*From The Archives- Anti-War Soldiers and Sailors Solidarity Committees- Propaganda Or Agitation?

Click on the title to link to an "American Left History" blog entry, dated December 5, 2007, and titled "Political Slogans and Timeliness- Anti-War Soldiers and Sailors Solidarity Committees" that is mentioned in today's entry.

Markin Comment:

Let me put the question posed by the title of this entry in context. In early 2006, during the height of the furor over the Cheney/ Bush Administration’s handling of the Iraq War, the circle of anti-war militants that I work with proposed a strategic plan aimed at creating support groups, the soldiers and sailors solidarity committees mentioned in the headline, for the growing discontent inside the military. Politically the committees were seen by us as a shortcut way to do effective anti-war work in the absence of any real movement by organized labor to take actions, like political strikes, to put a end to the war. And also as a way to galvanize support from those anti-war militants who were repelled by the flagging mainstream middle class-led anti-war movement that seemed to be bogged down in a dead-end strategy of ever more mass demonstrations (although conveniently, as those who track such things will note, not near election time). Seemingly, more time was spent looking for ways to avoid confronting the war issue on the streets as those leading various coalitions greedily eyed the then up-coming 2006 mid-term Congressional elections, and the prospects for electing "progressive" Democrats.

There has always been a distinction made in the revolutionary movement, and if the reader is not aware of it he or she should be, and in any case I will make it here, between the tasks that small ad hoc militant leftist groups can propose and carry out in their work and those of a mass labor party or organization. Thus, today, for instance, communists and other radicals are for the most part about the business of carrying out propaganda to small groups of interested militants in order to create a cadre ready to carry out the tasks necessary when our time comes. In 2006 our circle went beyond that. We carried out the propaganda for soldiers and sailors solidarity committees in the local and regional anti-war milieus but we also saw something of a unique opportunity to link up the civilian antiwar movement with what appeared to us to be some serious discontent in the military, and we agitated around the committee slogan.

What we were responding to, as had occurred in the general population, was a war-weariness on the part of a significant section of the soldiery, a questioning of the mission in the wake of the very serious tendency toward chaos in the internal political and military situation in Iraq, a disquiet about the mounting personal hardships, especially by those National Guard units that were being held over beyond their original tour of duty, and an overall physical weariness caused by repeated deployments. The tinder was there, if only for a short time. Moreover, the point that pushed us forward was contact with elements in the military that were looking for civilian support. Thus, for most of 2006 we not only carried out propaganda for soldiers and sailors solidarity committees but we actively agitated and built them, as well. Furthermore, our agitation included encouraging larger groups to form committees, and to make contact with military personal in their area and, most importantly, in Iraq. Thus within the limits of our resources and the time frame we were working in we carried out what overall was an fairly goo small scale agitational anti-war campaign.

As I have tried to telegraph above though this ability to agitate effectively only lasted until the Bush troop "surge" of 2007. Our anti-war military work, strangely enough, was one of the casualties of that surge. Our contacts dried up, other things got resolved inside the military that helped tamp down the discontent, and, candidly, the morale of the troops improved as they smelled "victory" with the new "surge" strategy. Thus, that opening closed down. Although we did low-level work around the issue the agitational campaign ended and the slogan of the soldiers and sailors committees went back to its original use as a propaganda tool. I wrote a blog entry in this space about that shift from agitation to propaganda, and timeliness in revolutionary politics in general. (See linked article above.)

All this background, hopefully, will help explain not only the title of this entry but why recently my circle has again started to put the question of organizing soldiers and sailors solidarity committees on the front burner for propaganda purposes. This is moreover no mere abstract question. After reviewing the previous work and its rationale one of the younger, and newer, members of the circle questioned why we were reviving the slogan. Good point.

We have repeated projected that this Afghan war, and its future escalations, will be a big and permanent albatross around the neck of Barack Obama during the life of his presidency, especially from those people on his left that we want to, no, have to, talk to today. However, we also note that there is little manifestation of an anti-Obama backlash from that quarter today, although there are certainly murmurs of some inarticulate discontent. Moreover, there is nothing, at least nothing that we can grab on to, happening with the soldiers and sailors on duty now. So why the emergence of the slogan again, even if only for propaganda purposes? Well, that goes to one of the lessons that we learned from the 2006 experience.

I have recently (see blog entry for January 23), and have on many earlier occasions in this space, noted both my own background in anti-war military work and that such work is hard, tough work. One of the biggest initial hurdles is making those first contacts AND then winning through actions over time the trust of the soldiery. Our circle has come to a consensus, and rightly so I think, that we were actually too late in starting our work in 2006, that early or mid-2005 would have placed us in better position to make a bigger splash. So while this slogan is a propaganda point right now, we are making it today to get those connections going. For others, to whom this entry is really directed, and who are interested in this strategy start thinking along those lines. Also check the Fort Hood, Fort Lewis and Fort Drum G.I. Coffee House links on this profile page for further orientation. Not one penny, not one person for Obama’s wars! For soldiers and sailors anti-war solidarity committees! Immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all U.S./Allied troops and mercenaries from Iraq and Afghanistan!

When Studs Terkel Spoke Truth To Power In A Sullen World -A Tribute From NPR’s- Christopher Lydon’s “Open Source”*World War II Up Close And Personal- Studs Terkel's "The Good War"

When Studs Terkel Spoke Truth To Power In A Sullen World -A Tribute From NPR’s Christopher Lydon’s “Open Source”

Link to Christopher Lydon's Open Source program on the late "people's  journalist" Studs Terkel

http://radioopensource.org/sound-of-studs-terkel/ 

By Si Lannon

It was probably Studs Terkel via a series of book reviews of his interviews trying to get a feel for the soul of the American from Sam Lowell that I first heard the expression “speaking truth to power.” Spoke that message to a sullen world then. Unfortunately since that time the world had not gotten less sullen. Nor has the need to speak truth to power dissipated since Studs passed from this mortal coil of a world that he did so much to give ear and eye to. The problem, the real problem is that we in America no longer produce that pied piper, that guy who will tell the tale the way it has to be told. Something about those gals and guys who waded through the Great Depression, saw firsthand in the closed South Side Chicago factories that something was desperately wrong with the way society operated and slogged through World War II and didn’t go face down in the post-war dead ass could war night spoke of grit and of a feeling that the gritty would not let you down when the deal went down. When Mister (Peabody, James Crow, Robber Baron you name it) called the bluff and you stood there naked and raw.        

