From The American Left History Blog Archives (2007-08) - As The Spainish Class Struggle Heats Up – THE OTHER SIDE IN THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR- ROME HONORS FRANCO’S ‘MARTYRS’

Markin comment:

In 2007-2008 I, in vain, attempted to put some energy into analyzing the blossoming American presidential campaign since it was to be, as advertised at least, a watershed election, for women, blacks, old white anglos, latinos, youth, etc. In the event I had to abandon the efforts in about May of 2008 when it became obvious, in my face obvious, that the election would be a watershed only for those who really believed that it would be a watershed election. The four years of the Obama presidency, the 2012 American presidential election campaign, and world politics have only confirmed in my eyes that that abandonment was essentially the right decision at the right time. In short, let the well- paid bourgeois commentators go on and on with their twitter. I, we, had (have) better things to do like fighting against the permanent wars, the permanent war economies, the struggle for more and better jobs, and for a workers party that fights for a workers government . More than enough to do, right? Still a look back at some of the stuff I wrote then does not a bad feel to it. Read on if you like

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THE OTHER SIDE IN THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR- ROME HONORS FRANCO’S ‘MARTYRS’

COMMENTARY

Under ordinary circumstances I do not give a tinker’s damn about the internal ceremonies of the Roman Catholic Church, or for that matter, any church but a recent news item hit me square in the eye. On Sunday October 28, 2007 at Vatican City some 498 priest and nuns killed just prior to or during the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39 were given a mass of beatification. Apparently beatification is a direct step in the process to sainthood- the Catholic Hall of Fame. Unfortunately the article did not give a list of reasons why these ‘martyrs’ were chosen other than the fact that they had been killed, presumably by forces that supported the lawfully designated Republican government, in the Civil War.

But wait a minute- this is Spain, this is the Spanish Civil War-what the hell- these are General Franco’s agents who fell all over themselves to aid his rebellion and ultimately led to forty years of hell. Those are the kinds of people that the Roman church is giving its blessing to. Let us further set the historical record straight - these were agents of that Romish church that owned significant lands and assumed all the prerogatives of feudal landlords in relationship to their peasant tenants. This, I might add, is the church of the Inquisition; the church that oppressed the poor, downtrodden and other wise confused people of Spain for centuries. Yes, there seems to be some symbolic ‘justice’ here as Mother Church honors her most trusted agents.

Popular anti-clericalism had a long tradition in Spain, justifiably so from any fair reading of the history of that benighted land. Many times during social turmoil ignited by the fed up peasantry and the plebes in the smaller cities prior to the Civil War the first plebian act was to go lay waste to the local church and scatter or otherwise harm the clergy. The period of the Spanish Civil War was no different in that sense. Except that by that time the anti-clerics had also taken on an anarchist or anarcho-syndicalist coloration. In fact during this period they made church vandalism into an art form. Thus this batch of ‘martyred’clergy were likely the victims of that tradition, although a stray irate republican, insolent socialist or undisciplined communist may have gotten caught up in it depending on the furies of the local population. Ernest Hemingway in his Spanish Civil War novel For Whom the Bells Toll has one of his characters narrate a very graphic description of what anti-clerical (and anti-central government) revenge was like in one locale.

Historically attacks on churches are an elemental first reaction by the plebian masses in a revolutionary period. In the English Revolution the yeomen of the Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army made a regular practice of reducing churches (for their silverware to be used as ammunition as well as an expression of rage). In the French Revolution the same thing occurred although on a less disciplined basis. Thus Civil War Spain is hardly an exception to that general trend. However socialists, especially Marxist socialists, have always drawn the line on the question how to deal with religion differently. We stand in solidarity with such elemental acts against the oppressions brought by religion however that is not our program. We recognize that we must change the whole material basis of society in order to get rid of the ‘need’ for religion as solace for an unjust and chaotic world. Hey, we are the “religion is the opiate of the people” guys, remember? Thus we spill no tears over the fate of these Popish ‘martyrs’ but neither do we advocate such action to create social change. We go after the big guns- the capitalists.

While we are on the question of honoring those who died in the Spanish Civil War we have our own heroes to recognize. Like those who fought under the banner of the Central Committee of the Anti-Fascist Militias and saved the republic, in the short haul, as Franco’s rebellion reared its ugly head. Or those far- flung legions of‘pre-mature” anti-fascists who came from all over Europe and the Americas and formed the International Brigades that did valiant service on the Ebro, the Jarama and elsewhere. Or those who defended Madrid in its hour of need so that Franco should not pass. And the anarchist Friends of Durritti (to speak nothing of Durritti himself) and the rank and file fighters of the Party of Marxist Unification (POUM) who were ready to give their all in the last ditch effort to save the revolution in the May Days in Barcelona in 1937. Yes, those are OUR kindred spirits. They stand in no need of beatification. However, in the end the best way to honor their efforts is to fight for socialism. Then we can put religions in the museums as historical curiosities

From The American Left History Blog Archives (2007-08) - On American Political Discourse – THE CULTURE WARS- PART 247-WOODSTOCK 2007

 

Markin comment:

In 2007-2008 I, in vain, attempted to put some energy into analyzing the blossoming American presidential campaign since it was to be, as advertised at least, a watershed election, for women, blacks, old white anglos, latinos, youth, etc. In the event I had to abandon the efforts in about May of 2008 when it became obvious, in my face obvious, that the election would be a watershed only for those who really believed that it would be a watershed election. The four years of the Obama presidency, the 2012 American presidential election campaign, and world politics have only confirmed in my eyes that that abandonment was essentially the right decision at the right time. In short, let the well- paid bourgeois commentators go on and on with their twitter. I, we, had (have) better things to do like fighting against the permanent wars, the permanent war economies, the struggle for more and better jobs, and for a workers party that fights for a workers government . More than enough to do, right? Still a look back at some of the stuff I wrote then does not a bad feel to it. Read on if you like

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THE CULTURE WARS- PART 247-WOODSTOCK 2007

COMMENTARY

As a political writer who stands well outside the traditional political parties in this country I do not generally comment on specific politicians or candidates, unless they make themselves into moving target. Come on now, this politics after all how can I justify not taking a poke at someone who has a sign on his chest saying –Hit Me. Lately Republican presidential hopeful Arizona Senator John McCain has fallen all over himself to meet that requirement.

And what is the fuss about. Studied differences about how to withdraw from Iraq? No. Finding ways to rein in the out of control budgets deficits? No. A user- friendly universal health care program? No. What has sent the good Senator into spasms is a little one million dollar funding proposal (since killed in the Senate) that would have partially funded a museum at Woodstock, site of the famous 1969 counter-cultural festival. His view is that the federal government should not be funding projects that commemorate drug, sex and rock and roll. Well so be it. However, the topper is this. In order to sharply draw the cultural war line in the sand he mentioned (just in passing, I’m sure) to the Republican audience that he was speaking to that he did not attend that event as he was ‘tied up’ elsewhere.

