where she was presented with the American flag, I spoke with Mary Kirkland, mother of Derrick Kirkland. Derrick joined the Army in 2007, since he was not earning enough money to support his wife and child. During his second deployment to Iraq, he attempted suicide for the first time. Mary Kirkland describes what happened next.
MARY KIRKLAND: He was on his second deployment in Iraq, probably like in the six-month mark. I don’t know exactly what caused it, but he ended up putting a shotgun in his mouth over there in Iraq, and one of his buddies stopped him. They got him help while he was there, then transferred him to the hospital in Germany, where he stayed about a week and a half. Then they sent him back to his home base of Fort Lewis, which is now Joint Base Lewis-McChord. He came back on a Monday after two failed suicide attempts in a three-week period, kept him overnight in the hospital for one night.
AMY GOODMAN: Where?
MARY KIRKLAND: There at Madigan Army Hospital at Fort Lewis. He met with a psychiatrist the next day who deemed him to be low to moderate risk for suicide, his only restriction being that he was not to be around any weapons, and cleared him for him to go basically in the barracks room by himself, which I found, after talking to the veterans, was illegal.
He tried to kill hisself again on Thursday night. He got back on the 15th and killed himself on the 19th. On the Thursday, on the 18th, he had bought some rum, so was drinking rum with his medications that they did just gave him, his antidepressants and sleep medicine, and cut hisself, had bloodstains all over his room. It wasn’t successful, so he got up Friday morning and bandaged hisself.
One of his things that he wrote before he went and hung hisself was "I feel invisible. I feel like I’m transparent." And nobody walked into the room on Friday to see the bloodstains. Derrick didn’t hang hisself until—the last time they had seen him was Friday night at 10:00, and they found him Saturday morning at 1:30. If anybody would have walked in that room on that Friday—but they didn’t even—the leadership wasn’t even checking on him.
So this mother got woke up Sunday morning at 6:30 to tell me that my son was dead, that I had let my guard down, 'cause he got back on Monday, he's back in the United States, he’s safe, he’s—and the Army called it a "miscommunication," is why my son is dead.
AMY GOODMAN: When did he enlist?
MARY KIRKLAND: He enlisted January of 2007.
AMY GOODMAN: And why did he enlist?
MARY KIRKLAND: He had a wife and child, and cook at an IHOP, not enough money, went to an Army recruiter that, you know, promised all the benefits, and you get this, and he just wanted to support his family.
AMY GOODMAN: What where those two tours like in Iraq that he served?
MARY KIRKLAND: The first one lasted 15 months. That’s when they had changed it, and they had to stay over there 15 months. Before he went, always laughing, always, you know, a jokester. Then, when he got back in June, he—you could—the sparkle wasn’t in his eye no more. "Yes, I’m the tough guy, I’m the soldier." That was right after he first joined that they took. But no, his eyes would sparkle, and he liked skateboarding, he liked playing guitar.
AMY GOODMAN: Did you want him to go into the military?
MARY KIRKLAND: At that point in time, I agreed with it, and actually it was because of Derrick that my other two younger—or, my daughter and my younger son had joined. Their father was in the Army. Their grandfather was in the Army and Navy. My father was in the Navy, with two brothers being in the Navy. You know, so he was kind of a—it’s a good thing, it’s an honorable thing, to go into the military.
AMY GOODMAN: What happened when he went for the second tour of duty?
MARY KIRKLAND: Well, in between getting home, he came home on leave and—I didn’t know what I know now about post-traumatic stress syndrome and the symptoms and, you know—but looking back, and, you know, like conversations like, "Mom, I’m the murderer." And I’d tell him, "No, Derrick, you’re in a war. You know, there’s a difference between being in a war and killing somebody and just going up on the street and killing somebody. That’s a murderer." And he had trouble sleeping, was drinking.
AMY GOODMAN: Was he drinking a lot before he enlisted?
MARY KIRKLAND: He drank, but not—you know, not overly drinking. Party-type drinking, you know, hanging out with his friends. And, of course, you have to realize I only got to spend probably about three days with him, while he was home on—in between the time of the leave. And like I said, I missed it. You know, I should have asked more questions or—I don’t know. You know, that’s the question I’m asking the veterans, you know, that I encounter. It’s like, what—what can I do to help? What can I do to help you?
AMY GOODMAN: When did you start asking the questions after Derrick died? What brought you here to this NATO summit?
MARY KIRKLAND: On March 27, 2010, is when we buried Derrick. And Derrick is buried at Marion National Cemetery, which is 50 miles—about 50 miles from Indianapolis. And as we was leaving, I stopped at a gas station, and I got a newspaper to see if they had anything wrote. And they had a picture with the Patriot Guards, and then the—underneath, it said that the Department of Defense states that Derrick was killed in action and that the family declines to comment. And that started two lies off right there. No, Derrick was not killed in action. He was killed because of failed mental healthcare at a Army base at Fort Lewis, you know. And I would have commented. From day one, I would have commented.
So, I had to, like, fight, because Derrick was still legally married, and at first they tried to put me off with, "Well, you’re not the next of kin." You know, you have to either get permission from his wife or hire an attorney. So, I mean, to be honest, there was a few drunken nights that I made phone calls, and I started getting some paperwork. But it just started with lies, you know, and how I feel is—and I asked them, you know, when I called to get some paperwork, I asked them, I’m like, "Well, the Department of Defense said that Derrick was killed in action." And they was like, "Well, it was probably a mistake from the newspaper, or they didn’t want to embarrass the family."
And, to me, I am not ashamed that I have to tell people that my son committed suicide. I am ashamed of the military for failing to give him proper mental health treatment. They don’t—they haven’t even treated our Vietnam veterans, you know, and now we’re in the next generation. I am here today because I don’t want my grandchildren, you know, after I’m dead and gone, to be having to march through the streets of Chicago.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you have a message for President Obama and for the NATO generals here at the summit?
MARY KIRKLAND: Actually, I seen it on a T-shirt. It was: "Honor the dead, heal the wounded, stop the wars."
AMY GOODMAN: Mary Kirkland, the mother of Derrick Kirkland. He committed suicide at Fort Lewis-McChord in Washington on March 19th, 2010, after two tours of duty in Iraq.