Fellow Chicagoan writer Nelson Algren (he of The Man With The Golden Arm and Walk On The Wild Side) put the kind of gals and guys Studs looked around for in gritty urban sinkhole lyrical form but Studs is the guy who found the gritty unwashed masses to sing of. (It is not surprising that when Algren went into decline, wrote less lucid prose Stud grabbed him by the lapels and did a big time boost on one of his endless radio talks to let a candid world know that they missing a guy who know how to give voice to the voiceless, the people with small voices who are still getting the raw end of the deal, getting fucked over if you really want to nitty-gritty truth to power). So check this show out to see what it was like when writers and journalists went down in the mud to get to the spine of society.     

Click On Title To Link To Studs Terkel’s Web Page.

Book Review

“The Good War”: An Oral History Of World War II, Studs Terkel, Pantheon Books, 1984

Strangely, as I found out about the recent death of long time pro-working class journalist and general truth-teller "Studs" Terkel I was just beginning to read his "The Good War", about the lives and experiences of, mainly, ordinary people during World War II in America and elsewhere, for review in this space. A little comment is thus in order here before I do so. The obvious one that comes to mind is that with his passing he joins many of the icons of my youth who have now passed from the scene. Saul Bellows, Arthur Miller, Hunter Thompson, Norman Mailer, Utah Phillips to name a few. Terkel was certainly one of them, not for his rather bland old New Deal political perspective as much as a working class partisan as he might have been, but for his reportage about ordinary working people. These are my kind of people. This where I come from. He heard the particular musical cadence of their lives and wrote with some verve on the subject, especially that melody of his adopted Chicago home (Musically, Robert Johnson's "Sweet Home, Chicago" fits the bill here, right?).

One thing that I noticed immediately after reading this book is that, as is true of the majority of Terkel's interview books, he is not the dominant presence but is a rather light, if intensely interested, interloper in these stories. For better or worse the interviewees get to tell their stories, unchained. In this age of 24/7 media coverage with every half-baked journalist or wannabe interjecting his or her personality into somebody else's story this was, and is, rather refreshing. Of course this journalistic virtue does not mean that Studs did not have control over who got to tell their stories and who didn't to fit his preoccupations and sense of order. I would have been surprised, for example, if the central leadership of the Allied military efforts, like General Eisenhower, got a lot of ink here but I was not surprised that, for example, the late "premature anti-fascist" Milton Wolff, the last commander of the Abraham Lincoln Battalion of the 15th International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War, got a full airing on his interesting World War II exploits.

What were Stud's preoccupations in this book? Obviously from the quotation marks around the title "The Good War" there is some question in his mind and in that of at least some of his interviewees that this now storied period was all that it was cracked up to be. One, however, gets the distinct impression that, notwithstanding that assumption, those who participated in this period, called the "greatest generation" at least in America basically saw it as a necessary war to fight, whatever else happened afterward.

I have my disagreements with the premise that was this was the greatest American generation (the Northern side in the Civil War gets my vote) and what one should have done in response to the Axis threat to the world and the defense of the Soviet Union but I too will defer political judgment and let the participants tell their stories.

And what stories are being told here? Well, certainly this book is filled with interviews of the lives, struggles and fate of the rank and file servicemen (and a few women) that fought that war. Those include the stories of soldiers from the Axis powers and the Soviet Union as well. Of course we have the trials and tribulations of those who were left behind on the home fronts, including those "Rosie The Riveters" women who went to work in the factories of America (and were later kicked out on the return of the men).

Moreover, and this marks this book as different from earlier efforts to tell the war story, we have stories of the plight and successes of blacks, including the now famous Tuskegee Airmen, in this transitional racial period that in many ways is the catalyst for the later black civil rights movement of the 1950's. It is no accident that many of the early rank and file cadres of that movement were veterans of this war. As importantly we also have stories here of the effects the internment of Japanese-Americans during the war as told by those affected.

Of course, no modern account of World War II can be complete without mention of the Holocaust (Shoah), the fates of the survivors and those who didn't as well as the impact that it had on the liberators on entering the death camps. Also necessary are the interviews concerning the grizzly fates of POW on all sides. As is, additionally, the general sense that many participants sincerely thought that this war was to be something like a war to end all wars (sound familiar?), especially in light of Hiroshima.

I was somewhat surprised by the overwhelming distinction that was drawn between the "civilized" nature of the European war and the "savagery" of the Pacific war by the participants. However, I was not surprised by the general support for the dropping of the atomic bomb expressed by the bulk of the interviewees questioned nor was I surprised by the little tidbits of information about events that occurred during the war that presaged the buildup to the anti-Soviet Cold War.

For those of us who are sons and daughters of this generation that fought the war, and who came of political age in the 1960's, this little book provides more personal information in one spot than I ever learned from my taciturn and reticent parents or from the high school history books. That, my friends, makes this any extremely necessary book for your lists if you came from an even later generation and are personally farther removed from this period. Read this book! Kudos and adieu Studs.

A TIME TO TRY MEN'S SOULS

THE RANK AND FILE ARMY IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION- A CAUTIONARY TALE

BOOK REVIEW

THE PROUD AND THE FREE, HOWARD FAST, WEIDERFIELD AND NICHOLSON, 2003

The Proud and the Free is one of a series of several books that the novelist Howard Fast has written on aspects of the American Revolution. The subject of this volume is a novelistic reenactment, using the narrative devise of reminiscences of a participant looking back from old age , of the famous mutiny of the Pennsylvania Line troops in 1781. The causes of the mutiny by battle-hardened soldiers who had faced and overcome five long years of hardship during the independence struggle and had become fed up over were, in short, the horrible working conditions and the indecisiveness of the Continental Congress and their own regimental military leadership. As always Mr. Fast takes a close look at the class divide-here between the rank and file mutinous soldiers forced out into the hard-bitten winter camps and the colonial gentry who drove them much in the manner of the British overlords they were trying to drive out. The mutiny was defeated after a short period under threat of annihilation from other, superior Continental Army forces.

That defeat brings us to the central question of what those mutinous forces could reasonable do in these circumstances of an unfinished revolutionary struggle. The mutinous regiments, negating the arguments of the necessity for stern and unreasonable authority from the colonial upper class military leadership, were more than capable of keeping order and discipline under the authority of their own elected leadership (The Committee of Sergeants). The real problem was the limited number of options the Line had to stay together as a disciplined force. These were troops committed to the revolution, its success and ultimate victorious conclusion. As the story makes clear they had nowhere to go but home or back to the front. Nobody said every just political action, and this mutiny was a just action, has the right ending. Here there could be no way to succeed as an independent force short of turning into rank and file Benedict Arnolds. They said, no thanks. I agree.

From The "Cindy Sheehan Soapbox"-August 6th, 1945: A Day that will live in Infamy by Cindy Sheehan

Click on the headline to link to the Cindy Sheehan Soapbox entry listed in the headline.