Unlike his draft dodging fellows, like Bush Cheney, Wolfowitz, et al in the Bush Administration McCain saw action in Vietnam. Of course that action was as a naval pilot whose job it was to attempt to bomb North Vietnam back into the Stone Age, a task in which they very nearly succeeded. Through the fortunes of war he was shot down and spent several years in a POW camp. That comes with the territory. In the summer of 1969 this writer also had other commitments. He was under orders to report to Fort Lewis, Washington in order to head to Vietnam as a foot soldier. That too comes with the territory. The point is why rain on someone else’s parade just because you want to be a hero. Moreover, it is somewhat less than candid to almost forty years later belly ache about it.

A note on Woodstock as an icon of the 1960s. The slogan-Drugs, sex, and rock and roll. We liked that idea then, even those of us who were rank and file soldiers. Not everyone made it. Some recoiled in horror later, including some of those today on the right wing of the culture wars. And others who did not inhale or hang around with people who did. Those experiments and others like communal living, alternative lifestyles and ‘dropping out’ were part of the price we felt we had to pay if we were going to be free. And creative. Even the most political among us felt those cultural winds and counted those who espoused this vision as part of the chosen. Those who believed that we could have a far-reaching positive cultural change without a fundamental political change in society proved to be wrong long ago. But, these were still our people.

Note this well. Whatever excesses were committed by the generation of ’68, and there were many, were mainly made out of ignorance and foolishness. Our opponents, exemplified by one Richard M. Nixon, President of the United States and common criminal, and today by John McCain spent every day of their lives as a matter of conscious, deliberate policy raining hell down on the peoples of the world, the minorities in this country, and anyone else who got in their way. Forty years of ‘cultural wars’ in revenge by them and their protégés is a heavy price to pay for our youthful errors. Enough.

From The American Left History Blog Archives (2007-08) - On American Political Discourse – A Labor Note (2007) As Michigan Goes “Right To Work”

 

Markin comment:

 In 2007-2008 I, in vain, attempted to put some energy into analyzing the blossoming American presidential campaign since it was to be, as advertised at least, a watershed election, for women, blacks, old white anglos, latinos, youth, etc. In the event I had to abandon the efforts in about May of 2008 when it became obvious, in my face obvious, that the election would be a watershed only for those who really believed that it would be a watershed election. The four years of the Obama presidency, the 2012 American presidential election campaign, and world politics have only confirmed in my eyes that that abandonment was essentially the right decision at the right time. In short, let the well- paid bourgeois commentators go on and on with their twitter. I, we, had (have) better things to do like fighting against the permanent wars, the permanent war economies, the struggle for more and better jobs, and for a workers party that fights for a workers government . More than enough to do, right? Still a look back at some of the stuff I wrote then does not a bad feel to it. Read on if you like      

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FORD UAW AUTOWORKERS CONTRACT- VOTE NO

COMMENTARY

NO TWO- TIER WAGE RATES- EQUAL PAY FOR EQUAL WORK

The big labor news this fall has been the fight by the United Auto Workers (UAW) for new contracts with General Motors, Chrysler and now Ford.  I have already discussed the GM and Chrysler settlement and now as of Friday, November 3, 2007 Ford and the UAW have reached a tentative agreement. That agreement is along the same lines as those ratified by GM and Chrysler (barely) - a new two- tier wage system for new hires who will get one half the average pay of senior autoworkers and union takeover of the health and pension funds. As I have lamented previously these contracts are a defeat for the autoworkers. Why? The historic position of labor has been to fight for equal pay for equal work. That apparently has gone by the boards here. Moreover the pension and health takeovers are an albatross around the neck of the union. No way is this an example of worker control not at least how any labor militant should view it. After all the givebacks its time to fight back even if this is a rearguard action in light of the previous votes. Any illusions that the give backs will by labor peace and or/avoid further layoffs, closedowns or outsourcing got a cruel comeuppance in the previous contract negotiations. No sooner had those contracts been ratified, and well before the new contracts were even printed, Chrysler announced layoffs of 8000 to 10, 000 and GM had previously announced about 1500 layoffs. FORD AUTOWORKERS VOTE NO ON THIS CONTRACT.       

I HAVE REPOSTED THE NOTES ON THE GM AND CHRYSLER SETTLEMENTS TO GIVE A PERSPECTIVE OF HOW THE HOPES THAT ORGANIZED LABOR COULD FIGHT BACK AGAINST THE TIDE OF GLOBALIZATION HAVE FADED AS THE PROCESS HAS GONE ON THIS FALL.

A Short Note On the Chrysler Autoworkers Contract Settlement

Commentary

The Wal-martization of the Once Proud UAW

Yes, I know that we are in the age of ‘globalization’. That is, however, merely  the transformation of the same old characters like General Motors, Ford and Chrysler in the auto industry that we have come to know and love moving away from mainly nationally- defined  markets to international markets. In short, these companies allegedly are being forced to fight their way to the bottom of the international labor wage market along with everyone else. As least that was the position of these august companies in the on-going labor contract negotiations with the United Auto Workers (UAW). And the labor tops bought the argument. In the General Motors settlement GM was nicely absolved from having to administer its albatross health and pension funds. Now autoworkers are held responsible for deciding what autoworkers get what benefits. This is not my idea of workers control, not by a long shot. Based on those provisions alone that GM contract should have been soundly defeated. That it was not will come back to haunt the GM autoworkers in the future.

Now comes news that, as of October 27, 2007, the Chrysler workers have narrowly (56%) ratified their contract, although some major plants voted against it and the labor skates pulled out all stops to get an affirmative vote. If anything that contract is worst than the GM contract because it also contains a provision for permitting a two-wage system where ‘new hires’ will be paid approximately one half normal rates. So much for the old labor slogan of 'equal pay for equal work'. If the GM contract will come back to haunt this one already does today. Remember also that Chrysler was bought out by a private equity company that has a history of selling off unprofitable operations, driving productivity up and then selling the profitable parts for huge profits. That, my friends, is what the global race to the bottom looks like in the American auto industry. This contract should have been voted down with both hands. Ford is up next and based on the foregoing that contract should also be voted down.

Look, every militant knows that negotiations over union contracts represent a sort of ‘truce’ in the class struggle. Until there is worker control of production under a workers government the value of any negotiations with the capitalists is determined by the terms. Sometimes, especially in hard times, just holding your own is a ‘victory’. Other times, like here, there is only one word for these contracts-defeat. Moreover, this did not need to happen. Although both strike efforts at GM and Chrysler were short-lived (intentionally so on the part of the leadership) the rank and file was ready to do battle. The vote at Chrysler further bolsters that argument. So what is up?

What is up is that the leadership of the autoworkers is not worthy of the membership. These people are so mired in class collaborationist non-aggression pacts and cozy arrangements (for themselves) that they were easy pickings for the vultures leading management. The epitome of this is the ‘apache’ strategy of negotiating with one company at a time. If in the era of Walter Reuther, at a time when there were upwards of a million union autoworkers, that might have made some sense today with reduced numbers it makes no sense at all. Labor’s power is in solidarity and solidarity means, in this case, ‘one out, all out’.  Beyond that it is clear a new class struggle leadership is needed, just to keep even, and it is needed pronto. Those rank and filers and, in some cases, local union leaders who called for a no vote at Chrysler are the starting point for such efforts.   