From "The Rag Blog"- Nancy Miller Saunders : Jane Fonda and the 'Home of the Brave'

Click on the headline to line to The Rag Blog entry listed in the headline.

Markin comment:

Despite any political disagreements we were kinda fonda Jane in those days. Especially anti-war G.I.s. And yes we all smoked, smoked whatever, in those days.

*A December 16th Veterans-Led March In Washington To Stop The Wars In Afghanistan And Iraq -From The "Stop These Wars" Website

WELCOME TO STOP THESE WARS Join Us For Peace on Earth!

Posted on November 19, 2010 by admin

During the Vietnam War, Martin Luther King called our government “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” True then—and even more so today.

A few years before that, in 1964 Mario Savio made his great speech at Berkeley; at the end he says, “There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part; you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!”

There are children being orphaned, maimed or killed every day, in our name, with our tax dollars; there are soldiers and civilians dying or being maimed for life, in order to generate profits for the most odious imperialistic corporate war machine ever, again in our name. How long are we going to let this go on? Until it is too late, until this destructive machine destroys all of us and the planet to boot?

Wikileaks has revealed the documented horror of U.S. war-making, beyond what any of us imagined. It’s time veterans and others express our resistance directly and powerfully by putting ourselves on the line, once again—honestly, courageously and without one drop of apology for doing so. It is not we who are the murderers, torturers or pillagers of the earth.

Profit and power-hungry warmongers are destroying everything we hold dear and sacred.

In the early thirties, WW1 vets descended on Washington, D.C., to demand their promised bonuses, it being the depths of the Depression. General Douglas MacArthur and his sidekick Dwight Eisenhower disregarded President Herbert Hoover’s order and burned their encampment down and drove the vets out of town at bayonet point.

We are today’s bonus marchers, and we’re coming to claim our bonus–PEACE.

Join activist veterans marching in solidarity to the White House, refusing to move, demanding the end of U.S. wars, which includes U.S. support—financial and tactical—for the Israeli war machine as well.

If we can gather enough courageous souls, nonviolently refusing to leave the White House, willing to be dragged away and arrested if necessary, we will send a message that will be seen worldwide. “End these wars – now!” We will carry forward a flame of resistance to the war machine that will not diminish as we effectively begin to place ourselves, as Mario Savio said, “upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus.” and we will make it stop.

We believe that the power of courageous, committed people is greater than that of corporate warmongers. But we will only see our power when we use it collectively, when we stand together.

With courage, persistence, boldness and numbers, we can eventually make this monstrous war machine grind to a halt, so that our children and all children everywhere can grow up in a peaceful world.

Join us at the White House on December 16th!

For a world in peace,


Nic Abramson, Veterans For Peace; Elliott Adams, Past President, Veterans For Peace; Laurie Arbeiter, Activist Response Team; Ken Ashe, Veterans For Peace; Ellen Barfield, Veterans For Peace; Brian Becker, National Coordinator, ANSWER Coalition; Medea Benjamin, Co-Founder, CODEPINK for Peace; Frida Berrigan, War Resisters League; Bruce Berry, Veterans For Peace; Leah Bolger, Veterans For Peace; Elaine Brower, Anti-war Military Mom and World Can’t Wait; Scott Camil, Veterans For Peace; Ross Caputi, Justice For Fallujah Project; Kim Carlyle, Veterans For Peace; Armen Chakerian, Coalition to Stop the $30 Billion to Israel; Matthis Chiroux, Iraq War Resister Veteran; Gerry Condon, Veterans For Peace; Will Covert, Veterans For Peace; Dave Culver, Veterans For Peace; Matt Daloisio, Witness Against Torture; Ellen Davidson, War Resisters League; Mike Ferner, President, Veterans For Peace; Nate Goldshlag, Veterans For Peace; Clare Hanrahan, War Crimes Times; Mike Hearington, Veterans For Peace; Mark Johnson, Executive Director. Fellowship of Reconciliation; Tarak Kauff begin_of_the_skype_highlighting end_of_the_skype_highlighting, Veterans For Peace; Kathy Kelly, Voices For Creative Nonviolence; Sandy Kelson, Veterans For Peace; Joel Kovel, Veterans For Peace; Erik Lobo, Veterans For Peace; Joe Lombardo, United National Antiwar Committee; Ken Mayers, Veterans For Peace; Nancy Munger, Co-President, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom; Fred Nagel, Veterans For Peace; Pat O’Brien, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom; Bill Perry, Vietnam Veterans Against the War; Vito Piccininno, Veterans For Peace; Mike Prysner, Co-Founder, March Forward; Ward Reilly, Veterans For Peace; Laura Roskos, Co-President, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom; Cindy Sheehan, Founder, Peace of the Action; David Swanson, author; Debra Sweet, National Director, World Can’t Wait; Mike Tork, Veterans For Peace; Hart Viges, Iraq Veterans Against the War; Father Louie Vitale, SOA Watch; Jay Wenk, Veterans For Peace; Linda Wiener, Veterans For Peace; Diane Wilson, Veterans For Peace; Col. Ann Wright, Veterans For Peace; Doug Zachary, Veterans For Peace



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Endorsers of the December 16 Veteran-Led Civil Resistance against War

Posted on November 19, 2010 by admin

■Veterans For Peace

■ANSWER

■CodePink

■Fellowship of Reconciliation

■March Forward

■Peace of the Action

■Peace Action Montgomery

■United National Anti-War Committee

■Voices for Creative Non-Violence

■Voters for Peace

■War Resisters League

■Washington Peace Center

■Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom

■World Can’t Wait

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Veterans Speak Out on December 16 Action

Posted on November 13, 2010 by admin

Fred Nagel

“Those who know the full extent of America’s imperial reach have a unique obligation to let their fellow citizens know what is being done in all of our names. But it is more than an obligation for veterans, since many of us have served in America’s invasions and occupations abroad. Perhaps it is also a privilege, another chance to express our love for this country, this time putting their bodies on the line to demand that America once again join the peace loving nations of this world.”—Fred Nagel, radio host and member, Veterans For Peace

Jay Wenk

“I listened today to Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech given at New York’s Riverside Church in 1967, “Why I Oppose the Vietnam War.” If any of us don’t know it, make it a point to hear it. His truth is timeless. When I hear it, I feel as deeply as possible, the necessity and the responsibility to be a Veteran For Peace. My conscience, my refusal to let the world change me are in the forefront of my existence. I will be with my brothers and sisters on Dec. 16.”—Jay Wenk, member, Veterans For Peace

Leah Bolger

“I am shamed by the actions of my government and I will do everything in my power to make it stop killing innocent people in my name.”—Leah Bolger, CDR, USN (Ret), 1980-2000; National Vice-President, Veterans For Peace

“‘….to protect and defend the Constitution…’ I took that oath as a sailor, and later as a police officer. I don’t consider that oath to have an expiration date because I believe in accountability, justice and peace. Where I come from, we say: ‘You don’t have to stand tall, but you’ve GOT to stand up.’ Stand up December 16, 2010, at the White House.”—Erik Lobo, member, Veterans For Peace

“War for empire, endless and cruel war, resulting in untold suffering, destruction and death for millions, a war economy here at home that steals from ordinary citizens and makes the few enormously wealthy, these are powerful reasons for us to put our bodies on the wheels, the levers, the apparatus of this vile war-making machine and demand that it stop. Enough is enough. There is no glory, no heroism, no good wars, no justification whatsoever, it is all, all of it, based on lies. I’ll be in Washington on December 16 with other veterans, resisting this war mentality, demanding its end.—Tarak Kauff, Veterans For Peace

From "The Rag Blog"-Alice Embree : Making the War Personal at Under the Hood

We can’t give you anything...
Making the war personal

By Alice Embree / The Rag Blog / November 14, 2010
We can’t give you anything but war, buddy

That’s the only thing we’ll hire you for, buddy...
These lyrics, to the tune of “I can’t give you anything but love, baby," were on my mind as several of us made a now familiar drive to Killeen, Texas, last weekend. The words were written by Vernell Pratt of the 70s-era Soeur Queens. They have a relevant ring in this recession.
Attend the 'Hoodstock Flashback' benefit for Under the Hood at Jovita's in Austin, Sunday, November 14, 2010, 6-11 p.m. See details below.
I probably wouldn’t have known anyone in our current “volunteer” army if I hadn’t gotten involved with the coffeehouse Under the Hood in Killeen, Texas. Comparisons are often made to the Vietnam-era GI resistance, particularly because Under the Hood’s predecessor, the Oleo Strut, was well known in that resistance.

Yes, there was a Vietnam-era draft that made the war personal for a generation. You could avoid mucking through the jungles in the boot-steps of French colonialists if you were privileged. George W. Bush is certainly an example. But what was markedly different was the economic landscape. This recession has provided a perfect storm for military recruitment. Piled onto the jobless landscape, you have escalating college, health care, and housing costs.

The soldiers entering the military in the post-911 atmosphere do so for reasons of patriotism and pocketbook. They are lured by lies about Iraq’s relationship to the Twin Towers and never told about the previous U.S. relationship with jihadists in Afghanistan while the Russians were there. But the lure of steady pay, bonuses, and benefits is almost a no-brainer given the devastated job market.

Monthly paychecks, housing subsidies, recruitment bonuses, deployment bonuses, medical and dental care for soldiers and their dependents, post-discharge VA care, and assistance for education. It is no accident that soldiers refer to their “job” and their “contract” all the time. It is no accident that any soldier who resists a deployment is forced to make a careful calculus of the monetary cost. An “Other Than Honorable” discharge often means re-paying a bonus, losing healthcare, and losing access to college assistance.

The Baby Boomers who were in Austin remember college with $70 rents, tuition of $50 a semester, coffee for seven cents in the Chuck Wagon. Not so, in this environment where college graduation means the “commencement” of daunting loan payoff.

Meanwhile we veer through the current political landscape with blinders. Does anyone, besides Michael Moore, ever speak about the relationship of mounting deficits and endless war? Does anyone really believe that continuing tax cuts for the wealthy has a relationship to job creation? Haven’t the tax cuts been in place? How’s that been working out for job creation?

We are in one of the best run shill games ever. Stagnant wage growth, transfer of wealth to the wealthiest, a ransacked job market, global companies packing manufacturing jobs off to the lowest bidders on the planet. The “housing bubble” was a Wall Street con man’s paradise with average folks piling on debt and Wall Street trading derivatives of that debt until the house of cards fell down and they got bailed out with taxpayer dollars.

Meanwhile, back at Fort Hood in Killeen, suicides are continuing their record-breaking pace. Multiple deployments with no end in sight have taken their toll with outright casualties and walking casualties, with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). We hear about it on Veteran’s Day and then almost everyone tunes it out.

Please don’t tune out an alternative this Sunday. Support Under the Hood’s mission to provide a free speech zone, a pro-soldier, anti-war presence a mile from the gates of the largest military base in the country, Fort Hood. Sunday, November 14th, 6-11, Jovita’s in Austin, $10 dollars. If you can't attend, you can support Under the Hood through its website, here.

[Alice Embree is a long-time Austin activist and organizer, a former staff member of The Rag in Austin and RAT in New York, and a veteran of SDS and the women's liberation movement. She is active with CodePink Austin and Under the Hood Café. Embree is a contributing editor to The Rag Blog and is treasurer of the New Journalism Project.]

From The "Rag Blog"- On The Opening Of The G.I. Coffeehouse At Fort Hood In 2008

Click on the title to link to a "The Rag Blog" entry for the of the "Under The Hood" Coffeehouse at Fort Hood at Killen, Texas in 2008.

Markin comment:

Note the picture of a smoking Jane Fonda in this blog entry. We were kinda fonda Jane in those days. And that ain't no lie.

*The Latest From The "Citizen-Soldier" Website

Click on the title to link to the "Citizen Soldier" G.I.-supportive Website linked here in the interest of helping G.I.'s find information to help them in their lives and struggles.

*On The Question Of Revolutionary Defeatism In The Struggle Against American Imperialism- A Note For Discussion

Click on the title to link to the "American Left History blog entry, "*From The Archives Of Bolshevik Anti-War Work- V.I. Lenin On Imperialist War And The Tasks Of Socialists", dated February 1, 2010, that is referred to below.

Every Month Is The Struggle Against American Imperialism Month

This entry started as a short note in response to a "Renegade Eye" comment about the place of revolutionary defeatism in the revolutionary catechism. As, seemingly, was inevitable on such a central subject for our movement in the fight against American imperialism the note grew and so I am placing it here as a discussion point.

*****

Ren-I have a few more thoughts on the inner workings of the concept of revolutionary defeatism, its programmatic importance and its place in our struggles against imperialist war today.


Let us put this thing in perspective from our vantage point as radicals in the United States, the number one imperialist power by a wide margin on the military front with no serious contenders in sight, and the main enemy of the peoples of the world. Those two factors go hand in hand. We of the left have done our fair share, one way or the other, in letting the imperial “monster” grow until it is virtually out of control. Moreover, each day that this system survives without us being clear about our goals only adds to their side of the equation.