 

From The American Left History Blog Archives (2007-08) - On American Political Discourse - FIVE WIVES AT THE SAME TIME SHOW REAL EXECUTIVE ABILITY-RIGHT?

Markin comment:

In 2007-2008 I, in vain, attempted to put some energy into analyzing the blossoming American presidential campaign since it was to be, as advertised at least, a watershed election, for women, blacks, old white anglos, latinos, youth, etc. In the event I had to abandon the efforts in about May of 2008 when it became obvious, in my face obvious, that the election would be a watershed only for those who really believed that it would be a watershed election. The four years of the Obama presidency, the 2012 American presidential election campaign, and world politics have only confirmed in my eyes that that abandonment was essentially the right decision at the right time. In short, let the well- paid bourgeois commentators go on and on with their twitter. I, we, had (have) better things to do like fighting against the permanent wars, the permanent war economies, the struggle for more and better jobs, and for a workers party that fights for a workers government . More than enough to do, right? Still a look back at some of the stuff I wrote then does not a bad feel to it. Read on if you like      

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On Mitt Romney

A recent announcement out of the Mitt Romney presidential campaign, apparently forced out of his vanishing prospects in Iowa, has it that he will make a speech about his Mormon faith. This prospect evokes, at least formally, the idea Jack Kennedy used in the 1960 presidential campaign about his Roman Catholicism as a way to cut across anti-Catholic bigotry in a mainly Protestant country and to affirm his commitment to a secular democratic state. Romney’s play is another kettle of fish entirely. He WANTS to affirm that his Mormon beliefs rather than being rather esoteric are in line with mainstream Protestant fundamentalist tenets. In short, Jesus is his guide. Christ what hell, yes hell,  have we come to when a major political party in a democratic secular state has for all intents and purposes a religious test for its nominee for president. A cursory glance at the history of 18^th century England and its exclusion clauses for Catholics and dissenters demonstrates why our forbears rejected that notion. In any case, here is a little commentary written earlier in the year that gives some thought into the Mormons and particularly Brother Romney’s forbears. DOWN WITH RELIGIOUS TESTS FOR POLITICAL OFFICE- DEFEND THE ENLIGHTENMENT  

FIVE WIVES AT THE SAME TIME SHOW REAL EXECUTIVE ABILITY-RIGHT?

In a recent interview on CBS's Sixty Minutes Republican presidential hopeful ex- Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, a professed Mormon, declared that he thought that the fact that his great-grandfather took (or was ordered to take) five wives was ‘terrible’. As the fiercely persecuted Mormons settled in Utah apparently the numerical balance between men and women was off and polygamy was therefore encouraged. Naturally, being a male-dominated religious variant of Christianity that necessary was couched in theological terms, as well. The practice was officially banned by that denomination in 1890. However, the practice, as witnessed by some recent court cases in the West, still flourishes in some areas amount Old -Style Mormons.  

One can see that for someone who is running on a ‘family values’ platform highlighted by support for the proposition that marriage is between one man-one woman and is touting personal fidelity to one wife and children in order to grab the brass ring of the presidency that such a family history may in fact be 'terrible'.  But step back a minute Mitt, aside from being very disrespectful to your family line, what is the harm of having five, or for that matter, ten wives? Or a woman having ten husbands? As long a there is effective consent among and between the parties whose business is it anyway? And why be ashamed of that ‘skeleton’ in the family closet?

We socialists are not as squeamish as brother Romney appears to be about either the details of his family history or about how people arrange their personal lives. There has been a great hue and cry lately in the West over some Old- Style Mormon instances of polygamy, including the usual allegations of coercion. Coercion or forcing “shot gun” weddings, singly or in multiples, is not what we mean by effective consent. However, absent coercion it is not the state’s business to interfere. We may have a different take than Mormons on what we think personal relationships will look like under socialism once the nuclear family (or what today stands for that proposition) recedes into the background as the basis unit of society but for now the variety of human experiences in interpersonal relationships is way beyond the scope of what the state needs to interfere in.

 

I, personally, want to learn more about old Great-Grandpa Romney and Joseph Smith-the founder of Mormonism and a Free Soiler candidate for office before he was murdered in the 1840’s. On the face of it those individuals seem, unlike Mitt, interesting personalities.  Certainly everyone must concede that old Great-Grandfather Romney seems more interesting than his progeny. And had to have more real executive ability than latter monogamous Romneys. Hell, I had my hands full when, back in the days, I had two girlfriends at one time.  Hands Off the Old Style Mormons! Government Out of the Bedrooms!

 

 

 

From The American Left History Blog Archives (2007-08) - On American Political Discourse -NO TO RELIGIOUS TESTS FOR OFFICE - FOR SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE (2007)

Markin comment:

 

In 2007-2008 I, in vain, attempted to put some energy into analyzing the blossoming American presidential campaign since it was to be, as advertised at least, a watershed election, for women, blacks, old white anglos, latinos, youth, etc. In the event I had to abandon the efforts in about May of 2008 when it became obvious, in my face obvious, that the election would be a watershed only for those who really believed that it would be a watershed election. The four years of the Obama presidency, the 2012 American presidential election campaign, and world politics have only confirmed in my eyes that that abandonment was essentially the right decision at the right time. In short, let the well- paid bourgeois commentators go on and on with their twitter. I, we, had (have) better things to do like fighting against the permanent wars, the permanent war economies, the struggle for more and better jobs, and for a workers party that fights for a workers government . More than enough to do, right? Still a look back at some of the stuff I wrote then does not a bad feel to it. Read on if you like      

 

NO TO RELIGIOUS TESTS FOR OFFICE - FOR SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE 

Every once in a while left wing propagandists, like this writer, are forced to comment on odd ball political or social questions that are not directly related to the fight for socialism. Nevertheless such questions must be addressed to in the interest of preserving democratic rights, such as they are.  I have often argued that socialists are, or should be, the best defenders of democratic rights, hanging in there long after many bourgeois democrats have thrown in the towel especially on constitutional questions like abortion and warrantless searches and seizures.

A good example from the not too distant past,  which I am fond of citing because it seems so counter intuitive, was opposition to the impeachment of one William Jefferson Clinton, at one time President of the United States and now potentially the first First Lady’s man. How, one might ask could professed socialists defend the rights of the Number One Imperialist –in-Chief. Simple, Clinton was not being tried for any real crimes against working people but found himself framed by the right- wing cabal for his personal sexual preferences and habits. That he was not very artful in defense of himself is beside the point. We say government out off the bedrooms (or wherever) whether White House or hovel. We do no favor political witch hunts of the highborn or the low.  Interestingly, no one at the time proposed that he be tried as a war criminal for his very real crimes in trying to bomb Serbia, under the guidance of one Wesley Clark, back to the Stone Age (and nearly succeeding). Enough said.  

Now we are confronted with another strange situation in the case of one ex-Governor of Massachusetts and current Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney on the question of his Mormon religious affiliation and his capacity to be president of a secular state.  Romney, on Thursday December 6, 2007 fled down to Houston, apparently forced by his vanishing prospects in Iowa, and made a speech about his Mormon faith, or at least his fitness for office. This speech evoked in some quarters, at least formally, Jack Kennedy’s use in the 1960 presidential campaign of the same tool concerning his Roman Catholicism as a way to cut across anti-Catholic bigotry in a mainly Protestant country and to affirm his commitment to a democratic secular state. I pulled up that speech off the Internet and although Kennedy clearly evoked his religious affiliation many times in that speech he left it at that, a personal choice. He did not go on and on about his friendship with Jesus or enumerate the virtues of an increased role for religion in political life.  

Romney’s play is another kettle of fish entirely. He WANTS to affirm that his Mormon beliefs rather than being rather esoteric are in line with mainstream Protestant fundamentalist tenets. In short, Jesus is his guide. Christ what hell, yes hell,  have we come to when a major political party in a democratic secular state has for all intents and purposes a religious test for its nominee for president. A cursory glance at the history of 18^th century England and its exclusion clauses, codified in statutes, for Catholics and dissenters demonstrates why our forbears rejected that notion. It is rather ironic that Romney evoked the name of Samuel Adams as an avatar of religious toleration during some ecumenical meeting in 1774. Hell, yes when you are getting ready to fight for a Republic, arms in hand, and need every gun willing to fight the King you are damn right religion is beside the point. Revolutions are like that. Trying to prove your mettle as a fundamentalist Christian in order to woo the yahoo vote in 2007 is hardly in the same category. Nevertheless on the democratic question- down with religious test for political office, formal or otherwise.

Now to get nasty. Isn’t it about time we started running these religious nuts back into their hideouts? I have profound differences with the political, social and economic organization of this country. However, as stated above I stand for the defense of the democratic secular state against the yahoos when they try, friendly with Jesus or not, to bring religion foursquare into the ‘public square’. We have seen the effects of that for the last thirty or forty years and, hit me on the head if I am dreaming, but isn’t the current occupant of the White House [George W. Bush, for those who have forgotten] on some kind of first name basis with his God. You know, all those faith-based initiatives  Look, this country is a prime example of an Enlightenment experiment, and tattered as it has become it is not a bad base to move on from. Those who, including Brother Ronmey, want a faith-based state- get back, way back. In the fight against religious obscurantism I will stand with science, frail as it is sometimes, any day- Defend the Enlightenment, and let’s move on.   

Live from Ft. Meade: courtroom updates, 12/11/12

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Courtroom sketch by Clark Stoeckley.

December 11, 2012 – Bradley Manning’s Article 13 motion hearing continues today in Ft. Meade, MD, as the defense and government will make their closing arguments. Yesterday, the witnesses portion culminated with Quantico brig commander CW2 Denise Barnes, Army Captains Joe Casamatta and Bruce Williams, and Quantico Deputy IG Maj. Timothy Zelek.
CW2 Barnes testified that she was told after removing Manning’s underwear on March 2, 2011, that future changes to his handling instructions would need to be approved first by three-star General George Flynn. Cpt. Casamatta testified that he was never told that psychiatrists recommending removing Bradley from restrictive conditions, and that if he had, he would have done more to intervene or at least understand why he was kept on those conditions. Check in here throughout the day for live updates, as courtroom reporter Nathan Fuller writes from Ft. Meade. Send questions and corrections to nathan@bradleymanning.org , and follow us on Twitter at @SaveBradley.
3:14 PM — Article 13 concludes. The government painted a portrait of Bradley as someone who’s baseline behavior was erratic — citing his Kuwait breakdown, his intake statement about suicide that he was “always planning, never acting,” his January 18, 2011, anxiety attacks, and his comment on March 2, 2011, that if he really wanted to, he could kill himself with the elastic band of his underwear. He said the brig staff tried to understand Bradley on a daily basis, and his lack of communication prevented that rapport. While never directly asked to communicate more, the government says Bradley had ample opportunity to speak up.
The government conceded that Quantico was “cautious,” but that considering Cpt. Webb’s suicide at the brig earlier and Bradley’s behavior, they were properly concerned for his health. The government also believes that the judge should give Manning seven days credit for those he was improperly held on Suicide Watch, from August 7-11 and January 19-20.
The defense replied, quickly reviewing each of the brig’s stated reasons for keeping Manning on POI. He conceded that Bradley viewed the staff as very professional, but said, ” you can be very professional and still violate Article 13,” and that there was ” substantial evidence to show their response was exaggerated” — whether due to higher officials’ influence, concern for media interest, or to protect themselves in the event of something happening to Manning.
We return to court at 9:30 AM ET on January 8, for a hearing through January 11, 2013. Judge Lind will take the arguments under advisement, and she didn’t announce when she’d rule.
1:43 PM– Quick recess. Government arguing that the brig did what it had to to protect Bradley Manning. They argued that having checks every five minutes instead of every second afforded him at least five minutes of “potential privacy.”
They cited Manning’s poor communication and the incidents in Kuwait to explain the extensive POI. The judge asked if there was ever a time if, after months of no additional factors, those events would no longer reasonably warrant POI. The government said yes, but that this was not the case here — prosecutor Ashden Fein said Bradley Manning was “not like others” and had a pattern of behaviors that the brig tried to figure out how to handle on a daily basis. Recess ending — Fein will resume in a minute.
12:43 PM — About to end lunch recess. Told by those in the courtroom that Coombs’ powerpoint, show in to the audience there, was even more detailed than his oral argument. The courtroom looked much more full than it has in several days. Jesselyn Radack, DOJ whistleblower, is here again, as she has for nearly all of this hearing. Government will make its closing argument now. That should conclude this Article 13 hearing.
12:08 PM — Breaking for lunch, 45 minutes. Defense concluded arguments. Coombs stressed that the most amazing thing about this is that given his conditions, Bradley Manning didn’t totally break down. He laid out the case that Gen. Flynn told his inferior officers that he though Manning was a suicide risk from the start, and no one wanted to act differently. They chose the easy option, the status quo, and they silenced the only critic of this treatment, Cpt. Hocter.
Coombs said that the government relied on events months prior in Kuwait to justify nine months of POI, along with reasons that Bradley could never change. When he finally did talk to someone he thought he was getting through to, they removed his underwear.
The judge asked him what the substantive difference would be if he were put on medium security protective custody, and Coombs rattled off a bunch of small reasons that added up to a big difference. He said essentially Manning wouldn’t have been treated like a “zoo animal” — he wouldn’t have been in shackles, would’ve got an hour outside, he wouldn’t have had to ask for toilet paper, he wouldn’t have been observed by the booth every second of every day.
He compared Bradley’s treatment in Quantico with that in Ft. Leavenworth, where Bradley’s been on medium custody and hasn’t once tried to harm himself. Coombs asked, if Bradley was still at Quantico, “What status would he be in today?”
9:54 AM – Court is scheduled to begin at 10:00 AM ET today. About a dozen of us in the media room today, including Associated Press, Washington Post, FireDogLake, Huffington Post, Courthouse News, Agence French-Press, and more. Military legal consultant Lt. Hughes tells us that the defense will make its closing argument first, and the government will follow. He doesn’t expect military judge Col. Denise Lind to rule this week, so we may not hear the result until the next hearing. We usually get a recess after every hour or every hour and a half — if arguments are brief, we may wrap up this Article 13 hearing within a few hours. Stay here for updates.