I confess that in my early political days I thought that it might be possible to ‘tamp down’ the militarization of the American imperial state without having to do the heavy lifting that standing on the ground of revolutionary defeatism entails, and I see and hear much talk on the left today that echoes those early naïve sentiments of mine. One therefore needs to be clear about perspectives. In order to effectively fight American imperialism, which would also put a very big dent in the world imperialist system, we must hope for, pray for, shout out for, stomp the ground under our feet for the defeat of any military adventure the American ruling class and their agents have up their sleeves. And, most importantly, get soldiers, sailors and airmen infected with that same spirit.

We can disagree about many things but if you, I, or anyone else on left have a different perspective than one to that seeks the defeat of every American military adventure, and in some cases supporting victory to the other side, then we are doomed from the start. We can, maybe, keep a few illusions about this and that part of the system but no blinkers are allowed on this one. It is not just bad policies that drive the American imperial system, and most people are now beginning to see that with the replacement of Obama by Bush (oops, Bush by Obama, sorry), even if they are not yet ready to "storm heaven". Therefore a few bandages will not do, it’s the system itself that needs to go. And every foreseeable American military defeat no matter how small, and by whom, can accrue to us and assist our efforts.

How we present today’s version of revolutionary defeatism, and to whom, is another and, frankly, trickier matter. And that perspective too is conditioned by our failure, and the failure of our forebears, to end this capitalist system long ago. Pure pacifists, simple-minded or not, hardened bourgeois democrats, including the left-leaning types that supported Obama are not the audience for this perspective today. I agree with your point there. This failure has, moreover, left open the door for others, internationally, to propose their “solutions”, solutions far from our communist perspective, like those currently being espoused by political Islamic fundamentalism and in the past by various Stalinist trends. That situation, combined with the attenuation of any links to past revolutionary traditions leave us today, practically, with a somewhat watered down version of the tactic. Thus, we are left for the most part with negative slogans when confronting American military aggression- “Down with American Imperialism”, “Immediate Unconditional withdrawal”, “Troops Out” and so forth. That is the programmatic axis of revolutionary defeatism today. Political labor strikes against the war, and actions spear-headed by and with soldiers, sailors and airmen may be that axis tomorrow.

Beyond that we are trending on dangerously thin ice, even if our propaganda goals are directed at left militants. Toward the later part of the Vietnam War more than one militant proudly carried the flag of the South Vietnamese Liberation Front (NLF), and more than one militant, including this ex-soldier, carried signs calling for military victory to those same forces. Today such actions in support of the other side would be incomprehensible to even the best of young militants, even if there were forces on the other that we could identify to support. There are none that I see, whatever individual anti-imperialist actions we might find supportable by those who directly confront the American military machine.

Moreover, the real axis in today’s struggle against imperialism as it has unfolded requires that we carry out some old-fashioned class struggle actions here in America, such as labor strikes and other militant actions to prepare the working class to govern in its own interests. This rather than trying to find some virtuous "anti-imperialist" fighters in the maze of Iraq or Afghanistan politics is where we should be directing our energies. That will help slow down the imperial machine until we can get enough Bolsheviks on the ground, here and there, to make a difference. Then we will very definitely have a side to support. Agreed, brother?

*Make Every Military Installation A Soldiers And Sailors Solidarity Committee Fortress- No Anti-War Soldier, Sailor Or Airman Should Stand Alone!

Click on the title to link to an "American Left History" blog entry, "*From The Archives Of Bolshevik Anti-War Work- V.I. Lenin On Imperialist War And The Tasks Of Socialists-"Appeal To All Soldiers", dated February 1, 2010, referred to in today's entry.

Every Month Is The Struggle Against American Imperialism Month


Markin comment:

As our local anti-war activists circle was making the rounds of various workshops at a New England-wide anti-war conference held in Cambridge last month, trying to garner support for creating anti-war soldiers and sailors solidarity committees, I was approached by a young militant who told me that she was very interested in the idea but that in the section of Vermont that she came from there were no military bases. As least any known to her. Well, this time, my friends, old Internet technology was our friend indeed. After Googling for a while I did find one small military support unit that was housed in a larger federal building. Who would have thought? Right?

I only bring this up to make a point that it is almost impossible not to be near some military installation, or as here some military support unit, of the United States government not only here but any place in the world. Which only mean that our job is very hard if, as the headline for this entry states, we want to make every installation an anti-war fortress. But I am here to you tell, especially after listening to some of the stories from current and ex-service personnel,we must do it. I will be hammering on this theme as long as it takes, the anti-war soldiers, sailors and airmen must not stand alone, and we must make sure that they know that they do not stand alone.

Note: The answer that we received from our Internet efforts to the question that the young woman militant brought up is another important point concerning where to spent our limited resources. Although we now have proof positive that unless you live on an iceberg somewhere and, probably not even there now, you will have some kind of American imperial military installation to focus on.

The real question is whether, as in the Vermont case, it is worthwhile to do anything at such a spot or, as I proposed, join with others at more visible and populated installations where you are liable to get a better response, and some media coverage. I feel that it is very important to focus on military installations in our anti-war work these days to bring the message home more clearly but some spots have more value than others. The real key is to link up the with work in places like Fort Hood, Fort Lewis, Fort Bragg and Fort Drum that are critical to the current Obama war policies and have some history of G.I. anti-war work already. I do not know if you can Google for this kind of information or not but I would think that while the area around every military installation of any worth has its big share of military retirees it also has its small contingent of anti-warriors as well. You just have to dig down and find them. Again, the anti-war soldiers, sailors and airmen must not stand alone.

*The Latest From The "Different Drummer" Website At Fort Drum, New York

Click on the title to link to the G.I. Website mentioned in the headline.

Markin comment:

One protest, large or small, hooted at or cheered, such as the one down at Fort Hood, Texas on January 16, 2009, is worth more than many such rallies elsewhere. Hats off to the brothers and sisters down in at Fort Hood Texas on the front lines of the anti-war struggle. The anti-war soldiers, sailors and airmen must not stand alone. Build soldiers and sailors solidarity committees now!

*The Latest From the "Under The Hood" Anti-War G.I. Website At Fort Hood, Texas

Click on the title to link to a "Killen Daily Herald" article about a protest at Fort Hood on January 16, 2009.

Markin comment:

One protest, large or small, hooted at or cheered, at a military installation is worth many more such rallies elsewhere. Hats off to the brothers and sisters down in at Fort Hood Texas on the front lines of the anti-war struggle. The anti-war soldiers, sailors and airmen must not stand alone. Build soldiers and sailors solidarity committees now!