Quantico staff denied outsiders facts on Bradley Manning’s treatment

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Four witnesses today and their contrasting testimony reveal a Quantico brig staff more interested in appearances of legal compliance than Bradley’s human rights. The witness portion of this Article 13 motion is done, and tomorrow parties will make their closing arguments.
By Nathan Fuller, Bradley Manning Support Network. December 10, 2012.

Defense lawyer David Coombs speaks to military judge Col. Denise Lind. Courtroom sketch by Clark Stoeckley.

Today was the 10th day of testimony at Ft. Meade, MD, for the defense’s Article 13 motion to dismiss charges due to unlawful pretrial punishment. After Brig Commander Denise Barnes finished testifying, we heard from Quantico’s Deputy Investigator General Major Timothy Zelek, Army Captain Bruce Williams, and Army Captain Joseph Casamatta, Bradley’s Company Commander. Chief Warrant Officer Barnes, the second Officer-in-Charge of Quantico while Bradley was there, gave long, often circular, and clearly defensive testimony to justify her decision to keep Bradley on Prevention of Injury (POI) watch during the duration of her command and to remove his underwear starting on March 2, 2011. She appeared to be on edge throughout her time on the stand, suspicious of defense questions and repeatedly emphatic about both her interest in Bradley’s safety and her authority to handle his conditions however she chose.
Her guarded demeanor and rambling responses starkly contrasted with Cpt. Casamatta’s seemingly genuine interest in Manning’s health and simple, direct answers to questions on the stand
As brig commander, CW2 Barnes answered to Colonels Oltman and Choike, who then reported up to three-star General George Flynn with weekly updates on Bradley’s conditions. As revealed in previous testimony, General Flynn was likely a conduit for the Pentagon at large. CW2 Barnes thus felt her career depended on maintaining safety and security at the brig, as well as squashing any questions as to whether brig operations had been conducted improperly: she told the defense, when interviewed before this hearing, that she worried if something happened on her watch she’d lose her job with no retirement options – a risk her more-experienced predecessor, CW4 Averhart, didn’t have to take.
Cpt. Casamatta, however, was in Bradley’s command chain in the Army, so he could focus on Bradley’s well-being at the Marine brig, as opposed to Quantico’s reputation. A member of Bradley’s command met with Bradley at least every two weeks, to interview him privately in an attempt to ensure he was being treated well. Cpt. Casamatta conducted most of these sessions, and Bradley told him in September 2010 that he didn’t want to be on POI watch. Bradley also notified Cpt Casamatta of his underwear removal in March, and he told the captain at nearly every official interview that he didn’t understand the reasoning behind his restrictive treatment. Unlike Bradley’s jailers, Cpt. Casamatta said he had a good rapport with Bradley, who he found engaged throughout their discussions.
When told about Bradley’s comment that resulted in CW2 Barnes removing his underwear, that everything else had been taken away and if he really wanted to, he could use his skivvies’ elastic band, Cpt. Casamatta understood it as sarcastic. He testified today, “He’s an intelligent and articulate person. Quite frankly I didn’t believe he would have such thoughts as to actually kill himself with his underwear.”
The Army captain reached out to inquire about Bradley’s conditions multiple times, including to CW4 Averhart and the Special Court-Martial Convening Authority Col. Carl Coffman.
Col. Coffman told Cpt. Casamatta that he would address the underwear removal within his command, but it would seem that the colonel failed to follow through. CW4 Averhart and the other Quantico staff told Cpt. Casamatta that Manning was on POI to ensure that he wouldn’t harm himself or others. Cpt. Casamatta was satisfied for the time being as he felt that Bradley’s best interest was driving the brig’s unusual actions. However, it was revealed through court testimony today that brig staff did not give the captain all the facts regarding the treatment about which Bradley complained. No one at Quantico or elsewhere told Cpt. Casamatta that for nine months, multiple brig psychiatrists advised the jailers to remove Bradley from his restrictive conditions, which kept Bradley in the 6×8 ft cell for 23 hours a day. These psychiatrists testified in court two weeks ago that leaving Bradley on POI watch was actually detrimental to his psychological health. Asked when he learned that the doctors wanted Bradley to be treated normally, Cpt. Casamatta said, “Once this trial started.”
Cpt. Casamatta said that if he’d been informed of the psychiatrists’ opinions while Bradley was at Quantico, he would’ve readdressed the issue within his and Quantico’s command structures. He emphasized in court today, that “As commander I should’ve been privileged to that info, if only for another avenue to speak” on the soldier’s behalf, and that if he could, “I’d [have] like[d] to be part of the decision-making process.”
Cpt. Casamatta was never given enough information to understand the full severity of the treatment Bradley endured at Quantico, and thus could never evaluate it properly.
Maj. Zelek’s couldn’t either, though it’s possible he never wanted to. Maj. Zelek, who worked under Col. Choike, noticed a surge in phone calls and emails calling for better treatment for Bradley in December 2010. He noticed what he thought was sensationalist media coverage and wanted to get to the bottom of it, as he headed inspections and investigations. Maj. Zelek approached Marine Headquarters with the idea for an investigation into Bradley’s conditions at Quantico, only to discover they had no interest in such a thing. Dissatisfied and eager to clarify what he thought was confusion about Manning’s treatment, Maj. Zelek convinced Col. Choike to let him investigate the brig himself.
Maj. Zelek spent less than two hours at Quantico, during which CW4 Averhart showed him the special quarters where the detainees lived, including a guided viewing of the inside recreation room, the outside rec area, the cafeteria and and the library. But Maj. Zelek never interviewed Bradley, and also did not review his custody or classification. He never knew that Bradley was allowed only 20 minutes outside, or that when he did get some sunshine, he was forced to keep metal shackles on his legs, precluding meaningful exercise. Like Cpt. Casamatta, he never saw the psychiatrists’ recommendations to end the abusive conditions. Instead, he merely made sure that the treadmill belt spun, the food wasn’t rancid, and the showers were clean. It didn’t occur to Maj. Zelek to investigate whether Bradley was treated like the other detainees, or whether his behavior warranted all of his assigned restrictions.
And Quantico, of course, had no interest in providing this information to Maj. Zelek, or Cpt. Casamatta. It might have been that Maj. Zelek’s review was doomed from the start: after all, its results only mattered if Col. Choike, who as Quantico base commander reported to Gen. Flynn, was influenced by the investigation’s results to change Bradley’s treatment. But Cpt. Casamatta, in the Army, could’ve had a real impact if he knew that the psychiatrists felt Bradley’s status should be downgraded and his restrictions relaxed. It certainly seemed like he wanted to – as he left the stand today, “prosecution witness” Cpt. Casamatta passed government lawyer Ashden Fein with hardly a glance, and strided over to the defense table where he shook Bradley’s hand before he left.