* The Anti-War Iraq And Afghan War Troops And Veterans Must Not Stand Alone-A Link To The IVAW Website

Click on the title to link to the "Iraq Veterans Against The War" Web site.

Markin comment:

I am proud to add this link to the IVAW site to this blog today. But more than that, these anti-war soldiers, sailors and airmen must not stand alone. Get The Trucks and Planes Rolling! All Out Of Iraq And Afghanistan Now!

*From The "Veterans And Service Members Task Force" Of The ANSWER Coalition- A Ten-Point Program

Click on the title to link to the "Veterans And Service Members Task Force" Of The ANSWER Coalition Website.

Markin comment:

I have placed this ten-point program here in order to generate a little discussion about the kind of demands and slogans that we should be educating service members around. My first impression, after looking at this program, was that ten points is too many for starters. But that is a little quirk of mine about "keeping it simple" with programmatic demands, especially when making propaganda for those who may not be that politically sophisticated starting out. Many of the demands are supportable but I question why they would be in a program that is trying to reach rank and file service members today.

This program is a lot to chew at one sitting, especially that point about abolishing the officers corps. That is an excellent point but it is also, practically speaking, the call to split the army more appropriately made (other than for propaganda purposes)in a revolutionary situation. If not, in essence, it is merely a call for rank and file control of the existing military that is akin to the call for workers control of production in a non-revolutionary situation. I believe that is no something that we want to advocate. We do not want to take administrative responsibility for running the imperial state, period.

Secondly, and this is probably a greater objection, some of the demands on their face are more utopian than even our little civilian demands for a workers party that fights for a workers government. Things like dismantling the military-industrial complex, reparations to victims, indictments of war criminals and profiteers are tasks that we will be more than happy to take up on "Day One" of workers power but, at least in my reading of the program there appears to be a belief that this can be done, or should be done by the current imperial rulers. Ask Commander-in-Chief of Obama if he is interested in redressing many historic wrongs? Is that the plan here? The question posed that way gives the answer.

Finally, I note there is no call for a rank and file service members union in the program. A ranks-based service members union is somewhat analogous to a workers union in concept in that it is an important way to gain unity for collective action in "on the job" rank and file matters like those questions of racial, sexual and homophobic harassment, job assignments, etc. mentioned in the program. And the military bosses will hate it as much as civilian employers hate workers unions. More later.

***********


March Forward!- Veterans and Services Members Task Force Of The ANSWER Coalition

10 Point Program for Struggle

1
We demand the right to refuse illegal and immoral orders.

Service members should no longer be bound to carry out the plans of the Pentagon and Wall Street in violation of U.S. law, international law and people’s right to self-determination. Service members deserve the right to resist, without persecution, orders that conflict with internationally recognized laws or that conflict with their own conscience.

2
We demand an immediate end to the criminal occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Service members should no longer be sent to fight, kill, die, be seriously wounded and/or psychologically scarred furthering the domination of U.S. corporations over other nations. We have nothing to gain from these wars. The occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan serve only the interests of the rich, not the service personnel who are sent over and over to repress people who have the right to determine their own destiny. The people of Iraq and Afghanistan are not our enemies. The more than 800 U.S. bases in 130 countries around the world should be shut down and the troops, fleets and air power brought home.

3
We demand an end to the existing officer corps.

The existing class stratification in the military must end. Officers—who are overwhelmingly from more privileged sectors of society—enjoy a much higher standard of living. They are paid significantly more, are provided much higher quality housing, and have access to services not available to enlisted personnel. Officers advance their careers on the backs of enlisted personnel, going so far as to send their troops into harm’s way for the good of their résumés. The existing officer corps should be dismantled and replaced by enlisted service members who are democratically elected by their units and who are subject to recall at anytime. Officers should no longer enjoy special privileges, including hand salutes. We also demand the right for lower enlisted ranks to unionize and form committees to address grievances with the chain of command, the unit and the military.

4
We demand an end to racism, sexism and homophobia prevalent in the military.

These are intentional barriers to rank-and-file unity against the will of the Pentagon, and must be eliminated through comprehensive education and strict disciplinary action. We demand an end to the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy and all other discriminatory measures against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and transgender individuals.

5
We demand adequate funding for The Department of Veterans Affairs.

Veterans should have full access to quality health care. Services should be drastically expanded to meet the real physical and mental health needs of veterans and their families. Independent medical investigations should be initiated to research the effects of potentially harmful experimental drugs and chemical, biological and nuclear agents to which service members have been exposed. Any service member who has served in a combat theater should automatically receive lifetime compensation from the VA for being forced to suffer or inflict physical and/or psychological harm in advancing the interests of U.S. corporations.

6
We demand the right to a job, housing, health care and education for all.

Service members are lured into the military with the hopes of escaping economic hardship as a civilian, and to obtain education benefits and job training. Yet thousands of service members must remain in the military, literally trapped due to the lack of opportunities in the civilian world. No service member should have to choose between military service and poverty. Housing, a job, and access to free quality education and job training should be a right for everyone.

7
We demand the immediate end to all military aid to governments in service of US imperialism.

U.S. domination is not only exercised through direct military involvement, but also through a myriad of brutal client regimes and comprador governments that are funded, supported and directed by the U.S. government. Service members should not have to serve a military that uses billions of dollars in funds and weapons to prop up governments that are guilty of committing war crimes or repressing their citizens for the interests of the Pentagon and Wall Street. Aid to such countries as Israel, Colombia, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, South Korea, Uganda and Egypt should be immediately cut off. All remaining funds, military equipment and weapons should be repossessed. Reparations should be paid to the populations that the military aid was used to repress.

8
We demand the immediate dismantling of the permanent military-industrial complex.

As long as there is a system in place that allows U.S. corporations to reap massive profits from going to war, there will be war for profit. The domination of the military-industrial complex has caused the death of tens of thousands of service personnel, and millions of innocent people—all in the name of profit. All private military corporations should be shut down or nationalized. The more than 1 trillion dollars a year that feeds the Pentagon and the military-industrial complex should be used to meet people’s needs.

9
We demand that all those involved in pursuing war for profit be indicted.

To ensure that service personnel no longer have to fight for the interests of the rich, all those responsible must be held accountable. Politicians, policy makers, lobbyists, CEOs and others involved in pursuing warfare—both military and economic—as a means to reap profit should be indicted for war crimes. Media outlets involved in disseminating false information in support of these plans should also be held accountable.

10
We demand full reparations paid, with interest, to all victims of the U.S. military.

As service members in the U.S. military, we have been told that our enemy is the poor and oppressed abroad. But they are not our enemies. To begin to undo the injustices in which we have been forced to take part, the U.S. government should pay for the rebuilding of every structure bombed, compensating families for every person killed and providing a lifetime of health care and disability benefits for every individual wounded, including resistance fighters who took up arms against the U.S. military.