From The American Left History Blog Archives (2007-08)- On American Political Discourse (2007)

From The American Left History Blog Archives (2007-08)- On American Political Discourse   

 

Markin comment:

In 2007-2008 I, in vain, attempted to put some energy into analyzing the blossoming American presidential campaign since it was to be, as advertised at least, a watershed election, for women, blacks, old white anglos, latinos, youth, etc. In the event I had to abandon the efforts in about May of 2008 when it became obvious, in my face obvious, that the election would be a watershed only for those who really believed that it would be a watershed election. The four years of the Obama presidency, the 2012 American presidential election campaign, and world politics have only confirmed in my eyes that that abandonment was essentially the right decision at the right time. In short, let the well- paid bourgeois commentators go on and on with their twitter. I, we, had (have) better things to do like fighting against the permanent wars, the permanent war economies, the struggle for more and better jobs, and for a workers party that fights for a workers government . More than enough to do, right? Still a look back at some of the stuff I wrote then does not a bad feel to it. Read on if you like      

*********

Adieu, Karl Rove- Almost

There appears to be something of a law that right wing political ideologues, venal as many of them are, do not retire but merely move on to greener pastures. At least that appears to be the case of one Karl Rove who until this past September served as President George W. Bush’s ‘brain’. No sooner had we seen him off to the rolling hills of East Texas the he pops up on the “Charlie Rose Show”. His purpose? To muddy the waters about who, and who did not act, impulsively in the lead up to the ill-fated Iraq War. Rove is retailing the notion that the legislative branch, in this case, the august ‘slumbering giant’ United States Senate ‘bushwhacked’ the Administration into a rush to judgment. Okay, Karl have it your way. That, however, is not the real point here. The nefarious Mr. Rove is getting a jump start on history by influencing what the first drafts will look like. Oh, well. But mark this, some ‘objective’ historian writing about the Iraq War and the slow demise of the American Empire in fifty or one hundred years will, in order to give all sides their due, cite Mr. Rove’s remarks as the coin of the realm. Nice touch, Karl.  But know this also, there is no truth to be found there. Nevertheless, as I noted in the commentary below written as a ‘tearful’ farewell to a departed foe in September here is a savage class warrior.       

COMMENTARY

A SAVAGE CLASS WARRIOR LEAVES BUSH TO HIS OWN DEVICES

Well by now everyone among the ‘chattering classes’ knows that Republican President George Bush’s ‘evil counselor’, one Karl Rove, has like so many in the recent past abandoned the sinking ship U.S.S. Bush and gone off to seek greener pastures in the hills of Texas. However, unlike most of the Bush ilk, the likes of Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz to a name a couple, I will miss Karl Rove as a target. Why? I will make a confession based on a very long experience in politics- I get along better with and better understand right wing ideologues than the usual mushy ‘consultant’ types who populate today’s political scene. The ‘band- aid guys’ and the ‘scotch- tape gals’ whose political program is a small grab bag of ‘nice’ things to tweak the capitalist system while leaving it intact and that solve nothing leave me cold. One only needs to mention the name of the apparently recently retired Democratic Party consultant and perennially ‘loser’ Robert Schrum to bring this point home.

Give me the hard ball players, the real bourgeois class warriors, any day. They know there is a class struggle going on as well as I do and know that, in the final analysis, it is a fight to the finish. And who will dare say that Karl Rove was not the hell-bent king of that crowd. Anyone who could get a genuine dolt like George Bush elected twice Governor of Texas and twice President of the United States without flinching knows his business. Imagine if Rove had had a real political street fighter like Richard Nixon for a client. Yes, I know in the end Mr. Rove and I will be shooting from different sides of the barricades but Karl was a real evil genius and I will miss that big target.

Karl Rove honed two basic propositions that Marxists can appreciate, even if only from an adversarial position. One was the above-mentioned sense of the vagaries of the class struggle for the bourgeois class that he so faithfully represented. How he was able to grab the dirt poor and against the wall farmers of places like Kansas and the desperately poor of the small towns of the ‘Rust Belt’ as cannon fodder voters for a party that has not represented plebeian interests since at least the 1870’s is worthy of study. The second was his notion, parliamentary-centered to be sure, of a ‘vanguard’ party.  What? Karl Rove as some kind of closet Leninist? No. However, his proposition that the Republican party should cater to its social conservative base and drag whoever it could in their wake is a piece of political wisdom that leftists should think through more. Much better that approach than to  rely on the current dominant ‘popular front’ strategy of organizing on the basis of the lowest common- denominator issues whittled down to a meaningless point just to avoid antagonizing the Democrats instead of fighting for what is necessary. Yes, one can learn something from one’s political adversaries- Adieu, Karl.

 

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- Robert Redford’s “The Conspirator”

 Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Robert Redford’s The Conspirator.

The Conspirator, directed by Robert Redford, American Film Company, 2010

Round- up everybody in sight, storm into houses without search warrants grabbing everything in sight, make the rules of evidence and procedure as you go along (as opposed to some vaunted “rule of law” that is the norm), trial by military commission rather than civilian trial by a jury of peers when such courts are open, suspension of the writ of habeas corpus (bring forth the body-to some court for adjudication of a wrong), no right of appeal, torture, and execution. All episodes from today’s “war of terror” as the American government (and others as well) round up the bad guys, or whoever they suspect of being the bad guys.

Well, yes. But also, according to this Robert Redford –directed first film in the American Film Company production line, the prevailing atmosphere on the Union side, political, legal and military around those who conspired to kill Abraham Lincoln (and Vice-President Johnson and Secretary Of State Seward) along with John Wilkes Booth. The film centers on the pre-trial and trial events of the only woman brought to trial in the conspiracy (it was at her boarding house where conspiracy was advanced), Mary E. Surratt who was tried before a Union Army military commission, and eventually the first woman hanged by the federal government, for her part in the conspiracy.

We all, those of us who revere the historic memory of Abraham Lincoln are glad, glad as hell that the south and slavery were defeated. We are nevertheless as supporters of democratic rights now (and hopefully back then, as well) concerned about the modern day issues that this film brings out whether we are sympathetic to Mary Surratt’s plight (or those of today’s political prisoners). Watch this thought-provoking film which is a well-done production highlighting these issues without being maudlin about it.

Horse-Trading Versus Struggle

Paternalism and Ass-Covering in Spielberg’s “Lincoln”

by LOUIS PROYECT

Which film about the abolition of slavery was intended to burnish the reputation of a contemporary President? If you answered that it was Spielberg’s lavishly praised “Lincoln”, you were right. When asked in a November 15^th NPR interview whether he saw parallels with the Obama administration, screenwriter Tony Kushner replied:

I think Obama is a great president and I feel that there is immense potential now for building – rebuilding a real progressive democracy in this country after a great deal of damage has been done to it. And I think that it faces many obstacles, and one of its obstacles is an impatience on the part of very good, very progressive people, with the kind of compromising that you were just mentioning, the kind of horse trading that is necessary.

But you would have also been right if you guessed “Amazing Grace”, the 2007 biopic about William Wilberforce, the British parliamentarian who opposed slavery. Its producer Philip Anschutz, the rightwing billionaire who also recently unleashed the toxic defense of charter schools “Won’t Back Down”, clearly intended to promote the agenda of the Christian right and the Bush administration it supported. By turning the abolitionist movement in Britain into a Church-based enterprise, Anschutz sought to legitimize new missionary operations in Africa all too familiar to people with painful memories of the bible and the gun.

The paternalism embodied in both screenplays transcends narrow party affiliations. It is wrapped up in the idea that “good people” on high delivered Black people from their oppression. The chief difference between the two films is Kushner’s decision to eschew hagiography and portray Lincoln as a kind of down-and-dirty dealmaker. This Lincoln had more in common in fact with LBJ than Barack Obama whose pugnaciousness is most often directed at his voting base rather than the billionaires who financed his campaign.

Conservative pundit David Brooks told New York Times readers on November 22^nd that this is what “politics” is all about:

To lead his country through a war, to finagle his ideas through Congress, Lincoln feels compelled to ignore court decisions, dole out patronage, play legalistic games, deceive his supporters and accept the fact that every time he addresses one problem he ends up creating others down the road.

Salon.com’s Andrew O’Hehir not only embraces the idea that “legalistic games” must be played; he goes one step further and likens Lincoln’s maneuvers to Obama’s use of a secret “Kill List”:

Like many other people, I’m profoundly disturbed by the way the last two presidents have employed extra-constitutional authority to send purported terrorists to secret prisons, and to order the killing of both foreign civilians and American citizens who aren’t enemy combatants in any ordinary sense. But as “Lincoln” makes clear, in practice, we have entrusted our presidents with the power to violate the law on our behalf for most of our history.

Well, of course. Deploying Predator Drones against wedding parties and freeing the slaves—what’s the difference?

A counter-attack has been emerging against this interpretation. Eric Foner, a leading civil war historian of the left, wrote a letter to the N.Y. Times on November 27^th taking issue with Brooks. He reminded its readers that emancipation was as much a product of struggle from below as horse-trading in Congress:

The 13th Amendment originated not with Lincoln but with a petition campaign early in 1864 organized by the Women’s National Loyal League, an organization of abolitionist feminists headed by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

Moreover, from the beginning of the Civil War, by escaping to Union lines, blacks forced the fate of slavery onto the national political agenda.

His letter was in line with an op-ed piece by historian Kate Masur that appeared in the November 12^th NYT:

But it’s disappointing that in a movie devoted to explaining the abolition of slavery in the United States, African-American characters do almost nothing but passively wait for white men to liberate them. For some 30 years, historians have been demonstrating that slaves were crucial agents in their emancipation; however imperfectly, Ken Burns’s 1990 documentary “The Civil War” brought aspects of that interpretation to the American public. Yet Mr. Spielberg’s “Lincoln” gives us only faithful servants, patiently waiting for the day of Jubilee.

Like a speck of sand whose irritating qualities can generate an oyster’s pearl, Spielberg’s film might ultimately do some good by stimulating left scholars—both paid and unpaid—into taking a new look at the civil war.

It is likely that Kushner anticipated criticisms from the left and made sure to include a scene of Black soldiers imploring Lincoln to meet their demands for freedom at the beginning of the film. Once this ass-covering business was out of the way, he could go on to what he saw as the far more interesting scenes of Congressmen wrangling with Lincoln over what perks could be received in exchange for a vote for the 13^th Amendment—something that to me was equivalent to watching CSPAN with a bad hangover.

The real story of Black soldiers deserves to be told in all its rich detail and all the more so without the paternalism of the 1989 “Glory” that starred Matthew Broderick as the aristocratic Col. Robert Gould Shaw leading a company of bumbling ex-slaves.

According to Guyora Binder, the author of “Did the Slaves Author the Thirteenth Amendment? An Essay in Redemptive History” (Yale Journal of Law & Humanities, Vol. 5, 1993), the Black soldier did a bit more than imploring:

[O]nce the war was won, the presence of a large number of blacks under arms continued to exert pressure on federal policy. Black soldiers were willing to remain mobilized longer than whites and hence played a greater role in maintaining the military occupation of the South after the Civil War. By constituting a substantial portion—in many areas the bulk—of the occupation army, blacks were suddenly in a position to influence the terms of the peace. This was a situation that Northern and Southern whites alike found acutely uncomfortable, impelling efforts to speed the demobilization of black troops: “In addition to charges of incompetence and insubordination, Union generals charged that black troops were hostile and insulting to Southern whites, threatening to white women, and encouraged militancy and insolence among civilian blacks.” Mary Frances Berry has argued that the quickest way literally to pacify these armed guardians of black liberty was to constitutionalize emancipation by passing the Thirteenth Amendment.

One can be relieved that Tony Kushner decided not to depict such “hostile and insulting” black troops since the film would have been a lot closer in spirit to “Gone With the Wind” given his rather shocking remarks to the NPR interviewer:

I think that what Lincoln was doing at the end of the war was a very, very smart thing, and it is maybe one of the great tragedies of American history that people didn’t take him literally after he was murdered, the inability to forgive and to reconcile with the South in a really decent and humane way without any question was one of the causes of a kind of resentment and the perpetuation of alienation and bitterness that led to the quote/unquote “noble cause” and the rise of the Klan and Southern self protection societies and so on. The abuse of the South after they were defeated was a catastrophe and led – helped lead to just unimaginable, untellable human suffering.

For Tony Kushner’s information, the North did “reconcile” with the South in 1877, when Federal troops were withdrawn from the South and the Klan was given a free rein to terrorize Black people. The notion of an “abused” South is rather obscene given the reality of lynching, prison chain gangs, and all the rest.

With respect to Black soldiers and emancipation, there’s more to the story than meets the eye. By 1864, when the 13^th Amendment was being drafted, the South itself was ready to abolish slavery and draft the ex-slaves on behalf of the secessionist cause. James McPherson’s magisterial “Battle Cry of Freedom” reports the following:

Robert E. Lee’s opinion would have a decisive influence. For months rumors had circulated that he favored arming the slaves. Lee had indeed expressed his private opinion that “we should employ them without delay [even] at the risk which may be produced upon our social institutions.” On February 18 he broke his public silence with a letter to the congressional sponsor of a Negro soldier bill. This measure was “not only expedient but necessary,” wrote Lee. “The negroes, under proper circumstances, will make efficient soldiers. I think we could at least do as well with them as the enemy… Those who are employed should be freed. It would be neither just nor wise … to require them to serve as slaves.”

In other words, Robert E. Lee advocated the same exact policy as contained in Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln saw the Black soldier as means to an end: preserving the union. For his part, Lee saw them as a means as well: to preserve the confederacy. Black rights were never considered as an end in themselves.

From what I have observed on the Internet, Kushner’s defenders have begun to rally around a talking point, namely that he chose to tell a story about the passage of legislation that did not directly involve Blacks. Since they were not members of the House of Representatives, who could blame him or Spielberg for leaving them out? To fully comprehend how ludicrous this argument is, we can move forward in history to imagine a film about LBJ’s pushing through the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that included not a single important Black civil rights leader: no Martin Luther King Jr., no Bayard Rustin, no Stokely Carmichael, no Andrew Young. People would scream bloody murder. How could you leave them out?