*The Struggle To Create Anti-War Soldiers And Sailors Solidarity Committees- A Personal Note

Click on the title to link to an "American Left History" blog entry, dated March 16, 2009, and titled "A Short Note on History and the Individual- A Tale of Sorts".

Markin comment:

Over the past several years that this blog has been running I have had, on a fair number of occasions, an opportunity to write entries that link my current radical political preoccupations with some aspect of my earlier political development, or the effect of some earlier development on my subsequent attitude toward the struggle for our communist future. Nowhere is that link more apparent that in my current, revived struggle to generate support for the creation of anti-war soldiers and sailors solidarity committees (hereafter solidarity committees) as we gear up our opposition to Warmonger-in-Chief Obama’s provocative Afghan War troop escalation.

Literally, my baptism of fire as a radical (although not then as a communist) is directly related to my personal involvement in the military, the struggle against the military while I was in it during the Vietnam War period, and the conclusions that I drew thereafter about the imperial nature of modern American capitalist society and the a lifelong need to oppose it as a result of that experience. However, today I am not interested in rehashing those events, per se, so much as to draw attention to some lessons and some anecdotal evidence for the importance of creating those solidarity committees. For those who want to read more specifically about the contours of my own political trajectory I have placed a linked article above from an “American Left History" blog entry, dated March 16, 2009, and titled "A Short Note on History and the Individual- A Tale of Sorts".

First things first, though. Prior to the later stages of the anti-Vietnam War movement, there had been no serious thought, at least that I was aware of, given to directly link up the student-based civilian anti-war movement to the emerging anti-war sentiment INSIDE the military. That sentiment was building, especially in the draft-based army the was fighting the war and taking a serious psychological, if not physical beating, as the Vietnamese liberation forces proved tougher than expected. Those soldiers, at least some of them, also in the end got caught up in the anti-war fervor that was building up at home, and around the world.

Finally, significant numbers of civilians, and not just young people, although they were well represented, began looking to find a way to express their anti-war sentiments in a more fervent and effective way that through the electoral process, or its extension, the seemingly endless mass demonstrations created mainly to put pressure on those politicians to end that war. Those militants found a ready, if somewhat less politically sophisticated, audience willing to listen. An unusual moment in American history, to be sure.

Of course, we now know, at least those of us who looked into the matter, then and later, that there were a whole lot of prior experiences that in some cases, especially on the part of the American Socialist Workers Party, were willfully ignored about the earlier efforts to link up with soldiers struggles. In the SWP’s case that included their class struggle fight against World War II for while many members and supporters were sent to jail under the Smith Act, the fight for faster troop demobilization immediately after World War II and in their lonely struggle against the Korean War. Moreover, we of the left were left woefully ignorant of the most important example of anti-war military work in history, the Bolshevik anti-war program against the carnage of World War I, encapsulated in the slogans “the main enemy s at home” and "not one penny, not one man for the war", that was also a critical factor in the later success of the October revolution. I could also add to the list the struggle of French leftists of various political tendencies to aid the Algerian national liberation struggle by trying to break the rank and file soldiers of the French army from its murderous course. There are other examples, too few to be sure, but the lesson to be drawn and the point to be made here is that the core of the support started from civilian political organizations outside the military.

And that, of necessity, becomes the central point. Even under conditions of relative bourgeois political normalcy the ruling class gets very touchy about people, in or out of the military, fooling around with their military (and their police, prisons and courts, as well). They will forgive many things but not that. To insure that bourgeois stability today, especially in light of the lessons that THEY have learned from the Vietnam War experience where, arguably, their army toward the end almost fell apart as an effective fighting force, they have curtailed or restructured the democratic rights of those in the military that we civilians take for granted. Thus issues like: when and where and how service personnel can use their political rights, including their right to demonstrate; who they can talk to and when: and, the use or non-use of the uniform are all very much issues that those of us on the outside do not directly confront. I will not bore you with tales of the gross curtailment of justice meted out under military law, except to paraphrase something the great sardonic comic and social critic, Lenny Bruce, said - “in the hall of (military) justice, the only justice is in the halls”.

If those adverse conditions are part of the obstacles that we face today in organizing support for anti-war G.I.’s then you get a small sense of what it was like for soldiers in the Vietnam era (and before) to express their political opposition to that war, and more importantly, to organize their fellow soldiers around the struggle against it. And that is where the personal part of this entry really begins. I have already mentioned in previous postings that in 1968 I went from pillar to post in bourgeois politics trying to defeat Richard M. Nixon, rightly seen as the most visible political villain of that time. I worked, exhaustively, for Bobby Kennedy and after his assassination, holding my nose, for Hubert Humphrey. (Excuse me one moment: I am still blushing over that one). Thus, I knew how to get thing done, or get advice on how to get things done, in bourgeois politics.

Not so when I tried to do essentially the same thing (merely to exercise my democratic right to organize) anti-war opposition in the military. First off, I had not links to any radical groups to fall back on. I was, in any case, at that time leery of most of them. Moreover, one of the bases that I was at was in the Deep South and out in the boondocks (and today the location of key military bases, like Fort Drum in rural upstate New York, home of the heavily-used 10th Mountain Division continues that trend) , and a Yankee to boot, put me at a severe disadvantage. So whom did I turn to? Well, who is more against war that the Quakers, at least in the popular imagination. Even I knew that much at the time. So I ran to the Quakers, or rather their outreach branch, the American Friends Service Committee.

Of course they were mainly set up to counsel individual resisters, military of civilian, at that point. No question, however, that they did yeoman’s work in assisting and supporting various efforts that were undertaken by my military friends and me (and, not so strangely, today they still do that same work). Today in light of my political perspective I might not be able to make a righteous united front with them or join with them in their contingents in anti-war marches because the pacific slogans they would be able to support and the explicit anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist slogans called for by today’s political situation are counter-posed but I have always had a soft spot for their steadfastness, and that, my friends, is a rare commodity. That said, I kept those experiences in mind, especially the need to broaden the scope of the anti-war work to a more explicitly left-wing political level when I was "discharged" from the service (nice term, right?).