It is easier for Kushner to get away with this sleight of hand by referring to historical events a century earlier about which Americans have little knowledge. Most assume that Lincoln “freed the slaves” and know nothing about the likes of Frederick Douglass. If you refer to a “Radical Republican”, the average American of today would think you were referring to Rush Limbaugh rather than Thaddeus Stevens.

Speaking of which, one of the biggest travesties of “Lincoln” is the way that Stevens (played by Tommy Lee Jones) is represented. He is an irascible cartoon figure akin to Yosemite Sam who when given the floor in the House is more likely to call a Democrat a “nincompoop” than make the case for Black equality. Of course, since the proposal of the Thirteenth Amendment was calculated to sidetrack such a “divisive” discussion, it was in some ways accurate to depict a House with little to say about the social and economic demands of the African-American.

Kushner decided to leave out the Black struggle for full equality and to turn Stevens into some kind of comic relief for obvious reasons. He believes that progress is made through incremental steps orchestrated by wise and beneficent leaders like Lincoln or Obama.

If Hollywood was interested in bankrolling directors like Ken Loach or the late Gillo Pontecorvo, then our expectations might be different. We understand that there are class affinities between someone like Steven Spielberg and Barack Obama. Spielberg donated $1 million to Obama’s Super-PAC, the same committee that attracted $300 thousand from Sam Walton, the Walmart boss whose company Michelle Obama shills for. One big happy family.

Some day when a radicalization as deep as the 1930s or 60s grips American society once again, we might look forward to the making of a film that dramatizes the Black struggle of the 1850s and 60s—something that I and arguably most Americans would find far more interesting than the horse-trading that constitutes the lion’s share of Kushner’s dreadful screenplay.

It would focus on the elections of 1864 when those who Kushner patronized as “very good, very progressive people” but not enlightened enough to see the need for compromise (the people Obama’s ex-Press Secretary Robert Gibbs once described as needing to be “drug tested”) asserted themselves politically in the same fashion as the Black troops: “encouraging militancy and insolence”.

That year the Republicans gathered in Baltimore to deliberate on proposals being submitted to the national convention. A contingent from the Sea Islands of South Carolina—the home of the Gullahs—sought to be seated. Among the group of sixteen was one Robert Smalls, who had won fame early in the war for commandeering a Southern ship and navigating his way to freedom in the North with a group of runaway slaves. The Republicans refused to seat them since they were not prepared to accept Blacks as equals.

Some things never change. On November 26^th an obituary for Lawrence Guyot appeared in the Times. It noted:

Mr. Guyot (GHEE-ott) was repeatedly challenged, jailed and beaten as he helped lead fellow members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and student volunteers from around the nation in organizing Mississippi blacks to vote. In many of the state’s counties, no blacks were registered.

He further pressed the campaign for greater black participation in politics by serving as chairman of the integrated Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, formed to supplant the all-white state Democratic Party. It lost its challenge to the established Mississippi party at the Democratic National Convention in 1964, but its efforts are seen as paving the way for the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

In the long struggle for freedom, both parties have found it convenient to deny recognition to the likes of a Robert Smalls or a Lawrence Guyot. If anything remains true after all these years, it will take this to establish full equality, not horse-trading:

Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform. The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims, have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.

–Frederick Douglass, West India Emancipation, speech delivered at Canandaigua, New York, August 3, 1857

Louis Proyect blogs at http://louisproyect.wordpress.com and is the moderator of the Marxism mailing list.

Protesters in Egyptian industrial capital eject city boss, announce independence – reports

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Published: 08 December, 2012, 03:07

TAGS:
Protest, Politics, Opposition, Police, Egypt, Clashes

TRENDS:
Egypt unrest

Egyptian protesters demonstrate in the Nile Delta textile town of Mahalla el-Kubra (Reuters / Stringer Egypt)

Anti-government protesters in Mahalla, Egypt’s largest industrial city, have reportedly taken over the local city council and announced their autonomy from the state ruled by the Muslim Brotherhood.
­Protesters threw the head of their city council out of the building, announcing they “no longer belong to the Ikhwani state,” the Daily News Egypt reports.
Workers have attempted to create a "revolutionary council" and rule the industrial city, report suggests. The head of the Mahalla City Council, Ismail Fathy, however, denied the claims.
“The demonstrations, which attracted around 3,000 people, were peaceful,” he told satellite TV channel CBC in a phone interview. “Nothing of this sort happened.”
Mokhtar El-Ashri, the senior leader of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, also denied reports of Mahalla’s announcement to secede.
“I was in Mahalla all day, I did not see any of this happening,” he told CBC.
El-Mahalla el-Kubra, a city north of Cairo home to 450,000, was dubbed the cradle of the Egyptian revolution. The opposition April 6 movement was formed there in 2009, and the first major anti-government protests also took place there.
Meanwhile, unconfirmed reports circulating on Twitter suggest that protesters in four more Egyptian cities – Alexandria, Kafr Sheikh, Sharqaya and Sohag – have declared independence, announcing that President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood have lost the legitimacy to rule following the deadly clashes in Cairo that left at least seven people killed and hundreds injured.
The Egypt Independent confirmed clashes between opponents and supporters of President Morsi in Alexandria on Friday evening, adding that demonstrators had broken into the city's local council building.
Meanwhile in Tanta, Egypt's fifth-largest city, a crowd of anti-government protesters reportedly torched the Freedom and Justice Party's local headquarters.

Tens of thousands of anti-Mohamed Morsi protesters gather in front of the presidential palace on December 7, 2012 in Cairo (AFP Photo / Patrick Baz)

Hoda Osman, president of the Arab and Middle Eastern Journalist Association, believes that as public discontent in the streets grows, President Morsi is repeating his predecessor's mistakes.
“There are lots of feelings against the Muslim Brotherhood by a lot of Egyptians, especially because of the role they played right after the revolution,” she explained. “A lot of people saw that they were close to the army and the army was responsible for a lot of the problems that we were seeing."
Egyptians are seeing another dictator in the making – “they are seeing another Mubarak,” Osman said.
“Morsi is really making the same mistakes that Mubarak did during the January 25 Revolution,” she explained. “We are seeing him too slow to react to people’s demands. It is a fast moving situation, yet he is very slow to respond.”
Instead of calming people down, Morsi’s address to the nation actually enraged them more. On Friday, thousands of anti-government protesters surrounded the presidential palace in Cairo after dismantling the barricades around it, injuring several security officers in the process.
­“When protesters went down to the streets, their main demand was to cancel this constitutional declaration,” Osman said. “But today if you see the footage of Egyptians you can hear them asking Morsi to quit, asking him to leave just like they asked Mubarak.”

: Egyptian protesters have their picture taken posing with Egyptian army soldiers as thousands of opponents to Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi gather in front of the palace on December 7, 2012 in Cairo (AFP Photo / Gianluigi Guercia)

A man holds a shoe with the face of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi as thousands of opponents to Morsi gather in front of the presidential palace on December 7, 2012 in Cairo (AFP Photo / Patrick Baz)

Tens of thousands of anti-Mohamed Morsi protesters gather in front of the presidential palace on December 7, 2012 in Cairo (AFP Photo / Patrick Baz)