If I was not familiar, in the early of stages of my military ‘career’, with the G.I. anti-war coffeehouse movement that was starting to blossom at such places as Fort Hood (the legendary “Oleo Strut”, whose history I have placed a link to on this site recently) and Fort Ord (California) I was totally immersed in the literature after my discharge. I immediately got involved in an anti-war G.I. coffeehouse in the Northeast with some other radicals that I was familiar with (and, more importantly for organizing purposes, who knew some soldiers at the base). Many of the things that I learned about extra-parliamentary organizing came out of that experience. Although it was relatively shorted-lived (a couple of years, off and on) as the war in Vietnam dwindled down, the draft ended, and soldiers, especially drafted soldiers who were easier to approach, stopped showing up it became time to move on. An invaluable experience though.

Is anti-war G.I. work hard? It is nothing but tough work, believe me. The above-mentioned restrictions on military personnel’s political activities. The, frankly, low political consciousness of the rank and file soldier. The, usually, tough personal circumstances that drive an individual soldier to seek relief outside the military chain of command. The very real problem of spies, finks, and informers, military and civilian, in the small town environment where the work has to get done. Hell, sometimes the gap between the obvious up-front political goals of the civilian support group and the soldiers’ lesser demands. All those militate against success. Ya, it’s tough. But hear me out.

How good does it feel, as I have felt, to be in an anti-war demonstration INSIDE a military base with soldiers (out of uniform, of course) calling for an end to the Vietnam War. That will trump a thousand marches in Washington, D.C. Or of holding anti-war demonstrations right outside the gates of some boondocks fort, staring down a company of military police at the ready, to let one and all know the struggle continues and the anti-war soldiers inside do not stand alone. Or, to get back to the history of military anti-war work mentioned above, to savor the Bolshevik experience, if for now only second-hand. That is music for the future. Now though create, or start to think about creating, those solidarity committees. And emblazoned on their banners- Obama- Immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all U.S./Allied Troops and mercenaries from Afghanistan and Iraq. Hands off Pakistan and Iran.

*As The 2010 Anti-War Season Heats Up- A Note On "The Three Whales" For A Class Struggle Fight Against Obama’s Wars

Click on the title to link to a recent example from Fort Hood, Texas of the third point that is mentioned below, about the value of anti-war G.I. work.

Markin comment:

Yes, I know, the weather in the Midwest makes it likely that there will not be a thaw until July 4th. Washington, D.C., an anti- war protester’s Mecca, is paralyzed by a few inches of snow, as well as other little matters like the governance of the country. Florida is off-the-hook with its weather, and a winter vacation there is seemingly like going to North Dakota. All true but the hard days of January are none too early to began, at least in our heads, preparations for the anti-war offensive we desperately need to take flight this spring if we are to end these madnesses in Iraq and Afghanistan (for starters).

With that premise in mind I have, not unexpectedly, three suggestions that anti-war militants should at least think about now. These are just through into the pot for discussion at this point. They need to be flushed out and drawn up in greater detail. The three whales reference in the headline, by the way is not some symbolic cabalistic reference but is taken from the propaganda format of the Bolsheviks who tended to work with three points programs for ease of agitational effect. Ten Point, to speak nothing of Fourteen Point programs, are for political pros, for the rest keep it short, sweet and meaty.

One: Recruit and run independent labor-oriented candidates for any and all Congressional and Senatorial seats that are open in this 2010 election year cycle. This includes, horror of horrors, going out of our way to oppose so-called progressive Democrats, especially those like Nancy Pelosi who talk the talk, but refuse (or do not want to) walk the walk. I disagree with a lot of anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan's politics but one thing that she did do in 2008 was to run against Nancy Pelosi in her liberal San Francisco bailiwick. If they ask, as Pelosi did- why pick on little, old progressive me- here is your retort – Break with your party of war, imperialism and capitalist crisis, break with your Democratic Party. Then, maybe, we will support you.

The "Three Whales" of any electoral campaign can, and should, include: Immediate, unconditional Withdrawal of all troops AND a no vote on ALL military budgets; expropriation of the banks (and the myriad other such financial institutions that act like banks that have sprung up in late imperialist society) without compensation; and,the lynch pin, build a workers party that fights for a workers government.

Two: Gear up for this years struggle against the Afghan and Iraq war budgets. This is one of the only two ways we can end Obama’s wars. Cut off the funds now. Hold the feet of every politician right, left or center, over an open fire on this one. Vote NO on the Iraq/Afghan/Pak war budgets.

Three: As mentioned above in number two there are only two ways to end the wars, stop the money and stopping the supply of cannon fodder for the wars. A couple of years ago I, and my ad hoc group of anti-war militants, fought around a slogan calling for the creation of soldiers and sailors solidarity committees to reach out to the troops that were actual doing the fighting. This is tough, hard work, especially when the potentially explosive mixture created by of a draft army is not, currently at least, part of the equation, but it is not too soon to start making the links. I note that there is already some action on this front down at Fort Hood in Texas, a key transit area (as we learned tragically in November 2009). Today I have placed other blog entries about current anti-war G.I. efforts at military bases in this space.

More later….

* "Coffee Strong"- The G.I. Coffeehouse At Fort Lewis, Washington

Click on the title to link to the "Coffee Strong" Internet Web site for the "Coffee Strong" Coffeehouse at Fort Lewis, Washington.

Markin comment:

If Fort Drum stands for the hard fighting troops for Afghanistan and Fort Hood stands as a major transit point for the Mideast wars old Fort Lewis, as this writer well knows, was the major transit point for that Vietnam war of long ago. The dots all fit together on this one. Build anti-war soldier and sailor solidarity committees.

*A Sign Of The Times- A G.I. Internet Cafe At Fort Drum

Click on the title to link to the "Different Drummer Internet Cafe" Web site (there is also I believe a 'real' cafe in Watertown, N.Y. where Fort Drum is located called "The Different Drummer").

Markin comment:

Sometimes technology is helpful and sometimes it gets in the way. An Internet cafe to 'speak' to G.I. is an excellent and helpful use of such technology. Fort Drum, by the way, is well known as the home of the 10th Mountain Division that has sen plenty of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, and will see more. No wonder the army is more than happy that it is located out in the boondocks of upstate New York.

*From The G.I. Anti-War Struggle Archives- Fort Hood's "Oleo Strut" Coffehouse In The Vietnam Era- A Guest Commentary

Click on the title to link to an "Under The Hood" (Fort Hood G.I. Coffeehouse)Web site online article about the "Oleo Strut" Coffeehouse, an important development in the anti-Vietnam War struggle. Hats off to those bygone G.I. anti-war fighters.

Markin comment:

Anti-war G.I. work is tough work, no question. However when the deal goes down and you want think seriously about how to end Obama's wars you have two avenues- stop the war funding and support the soldiers and sailors in their efforts to end the wars that they wind up fighting. In short to deny Obama the fighters. In the meantime think about the idea of building soldiers and sailors solidarity committees so we are ready.